8. Ax

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She had always been stubborn, moody, rude and a bitch to everyone she met. She was never putting herself in the crowd, she never did well in school, but she was a smart kid. She was only kind with her parents, her only not too close friend, and her little sister.

She was a trouble maker this one. Always getting into fights, caught by Peacekeepers past district boundaries. She was too young to take in and arrest, so they took her back to her parents. They did not punish her, not even yell. They told her not to do it again, gave her dinner, let her shower, and her father sang her and her sister to sleep. She only ever stopped being her true self when her sister was around. She did not want her sister to grow like her, never to be looked at by boys or ever going anywhere in life. She only grew more protective over her sister as she grew, and the boy's eyes lingered on her longer than they used to. Her sister was still young when it happened, she sort of had a clue of what her father was. She never imaged her being it too.

It was one dark night, the moon out screaming at her, a full moon. It was her seventeenth birthday. The boys her age with the Markings were heading to the Justice Building, the secret place that no mundane yet knew of its location. She cared not of giving the effort to find it, so she did not bother.

It was after, days became weeks when she would wake up outside, clothes in shreds around her chilled body. Her hands and feet ached, her head hurt, her eyesight was a bit blurry. She had never felt like this. Her thoughts traveled to why this could be happening to her. They were answered one night when she woke up possibly in the middle of the day, someone shaking her shoulder attempting to wake her from her slumber. It was her father, he was out of breathe and sweating.

"Come on Johanna, we need to go. Now," he whispered. They were out in the woods, illegal to enter and scary as hell if you didn't know what you were doing. This was a separate woods, set besides the forest the lumberjacks worked in during the long, hot hours of the day. Johanna noticed how fuzzy her father's cheeks and chin looked, he always shaved in the morning after breakfast. He hated growing it out.

Her father pulled her up by her arm that would have ached weeks ago if he had done that. Now, her arm felt strong and stiff with muscle. They began running towards their district, the tall trees of the illegal woods shielding them from the burning sun of that July day. Johanna halted to a stop when she heard more footsteps behind her, and a deep growl. She felt a sudden heat against her legs that made her shiver. She rubbed her hand to remove the damp feeling when she felt hair tickle her wrist. It wasn't from her leg, she shaved some days when she was feeling in the mood with an old razor.

Johanna whipped around, her father's hand still in hers. She saw something she didn't know existed, but somehow knew they did because she suspected her father was one of the creatures. Her rumors became true when her father pushed her back, making Johanna crash to the ground with a thud, far from the hideous creature. She coughed, having lost all of the oxygen she needed and watched stupefied as her father somehow turned into the creature following her.

Johanna watched, tears brimming in her eyes as her father tackled with the beast for several minutes. She took those minutes to hand to think about why she would end in the woods. It didn't take long for Johanna to realize what she was. Once she realized that, she prayed for her sister sake that she didn't share this gene. She was too beautiful to be what Johanna was. She had too much planned ahead of her to have to know she is different. Johanna wouldn't live with herself if she was what she and her father are.

It took minutes to defeat the beast, her father returned to Johanna, forming back to his former being before he came ten feet close to her. He slowly walked to her, keeping his hand in front of him. He waited for Johanna's reaction to him rubbing his callused fingers against her cheek. She was still, staring straight at him.

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