Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She stood in front of the bathroom sink, her trembling hand holding a positive pregnancy test.

He had left. He had abandoned her.

No. Correction. She hadn’t been abandoned by anyone—it was she who had thrown him out of her life, because she didn’t need him.

And it was much better that way. Ekko was a killjoy who wasn’t willing to join her in any of the plans Jinx had for the rest of her life. He wasn’t willing to follow her into madness, into her affinity for creating chaos wherever she went. He wasn’t willing to step forward at her side.

He was afraid to jump into the void for her.

But Jinx was the queen of the city, and chaos was part of her signature. Missteps were her trademark, always impulsive and occasionally reckless. She couldn’t let him hold her back, stop her from moving forward.

The decision had been made—more by her than by him—and both walked away after what could have been a blossoming, perfect relationship that soon became a nightmare.

Because Jinx was proud and wouldn’t let anyone trample over her—not even him. And she had more important things to deal with.

Silco, her legal guardian, was the leading crime boss of the entire Undercity. Jinx had gained notoriety because of that—infamous, yes, but earned on her own merit. Silco and she pulled the strings of the city as they pleased. Of course, they had to tread carefully when it came to Piltover and its government, infested with corruption and hypocrisy, especially when they played the role of the “good guys” and sent their stupid Enforcers to screw up their lives and their business.

A nearly generational business, since Silco planned to leave it in Jinx’s hands once he was gone. And Jinx was content with that—she was good at it. She had a natural talent for getting her way and scaring off a few rats in the process.

Besides, it was fun.

It was damn fun to collect Silco’s debts, to walk the streets striking terror with her hollow steps, to be on everyone’s lips as one of the most dangerous criminals in Zaun.

Her ego swelled—and with it, her arrogance—because honestly, who would even dare to cross her path?

Her life was perfect enough for a Zaunite. Good enough for an orphaned girl who had been left in the care of one of her parents’ best friends. For a girl who once had nothing and now had everything.

She held the cigarette between her index and middle fingers. She inhaled deeply while the man in front of her mumbled something she didn’t care to hear. The background noise of the bar kept her ears buzzing, the barely-there lighting reflected on the man’s sweaty forehead.

“... I swear I’ll have the money in three days,” he finished.

Jinx exhaled, blowing smoke in his face. She dropped her feet from the table and leaned in close to him.

“Promises are only good for two things,” she said, “breaking them or delaying the inevitable. You know what’s inevitable here?”

She shot a knowing glance to Silco’s men flanking her, who had moved behind the man. In a second, both grabbed him and pinned him against the wooden table, knocking over all the drinks and ashtrays on it. Jinx raised her foot, planting her boot right in front of his face, now crushed by the enforcers. She drew her weapon, spinning it between her fingers with an almost inhuman speed, ending with the barrel pressed against his temple.

“The bullet in your head,” she grinned darkly.

“No, no, no, please, wait!” the man pleaded.

But Jinx’s smile didn’t falter. Her glowing pink gaze shimmered with euphoria—and she pulled the trigger.

Blood splattered across the table, dripping over the rounded edges until it pooled on the floor.

“He was our best client,” Sevika muttered, stepping back to avoid the red mess staining her boots.

“You said it yourself,” Jinx mocked, holstering her weapon. “Was.”

Sevika growled, teeth clenched.

“Silco—”

“Silco,” Jinx cut her off, “authorized me to kill whoever I wanted. You know as well as I do he doesn’t like waiting on a payment.” The girl lifted her foot, a sticky string of blood stretching between the sole and the floor. “Clean it up.”

Before Sevika could object about what kind of jobs she was supposed to do, and why cleaning up the blue brat’s messes wasn’t one of them, Silco’s tall figure pushed through the bar patrons after silence fell post-shot. Cigarette smoke outlined his hostile silhouette. He stopped in front of the scene, stared at the corpse, then at Jinx’s nonchalant expression. He said nothing, turned, and went back to his office.

Sevika and Jinx exchanged a look. They both knew what it meant: they had to follow. He wouldn’t say it again—but if they didn’t, there would be consequences.

Silco sat behind his desk and glared at them as soon as the door shut behind them.

“I told her he was our best client,” Sevika tried to justify.

“What a pathetic excuse. I should sew your mouth shut one of these days,” Jinx barked, flopping onto the couch with a groan.

Silco inhaled sharply, rubbing his forehead with one hand. It looked like the world was collapsing on him—and Jinx didn’t seem to care one bit. But he knew full well she’d go down with him if he were caught, and that was the last thing he wanted. Why couldn’t she understand that? Was her immaturity so overwhelming—or did she just not care?

“You knew he was an important client, that Piltover is breathing down my neck, that we need to move that Shimmer,” he scolded. “And to top it off… I have your sister breathing down my neck too!”

Jinx bit her lower lip in anger, opening her eyes to shoot a glare at Silco.

She’d screwed up, but not that bad.

Not bad enough to bring up her stupid sister—the one who’d abandoned her years ago.

“You know I hate when you mention her.”

“That’s the least of my worries right now,” Silco snapped. “Ever since that foolish girl joined the Enforcers, business has been tanking. And you go and kill my best client! Now I have to find someone else to get all this shit to Piltover.”

Jinx tried to speak, but Silco stopped her with a look.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said. “You’re not the one doing it.”

“I can go unnoticed!”

“Your face is on every damn ‘Wanted’ poster in the city!”

Jinx grinned proudly, much to Silco’s frustration. Sometimes he couldn’t fathom how he had the patience to deal with her childish outbursts.

“If you keep this up, I’ll ban you from all external work. You can start supervising the factories—”

“What?!” Jinx interrupted. “That’s Sevika’s boring-ass job! The idiot just needed more time, what was I supposed to do?! You said we don’t wait for anyone!”

“That was before everything started falling apart! Next time you want to show off, think twice,” Silco yelled, taking a breath and massaging his temple. “If it weren’t for your mother—”

He stopped cold, biting his tongue. The heat of the moment had made him say too much.

“Because my mother... what?” Jinx shot back, offended. “She abandoned me with you? Is that what you were going to say?”

“Of course not.”

“Forget it. I get it now.”

She said nothing more. Her throat felt dry from the whirlwind of emotions in her head. She left the office and headed back to her room.

Arguments with Silco didn’t bother her—they were common. After all, she was eighteen and he was an old man; the clash between them was inevitable. Silco acted like a father to her, sometimes too overprotective for her taste—but in the end, she understood that was his role.

The problem was when Silco loosened his tongue and brought up her sister or her mother. That’s when the bile rose in her throat.

Her mother, Felicia, had left when she was just a child—same as her sister, Violet, who had joined the Enforcers thinking that was “the right thing to do.” Because Shimmer was, after all, a drug that drove people mad and eventually killed them. Something neither Jinx nor Silco cared about, as long as it gave them the power to stay on top.

“Doing the right thing.” If she thought about it, he had also left for that reason. Ekko had also decided that what she and Silco were doing was wrong—and he wanted to fix it.

By abandoning her. Just like her mother and sister had done.

The scent of rain and wet earth drifted into the room. The warmth of a pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders, and the breath brushing her skin made her shiver.

“Hey, gorgeous.”

Jinx jumped off the bed, startled by the bright olive-green eyes of her companion.

“Lars?” she asked, overwhelmed. “What the hell? How did you get in?”

The black-haired boy approached her dangerously with a bold grin.

“I have my ways,” he replied. “Especially when it’s to be with you.”

He lunged at her, kissing her neck.

“I’m not in the mood, Lars,” Jinx said, pushing him away. “Silco was a jerk to me today.”

The boy let out a mocking laugh.

“When is he not?”

Jinx scrunched her nose in annoyance. Only she could talk about him that way—because Silco might be an annoying old man, but he was her annoying old man.

“Come on, Jinx,” Lars urged, his voice low and sultry. “We’ve been seeing each other for months, don’t you think we could… increase our number of encounters?”

Jinx remained silent as his hands traced her waist and his lips brushed against her skin.

He wasn’t Ekko.

But Ekko had left. He wasn’t there anymore.

So many times, Jinx had lost everything she loved. So many times she had simply been pushed aside, replaced, abandoned. Now she knew—even the idiot Lars, with whom she had chosen to start something a while ago, could do the same. He could leave, too.

She had made her own choices—and those choices had brought her here. To this constant, persistent desire…

To not be alone.

Not again.

Silco had decided to give her a second chance after the girl went three days without speaking to him. Although, in reality, Jinx held much of Silco’s will in her hands, it was clear that, in the eyes of the crime lord’s associates, Jinx was nothing more than his pet.

“I heard Silco tightened your leash.”

Renni looked at her with a sneer, sitting beside her at the bar. Jinx clicked her lips loudly and then took a sip of her drink, eyeing her from the corner of her eye.

“The cargo’s ready. You can get lost now,” she said.

The woman smiled again, ignoring the remark. Rare were the times when any of them—anyone, really—had the chance to mess with Jinx, and this was one of those times. She definitely wouldn’t waste it.

“You shouldn’t play too far from daddy anymore. You could get hurt,” she mocked. “And Silco wouldn’t have a legacy to protect.”

“Is that a threat?” Jinx asked, with sardonic disbelief.

Her hand went toward her gun holster but froze mid-move as she remembered Silco’s words. They were in trouble, and killing one of his biggest partners wouldn’t help. She reluctantly pulled her fingers back and wrapped them around her glass again.

Renni’s only son ran by them with a heavy gait, letting out laughs that were unbearably loud for Jinx.

“Shut your annoying rat up. This isn’t a place for children,” the girl spat.

Renni’s expression vanished immediately, and Jinx seemed pleased with that. The older woman slammed her fist on the bar, making the glassware rattle.

“Don’t you dare talk about my boy like that,” she snarled. Jinx smiled even wider. She loved making Silco’s old partners' blood boil. “The day you have one, I’ll make sure you regret it, you stupid brat.”

This time it was Jinx’s smile that faded. Renni stormed off, stirring the air around her. Jinx took another sip and swirled the glass in front of her face, making the liquid move to the rhythm of her wrist, hypnotizing herself.

“Ha!” she scoffed. “I’d rather die than bring one of those horrible things into the world.”

She set the glass down and sighed, whispering to herself,

“There’s no way I’ll ever be a mother.”

Because even thinking about it was insane. She didn’t completely hate her life, but she did hate the idea of bringing a second life into the world and having to care for it. The word “responsibility” wasn’t in her vocabulary, and a kid came with a lot of that.

The thing is, life has curious ways of playing a twisted version of Russian roulette. And Jinx had been feeling weird for weeks, with a delayed period that had lit a red warning light in her head the moment Renni mocked her.

She stood in front of the bathroom sink, her trembling hand holding a positive pregnancy test. Her pale skin had gone almost translucent. All she could think about was Silco killing her—or throwing herself off a rooftop.

“There’s no way I’ll be a mother,” she kept repeating in her head. “There’s no way I’ll be a mother.”

There was no way she had screwed up her life like this. She couldn’t have. Shit—she didn’t want to. Just the thought of something growing inside her right now, something that would be kicking her guts as soon as it got bigger than a grain of rice, made her nauseous.

She wasn’t going to change diapers. She wasn’t going to give up her life—her goddamn good life—for a smelly, ungrateful brat who wouldn’t even let her breathe freely once it came into the world.

She wasn’t going to be someone’s slave. She wasn’t going to hand her life over to that thing. Never.

The bathroom door burst open.

“What the hell is taking you so long? We were supposed to leave thirty minutes ago.”

Sevika walked in without asking, her expression impatient—until she noticed the pregnancy test Jinx had tried to hide, unsuccessfully, behind her back.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” the older woman barely managed to say.

She hadn’t seen the result yet, but the fact that Silco’s brat had even bought a pregnancy test was already a bad sign—especially for her, since the dumb girl was her responsibility.

She took a step forward and snatched the test, saw the result, and her face went from white to purple. She was furious, scared, and itching to strangle her right then and there.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she roared, waving the test in Jinx’s face. “How the hell did this happen?!”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know where babies come from, ogre girl.”

Jinx tried to lighten the mood, but the woman looked like she was about to blow steam out of her nose from sheer rage.

“Keep making your stupid jokes,” Sevika spat, throwing the test to the ground. “Which idiot did you mess around with this time?”

Jinx looked uneasy. She’d expected that question, but hadn’t come up with an answer. She wasn’t in a position to give one.

“Lars? That moron?” Sevika asked, jumping ahead of Jinx’s thoughts. The girl stayed silent.

“Do you know what Silco will do if he finds out?”

The younger woman finally snapped back, locking her jittery gaze on Sevika.

“He doesn’t have to find out!” she cried. “I’ll get rid of it before it’s too late. I’m probably only a few week—”

“‘Weeks’?! How the hell didn’t you notice before?”

“I have better things to think about!”

“You’re an idiot,” Sevika grunted, trying to compose herself and eyeing the test on the floor. “And now you’ll be a mother…”

Jinx felt a shiver. Hearing someone else say it out loud sent chills down her spine.

“I won’t be,” she said firmly. “This is going away.”

And the thing was, she couldn’t even call it a “baby” because it wasn’t one yet. And she couldn’t have one of those. How would it look to everyone if she—she—had one of those things clinging to her arms? How would it look to all her peers if one of those things called her “Mom”? Another shiver ran through her nerves.

No. She wasn’t made to be a mother. That wasn’t the role she was meant to play in this world.

She had let Sevika deliver the shipment on her own—something they both agreed on—because the older woman preferred to be far away in case Jinx changed her mind and needed “emotional support.” That wasn’t her style, and the brat only ever caused her problems. Why would she do something like that?

Jinx remained in that dark alleyway, staring at the clouds that promised an approaching storm. Her tangled thoughts echoed in her head; she couldn’t even do the math right, no matter how hard she tried, the timeline didn’t add up. She even began to wonder if she was assigning the responsibility to the right person.

But… it had to be him, because Ekko couldn’t… No, it wasn’t possible.

Even if, deep down, she would’ve preferred it that way. Because maybe what she was about to do would’ve been easier if it had been Ekko’s.

And because if that creature had been Ekko’s… maybe she would’ve made a different decision.

Lars landed behind her with a jump, wrapping his arms around her waist to kiss her cheek. Jinx startled, stepping forward to get away from him. He looked displeased, but at that moment, she couldn’t even bring herself to look him in the face—she stood completely still.

“I thought you wanted to see me,” he complained, frowning. “Is this about Silco? Did he send you? I already told you I’ll have his payment by Friday. There shouldn’t be a problem if I work for him too—he gives me all the dirty jobs he doesn’t want you to do. That should be enough—”

“I’m pregnant.”

They locked eyes—cold, inert. The color drained from Lars’s face. Jinx could barely hear her own thoughts over the deafening drumbeat of her heart.

But she knew exactly what was spinning in her head now: if Ekko had been the father, things would’ve been easier right then.

Lars stepped toward her and grabbed her shoulders roughly, slamming her against the wall of the nearby building. Jinx felt the blow in her spine and bit her tongue to keep from screaming. She reached for the weapon strapped to her leg and tried to fire between his eyes, but he managed to strike her hand first, sending the gun flying several meters away.

He wasn’t an idiot—not like the ones who let themselves be killed by her so easily. Maybe that’s why he caught her attention in the first place. But now she regretted ever being so stupid.

Lars grabbed her by the neck, lifting her a few inches off the ground, forcing her wide magenta eyes to lock on his.

“Don’t play with me,” he growled. “We haven’t even been together long enough for you to come at me with the bullshit that you’re pregnant.” He looked at her belly in disgust. “And if you are, it’s probably not even mine. Who knows how many other idiots you’ve screwed, you fucking whore.”

Jinx grabbed his hand with both of hers, trying to pry him off. She kicked helplessly—no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t break free. Her breath began to fail, and the dry choking sounds caused by the pressure on her throat came more and more frequently.

“You better get rid of that thing,” he warned, letting her drop to the ground, “and don’t you dare tell Silco that crazy idea in your head that I’m the father.”

Jinx crashed down with a loud thud and desperately tried to catch her breath. Lars crouched in front of her, lifting her chin with one finger.

“If you dare to keep it and tell everyone it’s mine, I swear you’re dead,” he spat, his voice calm and chilling. “I swear I’ll kill you—and that stupid baby of yours.”

He suddenly released her again. Jinx couldn’t say anything. She clenched her teeth as her brow furrowed, trying to muster an expression that showed strength, but the truth was that her will had crumbled the moment she heard that threat. For a second, a sharp stab went through her chest. Maybe something she had never felt before… Fear?

It was possible, but she wasn’t sure if she was feeling it for herself. Was she afraid of what that bastard might do to… whatever was growing inside her?

The heavy, metallic march of the Enforcers echoed through the alley. The gunshot had drawn them in.

Lars stood up with a grin.

“You better run, sweetheart,” he mocked. “They’re probably after you. You’re real famous in the city above, and they know what Silco would pay to get you back.”

He pulled up his hood and ran in the opposite direction of the approaching sound. Rain began to fall, the cold water piercing Jinx’s skin as if cutting straight to the bone.

She cursed herself, again and again. If Ekko had been the father, things would’ve been simpler in that moment.

Jinx tried to stand, but the effects of oxygen deprivation still gripped her. Her blurred vision and the weakness in her legs barely let her get on her feet, leaning against the same wall that had nearly broken her back.

She didn’t even have time to run, and no strength left to fight. The Enforcers arrived in a group and pinned her against the wall, cuffing her wrists behind her back. Jinx let out a whimper, struggling to break free, but it was useless.

She couldn’t shake the thought that no one was there to help her, that no one would stop them from taking her.

They would take her to Stillwater. They’d take a stupid, pregnant girl to that wretched place she never wanted to set foot in.

She probably wouldn’t see daylight again, and if that happened… what would become of that thing inside her?

She was supposed to go with Lars to Piltover to find a doctor who, for the right price, would get rid of it.

Now she couldn’t.

That thing would stay inside her until the day it decided to come into the world.

Until the day it invaded her world.

And it would do so while its idiot mother remained locked away in a moldy, damp, unsanitary cell.

Because that was all Jinx had to offer it. Nothing more. She was a criminal, and she knew full well that any child of a criminal would suffer the consequences of their parents’ actions.

Jinx had to stop it. Before it was too late.

That creature inside her wasn’t allowed to be born.

Jinx didn’t need it. Not as long as she had herself.

Chapter Text

“If you dare say a word, I’ll kill you. You and your stupid baby.”

Even for someone like Lars, saying that had been hitting an all-time low.

Jinx didn’t trust him. She never had. Just like she’d never trusted anyone.

Because trust—as she had known since she was a child—blinded you, made you weak. An easy target.

And Jinx never liked being a target. She had always been the one pulling the trigger.

But those had been his words: raw, lacerating, devoid of any tact, of the slightest empathy. Soulless.

That’s why she hadn’t been surprised. That reaction was just like him. Like the trash he was.

She let herself fall into the darkest corner of the cell, the damp cold raising goosebumps on her skin, sinking into her bones. Instinctively, she brought one hand to her belly, while the other trembled in a clenched, anxious fist. Her lips twisted into a bitter grimace. It wasn’t anger or sadness, but a sour mix of both.

“Your father truly hates you,” she murmured hoarsely, barely audible.

It seemed like she was speaking to no one. She even felt deranged for talking to herself out loud. But the whisper floated inward, to that tiny presence growing inside her—a presence invisible, yet beating because of her. Jinx tried to convince herself that thing was nothing more than a formless clump of cells, but the truth was she didn’t even know how far along she was, and that was starting to terrify her.

What if it could already hear her... understand her? Surely, it would scold her for being so cold and harsh with something she herself was creating. But in the end, that had been her fate, and she couldn’t trade it with anyone else’s.

Although, maybe it was nothing—just something close to nothing, a shapeless figure, voiceless, faceless, nameless. So tiny. So unreal. So innocent.

So... hers.

Something unaware of what was happening outside, unaware of its mother’s thoughts and her desperate desire to end its existence.

“Just like me...” she added, as if trying to justify herself to that creature. “But at least I’m not cynical enough to kill you after you’re born.”

She paused, only to let out a soft laugh, laced with sarcasm that scratched at her throat.

“I think you should go before you even know you exist. Before you believe this world has anything to offer you.”

The incessant rattle against the metal bars yanked her out of her monologue. A dry, rhythmic sound. A sinister laugh repeating again and again.

The Enforcers patrolled the corridors of Stillwater, dragging their batons across the cell bars. It wasn’t a routine procedure, much less a necessary one. But they enjoyed it. They enjoyed stripping prisoners of whatever peace they had left. Enjoyed reminding them that in that frozen tomb, there was no room for peace.

When they passed her cell, smiling with a revolting mix of mockery and power, Jinx frowned at them. They knew exactly what they had. The valuable asset in their possession.

Because the “eradication” of Shimmer was nothing but a façade, a well-painted lie for the rest of the City of Progress. Jinx knew that. She knew perfectly well about the deals Silco had made with most of them to keep them in check. With those who followed “just orders” with hands full of bribes and blood.

She sighed with resignation once their steps faded away. Once she stopped feeling like a damn trophy displayed behind bars.

One that could end up shattered in half if she didn’t stop it in time.

Because if that thing inside her came to light, then all eyes would turn to it. To both of them. They’d be one. A precious weak point for the most powerful crime lord in Zaun.

She couldn’t do that to Silco. Or to herself.

Or to that creature.

“I have to get rid of you before you realize the place you might be born into…” she went on, her gaze dropping to her belly. “Before you realize the kind of mother you might have.”

Then, light, crisp, uniform footsteps approached the cell she was in. Jinx looked up, coming face to face with Silco’s reproachful stare. His silhouette had emerged from the shadows like a familiar specter, his eyes watching her with an exhausted greenish glow.

A wave of relief and guilt surged in the girl’s chest, and she rushed to the bars.

“You came to get me out. That’s why you’re here, right?” she said quickly, with a smile that looked broken, hoping for reproach but also for freedom. “Do it fast. It reeks of vomit in here.”

Silco took a cautious breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“I can’t,” he replied.

Jinx smiled sanctimoniously, a frozen grimace on her face, as if waiting for him to correct himself. As if the joke he was making was as bad as his taste in clothing.

“Cut the crap,” she snapped tensely, stepping closer to the bars to lower her voice. “What the hell do you mean you can’t? You’re literally the only one who can get me out. Pull some strings, throw your dogs a bone. But get me out of here.”

“You crossed the line,” Silco said, his eyes a mix of disappointment and irritation. “The Enforcers who found you had been alerted to a cargo transport, Jinx. They confiscated most of our goods, and now you’ll stand trial for it.”

“B-But…”

The girl had to step back to catch her breath, her gaze faltered, and then a broken whisper escaped her throat.

“That idiot…”

Lars.

He had set her up. Now she was in prison and he had vanished, untouched, with the perfect alibi to avoid Silco’s wrath.

“I didn’t do it! You know I’d never do something like that! It was Lars! He must’ve tipped them off, he needed me locked up… he needed me out of the way.”

“I told you not to trust him,” Silco muttered with a hint of regret. “The problem now isn’t who tipped them off, it’s that all eyes are on you. You’re drawing too much attention—even I couldn’t get you out right now. It’s not in their interest… and it’s not in mine, either.”

The silence that followed was heavy and cutting. Jinx looked down, wounded and incredulous.

“You’re going to let me rot here?”

“I’ll do everything in my power to get you out, Jinx. But you have to be patient. Wait until things calm down, I’ll find the right moment to do it.”

“You can’t take long,” she whispered, her lips trembling. “Don’t take long. Please.”

Silco felt a tightness in his chest seeing the girl—who always came off as harsh and fierce—so vulnerable within those crumbling stone walls.

“I won’t,” he promised. “But it might take weeks, even months—”

“No!” Jinx cut him off. “You can’t take that long. I have to get out of here.”

A sharp whistle echoed from the other end of the corridor. One of Silco’s Enforcer allies signaled it was time to go.

Jinx felt panic gnawing at her soul. Without thinking, she grabbed Silco’s sleeve, digging her nails into the fabric like her life depended on it.

“I’m pregnant.”

Silco’s eyes went so wide they nearly popped out of their sockets. But he couldn’t say anything—he couldn’t even pretend it was a joke. The anguish on Jinx’s face was enough proof she was telling the truth.

“And if you don’t get me out of here…” she continued, “I won’t be able to get rid of this thing before it’s too late.”

Silco said nothing. He couldn’t. The words lodged in his throat, unable to process the news that had just hit him like a bucket of ice water down the back of his neck. The Enforcer grabbed him by the collar, pretending to be rough, and dragged him out, while Jinx’s screams followed him down the corridor.

“Don’t leave me here! Fuck, don’t leave me here!” she roared, clinging to the bars. “Silco! You have to get me out! SILCO! FUCK!”

Wasting time wasn’t their habit. Categorizing every prisoner in Stillwater was a routine process. Inevitable. Like someone listing off merchandise to keep it from getting lost in a warehouse full of chaos.

Jinx sat on a tall examination table, the cold iron seeping through the hard mattress pressing against her bare thighs under the thin medical gown that was at least two sizes too big—and felt completely foreign.

The white light from the long overhead lamps flickered with an insistent annoyance, drawing grimaces of irritation from her every time they blinked. The cuffs locked her wrists with a cold, metallic grip. As if she still had the strength to harm anyone other than herself.

She said nothing when the door opened with a sharp creak, letting in a burly woman whose face had been hardened by years of tedium and authority. She walked with a poorly disguised air of superiority. Behind her came a middle-aged nurse, moving without hesitation, who approached Jinx and firmly took her arm to insert a needle straight into her vein.

“It’s a routine procedure,” the nurse said with a nasal, soulless voice, as if she had said that phrase hundreds of times before. “Hormone count, Shimmer levels in the blood, or detection of any other toxic substances.”

Jinx rolled her eyes as she felt the blood being drawn. She stared up at the ceiling while the emptiness grew in her chest. She already knew the results. They were screaming in her ear—it wasn’t necessary to wait for something that had been spinning in her mind for days.

After about twenty or thirty minutes, two guards entered the room, carrying the results in a yellowed envelope as if it were some top-secret document.

“You’re pregnant,” the nurse announced, pulling out the papers inside and treating it as no big deal. Jinx didn’t say anything—she just raised her eyebrows with a dull expression, not at all surprised. “And… you already knew. Still, your Shimmer levels are… concerning.”

The older woman stepped closer to the two of them, peering down at the paper in the nurse’s hands. Jinx caught sight of the insignia on her chest: Grayson.

Her first name? Last name? Didn’t matter. In the end, she was her jailer. And Jinx didn’t like her.

“How far along?” the Enforcer asked.

“Twelve weeks at most,” the nurse replied, drawing the attention of both women.

Jinx finally felt a thick chill that sent her nerves on edge.

Twelve weeks. Twelve.

It was more than she expected. More than she was willing to accept—or even mentally prepared to process.

And she hadn’t even noticed. That’s how stupid she had become. A foolish, distracted girl.

So that cluster of cells floating inside her like some abstract, formless thing wasn’t just a clump of cells anymore. It was becoming real. A piece of flesh that had survived her terrible decisions.

Clinging to life. Clinging to her. Like a stubborn parasite defying all logic. Because the nurse was right—Jinx’s Shimmer levels were beyond abnormal. There was no way that thing should’ve survived this long inside her.

Grayson grabbed the lone chair sitting in the corner of the room and placed it in front of Jinx, sitting down with a single firm, precise movement. Her tired gaze settled on the girl, aged by long years on the force.

“Your case has been assigned to me,” she said, taking a breath. “It’s now my duty to oversee this process. But first—” she pulled out a carelessly folded sheet of paper and cleared her throat, “Miss Powder—”

“Jinx,” the girl corrected.

The Enforcer just glanced at her from beneath her brows, not bothering to acknowledge the name she preferred.

“Guilty of large-scale Shimmer trafficking, smuggling and illegal arms manipulation, homicide, resisting authority…” she continued, skipping over a list that kept growing, until she got to what mattered to both of them. “Fifty years. No chance of parole.”

It hit her like a bucket of ice water down her back. She had always known her crimes would catch up with her someday, but she never imagined it would be this severe.

Grayson straightened in the chair again, giving greater weight to what she was about to say as she removed the reading glasses she’d only worn to deliver the sentence—as if it were a grocery list.

“As for the baby,” she began, and Jinx sat up straight. “Since you have no family or trusted contact who could act as a legal guardian, once it’s born, it’ll be handed over to the system.” She exhaled heavily, feigning empathy—not for Jinx, but for the child and the fate awaiting it. “I’m sorry, kid. There are no healthy babies in prison.”

Jinx tried to hide the venom-laced thorns of agony crawling up her throat. Of course. She was alone. And if that baby was born, it would be alone too. Because the only person Jinx had was Silco—and she couldn’t mention him. Not in front of an Enforcer.

Any way she looked at it, that baby in her belly—that little twelve-week clump of stubborn cells—only had her.

And if she was locked behind bars, then it would have nothing. Only a life of sorrow, suffering, monsters hiding behind bright, kind masks.

It would have to survive on its own through the Lanes, through Shimmer, through hunger, through her bloody and deranged legacy. Through loneliness. Through a childhood without a mother.

Just like she had.

“I don’t want it,” she blurted without hesitation, like ripping a splinter from her soul. “You can give me an abortion, can’t you?”

Her voice, carefully rehearsed and full of resolve, masked perfectly the collapse of her being—the madness she was holding back in her chest. She would rather destroy it than let the world break it.

Because the Lanes, the ruthless Lanes, didn’t even spare the strong—and they’d show no mercy to a system child, defenseless and without a mother.

“It’s cheaper for those above not to spend money on unnecessary treatments,” she went on, clenching her fists until her nails dug into her skin. “And it’s better for me not to have this parasite growing inside me.”

Silence.

Then Grayson and the nurse exchanged a brief glance, one heavy with protocol and experience.

They knew the procedure.

“A family?”

Jinx nodded with a hidden smile. Her blue eyes gleamed with a halo of hope for the future, as if the world wasn’t so fucked up, even if all she had was him and her sister. She was young. Far too young.

But inside her chest still beat that blind faith—the kind that only exists before life has broken you completely.

Ekko swallowed hard and turned his gaze to the sky. That was his favorite place. On a rooftop far from Piltover, lying next to Jinx while the autumn leaves danced in the wind.

Just sixteen—both of them—and the word 'family' sounded enormous, especially to him. Ekko loved her. He adored her laugh, her blue hair, and the gleam in her eyes that radiated cleverness and confidence.

And for Jinx, he was everything.

They loved each other with a tenderness that trembled in their hands every time they touched.

Young love. Hopeful. Blossoming.

“Do you think Silco won’t kill me if we try…?” Ekko asked, trying to hide the shake in his voice.

Jinx burst out laughing.

“He has no reason to,” she replied.

She sat up, hugging her knees and gazing at the horizon with a melancholic smile.

The last thing she remembered of her mother was that calm expression—the one that left one day and never returned. For years, it had just been Vi and her, until Ekko came into her life and everything started to feel different.

Now, after everything, she truly wanted to build a legacy. A family where she could take on the role of the mother she never had. Where they would always choose each other—for the rest of their days.

“Besides,” she added, glancing over her shoulder at him, “when we decide to have it, we’ll be older. He’ll have no reason to get involved in my life.”

Ekko smiled, eyes alight. With the world stopping in front of them. As if they could devour it in one bite and be happy with that. As if the long road ahead could be walked hand in hand.

“Then… I’ll give it to you,” he promised, with a smile that tried to sound certain. “I’ll give you the family you want.”

Jinx lay back on the examination table. Her head was spinning ever since she’d gotten out of the vehicle. Grayson settled into a chair beside her—rigid, frowning, face made of stone, emotionless.

“Don’t you plan on calling the father? The judge granted you that right,” she muttered in a rough tone that had become second nature, handcuffing one of Jinx’s wrists to the tubular headboard of the table.

“There is no father,” Jinx spat. “And even if there were, there’d be no reason to call him.”

Grayson pressed her lips together but said nothing more. The door to the clinic opened before she could lecture her.

A young doctor entered with a wide, almost uncomfortable smile. Something about her radiated routine—routine in dealing with cases like hers. Broken. Forgotten. Desperate women who had run out of options, out of hope. Women who had made mistakes, who hadn’t measured their actions in time.

The doctor sat down in front of a small screen that reflected a black silhouette of Jinx and the lines of her face that already told her story.

“Miss Pow—”

“Jinx,” she cut in, sharp-voiced, eyes leaving no room for mistakes.

“Jinx…” the doctor corrected, quickly returning to her professional tone. “I took the time to read your file. Twelve weeks, correct?”

Jinx grunted. A curt, impatient nod.

“All right. You’re still within the legal window to terminate the pregnancy,” she continued, “but protocol requires I perform an ultrasound to confirm the viability of the fetus and gestational age.”

She paused for a moment as she arranged the machine’s cables.

“You don’t have to look if you don’t want to,” she murmured. “Just close your eyes and relax. I won’t take long.”

Jinx stared at the cracks in the ceiling, studying them, as if the path they formed could lead her somewhere. She flinched slightly at the cold touch of the doctor and the gel being spread across her—not yet prominent—belly.

She didn’t want to look. She didn’t even want to be there, in that body that no longer felt like hers, no longer a temple, but a home for something foreign—for a consequence.

A mistake.

But something screamed in her ear—a silent voice, an absent heartbeat.

There was no sound yet because the doctor hadn’t turned up the volume on the machine. There was nothing to hear because that creature didn’t exist yet.

And yet, despite the silence that filled the room, Jinx heard it.

Probably her own heartbeat, now deafening in her ears. Pounding with a dull, visceral echo.

And she turned.

The moment she looked, she felt the air leave her lungs.

It was nothing. Just a silhouette, a blurry shape. Something like that.

Something like a baby—but not yet.

Something that wasn’t supposed to be anything—and was somehow becoming everything.

Then the shape moved, as if swimming in nothingness, oblivious to the outside, oblivious to being watched—and to how little time it had left in the world.

And the words caught in Jinx’s throat. Like a strangled, dying cry begging for something she still couldn’t understand.

Jinx abruptly looked away, locking eyes with her jailer. Her own brute, who reminded her vaguely of Sevika.

“If you don’t want to go through with this, you still have options,” the woman said.

Jinx clicked her tongue.

“What options?” she spat. “You said it yourself—there are no healthy babies in prison. They’ll give it to a foster home. It’ll go into the system and never come out.”

“When your sentence is over, you could—”

“Fifty years,” Jinx snapped, soul fractured. “By the time my sentence ends—if I even make it out alive—it’ll be fifty. Don’t say stupid things.”

She looked back at the doctor with forced resolve and made herself speak.

“Do it.”

The doctor nodded silently and, while the screen remained on, adjusted Jinx to make the procedure easier for both of them.

Then, Ekko’s voice cut through her thoughts like a bullet, shattering everything:

“I’ll give you the family you want.”

She felt a weight in her chest, like a nostalgic, heavy scream that clawed at every last piece of sanity she had left.

That thing wasn't a family. No, that wasn’t how she’d imagined the family she had always longed for.

That creature… wasn’t Ekko’s.

The girl gripped the tubes at the side of the table and kept her gaze on the ceiling, while the cold tools followed her skin, raising every nerve on edge.

But… it was hers.

A red light flared in her chest, and a chill shot through her heart.

“Does it have a heartbeat…?” she asked just as one of the instruments brushed her skin.

The doctor stopped cold, looking at her, confused. Jinx pushed herself upright on the table, fixing her pink eyes on her.

“Its heart… does it beat?” she asked again.

“Yes. It already does,” the doctor replied, standing back up. “Do you… want to hear it?”

Jinx swallowed hard and nodded.

The doctor placed the probe back on her now-cold belly and activated the sound.

At first, nothing. Then—everything.

Everything. Absolutely everything.

A whole, tiny everything. So small. So faint. That it could barely be heard, like a fast, soft knocking. Almost nonexistent.

Jinx felt like her own heart was drowning out the sound of that creature’s—beating so wildly it might burst through her chest.

It wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. Not yet.

But it was… something.

Something that had taken root inside her along with that creature and wouldn’t leave—not even if that thing did. It would stay. Forever.

And for the first time in her life, she felt terrified.

Terrified of herself and of how little control she had over her emotions.

She stayed quiet for a moment, then spoke, voice cracking:

“Get this off me,” she said to no one in particular.

The doctor sighed and moved to resume the procedure.

“Not you,” Jinx snapped, glaring at her—then turned to Grayson. “The cuffs. Get these damn cuffs off. Let’s get out of here.”

For a moment, everything was silent. But Jinx stared with a fierce look, and the woman finally obeyed. The girl left the room without even glancing at the doctor, who seemed to wear a faint smile, disguised as a whisper.

“I thought you didn’t want it to end up in foster care,” Grayson said.

“I don’t,” Jinx replied.

“It’ll belong to the system the moment it’s born.”

“No,” she repeated, more firmly this time. “It belongs to me.”

Grayson didn’t even have time to stop her—Jinx was walking fast, driven by a desperation that burned from the inside out.

“They’ll force you to give it up,” she warned again. “You know that.”

Jinx didn’t stop. She had made up her mind.

“I’d like to see them try.”

She spoke without hesitation—but deep down, her heart was in pieces. She needed to find a solution, just like she always had with every stone thrown in her path.

She had to keep that creature safe.

It was a silent promise she had made to that baby.

As long as she was alive, nothing—absolutely nothing—could go wrong.

Chapter Text

Waking up was the worst part. Mornings had never been her strong suit, much less her favorite time of day.

Because the only thing that accompanied her in that prison of rock and mold were morning sickness and the vomiting of bile. Light barely slipped through the cracks when she, in a single motion, launched herself toward the latrine next to the freezing iron cot.

She couldn’t see the outside, never knew if it was night or day—she’d lost all sense of time—but her body assured her that, right then, it was still not dawn.

And she had already emptied her entire stomach in under two minutes.

“If I had known I’d go through this every morning… I would’ve thought twice about the decision I made about you,” she growled, wiping the corner of her lips of saliva.

Unless that was the thing’s way of saying good morning.

That very day, after almost four weeks since she last saw him, Silco had arranged a meeting with her. He’d had to pull strings and pay a hefty sum to bribe the most corrupt Enforcers. But he’d made it happen.

“You look paler than usual,” Silco remarked once the girl entered the small office they’d managed to clear out for a few minutes for their meeting.

Jinx snorted, rolled her eyes, and flopped down on the two-seater couch facing him. She raised her hands in front of her face with a mocking smile, clinking the cuffs around her wrists.

“Not taking those off was a condition for letting me see you,” Silco stated calmly. Then he took a deep breath and leaned forward. “Did you refuse the abortion?”

The man’s piercing green eyes stabbed into her like a stake, and all she could do was look away and shrug.

“Jinx!” Silco pressed.

“I’m keeping it.”

The words, as if carefully rehearsed over and over again, slipped from her lips, leaving the older man frozen. Silco’s eyes widened.

“Keep… Are you insane?!”

“What does that have to do with anything?” she mocked.

“Jinx, this is not the time for your jokes! What the hell were you thinking?” he scolded. “How far along are you? Maybe we can still do something—”

“I-already-told-you. I’m keeping it,” Jinx interrupted, dragging out each word for emphasis.

A silent battle of hostile glares broke out between them—the unspoken clash between a wild teenager and her closest father figure.

“You have no idea what you’re saying,” Silco snapped. “You’re just an immature brat, Jinx. You were born for the Lanes, not to be a mother.”

She swallowed hard, the venomous thorns sliding down her throat. She definitely held back from spitting in his face. Silco leaned back in the chair, massaging the bridge of his nose.

“Do you have any idea what having a baby means?” he sighed, resigned. Jinx grumbled in response. “Do you really think you’re ready to change diapers? To have your life turned upside down like this? To keep working with one of those creatures stuck to you like a stinky little shadow?”

“Speaking from experience?” Jinx raised an eyebrow.

“Stupid girl,” Silco muttered. “I’m just trying to warn you. Because once that baby is born, you won’t have a choice. There’ll be no going back. You’ll have to be its mother.”

“I am its mother.”

Silco exhaled heavily. Jinx’s untamable spirit was once again taking over.

“Think it through,” he insisted. “Being a mother isn’t just something you say.”

“You’re underestimating me.”

“I think you were born to hold a weapon, not a baby.”

Jinx didn’t waver. Her expression was firm, resolute. But Silco had a will of iron, too—he wasn’t giving up that easily.

He stood up cautiously and pulled from the inner pocket of his coat a piece of paper folded neatly in four. He placed it in Jinx’s cuffed hands and waited for her curious gaze to seek an answer.

“A family. Candidates to adopt that creature,” he announced. “They could give it a good life—if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Jinx said nothing. Her eyes dropped to the photograph at the top of the file. A couple from Zaun holding hands lovingly. The woman sat in a mahogany chair while the man stood behind her. Both wore kind, wide smiles, like they wanted Jinx to know that life hadn’t screwed them over enough.

“One way or another, it would end up in the system with other kids, children of criminals like you,” Silco said, glancing at her before sitting back down. “Even if you had tried to escape, custody wouldn’t have been yours.”

Jinx frowned without looking up. It was almost as if he could read her every move—either he was too sharp, or she’d become predictable since getting pregnant. Silco dropped onto the sofa again with a sigh. He pulled an old cigar from his pocket and lit it with meticulous care.

“Unless you want it to stay in an orphanage or get shuffled from house to house like a stray dog,” he said, puffing the smoke harshly. “They’re coming tomorrow. They know the terms of the agreement.”

“So you weren’t even asking for my opinion. You made a decision,” Jinx protested.

“Consider that there’s a family willing to adopt that baby and take good care of it.”

“It’s still my decision,” she emphasized.

“It is. But you don’t have many options. And this time, Jinx… you can’t make new ones. There’s no gray here—it’s black or white. Nothing else.”

The girl frowned and looked down at the photograph again. Those two people stared at her with gentle expressions and generous eyes. They were exactly the kind of parents any child without a family would dream of. Maybe that was the family that thing really deserved. Normal. No weapons, no Shimmer, no danger. A happy, healthy, safe life.

Jinx didn’t love the creature yet, and the symptoms of pregnancy made her want it even less each day. But she couldn’t afford to be an idiot when it came to that baby—she wanted it to have a good life, one she could never give it.

“How long have you been in contact with them?”

“Since I found out you were pregnant.”

“Of course. Weigh every option,” Jinx spat, used to Silco always being one step ahead of everyone.

Two knocks echoed on the office door. A carefully rehearsed pattern—an alert signal. Silco looked at the Enforcer standing beside Jinx and nodded silently.

Time was up.

Jinx stood at the same time as Silco and walked toward the door, ready to leave—not without returning the piece of paper that felt more threatening than any weapon she’d ever held.

“Keep it,” Silco said, nodding toward the sheet. “I took the liberty of listing the couple’s assets and virtues. In case you doubt the kind of life that baby will have.”

Jinx said nothing more. She crumpled the paper in her fingers and kept it clenched. She left the office, leaving Silco behind. Her hands cuffed in front, flanked by two Enforcers who barely spared her a sideways glance. One of them veered into a side corridor to continue his tasks, avoiding drawing more attention.

If she could’ve, she would’ve bolted down that hallway. Left everything behind, abandoned it all. Because only then… could she keep that thing by her side.

She felt a violent shove, and in less than a second, her back was slammed against the wall.

The Enforcer grabbed her by the neck, lifting her a few inches off the ground. Jinx struggled desperately to break free, but the cuffs held her back.

“I thought they’d never leave us alone,” the man spat. “Lars sends his regards. He wanted to come himself, but there’s no way he’d get past Silco unnoticed. Seems the old man’s been hunting him through every corner of Zaun.”

“And you’re his little lapdog?” Jinx choked, struggling to speak through the lack of air. “So you betray Silco to serve Lars… you’ve really hit rock bottom.”

The man clenched his jaw with a harsh sound and punched her square in the stomach, letting her fall to the floor.

Jinx, as best she could, brought her cuffed hands to her belly, shielding herself from another blow. Never before had a hit like that made her double over in pain, much less fear for the consequences. But this time, she was terrified for what might happen to the creature inside her.

The man grabbed her by the hair, forcing her to look up. Jinx’s searing magenta eyes locked onto his. In any other situation, he’d already be dead. They both knew it. That was exactly why he was enjoying having the upper hand so much.

“You’re nothing but a fraud,” he hissed with venom. “You really think you can be a mother? You can’t even take care of yourself. If that blow didn’t kill it, do it a favor—finish the job yourself.”

He stood up, leaving her on the floor with trembling fingers still clutching her belly. Her pride crushed and her breath ready to retaliate in case he came back.

“Lars won’t let this get any bigger. You made a mistake telling Silco about you and your filthy seed.”

His nauseating sneer perfectly reflected the disgust he held for her. Something she’d grown used to from many of the people who crossed her path.

“HEY!”

A sharp voice rang from the other side of the stone corridor. The Enforcer stepped away from Jinx and walked off calmly, as if what he’d done meant nothing.

And maybe it didn’t. After all, she was a criminal. She was getting what she deserved. Or at least, that’s what Jinx told herself to feel less useless for not being able to defend herself.

Her gaze, fixed on the floor, wandered aimlessly, while her entire being desperately searched for any sign of life from the little thing inside her. She was so absorbed in it she didn’t hear the light footsteps running toward her—until she saw the boots stop right in front of her face.

Her breath caught, still praying for something—anything—to tell her that the baby wasn’t dead. Because she would never forgive herself. Much less forgive Lars.

The person in front of her reached out a hand to help her up. Jinx looked up—only to find a face disgustingly familiar.

“You look like shit, sis.”

“Everything seems fine” the nurse announced after thoroughly examining Jinx.

The girl felt her soul return to her body. The thing inside her loved to make itself known—except when its mother needed it most.

“You said she fell down a staircase after a routine check-up?” the woman inquired.

Violet nodded, swallowing hard.

The nurse, apathetic from years on the job, chose to believe her word—even though it was obvious Jinx bore no other signs of injury.

Returning to the cell was unbearably awkward. Neither of them said a word. Violet walked in front, while Jinx followed behind, her eyes fixed to the floor.

“Lars… seriously?” the older one finally asked. “For the longest time, I thought you and Ekko—”

“No,” Jinx cut her off, trying to change the subject. “Why didn’t you tell them the truth?”

“Turning that guy in would’ve exposed your secret meetings with Silco,” Vi pointed out, leaving Jinx in total silence. The older one smirked when she saw her cold expression. “Only I know about that. I’ve been watching you since you got here. I’ve also read your entire file.”

“You know how to read?” Jinx mocked.

Violet rolled her eyes and opened the gate to the cell.

“That’s how I know…” she looked at her younger sister’s belly, “about the pregnancy.”

Jinx did her best to ignore the fact that her annoying sister now knew everything. She stepped into the cell after Vi removed the handcuffs.

“Have you thought about what you’ll do?” the older one pressed again. “If I could—”

“You were never my first choice, sister,” Jinx interrupted, closing the cell gate herself. “I didn’t need your help before. I don’t need it now.”

The rest of the day felt like an eternity. And not because she was trapped within those four walls—she’d gotten used to that. Despite her nature being chaotic and untamed, these past few days, she’d felt genuinely accompanied by the being inside her, who seemed to have no worry in the world other than staying close to its mother.

But she couldn’t stay calm. Her thoughts spun violently in her head.

She hadn’t even needed to tell Silco who the baby’s father was—he’d figured it out on his own. And now, that meant Lars wouldn’t leave her alone, because Silco wouldn’t leave him alone. And Lars was an idiot—but a dangerous one.

Especially for that baby.

Not to mention, out there, many would be waiting to claim her head. No matter how she looked at it, the most dangerous thing that child could do… was be born.

Unless…

Early the next day, Jinx was brought before Silco again. This time, the office felt unusually warm, almost welcoming—as if it wasn’t just a room hastily thrown together in the middle of a fortified prison like Stillwater.

The couple from the photo was sitting on the same sofa where she had sat the day before. The Enforcer—Silco’s ally, not Lars’ traitorous lapdog—removed her handcuffs and let her sit down.

The silence was tense. Uncomfortable. Jinx cleared her throat, tapping the floor with the tip of her shoe, doing everything she could to avoid eye contact with the adults in front of her.

Silco straightened up, taking a step forward.

“Jinx, this is—”

“It’s you! We were so excited to meet you!” the woman interrupted enthusiastically.

She jumped off the couch and approached Jinx with a radiant smile. She reached out a hand toward her belly, but Jinx immediately stepped back.

“Please, forgive my wife,” the man intervened, gently placing his hands on her shoulders. “She’s just excited about all this. We always dreamed of having a baby, but we never…”

His eyes began to well up. Jinx stepped back again—part instinct, part to keep her composure. Other people’s emotions overwhelmed her more than she liked to admit.

“It’s not that hard to make one, you know?”

“Jinx!” Silco scolded.

“No, no, it’s okay,” the man rushed to say. “M-My wife… she had complications during her last pregnancy. We lost that baby… and with it, any hope of ever having children, no matter how much we wanted them.”

Jinx looked at the woman’s shadowed expression—and suddenly, she understood. What she carried in her womb was exactly what that woman had longed for all these years. Silco, of course, knew that. He had predicted it. And he’d used it to his advantage. Because not just anyone would adopt the unborn baby of a criminal.

Especially this criminal.

“You’re just a few weeks along, right?” the woman asked again, trying to ease the tension in the air. “Your belly isn’t showing much yet.”

“Sixteen,” Jinx replied, not wanting to get into details.

“Oh… still too early to know what it’ll be.”

“We’d love to have a girl,” the husband jumped in. “Though, whatever Janna brings into our lives, we’ll be happy.”

Jinx swallowed hard. Each word thickened the atmosphere. The conversation quickly turned unbearable. She looked at Silco, over the couple’s shoulders, and his eyes gave a clear response: the decision had already been made.

“On the day of the birth, they’ll take the baby as soon as it’s born. No one will say a word about this to anyone,” Silco stated. The couple nodded solemnly. “We’ll bribe a few Enforcers and the doctors. We’ll say the child was stillborn. As far as the world is concerned, you were never a mother.”

Jinx felt her chest collapse. The air had stopped entering her lungs. Her heart hurt even more than the traitorous punch that had taken her down the day before.

And all she could think was… that baby—who she would’ve set the world on fire for—was no longer hers.

“Okay,” she said, her voice cracking to a whisper.

Jinx remained still, sitting on that faux-leather couch, after the couple left.

“You seem upset,” Silco commented casually.

“I am upset. You made a decision that was mine by right. You made it on your own, long before even talking to me.”

“I told you already, Jinx. You don’t have many options. I did it for your own good.”

“And what about their good?” she shot back, glancing down toward her belly.

“Believe me, I did it for them, too. Do you really think they’ll be better off with you than with them? They can give the baby something you never could…” Silco’s expression slowly shifted into something far more pained, “a family.”

Jinx couldn’t respond. He had aimed to kill—and he’d hit the mark.

“Criminals don’t make families, Jinx. You know that better than anyone.”

This time, Silco’s voice sounded like it came from the depths of his soul. From a place it hurt to touch. A place that tore him apart.

Just like it did her. Because her stupid dream of having a family with Ekko had been shattered years ago. And now, all she had left was a hollow hope—split in two—that was slowly drifting further and further away.

This time, Silco left the office first, while the Enforcer waited for Jinx on the other side of the door.

She felt a chill crawl down her spine, making every nerve stand on edge. The farewell that loomed ahead terrified her. She didn’t want it. She hated the idea of saying goodbye to that… thing. It was tearing her chaotic soul into massive, heavy, steel shards.

She gently lowered her fingers until her nails brushed her belly. It wasn’t swollen, but it had grown slightly.

Was the creature really that small?

It seemed to be growing inside her without a care in the world, without knowing that the moment it came out, they would never see each other again. There would be no second chance for either of them.

Even so, Jinx could feel that something would forever bind her to that tiny being she now protected with her entire body. Because she would have given it her soul, if that had been required.

And it was for that very reason—for that infernal love that twisted her insides with pain—that she now gave it away to a pair of strangers.

Strangers who could give it the family it deserved. The one she never managed to build, because life screwed her over before she ever had the chance.

And she wasn’t going to take that chance away from the baby…

From her baby.

“Sleep tight…” she whispered, tracing circles on her belly with her fingertips. “You can make me sick again tomorrow if you want. Do whatever you feel like—I promise I won’t complain anymore.”

Then, erratic and light, she felt a small movement—like the flutter of hundreds of butterflies in her stomach. She swallowed hard, trying to keep her thoughts in order.

It was the first time she had felt that tiny being move. Almost like a response—as if it was telling her it was there, with her.

And that broke her.

For the first time in years, her eyes welled up enough to let a few translucent drops fall, glinting with magenta.

“I’ll always protect you…” she murmured, pressing her fingers harder against her skin, as if trying to reach inside and hold that baby with her cold hands. “I’ll keep you safe… even if that means giving you to someone else…”

Even if it destroyed her. Even if she stayed broken forever.

She would give every piece of herself to that tiny, defenseless being.

Because in the end… they belonged to each other.

Chapter Text

"A girl, you say?"

Ekko, with that childish air typical of a fourteen–year–old boy, opened his bright brown eyes wide, incredulous.

Vi had just left after Vander when the bar closed, and he and Powder had stayed behind playing with the jukebox, putting on random songs and pulling out the coins that customers had left stuck in the metal slot.

Powder nodded with a high–pitched sound, placing a coin tied to a string so she could pull it back out once the song began to play.

Violet and Vander usually didn’t let her stay out too late—Silco had told them so—and she had never questioned it, not since Mom had decided to leave and Silco was all she had left.

"How can you know something like that?" Ekko asked again, trying to do the same trick as Powder, but his string snapped and he ended up wrinkling his nose in annoyance. "How can you know you’ll have a daughter in the future? A girl specifically."

"I just know, that’s all" Powder stated proudly, as if she, and only she, had some sort of superpower. One she boasted about rather often.

An instinct that never failed her.

"I didn’t think you, of all the girls in Zaun, would want to have a daughter."

Powder scrunched her nose with a bitter grimace, as if a well–kept secret had just seen the light. Then she sighed, fidgeting nervously with her fingers.

"It’s not just that I want her, it’s that she’s going to come" she blurted out with innate certainty. "I’ve seen her, you know? In dreams…"

Ekko was struck dumb, staring at her with a curiosity bigger than himself. Powder finally realized what she had said and cleared her throat with a grunt.

"If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you" she threatened.

The boy smirked with mock arrogance.

"If you didn’t want anyone to know, why’d you tell me?"

"Because you’re my best friend. Dummy."

That, and because deep down he was the only one she could trust with her dream, without any fear. A dream both metaphorical and entirely real.

She let herself fall onto the seat beside her, sighing with a hint of longing.

"Besides, it’d be fun to have a girl" she said, examining one of her toy monkeys with a smile. "A girl identical to me."

The clatter of the baton rattled against the cell bars. Jinx sat on the edge of the cot with difficulty—the night had been long, torturous. She hadn’t been able to sleep well for weeks because of her enormous belly—the one that no longer even let her reach her toes. She tilted her head back, exhaling with resignation; the back pain overwhelmed her, more than any other pain she had ever felt.

Had she really chosen to suffer all of that just to meet the creature that was growing inside her at that very moment?

Cutting off a finger would’ve been less bothersome.

"Move, girl. Your appointment is in thirty minutes and we can’t be late" Grayson spat from the other side of the bars, checking her watch and tapping the ground with the tip of her boot to hurry her along.

The door opened with a shrill metallic screech, and Jinx dragged herself through it at a reluctant pace. She couldn’t believe she was really there, obeying a filthy Enforcer.

But she hadn’t known for weeks what condition that little being inside her was in. She could feel it—it moved frantically, especially at night, keeping her from sleeping, and sometimes it kicked so hard Jinx often thought it did it out of spite.

“I guess the fact that I’m the one giving you life doesn’t spare me your resentment. I don’t blame you,” she thought constantly.

Although, the first time she felt those incessant kicks had been almost magical. Because, for a second, she forgot she was imprisoned.

For an instant, it was just her and that bothersome creature, existing in nothingness. And that was when Jinx understood that its existence went far beyond an ultrasound image or the sound of distant heartbeats through a speaker.

It was real. It was there, communicating with her. Calling to her in its own singular way. Making itself known, making itself present inside her.

Begging her, above all else, never to abandon it.

Because it was just a baby who needed its mother.

Not its father—because its father was an idiot. And if Jinx didn’t need him, that child needed him even less.

"So they’ll finally pull that little bastard out of your belly, huh, Jinx?" mocked one of the inmates as the pregnant woman paraded past her cell. "About time they started treating you like a real prisoner, princess. Everyone here wants to kick your ass, but they’ve got you too closely watched because of that piece of trash you’re carrying."

This time, Jinx felt a sharp tug in her nerves. She grabbed the woman by the hair and slammed her against the bars.

"Say it again" she ordered, baring her teeth.

The Enforcers tried to pull her off, but since the baby officially belonged to a 'system–chosen family' —thanks to Silco’s influence, of course— they couldn’t hurt her. It was all part of a carefully crafted plan by Silco to keep Jinx safe during her pregnancy.

"Enjoy the immunity Daddy got for you, girl, because once they take that thing out of you and hand it over to someone else, I’ll make you pay."

Jinx banged her against the bars once more before stepping back.

"Be grateful that thing won’t set foot in Stillwater!" the inmate shouted, wiping the blood from the tooth she had just lost. "Because if it did, I swear I’d use it to make you see hell!"

Jinx swallowed hard and kept moving forward in silence. The baby in her belly kicked hard, possibly sensing the shiver running down its mother’s spine.

"Don’t scold me, little criminal, she deserved it."

The small doctor’s office was lit only by a white lamp that seemed to have lived longer than it should have.

"Jinx! I’m so glad to see you here" the young doctor exclaimed with her characteristic bright smile. "Has there been any news with the baby since the last time you visited us?"

"It’s just been kicking me like it hates me."

The doctor stifled a tender little laugh as she settled into the metal chair beside the cot and the ultrasound machine. The pair of 'future parents' —who had arrived just before Jinx— whispered to each other excitedly.

"Yes, that’s what babies do" the doctor replied, preparing the machine for the ultrasound. "They usually don’t care much how uncomfortable it might be. Remember, in the end, it’s the way that baby can communicate with you. Have you felt any other… discomfort?"

Jinx shook her head, giving little importance to the woman’s insistent questions.

Even if she wanted to know how she was handling her pregnancy, the truth was that speaking openly about it felt unbearably uncomfortable with so many eyes watching.

"I know it sounds like rehearsed questions, but the truth is, it’s normal for your body to feel the strain of pregnancy. After all, a 'strange being' is growing inside you, with DNA completely different from your own. Your immune system had to reprogram itself not to attack it, you know?"

For the first time in the few visits she had made to the office, Jinx raised her eyebrows with genuine interest. The doctor seized the chance to capture more of her attention.

"Did you know your brain changes too? That way it can detect the tiniest threat. All to keep your baby safe…" she smiled and gently placed the probe on Jinx’s smooth, chilled belly. "The body changes out of love."

She lifted her calm gaze to the blue–haired young woman, swallowing to phrase the next question as best she could.

"Do you want to know what it will be?"

Jinx was about to refuse impulsively, when a deafening 'Yes!' drilled her ears. The 'parents' were already just a step away from her. The doctor glanced at Jinx’s unconvinced expression, then at Grayson’s stony face.

There wasn’t much she could do. Decisions about that baby no longer belonged to Jinx, and everyone in that room knew it.

The doctor sighed in resignation and shifted in her chair.

Jinx lifted her eyes to the ceiling as soon as she felt the probe sliding over her taut, icy skin. She could feel a faint flutter in her stomach, but couldn’t tell if it was the baby or her own nerves twisting her insides.

The doctor muttered incomprehensible words under her breath. Then she suddenly inhaled, startled, as though what she had just seen had left her speechless.

A chill ran down Jinx’s spine. Did her baby have some kind of problem? Wasn’t it as healthy as she thought?

“Your Shimmer level in the blood is… concerning.”

She heard it like a murmur in her memory—the voice of that elderly nurse who had delivered the news of her pregnancy as if it were a grocery list.

If that was the case, then whatever was happening to that creature was her fault. Once again, her rotten blood had reached an innocent being, ruining its life… long before it even began.

Instinct made her turn, her wide magenta eyes fixed on the doctor. The young woman, only a few years older than Jinx, gave her a radiant smile that froze her—not out of fear this time, but confusion.

"It’s a girl" she said in a velvety voice, carefully pronouncing each syllable.

As soon as the phrase was released, like a stone sinking into the depths of a lake, the young mother couldn’t help turning her attention to the screen, where that tiny being appeared as a monochrome image.

That baby, small and almost unreal, moved faintly; she had brought her thumb to her lips and sucked, as if that could ease the hunger Jinx had endured all morning. Then, as if that weren’t already enough to shatter her mother’s sanity, she stretched lazily, kicking outward with delicate ease.

Thirty–five weeks meant more than just a number close to birth—it was clear proof of the time Jinx had gotten used to her, to her clumsy, slow, insistent movements whenever she went too long without food or felt strong emotions. Now she could see the very movement she had already come to know so well.

Instinctively, she placed her hand over her belly. The baby, as if aware of the warmth her mother gave with that touch, kicked again, raising the skin beneath her palm. Jinx fixed her eyes on that spot, suppressing a grimace.

That phrase still danced in her thoughts, like a soft tide that would soon turn into a tsunami.

“It’s a girl.”

A girl.

Her baby. That invisible yet perfectly perceptible companion of hers was a girl. A baby so healthy, so sharp, so… similar to her.

The lump in her throat began to form, forcing her to dig her nails into the skin stretched with striae from her swelling belly.

"A girl! It’s a girl!"

The 'substitute mother' jumped up from her place euphorically. Jinx recoiled when the woman stretched a hand toward her, frowning in obvious rejection.

"I-I’m sorry…" she stammered, embarrassed. "It’s just that I’m so… thrilled. We’ve wanted a girl for so long that…" she let out a nervous laugh. "There’s already a list of possible names for her and—"

"No" Jinx interrupted abruptly. "She already… She already has a name."

The woman stepped back, stricken. She tried to protest, but her husband’s warm, comforting hand settled on her shoulder.

"It’s the least we can do, as thanks for letting us dream of having a family" he said, soothing his wife’s grief. "If you want her to carry a name you’ve already chosen for her, then so it will be. And…" he sighed, glancing at his wife with a serene smile they both shared. "Once she’s born, we’ll bring her often so you can see her, so that… you can watch her grow, even from behind the bars."

Jinx stayed motionless, not even noticing that her hand never left her belly, as if deep down she felt that with that simple gesture she could keep the baby with her.

Though she was sure it meant the opposite. Nothing in the world could change the fate of the two of them. Both had to part, to stay apart. And pretending otherwise only made things more painful.

"No…" she let out. "Once she’s born… I don’t ever want to see her again."

The tension soon made the air feel heavier, almost impossible to breathe. The doctor cleared her throat, signaling to Grayson to join her outside so they could finish the paperwork for the prisoner who would soon give birth. The couple followed closely. Nobody cared about leaving Jinx alone in the office—she was handcuffed to the cot, and even if she weren’t, what could she really do at thirty–five weeks pregnant? She could barely stand on her own.

Jinx tilted her head back, collapsing fully onto the cot, seeking a comfort she hadn’t felt in months.

"A girl… really?" she muttered in annoyance.

The baby kicked again, maybe trying to apologize to the young woman, or to draw her attention to feel her comforting maternal love.

"I know, I know. Things feel different now, don’t they?" she spoke to herself. To her. "Either way, my little naughty, I have to hand you over to them and… never see you again. I really am sorry."

She dug her fingertips into her skin until the color drained from it under the pressure. Then her trembling touch softened, this time tracing circles over her belly with her nails’ tips.

"I have no choice but to enjoy these last weeks I have with you, before I have to share you with the world… my little Isha.

▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂

The lights flickered above her head. Her wrists cuffed to the tubes of the cot, and the kind expression of the doctor who had accompanied her without prejudice throughout her pregnancy, were the only things she had at that moment.

Chaos had taken over the room. Her own chaos, about to come into the world.

"Alright, Jinx, I need you to be brave" the doctor pleaded, positioning herself between her bent legs, "we’re only just beginning."

Being brave wasn’t the problem, and she knew that better than anyone. It was the pain now tearing through her entire body, as if something so small could split her in half.

Had it really been her choice to go through all of this just to bring a new life into such a rotten world?

One she wouldn’t even be able to protect.

Time had passed faster than she expected. Just two weeks. She’d only had two weeks after finding out the baby’s sex to keep her by her side.

And then, when the contractions began, she had tried to hold out as long as she could, convincing herself it wasn’t time yet. Begging her daughter to stay with her just a little longer.

Just a little longer.

Enough to start coming to terms with the fact that, after this, there’d be no turning back and she would lose her forever.

"Push one more time, Jinx" the doctor begged again, trying to stay calm to soothe the young woman’s palpable fear. "We’re almost there, but I need you to push harder. We have to get that baby out."

Jinx’s skin turned pale—paler than it already was—almost translucent. She stared up at the ceiling, her temple drenched in sweat, her vision began to blur, and strength left her limbs. Air reached her lungs only with difficulty, her breathing quickly becoming erratic.

"No… I can’t do it" she muttered, her voice weak and dry.

A red light went off in the doctor’s instincts, and she raised her head to look at Jinx. Her gaze was starting to drift into the white light pouring over her face.

She called one of the nurses over to lift the young woman’s head, trying to wake her, to keep her conscious.

"Don’t close your eyes!" the nurse demanded, gently slapping the girl’s cheeks. "Don’t you dare fall asleep!"

But Jinx could barely hear their voices, all the commotion around her muffled, unbearably far away.

And she felt so tired.

She began to lose the strength that held her body firm enough to receive that baby. Consciousness slipped away, her senses gave out, and she drifted into nothingness, into the fragility of an inert body.

"Jinx!"

This time it was the doctor who called her, desperately. She left her position, switching with the nurse who was holding Jinx’s frail head.

"Sweetheart, I need you to wake up."

She spoke urgently, shaking her face, patting her cheeks, forcing her to open her eyes. Jinx groaned, as though wanting no one to disturb her sleep.

"Come on, Jinx. Don’t give up. You can’t give up" she insisted. "If you do, your baby could die. Please, don’t give up."

One last pat brought back the magenta gleam to her dilated pupils, searching for a flicker of hope, a sliver of light within the darkness surrounding her.

"Don’t let your baby die, Jinx. You can do it, just don’t give up. Do it for that little one. Come on, do it for her."

The doctor returned to her position as Jinx slowly regained strength in her legs. The pain returned too, like a bullet ripping through her spine. But this time the girl clung to consciousness, to this plane of existence, to her life and to her little one’s—still demanding to meet the world.

Even if she refused to let her go. Because deep down she knew that once the baby took her first breath, she would never have her as close again as when she was forming inside her. And she hated the thought of being forced to forget her.

"That’s it, sweetheart, keep going!" the doctor exclaimed, more enthusiastic now, visibly relieved. "I see her little head, Jinx! You’re doing perfectly! Just push once more!"

She had never thought love could hurt so much, both physically and emotionally. Never thought it would cost her this much, or pierce her heart in a single stab. But there she was, feeling as if the world had crushed her, the air refusing to fill her lungs, her bones about to shatter.

She gave one last push, a scream tearing her throat until she felt she had lost her voice.

And then… calm.

But not a silent or peaceful calm. One where she stopped perceiving her own body, only to lose herself in the faint, tiny cry that had entered the world.

That she had brought into the world.

"It’s a beautiful girl" the doctor announced with a smile. "She’s crying a lot, that’s a good sign. It means she’s a healthy, very strong little girl."

She gently laid the baby on her mother’s bare chest—still damp, curled, tiny. The newborn trembled under the cold touch of both doctor and Jinx, her sharp, strong, vigorous cry radiating her vitality, her strength, identical to her mother’s.

Grayson loosened Jinx’s cuffs, freeing only one arm so she could cradle the little one carefully, resting her hand on her reddened, wrinkled skin. The baby nestled against her chest, tucking her tiny hands between both skins, sheltered in her warmth.

With an unshakable smile, the doctor adjusted the baby so she could instinctively find her mother’s breast.

Jinx stayed still, slightly unsettled. She flinched when the little one began rubbing her nose against her warm skin, lips latching on, sucking gently. Learning how the world worked. Getting used to the comfort she felt through that simple gesture of connection with her mother.

The first bond formed. One utterly unbreakable.

The baby’s weight grew heavier in her arms.

When she had imagined what it would be like to hold her once she was born, she had never thought she would weigh so much.

Not in an impossible way, but in a density that was almost suffocating.

It was like holding the weight of the entire world in her hands.

The little one opened her eyes with difficulty. It was clear the outside light hurt her pupils. Normal—inside Jinx’s womb, she’d had no reason to worry about such things. And yet there she was, somehow searching for the face of the one who was everything to her in that moment.

Her only safe place.

Jinx stared at her, paying meticulous attention to her expression, to every feature, analyzing her.

"Now, I choose you, just like you chose me" she whispered, so only the two of them could hear. The baby to her voice, and she to the tiny sounds the little one made as she nursed. "Welcome, little one."

And then… it all ended.

Another doctor, one Jinx had only seen watching silently from the corner of the room, took the baby from her arms, not caring about tearing her from her chest, and handed her to the other 'substitute mother' who had entered not long before. The woman collapsed into one of the chairs, the baby in her arms.

"Oh… my little one" she murmured, stroking the newborn’s crown as the infant squirmed against her chest. "It’s alright, my love, Mama’s here. Mama’s here now."

Jinx felt a tightness in her chest. For a second, she had forgotten her place in that room. For a second, she had forgotten that her baby was no longer her baby.

But the little girl never stopped crying. From the moment she had been calm, peaceful, safe in the arms of her true mother, to this moment when—for her, just as for Jinx—everything shattered.

Because the woman who now held her tightly against her own bare chest and called herself her mother, was nothing more than a stranger. A stranger with a heartbeat different from the one she had heard constantly for weeks, memorized instinctively from inside the womb.

The young woman pulled herself up on the cot, looked at one wrist still cuffed to its railing, and sighed. Something caught her eye, a premonition that seemed to burn at the back of her neck.

On the other side of the only glass in the room, the one that looked out to the exterior, stood Silco, with an impenetrable gaze and that same meticulous expression that had characterized him all his life.

He said nothing, didn’t move a single muscle; his eyes spoke clearly enough for Jinx: “Don’t do anything. There’s nothing left to do. She no longer belongs to you.”

When the baby let out a wail of desperation after realizing she was being ignored by her, Jinx had to suppress the visceral instinct that urged her to lunge at that woman and rip the little one from her arms.

Maybe Silco was right, maybe there was nothing else she could do.

The doctor also looked at the man outside, and at Grayson, who had remained by Jinx’s side since the beginning. She silently mourned the situation that had slipped out of everyone’s hands and left the room at the other doctor’s order.

Jinx followed her with a pained gaze. Pleading. As if she were the only one in that room who felt a little empathy for her, the only one who seemed to understand her pain.

Just as Jinx was beginning to accept the inevitable, swallowing down her own agony, an abrupt silence pierced through her senses.

"What’s happening?" the other mother asked. "Wh-What’s going on…? Wh-Why isn’t she…?"

Jinx lifted her gaze, trying to understand whatever was happening, while her heart pounded inside her chest.

Not hearing her baby cry was tormenting her. She tried to peer through the crowd that now surrounded the couple holding the child, but it was impossible to see anything. She tried to stand, but the shackles once again restrained her, echoing metallically as they rattled against the rail.

"Take them off" she demanded from Grayson, but she refused, at first giving little importance to what was happening.

Jinx turned her attention back to the couple, their desolate expressions when the doctor took the baby from their arms told her more than she ever wanted to know. Yet she still couldn’t believe it.

"What’s happening? Why did she stop crying?" she asked, her voice breaking, with no answer given. "What the hell is happening?!"

But it was as if she were nothing more than a displaced ghost, because no one paid her the slightest attention, not even enough to tell her why her baby had simply fallen silent.

Desperation moved her again, and she tried to break free, yanking at the chain that bound her to the gurney with an almost inhuman savagery.

"Take them off! Goddamn it, take them off already!"

Her fierce eyes locked on her jailer, but even though Grayson looked just as distraught as she was, she still refused. In the end, it was her job. A job now clashing against the mortal desperation of a mother driven by instinct.

Jinx heard the stifled sob of the woman who was about to steal her daughter’s love, then fixed her eyes on the doctor’s back as he held the unmoving baby. She couldn’t make her out clearly; the people crowded around them, and she could barely see the tiny dangling feet in the man’s hold.

Her heart shattered when one of them covered the little body —which the doctor had already passed to a nurse— with a blanket. The woman stepped toward the door, but again, the rattle of the metal shackles cut through the mournful silence.

"Where are you taking her?" she asked, this time capturing everyone’s attention. The nurse continued walking, trying to ignore her piercing gaze. "No. No. Don’t take her away! DON'T TAKE HER FROM ME! SHE NEEDS ME!

"Jinx…" the doctor called her. "We did everything we could, but… we couldn’t…" he sighed, tangling his fingers in the edge of his coat nervously. "She passed away. I’m sorry."

The world around the girl crumbled, crashing down on her shoulders. It was all over.

“̶S̶h̶e̶ p̶a̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ a̶w̶a̶y̶.”

“̶S̶h̶e̶ p̶a̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ a̶w̶a̶y̶.”

“̶S̶h̶e̶ p̶a̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ a̶w̶a̶y̶.”

They had to be screwing with her. Obviously, this was a dirty trick from Silco. A pointless game. It couldn’t be anything else.

Because her baby… her baby…

She couldn’t be dead.

"No" she spat. "It’s all part of his stupid act. His damn farce."

She looked at Silco in despair, but he didn’t move.

"Enough of this!" her voice broke, and tears spilled from her eyes. "TELL THEM TO STOP!"

Silco’s expression shifted barely a fraction of a second to say only what was necessary: he had nothing to do with it.

"Pulmonary agenesis" the doctor explained, drawing the girl’s gaze back. "A congenital malformation. She just… stopped breathing."

Once again, an electric current ran through her like a sharp, icy breeze. Leaving her petrified.

"No… she… she was fine, I…"

"The causes aren’t always entirely clear, but looking through your records, Jinx… it’s possible it was caused by the very high level of Shimmer in your blood."

There it was. He had struck a weak point. It hit like a bullet, leaving behind metallic shrapnel beginning to pierce through the tissues of her heart.

It had been her fault.

"No…" she roared. "I need to see her. I need to know what you’re saying is true. Let me see her. Bring her back. BRING HER BACK!"

"Jinx, stop" Grayson insisted.

"NO! She’s not… She’s…" she tried to compose herself, but her breath only came out carrying all the pain in her chest. "Isha! ISHA!"

The girl’s brief serenity vanished the moment it reached her. She kept pulling at the shackles until her wrist turned purple and one of the unpolished metals dug into her skin.

"Jinx! She’s… she’s dead."

But the young woman still wouldn’t listen. Without warning, and simply by instinct, she snatched Grayson’s weapon from her belt and aimed it straight between the doctor’s eyes.

"Take me to her" she demanded. "Take me to my daughter!"

The man raised his hands, and before he could say another word, everything went dark.

She had fallen unconscious, completely collapsed among the hospital sheets, with only one phrase looping in her head:

“She’s crying a lot, that’s a good sign. It means she’s a healthy, very strong little girl."

Chapter Text

"Powder, sweetheart, listen to mama carefully."

Felicia’s voice seemed wrapped in the haze of a distant, blurred dream.

"If one day I’m not here to go with you on a long journey, you have to be strong and very brave, my little star. Never forget the power you have; one day you will make Mama proud."

The little girl’s blue-gray eyes began to fill with tears, and she clung tightly to her mother’s waist.

"Are you going? Can’t I come with you?"

Felicia crouched to her level, taking her by the shoulders with a sweet smile.

"No, my girl, but remember that no matter what happens, I will always be with you."

"Isha."

Silco crossed the threshold of the door, letting in only the warm light of the hallway, drawing both of their attention.

Felicia squinted; she had had to get used to the “affectionate” nickname her best friend had given her ever since he’d heard Violet call her that when she was under two years old.

At first it had been a running joke among the adults (her, Silco, and Vander) when Vi learned to speak; then it became a habit and Felicia grew fond of it.

"It’s late, we have to go," he said.

Powder turned her gaze back to her mother, frowning.

"Can’t you stay and sleep with me? Just for tonight?" she asked in a high, pleading voice.

Felicia shifted, lifting the girl into her arms to kiss her temple.

"You know I can’t, my love."

"But you always sleep with Vi" the other grumbled. "I want to sleep with Mama too. Just one night, please."

Felicia smiled patiently, stroking her daughter’s cheek.

"Maybe one day, my little trouble. Now let’s go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day."

But that day never came.

Not for them. That had been the last time both Vi and Powder saw their mother, because that night, Felicia simply… disappeared.

The white light of the examination room passed through her eyelids. Her vision was still blurry and the headache —from the blow Grayson had given her to knock her out— barely allowed her to sit up.

Silco was at her side, seated on a metal chair a few inches from her. His expression was stone-faced and downcast.

"Where is she?" Jinx asked, startled.

Once she realized what had just happened, she shook the sheets, searching. As if what she had lost were no more than an inanimate object.

"Where is she?!" she insisted again, this time with greater desperation. "Silco, where is Isha?"

Silco frowned at the memory of that nickname, which seemed to have become a name heavy with memories. He sighed deeply and stood to sit on the edge of the bed beside Jinx.

"She died," he said in a hoarse voice. "There was nothing to be done."

Jinx seemed not to have heard. The fog in her ears had reached her too; she could only hear her own psychotic thoughts that slowly tormented her.

“It’s possible it was caused by the very high level of Shimmer in your blood."

She heard, through the dimness of her memories, that voice that announced the death of her newborn and blamed her for it.

"No… no…" she tried to articulate. "It can’t be true. I saw her, Silco. I held her in my arms, she was breathing, she looked at me, she was alive… she was alive!"

“Jinx… I personally witnessed her death. I saw her body. There was no mistake.”

Jinx’s heart seemed to fall into a deep, dark abyss; everything around her blurred. She stopped feeling like a person, stopped feeling like herself, but above all, she stopped feeling like a mother.

Her baby was dead… because of her.

Silco rummaged in the inside pocket of his jacket, taking out a tiny pink blanket, folded carefully into a square small enough to fit in his hand, and handed it to Jinx.

"She was wrapped in it…" he cleared his throat, trying not to sound too harsh "when she was born. I thought maybe—"

"Let me—" Jinx interrupted, taking the blanket with the tips of her fingers. Her face shadowed and her gaze fell. "Let me see her…"

Silco went pale, not fully understanding the young woman’s words, but feeling her pain in his chest.

"Jinx…"

"Please" she interrupted again, glancing at the corners of the room. "I know this was your doing. All this theater. You said you would do that, remember? To be able to give her to that family of idiots, to keep her safe. I understand, I understand your plan, really. Just… just tell me she’s alive, please. Let me see her one last time. Let me… tell her everything will be okay."

"Jinx, I had nothing to do with this. This wasn’t part of the plan, girl," Silco replied, with a stern look. "She really… died."

Jinx’s eyes lost the light that had kept her grounded her whole life, and she frowned with a disturbed confusion.

"Then bring her back to life," she ordered. "Make her come back."

"I can’t do that…"

"You have to do something! YOU HAVE TO DO IT! FIX IT! Do whatever you have to do… but bring her back. You have to give me my daughter back!"

Silco stood with forced calm, massaging the bridge of his nose to steady his breath. He pulled a small key from his jacket pocket and removed the only cuff that had kept Jinx tied to the gurney.

"I’m sorry for what you’re going through, but you’ll have to pull yourself together," he said firmly. "I got you your 'conditional' freedom thanks to a humanitarian pardon for everything that happened. I had to pull a lot of strings and pay a lot, so make the most of it."

Jinx remained motionless, eyes fixed on a point in the void. Her fingers nervously toyed with the blanket he had just given her, while her knees seemed to tremble beneath the sheets.

She could still make out her swollen belly, carrying extra weight. For a moment she even felt that flutter she used to feel at the small movements of Isha, but a second later she realized it had been only her imagination.

Because her belly, like her arms, was empty.

Her chest contracted, became so very small that there was no room in it for anything but pain, and sporadic memories of her baby completely safe inside her, and that brief moment when she had held her for the first and last time.

The tears insisted on coming, but she would not let them. She inhaled deeply to swallow the knot that had formed in her throat. Her icy stare remained unmoved.

Silco extended to her her blaster, the one she hadn’t seen in months, the one that had stayed on the workbench in her room the last day she’d been there.

Holding the pregnancy test in one hand felt heavier than carrying a weapon.

Jinx took it slowly, as if for the first time, as if that weapon hadn’t been another extension of her body for years, weeks before.

She felt the familiarity, the known weight, and that rush of adrenaline that climbed her bones after pulling the trigger.

"I told you you were born to have a gun in your hands," Silco said proudly. "It’s time to go back to what we do, Jinx. Now make the world pay for everything it has taken from us."

▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂

Seventeen days and sixteen nights were spent driven solely by the murderous instinct that had always defined her. Silco had left in her hands the harshest jobs he had, not out of his own will, but because she had demanded it.

That mission was no different from the others. Just some man who had to disappear in silence. The problem was that Jinx loved to play with her victims, something Silco did not fully approve of, but he preferred to simply turn a blind eye.

By the time the man entered the office and turned on the lights, Jinx was already behind the desk. Her boots muddying the furniture, her head thrown back, staring at the ceiling.

"Nice place" she said, without even looking at him. "You’ve done an incredible job turning this rat’s nest into something decent."

The girl finally looked at him, settling into the chair.

"Although I’d add a few paint stains."

She slowly raised her gun, pointing at random places around the room.

"There" she fired, making the man flinch and cover his ears with his hands. "There" she fired again. "And there."

She finished with the barrel of the gun aimed right between his eyebrows.

"Poow!" she exclaimed in a mocking tone, without pulling the trigger.

The man shut his eyes, startled.

"I-I thought you were in prison…"

"I took a break" she replied, pushing off the desk with her boot to roll the chair back. "The city falls apart without me. Everyone starts thinking they can do whatever they want, isn’t that right?"

The man swallowed hard, his sweat betraying his obvious nervousness.

"Did you think Silco would overlook it?" Jinx asked, jumping out of the chair. "Okay, I’ll admit lying to him was… bold. But stealing from him? Ha! That was just stupid."

"I-I don’t know what you’re talking about."

Jinx smirked and, with heavy steps, walked around the desk until she stood behind him.

"I like that you deny it. Makes what comes next more fun."

She struck the back of his knees, forcing him to fall to the floor, then fired next to his ear, the bullet tearing into the desk skirt. The wood splintered, shards flying through the air.

A golden gleam pierced the darkness of the hole. Jinx fired again, making it bigger, and a pile of bank bundles spilled out before them.

"Don’t tell me" Jinx began with irony. "Your family inheritance, the legacy for your children, right?"

"Silco—"

"Silco" Jinx cut him off with a harsh, chilling voice. "He trusted you, is this how you decided to repay him?"

"I can explain."

"I didn’t ask you to."

She slid the gun barrel to the man’s temple, caressing the trigger with her fingertip.

"J-Jinx, please…"

Then, like a crack in the silence, a baby’s cry broke into the room. Jinx froze, shivers running through her.

The sharp, abrupt memory of Isha —that precious baby with rosy cheeks, a furrowed brow, and tiny trembling fingers clutching at her chest— pierced through her like a bullet, shattering her heart.

She raised her eyes, softening her threatening grip, and saw a young woman under the doorway to the adjoining room, carrying a baby in her arms.

As soon as their eyes met, the stranger stepped back, trying to soothe her child’s wails. The man slipped away from Jinx and went to stand beside the woman and the baby.

"That won’t keep you safe, and you know it" snapped Jinx, snapping back to herself.

The woman stepped forward, shielding the man with her body —and with her daughter’s— which made Jinx’s nerves bristle even more.

"Forgive him, please" the woman begged. "We needed the money, let us go with him, please. Silco would never hurt you for letting us leave, you’d lose nothing, right? You’d let a family that has nothing… not starve."

Jinx narrowed her eyes in silence, then drew a sardonic smile.

"Starve? Silco may be stingy, but he’s never let the dogs under his service go hungry. You didn’t steal out of need, but out of greed."

The woman’s face hardened then, her sharp words cutting even for someone like Jinx.

"We can give you whatever you want, we can make a deal" she tried to persuade her. "You can…"

She fell silent, staring at the baby in her arms: chubby, red-faced, small, her eyes begging to be fed, loved, and cared for.

"You can" she cleared her throat "take her instead."

Jinx frowned. At first she thought it was a joke, some kind of distraction, but when the mother placed the baby on the desk in front of them, not caring how close she was to the edge, Jinx realized she meant it, and her ironic smile faded.

"Take her with you, take her to Silco, tell him you took our daughter as payment for what we stole and that you killed us too" the woman went on, with chilling cynicism. "But let us go… please."

Jinx’s blank stare drifted from the faces of those unworthy parents to the baby squirming on the desk, tangling herself further in the blanket she was wrapped in. Her face already red from crying, tears streaked across her cheeks.

"And I thought I was the psychopath" she muttered, glaring at them with a disgusted look.

The woman opened her mouth again, but Jinx struck first. She shot him between the eyes and her in the stomach.

The baby let out a terrified scream after the final gunshot, curling up into a noisy, tiny ball of flesh.

Jinx walked up to both bodies. The mother, still conscious, stared at her in horror; her eyes flicked one last time to her child.

"I would have given my life for my daughter’s" the young woman with blue braids whispered. "Maybe I would’ve been a terrible mother if I’d had the chance, but you… you didn’t even deserve to be one."

And then the light vanished from the woman’s eyes.

Jinx turned, ready to grab the money stashed under the desk and leave; but the baby kept crying, firmly and insistently, begging for protection, for the bare minimum of care.

She tried to move on, but her body moved on its own, ignoring her demands, and —after taking a deep breath— she turned back to the child, looking down at her with a stony expression.

The baby twisted, putting her fingers in her mouth, desperate, terrified, not understanding why she was no longer in her mother’s arms, with no notion at all that this woman had sold her to the highest bidder without hesitation.

And if Jinx had been someone else —maybe the one she was before becoming a mother— she would have simply left her to die there alongside her parents’ corpses.

But Jinx no longer had that cold, raw heart. She understood that if the little one stayed there, she’d starve in less than two hours.

"Piltover Police, what’s your emergency?" came a voice on the other line, background noise barely covering the woman’s rough tone.

"I want to report a double homicide" said Jinx, as if what she’d done was nothing more than a childish prank. "I did it, the bodies are still here, the blood hasn’t even clotted."

She had sounded grim even to herself, but it was the only way to alarm them enough to dare come.

"There’s a baby here, I assume she’s the daughter of the couple I killed" she went on, letting the infant’s cries be heard over the line, "should I do the same with her?"

She waited a few seconds, letting them trace the call.

"We urge you to stay calm and leave the baby there, safe and sound. There’s no need to escalate this."

"If I get bored, I’ll do it anyway" Jinx spat indifferently. "And I’ll be bored in ten minutes."

She hung up, smashing the phone against the floor.

The baby’s cries continued to fill the office, drilling into her ears. They had become heavier, shriller, as if it were her last plea for help against loneliness and fear.

Jinx noticed the bottle the mother had set on the desk when she first walked in, still warm; she surely would have fed the baby with it if Jinx hadn’t intervened.

Now she understood that desperate cry was just hunger.

She sighed, blowing her bangs from her face, and carefully picked the baby up in her arms. The child’s wails softened, though she still made small sounds of protest from hunger, then cried again, sharp.

Immediately, Jinx brought the bottle to her lips. As soon as the baby felt it, she latched on eagerly.

"I want to think I did you a favor" she murmured as the baby fed. "It wasn’t fair for you to have parents willing to sacrifice you for themselves. You’re just about to discover the world… just like my Isha would have."

Her heart split in two, and she glanced at the dead mother’s body.

"You deserve better, little one. I hope someday you’ll understand."

The metallic thud of heavy boots broke the mournful silence. Jinx peeked through the window, making sure not to be seen.

The Enforcers had arrived at the ground floor of the building.

She looked one last time at the baby in her arms, gently pulled the bottle from her lips —making her cry again— and laid her on the sofa, wrapping her snugly, as if her own mother had done it.

The little one kept whining, no longer with desperate cries, but with a sob of separation and longing.

But Jinx could do no more —nor was she fully convinced she wanted to—. The baby was already safe, secure, warm, and her cries would guide the Enforcers straight to her.

The girl only had to vanish into the darkness of the alleys. Taking more responsibility over her would mean forming a bond, and Jinx wanted none.

She already had a daughter, and that would never change, even if she was no longer by her side.

The office door opened with a wooden creak, and the noise of the bar outside faded the moment Jinx shut it behind her.

"You took longer than necessary."

Silco lit a cigar nonchalantly, walking from the desk to the sofa with an imposing, dry stride, fully aware of the distance he had already measured a hundred times.

"There was a little girl, a baby" Jinx said hoarsely. "You didn’t say he had a daughter."

Silco dropped onto the sofa, exhaling smoke.

"Didn’t I? Thought I mentioned it" he replied calmly—. An insignificant detail.

Jinx frowned, irritated. It was obvious the only thing that mattered to him was reclaiming what was his.

"Where is it?" Silco asked, scanning the girl from head to toe. "The money. Where is it?"

The young woman curved a victorious smile.

"I forgot" she answered, light and careless, catching the man’s incredulous attention.

"What the hell do you mean? What do you mean 'you forgot'?"

"In that idiot’s office. Must’ve been the shock. A bunch of Enforcers showed up out of nowhere to cordon off the place. I couldn’t grab a single coin."

Silco paled, and the cigar slipped from his fingers onto the carpet.

"Are you insane? You lost millions!" he shouted, springing to his feet and grinding the cigar to ashes under his heel.

Jinx shrugged.

"An insignificant detail, right?" she shot back.

Silco swallowed, along with all the rage he’d let build in his throat. If it had been anyone else, he wouldn’t even have needed Sevika or any of his goons to make them vanish from the face of the earth. But this was Jinx. She could flip the world upside down and Silco would still be there to fix it.

He inhaled and slicked his hair back.

"I’ve got another job for you" he exhaled, sliding a yellowed sheet of paper across the desk. "I need you to retrieve something for me."

"From assassin to treasure hunter!" Jinx exclaimed sarcastically. "Will the pay be the same?"

Silco rolled his eyes, gathering patience, and pointed to the writing on the page:

September 10

Silco, life has strange turns, the world is so small. There’s still so much you and I need to talk about. I’ll see you at the usual place.

Tonight.

̶A̶n̶ ̶e̶c̶l̶i̶p̶s̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶r̶i̶s̶e̶n̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶M̶o̶o̶n̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶S̶t̶a̶r̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶r̶m̶e̶n̶t̶.̶

With love, M.

Jinx fixed him with a wary, suspicious glare after trying to make sense of the crossed-out text.

"Old girlfriend? Mistress? Acquaintance?" she prodded with spite.

"The meeting is tonight" Silco confirmed, ignoring her childish taunt. "You’ll go to the address I give you and find this."

He placed a photograph on the letter: a silver locket, its filigree shaped like vines curling around an iridescent gem.

"Mahina has always been a damn thorn in my side" Silco growled. "That relic was your mother’s. She stole it from my office years ago, shortly after she… disappeared. I need you to get it back."

Jinx nodded with a shrug, snatched the documents from the table, and made to leave.

"Jinx" Silco called after her. "If she has to die for you to recover that piece, do it."

The girl said nothing more, simply slipped away through the bar.

The usual place was nothing more than one of the most luxurious cabarets in the city above, a place hidden from Piltover’s pretentiousness.

The fluorescent lights and cigarette smoke barely let her keep her eyes open. She adjusted her hood to cover her face and took a seat at one of the tables nearest the stage.

The music kept a bohemian, decadent atmosphere—intimate, steady. Then, the lights went out, plunging the room into silence, and the spotlights centered on the stage.

A different melody began, carried by an angelic female voice.

(Play “ALICE” by PEGGY on loop:)

Then, the curtain opened, sliding slowly to the sides, and a young woman appeared at center stage. The spotlights lit her silvery hair, pale skin, and rosy lips.

Woke up in a haze, nothing on her brain.

Full of empty smiles.

They'll say: Sit and stay a while.

Her head up in the clouds. Where has she gone now?

Then Alice took a fall into the rabbit hole.

So the story goes.

Her velvety voice carried a hidden melancholy, as though she were sharing a story, a memory.

Alice, Alice, heart and soul.

Fell into a rabbit hole.

Dreamers dream until they don't.

Lost her mind a while ago.

Jinx seemed hypnotized by the song, the young woman’s voice, and her shining emerald eyes, which suddenly fixed on her at the last verse.

Alice, Alice, don't you know?

Wonderland was all a hoax.

Made it up so she could cope.

Madder than a hatter, Alice broke.

For a moment, the song stopped being a song and became a letter written only for Jinx—or at least that’s what it felt like under the singer’s steady gaze, as if she knew her from somewhere.

It was then Jinx noticed the locket hanging from her neck—the same one Silco so desperately wanted back.

She narrowed her eyes when the lights went out for a second, only to come back on with the singer no longer on stage, but behind her.

Alice stayed at home, losing track of time.

Staring at the ceiling, she escaped into her mind

Like the Cheshire cat, the ceiling fades to black

And in her mind she'll drown

As she chased the rabbit... down, down, down

Slow steps, fingernails grazing Jinx’s shoulders. A shiver ran down her spine, but she didn’t move. Instead, she calculated how to rip the pendant from her neck when the chance came.

Alice, Alice, heart and soul.

Fell into a rabbit hole.

Dreamers dream until they don't.

Lost her mind a while ago.

Then the singer stopped at her table with a triumphant smile, climbed back onstage without breaking eye contact, and from the bell sleeve of her bone-colored dress drew out the blanket Jinx kept so jealously hidden in her clothes.

The only keepsake left of her beloved Isha.

The blue-braided girl shot to her feet the moment the other cradled the blanket in her arms, fooling the audience into believing it was a real baby wrapped in fabric.

She looked at Jinx with a condescending smile, as if she understood the pain she had carried since that day.

Alice, Alice, don't you know?

Wonderland was all a hoax.

But Jinx felt it like a threat, a warning that clutched her heart in its fist.

Then the singer vanished behind the curtain, leaving the melody playing without her voice. And Jinx slipped backstage in pursuit.

She chased the mocking shadow down corridors, up staircases, until they both reached the rooftop terrace.

"So careless, Alice, you followed the White Rabbit" the singer mused with a melodic, theatrical voice.

"I didn’t fall down any hole" Jinx replied arrogantly.

"Not yet."

The indigo-haired girl wrinkled her nose. How dare she speak with such familiarity? And worse, how dare she take what was hers?

"Oh, forgive me" the other excused herself when she noticed Jinx’s gaze fixed on the empty blanket in her arms. "I only borrowed it, needed you to follow me."

"It’s not the only thing you need to give back" Jinx barked, her eyes darting to the locket on the pale girl’s neck.

The singer smiled, placing a hand over it while stretching the other out to return the blanket.

"Silco sent you to do his dirty work" she said.

"Wouldn’t be the first time."

"Oh, Alice…" the young woman murmured, unclasping the locket. "Do you really think you know him?"

She tossed the locket into Jinx’s hands, then stepped back onto the concrete railing.

"W-what the hell are you doing?" Jinx stammered, realizing how dangerously close she was to the edge.

"I’ll be dead by morning after this anyway" the other replied. "At least I was right that it would be you in the end. So many questions left unanswered, Jinx. But the most important thing is you must find your Star. Not everything is lost —she smiled—. Even if they make you believe otherwise. —Tears welled in her eyes as she sighed heavily—. Don’t make the same mistake I did, Blue Moon… She’s yours.

She took one last step back and fell into the void. Jinx froze. The locket in her hands snapped open, and a small sheet of paper folded in four fell out. She unfolded it carefully, her breath catching. Her hands trembled, the world around her blurred.

It was a photograph: a baby with teary eyes and her hands pressed to her lips. Her expression showed she had been crying for some time, frightened.

"I-Impossible…" Jinx muttered in disbelief. "Isha…?"

It was her, no doubt. Her face, her features, those bright golden eyes Jinx had fallen in love with the first time she held her in her arms—they shone back at her in that still image. She was completely certain.

Her little, beloved Isha.

On the back of the photograph, written in ink faded by moisture, it read:

September 7

Subject: LA1

Name: Isha

Status: Alive

S.

Jinx felt a knot form in her throat. That was Silco’s signature. She was completely sure.

“Jinx… I personally witnessed her death. I saw her body. There was no mistake.”

Had he really been so cynical as to lie to her face? To tell her that her own daughter was dead? Had he truly been capable of stealing her away?

Rage climbed through every one of her bones until there was no room for anything else. Now she needed answers, and he would give them to her—one way or another.

Because this time, nothing would stop her from being with her daughter. She would get her back, no matter what it took.

Chapter Text

The little Isha’s crying was incessant. She had been separated from her mother for eighteen days and seventeen nights. From the moment she was born and handed over by Silco to the couple who would become her permanent family, she had not stopped resenting Jinx’s absence.

She couldn't remember her face, the color of her hair, or the intensity of her eyes — not even the way she had looked at her so sweetly the moment she held her in her arms. The little one only retained the sound of her voice and the scent of her skin, as well as the warmth of her chest when she was breastfed for the first time. Perhaps that was why she would not tolerate that her new mother feed her powdered milk; the cold glass of the bottle could never compare to the warmth of that first caress of life.

“Come on, my little one,” the woman murmured, trying to get the baby to latch onto the bottle’s nipple, but the child simply refused, crying without stopping, rejecting the food and thrashing desperately in the arms of her distressed mother. “You have to eat…”

The door to the pink-walled room opened gently, letting out a squeak. The woman’s husband came in with a steel tray full of clean bottles and a container of hot water.

“How’s it goi—?” he tried to ask, but his wife's exhausted expression cut him off. “That bad?”

She grunted, rising from the recliner with the baby wailing in her arms.

“She won't. She just won't. No matter what I do or how hard I try.”

“You have to keep trying, love. She hasn’t eaten properly since she came to us; we can’t leave her like this.”

“I know!” the woman exploded, desperate. The sharp cry only made Isha stop crying to look at her with genuine terror. “But I can’t do it! It’s almost like she hates me…”

The woman trembled with frustration, the child in her arms. Isha broke into uncontrollable crying, a violent wail that no longer reflected only her hunger but terror toward the woman holding her — the tension in her grip and the hostility with which the voice that should console her sounded. The baby could detect her annoyance, and the near-resentment she was forming toward the small, innocent being.

The man could not say more; he knew his wife’s limits all too well, he knew there was nothing that could soothe her. And, deep down, a bitter certainty gnawed at him: the certainty that all of this could very well be karma. He could never get the agonized screams of Jinx out of his head when they had made her believe her little girl had died.

The woman placed Isha in the crib with a brusque motion. The little one seemed to feel a momentary relief, but then resumed her crying.

“Let’s wait until she’s actually hungry,” she said, her voice wavering between sweetness and poison. “Otherwise she won’t want it.”

The man watched her with anguish but said nothing. He left the room, leaving the little girl crying in the center of those four walls.

Because she would have to give in at some point: to hunger or to exhaustion.

The office door flew open with overwhelming force. Jinx stormed in like a tempest: steady stride, sharp posture, magenta eyes ablaze with barely contained fury. She planted herself in front of Silco, slamming her hands down on the desk.

“Where is she?” she demanded violently. Silco turned in his chair, apparently used to the girl’s attitude. “Where the hell do you have her?!”

Another sharp slam sent papers fluttering across the desk, but Silco’s indifference remained firm.

Painfully firm. So much so that it gave Jinx a migraine.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, unconcerned.

“Stop lying, damn it!” Jinx spat. “I know Isha is alive!”

Paleness crossed Silco’s face for a second. His normally unflappable gaze deepened into shadow as he looked at Jinx with cold attention.

“You took her away from me…”

Silco inhaled sharply, filling his weakened lungs to keep calm in the face of the young woman’s hostility. He stood and circled the desk slowly, muttering under his breath and cursing Mahina for having once again — even after death — been a thorn in his side.

“Tell me where she is,” Jinx demanded.

Silence. A silence so dense it seemed to crush her patience and drove her to the brink of sorrow and rage. Jinx’s frustration mixed with a lacerating disappointment.

“How could you…?” she murmured, broken. “You made me believe that my daughter… my baby… was dead. What right did you have…?”

Silco remained motionless, watching her without being drawn in, but deep down he knew Jinx would not back down; it wasn’t her way.

“WHY?!” Jinx exclaimed, her trembling voice close as she took another step toward Silco. “WHY THE HELL—?!”

“Because you didn’t want her!” Silco interrupted, shutting her up with a stern look. “You tried to abort. You agreed to give her to another family. The doubts you had about keeping her were simply your hormones getting the better of you. There was no other way, Jinx! You didn’t want that girl.”

Then Jinx’s hand cut the air, a sharp blow, an abrupt sound.

She had slapped him.

Her young, immature self vibrated at the sensation of having done something that felt forbidden by nature, the feeling of having crossed a line, but it was Silco’s expression that put her on alert: he showed nothing, not a trace of anger, not a flicker of annoyance, only surprise and a look that seemed to say she’d earned it.

“She was my daughter…” Jinx stammered, summoning what little courage she had left and drawing a deep breath. “SHE WAS MY DAUGHTER! MY DAUGHTER! You had no right to take her from me!”

Silco took a step back, leaning his weight against the edge of the desk.

“You don’t understand what’s at stake, girl,” he said, ignoring the heat on his cheek from the slap. “Really, Jinx… what kind of life could you have given her?"

The girl fell silent. The question echoed through every corner of her damaged mind, but she would not give in — not to him, not to anyone.

“I’m going to find her, whether you like it or not,” she warned, her words sharp. “And I will kill anyone who tries to stop me… including you.”

Jinx returned to her room. Parts of unfinished weapons were scattered across the floor, the bed, the workbench, and the sofa. It was hard to find any free space among all that scrap. Not that the girl cared; Jinx hardly slept or rested anymore — her pain had made her incapable of it — and that was better, because when she did manage, she had endless nightmares from which she woke screaming her little daughter’s name.

Isha…

This time the anger tasted different, a bit colder than she was used to feeling. It was a bizarre mix of her pain, fear, and helplessness but, above all, the disappointment and hatred that seemed to be settling on her skin.

She began tossing everything in her path into the air, with muffled screams that contained the fragility of her soul about to break. Every experiment Silco had ordered her to conduct was smashed against the floor. Every project exploded into pieces — everything in the room was a clear reflection of the chaos unfolding in her head.

More than one box full of rusty parts from poorly assembled weapons flew out, scattering their contents around the room. The girl collapsed backward against one of the railings, holding her face with both hands, digging her nails into her bangs to stop the anxiety from taking over.

She extended the tip of her foot out of habit and a soft tinkle pulled her from her torturous trance. Through the fog that bitter tears had formed in her eyes, Jinx could just make out the small object she had kicked by accident:

A rattle.

A tiny rattle shaped like a little hand-knitted white bunny with a wooden handle.

Jinx picked it up carefully; the bells inside tinkled with a sweet chime that brought bitter memories of her mother.

Because her mother had knitted it for her. Or at least that’s what Felicia had once told her: “I knitted it when I was pregnant with you, that’s why it’s so special.”

And Jinx had kept it her whole life, because it was one of the few pieces of her mother that still belonged to her. She never had the heart to get rid of it. She pressed the rattle to her chest. She loved Felicia, but something inside her would never forgive the fact that she had abandoned her without explanation.

She couldn’t do the same with Isha. She couldn’t just abandon her with a couple of strangers. She couldn’t allow that same void to be inherited. She couldn’t let that innocent creature spend every day of her life wondering why her mother had left her behind.

There was only one place to start looking. Jinx burst into Silco’s office once night had fallen. The place was lit only by the flashes of lightning that lit up the city’s alleys after the torrential rain that had broken over it.

Every drawer of the desk hit the floor, splintering. She didn’t care about the mess, much less about being discovered; in fact, deep down, she longed for it with every fiber of her being. Only then could she prove to the old man that he had made a grave mistake by getting in her way.

But she couldn’t find much. Most of the documents Silco guarded so jealously were nothing more than reports on all his clients, the massive movement of Shimmer, and a few old, ink-stained letters.

“Damn it,” she cursed under her breath when she realized there wasn’t nearly enough information in that damned office.

“Behind the painting,” she heard from the doorway.

Sevika was there. Her taciturn gaze fixed on her, with condescending eyes that somehow put Jinx in a foul mood, but also on alert.

“What the hell are you doing here?” the younger girl growled.

“Move the damn painting,” the other ordered.

Jinx frowned, confused, but time was running out and she couldn’t afford to waste precious seconds that put Isha’s life at risk.

Behind the only painting in the office, one that portrayed Silco himself with a cold, distant gaze, she found a hole in the wall. It wasn’t even sealed, just an improvised opening, as if someone had simply decided to break the wall and leave it as it was.

Inside, in a small wooden box, lay the same photo of that Zaunite couple that Silco had brought her in prison when he proposed leaving Isha in their care. There was also the locket she had recovered from Mahina, now dull, its once iridescent and luminous stone turned black and lifeless.

At the bottom of the box, a carefully folded sheet spelled out something resembling a contract with Silco’s signature and Isha’s name throughout the text.

“It’s a promise,” Sevika confirmed, unmoving. “They both agreed to keep the secret until the day they died. If either of them spoke, Silco’s men would officially hunt them down.”

“He sold my daughter…?”

“No. He got nothing in return for her.”

Sevika’s words fell like cold ice down her spine. Silco had gotten nothing in exchange for Isha — not even out of self-interest. He had only been looking for a way to get rid of her.

Of her baby.

“They’re near the Progress Bridge,” Sevika went on, turning toward the door. “An old, enormous house.”

“How do you know…?”

Sevika was silent for a second before moving forward.

“Because… I was the one who took her there after they pulled her out of the hospital while you were unconscious.”

Jinx swallowed hard, using all the strength she had left to stop herself from lunging at her. She hated her enough not to feel any remorse about putting a bullet through her, but she also understood that in the end, she moved under Silco’s orders — and that he was the real one responsible for all of this.

“Will you tell him I was here?” Jinx asked, regaining her composure.

“What the hell are you talking about, brat?” Sevika spat as she walked through the doorway. “I’m still asleep.”

And she left, leaving Jinx with a particularly strange sensation in her throat.

Just as Sevika had said, Isha’s new home rose on the edges of the city, right at the blurred boundary between Piltover and Zaun. A massive, old house with cracked walls and towering roofs.

The night was still young, but the silence reigning there was so dense that Jinx assumed, judging by that unsettling calm, that everyone inside was asleep. It was her chance.

She had to act fast, without alerting anyone. Only then could she gain the advantage she needed to get Isha to safety.

Without thinking too much, she shot the door handle, the crash echoing into the distance as the wood gave way. She slipped through the main hall like a ghost, moving swiftly and lightly, making her way to the second-floor corridor.

Its walls were lined with portraits of that Zaunite couple, with a few showing Isha. Homely, family scenes, carefully fabricated.

The photos of Isha showed the little baby with flushed cheeks and tearful eyes, always with the same disturbed, uneasy expression.

“A whole life built on a stolen family,” Jinx muttered bitterly.

She climbed the spiral staircase, each step creaking under her weight in a serenity that felt foreign, one that churned her stomach and made her nauseous.

At the top of the stairs she found a wooden door, carefully painted in a pastel pink shade. It was obvious that both the door and everything around it had been remodeled recently.

Isha was inside; Jinx could feel it in every bone of her body, in every accelerated beat of her anguished heart.

She placed her hand on the handle, but before turning it, her gaze landed on another photograph sitting on a nightstand beside the door.

It reflected the same image of the “perfect family,” but this time, Isha seemed to be sleeping peacefully in the arms of the woman pretending to be her mother — her tiny eyes closed, long lashes brushing her cheeks, and something like a smile drawn around the little fists resting against her lips.

She looked so peaceful, so calm, so safe, as if nothing in the world could ever be missing from her. In a place where her life would never be at risk, where she would never be involved with a criminal who had spent her whole pregnancy in prison.

“What kind of life could you have given her?” Silco’s words pierced her ears, sharp and lacerating.

Jinx felt her grip withdraw from the handle.

What if Isha truly didn’t need her? What if her daughter didn’t even remember her? What if she didn’t even miss her? And what if… she had already grown attached to that family? Then… would Jinx be the true villain, tearing a baby away from her loving parents? From… the only mother the little girl now knew?

Maybe Silco had done the right thing. Maybe Isha really was better off away from her, even if Jinx could never be away from her daughter.

She took a step back. She could leave. She could leave everything as it was. She could forget about her, and give her the chance to have a happy, full, safe life.

But before she could take another step, the baby’s cry stopped her cold. It was like a sharp scream, a desperate wail calling for help with the last of her strength.

Jinx, pulled by instinct, burst through the door without even realizing her actions.

The room before her left her stunned for a moment. The pink walls, the same shade as the door, were lit by the soft glow of the chandelier’s yellow bulbs. The carpeted floor was full of stuffed animals, toys, and children’s books, while on top of the dresser sat a neat stack of freshly washed clothes.

In the center of the room stood a beautiful crib with a pink satin canopy. Jinx froze, Silco’s words once again planting themselves in her head — and before she could dwell on them further, the baby cried again, this time weak and tired.

Jinx leaned her head over the crib, and there she found her.

Her little one. Her girl. Her baby.

Her beloved Isha.

Just as she remembered her the day she lost her—her blue-brown curls and those golden eyes that looked up at her pleadingly, yearning for protection and love. Completely different from what she imagined would be the gaze of a child happily adored by the family that had long wished for her.

The baby went still for a moment as soon as she noticed the young woman’s presence, her crying softened into faint sobs, while her lips curled as if trying to break down every wall surrounding her mother’s heart—the mother she was getting to know again.

When Isha saw that Jinx made no move to take her into her arms, she began to cry again, waving her tiny limbs with a cry that, though desperate at first, gradually weakened, until it was barely perceptible to Jinx herself. And that broke her heart.

She picked the little one up gently and cradled her against her chest. Her heart leapt the moment the baby nestled in her arms with a sweet murmur.

Jinx exhaled, releasing all the weight she had carried since her daughter’s supposed death. Her baby was alive, and at last those restless little hands she once saw wriggling on the ultrasound screen had something to cling to.

The child clung to Jinx’s neckline, her face flushed from crying—no longer tears, only exhausted sobs—accompanied by a weak growl of hunger from her tiny stomach.

Jinx froze at the startling sound. She lifted her gaze to the dresser, where the bottle the false mother had abandoned earlier still lay. She tried feeding her with it, but—just as with the other woman—the little one flatly refused.

She even seemed angry, so upset that her own mother could not understand her pleas or meet her needs. She brought her hands to her mouth and began moving her head, instinctively searching for Jinx’s breast.

The girl felt her heart twist, sorrow flooding her chest—the pain of seeing her little one so desperate to be fed, so hopeful that she would be the one to ease her hunger.

Her surprise was immense when the baby immediately began to suckle the moment she pressed her to her chest. Isha’s desperation to sate her hunger was unmistakable.

“Girl…” she whispered in a broken voice, “what did they do to you…?”

She was so hungry.

“I’m so sorry, little one… I should never have let them take you away from me,” she went on, caressing the delicate hair of the child who had already grown accustomed to the place in her arms. “You…” she faltered, “you just wanted to be in Mama’s arms…”

“I am her mother!”

Jinx barely turned her head to glimpse the Zaunite couple standing in the doorway. She pulled Isha away from her chest and wrapped her in the blanket she kept hidden in her clothes.

When she finally turned toward them, she saw the woman trembling, holding a weapon in her hands, while the husband seemed genuinely shocked that the baby was so calm—calmer than she had ever been since arriving at that house.

“You were starving her! How can you call yourself her mother like that?”

Isha squirmed in Jinx’s arms, seeking more comfort in her warm embrace. She didn’t even seem frightened or confused by the sudden change in her mother’s voice.

“Give me back my daughter,” the other demanded.

Her eyes, gentle at first when she had presented herself to Jinx, now looked hollow and distant—perhaps from the fear of losing another child, even if this one had never truly been hers.

“If you want her, you’ll have to kill me first,” Jinx threatened.

The woman snarled and fired a shot at random, rattling the chandelier above. Jinx instinctively shielded Isha with her body.

“You crazy bitch!” Jinx screamed.

Another shot—this time aimed directly at them. The bullet grazed Isha but struck Jinx.

The husband tried to restrain his wife, wrestling with her. Isha wailed in terror at the gunfire. Adrenaline barely allowed Jinx to breathe; all she could think of was protecting her daughter.

She bolted for the window behind her and, with a kick, shattered the glass. She looked at Isha one last time, holding her tightly, and leapt into the void with her.

They landed on a pile of garbage bags that cushioned the fall. Only then did Jinx notice her hands covered in blood—along with the blanket that wrapped Isha.

“No… no, no, no, no.”

Terrified, she hastily unwrapped the baby, praying to the heavens she wasn’t hurt.

And no—she wasn’t. The blood wasn’t Isha’s. It was hers. The gunshot wound in her ribs burned, blood pouring out in streams.

She breathed again; her soul had returned to her body.

She was hurt, yes. But at least her little one wasn’t.

When they returned home, she noticed that the Shimmer in her body, which had always healed her wounds, wasn’t working.

“Damn it,” she cursed, laying Isha down on the bed with utmost care. “Why isn’t it working?”

The baby wouldn’t stop crying—she hadn’t since they fell from that window. She wasn’t hurt; Jinx had checked her over and over. But she was terrified.

All that was new—the gunshots, the fall, the noise, the paranoia—were signals of danger to her.

“Please, be quiet…” Jinx begged, clutching her wound to slow the bleeding. “If Silco finds you… I won’t have the strength to protect you.”

But the little one didn’t heed her. That’s when Jinx lifted her gaze and saw the rattle she had left on the bed earlier. She grabbed it and shook it in front of the baby.

The child stilled for a moment, expectant, mesmerized by the little bunny that seemed to gaze at her with tenderness. The baby smiled, lifting her hands toward the toy to snatch it from her mother—who, for the first time in weeks, since losing her, smiled genuinely.

Isha brought one of its ears to her lips, gnawing with her gums until it was soaked in saliva. Jinx let out a little laugh through her teeth, biting down to contain the pain of her wound.

“Will it be a habit of yours to put everything in your mouth?” she murmured, sighing heavily. “I think, in the end, my mother knitted it for you… her first granddaughter.”

Isha yawned, stretched a little, and while one tiny hand clutched the rattle carelessly, the other curled against her lips for comfort as she drifted into deep sleep.

Then, the barrier Jinx had built her whole life to protect her heart melted away before the warmth emanating from Isha’s tiny, innocent body. Her baby was finally home, safe by her side, sleeping peacefully, as if nothing else mattered.

A sharp pain shot through her rib. She pressed her hand to the wound, feeling the hot wetness of blood. The Shimmer still wasn’t working.

If it went on like this… she would bleed to death.

She had no time to think further. Someone yanked her hair so hard it slammed her against the floor.

“That’s a deep wound,” she heard behind her.

Jinx froze in fear; she could feel an icy current running down her spine.

“L-Lars…?”

The man loomed over her, forcing her to the ground.

“If you don’t get that bullet out soon, it could get infected…” he mocked, then jabbed his finger into her wound.

Jinx screamed in pain and tried to fight him off.

Isha, who had been sleeping peacefully, woke with a terrified cry at her mother’s scream.

Lars’s smile vanished instantly, leaving him petrified. Jinx tried to stop him when he made as if to move away from her, but Lars slammed her back to the ground.

The man leaned over the bed, staring at the baby in heavy silence. Her blue-brown curls so unlike his own jet-black, straight hair. Her amber eyes, tearful and restless, contrasting with his olive green ones.

“You lied to me…” he snarled through clenched teeth, never taking his eyes off the baby. “You wanted to pass this… bastard off as my child.”

Jinx crawled across the floor with difficulty, trying to reach the little one. Lars grabbed her by the neck.

“You’re a fucking liar. That brat isn’t mine. You must have gotten tangled up with someone else, you filthy whore. You think I’m an idiot?” he growled, while Jinx dug her nails into him, trying to free herself.

Had she not been wounded, she could have handled him easily—but he was so cowardly that he chose to attack her at her most vulnerable… again.

“You won’t make a fool of me. I told you if you kept screwing with me, I’d kill you and that damn baby.”

Lars smashed Jinx’s face hard against the floor. Then he grabbed a pillow to smother Isha’s desperate crying before it infuriated him further.

Fear made her move. Jinx hauled herself up with all the strength she had left, ignoring the burning pain in her ribs and the blows from her ex. The only thing driving her was the sound of Isha’s cry being suffocated by him.

“Don’t you dare hurt her!”

She shoved him with superhuman strength against the railing, struggling with him until she tore the gun from his belt and pulled the trigger.

The shot cracked like a dry snap through flesh. Lars’s eyes locked on Jinx before he collapsed, lifeless. The girl staggered back, letting the gun fall to the floor. Then Isha’s muffled sobs once again drew her attention.

Jinx jolted and rushed to her little one, yanking the pillow off her reddened face and pulling the baby against her chest. The child coughed a couple of times while her mother patted her back gently.

The pain came back full force, and Jinx fell to her knees. She couldn’t go on like this. She couldn’t keep waiting for Shimmer to heal a wound that was on the verge of infection.

She couldn’t die.

She couldn’t leave her little one alone. She couldn’t leave her at the mercy of those who had already tried to harm her.

She stood with difficulty and wrapped the child in the same blanket they had arrived with.

She bitterly understood that the time had come to ask for help, because there was no way she could do this alone. Not on the edge of death.

She had to make sure that, if she didn’t survive, someone would care for Isha.

And there was only one person she trusted to place something so important in his hands:

Ekko…

Chapter Text

The Suburban District was an ecosystem worthy of study; its alleys, riddled with crime and addiction, made survival nearly impossible for the weakest and most susceptible. The only one powerful enough to come out unscathed was, without a doubt, Silco —because whoever controlled the Shimmer, controlled the Lanes.

The so-called “Shimmer” wasn’t just an addictive substance; it was an elixir of life, a compound capable of healing the deepest wounds… for a price.

Abusing Shimmer always—always—ended up being deadly for whoever used it. That was why Piltover had strictly banned its use, but Silco quickly realized that its distribution, though illegal, was also a gold mine.

And, in Jinx’s case, it had been her salvation.

That day when little Powder became Jinx after accidentally causing the death of her adoptive brothers in the fire at The Last Drop, she was gravely wounded—and if it hadn’t been for the Shimmer she was given, she would have died at only eleven years old. Sadly, Claggor and Mylo weren’t so lucky.

Jinx’s tainted blood had reached the lives of her brothers, just as she later believed it had with Isha.

Nothing was ever the same after that. Vi and Vander distanced themselves from her, and it was Silco who spread his wing to protect her—he seemed to be the only human being on earth who somehow understood her, her strange and twisted self.

The problem was that, although Shimmer had practically become part of her, she needed to keep administering it constantly to avoid withdrawal symptoms—and that was particularly painful. Very painful.

And still, even though Jinx knew the pain Shimmer could cause and the consequences it unleashed in others, she didn’t care that it kept being distributed through the Lanes—not as long as it kept giving her and Silco control over them.

That was why Ekko and Vi had left, why they had decided to abandon her just as her mother once did—and she would never forgive them for it.

But… this time, the circumstances had overwhelmed her, and she desperately needed help.

The rain had already flooded the streets when Jinx knocked on the door of that apartment in Piltover. A few minutes after her relentless knocking, the door opened to reveal Ekko’s drowsy face, clearly annoyed at being woken up in the middle of the night.

As soon as he saw the girl under the doorway, cloaked in a grayish mantle that hung from her shoulders to her ankles, the air left his chest in an instant.

"Jinx…" Ekko seemed genuinely confused, "what are you doing here?"

"Wow" she spat, sarcastically, "after all this time without seeing each other, that’s your 'warm welcome'?"

Ekko frowned.

"I’m sorry, but I wasn’t expecting visitors at this hour of the night" he muttered.

Jinx forced a mocking smile, trying to hide the pain of her wound, but she had walked there on foot and was exhausted. She could feel her legs trembling, her strength slipping away little by little. It was a miracle she was still standing.

However, her pride wasn’t enough to carry the weight of a dying body—she collapsed. Ekko reacted quickly, catching her before she hit the floor.

"Jinx! What the hell?" he exclaimed, freezing for a second when he noticed the thin trail of blood dripping from somewhere beneath her cloak down to her ankle. His voice tensed with anguish. "Jinx!"

But the girl didn’t respond. No matter how much Ekko tried to wake her, his frantic eyes could barely make out her translucent face.

"POWDER!"

This time, desperation made Ekko shake her roughly, waking Isha and making her cry in her mother’s arms. The boy flinched at the sound—the baby had been hidden, wrapped beneath Jinx’s cloak, and had slept through the whole journey, until the startled boy woke her up. Now, all the little one wanted was to wake her mama.

Ekko froze when he saw the child wriggling fiercely, trying to cling to Jinx’s chest. Then his eyes darted to the gunshot wound that looked worse by the minute. He swallowed hard and lifted Jinx into his arms. She was unconscious, but even then, her body clung to Isha; she never loosened her hold.

For the next few hours, Ekko remained vigilant for any change in her condition. He couldn’t call a doctor—Jinx was still a wanted criminal, and he knew it too well; he had just seen a 'WANTED' poster with her face on it before heading home. So he did everything possible to treat her wounds. It wasn’t easy, but he was grateful that life in the hostile Lanes had forced him to learn some medicine when he was younger.

And if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that with all the blood Jinx had lost, she wouldn’t be able to feed the baby resting beside her. Even if she woke up, it would be certain death.

"Is she… your mother?" he asked.

The baby had stopped crying once Ekko laid her beside Jinx, but she had been restless ever since entering the apartment—kicking the air, waving her hands, as if her mother’s nearness wasn’t enough.

Ekko sighed. It was hard to believe that Jinx had become a mother, but Isha’s blue-brown hair didn’t lie. Besides, the baby bore a striking resemblance to her—soft features that echoed what Jinx had once been.

"You’ll have to wait a little while for her to wake up. I’m sorry, little one, but she’s fighting for her life right now."

Isha went still for a second, her tiny mouth open and curious eyes fixed on him, as if processing what he had just said. Ekko felt a pang in his chest—and in the next instant, Isha’s lips curled into a pout that put him on alert.

It seemed she understood that her mother was suffering and couldn’t hold her, feed her, or even speak to her.

"No, no, no… please, don’t cry."

Driven by panic at the sound of her crying, he picked her up, trying awkwardly to rock her. Of course, Ekko had no idea what he was doing—this was all new to him. He had never imagined himself cradling the daughter of his ex-lover.

Jinx’s daughter… and someone else’s.

He swallowed hard, as if a handful of thorns had caught in his throat, when he felt Isha’s little hands tugging at his shirt. He hadn’t realized how quiet the room had become—the baby had stopped crying. Only then did he understand that she wasn’t hungry or fussy—just scared. All she wanted was to be in her mother’s arms, but she didn’t seem uncomfortable in his.

The peaceful look on her face tightened Ekko’s heart with an emotion he had never known before.

Jinx opened her eyes with difficulty—perhaps the absence of Isha’s presence had triggered a deep worry in her chest that forced her out of her stupor.

She searched for Isha as soon as she woke, a horrible bitterness flooding her throat as she remembered the moment Silco had told her that her baby had died after childbirth.

For a second she feared it had all been a dream—another nightmare—and that Isha really was dead. Until a sweet gurgle made her lift her gaze toward Ekko.

There he was, at the other end of the room, gently swaying the baby in his arms. Isha watched him closely, making soft little sounds that melted both their hearts.

Jinx’s heart broke in two. The moment before that—when Lars had almost suffocated the baby hours earlier—flashed in her mind and froze her blood. Her child had almost been killed by her own father, and if she hadn’t been fast enough…

She shook her head to drive away the painful thoughts.

But seeing Ekko like that, holding a baby that wasn’t his, tore her apart just the same—especially because, for years, she had wished their future could somehow have looked like that.

Jinx cleared her throat to catch his attention. Ekko blushed, wiping the tender smile from his face as he looked at Isha, and barely managed to form a coherent sentence.

"Y-You’re awake…" he stammered, rushing over when Jinx tried to sit up in bed. "Wait, wait. You should stay lying down, keep resting, your wounds—"

"I’m fine" Jinx snapped, glaring up at him with fiery eyes.

"Who did this to you…?"

Jinx leaned back against the headboard, grimacing in pain at even the smallest movement.

"Someone who won’t be alive much longer. Once I recover, I’m going to—"

But before she could finish, Isha let out a sharp cry. She had heard her mother’s voice, and now Ekko’s arms weren’t enough to soothe her.

The boy handed her over gently, and Jinx held her close, suppressing a soft smile that went unnoticed by her—but not by Ekko.

"I think she was worried about you" he murmured, glancing at Isha.

Jinx scoffed; she couldn’t stand the way he looked at her, as if nothing that had happened between them had ever existed.

"She shouldn’t be. I’m hard to kill" she said.

"Then… she’s your—"

"Yes, she’s mine. My little Isha."

Ekko frowned. Being close to the family once, he had known Felicia as a child, and somehow nostalgia settled heavily in his chest. He understood that it made sense for Jinx to want to honor a mother she had such conflicted feelings toward.

"It’s a beautiful name" he said simply. "She’s beautiful."

"Yeah, well…" Jinx tried to stand. "Since I’m not dead, I can go back home."

But the pain overwhelmed her, forcing her to stop with a bitter grimace.

"You can stay here tonight" Ekko said.

And although Jinx wasn’t entirely convinced, she couldn’t refuse. Leaving in her condition would be a terrible idea—it would mean risking Isha’s life for nothing. A certain death.

So she agreed in the end.

“Criminals don’t build families.” Silco’s words came back to her like a dagger to the chest as she looked at Isha again, now sleeping beside her.

Was her luck truly that bad since birth—that even the one wish she had always longed for would be tainted by it? Jinx only ever wanted to have a family… Why did everything have to go so wrong?

Isha made a soft little sound—her breathing calm, tender, and defenseless as she slept—and it stirred Jinx’s heart.

Sleep was consuming the young woman as well. She didn’t want to fall asleep—she couldn’t—not while Isha’s life was still in danger. But for a moment, exhaustion overwhelmed her. Her body grew unbearably heavy; she couldn’t even move, as though something enormous were pressing her down against the bed.

The flame of the candle that warmly lit the room flickered wildly, went out, and then, a second later, came back to life. Jinx remained paralyzed, her breathing erratic, her frantic eyes searching for Isha.

Her terror was palpable when a shadow appeared on the wall beside the baby—a hand growing larger and larger, its sharp claws seeming eager to rip Isha away from her side.

Jinx tried to move, but failed. She couldn’t even open her mouth to speak. The shadow crept closer, stealthy, until its darkness covered Isha completely.

The young mother felt terror clawing up her throat and let out a guttural sound that was meant to be a desperate scream. She thrashed violently, struggling to free herself from her invisible prison. An explosion of blue sparks burst around her, shattering what seemed like a handful of transparent chains that bound her to the bed.

She lunged toward Isha as soon as she could move, trying to shield her with her body—but the shadow was already gone. Had it only been a nightmare?

A sharp pounding at the apartment door made her flinch. Ekko and she stepped into the main corridor just as a second, louder knock rattled the door. From the other side came a familiar voice that made every nerve in Jinx’s body tremble.

"Silco…" she muttered, biting her tongue. Worry overtook her face as she took a step back, sliding her fingertips along her thigh, searching for her weapon.

Ekko grabbed her wrist quickly—it was clear he didn’t want his home riddled with bullet holes. And although he didn’t fully understand what was happening, he knew one thing for sure: it wasn’t a good sign that Jinx was running from the only adult she had ever trusted.

"Go back to the room and lock the door" he told her.

Jinx hesitated, but when she heard Isha fussing from the bed at her absence, she had no choice but to comply. Silco burst into the place the very next second after Jinx locked the bedroom door.

"It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a serious rat problem in this place" Ekko spat, taking a discreet step in front of the door behind which Jinx was hiding.

"Don’t play dumb with me, boy. Tell me where Jinx is" the older man demanded.

Ekko arched a brow.

"I haven’t seen her in months. You’re the one who’s supposed to be taking care of her, aren’t you?"

Silco growled. He had never been fond of Ekko, and the only reason he tolerated him was because Jinx cared for the boy. But the situation had already gone too far, and patience was the last thing Silco had left. He grabbed Ekko by the collar and slammed him against the door.

"Listen to me, you stupid brat—"

The impact of Ekko’s back against the wood made a loud, dry crack that terrified Isha. The little girl let out a sob loud enough for Silco and his men to hear it from the other side. Ekko clenched his jaw, trying to stay firm in front of the doorway to block them, but Silco threw him aside effortlessly.

Jinx went pale when she heard the lock being forced open. She scooped up the baby and searched frantically for an escape route—the window. It led to a steel staircase that climbed down the side of the building.

She jumped with difficulty and rushed down each metal step.

Dawn was barely breaking when she crossed the alley and reached a maze of pristine, elegant streets characteristic of the City of Progress. She paused for a moment to take in the grandeur of a city that despised her—one that hunted her down as Silco’s right hand.

The very man she was now fleeing from to save her daughter.

She felt a hostile grip on her shoulder before being slammed against the concrete wall behind her. Instinct drove her to shield Isha from the sudden blow, but the baby still cried, terrified by the attack.

"What the hell are you doing here?" a man’s voice said.

Jinx looked up, wincing from the pain of the hit. The Enforcer who had beaten her in Stillwater while she was pregnant. Lars’s lapdog. Because, of course, Silco wasn’t the only one with 'contacts' in the Uppside.

The girl bit her tongue, trying to reach her pistol strapped to her leg, but the man stopped her cold, his gaze fixing on the baby as a chilling smile spread across his face.

"This is the little bastard you tried to pawn off on Lars, isn’t it?" he mocked, attempting to stroke the baby’s head with the hand not restraining Jinx.

The mother moved swiftly, dodging the man’s filthy touch on her child. He let out a sardonic snort, his grin never fading.

"I heard Lars went to see you" he said, not letting go. "How come you’re here and he’s not?"

For the first time in a long while, Jinx smirked triumphantly, stepping closer to shorten the distance between them.

"You should ask the corpse in my room" she replied.

The Enforcer swallowed hard, stunned—and before Jinx could take advantage of his shock to run, he struck her in the stomach. She doubled over in pain, especially because the blow landed dangerously close to the barely healed gunshot wound.

Isha cried out at her mother’s desperate effort to hold her tight despite the pain.

The man yanked Jinx up by her hair with a clean, brutal motion.

"You have no idea what you’ve just done, you stupid bitch."

Jinx smiled, using her pride to stifle the pain and keep herself from collapsing.

"I killed my daughter’s idiot father" she sneered.

Furious, the Enforcer raised his fist to hit her again. Jinx squeezed her eyes shut as he swung—but the punch never landed. It was stopped midair.

"What do you think you’re doing, officer?"

Grayson—her jailer from Stillwater—had just appeared, a silent and formidable savior.

"S-Sheriff… I… she…” the man stammered “She’s a criminal…”

"Get back to your post, Marcus" Grayson ordered. "We’ll talk about this later."

"B-but Sheriff! Her face is on every ‘Wanted’ poster in the city! We can’t—"

"Back to your post!" Grayson barked again.

Marcus swallowed his remaining words and nodded respectfully before retreating.

Grayson sighed, disappointment shadowing her face, then looked sharply at Jinx, who had collapsed to the ground from exhaustion and fading adrenaline. Her gaze slowly shifted to the baby, now crying softly, as if trying not to be noticed.

The Sheriff looked back at the mother, her expression full of questions, but Jinx only raised her eyebrows in response. Grayson exhaled.

"You want a drink?" she asked.

"Is this your idea of 'a drink'?" Jinx spat disdainfully.

Grayson had taken her to a nearby establishment —something like a small but elegant restaurant.

"I wasn’t going to take you to a bar like the ones in the Suburban District. We don’t have those here" she replied, raising an eyebrow as she looked at the baby. "Besides, you can’t drink alcohol, can you?"

Jinx shrugged.

"Nope."

"That’s what I thought."

Both sat at the bar, side by side, with two seats between them. Jinx held Isha in her arms, while the little girl amused herself by chewing on the edge of her mother’s sleeve.

"So, she’s alive."

"More than you and me" Jinx confirmed. "But you already knew that, don’t play dumb with me. And if you think you can arrest me—"

"Even if I wanted to, I can’t. The pardon Silco got for you was legitimate. Technically, the charges you have wouldn’t put you behind bars. For now" Grayson replied, taking a sip of her coffee. "As for the child, actually, I didn’t know anything."

"Hmph. I thought your guilt had driven you to help me."

"Don’t get it twisted. I did it for Violet and Vander. Maybe you should consider asking them for help. Pride never leads anywhere good."

Jinx growled, clenching her jaw.

"I’d rather die first."

"That won’t take long if you keep this up, stupid girl. Think a little more about your daughter."

Jinx frowned. She hated being scolded—especially by a stranger, and even more by an Enforcer.

Besides, who did this woman think she was to tell her what to do? Thinking about her daughter was all she had been doing, even before the baby was born.

"Listen" Grayson said, pulling her out of her thoughts, "maybe you’re not willing, but she could still enter the system."

"Go to hell."

"I’m serious" Grayson went on, unfazed by the tantrum Jinx seemed ready to throw, and pointed at the wound on her side. "If that’s all you can offer her, you should really think about whether you being her mother is what’s best for her."

"That happened because I tried to take her out of a place where they didn’t even care to feed her."

"Custody still isn’t yours, Jinx. It belongs to the system. And one day, they’ll come for her."

Grayson stood, putting her helmet back on and leaving a few coins on the table—enough to cover both their tabs.

"When I was a kid…" Jinx muttered, unable to look at her, "I dreamed about her. That’s why I decided not to abort, that’s why I decided not to abandon her. I’m not going to do to her what my mother did to me. Even if I have no one to trust, me being there to protect her will be more than enough. I’m not giving her up that easily because…" she smiled, looking at her baby’s serene face, full of love for her, "in this rotten world, we only have each other."

Grayson seemed to smile faintly.

"Then hide her well."

And she left. Jinx watched her go until her shadow vanished through the entrance.

That’s when she felt something strange —someone else was watching her.

She looked around until, among the patrons, she found the source of her chill. A strange woman smiled at her, tossing her blonde curls over her shoulder, and raised her glass toward Jinx as if to toast with her.

Then, in the next second, Jinx felt the ground vanish beneath her feet, and she fell into a deep abyss.

When she woke up—thanks to an impact that was softer than she’d expected—Isha was no longer in her arms. The baby’s cries forced her to look up, searching frantically.

They were both in what looked like a ruined palace. Isha was right in front of her, crying on the floor with such anguish that it stopped her mother’s heart.

Jinx tried to jump to her feet, but the ground shook violently again and a crack opened beneath her. She made an inhuman effort to keep from falling into the void, clinging to the edge of the concrete where Isha sat—but her grip, weakened by her wounds, began to give way. For a second, she felt all was lost—until she heard clapping from the darkness behind her, and in a blink, everything went back to normal.

Jinx could barely breathe when she saw a pair of fine red shoes in front of her. The woman picked Isha up from the floor with a disdainful smile, her honey-colored eyes watching Jinx with composure.

"So this is the Star everyone’s been talking about" she murmured in a shrill voice.

"G-Give her back…" Jinx managed to say, unable to get up.

"Don’t strain yourself, dear" the other woman laughed, cradling Isha. "Gravity works differently in my mantle than what you’re used to. Besides, I can control it as I please, like right now." Jinx growled, and the stranger only shrugged. "Sorry, but I can’t let you kill me before I tell you what I need you to do for me."

"Why the hell would I do anything for you?"

The strange woman burst into a loud, mocking laugh.

"I don’t think you quite grasp the position you’re in" she taunted, lifting Isha by the armpits. "You wouldn’t want anything to happen to your baby, would you? Because a little thing like her… so fragile and tiny, could break so easily. And we wouldn’t want her to break… would we, Jinx?"

The dark, almost psychotic gleam in the woman’s eyes paralyzed Jinx without her having to do much else.

"Wait! Damn it, I’ll do it! Just… don’t hurt her"

The woman smiled, and with a swift wave of her hand, released Jinx from the crushing gravity. The mother’s glare was sharp enough to kill—if looks could have done it, the stranger would’ve turned to ash—but the woman knew it, so she tried to lighten the tension.

"My name is Scarlett" she said, as if it were nothing. "You met my younger sister recently: Mahina."

Jinx paled; the dreadful image of that woman’s demise flashed bitterly in her mind. For a moment, she thought this was nothing but twisted revenge for her sister’s premature death.

"Relax" Scarlett said, noticing Jinx’s worried expression, "I suppose it would’ve happened eventually anyway. I can’t blame my little sister for what she did, not after everything that happened…" she shook her head, realizing she too was drifting into thought. "Anyway, Mahina knew the same thing I do: that we’re nothing but pawns in someone else’s game… just like you."

Isha whimpered in her arms as soon as she noticed her mother was still far away. Jinx’s heart lurched—this bond she’d been building with her baby felt stronger here than anywhere else, in this moment when fear and helplessness tangled inside her.

"We’re just disposable pieces in something far bigger than us" Scarlett said again, catching Jinx’s attention and glancing down at Isha, "and she’s part of it now."

"My daughter is not disposable."

"No, don’t get me wrong" Scarlett continued. "I’m pretty sure she’s not just a piece. She’s a key." Her gaze swept Jinx from head to toe. "And you… you’re far too weak to protect her from what’s coming."

Jinx was about to retort when Scarlett vanished from sight—only to reappear right behind her, whispering in her ear:

"So tell me, Blue Moon… how far are you willing to go to protect your precious Star? You broke the rules, and now both of you will have to pay the price."

Chapter Text

Jinx was waiting for an answer, something more than a bittersweet grimace drawn across his dark lips, but Ekko couldn’t put together a single sentence that was even remotely decent for the situation.

“Seriously…” the boy began, awkwardly clearing his throat. “Do you seriously think this is the time to… have… a baby?”

“W-What? N-No! That’s not what I meant!”

Jinx’s face was completely flushed; she could barely hold Ekko’s gaze. Outwardly she denied it outright, even as her insides begged for an honest answer to her deepest desire. To a secret that had been hers alone and that she was now sharing with him.

“What I was trying to say was that…” she went on. “Would it bother you if one day you and I…?”

Ekko’s expression turned just as red as hers; steam practically came out of his ears. That was when Jinx understood her question had been far too direct for a couple of kids their age.

“There are still a lot of things we can do before…” Ekko tried to say.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Jinx cut in sharply, trying to erase her own embarrassment. “It’s just that I had a… feeling. Like something really important is about to happen very soon and I—”

“It’s just that,” Ekko took the floor this time, “I think before thinking about… having kids, you should at least consider stepping away from all the business you have with Silco. If you end up… if we end up having a baby, that’s not the environment they should grow up in.”

Jinx’s natural color returned to her face.

“Are you still clinging to that stupid idea of running off to Piltover? Just like Vi?”

“She did the right thing by getting away from all this shit. From Silco,” Ekko replied.

“From me,” Jinx added, hugging herself tightly.

Ekko swallowed hard, trying to compose his words.

“Shimmer destroys people, and you don’t care—you just want control.”

“Control gives you power, and power gives you immunity.”

“Or it makes you an easier target,” the boy reiterated. “And if you end up… getting pregnant” for him, talking about it was still hard to process “you’ll make everyone see you as someone vulnerable, someone weak.”

“I’m not.”

“Right now,” Ekko insisted. “But… what will happen when you’re pregnant? When… that child is born? Won’t you be weak then? Don’t you think all of Silco’s enemies will want to hurt you?”

“Won’t you be there to protect me? To… protect us?”

Ekko sighed, a weight gradually settling on his shoulders.

“Jinx… I’m not sure that’s the life I want…”

The girl felt a direct blow to her chest, a punch to the stomach that knocked the air out of her. Had she understood him right? How stupid she felt for imagining a bright future with him—what was the point if he didn’t want it? If they didn’t share it, then nothing made sense. Children? A family? For her? The very embodiment of Zaunite chaos? Did she even deserve to want something like that? How naïve had she been to believe she had even the slightest hope of a life like that? Of a life with him…?

“Ah…”

“Jinx… No, listen—”

“No, there’s nothing I want to hear right now. If you want to leave so badly, do it, Ekko. I’m not going to stop you… just go.”

“Pow—”

“Get out!”

Silco’s office had been transformed. It was destroyed—furniture overturned, papers scattered across the floor. It seemed the man had thrown a tantrum the moment he discovered Jinx had left to look for Isha.

It got even worse when he learned she had found her and that now both of them had vanished somewhere in the upper city.

Scarlett had sent Jinx back while Silco wasn’t there: “Find the locket you took from my sister—only then will we be even.”

She slid the painting back over the wall, crooked from the commotion. The empty hollow left her frozen, though not surprised—she had expected it from him, and yet she hated being right.

“Do you think handing over the locket will work to keep that girl safe?”

Silco’s voice—harsh and dry—filled the room, making her shudder.

“What do you know,” Jinx snapped. “You’re nothing but a liar. A traitor.”

“I know how they work. I know why they sent you here. And I know where that baby is.”

Jinx straightened abruptly, looking at him over her shoulder with sharp resolve.

“I’m not handing her over.”

Silco stepped forward and yanked on the locket’s chain, pulling it from the inner pocket of his coat.

“You’d better do it, girl.”

She froze, her gaze locked on the object dangling carelessly from Silco’s fingers.

“Don’t you dare…” she threatened.

The man sighed, biting the inside of his lip.

“Someday you’ll thank me.”

And he dropped it to the floor with such force that the artifact shattered into pieces, scattering all over the place.

“No!” Jinx dropped to her knees, desperately trying to piece it back together. “Are you an idiot? It was the only thing that could give Isha back to me!”

The growing fury in Jinx’s chest was impossible to miss. The weapon remained holstered around her thigh, but that didn’t stop her from brushing it with her fingertips, tempted to aim it straight between the man’s brows.

The room filled with a gust carrying a sharp scent of cinnamon. A whirlwind of papers and wind surrounded them both, and Scarlett appeared behind Jinx. The woman lifted her gaze to Silco, icy and emotionless.

Isha’s piercing cry drove a stake into her mother’s chest. Jinx spun around immediately to look for her—the sound was a primal call to the visceral instinct burning inside her when she felt separated from her, when she felt her in danger.

Scarlett drew a smug smile and began to hum a lullaby to calm the baby. Jinx followed her with her eyes. Her hands trembled; instinct begged her to lunge at the blonde’s throat and rip Isha from her arms, but logic forced her to stay still. Her daughter was a hostage, and she was at a disadvantage.

“The game has barely begun and you’re already starting to break the rules,” Scarlett sang, with feigned disappointment

“It wasn’t me,” Jinx objected. “He’s the one who—”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she cut her off and lifted her gaze toward the man, lips twisted. “It’s been a while, Silco. You look… old.”

“That’s what humans call ‘age,’ something you’ll never have to worry about, my dear Scarlett.”

The woman laughed out loud.

“Thank all the Moons! I’d hate to look like you!”

Silco raised an eyebrow.

“No chance of that—it’s obvious the years don’t touch you,” he said.

“Stop it, you’ll make me blush,” Scarlett mocked with a rather forced coquettish smile. Silco pulled a bitter face, and she hardened her gaze again. “I thought you’d heed Mahina’s warning, but as always, you like doing everything your own way.”

“There was no prior warning—”

“She knows,” Scarlett interrupted. “She knew from her very first cry in this world. Mahina told you: ‘the lost Star will be your torment.’ Just as it was… for Felicia.”

Jinx, who had been watching in silence, analyzing how to reach Isha without Scarlett anticipating her movements, went rigid at the sound of her mother’s name.

She exchanged a fleeting glance with Silco, who quickly avoided her gaze to focus on the intruder and the baby now whimpering weakly in her arms.

“So there’s nothing left to do?” he asked, almost pleading.

Scarlett stepped forward. Among the papers scattered on the floor and the remains of the office, she found the stone that had been inside her younger sister’s locket: dull, dark, lifeless.

“Without Mahina and Felicia, there’s nothing I can do,” she replied, squeezing the gem between her fingers, then turning her gaze to Isha. “Her fate is already sealed.”

“What fate?” Jinx stepped forward. “What the hell are you talking about? What’s going to happen to her? What do you plan to do to my daughter?!”

Scarlett frowned with sorrow, and an idea crossed her gaze. She couldn’t answer her question; she couldn’t save her when they were supposed to be on opposite sides. But maybe… she could give her a tiny bit of help.

“You can still…” she tried to say.

“No!” Silco interrupted.

Scarlett looked at him in defiance.

“She could…! She still could!”

“It’s not what Felicia wanted,” Silco assured her. “She wanted to keep Jinx away from all of this.”

“She wanted to keep Powder away from all of this, but things have changed,” Scarlett objected. “This baby came to change everything. Even Felicia’s plans.”

“Felicia gave her life so Jinx wouldn’t get involved in this.”

“And Mahina gave hers so that she would!”

Strange, reddish tears formed around Scarlett’s eyes, sliding delicately down her cheeks, leaving burns that marked her skin and vanished the very next second.

Jinx also felt a knot in her throat; she had just heard Silco state that her mother was dead—not that she had merely abandoned her, but that she truly was no longer in this world.

“You and I both know what the birth of this baby means,” Scarlett continued, regaining her composure. “Mahina knew it. If Felicia had known she would have a granddaughter, then—”

“She would have done the same thing I did.”

Silco’s stubbornness was absolute, and Scarlett had run out of energy to keep fueling the flames of an endless argument. She sighed in resignation and, to Jinx’s surprise, handed the child to her without hesitation.

The moment Isha felt herself back in her mother’s arms, she let out a small sigh, snuggling against her chest.

“You are strong, Jinx,” the blonde told her, stroking Isha’s cheek one last time, “but I fear that won’t be enough to keep her safe.”

Isha opened her golden eyes, and a smile spread across her tiny lips as soon as she met her mother’s warm gaze.

“Felicia used to look at you like that too,” Scarlett said, something very close to a smile in her voice. “You look a lot like her—much more than your sister does.”

Then she examined the baby, and a doubt caught in her expression.

“But she doesn’t look anything like you. Could it be that she looks more like her father?”

Jinx went rigid. Silco straightened abruptly. Scarlett raised an eyebrow.

“And this father… he’s human, isn’t he?” she smiled mischievously.

The young woman swallowed so hard it felt as if she had dragged a mouthful of thorns down her throat. Isha squirmed in her arms, whining, on the verge of crying.

“He’s dead anyway,” Jinx replied.

Silco narrowed his eyes. He himself had ordered the body removed from the room when he found it shortly before going out to look for the girl in the streets of Piltover. A shameless smile spread across his face—he hated the man; if Jinx hadn’t killed him, he would have done it himself with his own hands.

“You’re so good at pretending that you even believed that story yourself,” Scarlett went on, her mocking tone sounding more and more like a threat to Jinx. “I suppose it was easier to accept that some idiot had gotten you pregnant than to admit that now you had something else tying you to that young man… what was his name? Ekko…?”

Jinx went pale. Her magenta eyes fixed on Silco, who seemed to be searching desperately for an explanation.

“You’re not stupid, Jinx, and I’m far too perceptive. Besides, memories are part of my specialty, and you’re flooded with them—you drown in empty memories and prefer to pretend that you control the world around you, but the truth is quite the opposite. That boy—Ekko—has no idea he’s the father of this child, and you chose to convince yourself that he wasn’t, just to avoid facing your true feelings for him, isn’t that right?”

“He abandoned me,” Jinx replied, trying to ignore her trembling voice. “There’s no way Isha is his—”

“There is. One night you thought the tide would carry away, one in which you decided to forget the past and the resentment and surrendered yourself to his arms, even though someone was already waiting for you in that very bed. A night no one noticed when you left, much less when you returned. A night you thought had been a mistake… and on that same night, a part of him began to grow inside you.” Scarlett smiled at the shiver creeping up Jinx’s spine and dared to ask, “Do you really plan not to tell him? You might end up needing his help…”

Jinx clenched her jaw, her teeth grinding with the friction that tried to contain her shattered ego.

“I don’t need anyone’s help—not yours, not Silco’s, and certainly not Ekko’s.”

Her hands trembled around Isha. That defenseless baby who, she now realized, also belonged to that idiot—a bond that would tie her to him for life. No matter where she went, a part of Ekko would follow her forever in Isha.

In her small, tiny star.

But it was harder to accept that Ekko was the father than to accept that Lars was (or had been). Either way, the man was dead—he was an idiot, but at least she didn’t have to get emotionally entangled with him. Just thinking about it made her nauseous.

With Ekko, though, the situation was more complex, because once they had been one and the same, once they had been each other’s entire world. They had made plans together, shared a past, and envisioned a future.

A future with that little girl to whom she had given a ghost father so she wouldn’t have to face her feelings, so she wouldn’t have to face her past and that wound of abandonment that never closed.

However, the memories Jinx imprisoned in her chest regarding Ekko were even more painful—that moment when she saw him abandon her, just as Vi, Vander, and even Felicia had.

Inside her lived a resentment so great that she didn’t feel capable of sharing her baby with him. Isha was hers—hers alone. Ekko didn’t deserve her; he didn’t even deserve to know she was his daughter.

Even though it had been him who saved her life the day before.

Scarlett let out a playful giggle.

“Humans are so chaotic when it comes to love.”

Jinx grumbled; the huff was so strong it tossed her bangs, making Isha laugh with delight and wave her little hands toward her mother’s face.

The girl frowned with a pained smile and let the baby’s fingers cling to her index finger. While Isha struggled to bring it to her mouth, Jinx tickled her chest with the rest of her hand.

Scarlett smiled. A flame of something she thought dead had been rekindled within her. Mahina, her little sister, returned to her memory—the moment just before darkness reached their lives: her, as beautiful as ever, with her whitish locks falling over the face of a precious albino baby who shared the same eye color.

The blonde felt a shiver that forced her to step back, putting distance between them and catching her breath.

“You must prepare yourself, Jinx,” she said, this time no longer with her usual playful, sarcastic tone, but with a searing seriousness. “She already has your daughter in her sights, and she won’t rest until she has her in her hands. Until… she destroys her.”

Silco swallowed hard. Jinx didn’t move; she looked, instead, incredulous.

“What are you talking about…? How stupid. No one would be so naïve as to even think of threatening me,” she snapped.

“She’s not naïve—she trusts in her power. And you should fear her,” Scarlett replied, smoothing the wrinkles in her dress left from carrying Isha. “Your daughter is in her way, just as much as—or more than—you once were.”

“Enough,” Silco stepped in. “It’s time for you to leave.”

Scarlett shrugged, and as quickly as her smile vanished, the rest of her body did as well. Silco straightened his clothes, brushing off the dust Scarlett’s departure had left on him.

Jinx looked at him, adopting a defensive stance around the baby. She felt more and more that she knew him less, that the time she had lived under his care was nothing more than a lie—a performance staged with such detail that it seemed impossible for it to have flaws.

Of course, Silco had never anticipated Isha’s birth, and now his entire performance had collapsed.

“Jinx…”

The man tried to step forward as she stepped back. Then the office door burst open with a sharp bang.

“SILCO, YOU GODDAMN SON OF A BITCH! WHAT DID YOU DO TO THEM?!”

Ekko stormed in like a fury, holding a baseball bat raised high, as if he could really take on all the men under Silco’s command with it. His brown eyes, blazing with rage, quickly found Jinx, two meters away from Silco, with Isha wrapped in her arms. It was as if his soul returned to his body.

After she vanished from his apartment and he completely lost track of her, his first suspect had been Silco. The only idiot with a heart hardened enough to be capable of sacrificing Jinx—or that baby—for his own greed.

Or at least, that was what Ekko believed.

The boy loosened his stance and his shoulders slumped carelessly, the bat hitting the floor. Isha startled, forcing her mother to calm her with gentle movements while shooting Ekko a look that tried not to reveal her surprise.

“I’m sorry… I… ”

“What are you doing here?” Jinx quickly cut him off.

Ekko swallowed hard.

“I thought you might be in danger, I thought that she…” he stumbled, watching Isha’s calm expression.

Jinx felt a chill, and Scarlett’s words came back to her like an icy gust: “You chose to convince yourself that he wasn’t the father just to avoid facing your true feelings for him.”

“You should stop thinking if you do it so badly,” she snapped, agitated, covering Isha with the blanket, as if Ekko’s mere presence meant her secret had been discovered.

“I was trying to protect you…”

“I don’t need you to protect me. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t know what I was thinking when I went looking for you…” Jinx went on, her broken voice getting stuck in her chest. “You’d better leave, Ekko.”

Silco didn’t look even slightly confused. He had witnessed enough of their relationship to understand Jinx’s detachment. The young woman’s trembling hands clutched the child, as if she feared the baby’s own father would take her away forever.

Isha would stay by her side—she had made that clear—and she wouldn’t let Ekko or anyone else stand in her way. She didn’t even care about breaking a few hearts in the process, as long as that meant Isha’s remained whole.

And at that point, she didn’t even care if her peers saw her walking through the bar with that thing hanging from her arms.

They were going to learn to respect her.

Ekko said nothing more. Jinx’s evasive gaze was answer enough to the questions stuck in his throat.

“So this is the final goodbye?” was all he managed to ask, his heart pounding in his hand.

Jinx nodded in silence. Ekko drew in a sharp breath, clenching his fists at his sides.

“Fine. I don’t even know why I worry about you if it’s obvious you can take care of yourself—the damn gunshot wound in your ribs is proof of that.”

Silco was stunned, staring at Jinx with severity as soon as Ekko closed the door behind him.

“Gunshot wound? You ran off to Piltover while you were injured?”

“What did you want me to do? Ask you for help? After what you did…? Now the only thing I know about you is that you’re a damn liar.”

The young woman felt dazed. On one hand, Silco demanded answers for her “irresponsible” actions—actions he himself had forced her into. And on the other, Ekko had left, leaving her with a terrible pain in her chest. The life she had wanted by his side vanished like a cloud of smoke… forever.

The only thing she could do was silently ask her baby for forgiveness for leaving her without a father figure for the second time—and this time… forever.

When she returned to her room with her soul in pieces, she laid the baby on the bed. She examined the bandaged wound in front of the cracked mirror. She had been close to death; she had even thought that the damn bitch had caught up with her when she collapsed in front of Ekko’s door, but her determination—the decision to stay alive to protect her daughter—had been stronger.

Ekko had been gentle with her. It didn’t hurt at all anymore, and there was no trace of the bleeding. With that wound, the boy had shown the same care he used to have with her when they were a couple, when he would softly hold her hands to keep the cold away.

The same care with which, that night, he dared to be her lover while Lars slept soundly in her room, unaware of the love that briefly rekindled between them.

Isha jerked awake from her ten-minute nap and, finding herself alone on that enormous mattress, began to cry. Jinx pulled down her blouse and, like a flash, ran to her daughter. The baby raised her hands, clawing at the air, her eyelids tightly shut and her lips puckered.

Jinx leaned over her just as the baby’s little fingers managed to touch her mother’s face. Isha opened her eyes, stopping her crying. Jinx smiled.

“Hi, little meatball,” she said in a teasing tone the baby still couldn’t understand. “Easy, I’m here.”

Isha let out a sigh with a small whimper. She opened and closed her fists, and her mother immediately knew she wanted to be back in her arms.

As soon as she held her, Isha instinctively searched for her chest—maybe out of hunger, maybe for comfort. Either way, Jinx didn’t refuse. She even had the dreadful thought that if she had died in that house, no one could have comforted her little one. She would have kept crying on that enormous mattress, completely alone, invaded by the cold and the blinding lights.

It was wonderful and terrifying how, in a single second, her life had completely changed. Almost a year ago she had been in that very place, tuning her weapon to go collect Silco’s favors, shortly before finding out about her pregnancy; and now she delicately held the little head of the child who fed fiercely from her breast.

How terrifying it was that this small being—defenseless and delicate—had gone from being safe inside her womb, without hunger or cold, always accompanied by the lullaby of her heartbeat, to facing the unknown and cruel world, the unhinged and chaotic world to which her mother belonged.

Maybe that was why, deep down, she had hated the idea of giving birth. Maybe that was why, at first, she had truly considered abortion as the best option.

But when she saw her on that screen, defenseless and hers alone, she understood that she couldn’t let her go so easily.

She loved her far more than she could ever imagine. She loved her enough to give her life for her.

Upstairs, in the bar, a crash was heard—a brawl had broken out, as was usual at that hour of the night. The baby shrank into the girl’s arms, frowning in fear.

Jinx stroked her nose with the tip of her pinky.

“Shh… shh…” she hissed with a softness that surprised even herself. “They’re far away from you, they can’t hurt you… I won’t let them hurt you.”

It was clear that what Scarlett had said had left a permanent mark on Jinx. Now she was more than certain that anyone who tried to harm her daughter would go straight to hell by her own hand.

She separated the little one from her chest once she felt her satisfied, holding her head with utmost care in one hand while the rest of her body rested in the other. Isha kept her eyes closed; the calm in her expression was obvious. Being far from her mother was no longer negotiable—she had to be in her arms to feel safe.

And Jinx needed her to stay alive.

She pressed her forehead to the baby’s, felt her infant warmth shared skin to skin, and drew a smile that she crowned with a kiss on Isha’s nose.

“You have nothing to fear anymore. Mama is here. Mama will always take care of you.”