It was still painfully vivid.

I don't think I will ever forget the screaming, the blood or the gurgled last words of Andre Campell. I hadn't known the guy as much as some of the other hunters had but that didn't change the feeling of guilt that twisted itself like a knife in my stomach. I hated the feeling, I loathed it with every fiber of my being. It was like a playground bully that followed me around and shoved my face into the dirt every time it got the chance.

In the hours of the daylight it was easy to ignore it, to push it aside to focus on everything that was important, but when the darkness spread over the land I think a little of it seeped into my soul and dragged the guilt out to play. All of a sudden it was just like everything I would never talk about was free from the confinements of my mind and was racing through my blood like wild animals free from a zoo.

I hadn't said a word when the other hunters had stood around the dying Andre who was choking on his own guts. I had simply stood there staring at him sickly, selfishly terrified he would tell them what I had done. Instead Andre had only begged we avenged him by killing the alpha shapeshifter. The old lady, Desmedeia as I learned she was called, had immediately taken charge and suggested we hunt in a group to be more efficient. Apparently she had been around the block a few times and knew what she was talking about because everyone else agreed to hunt with her.

I had not wanted to say yes. I had wanted to get up and run as far as I could to get away from that place before anyone had found out what I had done, so instead I had just nodded my head in an attempt to convince them I was just as furious at the shapeshifters as them. I wondered if they would ever find out that the shapeshifter hadn't been the one to land a bullet in Andre's flesh.

No, I decided in a split second, I wouldn't let them. I had covered up secrets in the past, this one would be no different.

They had all booked rooms in the nearest hotel and were planning to convene in the morning to decide what the best course of action was going to be. I wasn't going to be there. I had no idea if they would put it together or they would think I was a victim to some supernatural creature. Quite frankly I didn't care, I was going to be gone by then and I wasn't looking back.

I adjusted the mirror of my car as I tore through the night, speeding down the dark road void of life. Trees stripped of their leaves rose on either side of the road ominously like skeletons reaching upwards from their grave. I was by no means a skilled hunter, or really hardly anything close to a hunter at all, but I knew that dark roads like these were not to be trusted.

I took my eyes off the old, unmarked road for a split second, glancing at the glowing blue numbers on the dashboard. 1:07, I should be struggling to keep my eyes open but the ungodly amount of caffeine I had drank at the restaurant was finally catching up to me, making me feel jittery. That combined with the painstaking guilt that bubbled up in me making me want to scream and the nervosa that trickled through my veins warning me that something was off with the road was the perfect recipe for a sleepless night.

Suddenly the radio began to crackle like rain pounding on your radio. I jumped as lyrics began to play amongst the chaos of the static.

"Hope you got your things together.

Hope you are quite prepared to die.

Looks like we're in for nasty weather.

One eye is taken for an eye."

I did the first thing that came to mind and I began irrationally pounding the radio button trying to get the damn song about my pending doom to shut off. As you may imagine the death tune played on regardless of it being turned off. It took as second for logic to stem its way through my adrenin heightened by far too much coffee and take root in my head reminding me that I knew exactly what was going on.

I could have just stopped the car and done the smart thing, turning around and heading back to the hotel until morning and just slipping away the following night, but that simply wasn't in my nature. I had to destroy everything that could threaten someone else's well being and in the back of my twisted mind I knew that killing something evil would give me a small burst of relief from my burden that was guilt.

I kept driving, my eyes scanning the road for the creature that was out for blood as my hand reached for my canvas messenger bag that held my small but (mostly) effective arsenal. My heart beat faster in apprehension as my fingers closed around the salt gun that I had picked off of Edwin earlier. I had felt kinda bad for 'permanently borrowing' it, but he owned at least twelve. I doubted he would miss it.

She appeared abruptly. One second the road was void of anything and the next she standing unmoving in my headlights like a statue. I could have sworn her cat-like eyes were gazing right through the glare of the blinding lights of my car straight to me, completely unfazed by the sudden light.

I pulled over to the side of the road swiftly and kicked open the door, sending a burst of salt barreling straight into the girl's chest.

She didn't dissolve into a vapor of smoke like she was supposed to. I watched her stumble backwards from the impact, clutching her chest in shock. A small gasp of disbelief escaped her throat as her blue eyes vanished replaced by a black abyss of nothingness. "Gosh. Violant much? I'm a demon, dummy, not a ghost." She said in a sultry voice that was free of any real emotion.

I looked down at the smoking gun in my hands. "Oh." It was the only words my mouth was capable of forming. "Well. If you give me a second to look through my bag I'm sure I can find something that will work on you." I said dumbly, hardly expecting her to comply.

The demon threw her head back and laughed. "Of course I will let you find a weapon that could possibly send me back to Hell. What a great idea. Why don't I do this more often? Oh right. Hell is just a bundle of pain and misery." A small smirk of satisfaction at her own wittiness played across her ruby red lips that glistened a little in the light of car's headlights. "Relax, hunter, I'm a crossroad demon. My only mission is to make your biggest wish come true."

I rolled my eyes. Although I had never met a crossroad demon before I'd actually heard about them. "Yeah, for just ten years until you come around and drag us to Hell for all eternity. Thank's I'll pass." I snorted turning to get back into my car. I stopped after a second a thought hitting me. "Wait, don't you have to be summoned?" I looked over my shoulder at the demon who beamed and nodded her head slightly.

"After I'm summoned I always like to wander around for a while and help out a few other poor souls before I go on my way." The demon said taking a step towards me almost as if she was daring me to ask the question that was begging to leave my lips.

"Who summoned you?" I asked slowly, a weird feeling that I couldn't place settling itself over my body. Somehow I already knew the answer.

The demon's eyes lit up as she placed a hand over her mouthy in a expression of mock surprise. "I must say I never saw it coming, but I was more than willing to make a deal." She grinned devilishly.

"It was a hunter wasn't it?" I asked, slamming my car door shut and walking over to the girl who only looked at me with a coy expression splayed across the features I knew weren't her own.

"Oh, as much as I would love to tell you, Indi, I have client confidentiality. I'm not nearly as low as all you hunters seem to think I am." She smiled and reached forward to gently stroke the skin on my cheek sending slight bolts of electricity arcing through my body. I resisted the urge to slap her.

I glanced toward my car, wishing that I had been able to prepare for this somehow. I wasn't quite sure if it could be attributed to all the caffeine in my system or just the fact my mind was sharp, but it only took me a few seconds to come up with a plan. "What do you want? Besides my soul. That is not up for grabs." I plucked a pen out of my pocket as nonchalantly as possible.

The demon cocked her head to one side making an act of thinking as I began scribbling out a terrible hippo on my forearm. A look of irritability crossed her face,"What are you doing? Stop that."

I looked up, "Please don't mind me. I like to draw on myself when I'm nervous. It clears my head." I finished the hippo and began to loop the pen into shapes on the palm of my hand.

The demon gave me a strange look, the unmistakable look that a sister might give a parent when her younger sibling is being an idiot. "Okay then." The demon spoke a bit haltingly, my behavior quite apparently wasn't something she saw often. "Your soul is really the only thing I want. Such a shame you aren't willing to bargain. I could fix your.... mistakes for you. I could bring Andre back along with your brother, Jose was it? Two for the price of one, that ain't bad at all."

I stopped drawing and looked up at the demon, my brother's name raking my ears like nails on a chalkboard. The demon saw my expression and smiled, "Yes, we know about that. We know how he tried to help you and ended up getting killed, we know your family blames you and hasn't talked to you since and we know how awful it was for you to suddenly be completely alone."

A spark of fury ignited my bones. It was irrational and undirected and it was going to take out anyone who stood too close. "Shut up." I snapped, thrusting my palm at her arm, instantly adhering itself to her skin.

I tried not to smile in satisfaction as the demon's face contorted into a pained expression as a billow of smoke began to leak from the small space between my hand and her arm, billowing into the night sky like a flame. "A miniature devil's trap. This is new." She groaned looking at me with a steely venom in her eye. "Now this put a little damper on my willingness to make a deal with you. Forget it. Your brother is permanently dead, burning in fucking Hell for all danm eternity because of you." She spat, each word stinging like salt in a wound.

The pain that stemmed in my chest only fueled my anger. "Bitch. You're going to regret that." I growled at her, "Exorcizamus te," I started the words I had forced myself to memorize after I had nearly been killed by a demon a month or so ago now. I grinned as the demon's glower intensified.

"You wouldn't dare!" She growled trying to pull away from me only to double over in pain in response. " I could help you!"

I didn't flinch. "Omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica." The demon's head tilted back, the veins bulging in her body, as a plume of black smoke shot from her mouth and disappeared in the night sky. The body of the girl that the demon possessed collapsed to the ground. I touched the girl's neck only to find that it was freezing, void of any life.

I left her there and my eyes scanned the ominous landscape light only by the headlights of my car for a crossroads. It lay only a few yards away, slowly I walked over to the center of it and stood there a second remembering my conversation with the demon, how she had implied one of my fellow hunters had summoned her. I shouldn't have cared. I should have just kept driving, but something inside me just had to know.

I bent forward to my knees and began to shift through the freshly turned dirt with ease. The cold soil turning with ease in my fingers. The demon's offer bounced around in my head demanding an answer as to why I had refused it. I could have saved two people who had lost their lives because of me. I was selfish, I was so fucking selfish.

My fingers hit a wooden box and I pulled it free from the dirt. Apprehensively I opened it, it let out a long, low creak as the hinges squeaked opened. Inside was the regular objects used for summoning a demon, including the picture that I was counting on finding. I couldn't believe the familiar face in the faded picture that looked up at me.

I knew I had to go back.