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028 DENIAL – CCTV, exposure, “they caught me red-handed”
When Vi stepped into the late Cassandra Kiramman’s office, she felt nervous, apprehensive. Unease coursed though her as she approached. A low hum of raised voices and gunfire emanated through the open door. Caitlyn was inside and she was furious.
Swallowing thickly, Vi scuffed her boots at the threshold. She couldn’t stop picking at a thread that had come loose around the fingers of her left hand. She couldn’t steady her breath or slow her hammering heart. She wasn’t supposed to be afraid of Caitlyn and yet here she was, unable to get her shit together enough to talk this through.
Cassandra’s office often made Vi feel uncomfortable, like mites under her skin, crawling and biting. Usually, she was afraid of altering something that preserved Cassandra’s memory, of moving something that Cassandra had been the last to touch. Sometimes it was the faint scent of Cassandra’s perfume which put her on edge. It still lingered but the scent was fading a little more each day as the weeks passed by.
She inhaled a deep breath and stepped into the room, her weak smile too nervous and false.
Caitlyn was seated at her mother’s desk. A desk she had claimed as her own. Her back was rigid, posture stiff as she focused on the monitor in front of her. She did not turn when Vi joined her. The blue glow of the screen cast harsh shadows across her face, exaggerating the dark bags under her eyes and the way her lips were twisted in frustration. It was clear that whatever she was watching was not giving her the answers she wanted.
Vi did not need to guess what the footage was. She already knew.
Every member of Caitlyn’s task force wore a pair of goggles embedded with cameras, and those cameras captured every detail of their raids. The chaos, the violence, the firefights and the screams. Muddy images often overexposed by gunshot and explosions. But that didn’t matter to Caitlyn. She needed to see everything.
Caitlyn meticulously collected the footage from every raid and combed through it afterward, searching for clues drowning in the same blue shades her mother had died in. There had to be a clue, some kind of pattern to Jinx’s behaviour. Something that Caitlyn could study and dissect until she was certain she held the upper hand. But today was different.
On the screen, grainy figures in hues of neon blue ran through a warehouse. Vi watched herself break formation and lunge Infront of Caitlyn with an outstretched gauntlet. She heard the gasp of Officer Nolan, presumably the one wearing the goggles. Nolan crouched, the sight of her weapon obscuring the clarity of the view and Caitlyn tsked in disapproval. She rewound the footage to the moment Vi broke formation and played it again.
Vi felt her throat tighten. She glanced around the room only to be greeted with printed stills of herself. There was one of her blocking Caitlyn’s shot, another of her lunging with her gauntlets to protect her sister from a bullet that would almost certainly have struck her between the eyes. Surrounding that print were a few couple of Jinx, blurred and frantic, the neon pink of her eyes reduced to a pale grey streak.
Vi’s stomach twisted into knots. She hadn’t really thought Caitlyn could pull a trigger with the intent to kill.
She had been wrong.
So wrong.
“I warned you what would happen if you interfered.” Caitlyn’s voice was low, dangerous. She still did not turn around, as though she couldn’t even stomach to look at Vi.
Vi stiffened, her chest tight with apprehension. “But I came back with you. I came home.” She replied in a small voice which broke on the last word. They’d returned home together but Caitlyn had immediately stalked away to be along. Vi had been taken away to have her hand treated, the bullet she blocked had damaged her gauntlet and she’d been burnt by the electronics as it shattered. She was lucky it hadn’t blown straight through her palm.
She didn’t feel lucky.
It had been so long since Vi had anything remotely like a home. And it wasn’t about the thick walls, or the grandeur, the high thread-count sheets and luxury comforts. It was about Caitlyn. Caitlyn felt like home. At least when she wasn’t like this.
The heavy silence continued and Vi decided to take a tentative step forward, nearing the chair Caitlyn sat in. “Cupcake?” The word was a plea, soft and desperate.
“Don’t you dare.”
The sharpness of Caitlyn’s tone stopped Vi in her tracks. She dropped the term of endearment immediately, “Caitlyn, please.”
“She killed my mother.”
Vi bit her lower lip and sucked in a shaky breath around her teeth. “I know, and I’m so fucking sorry for it.”
“But you stopped me from making it right.”
“I stopped you from killing my sister, yes.” Vi admitted, her voice soft but firm. She opened her mouth to speak again but Caitlyn cut her off with a shriek.
The sound was raw as she swept her arm across the desk. Papers, pens and a small photo frame of her as a young child clattered to the floor. The anger was sharp, radiating off her in waves that made Vi’s skin crawl.
“I didn’t stop you for her,” Vi said carefully, her tone placating. It wasn’t entirely true, but it wasn’t a lie either. “I stopped you for us.” She hesitated, her throat feeling uncomfortably dry. “Because if you kill her… Cait, that’s it. That’s the end. We can’t come back from that.”
Caitlyn laughed, a hollow, bitter sound that sent a chill creeping up Vi’s spine. The laugh wasn’t Caitlyn. It was rage and grief wearing her skin. Vi would have given anything to see the self-righteous, naïve, idealist she’d taken through the Lanes. Too many people had changed in her life. Vi wasn’t sure she could take it again.
Vi’s pulse quickened, the instinct to flee creeping into her limbs. It unsettled her. She wasn’t the type to run. She fought. So, she forced herself to stay. This was still Caitlyn. This was the woman she loved. She had to stay.
“Us?” Caitlyn spat, her voice laced with venom. Vi flinched but Caitlyn was not finished yet. “There is no ‘us’ when you put her first. No ‘us’ when you protect my mother’s murderer!”
A familiar lump formed in Vi’s throat. She blinked hard against the tears threatening to fall. Caitlyn’s words stung. It was the same argument they’d had before, except at the end of the last one Caitlyn had told her there would be consequences if she chose Jinx over her. Vi had been stunned at the ultimatum but she understood that people did things, said things when they were angry. She didn’t believe Caitlyn meant it; she was certain this could blow over.
“I came back.” Vi’s whispered. Her heart pounded in her ears like waves against Stillwater hold. “I came back to you because you’re my home. Cait, please. I can’t do this without you.”
For a fleeting moment, Caitlyn’s expression softened. A flicker of the woman Vi had fallen in love with was still buried beneath all that pain and need for revenge. But it was gone as quickly as it arrived.
“The audacity of you!” Caitlyn snapped, her anger reigniting. She pushed her chair back and stood up, storming over to a cabinet on the side and yanking open the top drawer.
“I told you what would happen if you did this again.”
“Caitlyn please, you can’t be serious we’re-”
“We’re what Vi?” Caitlyn’s eyes flashed with fury, “we’re what?!” She screeched.
“Caitlyn,” Vi called her name softly. Anxiety creeping into her tone. That’s the same drawer she kept her mother’s revolver in.
Caitlyn pulled the old revolver out of the drawer and flipped the polished barrel open. It caught the dim light from the monitor, glowing a faint blue as Caitlyn begun to load the gun.
“Caitlyn, what are you doing?”
She lifted the gun and pointed it towards Vi. Her expression was twisted in contempt and upset. Tears flowed down her cheeks and her gun arm trembled. Caitlyn never trembled behind her gun.
Vi shook her head in disbelief. “What are you doing?” She repeated.
Caitlyn’s voice was quiet now, almost trembling. “Leave.” She took a shuddering breath, her fingers tightening on the revolver. “And don’t come back.”
“Where am I supposed to go?” Vi asked, her voice cracking under the weight of her disbelief.
“You should have thought of that when you decided to pick sides!”
“That isn’t fair.” Vi murmured, her shoulders sagging. She was exhausted—physically, emotionally—and the fight in her felt like it was slipping away.
Caitlyn barked a bitter laugh, her tear-streaked face glowing in the dim light. “Aren’t you the one always telling me how unfair life is? I thought you ought to be used of it by now.”
“Caitlyn,” Vi called softly, a tremor in her voice as she took another cautious step forward, “put the gun down. Please.”
“Get out! GET OUT!”
“You don’t want to do this. Just put the gun down and we can talk about this—”
“Don’t tell me what I do or don’t want, Violet!”
The use of her full name stilled Vi.
“Leave now and I won’t have your face plastered on the same wanted posters as your sister.” Caitlyn repeated her demand, voice quieter not but no less firm.
Vi’s stomach dropped. “At least let me change out of my uniform,” she pleaded, her voice barely above a whisper. “Cait, if I go out there like this, they’ll kill me.”
“And yet you sided with them.” Caitlyn said coldly. She raised the gun again, levelling it directly at Vi’s chest before gesturing to the door. “Goodbye, Violet.”
Vi did not move. She stared at Caitlyn as if searching for something, like if she could find the right words everything would be alright. Like it was all just a misunderstanding.
“Go!” Caitlyn shouted, her arm trembling under the weight of the gun. “Before I change my mind.”
Vi hesitated for a moment longer, desperate for Caitlyn to see sense. When she saw her trigger finger twist, she realised that was not going to happen. With a shaky breath, Vi turned and walked out of the room, the sound of Caitlyn’s choked sobs echoing behind her.