Free The Neo-Spartans: Altered World by Raly Radouloff, Terence Winkless

cool footage.” She took him by surprise. This was the last thing he expected from Quinn. He studied his sister, his guard up. He was in for something, but this time he couldn’t tell what. Quinn sat in a lumpy armchair across from Gabriel. On the way home, she had practiced several different versions of how to start this conversation, and now could remember none of them. Gabriel hated the silence more than the open confrontation. It made him edgy.
                  “You know, just say it. Let’s be done with it. Yell, scream, tell me it’s all my fault, tell me I’m a moron…”
                  “No, it’s OK. It’s not all your fault. We both screwed up. Fighting in the Triffid Forest. What was I thinking?”
                  “Oh, no, no, no. You’re not going to make this your fault and heroically suffer for days,” said Gabriel.
                  Quinn reached deep, trying to grab onto the patience that was quickly slipping away.
                  “Just listen! I’m trying to say something here. I’m trying to tell you that what you did… it’s OK. What you said to me, I get it… you needed to do it.”
                  Gabriel didn’t like the sound of this. Her words, her calm forgiveness lit a match and threw it at his mistrust.
                  “To hell with your forgiveness. Look around, nobody’s here to applaud, Quinn.”             
                  “I understand why you want to hurt me. Yes, I try hard for approval. But I do it for you, Gabriel. You have so much potential. And it is hard. It’s hard for both of us.”
                  “What the heck, Quinn? Did you sign up for Messed-up Siblings Weekly ? You can take this psych crap and choke on it. It’s not hard for me, not at all. Comes naturally. You don’t have to pretend. You got the short end of the stick, the idiot brother to take care of. Every day you have to get up and look at me, deal with me, be reminded of what life could’ve been if I were never born.”
                  His words slapped her across her face.
                  “Truth is stunning, isn’t it? Admit it, Quinn. I’m the damned kid that took away your mom and it’s killing you,” he continued.
                  “Gabriel, no, don’t say that!”
                  “Come on, you loved her so much. You were her girl. And she got pregnant with this thing and went ahead and died. You hated that glob that came out of her. You hate him now. You wish I was never born. I don’t blame you. I would’ve hated me too.”
                  His flaring anger couldn’t disguise his pain any more. He must have lived with it all these years. How could she have missed it? The path of destruction he was on—it all made sense now. For the first time in so many years, Quinn really felt for him.
                  “Gabriel, you didn’t kill Mom. Don’t ever think that. She wanted you so much, and if the hospital hadn’t turned her away…”
                  Words and tears got stuck in her throat. The memory of her mother, Rose, bleeding on the street, was still vivid in Quinn’s memory. She had been only four years old, she shouldn’t remember any of it. And yet she did and she hated it.
                  “Look at me, Gabriel. You have to believe me. If I blame anybody it’s the Eugenics.”
                  Gabriel didn’t want to look at his sister. He didn’t want to be let off the hook.
                  “You hate the Eugenics. Right. What about your friend? By-the-book Quinn broke every Neo-Spartan law to help that Eugenic Celeste woman. You hit a wall, you run to her. Crap gets too big and threatens to swallow you, you run to her. I bet that’s where you were before you came here.”
                  “I wasn’t!”