~ SPOILERS for the 8th episode of Arcane ~

(I began writing this chapter specially for one of my friends. Happy birthday, C! I hope you'll enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it! This chapter is dedicated to you. Such an honor, I know...)

Someone pulled the coarse bag from her head, and Caitlyn spat out her gag, gasping for air, relieved. Strands of her deep indigo hair hung in front of her eyes and against her nose. Through them, she recognized a person she did not expect to cross paths with again so soon. The exceedingly beautiful prostitute, an acquaintance of Vi, was smoking a cigarette, nonchalantly resting against a rusty metallic pillar.

   "You..." she half-gasped, startled. "Why are you doing this? Where are we?" Immediately, she adopted an interrogation mindset.

The creature jeered, deftly ironic. "Glad to see you, too."

   "Answer me at once."

Hiedra snickered, cocking her right eyebrow up.

   "No, thanks, Enforcer. But I'd love to chat... How was your day?" Her voice was unbothered and soft.

   "How do you know that?" The Piltovan snapped, masking her worry behind a cold expression.

The stranger was smoking, thoroughly enjoying herself and stepping around with short miscellaneous paths.

   "Hm? Oh... I know an Enforcer when I see one, little girl." The prostitute blew out an elongated spiral of smoke, staring into the captive's eyes with her variegated gaze.

   "What..? What did you just call me?" Caitlyn retorted, offended.

   "Little girl," the smoker pronounced, amused.

The topsider wiggled on her seat, irritated.

   "Is this why you're doing this? Because you despise law enforcement?!"

   "You tell me, detective." Hiedra playfully commented.

   "I am not a detective," the Enforcer drawled, tugging on the multiple ropes that held her onto the chair.

   "It's still your dream. Isn't that right, little girl? I bet you dream of great things... Things that are available to you, with all that money and prestige." The hooker was mocking her, flicking a few ashes away from the tip of her cigarette.

Caitlyn's blue eyes narrowed, she frowned and scornfully commanded, reluctantly falling for the prostitute's purposeful insults:

   "Shut up. And call me Officer Kiramman, you cocky, disgraceful, reprehensible slu..." The young woman breathed in shakily, stopping herself. Her eyes widened slightly and she hurriedly averted them.

Hiedra scoffed loudly, glaring at the surprisingly bold Enforcer, not without pride. She had managed to shatter Caitlyn's front and forced the entitled scion into revealing her careless side.

   "I'll call you how I want, little girl," Hiedra threatened, suddenly dropping her cigarette to the dirt ground and crushing the stub with her right heel.

The Kirammans' daughter straightened herself on her seat and the binds instantly felt tighter. She was a prisoner.

The sex worker straightforwardly told her, striding in her direction. "I am older than you, Piltie."

The hostage's doubt could be clearly perceived as the hooker kept speaking:

   "Like it or not, I have more experience..." A roguish and seductive smirk pulled at her glossy painted lips.

   "What experience that is, I wonder..." Caitlyn remarked contemptuously.

The Zaunite chuckled, delighted, and promptly straddled her guest.

   "Oh, I would be more than happy to show you, little girl."

With her long nails, all polished with a profound purple coat, she delicately pushed the threads of hair away from the Enforcer's face.

   "Don't touch me." The young woman's order was biting and definitive.

The courtesan propped her forearms onto the back of the simple wooden chair, her salient cleavage approaching Caitlyn's head.

   "Or what?" She huffed and batted her eyelashes, entertained.

Struggling to reign in her urge to blush, the wealthy young woman furiously looked up into Hiedra's sparkling eyes, away from her breasts.

   "There is something I would like you to tell me. When we came by the..." She hesitated, then went on. "... brothel, you told us you acted of your own volition. Why are you doing this?"

   "I was asked to watch over you. End of story." The prostitute's statement expressed her slight unease, which she had managed to hide hitherto.

   "Are you working for Silco?" Caitlyn questioned her.

Hiedra's response sounded harsh. "No. I work for Jinx."

   "How much is she paying you to do this?" The Piltovan concealed the glimmer of hope she felt underneath the disdain laced into her inquiry.

The sex worker perceived it and smiled mischievously, taunting the prisoner:

   "Oh, trust me, Piltie, you won't be able to match her price. Even if you were willing to..."

   "If this is about mon..."

The hooker heedfully brushed Caitlyn's hair behind her left ear, cutting her sentence off.

   "I am not talking about money. Payment, not currency. I have been entrusted with this task and your cute little mind games won't work." The statement was unequivocal.

The captive woman shook her head to drive the courtesan's hand further from her face.

   "Why would you be loyal to her?" Her query was blatantly skeptical and slightly disgusted, as if she was already anticipating the worst answer.

Hiedra sighed and dragged her pupils up and down the Enforcer, who quickly sputtered: "What?"

Her annoyance only prompted her captor to grin devilishly and impulsively grab her chin. The prostitute angled it upwards, lowering her own lips down.

   "You are very pretty, little girl... But I'm sure Vi already tells you a hundred times a day."

   "Please, get off me," Caitlyn breathed out, as her cheeks perceptibly reddened.

The guard briskly hopped off the chair, slowly circling it instead. "Am I wrong?"

   "About many things, I'm certain," she cleverly replied, unafraid to insult the hooker and praying the skin of her face was not as brightly colored as she felt it was.

The sex worker could sense her unease and joyfully decided to tease her:

   "How is that going for you two, anyway?"

The topsider's face was positively scarlet by then.

   "I am most certainly not going to discuss our partnership with you..." The last word was dripping with spite, clashing among the overall displeased neutrality of her tone. "Unless you agree to cooperate and give me the information I asked for, in which case I am sure we could reach a deal."

Unintentionally, she had just piqued her interlocutor's interest to the highest degree.

The courtesan rapidly recovered her logic, though. Her loyalties lied with Jinx, not some random - yet attractive - Piltovan. Stopping behind the chair, the seductress slammed both her palms onto the chair's back railing, on either side of the officer's shoulders.

   "If you keep coming down here to do these little investigations of yours, you're gonna have to get used to this."

   "What? Being held hostage?"

Hiedra arched her spine and propped her forearms onto the railing, crossed, to level her head next to the prisoner's.

   "No... Being tied up inside a room with me."

Caitlyn scoffed, blushing vividly. "Must you be so deeply revolting?!"

She turned her head abruptly, finding herself to stare into a pair of kaleidoscopic eyes.

   "You are quite interesting, little girl. Quite interesting..."

The indigo-haired female resolutely kept her position, painfully aware of their proximity. "How so?" she enunciated, disinterested.

   "Usually... " Hiedra began, using a low, sultry voice. As she spoke, she readily ran her left index finger down the topsider's jaw. "I get along very well with Enforcers."

The prostitute gracefully shifted, suddenly standing in front of the human. The young Enforcer remained silent, so she went on:

   "If I were going to die today, I'd be a tad more..." She snapped her fingers. "What's the word..?"

The hooker looked away, biting her lower lip thoughtfully.

   "... I am not corrupt. And I never will be."

The seriousness of her statement startled the sex worker out of her thoughts.

   "I bet," she simply remarked, rolling her eyes with a subtle smile.

   "If you let me go, I won't tell anyone you were an accomplice to my abduction." Caitlyn's offer was half-hearted, but had an honest quality to it.

   "Nice try, little girl." The courtesan sighed and instinctively bestrode the prisoner's chair. "But I did not cancel all my appointments to betray..." She let her statement trail off, stretching backwards and ruffling her long brown hair, which was tied into a ponytail.

   "Jinx," the Enforcer gloomily concluded.

Hiedra whirled up, impetuously cupping Caitlyn's face with her delicate hands and gazing down upon her shocked expression. A curly string of the hooker's hair grazed the front of her face, landing against her own nose. Inhaling a deep breath, the gorgeous alien then proceeded to whisper:

   "I know at least a hundred people who, on their deathbed, would desperately wish for me. To have me. One last time. No one will know. Not even Violet, if you ask me to keep it secret. We'll make it a Deal."

Eager for a reply, she almost gasped from the incredible weight of the lust that was coursing through her veins.

   "You'd have to untie me if I agreed."

The captive's heartbeat raced feverishly, she was torn between her obvious desire and her need to escape. Hopefully, the prostitute would fall for her matter-of-factly trap. Reverse psychology.

   "Wouldn't that be exciting?" the sex worker told her, seemingly aroused.

Caitlyn breathed out shakily, forcefully reminding herself not to celebrate too soon.

   "It would." She swallowed softly, anxious.

Perhaps it would not work and she had just humiliated herself for no good reason... Manipulating others could very well have been the hooker's strength, rather than hers...

However, against all odds, Hiedra gifted her a salacious smirk and leaned in.