Hey everyone! I actually managed to write this chapter without too much issue, which is honestly a huge breath of fresh air after the last four months or so. I'm not doing all that better truth be told, my grandma's had to go to hospital because she's effectively trying to kill herself which is pretty distressing, but I'm doing my best to get on with things.
Anyways, this chapter is pretty heavy in my opinion so just be careful if you're sensitive to that sort of thing, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!
See you at the end!
He shouldn't have saved her.
"You remember the time we got caught jacking that girl's two-wheeler?" Violet chuckled, leaning left and bumping her shoulder against hers. She pointed down towards the long walkway that trailed through the heart of the Lanes, leading past Jericho's and up to where that firefight had broken out not even a week ago. Vi had been the one to stop that, hadn't she, alongside her girlfriend and their Enforcers. Pilties being led around by a Trencher, who'd have thought… "She chased us down there for ages. Then the stupid thing broke down outside Reze's place, and we had to book it back to The Last Drop on foot. Vander was so mad we had to clean the bar for the rest of the week! Fuck, what was her name again?" She asked, glancing at her sister, but Powder kept her eyes forward, fixed on the dirty rooftops and flickering neon lights that made up their home.
Ekko shouldn't have saved her. She tried to kill Renni and then him when he stopped her, because Mylo started shouting at her and she saw red- "Her name was Ruby."
"Ruby!" Vi echoed, slapping her palms against her thighs. "Knew it was something like that. Whatever happened to her, anyways? Haven't seen her since I got out."
"I shot her." Powder answered as she folded her arms across her chest. Her limbs looked small against her body, frail with their bones pressing up against her skin, and she looked away with a huff. "She ran with a gang of small-time drug runners a while back, and Silco wanted them on his payroll. They said no, so I killed them. I think she might've recognised me. Blue hair isn't exactly common, even down here, but she died too quickly to say anything."
Her sister nodded, clasping her hands together as she kicked her heels against the side of the roof. She leaned forward after a moment and glanced down at the streets below. Powder wondered what was going through her head at that moment. Was it something profound; about how, even at one of the highest peaks in the Undercity, they were all still beneath Piltover's feet? Or was she thinking about something much more straightforward? Like how their legs were dangling over the side of a nine story building. "It's been a long time since I've been up here." Vi said after a long moment, ending the silence that had fallen between them.
"I come up here everyday." Powder croaked, her voice breaking, and she had to fight to get the words out. She leaned forward and let her body hang over the edge of the roof, and she was only slightly relieved when she realized she wasn't afraid. The rest of her was disappointed. If this was how she was going to go, she wanted to feel something, anything other than the gnawing guilt that ate away at her chest.
Vi looked at her and smiled. It looked like she might cry. "You didn't come up here yesterday."
A sob tore its way up Powder's throat, but it was a laugh that left her lips. "I was kinda busy."
"Too busy to come see me?" Vi hummed, drawing her right knee up and pulling it towards her chest. "Figured you'd be back in your little cave after the shitstorm yesterday, planning your next move or something. Why're you out here?" She asked, and Powder looked away, towards the cracked and graffitied cityscape around them - broken and beautiful, all at once.
Why was she here?
Powder had gone straight home after her clash with Ekko, leaving him and the burning Sump behind her, and then she'd gone to bed. She'd cried a lot that night, screaming into her pillow and towards the roof all while Mylo mocked her, and Silco berated her. She hadn't slept well. Powder did more of that in the morning, though the ghosts of her brother and father were a lot quieter, then. Maybe they realized what she was going to do. Or maybe they knew that their work was done, and they didn't need to talk to her anymore.
But why was she here?
Powder could've done this back on her fan but she'd flown all the way out here on her hoverboard, just to look over people who didn't even care she was alive. And she wasn't even sure she cared about them, either. She'd killed fuck knows how many of them, after all, but this wasn't about them.
She was here to say goodbye.
"You know", Powder began, smiling despite herself, "even after everything that happened yesterday, how much it all hurts, I still can't stop thinking about kissing Ekko."
Violet glanced at her, brow raising in surprise, before she burst out laughing. She slapped a palm atop Powder's shoulder and leaned back, wrapping her other arm around her stomach as she cackled. "Gods, you really are something, Pow-Pow. Kill a few dozen people, burn down part of the Sump, but all you care about is that you got to stick your tongue down some boy's throat."
Powder frowned and turned towards her sister. "That's not what I mean."
Vi rolled her eyes and ran her hand through her hair, brushing it away from her forehead and revealing the cracked goggles resting on her brow. "Sure it isn't. He saves you from the rocket you fired at him and your first reaction is to start making out with him? You could've at least waited for him to start breathing properly again. Not exactly a good look for you."
"I know, but it wasn't like I planned it all out." She explained as she ran a hand down the side of her face.
Her sister seemed to accept that, falling silent for a few seconds and looking out across the Undercity, before she turned back towards Powder. "Tell me something. Why'd you leave him?" Vi asked, and she flinched. She'd known the question was coming, but that didn't stop her dreading its arrival.
Powder looked over her shoulder and towards the roof behind them. Empty. "Mylo spoke to me. Told me that I didn't have the right to be with him after everything I'd done that day, let alone over the past few years. He was right."
Vi tilted her head to the side, meeting Powder's gaze with a kind smile. "Mylo doesn't know anything about people, sis. He never did. Sure, he can lie and trick just about anyone", she went on, planting her palms on the roof behind her and leaning back, "but he could never work out just what made their hearts tick. He knows we're sisters, but he could never understand just why I brought you on jobs with me, even when we all knew you weren't ready."
Powder clenched the fabric of her trousers in her fist, remembering all the times she'd begged Vi to give her another chance, to take her on another job; she wouldn't screw it up this time, she promised! But she always did, and she always went crawling back to Vi when those same jobs went wrong, even as Mylo and Claggor started seeing her as a burden instead of a friend - as a jinx.
"I don't know if I love Ekko." Powder rambled as she rocked back and forth, tugging at her trousers so hard she feared they might tear. "I'm not sure I even know what love is, anymore. How can I, when I screw it up every time? But gods I care about him. I want him, Vi." She heaved. Her gut burned, rage and hunger and regret twisting her into knots, until all she felt was this raw, aching need. It settled deep in her bones and into the dark pit she called a heart, and she hated every second of it. Powder knew she was selfish, and wrong, but she was so lonely…
For the longest time, ever since Jinx clawed her way out of the well, Ekko had been the closest thing she had to a friend. Even when they fought and she killed the people he cared about, when she helped Silco flood the streets he loved with poison; Powder still thought about him at night. Not as a partner or a friend, or even an enemy. Just him. She wished he was by her side, in whatever form that took, because he was the only person who never hurt her. Not once.
Why didn't she go to Ekko, then? Run away from Silco and find him, all those years ago, and build the Firelights alongside him?
Because you would've had to tell him why Mylo and Claggor were dead. Why Vander had needed to sacrifice himself to save Vi. Why Vi had walked away.
Guilt. That's all it was.
Guilt for screwing up the job. For breaking her family. For destroying her home and murdering the man she'd done it all for. All so Jinx could push away the only person who'd never turned his back on her, over and over again.
"He was mine, don't you get that!" Jinx screamed, surging to her feet even as she took a step back from her sister. Vi just looked up at her, the care never leaving her expression, but there was a pain there that Powder knew all too well. "And I threw him away, just like you threw me away! I-" She choked, before spinning around and pressing her palms to her face, covering her eyes. "I tried to kill him so many times because I didn't like the way he looked at me; like I was lost, like I was a monster - even though I know he's right! And what he said to me…"
We're done, Jinx.
He'd never called her that before. He might've done that when he was with Vi or his Firelights, but not to her. She'd liked to believe that Ekko never said her name because he believed Powder was still there, deep down, and she'd always drawn a little bit of hope from that. Hope that she could have found her way back, one day.
But then he'd named her Jinx, surrounded by bodies in a factory she had destroyed, and Powder died just a little more.
"Is that why you tried to kill him then? Even after he helped you?" Vi's voice rang out from behind her, and Powder let her arms fall to her side.
"I tried to kill him because Mylo told me to. Because he said Ekko betrayed me and I'm fucked up enough to believe it." She answered with her head hung low. "Everything was spinning and I didn't know what was going on, only that everything was too loud and bright and I…" Powder trailed off, the breath escaping her lungs in a hiss.
It was like when Silco took her out to the river, lowering her into its murky waters so that her old life could be washed from her skin, but he didn't pull her out this time. Instead, she'd sunk into the black depths and tried to scream as the air left her lungs. All while the moonlight slowly faded away, drowned by the soot and the dirt floating around her. That's what it felt like, at least. Like there… like there was this impossible weight pressing down on her, dragging her away from her body and down into the darkest recesses of her psyche, while Jinx pushed her way to the surface.
Or maybe Jinx just lost her mind again, and she was scrambling for some profound, psychological reason for trying to kill Ekko. Perhaps she just really wanted to kill Renni after what she'd said about Silco, and Ekko was the next best thing after he helped her escape.
It didn't matter what the reason was, though; all the trauma and mental illness in the world couldn't justify what she'd done. Her actions were her own, and no one could change that - not even Ekko with his fancy fucking time machine.
But there was one small detail that Vi had missed. It may not have mattered in the long run, not with what Powder had come here to do, but she didn't want to go without saying her truth. Even if no one heard it. Even if no one cared.
"I wasn't trying to kill Ekko the second time 'round, Vi." Powder whispered, the words barely making it past her lips. She'd been thinking about this for years, somewhere in the back of her mind. Those whispers came to her when the night got a little too lonely, or when Ekko beat her that night on the bridge, but they always went silent after a while. But not after Jinx murdered Silco. Not for the entire month that followed. Not. One. Second. Still, it had never felt so real. "The rocket wasn't meant for him. It was meant for me." She admitted, and her shoulders felt just that tiny bit lighter.
I tried to kill myself.
The words rang around her brain like a bell, driving away any other thought and leaving her with that single, inescapable truth.
"I gave up." Powder breathed, feeling her heart beating steadily against her chest. There was no fear. How could there be? Fear was for people with something to lose. "After everything that happened to me; after everything I did: I gave up. And that's why I'm here now." She explained. Powder drew her pistol from the holster on her waist and held it before her, resting the grip on one hand and barrel on the other. Then she spun the weapon so that the muzzle was facing away from her and unlatched the chamber, letting her pistol fall open and exposing the Hextech inside.
She looked over the sum total of all her knowledge, every rune and wire and cog and remembered all the work that had gone into its construction, and she found it wanting. A gun that made bullets. Silco's last request: to give Hextech to the people of the Undercity so they might become Piltover's equal, and this was the best she could do? Ekko had done better and he hadn't even tried.
The arcane barrier that appeared around him whenever he took a hit, courtesy of what she could only assume was the Hextech bracelet he'd worn, was already far and away better than anything she'd made, because it actually protected people. Considering the size of the device and the resources he'd have because of the Firelight's partnership with Piltover, it was entirely possible that he'd already made one for every Firelight and Enforcer in the city. And that was without even considering what other wonders he'd made in the last month.
Then there was his time machine. A real, honest-to-fuck time machine that he'd used to beat the shit out of Jinx. There was nothing in the notes she'd stolen from Jayce Talis' workshop that even hinted at such a thing being possible, let alone achievable in four weeks. But Ekko had done the impossible, just as he always did. He'd built a fighting force out of the Undercity's weak, and it's forgotten, when he was nothing more than a child. He'd managed to form an alliance with Piltover and, if what Powder had heard around the Lanes was true, earn himself a seat on Piltover's Council; the first from the Undercity to ever do so.
Silco would've been the first, a young, broken voice echoed through her skull, if he'd had the strength to let you go.
"Stop talking!" Jinx hissed, pressing her palms to her ears. The gentle hum of noise that rose from the Lanes became muffled.
Ekko was better than her. Powder had always known that, but it had always been a distant feeling born from self-hatred. Now she'd been given undeniable proof that he'd surpassed her in every way, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to smile, or scream. The dream they'd shared all those years ago, using technology to make the Undercity a better place - Ekko was making it come true. The Boy Savior might just save them all.
But no matter how he might try, or even why, Ekko could never save her.
She couldn't even save herself.
"I'm here to die." Powder whispered to Vi. To herself. To a world that would be glad to see her go. She heard footsteps a moment later, approaching from behind until a calloused hand fell on her shoulder.
"You don't have to do this." Her sister pleaded, her words hurried and full of panic. It was like the time Jinx had threatened to shoot Caitlyn, back at her tea party. Stars, it all felt so long ago. Perhaps that's what happens when you spend every waking moment grieving the people you'd murdered; time just stretched on out. She'd ask Ekko if she ever saw him again, because he'd always had a thing for time, even before he'd turned his Hextech towards it. If he didn't kill her first, that was.
"I have to. You know I do, Violet." Powder mumbled, reaching up and wrapping her hand around hers. She was warm, like the first touch of sun after a cold night, and she desperately wanted to bask in it. To fall into her sister's arms and let her light drive away the darkness in her heart. But that wasn't Powder's place anymore. Vi wasn't even here. "You can go now." She said after a moment, before letting go of her hand. "You need to get back to that life of yours, don't you. Surrounded by friends and a woman who loves you. You would never choose me over them, and I won't ask you to."
Vi's hand left her shoulder.
"But, Vi…" Powder trailed off as she turned her head to the right, though she didn't dare look behind her. She wasn't brave enough for that.
"Yeah, Pow-Pow?" Violet murmured. Her voice was distant, and Powder knew she'd already turned her back on her.
"Do you think that if I.. if I go and find you out there, apologize for everything I've done and all the people I've hurt", Powder forced out, still working out what she was trying to say even as she spoke, "do you think that you could forgive me? Do you think you could love me like you used to?"
The sister she loved more than life itself was silent for a long moment, before those two damning words drifted through the air and fell into Powder's ears. "I'm sorry."
Then her sister was gone, and she wasn't coming back.
Powder smiled. "I'll see you soon, sis."
Her stomach growled and pain lanced up through her chest, like daggers in her brain, and she fell to one knee. She hadn't eaten properly in days and the hunger was getting worse and worse, but Powder wouldn't have to worry about that soon. She wouldn't have to worry about anything ever again.
Powder moved her other knee beneath her and sat back on her haunches, trailing a finger across the bits of gravel covering the roof. She never let go of her pistol, though, letting it hang from her fingers even as its barrel rested on the floor. "Mylo?" She called, tilting her head to the side as she drew patterns in the shale.
Mismatched boots entered her vision, walking around her from her right and stopping just ahead of her. Her brother squatted down a second later, arms on his knees as he twirled his mechanical lockpick in deft fingers. Then Mylo gave her a sad smile, glancing down at the gun in her hand. "End of the road, huh?" He asked, and there wasn't a trace of mockery in his voice. Just a vague, somber echo tinting his words.
Powder reached up and cupped his cheek, wiping the blood off his face as she pushed herself to her feet. She placed her other hand against his chest and felt the space around the metal rod lodged in it. Crimson poured from the wound like water running downhill, and Powder grimaced, pulling her hands away. She stuffed them in her pocket as she drew a heavy breath and forced herself to meet his eyes. "Yep." She said, sending him a lopsided smile. His lips curled up in response and, for once, it reached his eyes. Tears pooled at the corners of her own as she looked at her brother, but she held fast against the pain. Not for her, but for him. For them. "Can you stay with me? Until I'm ready to go?"
Mylo raised his arms and linked his hands behind his head, seeming as casual and uncaring as ever, but Powder could see his expression grow pensive. Like he expected her to hurt him again. Then his gaze softened, and he took her free hand in his. "Yeah. I can do that."
Powder led him to the roof's edge where she'd spoken to Vi and sat down, letting her legs dangle over the side once more. She tugged Mylo's hand a moment later, keeping her eyes fixed on the Lanes below, and he settled down just to her right. Powder scooted over to him so that their arms were pressing against each other, doing her best to ignore how his body stiffened against hers, and leaned her head against his shoulder. It took him a few seconds to relax again, time he spent staring down at her with such intensity that she could feel his gaze burning against her skin. Eventually, though, he brought his hand up to her head and ran his palm along her hair, and Powder almost wept at the feel of it.
Minutes passed in warm silence until Powder lost track of time completely, basking in her brother's warmth as she watched people living their lives down below. The hum of chatter and distant machinery was like a symphony; a soft blanket of nostalgia that she could wrap around her shoulders and forget herself in, closing her eyes and picturing herself running through those very same streets. Vi and Ekko and Mylo and Claggor; the family and friends that she treasured, and in another life, in a kinder world than the one Powder had been born into, she could see herself spending her entire life by their side. She'd have them and the rest of her family: Mom, Dad, Silco and Vander, and things would be beautiful.
Except the world wasn't the problem. It had never owed her anything, yet it gave her them in the first place, and it was Powder who had lost them. It was Jinx who threw them away.
Mylo and Claggor died because of her obsession with proving herself. Vander died so Vi wouldn't join them, and Vi left her because it was all her fault. Because, at the end of it all, Powder just wasn't worth sticking around for.
Jinx had spent years wondering why she hadn't died alongside them, or why she hadn't caught a bullet between the eyes in all the years after. Why had she escaped punishment?
Except… it wasn't that at all, was it?
Death would be Powder's salvation. It would save her from the storm inside her chest; the fury, grief and loneliness that made up her everyday. It would silence the voices inside her head and let the ghosts of her family move on. So it only made sense that the world would deny Powder the death she craved, because death was her happy ending and monsters didn't get happy endings.
For all the lives she'd taken and ruined, her punishment was that she got to live.
Powder felt an arm wrap around her shoulders and she glanced to her left. Claggor sat beside her, blood trickling down from the back of his cracked skull, but for the first time since she'd killed him, he didn't shy away from her gaze. He just held her, strong and quiet, just like he'd been in life. Then she heard a series of footsteps from the roof behind her and she swung her head around, her gaze falling on the four ghosts standing at her back.
Silco stood closest to her, his hands in his vest pockets as he looked towards the roof of the Undercity - curious, yet… understanding. "I suppose this is as good a place as any; over the home you and I both gave so much for. Still, I believed you would want to see the sky." He mused, his eyes shifting to Vander, who stood to his right. His wolven features had receded, looking much closer to how he did in life, and Powder felt that if she really squinted, it might just look like he was proud of her. Her parents were to the left of them, their forms vague and nebulous, but that didn't matter so much to her anymore. Even if they never said anything to her, they were there for her. That was all that mattered.
Powder glanced up after a long moment, towards the cracked and craggy cave that held the Undercity, and she thought over Silco's words. You couldn't see the sky from this part of the Undercity; you'd have to go to the parts built in the fissure that led to the surface for that, but the sky had never really meant much to Powder. It was bright and beautiful and it gave hope to so many people, but it seemed almost superficial to her. The sky was cold and empty, and the stars were so far away. What was there for her up there? No. The sky meant nothing to Powder because everything she cared about was down here, in the dirt and soot.
Nearly everything.
Powder wondered what Violet thought of the sky, now that she lived beneath it.
She set her pistol down atop the gravel and reached into her pocket, pulling out her telescope and flicking it out to the side. The simple device extended with a quiet snap and Powder brought it up to her eye, peering down at the Lanes until she found what she was searching for.
Jericho's was as popular as ever, and the large Vastayan was moving as fast as he could to keep up with the amount of customers he had around his stall. Still, Powder only had eyes for the red-headed woman in the crimson jacket sitting on the opposite side of the stall, and the entourage of Enforcers that surrounded her. Each held a bowl of fried food or the like, and they talked and laughed as they shared a hearty meal. Violet turned to her right as the person next to her spoke up, a tall, dark-haired markswoman in a top hat, and they all fell silent for a second before they burst out laughing.
Her sister, the Deputy Enforcer, and the Sheriff she shared a bed with.
Powder thought she could've watched her forever, living through her and taking her joy as her own, but that wouldn't be fair to Vi. She didn't deserve to have her estranged sister watching over her like some kind of stalker. Powder just wanted to see her, really see her, one last time.
If things were like this, then she could just…
"Powder?" A voice she wished she didn't recognise called out. She snapped her head to the left, her hand clenching around her telescope as she lowered it, before her eyes fell on Ekko.
He stood a good five meters away with his hoverboard in hand, his Hextech bracelet glowing brightly on his wrist, but he didn't have a thing on him otherwise. No green bat and certainly no time machine.
Powder wasn't sure why she was surprised to see him. The people she hurt always found their way back to her, as voices in the shadows and lifeless bodies in the streets - it's just those people were normally dead, first. She'd have broken down any other day. Who wouldn't, when faced with definitive proof that they'd broken another relationship beyond repair, and that, even though Ekko was still alive, he'd never want to see her again.
But he was here now, a ghost that had yet to die, and the tears that ran down her cheeks were ones of joy.
They're all here.
"Do you want to sit with us?" Powder asked as Claggor moved away from her, leaving a space between them. She patted it with her palm and sent him her best smile. Ekko's jaw fell.
"Who…" He spoke, sounding genuinely concerned as he glanced around the roof, looking over Silco and the rest of her parents as he forced the words out. "Who the hell is 'us'?" He asked, reaching behind him and placing his hoverboard on his back.
Powder frowned. Why was he playing games? Today was her last day. Everyone was being kind to her, sitting with her, holding her. Why was he doing this?
"He's trying to get under your skin." Mylo leaned in and whispered into her ear. He squeezed her hand and Powder drew in a deep breath, fighting past the sudden tightness in her chest. "He's trying to get you back for yesterday."
She nodded, recognising the truth of his words even as they tore at the inside of her chest. This was her final test. She'd have her peace if she could just get past this: her beautiful death alongside her friends and her family, watching over her sister below. Powder turned away from him. "It's okay if you want to hurt me." She said in as steady a voice as she could manage, idly picking up her pistol and placing it in her lap. "I won't stop you. And I know I don't have any right to ask this after what I did, but I'd really like it if you sat with me."
He didn't move. "Powder, I don't understand. What are you doing here?" Ekko prodded, his eyes fixed on her pistol.
Silco snarled and stepped towards the shorter man with his hand raised, as if to strike him, before he turned away in disgust. "Foolish boy… You talked about him like he was so clever." He spat, folding his arms across his chest.
Powder rolled her eyes, turning to her third father with a disapproving stare. "Be nice." She chided him, watching from the corner of her eye as Ekko's head darted in Silco's direction, confused, like he was searching for something.
Ekko pressed a palm to his brow as he stuffed his other hand in his pocket, and she could almost see the cogs turning in his head. Whatever this was, it was getting old fast. Powder wanted him here more than anything, but not like this. He'd been many things to her over the years, but never this; never cruel. "I didn't come here to play games, okay?" He called as he moved towards her, but then he met her eyes, and he froze mid stride. "L-Look, please, let's just go find Vi, yeah? We'll figure out what to do after that…"
Mylo fell about laughing beside her, and she let out a couple of chuckles herself. "We already found her." Powder explained, gesturing down towards the streets with her telescope. "She's down there at Jericho's with her girlfriend, and a bunch of Enforcers. You're down there sometimes, too, but I guess you're still at your base; wherever that is."
Ekko huffed as he rocked back a step, looking at her with confusion, before his eyes widened in dawning horror. Then he stepped towards her and into the space between her and Claggor, squatting down and pressing his hand to her shoulder. "Listen to me: I'm right here. I'm not somewhere out there or up in Piltover. I'm here with you." He pleaded, locking eyes with her as he placed his other palm on her cheek.
Powder leaned into his touch with a watery smile before she pulled back, turning away and looking back out towards the Lanes, to where her sister was. "Don't lie to me. There's no point anymore. Just sit with us until I'm ready." She mumbled before she took his hand in hers, tugging him down and onto one knee. Ekko let out a gasp and looked down at her wiry arm, practically skin and bone at this point, but he shook his head.
"Come on… I don't…" He stammered, glancing around the roof with narrowed eyes. Then he squeezed her hand and turned to her, a weak, fake smile on his face. "Okay, umm… who's here right now? You mentioned Mylo yesterday, right? Is he around?"
"Over here, Little Man." Powder's brother spoke up, raising his hand and waving at Ekko. He just stared at her, though, ignoring him entirely. "Man, he's really committed to this."
"Powder?" Ekko called, speaking over him as he shook her shoulder lightly.
She let out a growl and pushed his hand away, twisting her body and forcing his other hand off her shoulder. Then she huffed and drew her knees up to her chest, refusing to even look at Ekko. That familiar frustration was boiling back up to the surface again, but Powder forced it down with clenched teeth. He wouldn't ruin this for her; she wouldn't let him.
Powder heard the shifting of stones to her left and, against her better judgment, she glanced over towards Ekko. He'd sat on the edge of the roof next to her, his feet dangling over the side as he grabbed Powder's hand again. He cupped it between his and pulled it between them, desperately trying to grab her attention even as he prattled on. "You're really scaring me here, Powder. Please, I can't help you if you don't tell me what's going on."
But she didn't want his help. Powder didn't want anything from him, except for him to be by her side. But he was the same as Mylo and Silco - all promises and loving words until she finally let her guard down, and then they'd hurt her. They always did. Just because the rest of them were being kind in her final minutes didn't mean Ekko would, and she didn't have any right to ask him to be. Not after everything Jinx had done.
Ekko would keep talking to her, pushing her buttons until she lost her mind again, and they'd be back where they started, and her perfect death would be gone.
She had to do this now.
Powder gripped her pistol in trembling hands and staggered to her feet, and Ekko flinched away from her. Even now, when she was at the end of her life, he was still afraid of her. That hurt, in a way she didn't know she could. Still, she gave him as reassuring a smile as she could before pressing the gun's barrel to her chin. The feeling of cool metal against her skin sent fresh tears running down her face, even as she heard Ekko shout from beside her.
"What the fuck are you doing!" He cried, jumping to his feet and wrapping his hands around her forearm. Then Ekko planted his feet and pulled, leaning back and pitting the strength of his entire body against her one arm, trying to get her gun away from her head. She didn't even budge. Maybe the real Ekko would've done better, but this facsimile of her oldest friend, here to do nothing but cause her pain, didn't stand a chance. "Powder, stop! For fucks sake, stop!"
The rush of boots on gravel rushed through the air as everyone crowded around her. Mylo stood at her right, one hand on the back of her head and the other around her left hand, helping press her gun to her head. Silco stepped behind Ekko and gripped him by the shoulders, clenching his teeth and trying to wrestle the boy off of her. Then a dark, hulking shadow washed over the four of them, and Vander's low growl filled her ears. She couldn't see Claggor and her parents from where they stood behind him, but she could hear them cry.
Powder's body shook like withered leaves, tumbling from the tree and into the dirt, and she pictured her lifeless body doing the same; tumbling from this roof and onto the cold streets of the Lanes.
She could end this with a single pull. Five pounds of force and she'd be home, with everyone she'd loved and lost. No more pain. No more ghosts and voices. Just happy oblivion and endless sleep. It sounded almost nice when Powder thought about it like that. Like she wasn't putting a bullet in her brain - she was just going to sleep…
"Powder! Don't!"
"Get your hands off her!"
"Do it. Come back to us…"
Shouts and whispers, howls and sobs - they filled her mind and drowned out the noise from the city below, and her blood started to boil in her veins. Powder's stomach churned with hunger and regret, twisting in her gut like some demented serpent, wrapping its body around her throat and suffocating her. Her vision swam as amethyst tears filled her eyes, and the lights of the Undercity shone like stars.
Peace would be hers, but…
I don't want it like this…
Powder threw Ekko and Mylo back, launching them across the roof as she whirled around, and Vander and Silco each took a panicked step back. Her chest heaved with broken sobs and she threw her pistol to the floor, before pressing her palms to the sides of her head and screaming. "Quiet! You are all unbearable!" She roared, tossing her telescope towards Claggor who wouldn't stop crying. He ducked and let the device fly overhead, soaring over the edge of the building and out of sight.
Ekko clambered to his feet with his hands out in front of him, stepping in front of Powder with wild, terrified eyes; but she didn't miss how he stepped between her and her gun. "Okay, just take a breath and-" He began hesitantly, but Powder stepped forward and pushed him to the floor, teeth bared in a vicious snarl as pain rocked through her. Her muscles burned beneath her skin as she kicked a bunch of pebbles towards Ekko's shins - a futile action, but it was the only thing she could do that wouldn't hurt him, and she didn't want to hurt him-
"You are not here!" Powder cried as she grabbed at the back of her neck, digging her fingers into her skin. She would've torn it from her flesh if she'd had the strength, but she settled with glaring at the boy below her. Her legs gave out on her, then, and she collapsed to her knees. Something within her broke and she began to sob in earnest, pressing her hand to her mouth as her head hung low, staining the gravel with her tears. "None of you are, and I'm glad you aren't."
"Powder?" Ekko spoke up, rolling onto his hands and knees and crossing the scant space between them. He reached out as if to touch her, but Powder shook her head.
"I don't want you to see me like this; any of you." She wept, staring into the dirt as she ran her other hand across her scalp. "It'd hurt too much…"
"Please, Powder; who are you talking about?" Ekko begged, and Powder watched as he shifted closer, his knees scraping along the shale.
"Mylo, Claggor, Mom and Dad", Powder babbled, beyond caring at this point, "Silco, Vander, you and Vi. Everyone I killed, or-or hurt - you're here! You won't leave me alone!"
Powder was about to speak on, to tell them all to just go, let her die in peace, when her gut seized. She retched, falling forward onto her hands in front of Ekko as bile raced up her throat and out between her teeth. It splashed down above her knees, scattering across the stones as Ekko shifted behind her, gathering her pigtails and moving them behind her shoulders. He spent the next few moments rubbing her back as she gasped and heaved, gibbering helplessly between retches. She didn't even know what she was trying to say; all that mattered was that he understood.
She could feel them watching over her, hear their pointed whispers and barbs as she wiped her mouth after a long minute, and Powder forced herself up again. Ekko moved back around, squatting just in front of her and clutching at her shoulders, steadying her. "I killed them, Ekko. My brothers. Tried to save them, but my bomb…" She explained but her voice caught when Ekko's eyes widened, and his face grew pale.
"Y-You?…" He stuttered, his grip slackening.
"Three cracked gemstones… I didn't know, I swear!" Powder pressed on in a scratchy tone. "Deckard mutated and I-I wanted to stop him! I wanted to help! I was blown back and Vander, he… he died saving Vi!"
"Powder, I-"
"And Vi left me!" She shouted over him, wrapping her arms around her stomach. "She hit me and left, when I just needed her to understand! She called me a jinx!"
Ekko rocked back like she'd struck him, his jaw dropping. "She… That was her?"
"I'm not a jinx!" Powder carried on like he hadn't said anything. "I'm not cursed, or-or broken or anything like that! I'm sick, and I'm not getting better. Fucking hell, I'm shouting at the air!" She laughed, sobbed - something between the two. "I'm sick and alone and I don't want to live anymore, but I'm not ready to die, either. Not when I'm like this! I want…"
And just what did she want? Not death or life, nor forgiveness or absolution - those weren't on the table for her.
She wanted to sleep. She wanted to wrap up under her covers and pretend she was being held by her sister. She wanted to get away from the world that would never give her peace, replacing it with blissful, temporary oblivion.
Powder wanted to go home.
"Take me home, Ekko."
Powder's only friend swept her up in his arms and threw his hoverboard at his feet, jumping on and speeding away from the Lanes together. They left her sister and the rest of her family far behind them as she guided Ekko through dark caves and tunnels, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pressing her face into the crook of his neck.
Then she went to bed and prayed she wouldn't wake up the next morning.
It was the only way it wouldn't hurt.
Wowee.
Writing a girl having a mental breakdown isn't all that fun, surprisingly enough. Still, it was honestly kind of cathartic, as odd as that may sound. Now the next couple of chapters are gonna be really interesting when we deal with the fallout of Ekko and Jinx's interactions these past couple chapters, and I hope you're as excited as I am to see them!
Tell me what you think in the comments, and I'll see you all next time!