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“Shepard! Perse! You’re dreaming again!” Kaidan reached through the biotic field to shake Shepard by the shoulders.
Shepard thrashed against his grip and then sat bolt upright, growling at an invisible opponent at the end of the bed. “Not today, motherfucker!”
Perse blinked and the biotic field snapped off. They looked around at Kaidan. “It happened again, didn’t it?” Perse was sweating.
“Come ‘ere.” Kaidan moved towards them and enveloped Shepard in a warm embrace. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re safe. I’m here.” He just held them and rocked.
Kaidan noticed Perse was box breathing. He just waited. They’d already been through the questions and cagey non-answers about the what and the why and the who. “Maybe you should talk to someone. It might make you feel better,” he ventured.
“There are things I can’t tell an Alliance shrink, Kaidan.”
“Well, right now I’m just Kaidan. And you’re just Perse. You could try telling me.” He’d asked before but what the hell, try, try again, right?
Perse pulled away, just breathing into the silence for a few moments. “The first time this happened you asked me where home was for me.” Shepard regarded their own hands. “A knife…and no armor. It’s the only thing that feels like home.” Their hands started to shake. “If I’m gonna tell you this story, my fists need to be working. Let’s go to the gym.”
Earth, Bay Peninsula, California, 2162
I shifted my stance, swaying as if I was standing on a boat. The thug trying to cop a feel was only slightly drunk. He didn’t know what he was in for. No one came through this sector without the 78s knowing about it, and this man had overstayed his welcome.
It always starts innocently enough — hanging with someone in a club, maybe just outside; then a few more join you and you think you have a chance of taking over 78 territory. But you don’t. You really don’t.
I keep my eyes on the man in front, but he’s not the first one I hit. He thinks he sees a little girl, a first target, something easy for the boys… I wait for him to lunge forward and duck down to grab me.
When he does, I leap up over his head and push off of his back towards the others sending him sprawling into the space I used to occupy. I come down from above slashing crosswise at the idiots just standing there with their necks exposed. As I land, those two are already crumpling to the ground. The three in front of me look a little scared. But not scared enough to run. They don’t know just how dead they already are.
The man on the left (he looks the oldest, maybe the leader), tries to grab me as I dodge between him and his companion. They both feel pricks as I slice through their Achilles tendons and start to fall before they know what’s happening. I come up with both daggers out, crouched low, looking like a muddy little demon. All they can see are teeth and eyes and blades. The first attacker is recovering his feet, the last untouched goon is squaring up to face me, baring his teeth.
“You don’t know what you’ve done here, little girl.” He growls. The painful yelps from the others make me feel powerful. I don’t say a thing, just grin.
I wait for him to move. He’s big, but I’m fast.
He reaches out for me. Why do they always think they can grab things that look like me? Idiots.
I use the knife in my left hand like a climbing pitton on his forearm, pulling him hard towards me. He starts to fall forward into my second blade. I sink it into his chest and twist, bracing my right elbow against him, trying to leverage his weight to the side so I don’t end up pinned. His other arm flails against me, gains purchase, and flings me off to his left. I maintain my grip on the left blade, but my right one stays in his chest. I catch my feet in a slide with my right hand against the ground.
My eyes dart between the two men still upright. I don’t hear anything from the other 78s yet. Slowpokes.
The rest of the street is eerily still. The club entrance is around the corner, and the bouncers never intervened on my behalf anyway.
Not that I've ever needed them.
My two opponents started for me together.
I suddenly retch and cough, pretending to be sick. Use what you can to get an edge in a fight.
It works. The first man hesitates.
He looks to his friend and I go for his ankles. I need him down so I can reach my knife lodged in his chest. Unfortunately for me, the leader yells out a warning just in time. I miss, but the brute is thrown off balance. I can reach his hand. I grasp one finger and twist as hard as I can as he dodges around me. He bellows in pain and goes down.
I feel a tug as the first man grabs me by the hair and lifts. Oh no. My scalp screams but I don’t make a noise. My free hand goes to my head. I slash out at his wrist, but he grabs my knife hand with his right. “Ah ah ah, I don’t think so!” I pull my legs up to kick against his grip, but he holds fast. My neck pops. I pull my legs up again and plant them in his chest.
“You’re a sweet one, aren’t you?” He says. It’s not really a question. They always say stuff like that when they’re about to do something horrible. I think about my friend Poppy and the last night I saw her alive. He sneers at me and squeezes my wrist as my face gets closer and closer to his. The knife clatters to the ground.
I concentrate on my feet and what I need. I feel a crackle of energy in my spine as a scream builds in the back of my throat. Prickly tendrils spark down my legs. My feet light up like a blue furnace as a burst of biotics appears where his chest used to be.
I land on the pavement. I’m free! Where are my weapons?
Oh no. I used my biotics. These men saw.
I know there’s one knife inside the chest of that other man. I used biotics! They saw! shit shit SHIT.
——
“And that’s when I wake up, usually.”
“But it really happened.”
Shepard tosses him a withering glance before returning their attention to the heavy bag in front of them. “Yeah, Kaidan. It really happened.”
“But you were, what? Eight years old?”
“Nine.” Shepard’s smile was tight. “They let me go on patrols alone when I was eight, though.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Usually back-up was fast to come for me. I was a little too competent though, and that night they were, uh, they were a little slower than normal.”
Kaidan was stunned speechless.
“Look, Kaidan, I know my life is a shitshow. We don’t have to talk about it.”
He stilled Perse’s fists and held them in his own hands. “I want to hear it.” They looked at him with unveiled skepticism. “And this was my idea anyway.”
“Okay...” Shepard sounded unconvinced. They shook out their shoulders and started again. “A few hours later, early morning sometime, the police found them all dead with their throats slit.”
“You, I’m guessing?” Kaidan asked. Shepard just threw him another sideways glance and kept going.
“One guy had a cauterized chunk missing from his chest. That part was the problem.”
“They found you? No…If they’d found you, you would have ended up in Jump Zero with me.”
“The authorities didn’t find me, but Ganty spun a story about carving a hole in the man’s chest and lighting a fire in it.”
“That worked?”
“I read the reports later. The cops didn’t want it to be somebody with biotics. An unregistered biotic was the boogie man of the whole precinct apparently. Someone with a rap sheet and known gang ties crowing about a barely plausible explanation was a neatly-wrapped present none of them wanted to turn down.”
“He took the hit for you.”
Shepard nodded.
“He must have done time for it.”
“Of course. Most of us did time at some point or other. And it was usually strategic, but this…” Shepard rubbed their face and sighed. “He’s still in. I mean, he was. Our sector had special religious codes. Mutilating a corpse was…bad.”
Shepard tightened their laces again and kept working the heavy bag. “I let him out the day I became a Spectre.”
Kaidan froze.
Shepard saw it happen. I fucking knew it. This is why you don’t share, Perse! Godsfuckingdamnit The heavy bag was taking a real nasty beating.
Finally, Kaidan made a decision.
He walked over and placed a hand on Shepard’s arm. They stilled but didn’t turn away from the bag. Kaidan applied the lightest of pressure. All of the air left Perse’s lungs. So many harsh sensory memories were running through Shepard right now, and the juxtaposition of gentleness was too much.
“I don’t… need… a fucking… hug.” Perse gasped out between sobs.
Kaidan didn’t believe it for a second. “I know you don’t. How about you give me one because I need it?” Before he even finished, Perse was wrapping their arms around his neck.
“Fucking...genius," Perse muttered into his neck.