Val was in the living room when the two figures approached her. A woman and a man. Her vision was blurry and she might not have been able to distinguish their faces, but she knew them all too well, for they had been haunting her dreams for the past two weeks.

It was always the same; like an everlasting play in a theater. The same moves, the same people, the same outcome. Figurines dancing a ferocious dance.

The two abruptly stopped and turned their heads to their right, where another one appeared. Another man. She always felt a connection between her and the two but it didn't make sense — how a dream could hold such power over her. She liked to fantasize about who they might be but it never took long to declare it nonsense and move on. A dream. That's all it was.

The woman stood protectively before her while the two men lunged at each other. The third figure had a menacing air about him, one she couldn't fully understand. And it had nothing to do with him bleeding all over the house.

His anger and bloodlust were coming out in waves, pulsing with animalistic need. But there was some small part of him, some dwindling thought that seemed to bring out some kind of softness in him; only to be snuffed out by an ever-growing hatred. The woman took her in her arms, holding her tight, as she witnessed the two men change forms, shifting to what could only be described as wolves.

Very big wolves.

She was both the person being held by the woman and a watcher. She could see from all angles, feel what everyone was feeling — but it was all too hazy. The emotions blurred together and knotted in a way that any kind of attempt to read them only caused a headache. But there was one feeling she could clearly distinguish — fear.

Val's eyes started to burn and she squeezed them shut, opening them only when she felt the absence of the woman's warmth.

Last thing she saw was the wolf's teeth closing in on her, and then all went black.

Val opened her eyes and instantly regretted it, raising her arm to block the sun's blinding light and inhaling deeply. She lazily raised her torso just enough to lie on her elbows and looked around. She sighed.

The ground was wet as she pushed herself up. The mud had stuck on her pajamas and a section of the front — already dry — had started to peel off in small, ashy chunks.

It had long stopped being a surprise. Ever since she and Daphne moved into this damned town, she'd been waking up at this exact spot every day. Locked doors, windows, nothing worked. She was sleepwalking, probably stressed from the moving — that's what she was told. But no one could explain how she got past all those locks — and so silently that is.

Try and settle in, that should help, Emma — a colleague of Daphne's from the hospital — had told her. Easier said than done, Emma.

Val looked around.

The trees formed a wide circle around her, spreading for what looked like miles. This clearing was probably one of the very few parts of the forest without trees, abundant with grass, various sizes of muddy puddles, and a large, grey-ish rock glistening right in the very middle beside her. She sat atop it and waited.

"Val!" A voice shouted from her back. She stiffened at first, by reflex, but quickly relaxed when the familiar voice gave way to a face. She sounded tired.

Daphne stumbled over to her, a hand yanking at a small stick that had somehow tangled itself in her hair. When she finally got it out, she placed a hand to lean on Val's shoulder and loosed a deep breath. "Found you," she panted.

"Sorry," Val mumbled, letting Daphne pull her up to assess her physical condition.

"I've told you to stop worrying about that." Satisfied, she began to pull her toward the treeline.

"I think I can start coming back on my own from now on," Val said, peering at Daphne while they walked to the car. She clenched her teeth when a particularly sharp rock dug into the bare sole of her foot. "I know the way now, and you won't have to be late to work anymore."

She shook her head. "It's not safe."

"Nothing's happened to me so far though..." She shut her mouth when Daphne turned to scowl at her.

"And what will you do if something does happen? You can't brawl your way out of a fight with a bear."

"Can't I, though?" Val attempted a grin. "I saw a video of this guy fighting one a while ago, and I'm pretty confident myself —"

"I sure hope you're feeling that same excitement for your first day of school," Daphne cut her off. She groaned.

"Why do you have to keep reminding me?"

"Because you keep forgetting."

"No, I don't!" Val exaggerated, circling to the passenger's seat when they finally reached the car. "And don't think you were so slick in changing the subject."

Daphne only grinned and threw a towel at her to put over the seat before hopping in. "I think I'll add car cleaning to your list of chores from now on. You keep dirtying my baby."

"And I still call it an improvement," she huffed indignantly. "You should be thankful, really."

Val contemplated bringing the school subject back, but she knew she wasn't ever going to win this. She was always told she'd miss it once it was over. Miss her friends, her classes; her easy life. But she barely had any to feel sorry for.

The first time she woke up at that clearing came to mind — their first night in town.

She was terrified. She spent hours navigating herself out of the forest, and when she finally made it home Daphne was frantically speaking on the phone and freaking out before she noticed and threw herself at Val. It didn't take long for her to start unleashing her questions, and it got easier as the days passed, but the worry was still there.

Like any mother's would be, she supposed.

Val sat atop the towel and put her seatbelt on, letting her wet hair touch the leather seats with a strange sort of satisfaction. She snickered when Daphne turned the key and the engine came to life with a rusty groan, as if to accentuate her previous statement. She was way too attached to the old thing.

Frank was its name. Although she tended to call it Frankie, as in Frankenstein's long lost puppy-car or something. Named after her toxic-blooded, shit-smelling, obnoxious airhead of an ex. Her words.

After Karen made the mistake of calling him while Daphne was present, she'd bashed the old thing to rubble and busied herself with fixing it back up. Turned out to be a wonderful learning experience for Val, too. Who would have thought, right?

Good job, Karen.

The outrageously humorous part though was the fact that the guy had 'the wits' to save her contact as 'Bobby'. Suffice to say, the honey-sweet voice that purred through the speaker didn't exactly fit the description.

The car turned out to be more important than him, so after she did to it whatever perverted thing she wanted to do to the actual Frank, she calmed down, along with the rest of their neighborhood. Frank had become part of the family.

The drive wasn't long, the silence was what bothered her the most.

"We're here." Daphne pulled over in the driveway. Val looked up. Last chance, last chance, last chance — "Val?"

"Please let me stay at home for a few more days!" There, she'd said it!

As childish as it sounded, she didn't care. There was something about this place that unnerved her. She kept to herself mostly, save for a good food run or two when she got tired of eating all that green in their fridge. But people would still give her weird looks wherever she went. It was really starting to piss her off.

Daphne flicked her dirty-blond hair back and began pulling it up to a ponytail. "Listen, I know it's been a little tough but this could be really, really good for you. You could use a break, and an actual person to talk to instead of rotting on our couch all day."

"And what's wrong with that?" Val cocked her head.

"The smell, for one," she countered, wrinkling her nose. "The house needs to breathe after you're done practicing, you know." Val shrugged and she gave an exaggerated groan. "Just try to settle in. Please?"

"No promises." She grabbed the towel and dragged her feet over to their porch.

"Get ready and come down, I'm driving you there today!" Daphne was nothing if not persistent.

Val shut the door behind her and wore a pair of slippers to avoid making a mess with her muddy feet. Again.

She contemplated turning right, to their kitchen and whatever was left for breakfast, or hopping on the couch to her left just for the heck of it. Maybe Daphne coming in and finding her there, watching TV as if mud hadn't started falling into places it shouldn't be in, would shock her enough to agree to her request.

She sighed and went straight ahead, a brow rising at the open storage room right under the stairs. Daphne was enough of a perfectionist to always make sure the door was shut. Val ignored it and went up the stairs, passing the first two rooms — the guest room and Daphne's — before turning to her own.

Once inside, she peeled off the muddy layer of her pajamas and headed for the shower, making quick work of washing herself and slipping her black ripped jeans on. One hand already brushing at her dark brown hair, she struggled to put on a white sleeveless blouse.

She'd like nothing more than the satisfaction of taking her time, but Daphne was clear about one thing: she was going to school. The later she got there, the more awkward it would be when she went to class. Maybe if she was lucky enough she'd be able to slip in and grab a back row seat before anyone had even filled in.

With that thought in mind, she glanced down at her form hurriedly. She was tall and fairly built, muscles that hid beneath her skin a result of Daphne's constant training and teaching of how to fight — well, it started as self-defense but it never really worked that way. She had a temper, something to work on.

Her tomboy appearance had started giving way to womanly curves that had caught a few eyes at their previous hometown, but she focused more on the angry scar on her collarbone before finally looking up.

Her eyes were a deep brown that could've fooled for black. Gleaming under the bathroom light, a honey-brown halo rimmed around her pupil, tendrils of it bleeding into the deep, deep brown. She didn't let herself dwell on who she got them from before she put down the brush.

Val threw herself on her bed, sighing, wishing for everything to be as it was. Even her dull ceiling looked more interesting than school right now. And her friend, Alis... She missed her friend.

She expected things to go as they always had been. New girl in town, people staring, not knowing anyone, more staring... And there's no way of knowing how long this visit's going to last.

The room was pretty big, thus feeling empty with only a bed, a closet, and a desk put inside. She'd have to change that; if they stayed. She put on her black sneakers and locked the door behind her, the thought of having breakfast unusually forgotten. As she walked toward the car, she stopped at the sound of her name being mentioned. Daphne had taken the car out of the driveway and seemed to be too concentrated with whomever she was talking to to notice her.

"She's getting ready for school. We need to tell her, Zack, I can't keep lying to her." A long silence followed while Val tried to stay as quiet as possible, her breath caught painfully in her throat. "Things are getting out of hand. It's almost time, and you were supposed to be here a week ago." Another pause. "Okay, I'll be waiting." She finally said, sighing, and turned off the phone.

With mechanical movements, Val got into the car. Daphne didn't let any surprise show — if she felt any — and started the engine, the familiar rumble waking her body. Daphne was not one to lie to her; she always believed that however tough the truth was, you needed to hear it. Which was why this didn't really sit right with her. She was wondering if asking what this was about would get her any actual answers when Daphne snapped her fingers.

Val hadn't even realized when they'd arrived at the school.

"Sorry, what?" She tried to act casual but when she lifted her hand to rest on the window it slipped, and she lurched slightly to the side.

Sweet.

"As I was saying," Daphne furrowed her brows, "since it's your first day, I took a two-hour leave from the hospital to be able to drive you here but I won't be doing that again, nor will I be picking you up. I know work has been hectic lately but I'm working on it, okay?" Val shrugged and threw an 'okay' over her shoulder as she stepped out of the car. She knew that being a doctor took a lot out of her and her time, but things would never change, and they both knew it. Somehow, training her 'till her legs gave out was better than this.

She waved Daphne goodbye and stood at the school's entrance. With a deep breath, she stepped in.