Luxurious Anarchy (Lux/Jinx)

Chapter 2: CLOUDS

"Silco is dead!?"

"Yes Jayce, now could you keep it down? I have a splitting headache." Caitlyn didn't like how petulant her voice sounded, but having been knocked out twice in less than twenty-four hours had not been pleasant. She hissed in a breath between clenched teeth as Vi pressed a little too hard at the bruise forming on one cheek with a cold compress.

If it wasn't for the faint feelings of concern and tenderness emanating from the pink-haired trencher, Caitlyn would have snatched the compress away and held it herself.

But any time she thought to reprimand Vi's clumsy touch, or take away the cloth-covered block of ice, she saw herself reflected in those steel-gray eyes, and it made her heart melt. A soulmate was a wonderful thing to have.

"Sorry," whispered Jayce, "it's just a lot to take in at once. Hard to hear that I've burned what little political capital I had to secure a deal, only to find out that that very same deal is dead in the water."

Vi shook her head, speaking up for the first time since Jayce had entered Caitlyn's room, excited to share the results of the council's vote. "You're deal was dead even before Silco caught a terminal case of lead poisoning. He was never gonna give her up."

Jayce frowned, and Caitlyn wondered if he knew he was looking down his nose at Vi. Such a small thing, really, but noticeable, oh so noticeable how his voice changed in pitch, how he threw his shoulders back just a hair more when he addressed Vi rather than her.

"What, you think he would have denied the council justice? Thrown away everything he'd been struggling for, killing for? At the precipice of victory, he'd hold on to a curse, he'd protect Jinx?"

Vi was glaring at Jayce like she was trying to decide what bones she could get away with breaking, until Caitlyn put her hand on her other half's knee. Schooling her expression as best she could, Caitlyn gave Jayce the same sort of look he was giving Vi.

"When a man, dying at the hands of his adoptive daughter, insists with his final breath that he'd never betray her, it does leave something of an impression, councilman."

Jayce flushed, whether from anger or shame, Caitlyn couldn't quite tell. But before he could say anything else, Caitlyn pinched the bridge of her nose. "You couldn't have known, no one could have, that this wouldn't work out. What is done is done, but it still leaves us with quite the predicament."

Vi and Jayce both frowned, but before Caitlyn had to fight past her growing headache to explain, Vi's face fell, an echo to her expression when Jinx cast off her old name once and for all.

"The fucking Hexgem."

Caitlyn nodded, secretly thrilled her soul mate had picked up the thread of logic so quickly.

Jayce still looked confused, an expression Caitlyn could appreciate because of how rarely the technological prodigy showed such bafflement.

"To clarify what my partner said, the Hexgem that Jinx stole, and seems to have successfully integrated into a rocket launcher."

Jayce's expression went from befuddled to horrified, and Caitlyn had no doubt that his mind was racing, trying to calculate how much damage the unhinged anarchist could do with a weaponized Hexgem.

He rallied quickly, though his expression was still haunted. "It also occurs to me... with Silco out of the picture, who's top dog of the undercity? From what little I've heard, Silco didn't climb to his position of power democratically. I have to suspect whoever succeeds him won't either."

Caitlyn felt her stomach drop like she was in freefall, and judging from Vi's face she wasn't alone in the sensation. "Without Silco," Caitlyn whispered, bowing her head as her migraine grew, "who will be there to reign in Jinx?