Chapter Text
***
Caitlyn sits stiffly in the empty visitation room, breathing slowly to loosen her tense muscles, conjuring a posture of composed confidence, waiting. Her reflection stares back at her faintly from the safety glass, her uniform pressed immaculately, collar starched, black grieving band tied tightly around her bicep. Too tightly, so she can feel it with every movement.
Distant metallic sounds echo around her ears. She notices her jaw stiffening, breathes out to loosen it again.
The guard brings Inmate 516 into the visitation room. He slams her down heavily on the metal chair, shoves her shoulder, nods to Caitlyn: “I’ll be outside if you need me, Officer Kiramman. Careful with this one. If she doesn’t behave, give us a shout, we’ll make her cooperate.”
The gleefully menacing undertone in the guard’s voice does not escape Caitlyn, nor does the slight twitch on the inmate’s corded neck, a stiffening of muscles. The complicity he implied of Caitlyn, with such a cheerful tone, makes her stomach twist.
The door closes. The inmate reaches for the intercom, grabs the receiver with a hand tightly bound by filthy wraps, knuckles brown with old blood. She holds it to her mouth lazily, for a second saying nothing, staring Caitlyn down with steely eyes. Then: “What do you want?” an upward tilt of the chin, “Officer?”
Caitlyn dry-swallows, her throat clicking audibly; cursing inwardly for the show of nervousness, she breathes in to collect herself again. She reaches for her own receiver, staring her opponent down. A dirty mullet caked in oily black dye, auburn roots showing through. Too-pale skin matted with old makeup, old blood, old bruises. Gaunt cheeks.
Caitlyn knows the rumors: an illegal fighting ring, run by dirty guards, through prisons all over the country. They make inmates compete against each other, reward them with contraband to make them comply. This one reeks of alcohol, which means she must have recently won, and won big.
“Inmate 516”
She taps the tattoo under her eye, “It’s Vi.”
Caitlyn continues, “Grew up in a mining town, orphaned in the Bridge Riots of ‘02. Spent seven years in a foster home along with your sister. Boxing prodigy, on your track for the Olympics at 17, scholarship lined up. A chance for a good life. Then you blow up a warehouse. Blue dynamite, mechanical detonation. A total of fifteen injured, seven dead, including most of your foster family. Tried as an adult. Life sentence, ten years in.”
Inmate 516 clicks her tongue, her annoyance confirming the accuracy of Caitlyn’s research. “What -the fuck- do you want?”
“Sixty days ago, the attack on the government convoy. Same modus operandi, same blue dynamite. Same drawings on the detonator.” Caitlyn feels the breath rush from her lips uncontrolled, shaky. “I know it was you. I want to know how you did it. How you did it from here. Who helped you.”
Caitlyn follows the inmate’s eyes as they land on the black band at her arm. Her voice is raspy, but not unkind, as she asks: “Who did you lose?”
Caitlyn considers lying. Not answering. But the past sleepless nights weight on her, she can’t be bothered to play coy: “My mother.”
“Hmm.” The inmate’s gaze softens, falls.
“How did you do it?”
Grey eyes dart up again “I didn’t.”
Caitlyn almost calls bullshit. But it’s the fire she sees burning in those eyes, the fire of indignity, that makes her stop, and ask instead: “Who, then?”
“You’re the cop. Figure that out.” Vi drops the receiver, makes to stand.
“Wait.” Caitlyn pauses, breathes out, she can’t believe she’s about to say this, “I can help you.”
Vi settles back down picks up the receiver again as if it’s a snake she not sure is dead “How?”
“You said someone else did this. Was it somebody else’s fault ten years ago, too?”
Vi falls dead silent. Her eyes are attentive, clear like knives.
Caitlyn steadies her voice, “I can get your case reopened.”
“Why?”
Caitlyn considers lying, considers a turn of words, a silky phrase. She feels, looking at Vi, her bruises, her scars, hearing the brusqueness of her words, that nothing but honesty would work on her now.
“I want revenge. For my mother.” At Vi’s careful silence, she adds: “I’ll do anything.”
“I get that.” Says Vi, softly.
“Who was it?”
“You know who it was.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I did.”
“But you do.” Patiently, she adds: “Who would gain from it the most?”
“My mother and I were working together to pass a law. A crackdown on police corruption. Half the force is in the mob’s paybook.”
“Yeah.”
“That means…” There’s only one. A whispered name. The man who, over the past ten years, flooded the streets with shimmer and built an underground empire.
“Don’t say the name.” Says Vi, “Not here.” She gestures with her head to the door where the guard disappeared out of. Corrupted guard? Are all of them? Has the sickness that she has been fighting all over the country reached in here too? Caitlyn feels bone-tired.
“If I get you out of here, will you help me?”
“Do you know what you’d be getting into? Are you ready for this? For the eyes that would turn to you if by some miracle you manage to prove my innocence?”
“Why would… ‘they’… want to keep you in here so desperately?”
Vi just shrugs, but maintains piercing eye contact with Caitlyn, as if waiting for her to connect the dots.
“You couldn’t have been a danger to them, you were a child.” Caitlyn adds up, speaking slowly, “If they needed to silence you, they would have just killed you. They needed you alive, and in prison. They needed the world to believe you’re guilty. A showpiece. You’re taking the fall for someone.”
“Hm-hm.”
“I’ve read the transcripts of your hearing. You stayed silent for most of it. If you were innocent, and knew who the real culprit was, why not give any names?”
Vi stays quiet, holds her gaze, keeps the intercom close to her lips, almost like a kiss.
Caitlyn concludes, “You had someone to protect. From the police, yes, but from him too.” Cait closes her eyes, picturing the spread of her casefiles “You… you had a sister. It was her. Wasn’t she?”
“You must be first in your class.” Vi says in a singsong, mocking tone.
“Why throw her under the bus now?”
Vi breathes out through her teeth, slowly, gaze averted. Her arms, muscular through the rolled sleeves of her orange jumpsuit, are folded tight across her chest.
“The first time, she didn’t want to kill anyone. I know it. I was there. But now, she meant it. She planned it. It was a job.” A quick glance through the door, “I have my contacts. I’ve asked around.” Vi’s gaze turns back to Caitlyn, damp and full of hurt.
Caitlyn starts, “She works for Silco.”
Vi’s eyes jump back to the door. Caitlyn silently berates herself for the slip.
Vi looks back at her, “More. She loves him. Calls him father.”
The disgust, the betrayal in her voice. Cait can leverage this, can work with this. “If I get you out of here, will you help me bring them to justice?”
Vi barks a bitter laugh, “Half the system in his pocket. You’ll never make it.”
“I’m still going to try.”
A silence. Vi just stares at her, wolf-like. Caitlyn feels studied, eviscerated. She remains stone-still on her chair, gripping the receiver until the plastic squeaks.
Then, Vi seems to deflate, a sort of hopeless, uncaring surrender: “Sure, what the hell. I’d rather take a bullet out there than keep rotting in this hole. I just hope you’re ready for that bullet too.”
Caitlyn doesn’t need to hesitate a single second: “Oh, I am.”
Vi looks up again from behind her filthy black fringe, grey eyes widening slightly, as if she’s seeing her for the first time.
***
Leaning against the door of her Maserati, fingers tapping on her crossed arm, Caitlyn watches the Penitentiary doors slowly, noisily slide open.
Wide-eyed, still wearing the burgundy suit Caitlyn got her for her court hearing, Vi walks out of the gate, tentatively, shoulders up to her ears, as if waiting for someone to grab her by the collar and drag her back.
Caitlyn stands, opening the door of the car, a silent invite for Vi to get in the passenger’s seat. “No luggage?”
“No.” Vi spares one final glance at the penitentiary behind her, breathes out heavily, shoulders visibly lowering.
With her hair washed into a rich auburn and slicked back to hide the undercut, with her tattoos concealed by long sleeves and a buttoned collar, with the scarred face and the wide, clear, open eyes, she looks more like a traumatized veteran than a ten-year convict. The look that Caitlyn studied for her worked wonders on the jury, granting a unanimous vote in her favor.
Vi turns back to Caitlyn, “Is that a fucking blazer? Even in civilian clothes you look like a cop.”
“Get in the Car.”
Caitlyn walks around to the driver’s seat, slams the door closed, drives off too fast, eager to get away from this parenthesis that cost her ludicrous amounts of money in lawyer’s fees, months of her time and a suspension from her work, eager to get started on the next phase of her investigation.
It doesn’t take long for the silence to get stifling.
“Music?” she asks.
Vi shrugs. Elbows on the windowsill, chin on her hand, her eyes stay plastered to the window as they drive away from the prison, through the tree-line road, past rows of fields and gray skies.
The silence drags on. Mind buzzing with hyperactive thoughts, Caitlyn holds her tongue, gives Vi all the quiet time she can, until she can’t give anymore: “So, where to?”
“Hm?”
“Where do we start?”
Vi looks back at her. She looks disoriented and, without the makeup, young. It only lasts an instant, her eyes steel: “I’m going to need some time.”
“I got you out. Make good on your word. Help me find your sister.”
“I will.” Vi goes back to look through the window, “I can give you names. I can take you places. I can talk to people for you. Beat someone up, if you need me to. But I have nothing. No money, no place to stay. Not much help like this. I need time to sort myself out.”
Caitlyn clicks her tongue, the thought of waiting longer is blistering. “We wasted enough time already, trail’s going cold. While we’re working together, I’ll be taking care of you.”
Vi glances at her, without moving her head. Holds her gaze but says nothing.
Caitlin feels the urge to specify: “I’ll cover your expenses. You can stay at my place. I have plenty of rooms, and we’ll work better if you stay close.”
“Plenty of rooms, huh.” Vi’s eyes fall on the Maserati logo on the steering wheel, “You doing this off the books then?”
“Have to. I got suspended.”
“Hah!”
“Is that funny?”
“Sorta. Had you pegged for a goodie-two-shoes kinda type.”
Caitlyn huffs. “Marcus- my precinct’s captain. He’s most certainly in Silco’s paybook. I went behind his back to reopen your case. As soon as he found out, he got me suspended for insubordination. Without my mother’s influence, I can’t...” Caitlyn sighs, “I have one weapon to use, yet. My family is still funding the precinct. I can go to the board, threaten to pull it- but only once. And now is not the time. First, we need to present some solid evidence of Marcus's corruption. Ideally, a culprit.”
“Huh.”
Caitlyn glances off the road for an instant to meet Vi’s gaze, who’s looking at her like she’s an alien.
After a moment of silence, Caitlyn asks again: “So. Where do we start?”
“Alright, Officer. How about, first of all, you buy me a burger.”
***
Crammed in the sticky, dingy booth, Caitlyn lets her gaze travel around the diner, from the faded posters, the cobwebs, the suspicious smoke coming out the kitchen windows, the rows of dusty bottles, then back to Vi, who’s digging her teeth into the biggest, greasiest burger Caitlyn as ever laid eyes on. Pushed out by the force of her bite, bits of sauce-slathered meat and oily bell peppers splat down on her plate.
Caitlyn recoils, can’t hold her tongue anymore: “This… this is vile.”
Vi lets out a low, guttural sound of pleasure, as she bites in again.
“Is this why you had me drive two hours for?”
“Hm-hm.”
Caitlyn leans back and huffs, “This joint better have the best burgers in the state.”
“Want some?” Vi asks, pushing the sopping greasy burger towards her face.
Caitlyn considers all the choices in her life that led her to this moment. Tired, defeated, she sighs, leans forwards, and takes a full, deep bite. Some more peppers fall down, grease and sauce seeps down her chin.
Vi beams in surprise, “Hah!”
Cait frowns at her, leans back again, hand over her mouth, gulping down the too-big bite.
“God.” She reaches for a napkin, dabs at her face, grabs for Vi’s soda, swallows and sighs.
“Worth it, huh?” Vi cracks half of a smile that dimples her cheek.
Vi gobbles down the rest of the burger, dawns her drink. Cait saw her, as they walked in, eyeing the rows of dusty bottles over the counter, and was surprised to hear her order a soda instead, considering her hands had started to shake halfway through her ride. But Cait had kept her mouth shut about it.
“So, what now?” she asks.
“We pay.” Vi stands, holds her hand out.
Caitlyn sighs, reaches for her card.
Vi tuts, “Cash. Make it a fifty.”
“Fifty!?”
“Did they not teach you to tip well, in Boarding School?”
Caitlyn glares, hands her the bill. As Vi heads to the counter and dings the bell, Caitlyn absentmindedly picks at Vi’s leftover fries, watching her talk to the cook, their heads down in low whispers. Her shoulders look broad in the tailored suit, hips tight. Cait feels her jaw twitch and rubs at it. Thinks of the rows of texts from Maddie she still hasn’t answered, and sighs.
At the counter, a piece of paper is handed over. Vi walks back to her, hands in her pocket. She has undone the first couple of buttons in her shirt, a hint of tattoo peeks through her neck. “We’re off.” She says.
“Off?” Caitlyn frowns, “Where to?”
“It’s getting late.” She hands her a card with a kissy-mouth logo. A motel.
“Ah.”
“Relax, Officer. One night there won’t kill you.”
“Why- ”
“Told you. I need to talk to people. Want my help or not?”
Caitlyn sighs. Considers her other options, which are none. She grabs her jacket. “Let’s go.”
***
Caitlyn sleeps on top of the covers, with her clothes on. At 5AM she’s awake and staring at the stained ceiling. At six thirty she’s out of the room, having washed only her hands and face at the dirty sink.
Her first instinct had been to call Vi, then she realized Vi doesn’t own a phone. She goes to her room and knocks, waits. Nothing.
She walks to her car, in the back of her neck the prickling realization that she might have been had.
She paid for inmate 516’s release, got her a meal and a room and no way to guarantee that she would stick around to honor her end of the bargain.
She had been hasty, careless, thoughts jumbled by grief and anger. What would her mother have said, seeing her mess around aimlessly like this? Throwing money at the faintest leads, walking around blindly, allowing herself to be swindled?
Cait leans back against the car door, eyes on the row of doors, just in case she’s being harsh, just in case she misjudged. For minutes, nothing happens. She presses her hands to her face, sighs deeply.
From her pocket, her phone rings. This time, she answers:
“Hey Mads. No, I’m ok. I don’t know when.” she pauses as Maddie’s voice rambles sweetly, anxiously from the other side of the receiver. “As soon as I can. I told you I’m fine. Please. I can’t do this right now.”
From the motel’s balcony, a door opens, and Vi walks out of a room that’s decidedly not the one Cait got for her. A disheveled, baggy eyed young woman meets her at the doorway, wearing a paillette skirt and a patchy mesh shirt.
Caitlyn’s mouth hangs open.
From the other side of the phone her girlfriend calls her name. “Yeah, what? No. I’m sorry. I really have to go now. Have a nice day at work. Bye, Darling.”
Caitlyn closes the call and continues to watch as Vi talks to the girl. A prostitute? She knows she shouldn’t judge from appearances, but…
Vi is leaning against the doorway, in the girl’s space. They talk with heads held low. The girl takes Vi’s hand, scribbles something on it with a pen, kisses Vi on the mouth briefly, then closes the door again.
Vi walks to the car with her hands in her pockets.
“Had fun?” Cait asks, a bit disappointed in herself for the dryness of her tone. Seems some parts of her mother stuck with her.
Vi shrugs, “Hand me your phone.”
“I most certainly will not.”
Vi holds her right hand up, showing the number scribbled on her skin. “Call this, then. But let me speak.”
Caitlyn huffs, composes the number, puts the phone to Vi’s ear.
She’s surprised at how soft Vi’s voice gets as she finally speaks: “Hello ma’am. It’s Vi. Yeah, you heard right- I’m out.” Vi’s clear eyes rise for a moment to meet Caitlyn’s. “With a friend. Yeah, I know. Listen, can we meet? I need to find her.”
Caitlyn’s ears perk up. Vi’s holding her gaze, as if to say ‘Told you’. She says to the phone: “Thanks, ma’am. ‘Preciate it. Where’s your new place? Hm, could you repeat that?”
She snaps her fingers at Cait, points to the Montblanc pen in her coat’s pocket. Caitlyn refuses to hand it over, gestures that she’ll write it herself. Vi relents, offering her hand, repeating the address once again. Vi snatches her hand back as soon as Cait’s done.
“Alright. Thank you, ma’am.” A pause, “Missed you too. See you soon.” Vi sighs and steps back from the phone.
“Who was that?”
“Family friend. Let’s go.”
***
The address they transferred from Vi’s hand to the car’s navigator sets them out for a five hours drive. For the first two, they don’t speak. The road is straight and boring, a true-crime podcast the only thing keeping them company.
At the beginning of an episode focused on the Bridge Riots, Vi starts fiddling with the CarPlay controls to skip ahead; as she does so, Caitlyn lets her gaze fall on her hand.
Vi’s palm had felt coarse-textured as she’d written on it. She realized, through the months they’d been working on her case through the visitation room glass, her hands had always been bandaged.
Now, she can see she has long, slender fingers, surprisingly elegant. Her knuckles though are completely ruined, mangled knots of calluses and badly healed bones. Vi notices her watching and stuffs her hand in her pants pocket.
Caitlyn feels a strange mote of compassion thaw a hole through the barrier she’s been putting up against this woman. She asks: “So. What will you do, after?”
“After…?”
“After we find your sister, put her and Silco behind bars.”
Vi laughs a bitter, forced laugh. “You’re awful optimistic about this. Sure you get what we’re up against?”
“Just humor me.”
Vi sighs, pushes her palm against her mouth as she leans her elbow on the window, watching the trees fly by.
Moments pass, and Caitlyn is sure she won’t answer her. Until: “I don’t know. Can’t really imagine an ‘after’ yet. Until a few months ago I thought… I would die there.”
The mote of compassion expands in Caitlyn’s chest, painful, but warm. She pushes: “On your file, I read you were a boxing prodigy. On your way to the Olympics. Maybe there’s something there.”
“Hah!” Vi half-laughs, as if she’s surprised by the memory. “Yeah. I don’t think I have much a career left there.”
“If not as an athlete, you could always teach.”
“Teach, huh?” A pause, yet again, Vi’s eyes fixed on the road. “Maybe. Yeah. Back at the penitentiary, sometimes, I would show some moves to younger girls, they… I mean, yeah. I could see that.”
From her peripheral, Cait sees her turning towards her, and briefly lets her eyes off the road to meet her gaze. She finds a strange sort of wide-eyed gratitude there. “You know, I… huh.”
“Hm?” Cait has to look back at the road to keep the car straight.
This must make it easier for Vi to speak: “I never thanked you, properly. I mean, I know you did it because you need my help. But still. You got me out of there. Got my record cleared. All out of your own pocket, when someone else in your position might have tried to get the information beaten out of me and leave it at that.”
Cait feels a chill, suddenly. “What do you mean?”
“Just, thanks. I won’t forget it.”
“Oh.” Cait can’t help glancing at her again, but is not able to hold her clear, open gaze for long before her stomach knots. “You’re alright. Focus on holding up your part of the bargain, and we’re even.”
“Sure.”
After a moment, Vi adds: “We should stop there.”
“Huh?”
She points to an approaching sign, who announces the arrival to a small town. “It’s past midday. We should get a bite.”
***
Caitlyn chose the restaurant this time, a cozy little bistro, with wood paneling and an over-enthusiastic use of plants. She got herself a pasta salad which woke her appetite reminding her that, other than the bit of burger she took from Vi, she hadn’t eaten much the previous days.
She finishes quickly and watches Vi chew slowly and carefully through her steak, focused, eyes half closed- half glazed over with something between pleasure and disbelief. Though her attention often shifts to the glass of Riesling Cait got for herself, she only asked for water.
As Cait gets out of the bathroom, she sees Vi cozying up with the waiting staff, leaning casually on the bar.
Before they reach the car, Cait feels a feather touch on her elbow.
“Wait. This way.”
“What’s going on?”
“We draw too much attention dressed like this. Come on.”
Cait follows Vi around a couple of blocks, until they reach what looks like a thrift store.
Caitlyn stops on her tracks. “Oh, no.”
“Oh yes. Come on Officer, lets get you out of that blazer.”
“My name is Caitlyn.” But Vi is already through the door.
The interior is dusty, low lit, with a sickly-sweet smell Caitlyn can’t place. At the counter an old lady, who looks about to buckle over any minute, keeps a pencil hovering over a crossword puzzle. She hasn’t lowered it since they entered.
As Vi keeps picking out hangers of clothes, checking them out, putting some back in place, some others in a pile on an empty chair, Cait lets her hand skim through the racks, feeling the different textured fabrics pass through her fingers.
“I’ve never been to a place like this.”
“You don’t say.”
“Mock me if you want, but I-” Cait’s words dry in her throat as she turns. Vi is having no qualms whatsoever stripping down in the middle of the isle.
She’s pale and lean, intricate tattoos pockmarked by scars, breasts hugged tight by a battered sports bra. As she twists around to pick a shirt from the pile she selected, her thin skin stretches to reveal corded muscles in her taut midriff. It’s a physique built entirely for function, carved by hardship out of every ounce of nutrition it managed to get.
Vi puts on a shirt, Cait rips her eyes up and sees she has been caught staring- she doesn’t try to hide it and holds Vi’s gaze.
She’s not ashamed at finding her attractive. Attraction really is not something someone can control, no matter how misguided.
Vi throws her suit jacket at Caitlyn. “Thought we might trade this in. Make some of your money back.”
“We certainly won’t. This is Valentino.”
“That a friend of yours?”
“We won’t trade it in.”
Vi shrugs, “Your money.” She shimmies off her suit pants, shamelessly. Cait’s eyes drag down to her tight ass, strong thighs. Vi hops a bit to pull up a pair of jeans, zips it up and buttons it low on her hips.
“You gonna pick something out for yourself, or should I?” Says Vi.
Cait meets her eyes again, “You’re helming this. What should I be looking for?”
“Whatever you like as long as it doesn’t scream trust fund.”
Caitlyn huffs and makes her way through the low racks of the dusty shop, picking up hangers, examining clothes. She settles for a cream pullover and a faded suede jacket, plus a couple extra shirts, which she tries on behind the privacy of a moth-bitten red tent of the makeshift changing room.
When she gets back, she finds Vi leaning over the counter, now also wearing black hoodie and jean jacket, chatting amicably with the old lady. Their eyes are fixed on the crossword puzzle, and Vi is rubbing something out with the eraser head.
Caitlyn places her new shirts on the counter. “These, plus what we’re wearing. Vi, you should grab a change of shirts as well, in case we’re on the road longer.” Vi side-eyes her, doubtful, and Cait doubles down: “I won’t have you stink up my car. Go get them.”
Vi shrugs, making her way back to the store.
As the clerk starts adding up the cost of the clothes on a stained notebook, Cait’s eyes catch on the paper-plastered wall behind her. The face of her mother smiles at her from a poster promoting the Kiramman CleanAir state program.
She hadn’t expected to see her, out here, like this. She feels her gut twist. Her hands shake as she tries to extract her card from her wallet, her sweaty fingers slip. Her eyes well up in frustration.
“What’s going on?” Vi asks, placing the shirts on the counter.
Cait slams her wallet against her chest, and storms out of the store.
Out of the stuffy room, breathing the sharp autumn air, she feels better, clearer, though her eyes still sting.
She flops down at the bench next to the window, breathes deeply, hands on her hair.
She had vowed not to think about her mother, if she could help it. She had stuffed her grief down her guts piece by piece, resolved to work through it all at once, and only after her mother’s killers have been brought to justice. But Cassandra Kiramman had been working in the government for decades, her face pops up often, in posters and pamphlet and papers, and whenever it does, Cait’s resolve is shattered, and everything floods in.
As she is trying to throw the tears back in her throat, a butterfly-winged touch on her shoulder makes her turn her head up. Vi is looking down at her with eyes full of understanding.
She hands her the wallet. “You’ll always miss her. But- I think, that means she’ll never really go away.”
Caitlyn coughs. Stands up, stuffs the wallet back in her pocket. “Thanks.” Against her best judgement, surprised at how scratchy her voice sound, she adds: “You were ten, right? When your-”
“Yeah.”
“How did you do it?” Caitlyn clears her voice, “Get through it.”
“I didn’t” Vi shifts the shopping bags over to her other hand. “But I’m here. So, I guess there’s that.”
Somehow, the words feel comforting to Caitlyn in a grim, accepting sort of way. She nods, and, seeing a tag sticking out of Vi’s new jacket, reaches her hand out to remove it.
Vi flinches back, swats her hand back with her arm raised in a half-block. She is frowning, eyes darting around Caitlyn’s face, confused.
Cait is stunned too, for a second, then points and says: “Tag.”
“Oh.” Vi seems to deflate; she fists it and snaps it off.
Cait shakes off the uneasiness of the interaction. “Let’s get on with it. Road’s still long.”
***
One hour in, Vi falls asleep in the car, temple pressed against the glass. Cait turns off the radio as soon as she notices. Soon the only sounds are the roaring of the road and Vi’s soft breathing.
She steals glances at her whenever the road allows.
Vi twitches and frowns in her sleep. But without the mask of cockiness she wears while awake she looks softer- Her features surprisingly delicate. Pointed chin, full lips, and long, long lashes. Cait had never managed to notice them behind her habitual scowl.
Cait is annoyed when her phone rings; she fumbles for her Airpods before answering, trying to keep her voice down.
“Maddie. What is it? Can we… can we do this another time? No, I’m driving.” Caitlyn sighs as Maddie speaks, glancing over at Vi, who doesn’t seem to have woken up. “I don’t understand why you’re angry. You knew it going in that I… no, you listen. Maddie. Madeline.“
As Maddie’s voice rises in volume, Caitlyn screws her eyes shut for an instant: “I’m on the hunt for the psycho who blew up my mother, I’m sorry your emotional well-being is not top of my priorities right now.” Caitlyn feels her breath shake, she is so not in the right mindset for this “Oh, come on now, I thought I made myself clear that I… Well, I’m not responsible for the expectations you set up. Ok, maybe I am a bitch. Alright. No, I agree. Maybe this is what’s best for both of us. Oh, please don’t… Madeline.”
Caitlyn rubs at her forehead. She feels an underlayer of guilt, but no sadness, as she hears Maddie’s voice shaking with barely contained tears. It was a bad, bad idea starting a relationship so soon after her mother’s death, when she could only take, and had nothing to give in return. But she had made herself clear from the beginning, hadn’t she? Maddie knew what she was walking into.
Caitlyn sighs: “Alright- No, I am sorry, I am. Yeah. This is for the best. I’m sorry, Alright? See you at work.”
Caitlyn all but throws her airpods on the coin holder, and leans her head on her hand, elbow on the window, as she white-knuckles the wheel with her right. She wonders what she is turning into. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to be this cold. She can’t barely even muster the guilt for it. Her grief is emptying her out, she has to scrape the barrel of her soul to gather even a hint of emotion.
Vi still hasn’t moved. Caitlyn glances at her, and finds her staring back, forehead pressed against the window. How much has she heard?
“Sorry. Did I wake you? I tried to keep it down, but- “
“That’s alright.” Then, “Rough one?”
“Hmm. My fault. Should have ended it sooner. Shouldn’t have even started it at all, considering…” Caitlyn sighs in frustration, “I don’t know why I’m even telling you this.”
“No one else around, I guess.”
Caitlyn feels her jaw contract, painfully aware of the truth of that statement.
The rest of the drive goes by in silence.
***
The address leads them into a fishing town, tinged with mist and humming with the engines of processing plants.
Hands stuffed into her jacket’s pockets, Vi walks them to a surprisingly quaint storefront in a very old building, which Cait places at around early 20th century, which faded Liberty-style sign only reads: “Babette’s tea house and parlor.”
The inside is lit red from the light filtering through the windows and the tinted shades of the low lamps. At the counter, a young girl, who looks barely out of high school, with horn rimmed glasses and a turtleneck, almost lets her book fall as Vi approaches her.
“Oh, you’re… her.”
“Hi-” Vi glances at her tag, “Julie. Where can I find her?”
“She’s inside. Having uhm, Silver Tips Imperial.” She taps discreetly under her eye, “It’s, uhm. In the export section, behind the tent.”
“Thanks, Sugar.” Vi raps her knuckles on the desk before moving to the back of the shop. Before turning to follow Vi, Caitlyn catches the girl blushing furiously, adjusting the glasses up her nose.
Outside of the prison and courtrooms, Vi’s stride is more confident, Cait notices, she saunters like a panther, and her ass looks amazing in those slim fit old Levis.
Vi glances past her shoulder and fully catches her looking. Caitlyn raises her chin a bit defiantly, “What are we looking for, then?” she asks.
Vi smirks, lets her finger run past a row of glass jars full of dried leaves. She finds the Silver Tips Imperial, and turns the Jar on itself. A mechanism clicks audibly, VI pushes the shelf, which open on its hinges, revealing downward stairs and the rusty door to a storeroom, under which filters a sliver of purple-red light.
“Ah. Sex club. Should have figured.”
“Come on,” says Vi, making her way downwards.
As she opens the cellar door, she reveals a corridor bathed in red light, low humming music, sweetish smells and hushed noises.
From rows of rooms closed by heavily decorated curtains, huffs of smoke and vapor billow upwards, gathering high on the ceiling, swirling around the air vents.
They walk up to the end of the corridor, to the only room closed by an actual door. It is waited by another girl, older, with a lacy corset and mask, sitting on a stool at a small, prohibition-era mahogany desk. She’s writing on a ledger with a ridiculous peacock-feathered pen.
“I’m here to see Babette,” Vi says.
“She’s doing couple’s therapy right now” From the door behind her, a whip cracks, and a moan rips. Impassible, the girl continues: “Shouldn’t be long. Please, make yourselves comfortable. That room’s free.” She points the feather to a bead-curtained doorway.
They walk in, the beads sliding and clinking over their shoulders.
It’s a cozy space, with walls covered in vintage photos and occupied mostly by a velvet chaise-longue, which Vi spares no time in draping herself over, leaving very little space for Caitlyn to sit besides her. So she doesn’t, deciding instead to take a turn of the room, feeling Vi’s eyes following her wolfishly. It makes Cait feel on edge, and it’s not even her first time in a sex club.
She lets her hand hover over a glass cabinet with expensive-looking leather straps on display, and with a practiced smile and feathery voice she asks: “So, you do this often?”
“Not really. You know. What with having been in prison and all.” Vi’s voice is unreadable, Caitlyn doesn’t quite get if she’s being serious or playing along.
She clinks the chain of a pair of handcuffs hung on the wall and turns to Vi with a sly smile: “Too bad. It’s great fun.”
Vi's eyes turn cold, glaze over. She grabs Caitlyn by the belt and yanks her forward.
Caitlyn loses her balance, landing almost square on her lap, only barely managing to brace her arms on the flowery wallpaper behind her.
She’s inches from Vi’s face, looking down at her. She feels a huff of her breath ghost over her cheek. Traitorous warmth spreads from Cait’s stomach down to her belly, settles low and humming.
“So this is it, huh, Officer? The reason why you keep looking at my ass, paying for all my shit. This gonna be part of our ‘arrangement’?”
Caitlyn’s face suddenly scalding, her breath hitches as Vi’s hand, still gripping her belt, slowly drags her forward. Their hips flush as Cait finds herself fully on Vi’s lap, arms bent at the elbow, their noses almost brushing.
Vi’s voice is raspy as she looks up at her mouth, “I’m alright with that. Could be fun for me, too. You’re pretty hot, for a Pig.”
“I’m- that’s not!” its something on the cold, resigned hatefulness of Vi’s last sentence that shocks Caitlyn back from the sudden stupor of arousal and into her senses, gets her to finally scramble herself free and stand up again.
She smooths her jeans down, trying her best to stifle the embarrassing thrum she feels at their seam.
She clears her throat and says: “I’m not expecting- I’m not expecting anything of you. God, that’s not- Our arrangement only lasts insofar our goals align. You don’t have to fuck me just because I got you dinner and a change of clothes!” After a beat she adds, “Frankly, I’m quite offended.”
Cait almost expects to find Vi bristling, but she’s surprised at how open, almost confused her eyes look.
“Huh, well.” Vi says, “Your loss.”
That’s when the bead curtain opens, the girl in the corset enters: “She’s ready for you.”
***
Inside the wooden door, in a red-satined parlor, the smallest old lady Cait’s ever seen, and the first she’s ever seen wearing lace lingerie, is holding Vi’s hand in her ridiculously tiny gloved ones, patting it gently.
“Violet, honey, things really haven’t been the same.” She says, and dabs a tear off of her heavily made up face. “The family’s all broken up, spread to different cities. We all couldn’t bear to stay there, after.”
“So I’ve heard. Wasn’t easy finding you.” Cait can hear a hint of trembling emotion on Vi’s voice, “Where are the others?”
“Little Man’s built a nice little commune, up in the mountains. Off the grid. I’ve only ever seen photos. But I could give you directions.”
“I’d appreciate that.” Vi says, “Anyone else?”
“Shimmer’s got most of them. Silco got the others.”
Cait can see Vi’s shoulders tensing visibly. “Like Jinx?”
Babette’s face softens, so much it seems to melt. “Oh honey, I had hoped you hadn’t heard about that.”
“She made sure I did. She came to visit you know? Left me a gift.” Vi Raises her sweater and shirt, showing a jagged pink scar on her left side.
Cait bristles. “Wait, you’ve actually seen her? She stabbed you?”
Vi only answers with a sideway glance which seems to invite her to shut the fuck up. Cait doesn’t comply: “Why the hell did you not tell me that sooner? When did this happen?”
Vi answers Babette rather than Caitlyn: “She’s come see me a few months back. Guards just let her walk in and out. Said something about ‘finishing off the rest of her family’. She blames me, I think, for… everything. Who knows what lies Silco slobbered in her ears.”
“Oh, honey.” Babette puts a tiny hand on Vi’s scarred one.
“I know we lost her, too, that day. I’ve spent ten years pretending that we didn’t, but I was just kidding myself.” Says Vi, “And now she’s going around hurting other people. Caitlyn’s mom… you must have heard about the government convoy.”
Caitlyn tenses, says nothing. But Babette is sharp. “Caitlyn… Kiramman?”
Cait nods, Babette raises hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
Caitlyn feels strangely grateful as Vi cuts it short: “We need to find Jinx.”
“I don’t know where she is. And you really shouldn’t be digging around for that, with the company she keeps.”
“I won’t have her hurt anyone else. We’re stopping her.”
Babette’s eyes shut for a moment. “Sevika. Remember her?”
“Traitorous cunt. Yeah.”
“One of my girls visits her sometimes, she has a place down by the docks, on the block behind the Old Cannery. She might know something. Don’t know the exact number, but if you stake out the Cannery you might catch her.”
Vi takes her tiny hand and places a kiss on her knuckle. “Thank you, Ma’am. I owe ya.”
“Sweet girl, I really didn’t do you any favors by telling you this. Please, be safe.”
***
They are sitting in Caitlyn’s car, parked at the Cannery’s corner, in clear view of the dingy residential buildings behind it.
They haven’t said a word in hours.
Caitlyn is still speechless that Vi has hidden such important information as Jinx having visited her- and stabbed her. If that’s even the truth.
What if she’s lying, had been lying from the start? Is she really that set on putting her sister in jail, or does she wants to find her so she can join her? What if she’s been playing Caitlyn for a fool since the moment she’s seen her?
The paranoia builds up, and up, and it has her mother’s voice, warning her of outsiders, telling her to be wary of everything, everyone, of all the people ready to take advantage of her. Caitlyn had opposed that view all her life, hard enough to enlist in the force, in order to help the same people that her mother had been warning her against.
But her words must have gotten stuck, it seems, somewhere down Caitlyn’s soul. Now that she’s gone, their hold is strong, their claws sink stronger than ever.
The day passes, fueled by coffee and chips from a nearby shop. And so does the night, misty and quiet. They take turns sleeping in the reclined seat.
When dawn comes, Vi goes to grab MacDonalds at the corner.
“I didn’t mean to, you know.” Says Vi, back in her seat, as she unwraps her breakfast; Cait turns to her in surprise, and she specifies: “Offend you. Yesterday.”
“Oh, uhm.” That exchange in the parlor had escaped her mind completely, rushes back to her memory with a flood of warmth.“Nevermind that.”
After a moment, Caitlyn’s curiosity wins her over. “Why would you assume that I, uh…”
“Come on. You clearly want me.”
“Well!” Cait scoffs, “Aren’t you full of yourself.”
Vi shrugs.
Cait feels uneasy, and a little bit sad. “Are you used to that kind of… arrangement?”
“I don’t mind. You have to give people what they want, if you want to get something back.”
Cait breathes out in frustration. Her heart is beating hard as it wraps around the understanding of what Vi is saying. But she knows she can’t really, fully comprehend her situation, shouldn’t dress it with her own judgement, or pity.
So she says: “What do you want?”
Vi looks slightly taken aback “What do you mean?”
“It’s a pretty simple question, isn’t it?”
Vi’s gaze drops down to her hands, she picks at a scab on her knuckles. “I want to make up for it. What my sister did.”
“Alright. And then, what?”
Vi shakes her head slightly, as if the thought is inconceivable. Caitlyn insists: “After we fix this, after Jinx is in jail. For yourself, what do you want?”
In a flash of anger, Vi tears her eyes away. “You can’t just ask me that. How am I supposed to…” she stops, eyes glued to the window. “What the fuck…Powder?”
Cait follows her gaze. Out of one of the apartment blocks, a big, mean-looking woman, hair tied back, in a half-ponytail, shawl tight around her shoulder, drags by the hand a small girl with pig-tailed blue hair.
Vi grabs Caitlyn by the wrist. “That can’t- do you see her?”
Cait leans over her shoulder, to better see out the window. “Yeah. Is that Sevika?”
“The girl, do you see her?”
“I see her.”
“That’s not possible. That’s my sister, she’s…”
Caitlyn catches immediately the way Vi’s eyes lose focus as she leans back into the seat, hyperventilating. Panic attack, right when their target is on the move.
Caitlyn swears under her breath. “Stay here.” She says.
She reaches over Vi’s lap to grab her gun from the glove box, the keys from the ignition.
Shrugging on the holster, then her jacket, she tails the woman and the child from a safe distance, around a couple of blocks, until they dive into a tight alleyway stinking of fish next to a warehouse. Cait holds for a second, then follows.
As soon as she walks into the alleyway, she is grabbed by the back of the neck and slammed face-first against the wall.
Sevika holds her down with the ease of a child with a puppet, a darkly gleeful note in her voice as she asks:“And who are you, hm?” The hold on the back of her neck tightens, Caitlyn chokes on the pain between her eyes and the blood streaming down her nose. “Why are you following us?”
Caitlyn struggles against the wall to reach her gun in her holster. She is noticed, picked back up and thrown on the ground, the gun scattering away. A steel-toed boot slams on her wrist before she can even try to reach it, she screams.
Vi slams her shoulder against the woman’s side, tackling her to the ground. She’s on top, punching down. “You fucking traitor.” Knuckles come up bloody, as she screams: “Where is she?”
Sevika is much bigger- after a moment of disorientation, Vi is easily kicked off. They scramble to their feet, Vi starts raining punches, which are easily blocked- and countered- by Sevika’s high-tech prosthetic arm. Red blossoms on Vi’s face as she exposes herself too much in order to land as many blows as she can under Sevika’s guard.
Cait swallows back the pain radiating from her nose to the back of her eyes, spits it out on the ground along with a glob of blood, tries to stand on her knees despite her swimming vision, reaches for her gun- where the fuck is her gun?
Her eyes land on a dark corner of the alleyway, besides a garbage bin. The child, from before- gun in both hands, pointed at the ongoing fight, a shaky resolve in her golden eyes.
“You! Drop it!”
Caitlyn rushes her, grabs the tiny arm holding the gun, drags it upward so the weapon points at the sky.
“Isha don’t.” Sevika roars, “I told you to hide!” her voice is drowned by Vi’s fist on her face, and the spray of blood that follows.
The child shrieks, kicks, scratches with the free hand, doesn’t let go. Cait pulls the gun up until her muscles scream and the kid’s grasp is forced loose, a bracelet on her wrist tangles on the handle and snaps.
The kid slips between Caitlyn’s legs, jumps on Vi’s back, climbs her like a squirrel, sinks tiny teeth on the side of her neck, visibly draws blood.
Vi yells, “Fuck” as she scrambles away from Sevika, trying to rip the kid off of herself. Sevika’s blows reach her first, raining on her stomach.
Cait fires three warning shots into the air.
Everyone freezes. She points the gun. “Everyone back away right now.”
Sevika raises her hands, sneers “You fucking fool.” She backs away. “Isha, run. Run.”
The child obeys, jumping off Vi’s back and tailing it down the alleyway. To Cait’s surprise, Sevika follows, heavy boots stomping the pavement.
Vi makes to follow, but a gunshot ricochets on the wall besides her, stopping her on her tracks.
Another gunshot, Cait rushes forward, grabs Vi by the back of the shirt and drags her behind the garbage bin.
Vi’s arms come up around Caitlyn’s head as she drapes herself around her, while bullets hit metal. “Who the fuck is shooting at us?” she yells.
Cait’s eyes follow the direction of the shots. Sniper from the warehouse roof, must be, that’s the only place with a clear line of sight into the alleyway.
Peering above Vi’s shoulder, she looks for a way out. “That alley. It’s in their blind spot. But we’d have to dash for it.”
Vi looks at her like she’s insane. Cait reaches a hand out of the cover of the bin, another shot slams against the wall just as Vi drags her back into cover. “What are you doing?”
“I know that rifle. On the sixth shot, the next one, they’ll have to reload. That will take them three seconds. That’s when we run.”
“Don’t risk your fucking arm for it.” Vi swears under her breath, takes a beat, shrugs off her jacket and tosses it over their heads.
Another shot pins the jacket against the wall.
“NOW” yells Cait. They dash for the alleyway, bullets hitting aimlessly at the ground behind them as they run out of sight.
***
As soon as they reach the car, Caitlyn stomps on the accelerator and skids out of the harbor. She doesn’t stop until she’s out of town, zipping through a seaside road, and Vi’s voice reaches her through the ringing in her ears.
“Slow down. Slow down, we’re fine.”
Tentative, bloody-knuckled fingers enter her vision as they land softly on her wrist.
Caitlyn breathes out, notices she’s going miles past the speed limit, takes the foot of the accelerator.
“Pull over, won’t you? Let’s take a breath.”
Caitlyn obeys, slows down next to a lookout spot, pulls the brake. She goes to rest her forehead against the wheel, winces back as pain shoots through her brain.
“You alright?” asks Vi.
Cait nods, “Need some fresh air.” Dried blood crackles around her nose and lips as she speaks.
She scrambles out of the car, breathes in the salt of the sea. She sits down on the dirt with her back against the door.
The sea is dark in front of her, waves crashing, grey skies above it, the cold sun only a pale disk behind it.
In a minute, Vi walks out, crouches in front of her. Cait really looks at her. She's beaten as all hell, dirty, cheekbones and brow swollen and bloody. “You’re a mess.” Vi says, “First time in a fight?”
“Oh, bug off.”
Cait’s about to speak again, shuts up as she sees Vi slowly reaching for her face. Gently, so gently she puts her hands around her cheeks. Her grey eyes, as pale as the sky, are staring at her with a sort of amused tenderness. “You did good.”
Cait, stunned speechless by the softness of her touch, her sweet voice and the scar on her pink lip, screeches into the sky as Vi snaps her broken nose back in to place.
Blood gushes forward as she stupidly tries to push it back in. “Fuck! Ow, fuck.”
“Language, Officer!”
“Oh I hate you.” Caitlyn mewls, as Vi’s shrugging out of her shirt, pushing it towards Caitlyn’s nose. “Hold this here. Don’t be squeamish, now.”
Caitlyn presses the fabric against the pain on her face, tears in her eyes as it soaks in blood. Vi waits patiently, squatting in front of her, until the throbbing on Cait’s nose dulls down and she dares remove the shirt. The flow of blood seems to have stopped.
“There, much better.” Says Vi, half a smile tugging at her cheek. “Thank God you got me spares, huh?”
Cait glares at her, then sighs. “What now?”
Vi shrugs, sits down properly on the ground in front of her. “Don’t think we’ll catch Sevika again. She won’t be careless now that she knows we’re on her tail.” She chews on a fingernail. “Did you get anything out of her, before I…?”
“No.” Cait sighs, “The Sniper… they couldn’t have been waiting for us, if they had been holed up in that position. They must have been there for them.”
“Someone wanted to kill them?” Vi shakes her head in defeat. “Silco’s rivals, maybe. I know he has plenty.”
“Someone wanted to murder a child.”
“I don’t know.” Vi pushes a hand in her hair, holds it there, hiding her face. With strained voice, she says: “The girl. She looked just like my sister.”
Caitlyn frowns. “What are you thinking?”
“It can’t be.”
“Do you think… do you think she’s her daughter?”
“No, it can’t… she’s too young. She would have been so young when…” Vi’s face scrunches closed, she pushes her fists against her brows. She looks in as much pain as Cait’s ever seen her.
Tentatively, Caitlyn reaches to touch her knee. Vi startles and flinches back, eyes snapped open.
Cait raises her hand, palm up. Intuition strikes her. She reaches in her pocket, where she stuffed the bracelet that snapped off the girls wrist. She carefully holds it up. A white and blue pendant, with a flower motif, turning round and round itself. “The girl had this. Does it mean anything to you?”
Vi holds her palm up to receive it. “Hold on… it can’t be. This is Ekko’s.”
“Who?”
“A friend. Haven’t seen him in ten years. But… Babette’s mentioned him, mentioned he had built a… some sort of a commune?”
“Think that’s where they’re headed?”
Vi shrugs. She looks tired, deflated, bruises blooming on her shirtless torso.
“Well, it’s a lead. You should call her.” Cait stands up, wipes dirt from the back of her jeans. “While you do, I’ll get us to a pharmacy, then we should find a nice hotel to wind down for a bit.”
“Do we really need…”
“Oh, we do. I’m not spending another night in the car. And we -both of us, really need to shower.”
***