Chapter Text
“BECAUSE YOU’RE A JINX.”
Jinx
The words ran through her head over and over, reality becoming a distant blur. Did she deserve this? To be left in the cold hard ground, the polluted air filling her lungs in desperate pants. She was crying, shriveled up on the ground in front of her… Vanders corpse. She had done this. She had killed him. She fucked up. SHE ALWAYS JINXES EVERYTHING.
Tears stream down her face, mixing with the filth around her, blood leaking from her nose. Her face ached, the hit from her sister, a physical reminder that she left. That Vi hated her. She huffs out breaths as she chokes on her tears. A suffocating feeling enveloping her, there was no escape.
...
Breathing. Was she breathing? She couldn’t tell, the rapid pants were becoming more and more frantic as if trying to catch something. Vi. She had left her. Why would she leave her. It’s not fair. It was an accident. Why.
“Because you’re a jinx”
Mylo’s voice. Was he there behind her? Taunting her? It didn’t matter anymore; she knew it was the truth. She had to show them that... maybe she could be better, maybe she could fix something, save them.
“Powder...?”
A voice, a familiar one, it sounded worried, panicked even. Just who was it, it felt real, it wasn’t a hallucination. She forces herself to unfurl and look up. Puffy white hair, those deep brown eyes meeting hers.
“Ekko.?”
Her voice sounds shriveled, small. Weak. Tainted by the tears she was choking out.
“Ekko!!”
The distance between them is quickly diminished as she leaps onto him, desperate to make sure he wouldn’t leave her like she did. She presses her face into his chest, clutching even tighter to him, she couldn’t let him go. She wouldn’t.
“Powder! What’s- what’s going on??? I followed Vi here and I watched them… they killed… Benzo. Mylo. Claggor…”
He looks to the sight behind powder
“Vander...”
The words sting her like knives, the sadness in his voice. He didn’t know. He didn’t know this was her fault. Not theirs. It’s always her fault. She’s just a damn jinx.
“I…I killed them. It was all my- my fault”
The tears and emotions spilt up her speech
“…what”
“My bomb. It. It worked. I was trying to help but I just jinxed it. Like I always do.”
She knew it. he’s going to hate and her and leave her just like Vi did, she didn’t deserve to have friends like him. She clung to him harder, sobbing harder as she accepted the reality of what she did.
“You’re going to kill him just like you did to me”
“SHUT UP”
Ekko sits stunned for a second, she was clearing having trouble right now, he just needed to try to keep her grounded. Emotions race through him as he tries to figure out what to say, hoping, praying, that she was wrong somehow. Powder, his best friend of so many years couldn’t have done this right???
“But it was an accident, right”
He’s… he’s asking? It didn’t matter if it was an accident, it was her fault, she did it.
“Yes but-”
“Then I’m just happy you’re alive too”
He finally reciprocates the embrace and pulls her into a tight hug, his own tears now dampening her bright blue hair.
the spit of the raging burning building behind them felt like a distant issue, all that was important is that they had each other.
After a bit of comforting silence, he speaks again
“What about Vi…?”
His voice is trembling, dreading the answer. She couldn’t be dead right…
“She. She left me. She’s not my sister anymore.”
“She… left?”
That’s not the Vi he knew, the one that would do anything to stick up for her baby sister, the one who taught them how to fight, the person he looked up to. He refuses to believe it, but powder seems to not be having any of it.
“She is not my sister anymore”.
Did she really feel that way? Or was it her emotions overwhelming her thoughts. No time to think about that now, they needed to get to safety, they were too out in the open. That man will surely come to find them.
They needed to hide.