The Chronicles of L.J. Stevans: Part 16. Rebecca Hundley

The Chronicles of L.J. Stevans: Part 16. Rebecca Hundley

Hello Once Again Friends,

Much has happened over the last six months, first the town of Gastings has been completely destroyed. However, we were able to send warning so they didn't loose many people in the razing of the small fishing village. At the request of the men of Gastings, the families, being women and children have been sent to a safe, private and fairly secret location. This allowed the 120 or so men to ride with us. We needed numbers for this upcoming war, Gastings was the first town to provide us with some. I appointed John Simmons to lead and look after these men, fore I am not a micro-manager, truth be told I'm not much of a General either, but desperate times...right.

My Uncle Thomas and Cousin Mathew are now dead as you know, both of them by my hand. It's kind of funny when you think about, there is such little trust among the Family, that Thomas followed and basically spied on his own son. For doing so, he lost his life along with his sons. Whenever I have taken the life of a Family member, it has been met with a tirade laden post from my Father. This time there was nothing but silence, which truth be told scares me even more. Just as the Historian predicted, my Father has gone under ground and into hiding, I don't know what he is planning but I would be a fool if I took this action by him and wrote it off as a weakness. My Father may be a lot of things but weak is certainly not one of them.

OH yeah, how could I forget. I am 30 years younger now! This is by far the craziest thing to happen to me yet. My Grandfather...The Historian, gave me this gift for stopping my Cousin and Uncle. He said I wouldn't be able to finish my mission without more time. I am now starting to come to grips with all of this. Don't get me wrong, I don't miss the aching body, the tired and sore back, the weakness, along with everything else that comes with age. I especially don't miss the regressing reflexes and agility. Still this is all a bit much to take in all at once. I always knew there were “strange” things out in the world, but this, this pushes the limit of “strange”.

Yet another one of my houses has been burned to the ground, I really liked this one too. I know there are a lot of bigger, more important and dangerous things going on around me right now. But I would like to take a quick moment to pay respects to my fallen houses.......OK, now I feel better. All joking aside, I lost everything I had in regards to Vanessa, along with countless other irreplaceable items but I guess it was time to start anew. I am sure many of you are wondering how I made it out of the fire alive. Well that leads me into an introduction.

To best accomplish that, I must take you back to the end of my last post.....

…..”I am Rebecca Hundley, Jack's Daughter.” That one sentence she said to me almost knocked me over. She went on to explain to me that 25 years ago, on one of his routine informant checks, Jack met a women and he was quite enamored with her. He started seeing her as often as he could and, well to make a long story short, it turns out that even at his age at the time, a child was not out of the question. I was now talking to he proof of that fact. At this point I would like to hand the story over to Rebecca, she can tell her tale much better than I can.

-------------REBECCA SITS DOWN---------------

Hello world,

As L.J. said, I am Rebecca Hundley-Stevans. Before you start asking about that last addition to my name let me catch you all up on how everything happened. Over the years my Father would come to my town quite often, sometimes 4-5 times a month. When he did he would bring money to help my mom, as well as finding time to teach me a new skill. When I was old enough he told me everything about what he did. After some time he made me promise that if he were to die then I would go to L.J. and help him in his cause …. so I did. As soon as I got word of his passing I started making my way to L.J. But I was very far away, so I knew it would take time. Fate is a funny thing, I got there the very day he was to be attacked by his Cousin and Uncle. I slipped into Ellen's ranks and disguised myself, then all I had to do is wait for my moment. A man by Ellen's side was told to go into the house to see what was happening. He came back and whispered something to her, it must have been bad news because she went off like a rocket, she went as far as to even kill the messenger. She then yelled to her men to set the house on fire. With that, she rode away in a fit of anger, thus giving me the opening I needed.

I got myself out of the group even easier than I got in. As soon as the fire was roaring, the rest of the men left. That's when I made my move inside. I searched the building and after what seemed like hours in the inferno, I found someone. He didn't strike me as L.J., the man before me was young, couldn't be any older than myself. As far as I knew Logan was into his 50's. However since he was the only person still alive, I dragged him out of the burning house and put him in the back of my Van. After he awoke, we both explained and introduced ourselves to each other, we discussed what happened to us that led us to that moment. With that finished we knew we must move quickly so we were on our way.

We knew we were too late to help Gastings, but since they were closest we had to go try. Once we got there we saw the destruction that had befallen this town. As we assessed the ruins, a man stopped us and told us to move on and not stay in this place of death. L.J. stepped in front to try and explain himself, after a brief conversation they walked back over to me, Logan introduced the man as John Simmons, an old friend of his. He told us that he and the men of this town wanted to join us and seek out the ones responsible for this destruction, thus preventing it from happening again to another town. With that we had the beginnings of an army. We made haste to Milton, the other town that was to be destroyed. Lucky for them, on this occasion we arrived in time to help.

We ambushed the would-be arsonists, dispatched them rather handily and continued on. We set up operation there in town, for the time being it was the safest and most secure place we knew of. So we came to the conclusion that it would be a very good command center. It also gave us the ability to protect these people from future attacks. Once we got settled, Logan went to look for Alexandra, one of the first people he had ever helped. When he got to her house he was given the news that she had died 5 months before after a serious bout of pneumonia. Logan did not take this news lightly. At this point, I was starting to get to know him very well. I knew it hurt him so bad to lose another person in his life. I tried to console him. He said he just didn't understand why any women he comes in contact with and cares about always seemed to die. I tried to tell him that death was a part of life and it had nothing to do with him, he was putting too much guilt on his shoulders. As I was calming him, I began to see the beauty of the man both inside and out. I saw the hurt he had gone through. I wanted to be with him to help him love again, as well as show him the love and emotion I was beginning to feel towards him. I gathered the courage to take a chance, I gently leaned in and kissed him. I am not really sure why, but I knew it was not as simple as me just getting lost in the moment. A new love was growing, one I just hoped he would accept.

I have to turn the story back over to L.J. Now, I have some matters to attend to.

-------------------L.J. -------------------------------

As she said, I was totally devastated by the death of Alexandra , I just couldn't bare any more loss. As I was playing with the idea of closing everyone out of mt heart, Rebecca did an odd thing....She kissed me, when she did I felt....sparks. I haven't felt like that since Vanessa. Over the next 4 months our relationship evolved into a very strong love. It seemed right to me, she was a very similar person on many levels with Vanessa. It was as if the best qualities Vanessa had were mixed with best of my own and that created Rebecca. I will never know if Jack would approve but I would like to think that he would. It was right around the 4th month or so when we discovered that she was with child. We married that day in a very small ceremony. I was going to have a second chance at a family I lost in what seemed ages ago. Even with these new additions in my life, the mission would not change. Having a family is a hard thing for people like me, as great as it is to love and be given love back in return. It also places more responsibility on me. I knew I was going to keep them safe, I would not lose another family, I will not allow it again.

With Father in hiding and both sides building for the war we all know is coming, we are left with only one option. The gloves are off, if any members of the Family get in my way they will no longer be shown mercy, we tried to do it the easy way, but that time is now past. We have to find my Father and end this. The only way we can do this is ask the people closest to him, The Family, So be ready, soon we make our move, and while I do not know where this road may lead us. I know exactly where to start. And that would be the last person I knew for certain got an order from him. Ellen it is time you paid for your actions.

L.J. Stevans