There was a marauder in the doorway. Said marauder was Tri'im's mother, but her date didn't care about that detail. His shout could have woken the dead, and now he was poised to swing a fist into the marauder's face.
Ice-cold combat mode rushed over Tri'im, gone was nervous excitement. She threw herself at him. They tumbled to the ground, her biotics failing to cushion the impact. No surprise.
Mandibles pressed against her lower jaw, Tri'im tried to fight through her mortification and actually say something and not just make a pathetic static sound while she offered Quintus a hand. He pushed himself up into a fighting stance, green eyes wild.
No, no, no, not again! Tri'im stepped in front of him, arms out, palms up. "Quintus! Calm down! It's just my mother, come on, remember, I told you." Not even a flicker of recognition. She folded down her thumbs. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
He blinked rapidly, gulped down a breath. His eyes flickered back and forth between her hands and the marauder now backed halfway into the living room. "One, two… four…"
She put a thumb out. "Now?"
"Tri'im… behind you…"
Her heart felt like a bomb ready to burst. This couldn't be happening. Not Quintus, too. "How many-"
"Spirits, you've been indoctrinated." His eyes were wide now, fixed on her in a look of horror. He grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her into the hallway, yanking the door shut behind him. "Get away! I can't lose you!"
She stumbled along as he ran past 103, 102, 101, 100. She leaned down, reached up, and pushed his arm off. "Quintus!"
He stopped in his tracks and turned back, mouth open. His eyes narrowed again. "Tri'im…"
Thump. He collapsed against the wall, head touching his knees. His fingered scraped against the complex patterns of Bostra's markings on his forehead. "Tri'im, I am so sorry, I…" He stood, wavering like he hadn't slept in days, hardly able to meet Tri'im's eyes. "I need to go home. Sorry." And he staggered away.
Tri'im's shoulders slumped. Another 'meet the parent' night, ruined. She bit her tongue on the walk back to her apartment. Anger flooded her mind like the blood in her mouth. At Quintus, for reacting so badly (but she was the one who brought him back to the war), at the Reapers, for causing this whole situation in the first place (they thought they would succeed, and if they had, then this never would have happened), at her mother, for becoming one of them (not Tri'im's fault, not her mother's fault, but someone did this).
Before she knew it, she was opening the door, coming face-to-face with her mother. Tri'im swore she could see shame and disappointment in those nine eyes.
Her mother's hand on her shoulder, even as mechanized as it was, felt softer than Quintus's. Galantian led her daughter inside, head down, and sat her down next to her on the couch. Tri'im rubbed her forehead. Her mother picked up the datapad she kept on the arm of the couch and began typing.
I'm sorry.
"No, it's my fault, I should have told him before we got back."
The wait for Galantian to erase the last message and type was miserable. Because of the questions-
Why didn't you?
-like that. Tri'im racked her brain for an answer, found herself speaking before she came up with something good. "Because I didn't want him to think… I don't know. That I lived with monsters."
Tri'im didn't need ex-minion empathy to feel her mother's pain.
Do you think I'm a monster?
"No, mom, I swear, it's just that…"
Everyone else does.
This was going down a path Tri'im knew too well. She stood up and walked towards the stairs before Galantian could do anything. "It's been a rough night. I'm going to sleep. Busy day tomorrow."
Eyy, lookit, a story. I'll tell you now that I don't write long in any sort. I will update when I have a chapter written up. Thanks for reading,
