*Edited

It had only been a few days since the family went up to the attic. For the first few days, it was nonstop screaming, footsteps and occasionally a few gunshots, and then sometimes, pure silence.

When the family would run out of food, the smallest people--which just so happened to be Adira and her nephew, Taylor--would go down and fetch a few more items from the kitchen. Today was one of those days, and as Adira was about to be let down, there was a knock that echoed through the whole house.

At first Adira, Taylor and Matt all looked at each other, listening and waiting for it to happen again. It eventually did come, a lot harder than the first, and followed by it was a female voice screaming for someone to help. It didn't take long for Adira to grab a hammer, jump down and run to the front door without any hesitation. When she got to the door, she slowly looked through the peephole, seeing a woman with blood smeared all over her clothes holding a small child on the other side of the door. Adira didn't hesitate to take the wooden boards off the door, but just as quickly as she began she had to be stopped by Taylor.

"What are you doing?" Taylor whispered. "We are not suppose to open that, remember?"

"The woman has a child with her," Adira said, ripping her arms out of Taylor's grip. "We can't just leave her out there. Plus, I don't see anyone. Do you?"

Taylor leaned forward and looked through the peephole. He couldn't see anything. He pulled away slowly before looking back at Adira and shaking his head. "No."

"Exactly."

Taylor let out a sigh and helped Adira take off the wooden boards with hammers they had . Once they were off, Adira opened the door quickly and the lady and her child ran in, shutting the door behind them quickly. The woman thanked Adira and Taylor multiple times, which Adira and Taylor returned with a smile before asking if they were okay.

The lady looked at her daughter and then at Taylor. "Do you have anything to drink?"

"Yes, we do," Adira said. "Taylor can take you two."

"Oh no, just for my little girl, please." The woman shook her head and put her arms on her daughter's shoulders. "She needs it."

Adira smiled. "Taylor?"

"Come on, kid," Taylor said in a calming voice. "Let's get you something to eat."

"You behave, okay?" The woman told her daughter. "I love you."

"Okay." The little girl spoke softly. "I love you too."

It wasn't long before Taylor and the little girl disappeared behind the wall into the kitchen. The woman and Adira watched as they both left before facing each other once again. The woman had tears in her eyes and a small smile on her face, which Adira knew was a fake one filled with sadness.

"So, can I get you anything?" Adira asked while holding her sword behind her.

"You could take that sword you have and put it through my head," the woman said.

"What?" Adira shook her head and knitted her eyebrows together. "No."

"Please, you have too." The woman pleaded, lifting up her pant leg, which was all bloody and had a big chunk of her ankle out some in falling off and deep in there Adira could see her bone holding her foot together. "Please?"

"No, I can't do that." Adira was shocked. "What about your daughter?"

"You have to keep her safe. Please? Promise me you'll keep her safe." The woman cried. "You have to do it. Please don't let me turn into one of them!"

"No, I can't." Adira took a step back while the woman opened the door and stood outside. "You're insane."

"Please, don't let my baby see me like them," The woman begged, her tone filled with desperation. "I don't want the last image that she sees of me to be of me trying to eat someone or looking like those things."

"Uh-" she choked, "I-I-"

"Please?" She cried even more. "Do it. I don't want to be like one of them. I don't want my daughter seeing me like that. Please?"

Adira let out a sigh as she shook her head. She slowly lifted her sword up to the woman's forehead, hesitating on whether or not she should actually do it. Adira never thought that she would ever have to use the sword. She had always wanted one but never for actual violence or to kill another human being. She had only gotten it as a gift, and she was never one to harm anyone, let alone a mother. She knew it would be for the best and that the mother wanted her to do it, but she couldn't help but hesitate and feel guilty for doing so.

The sword was from her father when she was sixteen. Her mother hated weapons of any kind but allowed it only because it was the first thing that her father had bought her, and it had cost him a lot of money. The mother didn't care for the money, but it was good to know that he had spent over a thousand dollars for a katana just for her daughter. Adira's brother, Matt, collected knives and Adira fell in love with them until her father took her to a storage unit where he kept all of his weapons, and she saw a black and purple katana that she absolutely fell in love with. Adira always planned to have one when she was older and when she had her own place because she knew that her mother never liked them.

Sword combat was Adira's forte; she was good with them. She knew how to handle them and appreciated them like nobody else. Her and her brothers--especially her brothers--were always for protection and self-defense. Of course, her brothers were always trying to keep their little sister safe, so they would hang out in the backyard for hours, teaching her new moves or practicing all their hand-to-hand battles, and then eventually they worked up to using actual weapons. Her father used to do such things as well, teaching her how to hold or use a sword and how much of a grip they had to have when using it. He watched as his kids practiced in his backyard in the mountains or at gym, if it was hand-to-hand battle.

So when he saw how she was with his first sword, he let her have it. He told her it was perfect for her, and said it should be with someone who admired it and would take really good care of it. And she did. She usually kept the sword above her closet at the edge of her bed and admired it every time she was up there. Her mother never took the thing away from her or yelled at her ex-husband for giving it to her, for she never saw her daughter that excited over anything before. Adira went out back and practiced with it the day that she got it with her brothers. It was the same day that she accidentally slashed a big cut into Matt's abdomen and he had to go to the hospital to get stitches. It was also the day that Adira decided to keep it up for a while and only use it with her dad.

Now, Adira couldn't believe what she was about to do with that same sword. She slowly drew the sword a few inches away from the woman's face before quickly plunging the blade through the woman's head.

Adira couldn't look at what she had done. All that she could do was stumble her way to the door and close it so that neither she nor anyone else had to see the woman's lifeless body lying on the floor. Adira turned and leaned her back against the door with her head down and slowly tried her best not to freak out or look like anything was wrong, but little did she know, Taylor was behind her when she had killed the woman.

Taylor took hold of Adira's shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

"We have to grab more food, Adira," Taylor softly spoke. "Come on."

Adira pushed herself off the door and started putting the boards back on as much as she could before walking into the kitchen and helping Taylor fill some bags up with edible food. It didn't take long until they were back upstairs, handing the bags to Matt and Steve.

"You got it?" Taylor asked Matt, who nodded.

"Hey, guys?" Adira spoke. "We have a new member."

The guys frowned at her in confusion until she moved out of the way to reveal the small child. Their faces softened up when they saw her.

"Where's my mommy?" The little girl asked, looking around with wide eyes.

"Um-" Adira looked at Taylor and the guys before gazing back down at the child without saying anything.

"Come on, kid," Taylor said before anyone said anything, hoping that she wouldn't ask anymore questions. "We need to get you up there."

The little girl nodded before lifting her arms up and turning around so that Taylor could grab her from her tiny delicate hips and lift her up to Matt and Steve. Once she was up, Adira helped Taylor and then followed after him.

That night, Adira couldn't stop thinking about the little girl's mother. She couldn't believe that someone had actually begged her to kill them as if it was nothing. She understood exactly why she had to, but the fact was that she had never imagined to do that as a favor. Adira was always glad to help others or feel good about herself when someone asked her for a favor, but what she had to do today was the worse favor possible.

At least it wasn't slow and painful, Adira thought to herself as she looked up at the little girl sitting at the window.

The next day, Taylor, who was awake with Madison and Matt, looked around and noticed that Adira wasn't anywhere in sight. He looked on the floor where she would usually sleep, but she wasn't there. Taylor's eyebrows pulled together as he kept searching to see if he had missed her anywhere, but there was still no sight of her.

"Hey, guys," Taylor spoke up and Matt and Madison looked up at him. "Where's Adira?"

From the way that they looked at him and then looked around told Taylor that they hadn't even noticed that she was missing. When they turned back to look at Taylor, they just shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads.

"She's missing?" Madison spoke up. "Did something happen to her?"

Just then, the mother arose to a sitting position before looking around. "Who...what is missing?"

"Adira. We can't find her," Madison answered.

Lydia stood up and looked rapidly around for her teenage daughter, but couldn't see her. "Where did she go? Where is she?"

"We don't know," the three others shrugged.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" The mother almost yelled. "You guys are awake! You should know!"

"We don't," Taylor said. "She was gone before we even woke up."

By this time, everyone else was awake and looking around, asking what was going on while rubbing their eyes ,except for the little girl that was just staring at everyone. Before anyone could answer, the noise of someone stepping on something came from below. Just then, a head poked out of the attic entrance way followed by a groaning noise. Adira was fully in the attic before pulling the bag she has more into the attic and putting the wooden attic door back into its place.

"Where were you?" The mother asked.

"We needed more water bottles from downstairs," Adira simply answered. "We ran out of them this morning."

"Why didn't you ask for one of us to go down with you?" Matt asked.

"Because everyone was asleep and I didn't want to wake any of you," she replied. "And plus, it was just downstairs. I think I can handle that."

"What if something would have happened to you?"

"Like what?" Adira looked at Matt. "Those things getting in and hurting me?"

"Yes, or someone actually breaks in and does who knows what?"

"Chill. If anything happened while I was down there, I would have screamed and woke all of you up."

"She got you there." Taylor looked at Matt while nodding his head.

Just then, a banging came from below them, causing everyone to freeze in their position and look at each other. They all listened for any more noises just to make sure that they weren't hearing things.

"Was anyone else with you?" Steve whispered to Adira, who shook her head and put her index finger to her lips.

Another banging filled the house, followed by a crashing sound. Adira lay down on her stomach and put her ears to the square wooden entrance to the attic, listening closely. She could only hear footsteps coming up the stairs, causing her to look up at everyone around her before going back to the entrance, only this time, she looked through the tiny peep hole they had created just in case something actually got into the house and they needed to escape. At first, she didn't see anything. Moments later, a man appeared, walking into the laundry room below before opening the door to the closet and looking around.

"Who is it?" Madison's soft voice whispered, which only got Adira shushing her.

Adira looked back through the hole and found the man still looking around in search of something in the closet room. The man was well-built and a little tall. He had black hair and brown eyes that looked almost black, which matched perfectly with the dark vibe that he gave off by just looking at him. Once he was done searching the closet room, something caught his eye, causing him to stare up at the ceiling above him.

He felt as if he was being watched.