trigger millford | two | fin

He was seven, with blue acrylic paint smeared under his left eye; a school boy warrior. He roared, hands banging against chest before, from his perch on the full-sized bed, leaping off the edge and landing on the stockpile of pillows below.

His sister Reyna stormed in- well, did the Reyna version of storming, which was more like gliding, only with a frown on her face. She reached down and, with conviction, yanked one of the pillows out from beneath him. Like his own, her hair was short and wiry, though her extensive collection of pastel babydoll dresses and hair clips did a decent enough job of separating her from him.

Not to mention, she was two years older.

"This one is mine! You could've just asked, yaknow?" She perked her lips at him, turning her chin up into the air while he stuck his tongue out at her. He went on about his business, all sunlight as he held up a hovercraft figurine and making faux gunshot sounds as he zoomed it through the air.

Reyna turned as if to leave, stopping when she noticed the piece of parchment sitting on the wooden easel in the corner.

"Hey, did you make that?"

Trigger did little more than nod, as the hovercraft in his left hand was now being destroyed by a dinosaur and that required his full attention.

The painting was a swirl of blues and greens, ebbing and flowing in a wavy pattern. At its center, there was a purple figure, vaguely humanoid and holding its knees up to its chest amid the sea of azure that surrounded it. She picked up a bottom corner of it to get a better view.

"This is really good, Trigger!" she said, racing back over and tossing her pillow onto the ground. She sat down against it with her knees, worn white stockings giving a hint of her knee as it stretched along.

"Thanks!" he said, smiling, "Wanna play?"

She smiled back.

"Only if Mrs. Bird can be a part of it."

"Deal."

---

He was twelve, and the moon outside was especially bright, illuminating the candle-lit room even further. He was just as talented with the brush in his hand as any weapon. The wooden handle making it's home in his palm almost as if sharpened steel jutting out of it, each brush stroke as calculated as a battle plan. He was a career. He was an artist. Usually. Not that night.

The hues weren't matching as well as he would've liked; the concept wasn't matching the execution. He ripped the page free of its place on the easel and crumbled it into a ball.

He cursed under his breath, tossing it toward the trash can by his door. Instead of landing inside the bin, it landed in front of Reyna's feet, who had been standing there unnoticed until now. She knelt down and retrieved the paper, unfurling it and letting her eyes take in the picture.

"I keep screwing it up," he said, preoccupying himself with washing his paint brushes out.

"Then you don't mind if I keep it?" she said, neatly folding the picture up and smiling. She had a way of making things seem better than they were, racing in at the last second and picking up the pieces even as they fell.

"You don't want that," he said, suppressing a smile.

"Do too," she said, tucking it into her pocket and walking out of the room without saying another word.

---

He was fourteen, and he missed home. But he was happy in the Divergent Academy. Most people weren't good enough to be invited and, of those, a large percentage weren't good enough to stay.

They'd allowed him to bring his painting supplies, so long as they didn't interfere with his training, and he'd made a lot of friends. Still, for the first time in his life, Trigger Millford was all alone. The meals would never be as good as his mother's cooking, when he aced an exam his father wasn't there to pull him into a hug. But the worst of it came in the night, when he painted. When he hated what he was doing and Reyna wasn't there to remind him of his potential.

They came on the weekends, like everyone else's families. They sat with him at picnic tables in the summer; his mother would bring baked goods, his father would inquire about his work, and Reyna would always flip through his paintings and find one to take with her. And then they'd leave when visiting hours were over, and he'd be left feeling even more lonesome than before.

---

He was fifteen when he realized something was wrong.

"Where is she?"

He sat down at the table, clenching the sketchbook tighter in his hands. His eyes flicked over to the facilities, then he turned to look behind him.

"We have to tell you something."

His mother's tone was strange; almost foreign. It sounded tight and reidy, discomfort hanging on every syllable like honey, dripping from her mouth and setting Trigger on edge.

"Your sister," she said, looking to Trigger's dad for help. He only looked down, his own discomfort heavy on his chest.

"She's been arrested," he blurted, as if saying the words caused him pain, "they took her to the Detention Center."

He was stunned silent for a moment, mouth ajar and eyes wide, then narrow, before he leaned in closer to them, his voice little more than a whisper. "It's a mistake. It has to be. It's Reyna, for God's sake. She wouldn't -"

He felt his throat tighten as if something were lodged inside of it, his hands ran slick against his pants and his cheeks turned hot.

"She would never do something wrong! Not intentionally!"

He was screaming now, voice red with rage, scarlet as the firestone brooch his mother wore.

"Trigger, we k -"

"Then get her out! Now!"

His mother stood, distraught, no longer bothering to keep her composure now that her son had already ensured everyone in the courtyard could notice them. She toed her way over gingerly, as if across coals, as if her hesitation would give her the time she needed to come up with a response that would fix this. By the time she reached him, she realized there was nothing to be said. All she could do was put her hand on his shoulder.

"We're trying, Trigger. But we aren't allowed to -" she struggled to find the right words, "They won't let us talk to her. Yet. But we'll figure it out, okay?"

Tears were stinging his eyes now, welling up in the corners and threatening to spill over. He willed them away as best he could, blinking before burying his face into his mother's shoulder. This was all his fault, really. If he'd been there, if he hadn't been here, chasing down a pipe dream that only ever seemed further away when he managed to catch a glimpse of it, his sister would've been sitting across the table from him, skimming through the pages of his sketchbook and picking her favorite to bring back home with her.

When he parted from his mom at last, he looked down at the sketchbook in his hands. After a moment's hesitation, he pushed it against her chest.

"Make sure she gets that. Okay?"

She tried to hide the pain in her voice, and then she did what she thought would soften the blow as much as possible: she lied.

"Okay, Sweetheart."

---

He was sixteen, and it had been a year since he'd touched a paintbrush. They said he was different now. Colder somehow. Better at fighting. It was a miracle he'd managed to pass his Erudite final; the day the results came in, he'd been sitting on top of a packed suitcase when he read the congratulations letter.

His parents still came and Reyna had become a secret, something they shied away from when confronted with questions. It was always the same answers: she's well, she's healthy, she's adjusting.

Somewhere along the way, the answers stopped completely; he just stopped asking.

The truth was, Trigger was no longer interested in being a part of that family, because it wasn't the same family. Reyna was a ghost, his parents refused to speak of anything that could besmirch their good standing with the Capitol, and he was almost finished with his second year at the Academy, which felt lifetimes away from them.

Over time, the people who'd raised him became strangers who felt obligated to visit their one free child at the properly designated time. One day, he told them they no longer had to come if they didn't want to. And one day, they didn't.