TW: blood and violence 

I'm aware that I'm dreaming.

Speaking to Liam about my family earlier stuck with me more than I realized. It made my mind linger on those unwanted thoughts and memories, and conjure up the image of my family's compound in the woods. 

I stand at the center of it, as if the large property hadn't been burned to ruins. The gravel path that travels across the land was beneath my feet, perfectly manicured. The heat of the sun peeks through the thick and lush trees, and for a second in time, the warmth of the rays feels real. Even the scent of pine that the wind carried made me feel as if I was really here, and not sleeping on the couch in the McCall house.

Old log cabins surround our clearing. The worn exterior gives the illusion of a simple and rustic life to outsiders, all of them none the wiser. In the distance, the crashing of a nearby river sounds, reminding me of the long days my mother would spend with me there, teaching me how to fish in the freshwater.

This was my home; our home. 

"Always got your head in the clouds." 

My body becomes rigid at the dreadful sense of deja vu that occurs because of the voice behind me. It forces me to realize that this was no dream, only yet another nightmare. 

I turn to face the voice's owner, finding my father walking toward me. His peppered hair was slicked back with sweat after being out all day, the heat of the afternoon getting to him as he wore his hunting leather. He smiles anyway, his brown eyes shining with joy as he comes to a stop in front of me.

This was the day I lost him, the day I lost all of them, and my mind wouldn't allow me to stop it. It forces me to relive this and play my part.

"Either the clouds or the mud," I respond as I had that day, my voice lighter because of my youth. 

My father chuckles and wraps an arm around me. Together, we walk toward our cabin that sits at the head of the clearing. 

"When will you take me on a hunt, Papa?" I ask casually, despite being anything but.

I had always wanted to go on hunts with him and my family, but since I was the youngest, everyone was always overprotective. All of my cousins had grown into young men and women, so I was the only child around, and they treated me as such. I learned how to fight and the history of the supernatural, as well as their weaknesses, but that was obviously different than actually being in the field. 

"When your mother lets me, my love," he replied, making me pout. 

My mother wasn't a born hunter. She married my father and became one by association, and she wasn't still a participant in all that we did. That made her more cautious when it came to how I would be inducted into the life, as not every mother can get around the idea of her daughter killing, even if for the greater good. 

If only she could see me now...

My father guides me up the stairs of our cabin's porch. He doesn't go inside yet, and instead approaches its railing. He leans against the wooden posts to stare out at our family's compound, a subtle smile on his face as he observes the scene before him. 

A few of my family members were outside, walking around or doing chores. Some of them were hanging laundry on clotheslines, or taking stray leaves off of the main path. To them, it had been just another ordinary day, with no pressing matters to attend to; blissfully ignorant. 

"You know, I can't ever really learn without some first-hand experience," I tell my father, coming to stand at his side. 

He chuckles, not looking at me. 

"So eager," he mutters adoringly. 

"Werent you at my age?" I fire back. 

My grandmother, before she passed a year prior to my family's decimation, loved to tell me stories of my father's childhood. He was stubborn and never listened to her, and would often be caught doing everything wrong. She told me she even had to once cuff him to a chair to keep him from following her on a hunt. I had always hoped that would make my father more understanding of my pleas, but it didn't. 

"If I could take you, I would," my father says quietly, almost whispering. 

The screen door to our cabin swings open after he speaks, signaling that the one person who shouldn't have overheard him, heard him. 

"But you can't," my mother says, scowling at my father. 

When people die, their faces are lost, never to be seen again unless in photographs. The fire the Alpha Pack made rid me of any mementos like that, but I still saw my mother every time I looked in a mirror. I had her lengthy and dark hair, and her piercing stare of hazel. The only thing that I got from my father was my height and the light spray of freckles across the brim of my nose, but other than that, I was a carbon copy of her. 

"Hello, dear," my father greets warmly, moving toward her. He purses his lips in waiting for a kiss that never comes. My mother rolls her eyes at him and reaches up to push his face away from hers lightly. 

I can't help but laugh at that, and my father's disgruntled reaction. 

"Theo, I told you not to fill her head with ideas," my mother says scoldingly. 

My father bows his head with mild shame, only backing down because he knew he couldn't win this argument. When he's dealt with, my mother puts her sights on me. She comes forward, kneeling in front of my smaller frame. 

She reaches out and adjusts the braid that hung on my shoulder, having been the one to put my hair into such a style earlier in the day. She had always been the one to do my hair, wanting to keep it out of my face when I trained. Her nimble fingers would work through the thick strands with expert skill. When she died, I had to learn how to do it myself, and eventually found some solace in the simple action of threading my hair. 

"You're not going on a hunt until you're of age, Jacqueline," she says sternly. 

"I'm eleven, I'm practically an adult," I argue defiantly, unaware at the time of how ridiculous that sounded. 

My mother laughs in return, making me turn red with embarrassment. I shift away from her to hide my face but she pokes at my chin so I would turn back. 

"You'll be a hunter when the time comes," my father says from over her shoulder. 

I frown, still dissatisfied. "I just want to be strong like you." 

"You are, my love," he says without hesitation. "You have the blood from the first Knight coursing through your veins, it's your destiny to lead us, but only when you're ready."

I nod numbly to myself, having heard this lecture from my father countless times before. I wish I hadn't taken him and my mother's teachings for granted, as I was completely unaware that would be the last time. 

"Theo!" a voice shrieks from the trees. 

The three of us turn, watching a woman stumble into our clearing. It gathers the attention of everyone outside, and also those who had been indoors but heard her powerful scream. The woman's skin is dark and covered in blood from deep gashes across her form, with her eyes glowing gold. 

"Alice?" my father gasps. 

He races down the stairs toward her, while my mother grabs me, pulling me against her in a protective hold. It's not because of Alice, but because of whatever had done that to her. 

Alice belonged to a pack from a town near our land. They were a docile group and often would help my family with stray werewolves that ventured close to town and brought nothing but trouble. They were our allies. 

My grandmother didn't see wolves as the enemy and raised my father not to either. They would sometimes count on wolves for aid with creatures that actually deserved to be hunted. When was with Gerard and Kate, they had convinced me my family was foolish for such a belief and that's what got them killed. It took me years to realize how wrong they were. 

Alice collapses in my father's grasp, and both of them fall to the ground together. A few others rush to their side, one of them being my Uncle Henry, my father's brother. He was the healer of our family and acted quickly, his large hands going to cover the deepest wound on Alice's abdomen. He assesses the damage, and it's immediately clear that he can see not even her advanced healing would be able to save her. 

"Who did this to you?" Henry asks her, desperate for answers as she slips away.

"The Demon Wolf." Alice's voice shook with fear and she reached out to clutch my father's hand tightly, forcing him to look into her eyes.

"He's coming." 

With that warning, the gold in Alice's eyes dulls, and the wind takes away her last breath. There's no time to mourn her as a guttural roar rips through the woods. Birds scatter from the branches they rest on, flying west to safety. If only we could've gone with them. 

My father stands, handing off Alice's body to Uncle Henry. 

"Go to your positions!" he commands those around him. "Get ready to defend yourselves!" 

The crowd disperses, everyone going to their designated defensive areas. My father climbs the stairs again, his hand that isn't coated with Alice's warm blood going to my mother's cheek. 

"Emilia, take her to the bunker." 

"Papa, no," I refuse instantly. My mother closes her eyes briefly at the desperation that drips from my words. 

My father bends his knee so we can be face to face, and forces a smile for my sake. I can see through it and the way his eyes glaze over. He doesn't allow any tears to fall, though. He remains the defining and powerful pillar of our family, even now, because it's his duty. 

"Please," I whisper. 

"You have to go, my love. It will be okay, I promise," he tells me gently. 

We both know his words are a lie. 

He presses a rough kiss to the side of my head before rising, his attention falling on my mother. She clutches me tightly, as if trying to ground herself and find the strength to walk away from my father, a true sign of her devotion to him, as she wasn't a fighter. My mother may have educated herself on patterns in supernatural behavior, but that was to respect our family traditions. She wasn't the type to stand on the front line.

"I won't leave you," she tells my father. He grins at her, a special smile, one only meant for her. 

"You never will," he says as he leans forward, kissing her for the last time.

He pulls back, having to be the one to break the connection. His hands go to his waistband, reaching to pull out the pistol he always carried before descending the steps again. At the end of it, he glances over his shoulder, sharing one last look with my mother and I before joining the rest of our family as they create a defensive line around the clearing. 

He knew this would be it, in truth. My father was a smart man that understood his enemy and could admit when the odds were against him, a lesson he taught me. He always knew when his time would come, and he always fought anyway. To die for something, especially for family, was the most honorable thing a soldier could do.

My mother takes a final breath before dragging me away, pulling me into our cabin. She ignores the way I call and sob for my father, especially when the gunfire starts to blare across the compound. Our land had officially become a warzone, and it was no longer a place for a child to belong. 

We travel to a specific area in the living room where an aged rug covers part of the floor. My mother yanks it away, revealing the outline of a wide square that separated a section of the floorboards. She uses her nails to dig into the sides of the deep cracks and lifts the section of connected planks to reveal a metal hatch door beneath our home. There's a keypad there, only our family is privy to its code. 

18-5-14-5

My mother punches it in quickly before grabbing at the handle to open our only means of refuge. She forces me to climb inside first and descend the waiting ladder in the narrow space, probably scared I would run back outside if she let me out of her sight. 

The passage takes me into the foyer entrance of our bunker. It's a small room that only serves as a means not to have direct access to the actual protected and sealed room. My mother joins me a few seconds later, shutting the overhead hatch after her. We both stand before the towering metal door that separates us from the protected room on the other side, another keypad and wheel that would turn the inner workings of the locking mechanism staring back at us. 

My mother punches in the same code as the pad above, then twists the handles of the wheel. The gears within the door click until finally popping and the unit unlocks, and my mother grunts strenuously as she pushes at the door, allowing us both to enter. 

This bunker was meant to be used for emergencies, storage, and housing supernatural creatures. A specialized cell sat amongst the crates and shelves of weapons. Its walls were made of hecatolite and its foundation was mountain ash. The bulletproof glass that peered inside of it was also lined not only with security wire, but fibers of wolfsbane and mistletoe. 

This place was meant for unwanted things and it hardly felt like a haven. The air was stale and recycled, and the only source of illumination came from dim and spotty floodlights. 

"Mama, I'm scared," I cry to her as she shuts the door, locking us away. 

She shushes me, guiding me to a nearby crate to sit me down. She crouches in front of me, running a tender hand over my head as she puts on a brave face. It's not entirely convincing as I can feel her palms shaking, and hear her breathing stutter. 

"You're okay, we're okay," she says. "I won't let anything happen to you." 

We sit together for a few minutes. She holds me to her chest, her arms tight around me. I hold onto her, dread consuming us as we both wonder what's left of our family, and what will become of us. 

An abrupt boom echoes into the bunker from above. We both flinch at the sound as we realize what it means. The bunker was deep underground, so if we were able to hear anything from the surface, our enemies had found us, and the hatch had been breached. Only a couple of seconds later does the main door to the room quake from the heavy impact of a hit. I shriek out of horror, as it sounds like thunder. The loud banging continues, endless hammering coming from the other side of the door. Someone was trying to tear it down. 

My mother grabs me from the crate, backing us away from the only entrance. I don't pay attention to where she leads us and bury my face into her side. I didn't want to see any of this. I didn't want to see our end draw near. All I cared about was being with my mother, a twisted sense of gratitude filling me for the fact that she was with me, and we could die together. 

That notion ends as my mother shoves me away. 

I stumble onto the floor, landing on my hands and knees. I'm stunned at first, as my mother never used such force on me ever, but my shock fades as I take in my surroundings. She had pushed me into the open cell of the bunker and promptly shut the door behind me. 

"No!" I scream, lunging for the unbreakable glass, trying to run out before she seals me away from her. It's no use, and my small body only collides with the door, trapped. 

"I won't let anything happen to you," my mother repeats herself, her words holding far more weight than before. 

She knew that if these cells could keep the monsters in, they could keep them out, too. 

She walks away from the cell, grabbing one of the short-barreled rifles that hung on a gun rack nearby. Without any hesitation, she stands ready across the door to the room as it starts to bend and moan. The pounding on the other side grows louder, and I can make out the imprints of fists embedding themselves in the strained metal. 

"Please, Mama, I don't want to be alone," I cry out, desperate. 

My sobs only grow from there, but my mother doesn't listen. She understood that those monsters on the other side wouldn't have turned away if both of us were unobtainable to them. They would have considered it taunting, their prey just out of reach, and would have stopped at nothing to finish us all off. But her being out there, face to face with an evil that would consume her, it was enough to buy me my life. It was enough to satiate their desire for blood. 

The door finally snaps from its hinges after enduring minutes of abuse, flying from the threshold and dropping to the floor with a disastrous thud. My mother instantly rains fire into the open passage. It's too dark for me to see what's on the other side yet, but I catch glimpses of red eyes leering at her hungrily. My mother doesn't back away, though. She yells fiercely with every shot she delivers, the flash of the rifle's muzzle acting like seconding counting down to her final moments. 

My mother wasn't a fighter. She never hunted wolves or found interest in weapons. Her path in life had always been about peace and forgiveness, but she relinquished that all in hopes of saving me. My mother wasn't a fighter, but she was still the strongest person I ever knew, and not even the monsters could take that away.

Kali, as I would come to know her, darted out from the cover of darkness and lunged for my mother. She kicked at her wrists after dodging her shots efficiently, the claws on her feet tearing into my mother's arm.

Her agonizing screams fill the room, and the rifle slips from her hands. She uses her freed grip to clutch at the deep lacerations before Kali kicks at her again, sending her flying. My mother collapses and Kali marches forward, placing one of her clawed feet onto her chest to keep her pinned town. Her wide-set red eyes rise to look at me in the cell, and a devious grin grows on her face that was splattered with crimson. 

My terror keeps me silent, especially when Ennis enters, his height requiring him to duck in order to pass through the doorway. His knuckles were shredded and his skin was slowly knitting itself back together. It was clear he had been the one to bust the door down, his body covered with sweat, and blood. Some of it his, some my family's. 

"Well, what do we have here?" a conniving voice says from behind him. 

Deucalion follows Ennis inside, his skin dark as charcoal and his face mutated with his bones sculpting into something beyond human. Bullets clatter to the ground as they're pushed out of his healing body, but he doesn't bat an eye. It's only an inconvenience for him. I can't help but sob again at the sight, having never seen such a physical embodiment of chaos before. I had grown up on stories of Demon Wolves and seen drawings, but never did I think would I look at one with my own two eyes. 

The color of his skin returns to its usual shade as he walks into the bunker further, taking note of my mother and I. He doesn't deem us as worthy threats and doesn't feel the need to show his true visage. He and his companions alone are enough to intimidate us. Odd sounds come from his skin and bones as he shifts back to his normal appearance, and his fogged-over eyes dart across the space aorund him. 

Ennis moves toward me in the cell, his hand reaching for the handle. He's swiftly met with the glowing barrier of mountain ash the foundation was built on, making him hiss in pained surprise and yank his hand away. 

Deaculion, however, scoffs. He passes Ennis and takes out his walking stick from a deep pocket of his pants and unravels it, extending the device to its full length. 

"Hunters." He uses the end of the stick to hit the keypad. "So primitive."

"Care to give me the numbers, Knight?" he asks my mother teasingly. 

"Go to hell, demon," she spat, glaring up at him. 

Deucalion chuckles as he waves his hand in Kali's direction. She accepts the silent order and presses her clawed foot into my mother's chest, emitting high-pitched wails. My mother tries to push against her, but Ennis goes to aid his fellow Alpha and pins her to the floor. It's hardly a fair fight but they don't care. They take pleasure in her pain. 

"Stop, please!" I beg through heavy cries. 

They do, but only when Deucalion clicks his tongue to call them off. He had them wrapped around his finger, even back then. 

After that, his cloudy eyes focus on my general direction. 

"My child, you have an incredibly important decision to make," he says softly, almost kind. 

"You can tell us the code, and I'll gladly let you die with your mother." He taps the keypad once more. "Or you can watch her die from in there, and waste away, all alone." 

My mother moans in agony and refusal, making him cast her an annoyed side-eye. 

"Your entire family is dead," Deucalion tells me. "I'm being merciful with this offer." 

I look at my mother as she lay on the floor. Her honey complexion fades to white as her blood exits her body and coats the concrete. Life is leaving her, and we're running out of time. She and my father always claimed I would be great one day, but I couldn't imagine being anything without them. 

My lips start to move, forming the numbers, but my mother interrupts the action. 

"Mon coeur," she breathes out brokenly. "You are never alone." 

Her words assure me of what I have to do. 

I choke back another cry that wanted to force itself out of my throat as I fall against the glass, my hands pressing into the surface. I stare into my mother's eyes, silent. Despite her injuries, she smiles. It's because she understands that I wasn't going to allow Deucalion to do to me, what he was about to do to her. 

The wolf sighs above me, disappointed that his game was gaming to an end. 

"I gave you a choice, little one. Next time, choose better." 

Without another word, Kali and Ennis lift my mother to her knees. They shove her along so she was directly in front of me on the other side of the glass. Her beautiful smile remains as she looks upon me, even as the shadow of Deucalion's clawed hand is cast on her face, coming down across her neck. 

"Mama!" 

I scream louder than ever before as she's taken from me. Kali and Ennis let her go as her death is instant, letting her limp body fall against the cell. Her eyes are wide as she continues to gaze at me, a fading and morbid smile still on her lips. 

"Well, there won't be a next time, really," Deucalion adds snidely. 

Kali and Ennis smirk in unison with him. The three of them are satisfied with what they've done; accomplished. They begin to approach the doorway, leaving me to rot with my mother while they get to move on with their lives. They had ripped away my entire world within minutes, and it meant nothing to them. 

I felt a rage grow inside me, unlike anything I had ever felt before. 

They had no idea what they created by taking my family from me. They had no idea what path they were about to set me on. 

"Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent," I whisper, knowing they heard it. The tears that slip down my face as I speak feel hot, boiling from the flame of vengeance that sparks within me. 

Deucalion pauses, turning his head to the side to give a small bit of acknowledgment.

"As if you'll ever get the chance," he replies, his lips curling with cruel amusement.

They leave after that, the massacre of my family only a pit stop to them.

I began to strike at the glass as time passed. I was desperate to be with my mother as her body just sat there. Each punch brought a disturbing sense of peace to me, too. My fists became raw and bruised but I kept going, unable to see any other way for solitude. I used my hatred to fuel my survival, that day, and every day that followed. 

My movements falter as I feel an odd pressure on my wrists. The sensation makes me nauseous as it feels like someone was holding onto me. I couldn't handle the thought of another person's touch at a time like this, so I start to slap my own arms to get them away. My efforts only make the pressure tighten. I resort to shaking violently, trying to push the warm touch away, but it wouldn't relent. 

"Jac, it's okay," a distant voice says to me, but I'm unable to focus on it. 

My hands curl into fists, craving freedom from that touch by any means necessary. 

"Jac!"

A sharp, piercing pain in my side pulls me from my nightmare. I'm no longer in the cell, I'm back in the McCall living room and Liam is pinned beneath me on the couch, his eyes wide as my fist is raised in the air, about to strike him. 

~

||| A/N |||

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