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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 eighteen: hell's kitchen
╰┈➤ 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: not proofread
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AVIVA WAS BRED TO FIGHT FOR ZAUN.
And fight she did. Relentlessly. Brutally. She poured every ounce of herself into the cause, wielding Silco's vision like a blade. He'd told her once, "Zaun will be the only thing to love you back."
But he'd been wrong.
Zaun didn't love her. Zaun didn't even know her.
Perhaps it was because she rarely left the shadowy safety of Silco's lair or Jinx's hideout. Perhaps it was because she had spent so long as a specter of violence, someone people feared more than they remembered. She had become Silco's weapon—a blade honed to cut down his enemies, even if it meant carving scars into the city he claimed to love.
The marks she left behind were indelible, etched into the streets and the people. Her name whispered in hushed tones, but it was a name tied to someone else. Someone with blue hair.
That Aviva wasn't her anymore.
Not because the city wasn't capable of recognizing her. They simply weren't that bright. Blame it on the lack of education, the haze of shimmer, or the desperation that made the faces of their tormentors blur into a collective haze.
And yet, despite it all, she loved Zaun.
Not the same way Silco did, not with the cold calculation of a chess player protecting their pawns. No, her love was raw, aching, pitying. She saw the children in the streets with hollow eyes and soot-streaked cheeks. She heard their pleas for clean air, for scraps of food, for safety they'd never know.
And that's where her attachment to Isha began.
The little girl had been like all the others—hungry, lost, and burdened by a world that had never once offered her kindness. But something in her reminded Aviva that not everything in Zaun was irreparably broken. That maybe, just maybe, she could be something other than Silco's weapon. Something softer. Something better.
