This is it. He's going to die, and I'll be free.
At the last second, he moved, and I was suddenly pinned up against the wall, the silver dagger now in his hand. He pressed the blade to my throat, a sadistic grin creeping across his face.
"Oh, Reese...
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The imagination of a child is always praised upon.
Children believe in what's usually considered impossible. A giant rabbit that hops around the world hiding chocolate around your house. A man in a bright red suit that soars through the sky in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. A fairy that sneaks into your bedroom at night to buy your lost teeth.
But, not once, have I ever heard a child say that they believe in the supernatural. It's like the impossibilities of dog-man hybrids, magic-wielders, and immortal, animate corpses are programmed into their minds at birth.
In elementary school, a child is usually asked what they want to be when they grow up. The answers are standard. A doctor. A firefighter. An actor. An Olympic athlete. A princess. A teacher. A police officer.
None of them ever say that they want to run through the city at night killing supernatural beings.
Even me.
I was seven when I was asked this very question. My answer, like every other child, was standard. A no-brainer. A basic career that popped into my head, because children at that age have no idea what they want to do with their life. They have the luxury of being young. Of not having to worry about their future. Of having another decade to decide.
My answer? I wanted to be a cop. Just like my Daddy, I had said.
I guess what I actually ended up doing was close enough. I patrolled through the streets of Toronto, getting justice for us humans, the oppressed. Even if it was outside the law.
I was asked that same question when I was fourteen. By then, I had a better answer. I wanted to be a surgeon. I was going to apply to the University of Toronto, my dream school. I wanted to save lives, make the lives of others easier.
I never thought I'd end up taking lives.
Even six years ago, a year after the Takeover, I still wouldn't have thought I'd be where I was today. I'd never killed anyone, though I'd witnessed death.
If every time I was asked what I wanted to be, and I was told when I'd end up doing, I would have laughed in their faces. Even if I was shown a portal to the future, I wouldn't have believed it. That's not me, I would have said. That's not who I am.
I was going to be a savior. Study human anatomy. Cut them open and save their lives. Know that I was doing a good thing. I was going to have a long, full, happy life, with a family of my own, and my parents would be around to spend time with their grandchildren. My brothers would be uncles. I would never have taken a life.
But things change. People can, too.
Instead, I was being paraded down a long hallway, covered in wounds, living in a world where the impossible ruled over everything. I'd taken so many lives, I didn't bother to keep count anymore. I was surrounded by four werewolves, creatures that even children didn't believe were real. I craved the presence of a dagger, the only weapon that could kill them. Though I still wanted to cut them open, it wasn't to save their lives.
