[vi cannot begin to imagine what her sister (the person formerly known as powder - and still, in some measure a great unknown) might be thinking. she can try, and she does - but she comes up with a whole host of horrors, sadness - a black hole of a time when she hadn't been a fixture in jinx's life. she had still been powder then, hadn't she?

it's not my fault, pow pow, i was just a kid---

(you left her)

also, though: my fault, when i just lay out the facts, kid or not.

and even in her absence, she'd made more of a mark than she ever could have known - jinx had said it herself: (shadows in the streets, prickles on the back of my neck. your voice, pushing me.) she wonders, sometimes with no small dread, what that imagined voice had said. she will slightly release - with reluctance - the moment jinx pulls back, but she remains close, too. her own voice is soft, too, lowered to match her sister's, looking into eyes that leak pink-tinged tears.]

Let's ...get out of here. We can go back to the beach if you want. Just us. Watch the ocean flipping off this whole place and everyone in it.