"You failed."
"The Firelights were crawling the place."
"Excuses."
Sevika growled, sitting on the couch and popping the cork on her liquor bottle. The heavy aroma of tobacco and liquor blended thickly in the air as she took a swig.
A puff of smoke drifted off into the air after Silco took a drag and leaned back.
"It's only a matter of time before Atlas resurfaces," Silco sighed. "If he's not dead."
"The kid put up an unexpected fight."
"Yes," Silco said, observing Sevika as she wiped some dried blood off her fist with a rag and alcohol from her bottle. "Unexpected."
Sevika, glancing his way and blinking several times, took another swig. "If the kid isn't dead he's with them. That's what I believe."
"Oh? Why."
She shrugged, "I remembered them talking to him. It was years ago but that loner kid didn't have any friends. You asked me to stop investigating back then, remember?"
"A miscalculation," Silco nodded. "But I understand your line of thought. None of the other Chembarons would dare hide him after I asked them to show him hospitality."
"Hospitality," Sevika snorted and laughed. "You're not worried about the power vacuum after if one does?"
Putting out his cigar, Silco looked at the logs pertaining to another shipment of Shimmer that would be sent Topside on Progress Day.
"Ambition and power will find a new suitor quickly," he hummed. "Power never stays unclaimed for long."
------
~Sump Alleyway~
"I'm not doing it!" Jinx pouted angrily.
Jerry-rigged along several pipes up the alley with a makeshift pulley system, the platform Atlas was dragged on now hung suspended. A little hovel sat barely a meter wide, wedged between thick metal pipes. Rotten wooden planks made up the floor, and metal sheets formed a slanted roof. In the current mist too, one wouldn't see it until they looked directly up.
A small mound of moldy flattened boxes was piled up which Atlas lay upon. He flicked Jinx's shoulder.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't like them!" Jinx fired back, poking his chest.
"Aaaa—" Atlas winced before poking her back again. "Then what are we supposed to do? Hide from the Firelights and Silco?"
"We?" Jinx laughed with a hysterical edge, walking her fingers up his stomach before jabbing his chest again. "You mean you."
She smiled cockily, blowing her finger like it was a gun. "I can go back to Silco any time."
"But he tried to kill me!"
"I wanted to kill you yesterday," she answered with a dry look before gesturing at the makeshift hideout. "I'm helping you out! I can't take you to my hidey hole because Silco goes there."
"Besides," she grinned, laying down and propping herself up on an elbow next to him, "I like this new hideout I made for you... no—" her eyes widened with realization, "for us!"
Her eyes then narrowed and slid over to Atlas and she bit her lower lip. Her arm reached over him and dangled off the side, her fingers idly twiddling in the air.
"You're all mine up here. Can't move, can't run, can't..." Her fingers mimicked walking down his leg. "Pitter-patter away..."
Atlas sighed and sarcastically replied, "Oh no, what ever will I do!" before pulling her head down against his chest and causing her to giggle.
She pinched his stomach and madly continued, "My crippled prisoner! Lover with a blown back! But not a blown..."
"No," Atlas tapped her hand when she started getting a little too adventurous. "I need my upstairs brain thinking. And I don't want my firsts like this."
Jinx let out a complaining sound and he felt her go limp against his side.
"No."
"Aaaa," she turned her head and lightly bit his shoulder.
"OW! No!"
"UUUGGGHH!"
Jinx lazily sat up into a hunched sitting position and began mumbling to herself.
"I'd have to be nice to the boy savior. You know how many times he tried to hit my head? More times than I have phalanges. But ooooh...! I got to try being nice to him despite all that!"
"Weren't you two friends growing up?"
"That was years ago! People change."
"I think he wants to stop swinging at you," Atlas continued to mutter back replies. "The only one he really wants to take out is-"
"Silco, I know!" Jinx groaned, eyes rolling upward again before complaining again. "If only the stupid old man didn't try to whack you. Things were going so well! Maybe if I talked to him..."
When she began to drift off muttering such things and Atlas immediately jumped in.
"Please don't," Atlas breathed, his wounds still aching and his chest freshly and badly bruised. "I really don't want more hit squads coming after me right now. At least not for a week. Give me time to heal up."
Her eyes slowly shifted back to him with a little head tilt.
"A week?"
"...Yes?"
"A week."
"Yes."
"No!" Jinx cried. "I'll be bored!"
"Just go blow some shit up!"
"I don't wanna! I want to eat something with you."
"Are we going to rotate through five different joints?" he asked sarcastically.
"I'm okay with whatever you get!"
Atlas rolled his eyes. "Sure. Ow!" He winced when she poked his chest again out of childish spite.
"Fine, fine!" Atlas swatted her hand away when she looked like she was going to take another poke. "Want to do something interesting?"
"Yeah?" she paused, looking at him expectantly but her finger remained poised as a threat. "Like what."
Atlas's gaze darted between her finger and her eyes multiple times. He closed his eyes and breathed out slowly before looking at her a little more seriously.
"Like... going to Stillwater Hold and...-"
"Sounding good," she muttered in-between, her finger remaining high.
Atlas tensed, coiling himself slightly incase of a potentially bad reaction.
"...breaking your sister out?"
Rather than becoming aggressive, she flinched and leaned away visibly shaken. Her shoulders immediately hunched and her hands came up to hold herself.
"What?" Her eyes started blinking rapidly and she let out a pained whimper, her head twitching. Her tone sounded accusatory and hurt. "Why would you say something like that? No, how did you find out about my sister? Was it Sevika? Sevika would make a cruel joke like that but why you..."
"I'm not joking," Atlas pleaded softly, immediately feeling bad for saying it. "Her prisoner number is 516. Stillwater Hold allows mail through."
"Shut up!" Jinx shrieked and violently punched Atlas's bruised chest so fast he couldn't stop it. He let out a loud, painful wheeze and she was already swinging off the pipes with her natural agility.
"I'm not joking," he let out in a wheezy shout, looking over the edge and she was already fleeing into the mist while continued to shout out. "Just send a letter with a return address that only you know! You'll see!"
But only silence greeted him back.
"Fuck..." Atlas cursed softly, groaning as he flopped onto his back again too tired and weak to continue more.
At this point, the longer he hid it from her the more guilty he knew he'd feel with her helping him. Especially if he got into any kind of relationship with her.
"Well...at least she knows."