Immortals (NEW CHAPTERS EVERY SUNDAY)

Chapter Seven // Ashe

"I came from a more southern area of the state. A small town I'm pretty sure no one but people who live around it have heard of. Really dull place. Our biggest attraction was a McDonald's. Not even an interesting one with a playplace for the kids or anything. Just a boring old McDonald's."

Vin chuckled. "Sounds thrilling. I grew up in the heart of Albany. You're making me take it for granted now, with your lovely tourist trap McDonald's. No hate to your hometown, though."

"Oh, no, I don't mind hate to the hometown. It really did suck. Not as much as things suck now, but it did suck when I was there."

Some would call it negativity, but I considered it honesty. The awfulness of the town was a running joke amongst most people I had known in the world before the government.

"What was your family like before all of this?"

I almost felt myself freeze at the question. It was a sensitive question, and not just because of my siblings.

The reason I was tagged as an Unfavorable could all be traced back to my father. He was an unkind man, one who never treated his children right while his wife sat by and watched hurt spread through the family line.

Grace was the only one who was quiet. The only one who took his scorn and kept her head screwed on correctly, as the government would see it. She took it with grace, held her anger in, kept calm and silent about all of it.

Sometimes I wondered if something was simmering under her cold exterior, something that wanted to break free and burn the hurt that happened under our roof. But she never let her fire out, kept it frozen under a stone cold shell that almost protected her from a much darker fate than she would've faced had she let it out.

She did let it out eventually, when the world we had known had fallen down and it was a little too late to let her fire catch, but that was something I would rather not think about considering the fate it had led her to.

At least she had a chance at survival had she played by the rules, something she had done for sixteen years. At least the pain she had experienced was less than the pain Andrew and I had to, her privilege as the oldest child letting her skate by many times.

At least she was never physically hurt by our father, unlike Andrew was. It was that, I felt, that truly pushed him over the edge to being an Unfavorable. The physical abuse he endured turned him bitter, shortened multiple fuses that should not have been shortened. He learned how to retaliate quickly, sometimes violently.

If any of us should've been flagged as Unfavorable, it should've been him. Not that anyone should have ever had to handle the government that took over our world, but if I were an agent, I would've seen the reasoning behind why he was flagged.

He deserved better than his fate. Even if the concern about him having anger management issues was justified.

Now my flagging for the same reason, I didn't understand it. I wasn't nearly as short tempered as Andrew had become. Now, I would admit to being angry. The way my home life was structured did make me angry, and anger made me loud. Louder, apparently, than whoever was watching me to flag me for the new order of things wanted me to be.

Absolute bullshit, if one was to ask me. I had seen more people, all of whom were significantly more violent and bitter than I was, get marked as Favorables than I could count on all of my fingers and at least half of my toes.

I wasn't going to tell Vin all of this about my family. He didn't need to know.

"I had two older siblings. A sister and a brother. Grace and Andrew."

"Had?"

"They're dead."

"Oh. I'm sorry for your loss."