Part One

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Rolling into a new town isn't that exciting anymore when it becomes the seventh place I've been to during the year, and we're in March. Since I was four, my mother, my sister, and I have been on the road, never really staying in one place. Arriving, enrolling in a new school, pretending to make friends, and then leaving shortly after is a ritual I am very much used to. It's so common that I don't even bother to socialize anymore. What for, if we are to forget about the people we meet? My mother doesn't care about my asocial tendencies, I don't think she has noticed. As long as I'm ready to hit the road when she says so, then fine. My sister, on the other hand, thinks we should take this as an opportunity to make as many friends as we can. She has yet to see that it's pointless. Thus, in every new place we arrive, Lily becomes the popular girl that charms students and teachers alike. She's ready to take on the reins of whatever is the highest position for as long as she can, while obviously ignoring our family history. Lily wants nothing to do with the darker side of our trips, and while I cannot blame her, I don't agree either.

When Lily was one and I was three, our father, Mark, died under mysterious circumstances. It was ruled out as a house fire, but mother remembers bits and pieces differently. Father was already dead when the fire started and, according to her, a shadow with yellow eyes had done it. The death of our father weighed heavily on mother and ultimately led her to seek vengeance against the creature that killed him. That's how the supernatural world was introduced to us. Demons, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, all the nightmare-like creatures turned out to be real. And we became hunters... well, my mother became a hunter, since she doesn't believe I'm ready to take on more than a ghost on my own. We haven't found the yellow-eyes demon, and that's one of the reasons why we move so much, plus the more than occasional hunts that pop up while hunting my father's killer.

My mother, Elena, is not a bad mother, but she tends to forget that we're still in high school and that Lily likes her normal life too much. At the last town we lived in, Lily threw a tantrum about only staying for two weeks. She wanted to remain longer in a place. I decided not to get involved in that discussion when Lily asked my thoughts. She got angry at me for remaining quiet, but ultimately got what she wanted. We're in sad little Lawrence, Kansas for at least four months. If we actually manage to stay that long, then it'll be the most time we've spent in one place. However, mother didn't lose in the quarrel, lately, Lawrence and its surroundings have been showing a lot of supernatural activity. Furthermore, mother thinks she's got a lead on the yellow-eyes demon here. She won't tell me any more about it, though. Of this, Lily couldn't care less, the only thing she seeks is normalcy.

Elena pulls at the school's parking lot with a heavy sigh. I know she's tired, she was all night researching her newest case -information that she refuses to share with me. Still, I know that she's going to interview some witnesses after dropping us off.

"I won't be able to pick you up later, you can ask a friend for a ride or take the bus." She rummages through her bag, "here's some money." Lily is quick to take it from her hands and jump out of the vehicle with a short goodbye to mom. I linger a while more. "You can ask Lily for the change, should be enough for both and some breakfast." I don't tell her that Lily isn't giving me anything. She usually uses the spare to pretend we aren't poorly living in a motel.

"Can I come with you?" She knows I mean the hunt.

"No," her voice is firm, "you need to study. You can come to the next one." I know that she's probably lying. "Now, off you go." I get out of the car and start walking away. It's pointless to try to convince her, I never do.

One thing I don't understand about mom is her reluctance to let me take on difficult monsters. When we started to be introduced to the supernatural world, Elena made sure to teach us about hunting. I learned to shoot when I was eight, and by ten I knew all there was to know about most monsters. Lily received a similar education, but unlike me, she only ever got to memorize the basic things. Disinterested as she is about hunting, she has never killed a creature before, I had. Well, mainly ghosts and some rouge low-power beasts. Nevertheless, mom has seen me hunt, and I don't get why, every time demons or a difficult monster is involved, she wants me out. Last time, she even forbade me from accompanying her to hunt a rougaru. I'm seventeen, I can handle myself. When will she let me hunt alone?

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