Prologue
June 16th, 2006
It was in Riley Park when it hit him, quite literally.
He was waiting as promised for Bree, though he knew she wouldn't find Diego. He could understand though. After months of being around the other newborns, you tried to hold onto the ones you thought you could trust, the ones that let you still feel a bit human.
He'd already waited past the 24 hours he had given her, hoping against hope that she had made it. He knew he felt protective of her. He had watched over her all those months before she even realized that he was really doing it. Not that it was in an attracted manner; she tickled a human memory of another, younger girl. She didn't look anything like his sister, Susie, but they had a lot of the same traits. They both loved to read more than anything. Hated to talk, were shy and rather sweet. It didn't surprise him that he felt the need to protect her in that house of lunatics.
He was sitting on a stone bench at the base of a tree, looking out through the grey mist at Mountain View Cemetery. It was in the center of the Riley Park neighborhood, with far fewer humans to avoid than at the more popular Queen Elizabeth Park down the street. He was staring out blankly at the horizon when a gust of wind changed his entire eternity.
The front page of the Vancouver Sun blew into the brush near him, then fluttered and caught on his leg.
Ferry Sunk! No Survivors!
Fred of course knew exactly what had happened, and out of boredom, read on to see what the humans had made of it. It wasn't until he got to the list of casualties that he saw it.
Susan Burch
A flood of memories surrounded him.
A pimple faced boy at the door, and a very timid blonde behind him with a dress he couldn't believe his parents allowed her to wear.
Sitting in the passenger seat with his heart in his throat, seeing exactly how close you could get to a stop sign and not actually hitting it, with the same shy, long haired blonde in the driver's seat.
Lounging on the couch late at night, watching Monty Python, with her in their dad's chair, wearing fuzzy socks, flannel pants and a band t-shirt, her hair in a sloppy ponytail laughing hysterically calling out in a very bad British accent, 'a spanking! a spanking!'
His little sister.
God. What was she doing on the ferry? Maybe shopping or visiting in Vancouver, and on her way back. What he wouldn't have given for her not to be there. What if...what if he was the one to kill her? He grimaced in a deep, gut wretching pain. No wonder his 'special talent' was to repel people.
He repelled himself.
After hours of stillness, the mist turned into rain, and the sky darkened. Ever so carefully, he folded the paper, and put it in his jean pocket. He stood up looking out toward the mountains in the distance.
Never again. And he ran.
