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Caitlyn makes it three miles down the rubble-strewn streets before the bullet wound in her leg rips open. Her cries are ragged as Vi staunches the blood with a shred of her sleeve. It’s not enough. Blood slickens her hands and leaks onto the street.
“I’m gonna have to help you the rest of the way, Cupcake.”
Cait looks up at her with wide, unfocused eyes.
“Caitlyn,” Vi tugs her face between her hands. “Look at me. I’m going to pick you up, okay?”
Cait nods.
“It’s gonna hurt like fuck.”
Vi scoops under her knees and hoists Caitlyn against her chest. She gasps as her injured thigh bumps against Vi’s hip-bones.
Unwilling to risk the rooftops, Vi thunders down the road, eyes fixed on the billowing smoke at the heart of the city. Caitlyn winces with every strike of her heels against the ground, eventually hiding her face in Vi’s shoulder. Blood trickles from her scalp. Vi feels it smear across her neck, mingling with her sweat.
She alternates walking and running, panting heavily against the side of Caitlyn’s throat.
The muddy river district empties into merchant sectors, then gives rise to the shiny white capitol. Frantic topsiders flee the encroaching smoke, pressing against them. Vi twists into an alleyway, trying desperately to catch her breath. Caitlyn gracelessly tries to pull out of her arms, but Vi clutches her tighter, bracing her against a wall.
“Not yet, Cupcake, we’re almost there.”
“I can… I can walk.” Cait’s head sways precariously.
“It’s okay, let's keep going. We’ll get to her faster if I carry you.”
Caitlyn stops resisting immediately, wrapping her arms around Vi’s neck.
They shoot back into the street, threading through the thinning crowd. The smoke-dust becomes thicker, heavy with the scent of charred flesh.
It’s an old, familiar smell.
Enforcers and medics clamber through the rubble, dragging wailing bodies onto stretchers. Some stray officer spots them and tries to turn Vi away.
“No. No!” Vi shoves him back. “She’s injured, probably concussed. We need to get through.”
He starts to refuse.
Caitlyn lifts her head. Even bloodless and hidden by her hair, the man recognizes her face. He pales. “The Kiramman heir.”
Her unsteady eyes fix on the enforcer. Breathless, “You have to let us through. My mother—”
The man starts waving his arms. “Doctor! We need a doctor! She’s a Kiramman!”
A dozen heads snap up.
White-clothed medics rush over, hands devouring Caitlyn’s face and limbs. They try to peel her from Vi’s arms, assessing the blood-soaked rags around her thigh. Vi sinks down, trying to help them, but Caitlyn scrambles to stay in her hold.
“It’s alright, Kiramman. We’re going to bandage your wounds.”
“No no no no, Vi,” she pleads. “I have to find her.”
“We’ll find her, I promise.” Vi soothes, “Just let them help you first.”
Someone tries to disentangle Caitlyn’s grasp.
“No, Vi please—” her eyes are desperate. “Please!”
Vi tightens her grip.
“I need my mother.”
The medics pounce, ready to drag their precious Kiramman onto a stretcher. Vi flings herself backwards, Caitlyn tangled awkwardly in her arms. They stumble away— Caitlyn gripping Vi as a crutch— until they’re able to dart behind a smoking clutch of rubble. The footsteps of pursuers are drowned by the wails of the injured. They sound like animals, wild and in pain. It doesn’t seem like the sort of noise Cassandra Kiramman could make.
Vi wraps her arm under Caitlyn’s legs and swings her up again. They weave through the flaming debris, scanning injured figures limping through the smoke. The corpses they pass are broken at odd angles, disfigured by flings of concrete and rebar. Still, none of their clothes or skin resemble the counselor’s. They skirt an ambulance stocked with moaning bodies, none catching Caitlyn’s eye. A medic notices them and rushes closer, eyes locked on Cait’s distinctive sea-dark hair. Vi creeps back, eyeing her suspiciously. The woman pauses, holding up her hands as if to placate some spooked animal. Smoke thickens between them, obscuring her for a moment. Vi considers using the cover to disappear into ruins, when the wind gives a gasp of clean air. The medic crouches among speared concrete, calling something indeterminable. The sound dies in the wind. But her lips form the shape Vi’s been praying for.
Cassandra.
Vi tears forward, some awful, infantile hope begging in her chest. She stops inches away from the hazel-skinned woman, eyes searching for the silent question.
There’s pity at the corners of her mouth, and Vi’s heart sinks.
Caitlyn hasn’t caught it. She stumbles out of Vi’s arms and clutches the medic. “My mother? You have my mother?”
The medic looks down. “We believe so. Come with me.”
Caitlyn trips forward, blood gushing from her ragged leg. A dizzy look seizes her eyes.
They rush past the ambulance of groaning victims. To the rows of people sleeping on jagged rock. Covered in blankets.
Her own mother’s slackened face seizes in her throat.
Vi can’t move. They’re leaving her behind.
We believe so.
“Wait.”
Both women turn to stare at her.
“Caitlyn— it’s not. You won’t— Cait.”
It doesn’t register. Lucky girl doesn’t understand.
“Come along Caitlyn,” the medic calls. “We need you for the identification.”
Caitlyn steps forward. “What do you—”
A white-silked hand peeks from beneath a thick cloth. The torn glove does not reveal skin. There is no skin. The hand flesh is pink and raw, naked burn sores leaking fluid.
The medic peels back the blanket.
The body is not Cassandra Kiramman.
Cassandra Kiramman had a face. Her ribs were not a broken, wet cave at the center of her chest.
Cassandra Kiramman did have sapphire droplet earrings. Just like these ones, except less melted into the cooked fat of her ears.
Caitlyn hesitates for a moment, then drops to her knees, almost laughing. “This is not my mother.”
“Miss Kiramman—”
“Why would you bring me to this— thing? Everyone knows what my mother looks like.” Her sapphire-earring eyes plead with the medic, who stares at her blankly. Cait sneers with frustration. “This isn’t my mother! My mother is a councilor! She doesn’t look anything like this.”
“Cait—”
“No, no, Vi! She doesn’t— you know she— she wouldn’t die like this, she couldn’t. She is a counselor! She is safe! I was the one meant to die like this. Vi!”
The medic subtly signals to her colleagues. They creep towards them, filling syringes with clear liquid.
“She’s—” Vi stammers over Cait’s head, “She’s lost a lot of blood. She might be concussed— she… she doesn’t—”
“We’ll take care of her,” the medic promises.
“Vi! Violet!” Caitlyn scrabbles at her wrists.
Vi kneels down and cups a hand against her cheek.
“Violet.” She’s clinging. “You have to believe me, that’s not my mother!”
She strokes Caitlyn’s smooth black hair. “I know, Cupcake. I believe you, I promise.”
“We have to find her, she’s still out there.”
Medics enclose them. Vi buries Cait’s face into her shoulder, sweeping her hair behind her ear. Exposes the wide, vulnerable expanse of her neck.
“We will. I promise we will.”
They spear a needle deep into Caitlyn’s neck. She whimpers and thrashes for a moment, before slumping back into Vi’s arms. Silent as her mother.