The flash from the camera was blinding, a white burst that cast the horrific scene in stark relief. Blood patterns sprayed wildly across the walls, puddled on the floor, already dark. Much too dark to be fresh.
She knelt down, pencil tapping her bottom lip, as she took in the details.
"Out of the way, rookie."
The lead detective bumped her as he passed by, nearly knocking her off balance, but she managed to steady herself without placing down her hands-a move that could contaminate the crime scene. With a puff of air, she blew a loose strand of hair out of her face and looked up at him. "Sorry, sir," she said, calm and collected, "I just wanted to-"
"Listen, Kiramman," he huffed, hands on his hips, his back still to her. "The whole department knows you're here on your mother's name. So, just hang back and let the experienced people do their job."
Caitlyn had been transferred to Piltover's Fifth Metropolitan District only three weeks ago, but already she'd grown used to the looks. The stares. The murmurs. The scoffs. No one wanted her there, not when they thought everything she'd done to get herself there was due to her mother's political influence. It wasn't - she'd busted her ass for so long to become a member of the police force - but it didn't change the way people felt. It didn't change the fact she had a Counselor for a mother and, inevitably, everything she'd done since birth hinted at a possibilityher mother's meddling fingers had something to do with it.
It was an interesting dichotomy; as a member of high society, daughter of the elite, socialites and ambitious-types flocked to her like insects, always vying for attention. For a chance to whisper in her ear. When people needed something, the platitudesfell from their mouths like sweet syrup, drip drip drip. The fake laughs, the fake smiles - everything that made her feel like a pawn in a game, not a person.
Amongst the Enforcers? She was still that same symbol of influence, but instead of trying to gain her attention, the other officers turned their backs. No one wanted to speak to her lest she call mommy and have them punished. No one wanted her to witness them step out of line. Keep her at a distance, that seemed to be everyone's motto. When she stepped into the bull pen, all noise ceased to exist, like a vacuum opened up and swallowed everyone's voices. Silence, unbearable and persistent, followed her to her desk - a small, makeshift table erected in the far corner of the room - and conversations resumed only when she opened up a case file and bent over to read.
But Caitlyn hadn't come this far to give in or give up.
That's why she absorbed the animosity, the pettiness, the verbal jabs like a shield and kept her polite, diplomatic expression glued in place.
"Rookie. Go grab us some coffee," Detective Marcus barked, his back still to her.
Even if that meant running errands like grabbing coffee.
"Yessir," she said. She straightened, closed her notepad, and slid it and her pencil into the pocket of her overcoat. Without so much as a huff, she shoved her hands into her pockets and turned away from the crime scene, out through the dilapidated building and into the muggy, thick air that nestled along Zaun's streets like a plague.
Change is good, or so some people say.
Some things hadn't changed. Jericho still ran his slop shop and Babette was still running her little house of pleasure in the backstreets. The gloom that sat over Zaun was still as impressive as ever, like every living soul leaked out some measure of despair every day to keep the dark, dank city from ever getting too cheery. In the end, it still felt like home.
But she'd been coming to terms with a lot of things over the past week, like how children grow up and how her absence had left a hole. A hole through which the people in her life had fallen down, spiraled, drawing inevitably closer to the hard bottom.
Seeing Vander again, after a decade-long stint in prison, was a worse shock than her first night getting acquainted with the baton-wielding Warden. And that thing, cracking across her shoulders, had been one hell of a shock.
"Hey, careful," chided Vander, his head instinctively moving away from the blade at his throat.
Vi's fingers tightened around the wooden handle, and her eyes refocused. Red droplets ran down into the shaving foam coating Vander's neck. "Shit," she swore under her breath and turned to grab a towel. "Sorry dad." She quickly folded the towel into a square and pressed it over the spot.
"S'all right," he chuckled, replacing her hand with his own. "I think I've survived worse than a little cut."
Vi's mouth thinned. He'd meant it as a joke, a bit of humor with just a touch of darkness typical to Zaunites, but it had struck a nerve.
"I didn't mean it like that, Violet," he grumbled, his voice slightly hoarse, a warm rumble, just like she'd always remembered.
That hadn't changed.
"I know," she whispered, fingers trembling around the shaving razor.
One of Vander's large, warm hands encircled hers around the handle. "Listen, kid," he began, revving up for a classic lecture.
But Vi wasn't in the mood to hear it. She slowly, carefully, eased her hand out his grasp and set the blade aside. "I'll be back. Hold the towel there for a few more minutes."
She was already slipping on her jacket as Vander grumbled, but not unkindly, "Like I need my kid to tell me how to treat a wound."
His chuckle followed her all the way outside, into the dense rain.
The curtain of rain blurred the yellow and green neon lights casting everything into a hazy, undefined world, like a dream. A dark, inky dream. And if rain kept people indoors up topside, it certainly didn't have that effect on trenchers, who were used to things far worse than rain. People bustled about or hung around outside bars, sipping from tankards, and street vendors had no reason to close up shop when plenty of people still swung by for a quick meal. On the main thoroughfare, a kid bumped Vi's elbow as he ran past, and she curled her lip a little.
"Brat," she muttered, but the kid was already well out of ear shot. And there was no venom behind it, anyway; as if she hadn't bumped into plenty of people as a kid running around the Lanes.
She pulled her hood up, kept her head down, and watched her boots splash in the water collecting on the surface of the streets. People sat outside on whiskey barrels, some acting as seating, one in the middle as a table. Music blasted from every corner as clubs sprang to life, attracting a young crowd. She had no idea where she was going, but she was going to wherever that was, hoping at the end of it her mind would be more at ease.
Several turns later, away from the main street and all the noise, she found herself treading familiar ground - too familiar. She stopped, looked up, saw the blasted ruins of The Last Drop and swore. In a fit of anger, she kicked an empty can and sent it sailing right into the old, run down sign. It cracked the neon light bulbs that used to illuminate it a pretty green and heard the shattered glass hit the street.
Without a second glance, she turned away, cursing herself for going to the one place she had been trying too hard to avoid since being released, but now that she was here, it seemed like a good time to get things over with. Or it was, until she emerged from the alley, ready to take on the inevitable reunion, and found Benzo's shop teeming with Enforcers.
Cursing under her breath, she shrank back into the shadows of the alley and poked her head out. Just to the right, Enforcers stood chatting with one another, their voices muffled through their masks and the rain. She saw the bright flashing of a camera, white light brightening up the walls of Benzo's shop, revealing a confusing, jumbled mess of images.
The store was destroyed; the glass windows were shattered, nothing more than jagged teeth in the window panes, and the displays had been wrecked. From what she could see, a grenade may as well have gone off inside; it looked like things had been blasted apart. Scorch marks became visible as the camera continued to take pictures, flashing more bright, hot light across her retinas, which were so well adjusted to the Zaun-dark.
And prison, she scoffed mentally.
She leaned out of the alley further, just an inch, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
"Excuse me!"
At first, Vi hadn't even heard the person calling for her, her eyes darting around the edges of Benzo's shop, absorbing all the details she could make out. But the sound of footsteps hurrying in her direction quickly drew her gaze.
An officer was coming her way.
"Excuse me," the woman called again, her hand up in the air, waving, as if that would encourage Vi to stop.
It did the opposite.
Vi pulled her hood up more, tucked in her shoulders, and turned away, walking fast.
"I'd just like to talk," the woman called from the mouth of the alley, as Vi cleared the midway point.
"As a member of Piltover's Fifth Metropolitan District, I order you to stop, civilian!"
Yeah-fucking-right, Vi bit out sarcastically in her head. Get some poor idiot to stop and pin the crime on 'em. Uh-uh, lady, I'm not falling for that. She emerged at the other end of the alley, but still heard the scuffle of the officer's boots moving across the pavement. She searched around for a ladder and spotted one nearby. With a bit of effort, she jumped up, grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder with both hands, and pulled it down. Without hesitation, she climbed as fast she could, the woman in the street below.
"Evading an officer can be seen as an admission of guilt!"
"Not my fucking problem!" Vi yelled back before she hurried atop the nearest roof and began jumping, rolling, and hopping her way across the nearest buildings in the one way she was sure an uptight, pin-straight Enforcer wouldn't be able to follow.
Yup. Enforcers still couldn't keep up - that hadn't changed either.
Detective Marcus spat the coffee out of his mouth in a dramatic spray that coated her face and overcoat.
"What the fuck is this, Kiramman?"
Luckily, the rain was kind of taking care of the coffee-spit mix on her face. The raindrops carried it away and she only had to wipe her face twice with a clean handkerchief. "It's coffee, sir," she answered, once the handkerchief was back in her overcoat pocket. "I went to a cafe around the corner."
"Wha-," he said, his mouth slightly open, absolutely dumbfounded. A few cronies who stood nearby hid snickers behind their hands. "You got this from around here? Shit, Kiramman, have you lost your mind? None of the food or drink around here is safe to consume. Don't you know anything?"
"Well, the people here eat and drink it. It can't be too unsafe or they'd all get sick," she reasoned.
Marcus ran a hand across his face. "Zaunites are part rabid animal, Kiramman. Don't you know anything? Next time we're in Zaun, and I tell you to get coffee, go back to Piltover to get it." He threw the cup of coffee against the nearest wall, scoffing as he turned back to the crime scene.
Caitlyn opened her mouth to point out that he'd just contaminated the crime scene with that coffee, but everyone already had their backs turned again. Everyone had already turned to one another and re-engaged in conversation.
She sighed, pulled her notepad and pencil from her pocket, and flipped it open to the page she'd started on. There were a few crude sketches, some symbols she'd noticed etched in the blood splatters, and, to the bottom, she scribbled in: Young woman at crime scene (23? 24?), reddish-pink hair (?), tall in stature, possibly, wore hood, eyes looked light blue, heavy boots, def. from Zaun, knew the streets.
It's not that she'd expected that encounter to amount to much - Zaunites were particularly weary of Piltovans, and for good reason - but it had been worth a shot. She wondered what had brought the young woman around; as soon as Enforcers showed up in an area, the native city people steered clear, and they weren't shy about passing it along by word-of-mouth that Enforcers had shown up and were causing trouble, investigating, patrolling, getting 'nosy'.
"Hmph," she said, biting down on her bottom lip. "Well, you're on my list now," she said, tapping the end of her pencil over the description she just wrote.
"Enforcers are in the Lanes," Vi said, stripping off her wet jacket before getting too far into the room.
Vander looked up, a crease between his eyes as he watched her frantic movements. "What'd they want?"
Vi went to the stool still sitting near Vander's wheelchair and plopped down. He put a hand on her knee and she gripped it in her own. She didn't want to look up, but could tell Vander was waiting patiently to be filled in.
"Benzo's shop," she said, almost breathlessly, heart racing, "was blown up." Her blue eyes met his and she saw the worry, the sheen of guilt pass across his stare. "With a pink and blue monkey bomb."
"There's no way," Vander whispered. "There's no way."
She brought the back of her hand up, pressed it to her forehead as her fingers tightened into a fist. She felt like punching something. "He was blown to pieces."
Some things in Zaun hadn't changed, even in 10 years.
Pow-Pow? She had changed.