Chapter 2:2

1769, May 12th

I trained hard. Days passed then ventured into weeks that developed to months and years. Time passed quicker than I had thought it would be, and before I knew it I had been of service to Haytham Kenway for almost four years. With regularly sent letters I told my aunt what I did and what I saw in the big city of New York. Both I and Mr. Kenway had agreed to lie; my aunt would hardly let me join the Templars, even after she was told that they were fighting the killers of my parents. So I had thought up with a white lie that, instead of me training how to rob and stun targets, I was ill for months, after my injury had healed, in a foreign disease that had struck New York. I knew that my aunt had no connections here and would believe what I wrote. It was hard to lie, because I knew I was taking advantage of her and that she was probably worried sick for me. We were the only ones of the Rawlings in the New World. The rest of my relatives had stayed in London, not willing to explore America and its possibilities. I was the only family she had left.

I was taught how to fight older and larger opponents and how I would use their strengths to my advantage. My weapons were few but I learned the vulnerable points on a human body. I also perfected the skill to climb on walls and roofs, how I would feign my innocence and use my environment beneficially. But there was a lot more to learn than just how to fight; Haytham taught me the ways of the Templars, how they were founded and what they had done under all these thousands of years; especially why they were a secret society and who they were feuding with: the Assassins. Mr. Kenway, sparingly, told me of his past but never why he still was in the Colonies. I didn't ask him about it and neither did he bring it up.

He travelled back to the Great Britain, a chilly day in May 1769, and told me that there was nothing more he could teach me. There was but my lack of experience that became his biggest worries but he left me in good spirits, proud of my progress. And while he sailed back to London to "finish some business", I on the other hand, was finally allowed to return to my home. Boston.

"Dear Lord, you made it back!"

I smiled at her but was brutally pushed aside by a passing man. I fell backwards and muddied my clothes; it had rained all April to my content but now I regretted ever wishing for a raindrop.

"Hey, watch out where you're going!"

My aunt hurried to me and helped me up. By the time she had stopped brushing away the mud from my jacket, the man had already vanished.

"People these days," she muttered and gestured for me to open the gates to the building. "They are so angry nowadays; I fear that a revolution is near."

I questioningly looked at her but she shrugged and took my luggage. I opened the door and we staggered up the narrow stairway. The apartment had gone through a whole renovation, with a new paint on its walls and different furniture.

"I thought I was only absent for four years; not a whole decade," I said jokingly and took off my drenched coat and pants. "What has happened?" Do you have a boyfriend?

She suddenly blushed and I saw how she tried to hide it with a sneer.

"Humph, like I wouldn't be able to find my one," she replied and examined me. "Let me see your wound."

I grimaced but obeyed and pulled up the hem of my shirt. The bullet had not gone through my flesh completely – fortunately enough for me, or I would have been dead by now – because of the weapon's poor design and lack of use. For a while I had suffered from blood poisoning, due to the gunpowder flowing into my veins but Mr. Benjamin Church had immediately treated it with nothing less than excruciating pain and a lot of dizzy "not-awake-but-not-asleep" days. I had been in a haze for a couple of weeks during the time when my wound healed, not being able to keep much down, but I was determined to get through with it, alive.

I would bring justice to my family's name and vengeance. Wherever I went I was known as "the poor girl who lost her parents", or "the poor girl who had such an idiotic mother", but there were a lot worse like "the girl with alcoholic parents" or "the girl who was abused by her father and sat the house on fire". People met me with all kinds of different reactions and attitudes. And I hated them all.

"Dear Lord; look at you." She wrinkled her nose and touched my scar. It was a brown, ugly mark on my sternum. "Does it hurt?"

We both knew what she really meant. How did it feel to be shot?

"No, not really," I answered and removed her hand. "The coatee that Alex's parents got for me protected me well."

"Oh yes, now I remember! Alex!" She slapped her forehead with a dirt hand and I tried not to laugh at her stupidity. "You got to see him now! I bet he's waiting for you on the roof. He has been there every day for a week now, since I told him you were on your way home."

I raised my eyebrows at her.

"What's with him?" I asked. I was not keen on meeting him. He had after all left me to fend for myself on that day so long ago. "Does he want to say something?"

She chased me into my room with my luggage on her shoulder.

"I'll get dinner and your stuff ready, just go and meet him," she replied and put her hands on her hips. "You haven't met with him for ages, so why not? Is there something bad between you two?"

I nodded slowly and started to change into some clean clothes, trying not to look her in the eyes.

"Well, I don't know," I admitted reluctantly and brushed my hair with my fingers. "He never answered on any of my letters."

A lie, I had never sought to seek any contact with him since that horrible, but yet so lucky day, when I had been shot. His cowardice had made me feel sick and I knew that I had lost all of that respect he had earned under the time when we were each other's company.

"Oh, really?" I did not like her tone and my heart skipped a beat as she continued. "Because he came to me, crying and really torn up, and asked if you had died. I assured him that you were safe in New York and sending me letters ever so often. I had of course taken for granted that you shared your experience with him as well, but he knew nothing about your well-being."

I swallowed hard and tried to drag on, not wanting to answer her. Of course, he had told her. Alex… I'm so very sorry.

"I…" I started and met her curious gaze. "I... was…"

Suddenly, a knocking came from the window. The world slowed down as I turned my eyes and locked onto him. Alex…