Taylor pulls the file to her, and starts flicking through the pages. It's in chronological order, so she doesn't have to get far to know - it's not here.
Whatever rubric the Admiral uses to tally up the things she's been responsible for in her life, her mother's death doesn't fall under it. She shuts it again, taking a shaking breath, and scrubs a hand across her eyes.
Taylor tilts her head, still fiddling with the corners of the file. "It's just- this breach and the small town one brought up... mom stuff. And my dad- so I was worried it would be in here.
"I was supposed to call her, at a certain time, and I didn't. So she was trying to call me, while she was driving, and she got in a wreck. It's not- like, I worried her. But I didn't force her to keep driving while she tried to get in touch. It's not reasonable that it was my fault. Still kind of was, though. But not in a 'I did it' way. I guess this agrees."
"Yeah. There's that-" She opens it again, turning the first two pages back and forth. "Happy, boring first-world childhood - one best friend, camp every summer. Nothing to complain about. Every privilege in the world."
"Yeah? And then?" he presses, because there's always a "-but" in those kinds of stories. Rags' own story was just one tragedy after another. T's is different.
"And then Mom died. And Emma - my- fuck it hurts to call her my friend, but she was, we were like you and me - She let me cry on her shoulder, was my rock... Until the summer. She stopped answering my calls. Got rude. And then we went back to school and she has this new friend, Sophia, and she told me, in front of everyone, that my dad had told her dad it was all my fault."
That isn't in the file, except in the bare details. 'Bullied by former friend, involving verbal abuse, theft and violence, escalating to an incident resulting in hospitalization and power debut.' She taps incident with her finger, biting her lip.
"It got bad. This isn't all in here, but it's important, because - it made Skitter. A year of bullying, until I was this... this small, dead thing. Didn't interact, didn't react, didn't try to make new friends. Didn't fight back. Ate my lunches in the bathroom. They found me there too.
"Then Christmas break." The hum of her bees in the yard pitches up a note, but she keeps them from coming to her. "They stuffed my locker - the cabinet the school gave me to keep my books in - with all the trash from the girls' bathroom, after class got out so I didn't know. No one knew, for the three weeks of break, and it just rotted in there. Then the morning we came back, they were waiting for me to find it. Everyone around me laughed, and then Sophia shoved me into it. Slammed the door. Locked me in.
"I still don't know how long I was in there. Felt like hours. I-" She inhales, enough to feel her chest expand, to know she has the space to do so. "I fought. I pushed out as hard as I could. Broke a bone in my wrist doing it, and at some point, the bugs- joined me. I just suddenly could feel these thousands, tens of thousand things in the dark with me. Twitching and moving and eating and wanting, every single one pouring all its senses into me. I didn't know what they were. It was like blinding noise and deafening light and every taste and smell all at once, while I was split into thousands and thousands of awful little bodies."
Rags knows bullies. He knows the concept of it because of the boys in the Clave who come at him with fists and words and everything else that they can do to get the scraps of coin and bread from him. It's why he learned to run and hide. Rags has always been little. Too small to defend himself. But he's quick. He's small. Able to find other ways to get away.
He doesn't understand some of what she's talking about. Some of it reminds him of the breach, but it's like a dream that slips through his fingers. Trying to collect mist in his hands. He doesn't have a clear picture of what she's saying.
But he can feel that anger. The despair. The isolation.
"That's fucking terrible," he says, but it sounds like an understatement. In reality, it's just an opportunity for her to keep going.
She meets his eyes a moment, nodding. Hers are dry, a little distant. "When I finally got out, I was feral. It's good I didn't know how to use the bugs yet, because I attacked everyone in reach. They took me to a hospital, and I spent a few days too drugged to know my name. Then I had some time to figure it all out. I lucked out, and never outed myself.
"Emma and Sophia never got in trouble. Thirty people at least saw them do it, and no one was willing to speak up for me."
Rags has never really had a good sense of justice, but that hits him hard. No one willing to stick up for her. No one on her side. She was alone and there wasn't anything to be done about it.
"Where are they now? Or, when you came here? What had happened to them?"
"Emma and her family left the city after Leviathan, but Sophia will be in here." She doesn't flip ahead to look though, mouth thinning. "I'm not the sort of person who takes revenge. But- But she got in our way, and I let... My team wouldn't have treated her the way we did if it wasn't revenge, in part."
She might not take revenge, but, boy, can the girl hold a grudge. Some things are worth holding onto, though. And Rags doesn't hold her anger against her.
She doesn't want to tell him. Not when he knows how deeply she hated Jacobi for what he did. Not when he'll see how much a hypocrite she is.
She exhales, leaning back from the table. "I wouldn't do it now, or allow it to happen. Maybe that's growth. I don't know. Maybe it's just being away from- from my team."
Taylor gives him a narrow look. "Now you sound like Kazuma.
"So, Alec- Regent, on my team. He can do to people what I do to bugs. Just one at a time, and not as easily, but- but it's complete, if he has enough time to get his hooks in. Complete control, complete access to their senses, complete access to their emotions."
She knows. She stares at her hands, fidgeting with the edge of her thumb. Not looking at him.
"We used her to fight the Wards, her team. Regent puppeted her the whole battle. We used her as a weapon and a human shield while we invaded their headquarters, and almost blew the place up. Stole a lot of files that we sold to our boss - Coil. I didn't do it myself, but that's not an excuse. I was there, I profited, I didn't speak up against it, I didn't put my foot down.
"Sophia was messed up to start with - she shot Brian before we met, an arrow straight through the gut - but after we let her go, she attacked her foster mom and tried to hang herself. Regent sent some info he got out of her computer about her to the Wards, and she went to jail. For her own crimes, not ours. I don't feel bad about that part. But that was all- it was over the line."
"It was over the line," he agrees with a nod, thinking of Morien. Of his guards with the mirrorglass in their hearts and his army of silent puppets. His hand goes to the scarring on his chest.
He's not going to let her get away from it completely. He can tell she feels bad about it, but she still hates someone else for doing the exact same thing that she was quiet about before. "Did you do it again after Sophia? Make people do shit against their will?"
She nods, stilling as she sends her fidgeting off into the swarm.
"Shatterbird. And I know it sounds like an excuse to say that was different, but Shatterbird's a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. They're monsters. Our choices with her were kill her, let her keep threatening the whole city, or getting her under control and have a better chance to stop the Nine. To stop Jack, before he causes the end of the world. It still wasn't enough."
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"I'll- skim it first. I just have to see if something is in here."
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Huh, she's right.
It does go with everything.
He'll let her look for whatever she wants.
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Whatever rubric the Admiral uses to tally up the things she's been responsible for in her life, her mother's death doesn't fall under it. She shuts it again, taking a shaking breath, and scrubs a hand across her eyes.
"Okay."
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"I was supposed to call her, at a certain time, and I didn't. So she was trying to call me, while she was driving, and she got in a wreck. It's not- like, I worried her. But I didn't force her to keep driving while she tried to get in touch. It's not reasonable that it was my fault. Still kind of was, though. But not in a 'I did it' way. I guess this agrees."
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"Yeah, that wasn't your fucking fault. You can't control other people's actions and shit. Just like -"
He swallows hard. "Just like Dane."
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"So this isn't going to list stuff that just... isn't my fault."
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That isn't in the file, except in the bare details. 'Bullied by former friend, involving verbal abuse, theft and violence, escalating to an incident resulting in hospitalization and power debut.' She taps incident with her finger, biting her lip.
"It got bad. This isn't all in here, but it's important, because - it made Skitter. A year of bullying, until I was this... this small, dead thing. Didn't interact, didn't react, didn't try to make new friends. Didn't fight back. Ate my lunches in the bathroom. They found me there too.
"Then Christmas break." The hum of her bees in the yard pitches up a note, but she keeps them from coming to her. "They stuffed my locker - the cabinet the school gave me to keep my books in - with all the trash from the girls' bathroom, after class got out so I didn't know. No one knew, for the three weeks of break, and it just rotted in there. Then the morning we came back, they were waiting for me to find it. Everyone around me laughed, and then Sophia shoved me into it. Slammed the door. Locked me in.
"I still don't know how long I was in there. Felt like hours. I-" She inhales, enough to feel her chest expand, to know she has the space to do so. "I fought. I pushed out as hard as I could. Broke a bone in my wrist doing it, and at some point, the bugs- joined me. I just suddenly could feel these thousands, tens of thousand things in the dark with me. Twitching and moving and eating and wanting, every single one pouring all its senses into me. I didn't know what they were. It was like blinding noise and deafening light and every taste and smell all at once, while I was split into thousands and thousands of awful little bodies."
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He doesn't understand some of what she's talking about. Some of it reminds him of the breach, but it's like a dream that slips through his fingers. Trying to collect mist in his hands. He doesn't have a clear picture of what she's saying.
But he can feel that anger. The despair. The isolation.
"That's fucking terrible," he says, but it sounds like an understatement. In reality, it's just an opportunity for her to keep going.
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"Emma and Sophia never got in trouble. Thirty people at least saw them do it, and no one was willing to speak up for me."
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"Where are they now? Or, when you came here? What had happened to them?"
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She might not take revenge, but, boy, can the girl hold a grudge. Some things are worth holding onto, though. And Rags doesn't hold her anger against her.
"What did you do to her?"
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She exhales, leaning back from the table. "I wouldn't do it now, or allow it to happen. Maybe that's growth. I don't know. Maybe it's just being away from- from my team."
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"Taylor. What did you do to her?"
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"So, Alec- Regent, on my team. He can do to people what I do to bugs. Just one at a time, and not as easily, but- but it's complete, if he has enough time to get his hooks in. Complete control, complete access to their senses, complete access to their emotions."
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And he stares at her. Because yeah, that does sound exactly like what that guy did to Connor and why she got pissed off at him.
He stares at her because he doesn't think he needs to say it. "So what happened?"
cw: suicide mention
"We used her to fight the Wards, her team. Regent puppeted her the whole battle. We used her as a weapon and a human shield while we invaded their headquarters, and almost blew the place up. Stole a lot of files that we sold to our boss - Coil. I didn't do it myself, but that's not an excuse. I was there, I profited, I didn't speak up against it, I didn't put my foot down.
"Sophia was messed up to start with - she shot Brian before we met, an arrow straight through the gut - but after we let her go, she attacked her foster mom and tried to hang herself. Regent sent some info he got out of her computer about her to the Wards, and she went to jail. For her own crimes, not ours. I don't feel bad about that part. But that was all- it was over the line."
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He's not going to let her get away from it completely. He can tell she feels bad about it, but she still hates someone else for doing the exact same thing that she was quiet about before. "Did you do it again after Sophia? Make people do shit against their will?"
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"Shatterbird. And I know it sounds like an excuse to say that was different, but Shatterbird's a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. They're monsters. Our choices with her were kill her, let her keep threatening the whole city, or getting her under control and have a better chance to stop the Nine. To stop Jack, before he causes the end of the world. It still wasn't enough."
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