Away

Ch.1: Sunlight Will Show

She woke up face to face with a brown bag.
Rowan had a sore throat and her mouth tasted like sweaty socks. She knew that because her brothers once put a pair of them in her mouth. She looked around. Well, no space to look around, she thought.

She saw that the bag was sewn shut but felt nothing when she punched her hand in the side of the bag. She moved her straight brown hair away from her face. Okay. I can get out of this, she thought. Taking one of her fingernails, she slid them gracefully across the sewn top and opened it up. She leapt out and faced her brothers who were standing on a big green field in the night.

"So, how did I do?" She asked.

"Not bad," Greyson said, checking his stopwatch. "Only took you 10 minutes to do it, what flowers would you like for the funeral?"

"Hardy har har," Rowan said as she looked around for the last set of the triplets. "Where's Ryder?"

Greyson, without looking at her, pointed to the body underneath a mountain of chips and soda's.

She stepped over and swept the bag of chips off his face. He looked to be asleep, until-

"Haha! Gotcha!" and he judo flipped her over his shoulder and pressed her down. "Give up?" he said smirking.

She grimaced at the pain "Never."

Rowan summersaulted away from the black haired attacker and threw a punch to his neck. He caught her hand and a sly grin spread across his face. Then she kicked him where she knew would hurt.

"Hey!" He groaned, his voice an octave higher, falling to the ground, "We disqualified that from our fights, do that to the real bad guys, geez."

She laughed and Greyson pinched his brothers cheek, "Aww, did the big bad Rowan use a good tactic against you?"

The triplets laughed, but it faltered when they saw the sunrise.

"Go, go go!" Rowan cried as they packed up their stuff from the field and fled to their house on the other side of town.

You couldn't really call it a house though. It was a crumbly little brick ,one story, cottage that held 3 kids and one adult, who all slept on the same mattress. They weren't exactly poor as Rowan called it, just a financially distressed family. As the siblings raced in, they dropped their stuff in the fireplace and covered it with ashes. They changed into their pajamas and slipped into the mattress.

They had to be so secretive about going to the field because the King had forbidden anyone to go and learn how to fight. His reason was because no one should be scared because guards and cameras were posted everywhere.

The real reason, as Ryder had found out with a little snooping, was because he didn't want anyone to overthrow him. But the triplets made the Resistance to overthrow the King. He had taken everything from them and deserved to be killed.

Sure,they were the only ones in the resistance, but that doesnt mean they couldn't try. He had killed their mother because she was teaching them how to knock out someone. She had only taught them that move but it was enough for the King, and had her killed the next day.

The seventeen year olds had not witnessed the crime committed, but they knew who did it. Their mother had warned them that the King could do such things and he had. Since then, they had started training for when that day came. How to save themselves and others. How to fight back and even kill. How to survive any situation they could come up with.

When the middle of the day came, they went about their usual job. Growing crops and cutting down trees. Their father looked at them and smiled, as if he was thinking, I'm so glad their learning the trade of how to be poor!