Chapter 12
He stood alone on top of Max's building, a solid figure silhouetted against the starry backdrop. Carn and Renz had left with Trigs the moment Renz felt able to drive. His hands had been shaking so badly that it took him a while. He and Carn loaded her limp body into the hummer they drove, and rode off into the sunset.
He himself had attacked the Manticore people still stationed in the area. He led Max, Jondy and Zane to attack the people, and take what was theirs. They took the dog tags that Renfro was having made for trigs. He wanted to smash Renfro's face in, but he couldn't bring himself to. Having his sister die in his arms shook him up. He had instilled the pride in her, and she lived with it. It was his fault she died.
But he wondered what Renz and Carn were doing with her. He doubted the mountains. If anything, they would take her to Manticore and let them fiddle with her body, trying to imitate that amazingness that was his little sister. He would have stopped them, but he didn't have the heart.
He wondered if Trigs was in the good place. She had lived a long life, and fought against the insurmountable odds stacked against her. He wished he could have been there for her like he was for the others. He wished her could turn back time and tell her that he never meant to leave her, and that he wanted her by his side, his friend, his sister. He hoped she was in the good place. He hoped she was laughing at Jack's clumsy-ness with Ben and Tinga and Eva and Peeps.
He wondered if she would have to fight anymore. She was strong, his sister, but the world had taken it's toll on her. She was a hardened stone when she saw him the first time. Living in the dungeon with the X5 had done nothing to her. She seemed fine. He wished he had control like that. The only time he saw her cry, was with one of her dying breaths. She wasn't afraid of dying, just the dying of the light that was her life.
He remembered saying the poem that was her last words to her when she was a child. He had read it on the wall of one of the officers desks. When she was shot, Zack had recited the words to the child, delirious with fever from infection. He didn't think anything of it then, but now, at the time he stood alone on top of the apartment, he realized how much of an effect he had on his sister.
She wasn't perfect, she wasn't by a long shot. She was just loved for who she was. He only wished that Max and Jondy could have said goodbye to her too, that their goodbyes to her would have changed them the way it changed him. It took five minutes to change his life.
"Rage, Rage against the dying of the light Trigs," said Zack, looking at her dog tags before putting them around his neck, "You're at peace."