Prologue

He’s not happy to see me. Not at all. He’s pacing the interior of his shop with an experimental laser pistol in his hand. I don’t care if he fires it or not, I have my Arch-armor equipped. Plus, he’s my nephew, he wouldn’t do that to me. No matter if what I did all those years ago was wrong or not, right?

He stops his pacing and just taps his foot at his workstation. This weapon repair shop he’s started could use some work, this place is a mess. The front door behind me is just a pair of purple curtains that look like they're ready to fall. I think I gave him those curtains for his windows back when he lived with me. A few paces away from the door is the counter I’m leaning against right now. You’re supposed to pay before you even step foot in his work space and then, depending on the repair or upgrade, he’d charge you more. A decent business strategy. Inside the workspace is a mess of wires and cords on the floor, all of them powering different tools and lights scattered about in this metal box he calls a building. He’s color-coded the different stations in this mess by using spray paint on the walls and some of the equipment. All of the different fire hazards in here make me concerned.

“Why?” He asks. “Why are you here? You’ve had no problem pretending you don’t know me. So, why now?”

“I just wanted to see you again.” He knows I’m lying through my teeth. But, I can’t bring myself to tell him the real reason why. He looks so much like her it hurts as he scowls at me.

“So, what do you want?” He snaps. “An upgrade? A repair? Don’t even ask me to touch that suit of yours.”

I smirk. I wouldn’t trust the best engineer in the world with this armor. Nobody understands it as I do, or as Henry did. I remember seeing that weirdo staying up through the break of dawn working this armor and making sure it didn’t kill me. We never actually tested it out until we were in a life or death situation, though.

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t trust you with this suit anyways.” His eyes tell me that wasn’t the smart thing to say. I clear my throat before speaking again. “I’m here to just…reconnect.”

“Yea right. Just tell me what you want, and-”

“Today’s your mother’s birthday, Kenny.” The silence that enters the room is crushing. I maybe shouldn’t have said that.

But, I can’t hold it in anymore, not talking about her. She would’ve been fifty-six today, and I remember what she told me about turning fifty-six. She said that’s the age where anything could happen, your life could hit rock bottom in an instant at fifty-six to her. It always made me laugh at all of the stories she would tell me of some of the old people she knew. She never saw me turn fifty-six, if she knew that I entered a bloodsport two years after she would’ve taken that as a sign that her superstitions were right. She had a confirmation bias like that.

“So?” He snaps. “What’s that got to do with me?! I never even knew her.”

“Watch your mouth when you talk about Eleanor!” I move to stand directly in front of him and I cast a shadow over him. He was never the tallest, he got that from his mother.

“That’s her name? For someone you care about, you sure do never talk about her!” He said. “What am I talking about? I already know how you treat people you ‘care about’.”

My gaze falls to the floor, and I sigh at how right he is. I never talk about her. But, that’s because I can’t really talk about it with him in the room. He looks nothing like his dad. If it weren’t for the slightly brown skin, he’d be the spitting image of his mother. The tall, curly ginger hair that’s a mess from how much he’s been sweating in this shop; to his defiant brown eyes; to the soft, scarred skin on his hands(neither of them were built for the work they did); and the way his ears slightly bounce every time he takes an angry breath. I see her every second I look at him, so I look away.

“There you go again, look at me!” I don’t. “My whole life you’ve never been able to look at me for more than two minutes! Why?!”

I respond with a hint of sadness in my tone, more than I wanted to let escape, “Because, you look just like her. It’s hard for me.”

“For you?!” He shouts. “What about me?! I never asked to look like this!”

“I know.”

“Then, why is it so hard for you?” He points his finger in my chest and I look at him in those damned eyes. “Tell me. You never tell me anything, so tell me this one thing. Why does me looking like her make it hard for you?!”

“Because-”

“Because what?!”

I ramble and shout, “Because, before she died, she handed you to me. She handed you to me, and you were so small and you were bleeding.” He steps away from me as I feel the tears starting to fight their way up. “Her eyes, so brown- so full of life, pleaded for me to get you help. I couldn’t say no. Every time I look at your eyes, or hair, or hands, or hear your voice I think of how she looked on that bloodied carpet with a piece of ice stabbing her!”

I screamed that last part to his ceiling for whatever reason. Was I hoping that whatever cruel, unjust being running this galaxy heard my anger? Or was I just a crazy old woman screaming her head off in the middle of the night?

I fall to my knees, tears streaming from my face, and I try to wipe them away to recover what little dignity I have in this situation, but I feel Kenny’s hands stop me and I look into his eyes and feel the tears jerking harder. The concern in his eyes, it’s how she looked when I came back from the war. It’s the exact same look.

“Why?” I scream. “Why did it have to be her?! It should’ve been me.” I wrap my arms around Kenny and he gasps. Have I never hugged him before? I clutch him close to my chest and I can feel his breathing. Like that night. That haunting night. The only difference is he’s not a baby screaming after having his foot cut off. I whisper into his ear through my sobs, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t save her. She should be here, not me.”

He’s still for a moment, but hugs me back. I sob into his shoulder, and say I’m sorry over and over again until my throat goes dry. He’s rubbing his hand across my back soothingly over and over until I grow used to his touch. After I have no more tears to cry, we sit there on his dirty, spray-painted workshop floor. 

I wonder if Eleanor saw us now, would she be laughing at how filthy our clothes would be? She never cared about getting dirty, that’s why she became a mechanic. I always scolded her for coming back home with muck and filth all over her. We were dirt poor and didn’t have the money to be running baths all the time just for her. We didn’t even have hot water. I always told her she was selfish for doing that. But, one day, she brought back her first check at twelve. I couldn’t believe it. Mom was working all day and night across cities- sometimes across the sector- as a maid, and she never brought home half of what Ellie brought back.

Turns out, Ellie was helping out our local mechanic as a job. My little sister was out there making money just for me and mom. We ate out that night, but Ellie ate the most. Me and mom made sure of that. After that, I got a job because I couldn’t let mom and Ellie do most of the heavy lifting. I was sixteen working at a fast food restaurant, while my little sister was being a little grease monkey underneath landspeeders. She was always the smartest out of the family.

              Kenny took after his mother in a lot of ways, like how he’s comforting me right now. She

 always did this. Sat with me until the crying was over. After she was gone, I just never cried I think.

“How did it happen?” I hear him ask. I pull away and wipe my eyes clear of the last tears.

“What?”

“What happened that night?” I look away and close my eyes as the images of that night flood my brain. Her and her husband on the ground with giant ice shards stabbing them. A one-year-old Kenny screaming as his right foot laid about three feet away from him, and Ellie handing him to me. She whispered one word to me: Please. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

I open my eyes before responding. If I’m gonna tell him this story, I’m gonna tell it to him right.

“Yes, I think it’s time for you to hear the story. But, first, you need to understand the story of how I got this suit.”