Run-Away Little Sister: Hurting

Chapter Eleven: Changes

ANASTASIA'S POV:

Change.

The act or instance of making or becoming different.

There's good change, and then there's bad change. I never thought that moving back to South-Eastern Wisconsin would be a good change, I still don't. There's too many bad memories for this place to ever be home to me again. There's too many bad memories for this place to ever be my safe-haven, unlike California which unknowingly at the time turned out to be one of the best decisions ever made. California saved me. 

As soon as the private plane we were all riding in hit the ground, landing on the tarmac, I was reminded that I never wanted to come back here. My stomach clenched, my hands got clammy, and sweat formed on my hairline.

I was not happy to be back, especially not so close to home.

Literally.

We were less than ten miles away from where I used to live, where I used to be tortured daily, where I thought I was going to die.

I never wanted to come back.

I never thought I'd come back willingly, but my will to catch my parents murderer was stronger than my desire to never come back.

All I could do was hope. Hope that we found the person who ordered the kill sooner, rather than later, and that the quicker we catch him, the quicker we get back home to California, where life will go on as our new normal.

The faster I catch the person who ordered that kill, the faster I can begin to grieve.

The faster I can begin to slowly move on.

"I got baby one." Luke spoke, showing us the smiling Dylan in his arms.

"I got baby two." I sighed, pulling Courtney up on my hip, "You guys got our bags?"

"Course." Jamie smiled, before showing me that she not only had her bags, but she also had mine.

"And I got yours Luke." Wyatt spoke to his brother.

"Thanks, man."

"Yeah, whatever."

"So where's the car we're taking?" Layla asked me.

"I arranged a limo for us getting to the house I bought. Our cars will be at the house tomorrow morning by the time we wake up. So until then, the only place we really need to go to is the house. We can order some food online and have it delivered to the house." I told everyone, "Look there's the limo."

As the limo pulled to a stop in front of us, I pulled my I.D. out of my pocket and walked up to the driver's window, showing the driver who I was. He rolled his window down, and nodded at me, "Hello Miss Wolp. It's nice to see you again."

"It's good to see you too, Jerry." I smiled back at him.

"There are two car seats in the limo, go ahead and get situated, all of you. I'll get the bags in the trunk." Jerry smiled softly at me.

Jerry Romanov was my parents, Alexandria and Miles, chauffeur. They didn't really need one, but Jerry was desperate for a job, and so my parents gave him one. That was nearly twenty years ago, and he's been with them, and now us, ever since.

"Thank you Jerry." I smiled, letting Wyatt open the door for me, before I carefully slipped inside the interior of the limo.

Following after me, Luke entered with Dylan still in his arms. Then Jamie and Kayla followed in, followed by Max and Layla. I watched through the side of my eye as Wyatt began helping Jerry load the bags into the trunk.

Both Luke and I carefully strapped both Dylan and Courtney inside their car seats, before we began to distract them from the fact that they were in the car seats they seemed to so desperately hate.

I have no idea what the coming weeks are going to bring, but I can only hope that we'll be done here by the time school starts...

Otherwise I'm screwed.

"Everyone, up! It's five-thirty." I shouted into the hallway that my best friends were all located in. The babies were located in a different hallway, so they wouldn't wake up from me screaming. 

At five-forty-five every morning the group and I always spend at least half an hour working out. It keeps us in shape, and we rotate what we work on each day. One day it's mixed martial arts, another day it's shooting practice, and on the third day we work on smaller, other skills such as: hacking, bomb making/defusing, ext.

We like to be as full-rounded as possible, this way we can be prepared for the unexpected. After all, living the life we live is dangerous in itself, we might as well be prepared for the worst.

Today is our first day of school, and luckily enough I was able to find an old babysitter of mine from when I was a baby. I'll have guards posted around the whole neighborhood, so if on the off chance anything does go wrong we'll be able to handle the situation swiftly. 

Leaving my baby siblings is still nerve-wracking, and I know nothing will ever change that. It's something I'm going to have to become accustomed to, just like all the other responsibilities. 

From running on the treadmill for ten minutes as a warm up to doing twenty pushups, twenty curl-ups, and twenty burpees, I quickly moved on to doing a set of twenty pull-ups. The group and I were working in sync, easily working with and around everybody else.

It was a routine, something we were used to.

In a world full of changes, this was one thing we could control.

Coming in at pull-up eighteen, I listened to the timer ring out, alerting everyone in the room that our thirty minute workout was over. I quickly pushed myself to finish the last two pull-ups I had to do, before allowing myself to hop off the pull-up bar.

I wiped the sweat off my face with my towel, before chugging a whole sixteen ounce bottle of water.

"You moved slower than normal." Layla observed.

"Yeah, I didn't get a lot of sleep. I thought we'd be gone by now, nothing's working the way I want it too, and I'm getting irritated. Not to mention that today I have to let a babysitter watch my baby siblings, and we'll be going to the school that my brothers used to go to. I'm not in a good mood and it's affecting my physical, mental, and emotional stance."

"If you need anything from us, let us know, okay Ana? We're your family, we want to help. And it's not us saying that to be polite or whatever, I'm saying that because I know we all mean it from the bottom of our hearts. You hear me?"

"I gotta go get ready and get the twins ready for this morning, so I'll see you later Layla, guys. Love you all." I ignored her comment. 

And then I walked away without another word spoken between any of us.

Dressed and ready to go this morning, I looked at myself and the babies I was holding on my hips. We were all sort of matching each other today, which I thought was adorable, and to be completely honest it put me in a much better mood.

It was slightly colder than it usually was on an early September day in Wisconsin, so I dressed us all to be warm.

Dylan was wearing a long sleeve white round-neck t-shirt, with a black and white plaid sleeveless vest on top, along with light grey pants, and brown high tops. Courtney was wearing a loose fitted, short sleeved black and white plaid t-shirt, with blue jeans, and brown high tops that matched Dylan's. I was wearing a matching black and white plaid, long sleeve button up, with black skinny jeans, and white running shoes.

"Aren't we just the cutest thing you've ever seen?" I asked the babies, that were in my arms, with a baby voice, causing them to burst into contagious giggles.

"Yeah, you are." I heard Max's voice say.

I looked back up in the mirror and saw him standing a few steps behind me.

"Hey Max."

"Hey, you ready to go, everyone else is ready."

"Sure." I sighed, "I just really want to stay with them. I have a bad feeling."

"Well, whatever that feeling may be, we'll deal with it when the issue itself arises. Don't stress yourself out anymore than you already do." he told me, and I nodded.

"You're right. I just don't want to lose them." I told him softly

"You won't. We won't. We'll protect them for as long as we can." Max told me, determination spread across his face, and I nodded. 

I believed Max. We'd all do whatever it took to keep Courtney and Dylan safe, even in thirty years from now, we'd still try to protect them. 

"You want to take one of them?" I asked after a few moments in silence.

"Of course I do, give me baby Court."

I handed him Courtney and watched as he gave her chubby baby cheeks, what seemed to be a million little kisses.

"Hi, sweet girl." I heard him whisper, "Are you ready to go have fun today?"

We had dropped the twins off within ten minutes and were currently on our way to school. We were running five minutes late this morning, so by the time we would pull into the parking lot, get our schedules, and find our classes, we'd most definitely be late to class.

Being a whole five or ten minutes late to class isn't really going to make that big of a deal, but I know that in the long run we can't make an everyday practice of running late, otherwise we'll end up getting into huge trouble.

Today Luke, Max, and I were riding together. Wyatt and Kayla were riding together, and both Jamie and Layla were riding together. We probably could have narrowed it down to two different cars, but we wanted to be a little more spaced out on the car ride to the school on our first day.

We parked closer to the back of the parking lot before getting out of our cars and walking inside of the school building. We quickly found the school's main office, and entered, walking up to the front desk person, a man named Mr. Percy.

"Hello, we need our schedules, please." I gave a small smile at the man in front of me.

He gave me a blank stare and raised his eyebrow, "Names?"

"Anastasia Wolp. Lucas, Wyatt, and Layla Daniels. Max, Jamie, and Kayla Crylin." I told him.

"Mmhm." he typed in the names I gave him, before walking to the printer, which had begun printing what I assumed to be our schedules.

"Here. Try not to lose them, I really don't want to make more copies. Good luck finding everything, and have a happy day." he commented, before speaking his second sentence sarcastically.

"Okay, then. That guy was rude." Jamie sighed as we all exited the office.

"First class, what's everyone's first class?" Kayla asked curiously.

"Uh, Mr. Smith, World History, room 214." Jamie spoke, her eyebrows furrowing.

"Same." Wyatt, Luke, and Max spoke in unison.

"Yeah, I have that first too." Layla told us.

"Mine is the same." Kayla spoke after Layla.

"Same with me, what about you Ana?" Jamie asked, staring at me.

"Uh-yeah, same. But I'm also pretty sure that the teacher is my older biological brother, Matthew."

"You're kidding?" Luke scoffed.

"Nope, last time I was here he was a world history teacher and you're forgetting, my biological last name was Smith before I changed it to Mom and Dad's last name." I told them.

"Well, if it is your brother-" Kayla started off, "You know we got your back. We always will."

"I know." I smiled, "And that's the exact reason why I love you all."

"I love you too." they all replied in unison. 

Changes were changes, good or bad.

But with my best friends by my side, I know I can conquer anything.

Author's Note -

Here's the eleventh chapter of "Run-Away Little Sister: Hurting". It's definitely different than the original, but I think that it's so much better than the original. We're still a little ways behind the original version, but again, we're catching up. Chapter twelve should be out soon.

Let me know what you all think about this chapter. And make sure you all comment and share this story with those who might like it.

Thanks for reading!

-Michaela {The Author}

Original Version Published: March 14th. 2019 

Edited Version Published: August 6th. 2021