Outcast of the Unions

Ainsley's POV

I clutch my sister's body in my arms as I watch my father strangle my mother. She fights back, but he is too strong. Her eyes meet mine as she gasps for breath, and she reaches out to us one last time before falling limp. My sister, Ashton, cries in my chest, her grip on my shirt tightening.

My father drops our mother, satisfaction in his eyes. "United States filth," he spits. The Union, a powerful government faction, has taken over the Bahamas and much of North America, and now they wage war against the United States. My father, originally a Canadian citizen, fights for the Union, while my mother was American. Ashton and I follow our mother's allegiance.

My father turns toward us, his black hair slicked back, beard dripping with blood. He strides forward, fists clenched. I look at my mother's lifeless body and my heart stops. "Ashton, run," I whisper. She hesitates, but I throw her aside just as my father's fingers wrap around my neck. I kick and scream, but his grip tightens. My vision blurs, and I feel death closing in when suddenly, he releases me. I collapse, gasping for air, and see my sister now in his grasp.

"You weaklings have a choice," he snarls, "join me as a Union officer or die as filthy Americans." His eyes burn with hatred.

I push myself up, blood trickling down my chin. "I'd rather die a low-class American than be supreme commander of the Union." Ashton bites his hand, and he releases her. I grab a knife from the kitchen, stab his side, and slash his eye. He howls in pain, clutching his wounds, and I grab Ashton's hand. We flee, her small body in my arms, tears streaming down my face as we leave our mother's body behind.

In the forest, I set Ashton down by a tree. "We can never go back," I tell her, hugging her tightly. "Our father is a murderer. If you see him, run." She nods against my chest, and I look up at the starry sky, wondering what the world was like before the war.

"We have to keep moving," I say, but Ashton whines, "I'm cold." I give her my sweatshirt and we continue running. We finally reach the Georgia-Indiana border and cross a road, only to be stopped by an army jeep. A young man steps out, concern in his eyes.

"Are you alright?" he asks. I step in front of Ashton. "I'm Ainsley, this is Ashton. We watched our mother die. We just need to get out of Georgia."

The man, Alfie, smiles kindly. "I'm the head commander of the Outcasts. Come with me, you'll be safe."

Ashton runs into his arms, and after a moment, I do too. For the first time in what feels like forever, I feel safe.

Ashton POV

I am scared. The images of my mother and father will never leave me as long as I live. When Ainsley tells me to go to sleep I think how can I? The images are still fresh in my head and my whole body hurt from running and being strangled by my father. I was tired but didn't want to fall asleep. Ainsley stared out the window as we drove on. I could only imagine what she was thinking. Alfie seemed nice, but still, I didn't know how much I could trust him. My mother always told me not to trust anybody you don't know, but what other choice did we have. We were lost, cast out and abandoned if we kept running we would have been killed or died of hunger or hypothermia.

I look out the window just to see the car zoom by the sign that says Welcome to Pure Michigan. It isn't really a sign though. It projects the words across both streets so when you drove across the border you drive into the words and it counts how many people were in each car and it has the number of people to the side of it. Once we pass it I look back and it reads Welcome to Ohio. Population 1,987,546 and the number keeps going up as each person passed by or went out. I look back and watch the cars go by in front of us.

"Michigan huh," I hear Ainsley say.

"Yeah, Michigan." Alfie answers. "It was one of the first states to get hit by Union's bombs and it hasn't been the same ever since. Our home is up near the top of the State."

"What's it called?" I ask eagerly in my little child voice.

"Platinum Mountain. Our shelter is the grand lodge near the Mountain's base. It's been closed for years but it's big so the outcasts hide out there. It's no longer on the map so nobody can find us. It used to be a ski mountain lodge but that all changed when, again, The Unions bombed us. The resort, however, managed to hold out though; it's still unbelievably in one piece."

"Is it safe?" Ainsley asks him. I can hear him laugh a little, he smiles back at us.

"Yes, it's very safe, I give you my word." Ainsley crosses her arms in front of her chest and leans back, not convinced. Lights on the streets can finally make me see her body covered in dirt and mud with scratches up and down her arms, which were bare because of her ripped shirt and short sleeves. I know Ainsley thought our father was the greatest father in the world, every kids believes that, but after the murder she must feel like somebody stuck a sword down her throat.

I see her eyes stare over to me, when I smile back she turns away. I remember when we used to play on a lake called Baskin Lake. We were born swimmers and skiers. Ainsley loved going snow skiing and I loved going water skiing. Both of us were skiers and excelled at both sports, but tonight when we were done with dinner, and my mother put us to bed, as I dozed off Ainsley shook me awake and I heard the sound of a death scream. We both rushed downstairs to find our mother was kicking our father. Both had kitchen knives in their hands. "Join me or die a slow painful death!" Our father spat as he raised his knife and it glistened off the light in the room.

"Over my dead body!" my mother scowled. I screamed out in horror as my father slammed his sword in my mom's side. She sunk to the ground holding onto the newly made wound.

"Mom!" Ainsley screamed. Both of our parents turned towards us, one's eyes filled with hatred and anger and the others were filled with pain and sorrow. One word formed on her lips as she mouthed it, "Run." That's when our father picked up my mom by the neck and strangled her till she was collapsed on the floor, dying.

I curl up more into a ball, trying to get the horrible memory out of my head. "How much longer?" I ask. It comes out shaky. Guess because I am scared.

"About a few more hours, don't worry, try to sleep." I didn't answer to that. I can't sleep, but I was exhausted and soon found my eyes getting heavier and heavier as we drove on. Soon my head falls and my body goes limp and I fall asleep.

When the car finally comes to stop I feel someone shaking me. My eyes slowly open and I yawn. I look up Alfie's green eyes and he smiles back at me. "Wake up sleepy head," he moves to one side and I can see Ainsley already awake. I stretch and get out of the jeep. The place looks vacant. It looks huge and we were under an awning that is made out of logs. I shiver because snow covers the ground and I just realized something, can dad follow our tracks? Hope not, the doors that seal the entrance were lazars connecting from one side to the other. Alfie presses his figure down on a pad and a keyboard pops up. He types in something that is seven symbols long.

The lasers shut off and the doors open. "Come on in." Alfie says allowing us to go through first. Once we stepped in a lobby stood before us with a wood ceiling and a stone floor. A hallway leads down each way where you walk in. A statue of a bald eagle stood in the middle of the lobby and a desk is on the right of it. The lobby is mostly empty, except for about 3 or four people and us.

"Where is everyone?" Ainsley asks.

"Well it is five in the morning, probably still sleeping," Alfie says crossing his arms looking around, "it is Friday, so people will be going to school today." Alfie drops his arms to his side and walks more into the lobby.

"Outcasts go to school? Do people know?" I ask. Ainsley looks at me sternly saying, shut up, but Alfie just laughs again.

"Yes, they're allowed, but we don't go around boasting out 'hey I'm an Outcast.' We try to keep it on the down low around other people." He swipes his hand a little to the side of his body as he says that. "I would like you two to meet someone." He walks over behind the bear where a high ceiling was and furniture like couches and chairs were set around the windows facing outside at a huge mountain. Someone was sitting in a chair staring at the fire burning in the fire place to the left of the windows.

"Hello Sargent McCarthy," Alfie says. The figure turns around.

It is a woman. Her hair is short, dark brown and changes to red when it comes to the ends. Her eyes were grey color, but what really scared me is she has a long scar running from the top of her eyebrow to the bottom of her cheek. I flinch a little but Ainsley looks at it in awe. I crouch behind my sister afraid of the woman. She looks older than

Alfie but seems just as tough.

"Commander Alfie," she stands up looking straight at him. She is as tall as Alfie and looks about in her early 20's. She wears a black leather jacket with a belt the same as Alfie's. A gun was swung around her back and she wore leather boots. Weapons were hanging around her hips and I knew one thing from the start, I wouldn't want to get into a fight with her. She then shoots her eyes down at us. "What have we here, couple of runaways?"

"No, a couple survivors." She shifted her eyes back at Alfie in shock as he says that. "Their father is a Union soldier; he murdered their mother who was an American. They are also Americans who survived. I found them on the border of Georgia and Indiana. I almost hit them, luckily they scared me half to death I stopped in my tracks. I decided they needed a home."

"Commander Alfie I need soldiers, not small mouths to feed. They are no use to me." Her voice was hurtful and I felt Ainsley tense up, were we going to have to become runaway, living on the streets begging for food, just waiting for someone to say come in and stay. No, we would die first, but Alfie steps in front of us, almost protecting us by his body.

"They will grow; we have kids younger than them. Why can't we have two more?" Alfie demands.

"They have already started their training, these two don't even know what we are or what we do, and they don't know how to fight." Sergeant Alexhissess. "I don't need more children I need men who will fight."

"Then teach us," Ainsley blurts out. I look up at her with surprise.

She has a lot of guts to say that as a nine year old, but I know she would say something like that. After everything we've been through tonight I highly doubt anything scares her anymore, let alone some lady. "Your training will take years to complete," she spats in her face leaning down. "Who will train you all of our men are either training themselves or training younguns like you-"

"I will train them, Carson." Alfie interrupts. She pauses and stands up having her eyes harden on his.

"You, shall train them into fighters?" She repeats slowly and steadily so he hears it all. "You already have three others you have to train."

"One is almost done and he will be moving on to the junior class, another has decided he wants to become a program manager. I can train two more... let me rephrase that, I want to train these two. They have potential and I have a feeling they will become great soldiers." Sergeant Alex looked at him then down at us. I step out from behind Ainsley and stand up straight, showing her I'm not afraid. Carson's expression softens a little and she sighs, "Alright, I'll take two more, because they have had a rough night, and they also survived a murder attack. That has to count for something. Show them to their room and come back down." She turns to sit back down but stops, "We have to talk."

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.