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Twice now he has carried her away from the wreckage.
Silco slides his arms carefully around an injured Jinx, pressing his forehead against her soot-stained hair as he hauls her broken body against his chest. The familiar scent of smoke and blood mingling together while he holds her in his arms is what triggers the memory. He’s aware of his guards standing just off to the side - of the impending troop of enforcers headed their way as the sirens bellow throughout the city, but in that moment he’s back outside in the ruins of his warehouse - arms curling protectively around Jinx as he lowers his head until he can whisper softly in her ear.
"It's okay. We'll show them. We will show them all."
He still remembers carrying her in his arms that first time - small and trembling and drenched from the rain. She'd cried until she was sick from it - coughing and gasping against his chest from the grief that consumed her. Powder, because she wasn't Jinx, not yet - had just lost everything she'd ever known and been betrayed by the one person she had left.
It was a feeling Silco knew well, after all.
There were still nights where dreams of water startled him awake - dreams of thrashing beneath water turned red with blood against the familiar hands curled violently around his throat.
After those dreams, he would wake up gasping for breath - struggling to draw air in his lungs around the phantom tightness in his throat.
He thought that, perhaps, that's how Powder felt now.
Suffocated.
The end of that night has always remained a blur to him. There had been so much to do - Sevika to take care of, messages to send, clean up to be taken care of, a child - he only somewhat remembers spending that night weary and awake as he secured his tenuous grip on the Lanes.
There has been one thing, however, that has always stood out to him about that night - the weight of Powder, of Jinx, sinking into his chest - awake one moment and asleep the next on the way to her new home.
It’s what Silco thinks of now as he curls Jinx's fingers around the glowing core in her palm - resting her hand carefully against her stomach. He will take her to Singed. The Doctor can save her.
In the distance - just off the edge of the bridge - he catches a glimpse of pink hair as he goes to stand. It's the sister he thinks, Violet - once again abandoning Jinx to the wolves.
She can abandon Jinx all she likes, but he won't.
He can't .
For better or for worse, he will not leave her behind. His legs shake as he moves to stand with Jinx still cradled carefully in his arms - his eyes once more straying to the shock of pink hair in the distance before he turns his back on her.
All that matters, all that's ever mattered, is his daughter.
Fuck the world , he thinks.
He will not forsake her.
He couldn't even if he tried.