Chapter Text
The child was in front of the window.
He could see her face reflected in the crystal by the dim light of the fluorescent tubes that occupied the ceiling of the room. They were a greenish yellow, so her face looked more pale, sickly even. But her expression was blank, absent, almost devoid of any emotion. She was seeing the cloudy sky without really seeing it. Her mind, he imagined, was probably lost in the night of two days ago, rainy as that one.
Silco was almost sure that she didn’t notice his presence, telling by how she didn’t flinch when he opened the door or after hearing his footsteps approaching. If he had to believe his henchmen, she had been there, looking through the shattered glass of the window since they had taken her in. She hadn’t moved, not asked for anything to eat in the whole day, not listened to anyone. She just stood there, like a statue.
She must be famished, he thought, or maybe she is too afraid to ask, we are all strangers here, after all, we killed her only family. Silco had all the intention to kill her too, that night, before her improvised hug, before she told him how alone she was, how her sister had abandoned her. And Silco remembered another time when he had been the same, a skinny little boy, lost and abandoned. Betrayed. So, he hadn’t killed her, but in truth, now he didn’t know what to do with the girl. Should he find her a new home? People who will take care of her? These questions annoyed him somehow, because a tiny part of himself, a selfish and stubborn one, wanted to take her under his wing and ease her pain. He would have liked that someone had done that for him in his worst moment, was that the reason why he felt so strangely attached to this little child?
He advanced to her side, until he too was reflected in the glass of the window. The fractures in the crystal crossed his face, dividing his good side and his bad and infected one. He contained the impulse to touch his shattered skin, the scar that his brother had left him. Vander. And now, he had his daughter. Another part of him enjoyed the thought of corrupting her, turning her into someone that the old hound Vander will despise. Turn her into him.
But all those bad desires dissolved when he took a glance at her. She was so small, so skinny, so frail… she was just a poor child with no guilt, another unlucky soul. She had seen enough shit of this world. Silco sighed.
“Are you hungry?” He didn’t know what kind of response he expected, if he expected some at all. The girl just remained still, her arms dangling at the sides of her body like broken swings. “You can tell me if you need anything”.
She hadn’t talked a word. After the incident in his lair, she had collapsed onto him and he had carried her away to their new shelter. The next morning had been busy, trying to solidify his position now that Vander was not there anymore. He had jumped from one meeting to the other, securing new allies, until he came back and his men told him the little girl haven’t moved from her spot since she woke up.
The drops stained the dirty glass, blurring the forms of the outside. Under the rain, the Lanes was just a dark and muddy hole, a city of leftovers contaminated with dangling artificial lights. There was nothing shinny down there, nothing beautiful, not yet. He turned again to the girl. He still remembered the blinding blue light of her bomb, the white and bright expanse that had covered everything just before the explosion, the smoke and the blood. She had a spark. And there was beauty in her broken innocence. He could see her becoming a starlight one day, if nurtured properly. But for that she has to eat first and get a good rest.
He bent down a bit, trying to gain her attention. “Hey kid, did you hear me?” Maybe she was ignoring him and wanted to run away. Silco frowned. “You cannot stay here the whole day, Powd…”
“It’s Jinx!” she screamed. Her calm façade had completely broken into a mask of pain, he could see now, her eyes were puffy and red. “I’m a jinx, a jinx, a jinx…” the girl repeated, biting her lower lip so hard he was afraid she may draw blood.
He was startled for a second and had retaliated, almost as if expecting that she could have a knife to stab him. Just like you did with Vander, maybe she wants revenge for her dead father. He didn’t know the depth of the relationship of his former brother with the kids. He had done the proper investigation, of course, knew their names: Violet, Mylo, Claggor and the little girl, Powder. He had considered them Vander’s weakness and he had just waited for the right moment to use them against him. It had worked, almost to perfection. Almost. He had managed to take over the Lanes, Vander was defeated and his possible successors crushed, but he had lost several men too, Singed was affected by the explosion and was out of sight, Sevika had lost her left arm for saving him and, well, there was the issue of what to do with the little girl. With Powder. With Jinx.
The child kept down her sobs, as if realizing where she was and with whom, but the cursed name continued to exit her mouth in wet whispers. Silco had no experience with kids, he didn’t know how to comfort her. He barely knew her.
He kneeled in front of the child, putting his hands on her shoulders to make her look at him. The girl started to hiccup, tears streaming through her stained cheeks. “It’s that your new name? Jinx?” She stopped for a second and sniffed. Then she looked at the floor.
“I don’t know” she said, her voice weak and broken. At least she had stopped the whispering and was aware of his presence. “I just, I just wanted…”
“It’s a beautiful name” he cut her off before she started her rambling again and for the first time Powder looked at him in the eyes. They were a deep blue, big and round. “It has a nice ring, don’t you think?”
“I… I don’t know” she repeated.
“It has power too” Silco cupped one of her cheeks, cleaning the stain of her tears. It was a tender gesture, very unlike him who was all sharp edges, but this girl removed something within himself.
“It’s what she said, before… before she…”
Ah, the sister. He had heard a tiny bit of their goodbye conversation before the big one left. He didn’t know what happened to that one, he might have to investigate further or ask Marcus, to prevent any retaliation. She had hit her sister, he could see a purple bruise in one of the child’s cheekbones, she had called her a jinx and then she just stormed off.
Silco didn’t believe she did completely abandoned Powder, they seemed close… but maybe the weight of her little sister’s actions was too much to bear. One look at her and she will remember how she killed Vander and her other siblings. What a curse to bear.
“She left you” his voice was maybe rougher than he intended to, he was not used to speak to children. “And you are not a jinx”. Just a tiny girl unprepared for this world.
“But I am!” Powder screamed again and Silco separated himself from her outburst, but suddenly the girl grabbed his hand and latched to it like a starving animal. “Please, don’t leave me alone… please”
It’s the same she had asked her sister not to do. Please, Vi, please. He put one knee on the floor and drew her to him. Powder, Jinx, looked terrified for a second. She took a glance to his black eye, his marred face, and grimaced.
“Are you afraid of me, child?” He gripped her blue hair by the nape, forcing her to look at him. He could feel how she froze in place, paralyzed by his actions, the muscles of her neck going tense, the fingers clasped around his wrist losing strength.
And suddenly, as a timid butterfly, she lifted one lingering hand towards his scar and her soft touch make him lose his breath. “I… I don’t think I am” Her fingers caressed his broken under eyelid, but when he blinked, she took her hand of as if he burned. She frowned “Are you a bad person?” He almost chuckled.
“I’m not a good person”
“I’m not good either”
“You are a child, and children are not good or bad” His touch on the base of her neck softened too, and now he was gracing her blue hair. It was dirty and mismatched, he will have to solve that, too. “You have the rest of your life to decide what you will be”.
“Does it hurt?” she said, still fixated on his black eye. Her hands returning to his face.
“Sometimes” The pain of his deteriorating nerves never goes away, really, he had a constant itch that only his daily injection of shimmer could ease. But if he didn’t treat it, the skin around will continue to rot and die, and he will lose half his face, corrupted by the polluted waters of the river where Vander had tried to drown him all those years ago. Thanks for that, brother. “But the pain is a good reminder”.
Powder scrunched her nose. “I don’t understand”.
“You may learn that one day, to your sorrow, little one” he then stood up. Probably it was too soon to tell her it had been Vander who disfigured him like that, she only knew the man as a caring father. It was soon too to say he had been betrayed by his brother as she had been by her sister. The wound still too fresh. Itchy, as his bad eye.
The lose of contact made the girl unsure and as he was towering over her, she flinched. Silco was surprised by the sudden feeling that washed over him as he observed this poor little kid: he just wanted her to be okay. And he didn’t even know her, or maybe, he knew her well enough, because she was just like him.
He offered his open hand to her, as an invitation. “You can stay with me, as long as you want. I never had a child and this may not be the best place for you but…”
The girl latched to his hand, hugging his arm against her skinny body. She was touchy and a bit clingy, but he was surprised again to realize he didn’t bother at all. “I want to stay” she said, the fear of being abandoned still entangled in her. “Please”.
I killed your family, not you. I prepared all of it as a trap. I wanted to kill you and your sister. He could have told her all of that, and a part of him knew she already realized that he was the villain in her story. But being alone was far more frightening for her than living under the same roof as the man who destroyed her whole life. She did start the explosion that wreaked havoc on everything, though, and she cannot forgive herself that unfortunate mistake.
“I’m not gonna forsake you. I promise” It sounded as a promise to himself too, to the young boy who drowned in the polluted waters for his dreams. For his nation of Zaun.
The grip of his fingers tightened around her tinny hand. Maybe he was developing an attachment for her for all the wrong reasons. Maybe he was just using her. Maybe he thought that in curing her, he will be able to cure himself.
But for Powder the burning nail that he was, was enough. And he missed that warm feeling of slight happiness, of being needed and appreciated. The majority of people that followed him did it for the possible benefits, for money or for fear. He had no close friends, no family, no emotional links, no one, really. Just like her.
So, if after all the hurricane of emotions had washed over her and she learned the truth about him, she still wanted to stay, he will make it worth it. He will give her all he never had. He will make her a vessel for his dreams, too, if she wanted to share. But it was still too soon to know.
“For now, let’s get you something to eat. A hot soup and maybe some meat, does it sound nice?” The girl assented, her mouth watering to the prospect of food.
He lifted her from the floor to carry her, just like he did the first night he took her in. Powder hugged his neck, resting her head over one of his shoulders. “It sounds… nice” she whispered. Her weight was like a feather to him.
Silco took her outside of the empty room, with the rain still pounding against the glass of the window. She had bloody scrapings on her elbows and knees, mud and dirt all over her ragged pants, and her braid was a tangled mess.
“Later you’ll need a shower, and new clothes. We can go buy something for you one of these days” He cleared his throat. “If you want”
“I think I will like that too”
He thought that maybe it would be good for her, a change of air. She will look prettier with her hair cleaned and properly braided, and maybe she will even smile for him.
A couple days ago, he had been only surrounded by henchmen and forsaken ones of the Lanes, to savage or to hungry for power to settle with how Vander was ruling the place. But a bright blue explosion had completely changed his life in the split of a second. Vander and his kids were gone and now he was going to claim the empty throne of the Lanes for himself, as he always wanted. His nation of Zaun a step closer.
But also, he had found someone new in the middle of all that fire and destruction, a lost soul like him. Silco still didn’t know, it was too soon, barely two days since he took the kid in, but he will one day consider her as his daughter. His confident, his most trusted person, his loved one. One day, she will be the only one he will care of, even more than himself. One day, he will put his dreams aside for her. He will love her more than his nation of Zaun. She will be his undoing and he will give his own life for her.
Because she was his Jinx. His perfect Jinx.