PURPOSE | The Mandalorian

XVII

I blinked at her, refusing to believe a word she said. "You're lying."

My mother shook her head. "You trust the word of that conniving bitch," She snapped, shoving me off of her, "Over the word of your own mother?"

"You're not my mother!"

Alix froze. I had never seen her angry enough that she actually froze. Normally, when I pissed her off, she'd start screaming and yelling at me. Hell, sometimes she'd beat me senseless. But she never froze.

I took her silence as my cue to continue. "You were never a mother to me," I sneered, standing up straight and proud in front of her for the first time in my life. "All you ever did was prove to me what was always the truth." Now I was my turn to smirk wickedly at her. "Which is when you compared yourself to me, even when I was a child, you always lost."

"How dare you-" My mother lunged herself at me, but I was prepared. I feigned to the left, letting her momentum carry herself into my fist careening straight for her chest.

The sound of my fist slamming into her breastbone could be compared to the thunder of the perpetual rainstorms on Kamino. The sound was deafening, rattling the crystals that were embedded in the cave walls against each other.

My mother was flung backwards, crashing into the wall across from me. A deep grunt escaped her lips as the air was knocked from her lungs. She slumped to the ground unceremoniously, moaning in agony as she clutched her chest. But she still found the strength to laugh at me.

"Congratulations," She hissed, sucking in a painful breath.

"For what?" I snapped, fighting the urge to kick her in the gut.

She laughed again as she rolled over onto her back, blood dripping down both sides of her mouth. She gurgled, coughing up blood as she spoke, "For just guaranteeing your friend's slow and painful death, the child's perpetual tourture, and your eternal damnation for giving the ashes of the Empire the fuel it needs to reign down its chaos on the universe forever."

I refused to believe it. But goddamnit, I'd be lying out of my ass if I said it didn't sound convincing.

I shoved her condemnation into the back of my mind as I spat on her face. "Thanks for your input," I snarled, "But if there is something that I can do to save the galaxy, it's worth every goddamn life that I have to spare in order to save it."

"Oh, I know," She groaned. "You never had a problem sacrificing your life for the so called greater good."

Her smile was pained, but it was still deathly terrifying. "And you sure sounded convincing when you said you would sacrifice your friend's life as well," She continued, coughing up more blood.

"But do you really have the guts to kill him?"

My mother averted my gaze, staring down into the belly of the cave. I followed her stare and I gasped when I saw Din kneeling with his head bowed, defeated, his arms bound behind his back and his armor covered in dark crimson blood.

All the anger, all the hate, all the resentment I had towards my mother was as afterthought as I ran. I skidded to a stop behind him, trying without success to untie the ropes that bound his wrists together.

"It's no use," He muttered, exhaling a defeated breath, "Just get it over with."

"What are you talking about?" I breathed, frantically pulling and yanking at the knots keeping him tied up.

"You heard her." The sound of his tear-filled voice cleaved my heart in two. "You have to kill me."

I shook my head violently. "No, I won't do that."