Two Years Ago

Skulduggery warned her, before they got out of the car, that Sensitives did not always understand what they were.

"They're adepts, of course, but they can… lose themselves."

Valkyrie blinked, not understanding. "What do you mean? How do you lose yourself? It's not like you can set yourself down and walk off."

Skulduggery paused. "Finbar said it was like being in a crowd of people at a football game and not knowing where your seat was. I don't know how reliable that is, but there you have it."

"What does that have to do with Sara?"

"She, for lack of a better word, 'lost' herself. Then she killed a few people, among them her parents, who were mortal and didn't know what she was. She doesn't know what she is, and that's our problem."

"…So… we're going to tell her?"

"Nope," Skulduggery said cheerfully. "We're going to get her into the car and take her back to the Sanctuary, alive. I'm hoping that she won't try to kill us along the way, because it's very hard to persuade her not to. I mean, she's practically insane, and we're going in there to reason with her. I wonder what that says about us?"

Before Valkyrie could come up with an answer, he got out of the car and strode across the lawn of the small, suburban house. It looked just like the houses on either side, but while the other homes had people peering out at the disguised skeleton and his young sidekick, nobody seemed to be home at this one.

They knew this because when they rang the doorbell, nobody answered.

"Maybe she's not in there," Valkyrie said.

"Maybe she's not," Skulduggery agreed, "But she probably is." He stooped and picked up the welcome mat, revealing a spare set of keys underneath. With those, he unlocked the door. He neatly replaced them and set the welcome mat exactly as he had found it.

Valkyrie had already stepped past him into the hallway. Someone was watching TV in a distant room. The house reeked of rotting flesh.

"Do you smell that?" She asked, turning around to face Skulduggery. He shut the door and removed his disguise, tucking it into his coat.

"Not really. What should I be smelling?"

"It smells like somebody died."

"Great observation. Somebody did die, Valkyrie. We wouldn't be here otherwise, now would we?"

He followed the sounds of the TV and Valkyrie followed him. They stepped into a kitchen adjoined with a living room. There was a TV on the opposite wall, and a girl sat between them and it. She was kneeling with her back to them, and there was a remote in her hands.

"Daddy," she called. "Want to watch with me?"

Neither of them responded for several seconds, and the girl turned around. Valkyrie had miscalculated her age- the girl looked like she might be a year older than herself, but the way she spoke and the pajamas she dressed in made her seem infantile. Her dark hair was clumsily parted to the right, and the section that hadn't yet set into the pattern fell across her left eye. The uncovered one was light blue.

"Daddy?" Sara asked again, starting to rise. "Do you want to watch TV with me? It's your favorite program."

"I would love to watch, then," Skulduggery said cheerfully, as though he really was Sara's father. "What show is it?"

The girl giggled, fiddling with the remote control. "Silly daddy. It's Doctor Who, your favorite!"

The TV was showing a news broadcast of a body found off the coast of Spain. Valkyrie whispered, "What's going on?"

"Sara, sweetie." Skulduggery stepped closer, until he was maybe a foot behind her. "That's not Doctor Who. That's the news."

Sara went rigid, and her hands clamped around the remote like it was a lifeline. Her voice lost the childish playfulness when she said, "You're not my daddy."

"No, no I'm not," Skulduggery agreed, and a cabinet behind him slammed open. He whirled just in time to get a face full of glass plates, which blew him right over Sara. She glared at him as though she hated him, and Valkyrie ran up behind her, raising her hand to push the air.

The glass plates still floating above Skulduggery crashed to the floor as Sara suddenly screamed, moving away from Valkyrie in a flurry of movement, cowering against the far wall next to Skulduggery. "Don't hurt me daddy, don't hurt me!" She covered her face, and the sleeves of her pajamas fell down. Her arms were covered in old bruises.

Skulduggery shook the broken plates off as he sat up. "I'm not your father."

"Don't hurt me!"

"Your father is dead. He can't hurt you any more."

Sara wept. "I didn't mean to! He was going to... and..."

"I know." He reached over and put an arm around her shoulder. Sara leaned gratefully, curling into his side. "I know, Sara. There's a place you can go, with a new mother. I promise, she will not hurt you. Would you like to go there?"

The girl nodded, wiping her nose on the edges of her sleeves.

"Would you like to pack a bag to take with you?"

She nodded again, getting up and walking upstairs, stepping over the broken glass as if nothing had happened.

They didn't speak again until the Sanctuary officials had her. "That was really…" Valkyrie frowned, not knowing what she was going to say.

"Different?" Skulduggery asked.

"I was going for weird, but that works too."

Because Sara was of mortal parents and did not know what she was doing, she had not been charged with the murder of her parents and older sister, and was undergoing training. As soon as she was deemed fit for social interaction, she was released to a home with a trained magician who regularly took in abandoned children. She had a happy ending.

Valkyrie tried not to blame her for that.

A/N: First chapter of Everything. This story isn't going to be in chronological order- this probably happened right before Playing with Fire.

Believe me, it doesn't make sense right now and it won't for several chapters, but it'll all fall into place eventually~