𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞: what about me

╰┈➤ 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: forced drugging,
child abandonment (?)

"I DON'T ASK MUCH OF YOU."

Silco's tone was sharp, cutting through the stale air of the dimly lit room. "Just that you are never to go past the East Wing. What is up there does not concern you."

Powder nodded quickly, her fingers fiddling with the hem of her shirt. Silco didn't repeat himself—he didn't need to. His words landed like stone, heavy and final, leaving no room for curiosity to breathe.

It wasn't like she planned to go wandering anyway. Silco's rules weren't exactly the kind you tested, and she had already learned what happened when she didn't listen to the people she loved.

She pushed that thought aside, but it lingered like a splinter in her mind. The memory was still raw—her family, her sister, the explosion. She had been trying to help, trying to protect them, and instead, she had torn everything apart. Claggor, gone. Mylo, gone. And Vi... Vi hadn't forgiven her.

Vi's words had been colder than any blow. *Jinx.* That's what she had called her before walking away, leaving her alone in the wreckage. Powder had begged, cried, chased after her, but it hadn't mattered. Her sister had disappeared into the chaos, and Powder had been left behind, with nothing but the weight of her failure.

Until Silco found her.

He hadn't seen a broken child. He had seen potential. Someone with a spark of brilliance and a desperation to prove herself. But even he had limits, lines he wouldn't let her cross. The East Wing was one of them, and Silco didn't strike her as a man who issued empty threats.

"Understood?" His gaze pierced through her, unwavering.

"Yeah," Jinx muttered, forcing her voice not to shake. "I got it."

Silco studied her for a moment longer, his expression unreadable. Then, with a nod, he turned and left her alone, his words still echoing in the back of her mind.

She didn't plan to break the rules. Not yet, anyway.

And Jinx would like to make it abundantly clear: she didn't go searching for whatever lay beyond the East Wing.

But it constantly seemed to be searching for her.

Years passed after the incident—after Silco found her, reshaped her, turned her into something new. Powder was dead. That much was certain. She had fallen down a well, and the bright-eyed, soft-hearted girl who once clung to her sister's hand was buried in its depths.

Jinx was what clawed its way out.

Jinx was chaos wrapped in neon and smoke, a mind that moved too fast for reason to catch. She was impulsive, destructive, brilliant—a masterpiece painted with cracked edges and jagged lines. Powder's fear had become Jinx's fury. Her softness, once so easily bruised, had hardened into something unbreakable and unyielding.

Shimmer had been the catalyst, of course. It coursed through her veins, burning away what was left of the child she'd been. It sharpened her madness, blurred her past, and left her clinging to the one person who hadn't abandoned her—Silco. He'd given her a new name, a new purpose, and a new set of tools to prove herself.

Powder was gone, but Jinx was here to stay.

And what Aviva would like to make clear is that she was, by all accounts, a very obedient child.

She hardly ever broke Silco's two rules. Well—aside from those times two years ago, but that was besides the point. She kept her hair dyed, as instructed. She no longer snuck out to meet her only friend, not after realizing her and her family no longer existed.

But what she found difficult—near impossible—to follow was the new rule Silco had imposed two years prior:

Don't leave the East Wing.

It wasn't like she hadn't tried. At first, she stuck to her space, exploring every inch of the East Wing as though it might hold some secret she hadn't uncovered. But Silco's lair wasn't designed to be lived in—it was a cage made of shadows and glass. And with each passing day, the rule gnawed at her, as though the rest of the world beyond that invisible boundary was calling her name.

Aviva wasn't defiant by nature, but there was something about the forbidden that always seemed to tug harder than her better judgment.

So she lurked—stealthily, she might add—searching for what exactly had changed. What had caused Silco to hide her, to ignore her?

To stop caring.

And as stealthy as Aviva was, she wasn't exactly the greatest detective. A year of sneaking around, eavesdropping, and wandering the East Wing's borders had yielded nothing. No whispers of secrets, no shadows of answers. She still didn't know what it was that had made him forget her. That had made him stop loving her.

Not that it mattered.

Aviva's heart remained much too big for her body, a weight she carried like an anchor. It drowned her, suffocated her, swallowed her whole—and everyone who dared to receive even a fraction of it.

She still loved Silco. Deeply, despite it all.

She poured what was left of that unrequited affection into her plants instead. She tended to them with care, nurturing their roots, coaxing life out of the dirt and into vibrant blooms. They were her only company now.

And they were beautiful.

Huge vines now snaked across the entirety of her room, their thick emerald tendrils weaving around the bedposts, curling up the walls, and reaching toward the dim light from her cracked window. Bright, venomous blossoms sprouted sporadically among the vines—petals like shards of glass in deep crimson and violet hues, dripping with a sweet, sticky sap that seemed more like a warning than an invitation.

In one corner, a towering plant stood with waxy, obsidian leaves that glistened like polished stone. Its flower—a single massive bloom the color of rotting gold—emitted a faint, sickly-sweet scent that clung to the air like a whispered threat. Nearby, a cluster of smaller flowers in the shape of fangs sprouted along a stem that pulsed faintly, almost alive in its own right.

Each plant, for all their beauty, looked as though they belonged more in a nightmare than a sanctuary. Yet, they thrived under her care, as though mirroring the chaos within her.

And then, after two long years, came a knock at her door.

Soft. Hesitant.

A knock she wished she hadn't heard.

But perhaps nothing could have truly changed her fate.

The man she had longed to see again, the one she dreamed might still hold her close despite fifteen feeling far too old for such comforts, had betrayed her. He had harmed her.

He had changed her.

Aviva had come to learn exactly who her father was—who he had been all along. The hands that once cradled her face so gently, tilting her chin up to press a rare kiss to her forehead, were stained with unfathomable amount of blood.

But they cradled her all the same.

Those hands, rough and calloused from years of violence—hands that throttled the life from others without hesitation—had held her once again. Tender, yet unshaken by their history, they pulled her close as though she were fragile porcelain.

And then, just as easily as they had embraced her, those hands took her away.

"You believe she is ready now?" the scientist asked, his voice low but curious as he stood beside Silco.

The two men watched through the glass as the girl Silco had raised cried out, her voice raw and pleading. Her trembling body was bound, her golden eyes wide with fear as the first vial of the purple shimmer substance pierced her veins.

Silco's gaze never wavered, though his jaw tightened ever so slightly. "She doesn't need to love Zaun to fight for it," he said, his voice cold and deliberate. "She needs to need it. To feel like it's all she has left."

The scientist raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical. "Two years in isolation, locked away from the very city she's meant to protect? That hasn't bred resentment?"

Silco's lips curled into a faint, bitter smile. "Resentment is a weapon, doctor. It sharpens the mind and hardens the heart. But love—" His voice lowered. "Love makes you weak."

As Aviva's screams began to fade into hoarse cries, Silco turned away from the glass. "She will learn to fight for Zaun not because she loves it," he said, his words clipped. "But because it's the only thing that will ever love her back."

Aviva didn't die like Powder did. There wasn't a dramatic plunge into despair, no sudden moment of irrevocable change. She didn't 'fall down a well' or whatever analogy Jinx liked to use to make sense of her own transformation. No, Aviva simply... shifted. A quiet, inevitable metamorphosis.

The intelligent, big-hearted girl everyone had known, the one who seemed to absorb the world around her like sunlight, wasn't gone entirely. She was something else now, something shaped by the hands that raised her and the shadows they cast. Reborn, but not renewed. Molded, but not whole. A version of herself that didn't quite belong to her anymore.

And she was fine with that. After all, who exactly was she before all this? Nothing. A nameless, faceless shadow drifting through a world that barely noticed her existence. And while she wouldn't go so far as to say she was truly *something* now, she was certainly more than nothing. That much, she could tell you.

It wasn't much of a victory, but it was hers.

"Aviva. This is Jinx."

The girl stood before her, the years of turmoil etched into every line of her posture, her once-bright blue eyes now a striking violet hue. The familiar blue hair remained, as did the pouty frown, but Aviva could tell.

This wasn't Powder.

"I took her in some years ago," Silco continued, his voice steady and authoritative, though there was something unreadable in his expression. "I assure you, you two will become well acquainted."

Aviva said nothing, her gold eyes meeting Jinx's for a long, heavy moment. The air between them buzzed with a tension neither of them could name.

Jinx's lips curled into a lopsided grin as she circled Aviva, her violet eyes flickering with something unreadable. "Aviva, huh? Silco's little... prodigy." Her tone dripped with mockery, but there was something else there too—something almost familiar.

Aviva raised a brow, her arms crossed. "And you're Jinx. I've heard about you."

Jinx tilted her head, letting out a soft chuckle. "Bet you have." She glanced at Silco from the corner of her eye, then leaned in slightly, dropping her voice. "Funny, I think I've heard about you too."

Aviva didn't flinch, but her gaze hardened. There it was—the faintest flicker of recognition. She knew Jinx remembered her.

But Jinx kept her grin plastered on her face as she straightened up, spinning on her heel to face Silco. "We'll get along great," she chirped, her tone saccharine. "Like a house on fire."

Silco arched a brow, clearly skeptical, but he didn't push. "You'll need to. The work I have for you both isn't something you can do alone."

Aviva's gaze lingered on Jinx as she turned away, unease gnawing at her chest. She wasn't sure what game Jinx was playing, but she knew one thing for certain: the girl she'd once met wasn't entirely gone. Somewhere beneath the manic energy and violet gaze, a flicker of Powder remained.

And that flicker? It terrified her.

" YOU'VE BECOME QUITE THE BOTANIST,"

Silco studied her, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the plants that surrounded her. "In the last two years." The room, her room, was nothing like the sterile, controlled spaces he'd always kept her in. It was personal. It was alive. "No longer a plant murderer are you, Butterfly?"

Aviva didn't even look up, her fingers still working over the smooth edges of a pot. She knew who it was before the scent of cigars and leather filled the room. Silco. She could feel his presence as if it had always been part of the air she breathed.

"Aviva," he said, his voice low, like a quiet warning. She finally turned, the shift in her posture deliberate, slow. "What is it?"

"You've been busy," he remarked, a flicker of something unreadable passing through his gaze.

"You begin to discover there's not much to do when you're isolated to one section of your home." She retorted.

"I suppose that's true," Silco said quietly, his tone uncharacteristically subdued as he stepped further into the room. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth, the humidity clinging to the dense foliage she had nurtured into a jungle. "I had other priorities."

"Other priorities," Aviva bit out, her golden eyes narrowing. "Like raising Jinx?"

"We need Jinx—"

"And I needed you," she interrupted, her voice cracking despite her best efforts to hold steady.

Silco's gaze didn't waver, but his face hardened for just a moment before softening into something unreadable. The weight of her words hung between them, heavier than the silence that followed.

For once, he didn't have an immediate response. Instead, his hand brushed the edge of a trailing vine, its leaves trembling under his touch as though it could sense his presence.

"You're angry," he said finally, his voice low and deliberate.

Aviva gave a bitter laugh. "You think?"

He didn't flinch at her sarcasm, didn't rise to her bait. "I made decisions," he continued, ignoring her derision. "Not all of them were right. But I made them for Zaun. For something greater than the both of us."

"And where did that leave me?" she shot back. "Two years locked away while you poured everything into her. Into your weapon."

Silco's eyes flickered with something almost human—regret, perhaps—but it was gone as quickly as it came. "Jinx is not a replacement for you," he said, his words carefully chosen. "She's a piece of the same puzzle. But you—" He stopped, taking a measured breath. "You're something else entirely."

Her laugh this time was humorless, sharp. "Something else? Spare me the philosophy, Silco. You left me behind. That's all there is to it."

"I had no choice," he said firmly, stepping closer now, his voice dropping to that quiet, persuasive tone he always used when he wanted to control the narrative.

"You always have a choice," she countered, her fists clenched at her sides.

"And I chose Zaun," he replied without hesitation. "Because someone has to."

The room felt unbearably small in that moment, the weight of his words pressing down on her.

"And what about me?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "Was I supposed to just wait here forever? Hoping you'd remember I existed?"

Silco didn't answer immediately. Instead, he stepped past her, letting his hand casually graze a cluster of blooms near her desk, his sharp eyes scanning the room as though admiring her work.

"Do you still love me?" Silco's voice was steady, calculated, as if testing the weight of the words.
Silence was her response.

Aviva stared at him, her golden eyes unreadable, her lips pressed into a thin line. The seconds stretched into an eternity, the quiet between them louder than anything she could have said.

"Love, Aviva, is the kind of weight that will sink you. And I taught you better than to drown in something so... futile."

Aviva finally turned to face him, her golden eyes piercing. "No, you taught me to survive. There's a difference."

Silco tilted his head slightly, his lips curving into the faintest shadow of a smile. "And yet, here you are. Alone in this wing, tending to your garden like it's the only thing keeping you alive."

She didn't answer, but her jaw tightened.

He stepped closer, brushing his fingers against one of the larger blooms, its petals vibrant yet edged with subtle thorns. "It's beautiful, what you've built here," he mused. "But it's not freedom, Aviva. It's just another cage you've made for yourself."

Aviva's voice came low, barely audible. "You caged me first." Silco turned to her fully, his gaze unwavering. "Because you needed to learn."

She wanted to shout, to scream, to tell him to leave. But all she could do was stare at the man she still—against her better judgment—loved. And he knew it.

"I did what I had to," he said softly, his voice deceptively kind. "And one day, you'll understand why."

"You were never forgotten, Aviva," he said softly, almost as an afterthought. A beat passes.

"I still love you," Aviva said, her voice quiet but unwavering, her golden eyes meeting Silco's.

He paused, his hand on the doorframe, the tension in his shoulders evident even as he kept his back to her. For a moment, it seemed like he might not respond, the silence stretching unbearably.

She turned her back to him, disappearing into the dense curtain of plants that had become her sanctuary. Silco lingered for a moment longer, his expression unreadable.

Finally, he turned his head slightly, just enough for her to catch his voice.

"And I'm sorry that you do," he said, his voice low, almost a whisper.

And then he was gone, leaving her alone with the quiet hum of the plants and the syringe of shimmer glinting faintly among the leaves.

"YOU KNOW, I REMEMBER YOU."

Jinx stood in the doorway of Silco's dining room, her gaze lingering on Aviva with an almost predatory intensity. Aviva's appearance had changed since the last time Jinx saw her, though it was hard to say how exactly. She was still striking—those golden eyes, full of unspoken depth, and the way her black hair cascaded in soft waves down her back, framing a delicate, yet resilient face. There was something about her—an elegance that made her seem untouchable, as if she were crafted from something far beyond Zaun. Her beauty wasn't the kind that screamed for attention, but it was undeniable, a quiet radiance that seemed to pull the light from the room itself. Yet, in that moment, she seemed lost in the world of her book, a world Jinx couldn't reach.

"I assumed you didn't want to," Aviva said without looking up, her voice calm but tinged with a cold detachment.

Jinx smirked. "I know you, but you don't know me."

Aviva shrugged, the movement casual, almost dismissive as she kicked her legs softly from the edge of the windowsill. "I suppose not."

Jinx stepped further into the room, her eyes studying Aviva's every move, watching her with a curious mix of longing and a strange sort of understanding.

"Do you think that's really fair?" Jinx teased, her lips curling into a smile that displayed all of her teeth, sharp and mischievous. Silco had told her that Jinx didn't smile much since everything had happened, but Aviva found that claim to be a lie. Jinx always smiled when she was around, even if it wasn't always kind.

"Well, I knew you."

Aviva's eyes flickered up for the first time, her gaze sharp, as if she could see through Jinx's playful front. The air between them felt charged, heavy with unspoken things, yet Aviva didn't say more. She closed her book slowly, her dark blue hair falling over her shoulder like a veil, and studied Jinx, as if waiting for something to click into place.

"Knew is past tense," Jinx pointed out, her expression tightening.

"Well, I don't know you anymore," Aviva replied, her voice calm but sharp. "You're not her."

Aviva studied her carefully, noting the small twitch in Jinx's shoulders, the way her hands curled into fists before she released them, an instinctive reaction. Something about it made Aviva uneasy, but Jinx quickly masked it with a smirk, as if it hadn't happened at all.

"Do you wish I was?" Jinx asked, her voice quiet but layered with something unspoken.

The question lingered in the air like smoke, and Aviva felt a weight press down on her chest. It was a strange thing to hear. Did she wish Jinx was someone else? Would she even recognize who she was, if she could go back to being that girl? The girl that knew no harm, that smiled easily, that had been... before all of this.

Aviva stared at Jinx, her expression unreadable as she tilted her head slightly. "I didn't say that," she replied softly, her voice not betraying any emotion.

Jinx's lips twisted into a wry smile, but there was something fragile behind her eyes. "But you thought it." It wasn't a question, more an assumption wrapped in a challenge.

Aviva didn't immediately respond, her fingers absently brushing against the pages of the book in front of her. The silence between them grew heavy, a tension neither of them was willing to break just yet. It was as though they were both waiting for something—an answer, an explanation, a reason for all of this to make sense.

Jinx shifted, her gaze never leaving Aviva's face, studying her like she was something precious, something fragile that needed careful handling. "You know, I used to be... someone else." She let the words hang in the air, her voice quieter now, almost vulnerable. "Before everything... changed."

Aviva's lips parted as if she wanted to say something, but the words stuck in her throat. She had heard the stories, had seen the remnants of the girl Jinx once was—before Silco's influence, before the shimmer, before everything. The girl who had still held onto some part of herself despite all of it.

"Yeah," Aviva finally said, her voice low. "I think I do."

The two of them were locked in a moment that felt too much like remembering, too much like letting go.

"But I'm still here," Jinx continued, the faintest trace of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "And so are you."

Aviva nodded, but the question that had been haunting her for so long still hung in the back of her mind: *What does that mean now?*

"You changed too Aviva." Aviva blinked at the sudden shift in Jinx's tone, her gaze flickering towards the girl who had once been a friend, now a stranger in many ways. The compliment was unexpected, and Aviva almost didn't know how to respond. She didn't want to, either. "Did I?" she murmured, her voice still thick with the weight of the past.

Jinx leaned in, her violet eyes scanning Aviva's face like she was trying to uncover some secret hidden there. "Yeah, you're quieter now, harder. I can't tell if you're even still in there." Her words were softer than she intended, but there was a truth to them that Aviva couldn't deny.

Aviva didn't respond immediately. She just shifted her weight and glanced down at the book in her lap, her fingers tracing the worn edges. The shimmer had changed so many things, yes—but the girl who was quiet, who stayed inside her own mind, was always there. She had only hardened, like a shell around a fragile heart that still had too much love to give.

"You're prettier too," Jinx added after a beat, her tone a little more light-hearted this time, though there was a stranger undertone underneath it. "I mean, you were always stunning, but wow." Her gaze swept across Aviva's features, a subtle intensity to it.

Aviva couldn't help but feel the warmth of the compliment, despite the weight of Jinx's scrutiny. "Your mother had to have been gorgeous," Jinx added, almost as an afterthought. "I mean I wouldn't know," Aviva responded.

Jinx tilted her head, her expression unreadable for a moment before it broke into something resembling playfulness—or maybe something else entirely. "Well, you've got somebody's good genes," she quipped, leaning back slightly but keeping her gaze locked. "Lucky for me, huh? I get to look at you all day."

The words, though framed as casual, carried an odd tension, a mix of admiration and obsession wrapped in a package of Jinx's usual chaotic charm. Aviva said nothing, letting the silence stretch as she returned her attention to the book in her hands, though she couldn't shake the feeling of Jinx's eyes lingering.

Jinx's grin stretched wide, her violet eyes glittering with an unsettling mix of mischief and intensity as she leaned closer, her voice dropping to a sing-song whisper. "We've both changed, but you know what hasn't? Your love." She tapped her temple with a finger, the gesture sharp, almost twitchy, before pointing directly at Aviva's chest. "And that's what's gonna keep us together. Always."

Aviva tensed slightly under Jinx's gaze, the weight of those words sinking in like stones in water. There was something electric about Jinx, something unpredictable that made it hard to tell if she meant to comfort or to unsettle.

Jinx tilted her head, her bright hair swaying slightly as her grin softened but never fully disappeared. "You still love me, don't you, Aviva?" she asked, her tone suddenly sweet, almost childlike, but the edge was unmistakable. "You wouldn't just... stop, would you? That'd be *tragic.*"

Aviva swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. "I still love you," she replied quietly, the words feeling heavy but true. "I always have."

Jinx clapped her hands together abruptly, the sound loud enough to make Aviva flinch. "See? There it is!" she exclaimed, spinning in a circle as if performing for an unseen audience. "Love is the glue! The sticky, icky glue that keeps us from falling apart, no matter how many cracks there are." She paused mid-spin, her face snapping back to Aviva like a whip. "And we've got cracks, Viv. Big ones. But glue holds, doesn't it?"

Aviva didn't answer right away, her gaze steady but wary. "Sometimes," she said eventually, her voice even. "But sometimes it doesn't."

Jinx's smile faltered for the briefest moment before snapping back into place, sharper than before. "Well," she said, her voice lilting as she rocked on her heels, "good thing I'm not just glue. I'm the whole damn factory, baby." She laughed, a high-pitched giggle that sent a shiver down Aviva's spine. "And I'm not letting you go again. Not ever."

The words hung in the air, both a promise and a warning, as Jinx's grin lingered, her violet eyes locked onto Aviva with a focus that was equal parts devotion and chaos. And admist all this chaos she smiled, because once again, the girl in front of her had assured her she was not alone.

"Why is love so intensified by absence?" she wondered, as though the distance between them had stretched the threads of her heart too tight, pulling every emotion taut. They had spent more time apart than together, yet those fleeting moments of closeness had burned brighter in her memory than all the days of silence. It was as if love fed on the emptiness, growing richer in the hollow spaces, becoming something more vivid, more consuming in its longing. Absence was a cruel artist, painting their connection in sharper strokes, making her ache for what had been and what could never be.

𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐒!

You will begin to see a change in Aviva next chapter as next chapter takes place, know it's because she has taken more shimmer but it's not the shimmer that Silco left in her room. Keep the shimmer in her room in mind though.

Thank you for all your support and this chapter is brought to you by @/-rxnglez whose comment helped encourage me to write this chapter. Not proofread.