[Snoop Dogg voice] Greetings loved ones, let's take a journey!

During wintertime, the frontier was a sweeping landscape of naked branches and constant, blistering snowfalls. There is a certain allure to the ivory ground, almost as if a force of nature managed to wrangle the sun and sprinkle it over the earth.

Branches complain and break under the wagon caravan's wheels. There are three in the line, the lead filled with food supplies, furs, and salt. In the center, soldiers joke and curse and clean their weapons – some aim at the rough canvas of the final wagon, shooting holes in the fabric to see who has the best shot.

The final wagon contains a family of five. Josephina and Nico Flores jointly encircle their arms around their youngest child Mariella, who screams in terror when each bullet rips through the canvas. A large flake of snow drifts through one of the holes and lands on a tuft of Nico's beard. He coos at the frightened baby while squeezing the shaking hand of his wife. Jo chokes back a sob, brushes the snowflake from her partner's face. Both look towards the opposite side of the wagon, watching as their other two children hang their feet from the tongue, wrapped in furs and wool.

Eliza, the oldest at twenty-three, struggles with the layers of wool covering her arm and adjusts the thick scarf enveloping her neck. Benjamin, a disabled child of two, shivers violently.

"Hush, Benji. Hush and come here." Eliza commands, nodding her head.

Fortunately, he obeys, murmuring her name with his chronically stuttering tongue. Eliza wraps her arm around his shoulders, tucking him against her side and stroking his hair gently.

"Red."

"Yes, I know," his elder sister replies, "but they are accompanying us for our protection. Good men, red."

"Eli. No." He says stubbornly, bringing closed fists up to his ears. Eliza takes them in her own cold-nipped fingers and gently takes them away.

"Don't be obstinate, Benjamin," she scolds, blowing a raspberry on his plump cheek. He giggles and bats her away.

"Aho! Men, stop your damned target practice!" Her father suddenly shouts, peer his head out of the front of the wagon. He is met with jeering calls and curses, throwing back a few of his own. Eliza's mother places her fingers on his forearm, squeezing gently and placating his anger.

"They're taking care not to hit any of us, Nico. Morale is low and it's miserable out here." But, despite her hard-set jaw and stony hazel eyes, her lips quiver and her voice is dangerously close to shaking. While she speaks, a large chunk of snow falls through the top of the canvas and plops onto Nico. He shakes with fury and glances up towards the sky through the rip. None of the children notice the look of pure hatred in his eyes, but Jo does. "Nico, what is it?"

Eliza and Benjamin both scream when the wagon suddenly lurches forward, traveling at a much faster pace than before. Snow kicks up from the wheels and splatters Eliza's shoes.

"Father, what is going on?" She calls back, sending her parents a quick peek over her shoulder.

And everything begins to slow. Her mother shouts her name and passer Mariella to her, who screams when Eliza clutches at her tiny form. Nico stands, grappling with a pair of arms that have reached into the wagon, clutching at his shoulders and arms. Jo stands and a gleam of silver flashes in her hand – before she knows it, Eliza is watching a bleeding man being pulled into the wagon. "Who sent you? Tell me, Templar. Why are you here, threatening my family?" he shouts, shaking the man by his coat collar. Jo holds a blade to his neck, eyes narrowed and dark with an anger Eliza cannot fathom, her curly hair in a frenzy.

"¡Cuidado!" Eliza screams, watching in horror when another pair of arms rips through the canvas behind her mother and latches onto her like a pair of claws. Jo shouts in rage and lurches forward towards the opposite side of the wagon. Eliza feels as if the world has just turned upside down so she clutches Mariella tighter to her chest and grabs hold of Benjamin's overalls.

When Eliza manages to ward off the strange vertigo that wavers around her vision, she stumbles backward in terror. There are shouts and screams and gunshots and the metallic hiss of blades striking together.

"You are growing flojo in your old age, mi esposa!"

Eliza turns to the sound of her father's voice in time to see him swing his arm, sword gracefully cutting a wide arc through the air to decapitate one of the mysterious "Templars". She tries to hold back the whimpering scream building in her throat, but Mariella's crying causes her to fail. She grabs for Benjamin, taking the strap of his overalls and tugging violently. He lands in her lap and she immediately tries to quiet him with pleasant words, but he must sense the terror in her voice and face. The low, whining sound he emits is an indicator of an upcoming episode, so she rocks him as gently as she can until he quiets.

Eventually the noises of battle stop and footsteps begin in her direction. Not knowing if her parents have fallen, she quickly hands Mariella to her brother and kisses him on the forehead. Her fingers close around the flintlock pistol of a fallen soldier and she leaps from the cover of the overturned wagon.

"¡Dios mío! Mi pequeño zorro, it is only me."

"Look at her, Nico. Already knows her way around a pistol."

Eliza lowers the weapon but her astonishment must shine clear on her expression because both her parents burst into laughter. It's quite a sight – her mother's face is speckled with blood and her father brushes what looks to be part of a man's skull from his shoulder. "We're sorry to scare you, but-"

"There is…much we should explain. I believe we-"

"Have hidden too much from you." Her father finishes, rubbing a palm over his face. Eliza watches when her mother clucks and wipes it with the hem of her ripped skirt.

"It was for your safety, mi corazón."

"For the safety and peace of the family." Nico adds, smirking at his wife as if the phrase is a long-time joke between the two. Jo crouches to pick Mariella up, cooing soft words and singing a lullaby. The sight causes Eliza's stomach to flip uncomfortably, and she stumbles off the path. While she empties her stomach her father comes up to stand behind her, encouraging rubbing her back. "A normal reaction, mi zorro. Take your time."

She does, twining her arms around her torso as if she can hold the swelling nausea in. Benjamin teeters over to mimic their father's reaction.

"Rojo."

Eliza wipes her mouth and turns to the disheveled road, gleaming white snow now imperfect with crimson spatters and fallen souls. "Yes, Benji, there's…a lot of red."

Nico clears his throat awkwardly. "That is your mother's fault. She is merciless." His wife backhands him across the arm.

"Those bastardos." Jo grumps. She crosses towards Eliza, lifting a palm and settling it on her jaw. Eliza leans into her motherly touch, seeking the warm comfort and hoping to open her eyes from a nightmare. "My dear, I wouldn't ask you to do such a gruesome task if it weren't for my confidence in your maturity."

"Loot the damned Templar corpses, and then help your mama and me pack the undamaged wagon. We need to get out of this cold. ¡Vete a la mierda esta tierra!"

Jo gives him a stern look before nodding to her daughter. Benjamin reaches his chubby fists up to her when she draws near.

"At least we know where to go, Nico."

"Ah, I take it the wise lady knows where we are?"

"Between New York and Boston, my wise husband."

"And just how do you figure this as true?"

Eliza can hear the smugness in her mother's voice; can almost see the triumphant, familiar smirk that is gracing her mouth. "I have been updating my map since we passed the Gila River."

The silence, a rare feat for her father speaks volumes of his admiration, but lasts only seconds before he bursts into laughter.

"In that case, I know exactly where we should head."

Eliza stares at her parents. She suddenly cannot recognize them, though surely their personalities remain the same. They joke and tease as always – and yet they stomp over dead and dying men with the respect a bird pays to territory borders. She stands there, in a small hill of snow and blood, before the cold begins to nip at her fingers and the anger nearly hits them back up.

"You killed them all." She shouts, storming towards her father. A pair of hands grasps her wrists, which make jagged motions in the air as she tries to free herself.

"You're both murderers. How can you keep such a thing from me? How could you put us in danger like this?"

Her father looks close to tears, hands still and useless at his sides, but her mother's chin is held high. Bouncing Mariella on her hip and she moves towards Eliza, motions cautious yet demanding respect.

"There are forces here that you don't understand. You will, I promise."

"Perhaps sooner than we'd like," Nico chimes in, "but we swear it."

Eliza nearly throws her arms up in the air, frustration, repulsion, and distrust boil her insides. "Have you looked around? These people are dead by your hand. You feel so little remorse; what if I don't want to know? What if I don't want to understand?"

A long pause passes between the three, parents and child facing off in a game of desperation and emotion. Finally, Jo sighs, breath heavy with guilt and eyes begging for her daughter to find some amount of comfort in her next words. "The weight of each weighs heavy on my shoulders. The guilt we feel is as dangerous as what we must do, and if we cannot separate ourselves from it, if we cannot control it, it will consume us."

"Please understand, mi zorro, that if there was another solution, we would try for it."

"But these are bad men," her mother says, and Eliza allows her to step closer, though she is still wary. The way she must act around them now, suspicious of every movement, makes hatred wash through her soul – hatred for herself. "These are bad men and they must be punished."

"With power, they would conquer the nation-"

"The world."

Eliza jabs her finger towards the corpse of a cloaked man. He looks young and scared and innocent. Surely he begged for his life. "And what of him? What of this man, who must have had children and parents and a wife? Was this man so consumed with bloodlust that he wished for the world in his hands?"

Jo steps forward, handing the wriggling infant to her husband as she passes him, and kneels next to the man. She whispers a phrase of passing to him, one so calming that even angry spirits would not seek vengeance. Her hands pass lightly over his eyes, closing them so that he may pass. "There is respect for those who are loyal," she says quietly, slipping a shiny silver ring from the man's finger. Jo holds the accessory between thumb and forefinger, as if she is repulsed by the very presence of it. "But however loyal the Templars are to their cause," she continues, holding the ring in one hand and Eliza's chin in the other, "they deserve no respect."

"They only thing they deserve is death," her father says.

The symbol on the face of the ring unsettles her, despite its simplicity. A red cross, outlined with a bold black outline. The harshness of the design seems to awaken something in her, something that stirs her mind and pushes for her to be wary. Her mother and father are both enveloped in a faint blue cloud, nearly invisible if it were not for the stark contrast of snow behind them. The ring in her hand seems to burn red; not crimson, not the deep, warm rojo her mother's dress. But a blood red, a corrupt red, a venomous red.

She feels the sudden urge to throw the object as far as she can or bury it miles beneath the ground.

"History lessons are not to be taught in the middle of a snowstorm-"

"But you will learn of our order in time."

She wants to trust her parents, and in a way she maintains her childlike sense of wonder at their wisdom. If they wanted to kill her they would have taken the opportunity long ago. Eliza doesn't think her parents capable of such an act; until a few minutes ago, she didn't think her parents capable of murder, either. They have been devoted and tender protective all her life, hard-working and caring if not a bit secretive. There are many reasons to distrust them, many reasons to flee into the woods and find shelter…But there are many more to stay.

Eliza kneels and presses her fingertips to the snow-dusted eyelids of a boy soldier lying not far from her toes, gracing his journey into the next world with whispered words.

"Seguridad y la paz."

Thanks for reading, this is my first work uploaded to the FF community. Leave a review and let me know what you think of it so far?