Night Mistress

Chapter 08

Was it bad that I can't really remember how long I've been down here? Just, after the whole incident in that cave time seemed to blur. I worked on the mock one with Dad. I don't think I slept, but not from lack of trying.

A distant part of me knew. It kept reminding me about that speech Dad had to write for that college. That, and my period. It was a pain to have your period in the burning hot summer of Afghanistan, while trapped in a dark cave, with only two boys for company.

Other things had changed. There was an unspoken agreement to never bring up what happened when I came back. That whole argument was just ignored.

The three of us worked more around each other than with each other. If I finished building part of the arm, Dad immediately took it away for the suit. It was a bit of a miracle neither of us built the same part. Dad finished the face part of the helmet ages ago.

The last change was so startling that when I realized it I had to sit down. Before, Becky had been so loud in my head. After the incident, she'd been quiet. This horrible quiet that somehow made my thoughts echo in my mind. I had seen Becky everywhere before. She had been in my reflections, in every worried thought about Dad, every time I called him Dad.

Now she was gone.

If you asked me before, I'd have told you I didn't like all the noise in my head. Now I needed to hear anything from that human. This body felt so uncomfortable without her. It was as if the body was made to fit in our two souls. With her's missing, the body felt too big for me.

There wasn't time to mourn her. The Ten Rings would be here soon to take either a missile or our lives. I was the only one that knew Becky was gone. How could I explain to anyone that a part of me died without sounding all poetic?

'I promise, I'll mourn you when we're home.'

The time I would have spent mourning, was spent planning the escape. Dad's suit would be like a battering ram for us. Dad had decided most of it would be us hiding behind the giant metal man, maybe finding a rifle to use for our own defense. (Dad told me he'd rather that not be part of the plan.) Other than that, it was safer with the giant metal man.

Once the door trap was set, we worked on the last of our plan. Yinsen and I were working on the last few things to get Dad in his suit.

"Can you move?" I asked after fitting the iron arm on him. Dad said yes.

"Say it again." Yinsen instructed. He was lowering the chestplate. When it was in place, I made sure it was connected to the other pieces of the suit.

"Forty-one steps straight ahead." Dad recited. The suit came together in metallic hisses. I was wrenching bolts on the small rockets on his shoes. "Then sixteen steps, that's from the door, fork right, thirty-three steps, turn right."

I nodded. We'd been going over that list like a first grade teacher goes over the alphabet.

There was time for a few more calibrations. The sounds of men bounding on the door brought our small countdown clock to zero.

"Yinsen! Yinsen! Starks!" The terrorist shouted.

"Say something. Say something back to him." Dad told Yinsen.

"He's the Hungarian one!" I reminded him. Keeping my voice low, as the terrorists couldn't hear me. Internally, I was hitting myself over the head for not thinking of this part. Why hadn't I learned any Hungarian? Oh, yeah, I had Arabic, but forbid me from learning one Hungarian word.

"I don't speak-"

"Then speak Hungarian." Dad insisted.

Yinsen looked down at me. It was the typical 'I am sorry you share genetics with this man' stare I would get from a lot of people back in California.