The story of how Andra found the Silviens, what her life is like at home, and her life with the Silviens before Alex joins is all going to be in here, but this is not really an official story, just collections of her memories and past. Don't worry, I'll still be working on the Unseen Heroes, but I just had to have a background story for Andra, she is just a fascinating character with a lot to tell and also a lot to hide. If you have not read the Unseen Heroes(my other in-progress book) thats alright, it might help a little, but everything will be explained more as the story goes on. She's 13, almost 14, for the part after the PROLOGUE, but I'll make sure you'll know if I jump to a different time with she's a different age. She is so much deeper than her age, like a few of us, in fact. If you have any questions just comment or review, or you can email me at atragedyofateenager at gmail dot com Thanx

PROLOGUE

And it thought I was done with reliving my past for the day.
Disjointed memories, some of them the worst times of my life, fly through my mind: A dark haired man pulls out a gun from a locker and whips the boy in the face with it, he crumples to the ground, and I see myself cry out a split second earlier, a look of horror on my face and then dive behind a plastic table as the man turns, pointing his gun around at running, screaming people, firing shots…
I am standing in a dark alleyway and swallowing hard, white pills from a small orange canister…
A previous version of myself with no scar hidden by my hair runs as if in slow motion towards a room where a boy lays on the ground under a much bigger one with a gun, who points it down and pulls the trigger, and my younger self screams, more out of fury than fright, as blood splatters the glass windows…
I am kissing a boy with short-cropped brown hair in the middle of a dark forest, as if this is the last time I will ever see him…
I am sitting alone at a middle school lunch table, when something large hurtles through the brick walls…
A starving girl grips my fingers and I can say nothing, because I know it will not be alright…
She lifts her finger from my forehead and smiles as I resist falling to the ground. "You are strong."
Yes, I am a Silvien now.

(ALMOST) 1 YEAR LATER
ABANDONED WAREHOUSE, 409 TORKUO STREET, ILLINOIS
BASEMENT, 4:26 PM

"I don't trust you anymore." It is the truth.
Nick gives one short, humorless laugh. "No-one does. Anymore."
I blink slowly. When I opened my eyes, they are turned to the bloody man on the floor, a surprised look coming through on his angry expression. I kick him hard, and his head rolls over on its neck to face the wall.
"He's dead." My tone is emotionless.
"Yes." So is his.
"There was no need to kill him." The conversation was getting dangerous now, but I knew how to play this game.
"Soldier's reflex." He dodges the bullet simply.
"Training doesn't teach you to go for the kill."
"Training doesn't, but the battlefield does. I can't trust anyone." He parries.
The dominant half of me right now, the part that acts on what my brain doesn't know but the rest of me does, settles on a decision. My brain tries to counter, but I shut it down. This Nick, this is not the boy I once knew, he has been changed beyond repair over the last years. I still know how to manipulate him, but I know I shouldn't feel bad about it. Should I?
"No-one?" I say quietly. "Not even me?"
He notices my tone, and the faintest flicker of something draws across his features and darts away, like a shadow. "You just said you don't trust me."
"I don't." I say, talking miniscule steps towards him.
"And you trust me now? You can't be that stupid." He grins nastily. I'm a few inches in front of him, and my seeing side grabs information and throws it together, then moves my body and makes me say the words that are taking me where I want to go. The gun's metal is cold and hard, pressed against my back, and I know I am acting on mere suspicions, that in a few seconds, I could be dead…
"We all do stupid things." I say.
"True." His breath is on my cheek, and it smells like smoke.
I lean in, kiss him on the mouth, and stifle any feelings that attempt to make their way from my conscience to my dormant brain, whether good or bad, but kissing Nick isn't unpleasant. He has soft lips and closes his pale green eyes when he does it, never suspecting. I lean into him, twist my arm around him and reach. My fingers contact cold, corrugated metal, and I shift my weight back. The bullet pierces through his spine with a brittle crack, and into his heart, and Nick dies with his eyes still closed, crumpling to his knees and falling forwards as I back away. I tuck the extra gun into my bag, pull out the one concealed in the back of my jacket, and turn out the lights, leaving a faint glow coming from the doorway. After a few more shots in his general direction to ensure he is not in silent, drawn out pain, although I tell mysef it's to make sure he's dead, I walk briskly away, closing the door behind me, and plunging the two dead bodies in darkness.

A black cat with dark brown stripes and white fur on the tip of his tail joins me on my return trip, but I'm glad he can't speak. No words can help, but I don't need them anyway. I'll survive. The hallways still seem as cold as they first were, grey and duplex white tiles, simple. When I reach the main storage room, Naomi's face is its dependable self, pale and worried. Paler, I should say; her average skin color is white as marble. The cat darts off into the gloom as Naomi breathes a quiet sigh of relief-even after knowing me for this long, she still wasn't sure if I would make it out alive- looks at my blank expression, and shivers. She has never had the bad side of me inflicted on her. No doubt she heard the gunshots from below, though, and hated being stuck up here, unable, but also unwilling to get into a fight. She is a healer, after all, not a warrior. She matches my brisk pace, and I think I hear "sorry" in a whisper as quiet as the wind, but I don't know if she has said this or if I am imagining things, but it doesn't matter, beacuse soon we are walking out into the tiny courtyard surrounded by trees, away, and into the forest beyond, to the place where I cannot be myself anymore.