Luxurious Anarchy (Lux/Jinx)

Chapter 19: I'm So Sorry

"C'mon, we're almost there," Vi said, doing her best to make her voice encouraging and not pleading.

It didn't help. The man leaning on her left side, the side where she had not taken a bullet to the thigh, gurgled something in response as his legs went out from under him.

Vi cried out, the sudden increase in weight almost dragging her to the ground too. With a grunt, she heaved the man upright, and took a more firm hold around his middle, ready to keep moving on.

His eyes were open. He wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing.

"FUCK," shouted Vi, and it took everything in her not to cry and scream and rage any harder than that single swear. Of the ten Home Guard to survive her sister's retaliation, three had died of their injuries shortly thereafter.

Now four had.

Gently letting the body down, Vi grabbed the young man's dog tags, and with the snap of the cheap tin clasp breaking, added the pair of press forged tin tokens to the other three sets.

"Fucking hell Jinx, did you have to..." Vi sighed, there was no point even finishing the sentence. Of course she had to, of course it had to be this way. No one learned until it cost enough blood or money to make ignorance unacceptable.

Vi stood with a grunt, her tattered body bag poncho flapping in the warm undercity air. Limping forward, Vi growled at Cameron's questioning gaze, the big man hurriedly putting his head down and breaking into a double time jog to move up the line of survivors.

"Vi..." whispered Caitlyn, and Vi felt some of her frustration roll off her shoulders. Her soulmate's touch, a gentle hand on the small of her back took the rest of Vi's tension. She leaned into Caitlyn's touch, even as the pair moved as quickly as the ragged band of survivors and Enforcers could.

"It shouldn't have come to this, we warned them, fuck, SHE warned them," Vi hissed, hands clenching and unclenching as she limped along.

"I think the topic of who warned who is one we should leave well enough alone," Caitlyn said in a slow, even tone. Vi grunted by way of response. Her soulmate had a point, but it didn't mean she had to like it.

"If anyone puts two and two together I'd be shocked. My opinion of the council's collective intelligence is pretty fucking negative right now, Cupcake."

A snort, and a few bells of high-pitched giggling echoed up and down the grubby streets of the lane. With a shaky breath, Caitlyn quietly choked out, "My love, you've never spoken of the council with high praise, why would today be any different?"

They shared a smile, one that intensified as the early evening sky became visible. Up ahead, Lee waved from an intersection, ushering the scattered Home Guard and Special Enforcers forward.

In the fading daylight, Caitlyn's eyes gleamed like gemstones, and Vi could feel a sudden anxiety blooming in her chest, fear and confusion that was only hers because of her bond.

"Lenn get-!" shouted Caitlyn, but whatever she was going to say next was drowned out by the boom of a gunshot.

Lenn's body slumped forward, twitching pathetically as blood poured out of the gaping throat wound. A puddle of crimson formed around the downed Special Enforcer, and in the time it took for the sound of the shot to finish echoing, the last of the spasms had stopped.

Vi spun and lashed out, kicking a nearby door off its hinges. She'd heard Caitlyn's laughter echo, by the docks, just as day turned to night and the shifts changed.

The area had been cleared out, made into a killzone, for who? For a handful of Home Guard? A few Special Enforcers? Ridiculous, bordering on impossible to imagine.