one.

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The house was eerily silent, and Quincy tried to ignore the way the hairs on her arms stood on end as she shed her clothes in the bathroom and turned on the shower. As she waited for it to warm, she stared at her body in the mirror, scrutinizing herself.

Quincy had been only four years old when she was first put in the foster care system.

At age ten, she was adopted into a kind and loving family whom she got along with well and eventually came to love dearly. Clara, her mother, worked at a small bakery in the city and always brought home cookies for her and her older, non-biological brother, Terrance, to snack on while the two of them did their homework in the kitchen.

Her father, William, was a short, happy man with an infectious smile and laugh. He was a counselor at the high school and was well-loved and respected by everyone who knew him.

Quincy and Terrence got along well, being only five years apart in age. He would always allow Quincy to hang out with him and his friends whenever they came over—although Quincy suspected it was mostly because their mother would always make him. Regardless, she enjoyed their time together. Even now, she could still remember sitting on the front porch steps of their townhouse and listening in interest while Terrance and his friends sat on the steps in front of her, playing with the wheels on their skateboards as they joked or talked about school.

Other times when they were alone, her and Terrence would sit on the floor in the living room while the afternoon sunlight poured in from the window and warmed their backs. She would watch him shoot Storm Troopers and save the galaxy on his PlayStation, cheering him on by offering him small smiles of encouragement whenever he looked over at her.

Unlike her brother, Quincy had been shy growing up, and it was something she had never really grown out of. She sometimes wondered why she was the way she was—so demure, quiet, and introverted—but life before Clara, William, and Terrance had always been blurry for her, especially as she grew older and it became harder to remember things. The past was a muddled place, like an old swamp on the side of the road she only sometimes passed. She only seemed to remember small clips and phrases—most of which didn't seem to make any sense to her at all. She didn't remember her real mother or father, or if she ever had any brothers or sisters. She had asked Clara and William countless questions, even at one point having the audacity to scourge the attic for her adoption papers, hoping to dig up some information on her past life. In the end, she had discovered little other than what she already knew.

The very first family she had been adopted into she could hardly remember at all. She figured that she must have only been five, at the time. The only memories she could recollect from that time were those of pain and misery. She remembered tears, sobbing with anguish, and being locked in dark rooms. She had been a nervous wreck when that first family had adopted her into their home. Like a paper doll crumpled one too many times, her paper was starting to tear.

She had been so emotionally broken—always crying and screaming—that the family didn't know what to do with her. Nothing they could say or do would coax her out of her strange, skittish behavior. They tried to calm her, tried to console her cries of panic and frustration, but she would only scream the name of a woman, (her biological mother, maybe?) that she now didn't even remember. As a result of her behavior, she would find herself locked in the basement, her "parents" too frustrated with trying to figure out what was wrong with her and just giving up altogether. When the authorities finally found out six months later, she was placed back in foster care. Again.

Five years later at age ten, when Clara and William were in the process of adopting her, the adoption agency was required to explain some of her past life to them—her past life that she couldn't remember but was desperate to know.

Over the years, she had overheard snippets of conversations. The information she had garnered, however, made no sense to her at all. For the first four years she had spent in foster care—having spent six in total—she learned that during that time, she would scream the name of a woman. She would scream for this woman to save her, to come back and to take her home. She'd sob into her pillow every night, murmuring her name and whimpering pathetically.

Quincy wanted to remember, was desperate to know of the past she had forgotten . . . but she couldn't. She couldn't remember, except for the small, frightening glimpses that often appeared in her dreams.

When she would ask, no one would tell her anything. Clara always said it was for the best that she didn't know what had happened to her as a child, and after a while, Quincy finally gave up. She was happy in her new home, anyway. Clara and William were kind to her, even despite the fact that she rarely spoke and kept to herself most of the time. It wasn't because she didn't want to be with them or because she was anti-social, but because she was scared. She was scared of something that she thought might happen, was scared of people, scared to show affection, scared to say what she was feeling, and scared to place any kind of trust in others for fear of getting herself hurt.

But, even despite those irrational fears, she silently basked in the love that her mother and father showered her with—even though for a while she was hesitant to receive it. For reasons she couldn't comprehend, she had convinced herself at an early age that she couldn't let herself get too emotionally attached to anyone. She didn't know why she had let herself think that, but it was a standard she had followed religiously. Past experiences that she couldn't even remember had taught her to not get too close to anyone, to not get too attached. She had convinced herself that everything good in her life would always, at one point or another, be taken away. And in a way, it had proven to be true. Whoever this "woman" was that she used to cry over at night back when she was in foster care must have really meant something her. She often wondered what happened to her and why she was "taken" from her, as she'd often overheard people say. Had she died? Had she been sick and unable to care for her? Had she just not wanted her anymore? Quincy didn't know the answer to these questions, but she tried to convince herself early on that perhaps that was for the best.

After only two years of living with Clara, William, and Terrance, a strange but lovely sense of normalcy—something she had never experienced before—began to blossom within her. She was growing accustomed to the home life that her new mom and dad had so graciously welcomed her into. She loved her family, and even if she never spoke of or showed it, she knew deep down in her heart that they knew it, too.

Growing up in their brick townhouse that lay nestled right in the heart of the city had been a wonderful experience.

That was until her mother abruptly passed away of a stroke.

The death had been so unexpected, so random, that it eroded and tore at the foundation that had been holding her perfect little family together. Her father started drinking in heavy quantities, an action that shocked both her and Terrance.

He was never abusive whenever he was befallen in a drunken stupor, but instead became emotionally distraught. Quincy and Terrance would always find him sitting in the living room recliner, beer cans littering the floor at his feet while he quietly sobbed in anguish, the glow of the television illuminating the tears that streaked his cheeks.

He became distant after that, always pulling away when Quincy or Terrence would try to reach out to him, to comfort him or offer him hugs. Quincy didn't know what to think and inside she felt broken. Her father had always been such an affectionate and jovial man, and now he refused to even hug her. It was strange to see him so sad and broken, and she felt hurt and lonely. It was like another person entirely had invaded his body. When Clara was still alive, he had been a bit on the heavier side, with round cheeks and belly and shining blue eyes. After her death, he began to drop weight, and fast. He had stopped eating, his face had thinned as had his hair, and his eyes had turned gray, dull, and lifeless. This wasn't the father who had taught her how to fix the flat tires on her bike, or the father who always said prayers with her before she went to sleep. This was a different man entirely. He was practically a stranger.

Quincy remembered one time, after a night of drinking when William was particularly distraught, he brought home a woman with him from work, a woman whom, as Terrance later told her, looked just like mom. Terrance had watched the two of them disappear into the bedroom, and, having been seventeen years old at the time, knew exactly what was going on between them. Quincy, however, was twelve and incredibly naïve for her age. She hadn't understood what was happening.

After that fateful night, Terrance had become rebellious, always causing fights at school and eventually getting caught up in the dangerous world of drugs. At home, Quincy had found him cutting his arms in the bathroom one afternoon after school, the dried blood on the sink later proving that what she had seen had not been imagined, as she would've liked to of made herself believe.

William was aloof to everything that was going on, or at least pretended to be. This left Quincy to try and convince Terrance that what he was doing was wrong and that he needed to stop his destructive behavior—but she never did tell him. She hated herself for it—hated that she was too scared and too afraid of how he might react—so she didn't say anything at all.

When she looked back on her life, and even as she was growing up, she hated how fragile and emotionally broken she was. She'd always hidden behind her self-made blanket of fear and denial, unable to deal with it all and shielding herself from the things she wished weren't happening. Past experiences that she couldn't even remember had made her unreasonably scared and wary of everyone and anyone she met. And as William progressed further into his state of aloof depression and Terrance descended further into his blind rage, Quincy found herself becoming increasingly afraid of the one person she had come to trust over the years, come to love. She felt ashamed of the fact that she had become terrified of her own brother. When she was thirteen and he eighteen, it had gotten to the point where she couldn't even look him in the eye anymore.

As the water from the showerhead rained over her skin, Quincy herself laugh. Her life sounded like something straight out of a bad soap opera, and she was well aware of it.

Now, at sixteen years old, she still lived with her father. He was still drinking, still sulking in his own misery and self-inflicted emotional pain, but Quincy still cared deeply for him. He'd shunned the outside world completely—only fifty-eight years old and already he'd quit his job and was living off the funds he had set aside for retirement. Quincy would sit next to him for hours after school just so he would have some company and make him dinner every night, and on the weekends she would give the house a good cleaning. She knew that he appreciated that because it reminded him of her mother, made him realize that he wasn't alone in the world and that he still had family who cared about him.

As for Terrance, he had long since disappeared. He finished high school, went to community college for two years—and then abruptly took off, her father and her didn't know where. No one did.

Quincy sighed as she turned off the shower and retrieved a towel from the bathroom closet. She wrapped it around herself and wandered into the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed as she combed her fingers through her hair.

Glancing at the clock, she realized it was already almost time for school and she swiftly threw on a sundress, letting her long blonde hair air dry as she ran down the stairs to make breakfast.

In the early hours of the morning, the sky was a pallid shade of slate gray, half hidden behind billowy white curtains that hung from the window. Outside, the neighborhood lay silent and still, the sun having yet to crest the horizon. Already it was humid and sticky out, and the grass and trees were damp from the spring heat.

As dark rain clouds loomed in the distant sky, a static electricity also seemed to hang in the air, a small warning of the impending thunderstorm that was scheduled to arrive sometime later that afternoon.

Quincy noticed all of this as she stood in the kitchen pouring herself a bowl of cereal, staring out the window and contemplating her upcoming day. She had always been somewhat invisible at school—she knew that if she tried, she could make friends, but she could never bring herself to break far enough out of her shell for anything like that to happen.

She'd been presented with many opportunities to make friends, but each time she'd clam up. She never knew what to say and they'd eventually give up trying, thinking she wasn't interested when, in fact, she was desperate for someone to talk to.

Taking another bite of cereal, Quincy sighed—silently praying she'd be able to make it through it without breaking down.

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The house was dark and the blinds were drawn when Quincy got home from school, and she groped the wall in for the nearest light switch. When the light flicked on, her eyes scanned the house curiously.

What she found stunned her.

It was a disaster. The couch was flipped on its side, the cushions strewn about the floor with its stuffing pouring through the torn-open holes, like wounded soldiers that had been abandoned to bleed to their deaths. Broken plates, cups, and other kitchenware littered the linoleum in the kitchen, and the bookcase, entertainment system, and desk had all been knocked to the floor. Pages from books were strewn everywhere, a graveyard of tangled stories and words.

She tried her voice, to call for her father, but the words would not leave her throat. She knew immediately that something was not right.

Everything in her was telling her to leave, to run away quickly while she still had the chance, but fear for her father pushed her forward.

And that was when she wandered into his bedroom, which was in much the same disarray, and then into the bathroom.

That was where she found him—hanging from the steel shower rod from what looked to be a self-made noose.

Quincy screamed, her body shuddering as she fell to the floor in a heap. The leather belt dug with a vice into her father's neck, leaving red welts that contrasted sharply with the ghostly pallor of his face. With his mouth open—as if frozen in an attempt to gasp for air—and his glazed, vacant eyes directed skywards, Quincy felt bile rise in her stomach at the sight of him.

Sobbing into her hand, she drew back and forced herself to look away, but it was too late, and the image was already burned into her memory.

Her fingers tightened over her face until her nails dug into her skin, squeezing her eyes shut tight, she willed everything to go away, for this horrible reality to become a dream, a hallucination, anything.

Then she heard a voice behind her.

"There you are, darlin'!"

The sound made her eyes shoot open and her heart stop, point blank. She kept her head bowed, paralyzed with fear, the slow, sickly-sweet drawl echoing against the bathroom walls.

Her eyes slowly, slowly, crawled up to find a woman standing by the doorway in all of her glory—willowy and beautiful and terrifying, punctuated by the bathroom's blinding white fluorescents. Quincy stared at her. She couldn't breathe.

Her eyes were completely black.

"I've been looking for you for years!" the woman continued, taking a step forward. She wore a plaid button up and a jean skirt, and her short, blonde hair fell just below her chin—looking every bit like southern belle.

Except for those fathomless black pits that were her eyes. They terrified her, seeing those dark eyes shifting back and forth, looking at her—studying her. She felt so laid bare beneath the woman's gaze. For a split second, she wondered if she could see right through her.

Quincy sobs grew louder and she pushed herself back into the wall behind herself.

"Oh, come on now, Quinny-girl—don't give me that look." The woman cooed, her voice terrifyingly shrill. "Why don't you come over and give your momma a hug!"

Momma . . . she can't . . .

Quincy slumped into the wall, boneless, and covered her face with both hands again as tears spilled between the cracks of her fingers.

It was all too much. She couldn't couldn't think, she couldn't breathe. She wanted everything to just stop so she could take a moment to catch her breath.

But luck had never been on Quincy's side.

Suddenly, she was being yanked up and pushed against the bathroom sink. The woman's arms slid against either of hers, trapping her against the counter. She felt the length of her thighs pressed solidly against the backs of hers, and she leaned forward, in an attempt to distance her, but the woman only followed her motion, draping her chest across Quincy's back. And she was hot, with blood on fire and a body that reeked of smoke and gasoline and made her eyes burn with tears.

She watched in the mirror—speechless and horrorstruck—as the woman's mouth descended towards her ear. Her tongue, a serpent's tail, flicked across the cartilage there in her efforts to wet her own lips.

Her breath on Quincy's skin was searing.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten your own mother," she whispered, and Quincy had to grip the rim of the sink to keep from collapsing into it. "Just look at that, you look just like me."

It was undeniably true. The woman looked just like her—or rather, she looked just like the woman. She could tell the woman was slim like her, but her face was more defined than Quincy's. Her jaw was bigger, stronger. Her lips were the same plush pink, but her hair, while still blonde, was shorter and curly.

Quincy gasped in disgust, suddenly twisting to get away, but the the woman's hand gripping the back of her neck gave her no time to react. Before she could brace herself and offer resistance, she slammed Quincy's head into the mirror with a brutality that stunned her. She cried out sharply, a choked gasp tangling in her throat. The left half of her forehead took the brunt of the impact, and she heard glass shattering around her, falling onto the counter as the smaller pieces slid down the bowl of the sink and crackled like fireworks as they collected in the drain.

She was blind. Blood marred her vision, its coppery warmth sliding over her left eye, nose, and lips. Blood filled her mouth when she opened it to cry, and it tasted warm and sour and metallic, like her mouth had been flooded with liquid hot metal that had been left too long in the sun.

A thousand black stars burst behind her lids when the woman's fingers curled around the back of her neck—readjusting her already impossibly-tight, spine-damaging clasp—and yanked her backwards, away from the mirror. She could feel glass embedded in her forehead and she sobbed, lifting her arms that felt like deadweights, trying to grasp for something, anything, to keep her steady.

When the woman spun her around, moving her hands to grip her upper arms, her head lolled back without his support and she was helpless to stop it.

"Oh, I have missed you," she growled with a cruel, twisted grin, even as Quincy's head lolled back and her neck felt as if it might snap from the angle. "You thought you could stay away from me? Didn't you? Didn't you?!" she giggled, shaking her in time with her words.

Quincy's world spun. She could hear the woman speaking, but her voice was a roar in her ears, like ocean waves crashing against the shore. Her vision swam in a sea of red.

"Please," she felt herself mouth around the torrent of blood that had flooded her mouth. She felt herself falling, falling, falling, and she reached out to grasp the fabric of the woman's dress, gripping until her knuckles were stained white. She could not lift her head and blood was sliding down her throat, giving her no choice but to swallow it down or else choke on it.

Something must have caught the woman's attention, because her head snapped to the side, towards the open bathroom door, and her mouth broke into a slow grin.

"Time to play," she heard her sing-song, sounding far too chirpy and pleased considering the amount of blood gushing from Quincy's forehead and sliding down her face.

Her world somersaulted and the ceiling dipped then rose as the woman shifted her again, turning her around so her back was once against pressed against her chest. She supported her this time by cupping an arm beneath her breasts, which forced her into her. Quincy's head lolled forward and she struggled with all of her might to lift it, even as a wave of dizziness threatened to black her vision. She felt like a shield.

And it was at that moment, when two large figures entered, pointing their guns at them—that she realized she was a shield.

"The Winchester brothers!" She heard the woman exclaim. "So good of you to join us. Do you want to play a little game?"

"No more games. It's over." One of them rumbled, his voice as gruff as sand paper. They kept their guns trained on them, arms steady. "Let the girl go."

The woman considered him, cocking her head to the side. "You wouldn't do that. My daughter and I were just catching up—weren't we, sweetheart?"

"Either put her down, or we'll—" the woman cut him off

"You'll what? Shoot me? Don't think I'm stupid, Winchesters, I already know how this is gonna end," the woman replied, and Quincy couldn't stop her head from lolling forward, as blackness crowded around the edges of her vision, "but I'm not leaving until her bloods covering the ground," she emphasized, "it'll be a . . . win-win for both of us."

"Why do you wanna kill her?" Another voice questioned, voice smoother, less harsh then the last man's. "What's the point?"

The woman frowned, her face darkening. "Why don't you ask her father? You know, Paul Hardy? He was a hunter, like you two." The woman tapped her knife—which she had discreetly pulled from under her dress—against the front of Quincy's neck. The Winchester's eyed the weapon with narrowed eyes. The woman continued on. "Well, lets just say that after Ole' Paul took my family—" she pushed the blade into Quincy's neck, making her cry out, "—I decided to take all of his," she said, "an . . . eye for an eye you could say."

For a moment, silence reigned.

"She's a kid."

The woman cracked an ear-splitting grin. "So? I can practically smell his filthy blood pumping through her veins," her voice ended in a hiss. "I've searched twelve years for this little bitch, and I'm gonna get my time's worth."

The knife nicked at Quincy's skin and, as the reality of the situation began to sink in with more depth, it was no longer panic she felt, but all consuming fear. Before she knew it, she was hyperventilating, her body shaking uncontrollably to the point where she could no longer stand. She felt her legs give out beneath her, but the woman forced her back to her feet.

"Come on, get up," the woman barked.

But Quincy couldn't. With the knife against her neck—stealing her oxygen—and the terror overwhelming her every nerve . . . her mind went blank and she slipped into oblivion . . .

Bang!