From Marsen, the conversation drifted to the Lanes. Powder asked Logan a lot of things, and Logan answered them one by one. What Logan found strange was that Powder didn't seem all that crazed. Her thoughts were clear, her emotions steady. It wasn't quite like the "Jinx" Logan had imagined.
He looked at Powder, thought for a moment, and simply sat down on the bed too.
Powder didn't resist his movement. Instead, she stretched her long legs out, planted both hands behind her on the bed for support, tilted her head, and asked with her lips slightly parted, "Logan… why do you look like you're scared of me?"
Logan paused. "Am I?"
"Of course. I can tell," Powder replied.
She reached out. Logan reflexively lifted his hand to block her—then Powder stopped, shrugged, and leaned back a little with her thin frame, giving him a half-smile. "See? You're doing it right now. You're scared of me."
"…"
"This afternoon at the restaurant, I saw a group of people looking for you. Gang people."
Powder's expression turned to sudden understanding. She lifted a hand dismissively and flicked it with contempt. "Oh, those are Silco's people. I ran away from home, so of course he'd send people to look for me. What's so weird about that? Are you scared of me because of that?"
Logan fell silent and looked at her.
Powder let out an exaggerated sigh, scrunched up her little face, and said like she didn't care, "I know what you want to say. But what do you want me to do?"
"Vander's dead. Vi doesn't want me anymore. Where else can I go? They were the ones who didn't want me first—what was I supposed to do?"
"Silco's annoying, but he really is good to me. I do jobs for him, he takes care of me. Is that so strange?"
Logan shook his head.
It wasn't strange. Like he'd already told himself—he couldn't look at her from a normal person's perspective. And with Zaun the way it was now, there weren't many normal people left in the whole city anyway—Powder was just more extreme.
Silco was the one who killed Vander. By logic, he should've been Powder's enemy, yet she'd accepted her enemy as a father. But the relationship between Silco and Vander wasn't something you could explain in one or two sentences either.
In short, if you tried to force adult logic onto this girl, the only thing you'd get was your own anger—and a bullet from her.
Logan looked at Powder, took a deep breath, and asked seriously, "So should I call you Powder… or your new name—Jinx?"
Pow—no.
Jinx.
She froze for a second, then burst into loud laughter.
One hand pressed to her stomach, the other wiping at the corner of her eye, Jinx laughed with a kind of manic intensity.
"Hahahahahaha!"
"You even know that?" She giggled breathlessly after the laughter, eyes bright with tears as she stared at Logan. "Yeah, you should. You and the little guy were close too."
"But I'm curious—why didn't you join the Firelights? Did his group not want you? Wasn't he building some kind of new home?"
She kept giggling, wiping her eyes, then said—half-laughing, half-crying, voice full of delighted emotion, "Call me Jinx, Logan."
"…"
"And another question." Seeing Logan not respond, Jinx asked, "Can I still live here?"
"If I refuse, what happens?" Logan asked. The meaning was obvious.
Jinx opened her mouth, looking cutely shocked. "What kind of question is that? I'm not that crazy. We grew up together. I'm not going to kill you."
Then she twirled her little pistol, her foot lightly kicking the bedframe as she swung her long legs. In a tone as casual as someone saying if you're thirsty, you drink water, she added, "But I'll move next door instead. It's just a matter of going in and saying hi to that family."
"Bang~ boom~ and then they'll agree."
"I don't have anywhere to stay right now. Sevika—that big idiot—is so annoying. You remember Sevika, right? That big idiot is so annoying!"
Jinx's mouth rattled nonstop as she complained to Logan.
Sevika?
Of course Logan remembered.
A woman who embodied Zaun's will. When Logan first watched Arcane, he hated her for betraying Vander and joining Silco. But the more he watched, the more he realized she had a strong kind of appeal.
She wasn't loyal to a person.
She was loyal to Zaun.
Whoever could lead Zaun to resist Piltover and bring Zaun dignity—that was who Sevika would work for. Someone that pure, that extreme… how could you hate them?
Well. Jinx could.
"I really want to shoot her dead, but I know I can't do that. Silco would be mad." Jinx faced Logan, held both hands in front of her, and curled her index and middle fingers downward like a cute little gesture.
Cute, yes.
But what she said was anything but.
"So," she asked, "how are you going to choose?"
"Do you want me living with you… or living next door?" Jinx asked.
She wasn't going to let Logan run.
It had been so long. Besides Ekko—the little guy—Logan was the only person she could still call familiar.
If you ran away from home and had nowhere to go, then of course you'd latch onto someone you knew.
She was sick. Really sick.
With no sense of security, the moment she saw someone familiar, she would cling—hard. And the person who could truly heal her illness wasn't Logan.
But… why not?
Heh.
Logan sighed, moved by the thought that the neighbor who was supposed to get unlucky would be blessed with such a selfless, saintly neighbor like him.
Damn it. That neighbor should've just handed over some money like a decent person.
Logan was saving his life, for crying out loud.
"Just stay here," Logan said. "But I only have one bed."
"No problem. We can sleep together. I'll sleep on the inside, you sleep on the outside. I'm messy when I sleep—I'm scared I'll fall off." Jinx grinned, not caring at all that Logan was a man.
Logan scratched his cheek, a little speechless… and then realized there was a tiny, hard-to-describe flicker of excitement in his chest.
Jinx was a lunatic.
But she was a very good-looking lunatic.
Besides the fact that she was completely flat, she had a long, slender body, and legs so pale they almost looked like they glowed. Zaunites rarely saw sunlight; besides the few with naturally darker skin, most people were pale.
And Jinx was the palest of them all.
"What if Silco comes looking?" Logan asked.
"Hasn't yet, has he?" Jinx flopped onto the bed. Her braids spread out on both sides as she spoke lazily.
She rolled once on the narrow plank bed, pressed down on the cloth-stuffed pillow, then rested her head on it. She patted the bed, signaling Logan to lie down too.
Just like back then—when they used to lie out on the rooftop platform, leaning against chem tanks, watching "the sky" together.
Yeah.
In a certain sense, Logan and Jinx really were childhood friends.
Even if Vi used to beat up Marsen and Logan all the time.
Logan hesitated, then lay down—but half his body hung off the bed.
"Don't be so scared. I told you, I won't hurt you." Jinx blinked at him, her eyes bright.
"You know everything, but… it wasn't like that. I didn't mean to hurt Claggor and Mylo. I—I didn't want that. It was an accident, Logan. It really was an accident."
Jinx kept talking, like she was afraid Logan wouldn't believe her—spilling it all out in one breath.
"I know," Logan said. "I believe you."
Jinx froze. She blinked. "Really?"
"Yeah. I believe you. It was an accident," Logan said.
"You're the first one… who believes me." Jinx said suddenly. Her expression went a little strange, but then she immediately giggled again—wide-eyed, half-manic—chattering a whole pile of nonsense at Logan.
Only when the deep night came did her voice finally grow quieter.
Under the glow of the graffiti lamp, Logan saw Jinx with her back turned to him, curled up at the very inside edge of the bed, pressed tight against the wall—sleeping like a little cat.
Completely different from when she was awake.
Like a cat with no sense of safety.
If Logan had to say who he most wanted to get close to in Zaun, it would definitely be Ekko.
Logan genuinely liked Jinx as a character. He thought she had a lot of charm. But no matter how strong his adaptability was, having a crazy murderer lying next to him still made him uncomfortable—uneasy, conflicted.
No matter how many excuses you made for Jinx, no matter how much you blamed the environment and people for turning her into this…
Wrong was still wrong.
Ekko went through just as much—yet wasn't Ekko still warm like sunlight?
Ekko was Zaun's real seed.
If I, Logan, get a vote, I'm voting Ekko. Ekko is Zaun's future leader.
But reality was Jinx lying on his bed, and Ekko… who knew where he was.
"Sigh…"
Looking at the sleeping Jinx, Logan hesitated, then shifted inward—because hanging half off the bed was uncomfortable as hell. There was no way he could fall asleep like that.
As for a pillow…
Forget it. He'd use his hands.
He laced his fingers under his head and closed his eyes.
But just as he was starting to drift off, something smacked him.
Logan opened his eyes and saw Jinx curled up beside him, her head tucked close under his elbow. One small hand clutched the fabric at his chest tightly. The other hand rested at her lips, her mouth open as she bit down on her thumb—painted with blue nail polish.
"Vi… I'm sorry. Don't leave me."
"I really know I was wrong. I didn't want to…"
"Please… Vi… Vi…"
"Vi… I don't hate you anymore. Come back…"
"…"
Logan listened to Jinx's voice, lay back down, and closed his eyes again.
Maybe…
There was still time.