One 2 Many

Chapter one

My eyes spring open to my younger sister ,Cali, crawling into my bed, tears pouring down her rosy cheeks. I could hear her mumbling something to me but couldn't make out what she was saying. She climbed into my arms and covered herself in my warm blanket. Her heart thuds quickly through her chest onto mine. She tries to catch her breath, "Jaxson, there's a strange looking man walking near our house," Cali whispered. I quickly stumbled out of my bed. Tiptoeing towards the window, the cold hardwood is slippery under my feet. Cali, worriedly, still under the covers, "make sure he doesn't see you". My heart sank to my stomach. Could this be a man sent to arrest us? I slowly moved my makeshift curtains over just enough to peek my head out of the window. A man is walking down a path in the woods. A black rifle is slung over his shoulder, the point of the gun facing upwards. He is dressed in raggedy clothing. Dark hair sits on his shoulders. The only thing that helps me calm down is the fact that the man is walking towards the woods and not towards our house. 

"I don't recognize the man, Cali. Maybe he's just a hunter". Stepping away from the window and walking back towards my bed. She nodded and turned over, adjusting my comforter to cover her whole body. I decide to let her go back to sleep while I go downstairs to make sure all of our doors are locked just in case. We live in an abandoned farm house so there are many doors all around the house. They mostly stay locked since we hardly go outside other than when I hunt or get vegetables from our small garden. I very rarely let Cali outside of the house, I don't fully trust her to not wander away or get into some type of trouble that could draw any attention to us.

When I get into the kitchen I look out the window that overlooks the dirt path, the man is walking farther and farther away from our house. I take a deep breath when I realize that the strange man is not coming to arrest Cali and I. I go back upstairs and crawl into bed with Cali and go back to sleep. I wake up to someone knocking on the door, I jolt out of bed and wake Cali.

"Cali, you need to get up and go hide in the attic now" I demand.

"What's going on Jaxson?" She asks while wiping away her eye dust

"Someone is at the door, I think it's the man from earlier, you need to go hide in the attic now. I will be up in a minute" Before she could respond I picked her up and took her into the attic myself. The knocking continues. I tip toe over to my bedroom window and peek my head out to get a look of who is here. I was right, it was the man from earlier. My heart is racing. Could he really be here for us? Or maybe he is just curious if anyone actually lives here? Disregarding my thoughts I shut my curtain and make my way to the hiding place where Cali is. When I reach the top of the attic steps, I find Cali crawled up in the corner crying.

"Cali, what's wrong?" I say as I crouch down to her

"I'm scared, I don't want them to take us" Cali cried

" Nobody is going to take you away from me. The man is probably just wondering if anyone even lives here," Hugging her tightly. I finally got Cali settled down after a couple minutes of her crying uncontrollably. She has very bad anxiety and overwhelms herself every time there is an inconvenience to her. I picked her up off of the dusty floor and made sure she stayed quiet. "I'm going to go see if the man is still outside, just stay here and be quiet ok". Cali nodded her head, I placed her back down onto the floor. Opening the attic door to go back down, I feel instant regret. I need to be strong, I think to myself. Being the older brother isn't always easy, it's like I'm not allowed to be afraid of anything because I have to be the one protecting Cali and taking care of everything around the house. Sometimes I wish I could be the younger sibling so then I wouldn't have anything to worry about.

As I reach the bottom of the steps, I hear another knock. I freeze. Debating whether I should go back up in the attic or toughen up and go see what the man wants. Well, he's still at the door, what could he possibly want? I decide I'm going to open the door, he can't be sent to arrest us, he would have done that already.

"Hello?" I say as I open the door. I make sure not to open it the whole way, the only thing that the man can really see is half of my face.

"Hi, sorry to bother you. My name is Derek, I actually just moved here a couple days ago. I live about 15 minutes up the road from here"

"Ok, and what do you need from me?" I laugh. I'm trying to be as nice as I can, I don't need to start any tension between us.
"Actually I was just out searching the area when I came across your house, I don't mean to sound weird or anything but when I moved into my new house I didn't think that I was going to have anyone live near me" Explained Derek.

That explains him carrying around the rifle.

" Yeah well I didn't realize there were even other houses built around here" I say.

Derek goes on about how he loves living in the woods, how peaceful and relaxing it is. He explains that he is big into hunting and couldn't be more excited to have a reason to go hunting almost everyday. "Sorry to interrupt you but I have a lot of things to do around the house today, maybe we can catch up another time" I say nervously. I really don't have much to do but I can't have Derek thinking that he and I are going to be friends. It's too dangerous. We can't have anyone knowing where Cali and I live, that information could lead back to the police.​​ To say the least, I'm really surprised that Derek didn't notice us. It was just a couple years ago that Cali and I were on "MISSING" posters everywhere. I know this because I would still keep in touch with my one friend from home, he would go into town and get us produce from the markets. A couple months into our hiding I realized that I was putting him in a lot of danger, so Cali and I took off again and we found the house we are living in now. Ever since we left, I had no contact with my friend again. I often wonder if he is worried about me or why we left in such a hurry.