DISCLAIMER: I do not own The Covenant or any of its characters. Ashlyn, her family mentioned in this chapter, Corinne, Sarita, and Scot, who will be introduced later, the other Covenant parents, and any changes to the movie's storyline belong to me. Basically, everything you do not recognize is mine. This is a blanket disclaimer because I am terribly lazy and do not want to type one at the beginning of each chapter.

IMPORTANT AN: I redid it again...my computer that I had last year crashed back in October. We were hit by lightning. It was completely fried and my printer started smoking...not a good day. Anyway, after months of not having a computer, I'm back and ready to write again on my shiny new laptop.

Alone

Prologue: Ashlyn

It was a Thursday afternoon and a young girl, barely a month past seventeen, sat in the floor of a mirrored room in the dance studio where she worked. She was attempting to do cool-down stretches after she finished teaching the advanced Pointe class for the studio's summer workshop. Her focus, however, was obviously elsewhere. She was deep in thought over the nightmares that had plagued her in sleep for several weeks. More specifically, she was thinking of the one from the night before.

A knock at the door brought her out of her thoughts. The girl stood and opened it to allow the woman outside to enter. She was well dressed and looked rather serious. The girl just thought she was another mother that had come to yell at her about her daughter not getting enough personal attention during the classes that contain thirteen other girls. She sighed not looking forward to another tongue lashing from another upset mother.

"Miss Kendall?" the woman inquired. The girl nodded and she continued. "Miss, I'm Officer Keegan with the New York City Police Department. There has been an accident involving Mr. Jeremy Kendall and his family. I need you to come with me to Bellevue Hospital where they have taken your brother. I'm very sorry, but your sister-in-law and niece didn't make it."

The girl's breathing became short then, she was in shock. Three words, the words from her dream, kept repeating themselves in her head.

"I warned you."

It was a surreal feeling, being that alone with so many people around her, to feel angry, hurt, frightened, alone, all of those feelings all at once. The voices of people around her were unclear. It was as if her life was happening in slow motion. Only one conversation could be partially made out and that was the one the man in front of her in the bloodstained blue scrubs was trying very hard to have with her. She watched as his lips moved before her and tried her hardest to understand the words.

"…very sorry, Miss Kendall…too much blood was lost…couldn't save him…your brother is gone." Those last four words brought her crashing back to reality. "Is there someone you would like us to call for you?" The girl shook her head, still in shock.

"It was a terribly accident. I am truly sorry for your loss," the doctor said quietly.

'If only it had just been an accident,' she mused. 'It might hurt less then. Maybe if it hadn't been entirely my fault, I would feel less broken now.'

She sat there for a few moments longer, the doctor leaving, no doubt, to help save other patients, even if he could not do that for her family. It was a bitter thought, but she needed someone other than herself to blame, despite the fact that, in her mind, it was almost entirely her fault. Somehow, from halfway across Manhattan Island, while teaching a new Pointe routine at a summer workshop, she managed to cause the death of the last members of the only family she had ever known. Grief makes people think crazy things.

Her emotions were taking their toll and she knew it. Her hands were shaking and tears shone brightly in her chocolate brown eyes, but she blinked them back. She was going to use if she did not get out of there soon. She walked ever faster out of the hospital and was nearly at a full sprint when she reached her Ford Escape in the parking lot of Bellevue Hospital. She drove back to the Upper East Side apartment she formerly shared with her late brother and sister-in-law, as well as their young daughter. All of them were now gone. It was unreal.

'Well Ash, what now?' she asked herself, finally giving in to her exhaustion and falling into a fitful sleep.

She awoke not an hour later in a cold sweat. Her usually warm chocolate eyes were black as night. She closed her eyes for a moment and reopened them to reveal her normal color. Those black eyes were the indication of her curse, the reason her brother was dead, the reason she never truly belonged with her 'family.' She was never supposed to have those powers. However, it's hard to say what she should or should not have when she was never supposed to exist to begin with.


Ashlyn Rose Kendall, though that is the name she had answered to her entire life, was not a Kendall at all. She was not like her perfect older brother, or her wonderful mother. The wonderful woman she referred to as mother in fact adopted Ashlyn at birth. Laura Kendall, her biological aunt, took her in and cared for her as well as her own child, Jeremy, until Ashlyn was thirteen years old. It was then that she found out the truth about who she was. It was two weeks before her thirteenth birthday and her mother gave her a strange letter. It was a letter from her father, her biological father, and she stared incredulously at the woman sitting in front of her before she began to read. She read the letter and as she did, they both cried. Laura cried from guilt and grief, and Ashlyn from a combination of betrayal, fear, sadness, and a myriad of other emotions.

The letter told her she was adopted. The guilty look on Laura's face was the only confirmation she needed to see that it was true. It told her of ancient powers her family had and the terrible danger they brought her. It explained the reasons behind her adoption and that it was 'for her own good.' The letter said she was safer with her aunt and cousin in New York. At the time, she thought it was a joke.

Two weeks later, that 'joke' became reality for the young girl. It happened while her best friend, Corinne Daniels, and her brother Scot were staying with the Kendall's for a few days while their parents were away. It was June 24, 2001. She would be thirteen the following morning and for some reason, Ashlyn couldn't sleep. So, like any other child would do, she dragged her friends out of bed at nearly midnight and out onto the balcony of her apartment. They sat and talked for a little while, but Corinne was really jumpy and even Scot, who was usually calm, looked ill at ease. It was almost a quarter past two when Corinne looked up at the sky and then jerked her head toward Ashlyn.

"You're a witch!" she whispered excitedly.

Ashlyn looked confused. The letter had said she wasn't a witch. She came from witches but she wasn't supposed to have power. The power was dangerous to her and to her bloodline. She couldn't be.

It was 2:16, exactly thirteen years from the time of her birth, and a storm seemed to come from nowhere. Lightning struck the petite girl in her chest and lifted her into the air. Scot and Corinne jumped to their feet prepared to help the poor child. Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone. Ashlyn dropped from the sky and into Scot's awaiting arms. She looked like she was asleep. Then she opened her eyes and they were completely black.

"Told ya!" Corinne said smugly. The letter had lied.

They didn't go back to sleep right away, but they did go back inside. Ashlyn was terrified and confused. It took nearly half an hour to get her to pay attention enough for her friends to explain what had just happened to her. Well, mostly Scot explained. Corinne bounced excitedly up and down; glad to finally have a friend she could be completely honest with. They too had powers, Scot explained quietly, so as not to wake anyone else. Corinne's powers were primarily mental. She could not only sense the powers of others, but she was empathic and telepathic as well. Scot's were mostly physical. He had heightened senses and enhanced strength. He could also teleport though it was limited to about a twenty-mile radius, less if he tried to take anyone with him. Ashlyn listened as intently as possible, but it was hard. Her whole world was turning upside down. Two weeks before, she thought magic was just the stuff that made up fairly tales. Now, she could feel it coursing through her veins, tingling just beneath the surface of her skin. Her friends, who she believed to be perfectly normal kids, were witches. It was all too much to handle long before Corinne excitedly began to speak of spells and so much that Ashlyn just couldn't comprehend. Scot finally put a stop to his sister's rambling when he noticed their friend's eyes, wide with confusion and fear. Promising to explain more another time, he told both girls to go to sleep. He didn't expect both of them to take him so literally, or to use him as a pillow, but that's how Laura found them later that morning. When she woke up and saw the three spread out on the couch, she nudged Ashlyn awake.

"Is everything okay?"

For the first time since she was two and her mother had asked her who took the cookies for the bake sale and she innocently blamed Jeremy, Ashlyn lied to her mother. She nodded her head. If the powers were dangerous, then the very innocent Kendall's didn't need to know about it.

She had her party that afternoon. It was mostly kids from school. Normally her "other parents" would come. They were old friends of her mothers that insisted on her calling them "Mama Evie," "Mama Rose," "Mama Bea," and "Mama Meri." Rosalind, Beatrice, and Meredith also had husbands who she affectionately called Daddy Glenn, Wayne, and Joey respectively. They all had boys about her age too. This year however, they were nowhere to be seen. And, they wouldn't be back either.

She spent most of her time after that at the Daniels' with Cori and Scot. The power was fascinating to her. Hers was so different from her friends. She simply had to think of something and it happened. It made her feel as if she could do anything. Ashlyn soon found, however, that the power also made her weak if she used too much or too often. She would be in a sleep-like state for anywhere from a few seconds to a few days depending on how much she pushed herself past her limits. She, however, was determined and learned to control the powers at a very fast rate, and with them, her emotions as well. She became stronger, mentally and physically, and was able to use more power with less energy.


Six months later, the cancer they thought was gone, took the life of Laura Kendall. Ashlyn, feeling guilty for the mistrust she had felt toward her mother in her final healthy weeks, went to live with her adoptive brother Jeremy, then twenty, in another nearby neighborhood of New York City where he lived with his wife and child. Jeremy married his high school sweetheart, Anna Johnson, and they had a beautiful daughter, Olivia nearly a year later. They were all happy together for nearly three whole years.

That was when he came. Ashlyn had no idea who he was, but he would show up in her dreams almost every night demanding that she turn over her power. He would threaten those she loved and, had she believed what he was capable of, had she believed he was even real, they might have lived. Since he never actually presented himself, Corinne couldn't get any kind of reading on his powers. Scot wasn't even convinced he was real. Several nights before, he was there in her nightmares again. All he said was "I warned you" and then he disappeared, but it was all she needed to know that he was the one who had caused her this pain. She had no doubts that he was real. He was the one who took almost everything she had left in the world. Ashlyn wanted to make him pay, but she knew she needed help, and she knew of no other place to turn. She found that old letter and with the return address fading in the top left corner. She packed her bags and canceled the next months rent check. She called the number in the letter and told the woman on the other line who she was. She asked if she could come to stay with them until the semester started. She knew she sounded crazy, but she was desperate. The woman sounded a little shocked, but told her she was welcome to stay as long as she liked.

One week later, just four days after the funeral where she had buried the last of the only real family she knew, she found herself driving her black Ford Escape from New York City to Ipswich, Massachusetts. She called and left a message on Scot's cell phone knowing he wouldn't answer. By the time he got it, she would be well out of state and it would be too late to get her to turn back. She drove rapidly to escape her past, all of her belongings in the back of her black SUV. Ashlyn was going to a town she had never been to before and becoming a part of the family that had abandoned her. She was to go to some prestigious New England Prep School and become someone she didn't even know. She was no longer Ashlyn Rose Kendall. She was Ashlyn Rose Danvers.

She was so very excited…