MY KILLER

Chapter 10

"شكرا"

"شكرا"

"Good" I whispered. "You are learning fast. Now what does it mean?"

"Thank you," she said.

"Shhh. Reduce your voice or we'll both be put to death."
And she nodded her head.

"Ok. Imagine I'm the Sultana and I say the following."

"Ok," she said.

"الحصول على لي بلدي تاج وحقائب بلدي. نحن ذاهبون للتسوق."

"It means, get me my head band, I want to shop."

"Almost there. It actually means get me my tiara and my bags we are going shopping."

"I did better than yesterday still."

"Yes," I was still whispering. "But you need to do better faster." And she nodded her head. She was the fastest learner I had even seen.
The wooden door creaked open and I saw the shadow of a woman.

"Shhh. Sleep, sleep," I whispered to Yara. She immediately shut her eyes and I followed suit.

She came around with the lamp, went from person to person before turning around and leaving. I wondered what would become of us tomorrow, but you see, I was no longer terrified. Nothing terrified me anymore.

My thoughts suddenly went to Yara. She almost reminded me of Aisha. She was so nice and thoughtful and so young. I was a few months older than her but she hadn't experienced half of what I had experienced. She wasn't much of a talker but she had told me a few things about herself. Unlike everyone else that I knew, Yara was the daughter of a chief in her community and when she was told that she had been given out to be married to a man thrice her age, she boldly ran away. Unfortunately for her, she fell into the hands of the Atbae Allah on the day Aisha blew herself up.

Yet, she had nothing against the suicide bomber. She once told me that she pitied the girl. She had seen Aisha before the bombing and what she saw was a girl on black from head to toe, walking, as if in a trance. She had wanted to walk up to her and ask if she was lost, but before she could make up her mind whether or not to, the bomb went off and her body was disintegrated.

I remember almost shedding a tear when she told me that story. But I had decided that I had no more tears to shed for anyone. From that day, I had understood my sudden willingness to take care of her and watch out for her, I decided to continue down that path.
I watched out for her.

But she was such a smart girl. Even though I acted cold and mean to her, she knew I had no ill feelings towards her.
I remembered the first time I had concluded on her smartness. It was when Lady Ameena was asking for our names. She didn't know the language, yet she got the meaning immediately after the Lady had asked Mariam for her name. She was so amazing. So, so amazing.

Mariam and her squad on the other hand...
She just had an issue with me and she became worse because I didn't give a care in the world. But I soon started to watch her. I knew I had to be wary of her. I needed to keep my enemies closer if I wanted to fulfill my greatest desire.

It was the cold water that woke me up. We were all already accustomed to sleeping on the cold floor with just a single cloth to either cover ourselves up or spread on the floor and use as a bedsheet. Yara usually used hers as a cover while I used mine as a bedspread and so we started to share but we'd wake in morning to her using the cover alone. She was such a rough sleeper and more of a selfish sleeper.

However, no matter how used to the floor we were, we never got used to the cold water that was always been used to wake us up as early as 3:30 in the morning. I just couldn't get used to sleeping at around 11pm and having to wake up by 3:30am. It was even worse if there was a function in the palace. Some days, we went without sleep.