"Oww can't you be more gentle?"
Maddox winced as Maddin put more pressure to his knuckles. A cotton swab in her hands as she tried to put the ointment on his burnt skin.
"You deserve every bit of it"
She bit back before putting more pressure on his hand making him yelp from the pain.
"You idiot of a man. You should've listened first before taking action. You birdbrain."
Maddox knew he deserved to hear every bit of it but to hear it coming from his twin sister wasn't something that delighted his ears. The bedroom door swung open and out came Liam followed by Magnus, Makoto and Maki.
"Damian's no longer in danger. Maia healed him completely but it seems it took a toll on her. She's sleeping right next to him"
Liam explained to the twins before sitting down at the end of the table. Maki and Magnus sat right in front of them while Makoto sat beside Liam.
No one uttered a word for a whole minute before Maki finally spoke.
"Kuya"
He called to get Maddox's attention. Everyone's eyes were now darting between Maddox and Maki.
"Everything Ate spoke of earlier was true"
Maki fidgeted with his fingers before he finally looked Maddox in the eye.
"Ate's games were tampered. Mom made it so that Ate can be on that arena"
They had all heard it before but hearing it once again and from Maki was like reality dawning on them. Makoto gritted his teeth as Liam put his hand on top of his closed fist.
"How did you know?"
It was Magnus who had asked.
"Right after we got out of the Fronthouse where Ate had been experimented on and reached the pentagon, we realized that Ate had a listening and tracker device attached to her skin."
"You never told me that"
Magnus added but Maki only sheepishly smiled at him.
"We didn't think it was important. Atleast during that time"
"So Mom deliberately put Maia inside the game?"
Maki nodded at Makoto and the grief and anger that flashed through his eyes were enough for Maki, for all of them, to know exactly what Makoto was feeling.
Because Makoto had been inside those horrifying games. He had been inside of it and won. Liam and Magnus knew how he had won it, how he had lost a piece of his soul in it. So for Makoto to learn that his sister was put in there on purpose. It was enough for him to hate his mother.
"They were given clear missions and cues with great confidence but that shouldn't have been the case because it was a tournament held by the government itself. And yet every cues given to both Ate Maia and Kuya Damian were spot on"
No one spoke of a word. Because they too pondered on the thought of how that was possible. All information about the games are sealed off and the only ones who knew about it were the game makers. Which makes it utterly impossible for anyone to know about what type of arena it'll be or what kind of mutants or monsters will be inside of it.
"And when Ate blew up that arena, the resistance begun"
"You're not talking about that rebel group that went inside the arena aren't you?"
Maki only looked at Liam before fiddling with his fingers once more.
"That was because of Ate. In exchange everyone thought she was dead"
"But she wasn't?"
Maki shook his head at Magnus.
"To be precise she was more like a robot"
Maki shuddered at the memory of Maia's lifeless eyes and how she was nothing more than a puppet. He had never forgiven their mother for that.
"She was experimented on, tortured to gather clues on the rebels until Machai chose to resurface just to protect what little soul Ate had left. That went on for a year. I'll never forget Ate's soulless eyes"
"And mom knew all that?"
Maddox asked in a small voice seemingly in disbelief because the mom that he saw a few months ago was nothing like the scheming person that they spoke of.
"She planned it. The scientist - Damian's father whom she worked with - confessed it and…"
Maki stopped mid sentence just to see if Maddox was still listening, and when the older lad's eyes perked up to it, he said.
"Dad attested it"
And somehow that was all the proof they needed. Because their father, albeit a stepfather, was not a liar.
Maddox's bandaged hands wiped through his face as he felt his frustration growing.
"And mom killed Maia with her own hands?"
Maki looked surprised that Maddox had known that fact but his eyes wandered towards Magnus who nodded at him.
"Mom turned herself into a mutant when she attacked the Pentagon and demanded Grandma to give us up. I watched her…"
The words faltered as Maki choked on his own words because suddenly he was back in that monitor room in the Pentagon watching their mother choke Maia until her body limped out.
"The one she wanted was Machai because she was a super soldier without a mind of her own. So you might have met with Mom's kind persona but the one we met…
She was the persona who wanted Ate Maia dead more than anything"
"That's why she needed to. To survive"
Maddin finished glumly before she fiddled with her bracelet. She had never seen their mother once again and sometimes she wondered if she had ever loved her before. Even as a child she would ponder on that thought as she carefully held the little ones but never her.
But hearing stories of this now from Maki somehow made her feel grateful that she didn't have that much of an attachment to Artemis anymore. On the contrary she felt more attached to their stepfather who was always there when she called. But it was also partly because she grew up with a mother figure in the Kuwa Circus.
Partly because she was loved and adored by everyone even without the use of her gift.
Maddox didn't say anything, instead he bowed his head towards the table and let his tears flow.
There was so much he didn't know. So many things that had happened that he hadn't bothered learning about in great detail. All he cared about was their mother. He had thought and envied both Maia and Maki because they had grown up with Artemis and Khel by their side.
Now that he had heard about what Maia had gone through. Now that he had put himself in her shoes. That betrayal wasn't something he could have handled.
I lost mom the day I learned about her betrayal. Because she never wanted her daughter. She never wanted me. What she wanted was the indisposable soldier she made out of me.
That was what Maia had told him earlier, her voice utterly broken and in sorrows that it made him tear up too. Because his sister grew up in a false act of love. And he understood then that Maia was questioning everything that their mother had shown her.
Which was true and which wasn't. Which was an act and which was genuine.
And she'll forever wonder about it because Artemis had died without uttering those three words to her daughter.
"Maia won't forgive me after all of this won't she?"
No one answered him for the answer already laid bare at his feet. If he had only tried to kill Maia then she might have felt some pity on her to forgive him. But he touched Damian, and that was something she would never forgive.
Not when she laid right beside him, eyes wide watching his chest rise and fall. Her fingers on his pulse feeling the soft thump of it. As if afraid that in a minute or two, he'd stop breathing altogether.
She fell asleep like that, her ear near his chest and fingers on his pulse, like a lullaby lulling her to sleep and rest.