The Missing

Chapter Two

~Lilly~    

  My name is Lilly. I don't really go by any last name, just Lilly. I am the second youngest out of six children in my family. There are two girls, and four boys, not including our mom and dad who we live with. I am one of the girls who lives in our house. My sister's name is Aurora, named after the city in Colorado. She is the third oldest, her age is sixteen. Aurora is by far the sassiest of the group. She kind of looks like me, except she has brown hair instead of red. She wears square, wire glasses to help her see and has some small freckles. She wears her hair up in a ponytail and usually has on a sweater and black leggings. Then there are the four boys: Aiden, Dakota South, Dakota North, and Alice. Aiden is the oldest, he is 17 years of age. He's also the one who has anger issues. We try not to make him mad because that usually ends up in the house being a mess. Aiden has blonde hair and usually wears jeans and a t-shirt. Although most of his t-shirts are ripped up from branches. He hates cooking. Usually Aiden and I swop chores the day he has to cook, since I like cooking and he likes mopping the floors. The Dakota's are twins. They are both identical, but South has round glasses and North has none. The two brothers are the fourth oldest, which leaves the Dakota twins to be 16 and a half, a whole six months older than Aurora. They both have brown, messy, and curly hair and a bunch of freckles. Dakota South likes to wear cozy sweaters with black khaki pants. While Dakota north like to wear brown jeans with loose, long sleeved shirts. Alice is the youngest. He is fourteen years old, one year younger than me. Alice has light blonde hair and wears everything aesthetic. He considers himself transgender. He used to be a girl but insists we call him a he/him. Alice is trying to persuade our parents to switch his name to Alex, but they said no. Of course they said no. I call him Alex, though, to make him happy.

    My mind flashed back into reality. My house was covered in ashes. I watched as the police officers dragged out four unconscious bodies... wait...four? There is eight of us... Once I figured it was all clear I ran into the house. They must have left three people in the house. I glanced around. There was no sight of anyone.

    "Hello?" I whispered. "Guys, it's Lilly." I continued. I looked around the house. It was torn apart.

    "Lilly?" A voice said. A head poked up from behind the kitchen counter, but got shoved back down.

    "Dakota, shut up, it could be a trap." Another voice said. It sounded like Aurora's. I walked over to the kitchen counter and poked my head around to see three of my siblings: Aiden, Aurora, and Dakota south.

    "Lilly!" Dakota south shouted, he ran over to me and gave me a big hug. For being older than me, I was quite taller than him. But Dakota always acted as if he was younger than me. I giggled as Aurora and Aiden walked out of their hiding spot. Dakota pulled out of the hug and I set my basket down onto the counter.

    "What happened?" I asked. Aiden was pacing around, his face was bright red and he looked like he was about to implode. Aurora tried to stay calm, but I could see the panic in her face. Dakota looked up at me and sighed. That was when I realized I was now the youngest of the pack... for now...

    Let me backup and tell you the whole story. Our father was a part of a Government called 'Egami law'.But he decided that it wasn't safe after a while and quit. But since he knew too much, the government had to execute him. So he ran, as far as possible. He took his savings and was known as the most wanted man. He worked with people, telling them what the government was planning to do; take over the world. This made him more wanted.

    One day on a business trip, he met our mother. She didn't care that he was wanted. They fell deeply in love with each other and became partners in crime. They were always running, until they came to a house in the woods.

    Ten years later, they were still in that house and had a child. As time passed on they had the Dakota twins, Aurora, me, and Alice. They put us all in danger, but our family loved danger. We never expected the government to find us... but they did. And they took away Dakota North, Alice, and our parents.

    "They took Dakota!" Dakota groaned. He stomped his foot on the ground.

    "Dakota North, yes. And they also took Alex and Mom and Dad." Aurora added in. She rolled her eyes.

    "Her name is Alice." Aiden argued.

    "His name is Alex!" Aurora sassed back. She looked over at me for help.

    "Guys! Now is not the time to be arguing! We will find them one way or another! Now will someone go outside and gather up some water for me to boil?" I screamed. No one moved. "Fine," I started. "I will. I'll be right back. No one touch the raspberries or the rabbit until I cook it!" I continue, stomping out of the house. I walked over to the well and filled up a bucket of water. I quickly ran back into the house and set it on the stove. I next skinned the rabbit and put it in the oven. Then, I set out the raspberries on the table next to the eight plates. Although, there were only four of us now. I set a timer for an hour for the rabbit, and waited for the water to boil before cooling it down in the freezer.

    I looked up at the ceiling. All the lights were smashed, making the house very dark, considering there were no windows. I walked into everyone's room and grabbed their lanterns they kept in their closet. I turned them on in the kitchen, then clapped my hands together.

    "Alright! Listen up!" I said. "Even though I am the youngest, I am going to make the rules! Which means I will be doing all the cooking." Everyone beamed at the thought. "The only rule I am going to tell you is that we have to stick in pairs of two! Otherwise all of us go together! When I go hunting, one of you will come with me while two other stay here, or we can all go together. This way, if we get in trouble one of us will be able to run away and tell the others." I saw Dakota shiver. "You all remember the shells mom and dad got us all for communication, right?" I asked, everyone nodded. "If none of us can escape, we'll use those to signal that we are being taken away. Does everyone understand?" Everyone, again, nodded.

    "The one thing I don't agree with though, is that you should be the boss." Aiden replied. He stood up.

    "Look, everyone can agree that I am the most mature, plus, I am the only one who actually knows how to cook here!" Aiden growled.

    "Fair point," he stated.

    "What about our family?" Dakota asked. "How are we going to get them back?" He continued. He started to play with his thumbs.

    "I don't know, South, but we will get them back. Let me think of a plan, okay?" Dakota looked down at his feet as the timer went of. I smiled and peaked at the food. It was ready. I set it out on the table, careful of not to burn myself, and called everyone over.

    It was quiet at supper, everyone barely ate. We were all just picking at our food with our forks. Well, besides Aiden, who was ranting to us about how stupid everything was while he ate his whole plate. Dakota was slowly eating, but only ate half of his plate before he shoved it aside. Me and Aurora didn't eat anything, even though my stomach was growling, I couldn't bring myself to eat.

    After dinner, Aurora worked on getting the the door back onto its hinges and Dakota helped me carry all the beds out to the living room. Aiden cranked the heater, although it was not very sturdy and it would shake every time a puff of heat would come out of it. In response, Aiden punched the top of it. Surprisingly, it started to work again. I smiled as me and Dakota carried out the last bed and started to move anything in the way.

    "Done!" Aurora yelled. I gave her a thumbs up and came over help her clean the dishes. "When are we going to get our family back?" Aurora asked me, a single tear came out of her eye. I hugged her and replied with,

    "We can't go until next week. We don't know if those people will come back, and we've gotta pack and stock up all the supplies we need." Aurora's nose made a sniffing sound as she wrapped her wet arms around my waist and cried into my shirt. I was speechless. I've never seen my sister cry.

    "It'll be OK." Dakota said, coming in for a group hug. Aiden thought for a couple seconds before he came and joined the group hug.

    "It might not be OK. But we'll survive it together."