Chapter 3 3

Ainsley POV

I take Ashton's hand as we follow Alfie to an elevator a few yards away. As he pushes the button I look back at the lobby. I wonder what this place was like back in its glory days. Now it was dark and gloomy. A restaurant was on the other side, its gates were closed. Alfie nudges me, gesturing me towards the now open elevator. I walk in with him and he pushes the floor 2 button. The elevator doors close and it shoots up. My stomach does a flip flop and I hold it to stay in place.

"Not a fast person yet, huh," Alfie laughs. It felt like I'm going to be sick when the door opens. Alfie stepped out unharmed while I was a little woozy. Ashton was wobbling all over the place trying to get her balance. "Never new elevators could go that fast." I comment.

"Oh, yes we...fixed that up a little bit making sure if any enemies try to come in, the elevator will provide a quick escape route to warn other soldiers on this level." We are on the right side of the hallway facing towards the entrance we came in. Alfie leads us down the right hallway and stops at door 217. It was on the right as well, facing the mountain. There is a keypad on the handle of the door. Alfie pushes 7-9-4 and a green light flashes. He twists the door handle and we walk in. Ashton holds my hand tightly. I can tell she's as nervous and scared as I am.

The room has a leather black couch with a huge king sized bed with white, black, and red comforters on it with the same colored pillows on the bed rest. The couch has green and brown pillows on either side. A flat screen T.V. was above the fire place and drawers were on the left side of the wall, opposite from the couch and bed. A coffee table is positioned about a foot or two away from the couch and a sink with a fridge and cabinets are on the right side when you walked in. The bathroom has a bathtub and a toilet and two sinks.

"This is your room," Alfie spreads out his arms like it is a huge welcome. Instead, to me, it feels like a dream. A dream I'll never wake up from. I used to go on vacations with my family all the time. But now, all I know is those are only memories, I'll never have those same pleasures in life with my mother and father again. I sigh sadly looking down at my feet. Alfie looks down at me with confusion, "What you don't like it?"

"No! No, I love it! It's just..." I try to hold back tears and try to be the older person but they start to flow down my face and on my neck. This would be the first time in a new place for us, and realizing mom and dad could never come back. I felt Alfie's hand come down on me.

"I understand, I'll be back to check up on you guys in a little while." He looked in the bathroom then back at us. "Can you take a shower by yourselves?"

"Of course," I say suddenly. "I'm nine, of course I know how to take a shower."

"Okay, just making sure. Here I'll show you something that I think you might like." We walk in the bathroom and Alfie holds out a remote. He presses a button and the bath tub started to fill up with water. Then he pressed another button and the water changed colors, from red, to blue, to yellow, to green, to pink, to white and orange and purple. "Cool, very cool," I try to say like it was fantastic, only I am still distraught and just want to sleep, but I smelt like arm pit and sweat.

"Um, Alfie," I start. He looks down at me. "Could we have some...clean clothes?" I examine my muddy, dirty nightgown and sigh.

"I'll tell Martha, one of the maids, to get some clean clothes for you." He smiles back at me.

"Thank you Alfie," I sigh. Suddenly something beeps on is wrist. He looks down at it. "Oh, better head down to see what Carson wants." He lowers his wrist, "I'll be back shortly. You guys get changed and bathe. Are you sure you two are okay up here?"

"Yes," I reassure him politely like my mom and dad taught me. "Thank you Alfie."

He grins kindly and walks out the door and we are left alone in the bathroom. I take off my nightgown and underwear and hop in the tub, the bubbles were also changing color along with the water. Ashton strips off her clothes and jumps in with me as well. "Turn around," I say twirling her so she wasn't facing me. She dunks her head in the water getting it bubbly and wet. I take a bottle that said shampoo and run it through her hair. I make sure to get all the dirt and mud out of it. It is so tangled and disgusting I could barf, luckily I don't. I dunk her hair under water again.

I decide to try and figure out how to turn on the shower head. It isn't hard, there is a button on the remote that simply says showerhead below it. I press it and the shower comes on. I use that to get the rest of the gunk out. Then I allow Ashton to repeat the processes I just did on me. I run conditioner through her head and she did it to me. I find wash cloths and towels under the sinks and we use the cloths to scrub of the layer of oil and dirt from our skins.

By the time we are done the bathtub is partly back and gross looking. I wrap Ashton in a towel while I use another one to dray of her brown, highlighted hair. I did the same to my own as I wrapped a towel around me. I rub the towel over my face and look in the long mirror on the wall over both sinks. My eyes were puffy and my body was clean. I looked at Ashton who was waiting for me. I sigh and take her hand.

We walk out in the living room and two garments are folded on the bed.

One is smaller than the other, so I give that one to Ashton. It is simple, a white night gown with white shorts and underwear, mine is the same. I look down at myself in the new clothes. White means purity and peace. White is the color of everything that peaceful in this world. I get angry, nothing in my life is pure, and nothing in my life has ever been peaceful. I grunt and run straight to the kitchen and find a sharp, tipped knife. Ashton came over with me; I didn't care if she watched. I point the tip of the knife into my under wrist and push it in deeper. I slice the knife about a half inch or an inch down my wrist and made a loop at the top of the line. Then a secound line under the loop. It hurts, like needles stinging into me but I don't cry. I look at the letter on my arm.

"Why did you do that?" Ashton gasps scared. I look down at her and wash the blood off in the sink. It stings and I hiss because of the pain but still don't cry. I look at my newly form scar on my left wrist. I then take the knife again and made a circle below the R. It is connected by the R's diagonal line. I wash that one off as well, and then show it to Ashton. She flinched as I show her my new scars. I point to the R, "This one stands for two things. The first is for revenge, always reminding me to take revenge on our father for killing our mother. I will find him one day. The second one is for you, Ashton. It will always rem me protect you no matter what happens, you are my sister and I couldn't live without you."

She's silent for a moment then points to the O connecting it. I point at it as well, "This O stands for Outcasts. I will always be one now; I will always be an outcast. Nothing is pure anymore, nothing is just white. It's red, anger and hurt. My life is not white... it's red." Ashton's eyes grow wide with fear. I loosen my anger a little and wrap my arms around her. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry this happened." I feel her arms wrap around me tightly. I lift up my arm with the scars on it. I look hard and long at it then sigh I sigh and put it down. I look at the digital clock on the table by the bed. 5:00a.m., "Alright time to get some sleep finally." I whisper to Ashton. I wipe a tear away from her eye and lead her over to the bed. She crawls in and I pull the covers over her. She looks up at me with sad eyes. I pause for a moment then kiss her on the head. "Night," I finally say. She doesn't ask me when I'm going to bed but I watch her eyes get droopy and soon hear her soft breaths, indicating that she is asleep.

I stay up for a bit waiting to see when Alfie will return. About 6:00 I hear the door open and he walks in. He shuts it quietly and finds me sitting on a chair on the side of the bed.

"Why are you still up," he smiles.

"Waiting for you," I answer. "The bath was nice, and the maid left us these-"I take part of my nightgown with both hands and show it to him. Suddenly his face expression changes and he grabs my left arm. I try to pull back but he rolls it over to the side with the scars.

"What-what is this?" He looks at me, concern in his face, scared almost.

I sigh, "They're scars, scars that will always remind me of who I am and what I must do." I told him what they stood for and his face doesn't change.

"Ainsley, your nine years old, you're not just going back out there to take revenge. An army is waiting on both our borders. Either way is a death trap. Your father is probably protected by the Union government.

If you want to get revenge you must train."

I run his voice over in my head again and cross my arms. "So, what you're saying is..."

"Yes, one day you may face your father in battle, I'm not saying take 'revenge' but I'm not saying don't kill him. You better get some sleep. I will arrange for you to spend the day with me so you know where to go and what's happening. Breakfast is usually at eight o'clock but I'll bring some up for you two when you wake up." He pauses, "What do you like, anything in particular?"

I shake my head, "Whatever you got will be fine, but Ashton likes pancakes and sausage. She likes her pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries. Any type of fruit will be good for me and bacon or sausage. I also like eggs and toast." He nods and tucks me into bed.

"Alright, don't feel like you have to get up in the morning but I might wake you up if you sleep in too late." I grin and look around the room. "Something wrong?" Alfie asks me.

I look down at the ground, "I just can't believe that earlier tonight I was being kissed by my mother and being tucked in by my warm bed. I remember holding onto my stuffed husky, his name was Shadow. I wish I had him now." I hold my arms close to my chest in a self-hug. I feel Alfie rub my side in a comforting manner, trying to assure me everything will be alright. He whispers goodnight and walks around the corner and out the door. Before he leaves I stare at the scars on my wrist. Hard to believe I think again. I clench my hand into a fist and soon drift off to sleep next to my sister.