A.N.: So this is the latest thing from me. It started off as a crazy dream that I just needed to write down to get off my chest and 11 chapters and about 50k words later it was THIS! It's told from an O/C POV and may not be everyone's cup of tea, but please give it a chance and if you can't do that, do me a favor and keep your flames to yourself. A HUGE thanks to Sharlot for Betaing this for me and encouraging me to post this for other people to see and lastly for being a great friend. On that note another HUGE thank you to Dorothy for reading this and supporting me and being a great friend as well! I've been supremely blessed with you guys! This takes place somewhere in between 'Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things' and 'Simon Said' so spoilers up to that point. I am not in the medical profession so anything in here comes directly from Google, there is a love story in here between well...you'll figure it out pretty fast! Thanks to any who read and review and like this tale. You mean the world to me and I hope that you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this!

Disclaimer: It's awesome, but sadly it's not mine.

CHAPTER 1

It's fairly disconcerting waking up in a hospital, let alone having some giant figure loom over you. Add in the crazy making pain shooting up my side, and oh yeah, this was a party.

"Whoa, easy." a male voice soothes beside me, as a large hand leans down to cover my shoulder. I bristle immediately, and shrug off the hand as I tried to shake the cobwebs from my head. Even moving that much sends jagged lines of hurt spiraling across my vision as I hiss out a breath.

"Ms. Tucker you are going to want to take it easy for awhile, you've been through quite an ordeal." again that male voice, thankfully he learns not to touch me this time, I don't have the strength to fend it off again and my whole body pulls tight with confusion.

"Yeah, okay." I breath, as I lie back on the pillow and slide my eyes over to my visitor.

He stands about 6'5", flopping brown hair falling into what looks like green eyes, and he has a look of caring and concern and about five other emotions on his face. His mouth tugs up in an awkward half smile and something in my heart softens.

"Who are you?" I inquire, as I drag a hand across my face to try and wipe the grit from my eyes. My god I feel tired and hurt, like my brain is a little loose in my skull...

"I'm Sam. Sam Henley. I'm a police officer." As if the uniform doesn't give it away. "I didn't mean to wake you up, just needed to get a statement."

"I'm Mckayla Tucker, but I guess you already knew that." I chuckle a little to myself as Sam seats his body into a plastic chair by my bed.

"Can you tell me what happened?" he says gently.

"Yeah, I...um..." Phantom pain shoots up my side accompanied with a shrill cry that I had heard way too many times in my life, but not with that sheer terror in it.

"Bailey!" I shout, propping myself up in the bed and ignoring the flare of discomfort as Sam jumps to his feet as well.

"Where is she? Where is my sister?" Everything in me is suddenly overly aware, heart pounding, skin itching.

"Calm down." he says softly as he reaches out to touch my hand even as my hysteria rises.

"Where the hell is my sister?" I cry out, wincing as a foreign substance in my skin stretches uncomfortably. Stitches?

Sam meets my eyes with resignation, knowing that I won't be placated until I know where she is.

"Mckayla, I'm sorry, but there was no one else brought from the house, it was just you."

Disbelief crowds my throat and tears sting at the corner of my eyes, it is about that time I throw up.

Seems like a good idea at the time.

He waits patiently for me to compose myself, and he hands me a glass of water when I am done purging my body from whatever it feels is unnecessary to my health. I push sweat soaked hair out of my face, and wish that I had a rubber band on me, damn thing is always in the way.

"Are you okay?" he asks his eyes full of care. They practically beam "you can tell me anything" in neon lights.

Yeah. I had fallen for that before though. Not again.

"Considering the fact that I just emptied out the contents of my stomach, some onto you, and you don't have any clue where my sister is, I'm thinking no."

He looks contrite as he mumbles. "Of course you're not okay, I'm sorry. It's just what you ask when,"

Man, I can be such a bitch when I feel like it. I throw the poor guy a bone.

"You don't know what else to say." we finish in unison and Sam laughs a little bit. It makes him look like a little kid and despite my hardened heart towards the male species, I find myself liking him a little bit more.

"So, what happened?" He is back to being all business again.

"I don't know. Don't remember that much, I was at home," Flashes of the dining room table, and Bailey reading a book on the opposite side of the table slam into my mind.

"Just me and Bailey, and there was a loud crash and," Overturned chairs, blown out light bulb, blood, and a scream that pierces the night.

"Something bad happened, something came for," Razors in my skin, pain, white hot, undeniable drives me to my knees even as I reach for her.

"Bailey, something took Bailey." my admission is quiet, my mind is still trying to process the cacophony of images flooding it.

"Something?"

"What?" his question shakes me from my thoughts.

"You said something, not someone." he states.

"What the hell difference does that make? Bailey is still gone!" I push up from the bed. My anger is back immediately.

Body shutting down, something is wrong.

"I know this is hard for you, but I need to know exactly what happened."

My eyes narrow, face growing hard. I can feel my spidey sense tingle, something is off.

"I don't know exactly what happened, I just know my sister is in danger." I say it rushed, and I feel lightheaded even as I lay back down on the pillows.

"Can you remember anything? What your attacker looked like? Did they leave in a vehicle? Anything?"

His words seem fuzzy as I press a hand to my side, and come back with sticky fingers. His eyes pinch.

"You ripped your stitches." he says, as he slowly pulls back my hand so he can look at it himself.

My breath catches as he skims callused fingers over the wound, probing it for new tears. His rough hands are unexpectedly gentle. I wonder dazedly how a cop has such gentle hands.

"No shit Sherlock." I huff as he continues his examination. I should stop him, protest, do something, but he really looks like he knows what he is doing and I seem to be on the verge of passing out. What was I going to do, flail at him? Cause that is super threatening...

"Ms. Tucker," the sound is coupled with a soft shake to my shoulder and when I wake up again I am staring into baby blues eyes that are framed by blonde hair. Female, young, tanned... nurse, doctor, Sams' partner?

My question is answered as she smiles at me. "You passed out from blood loss Ms. Tucker. You ripped one of your stitches clean out, I wouldn't recommend you do that again." Her manicured hands reach up to turn down the morphine drip.

"Where's Sam?" Cotton ball mouth, gross.

"I'm sorry, who?"

"The police officer that was here, where did he go?"

"No one was here ma'am. Just me and Doctor Simmons." she says it slowly, like I am a pain addled patient. Okay so I am, but no way I imagined the whole exchange with that Sam guy.

I open my mouth to protest again as she turns with a huge, cheesy grin on her face.

"So you hungry?" she asks, clapping her hands together.

She looks much more surprised than Sam when I throw up all down her flowered scrubs.

It is two days before I am discharged from the hospital, two days that are spent drooling into my pillow and not really being told a damn thing. There are signs of a break-in at the house, evidence of a struggle, but no ones blood but my own litters the entryway, and Bailey has just vanished, there are no signs of her anywhere.

The cops (none of them Sam) are sympathetic, some of them listen to my disjointed story telling, a couple of others who come imply without directly accusing that I have done something to Bailey. Those are the ones that set my teeth on edge. And Sam, well he has vanished as well, nobody remembers a Goliath of a cop that came in to question me. Did I really hallucinate it all? Those tender fingers don't feel like something I would make up. And man Bails would have had the biggest crush on him. I just can't get in line with floppy hair, even though I have to admit he pulls it off.

I miss her. I feel pathetic doing it, but after the first day I call her cell phone just so I can hear the voicemail kick on.

Where in the world is she? And where do I go if I don't have any leads?

My heart is full of hopelessness as I slide in behind the wheel of my Toyota, my body in a tolerable amount of pain now at least. I have to fight a lump in my throat when "Don't Stop Believing." filters in through the speakers. Alright Journey, you had better be right.

My home looks ominous. Not really home anymore so much as a threatening prison. Brick and mortar suddenly twist into something heinous. I try to calm my racing heart and steady my hands as I reach to pull the keys out of the ignition. Something really bad had happened here. What, I don't really remember, but it is terrible...wings twisting out of the back of the horrible creature, rising up with talons locked around my sibling. I pant into the steering wheel and am apparently going crazy. I check the label on the pill bottle. Nope, no hallucinations about crazy, freaky ass bird things as a side effect. Damn, guess that is all me then.

It takes an extra couple of minutes to make my way up to the door as I shift my purse on my shoulder. Bailey isn't here, Bailey is out there somewhere, and she needs my help.

'Just go home.' the officer had said.'We'll call you if we find anything.'

Bastard. I know deep down it isn't his fault that they haven't found anything, but my rage needs to be placed somewhere and he seems the most likely culprit. My hand shakes on the doorknob as I glance around one last time. A chill works its way all the way down to my toes. Everything is quiet, a little girl rides her bike a couple of houses down, my neighbors sit out on their porch swing and as I spy them they issue me a friendly wave. I wave back, knowing that something is out of place but I'm not sure what. One last scan of the street reveals nothing out of the ordinary other than an sleek, classic(by the looks of it) black car. I like the style and I wonder idly who the new tenants on the block are. There will be time for that after I find Bailey, time to tease her about boys and rent movies and continue on in life. There has to be. I feel tears well up in my eyes and I really don't want to have a breakdown in front of the whole neighborhood so I bury my dread and go inside. I still feel that uneasy feeling of being watched as I slide the deadbolt in place.

My dreams are full of restlessness and half-forgotten memories… male voices that seem vaguely familiar as I lay unconscious in a hospital bed.

"She didn't tell me anything."

"I know dude, that's why we have to check out her place, see what we can find."

"The cops already searched top to bottom, they didn't find anything other than her blood."

"The cops don't know what to look for, we do."

A heavy sigh. "I'm telling you what I saw man. If it is what I think it is, we don't have a lot of time. Ritual comes up in nine days."

"All the more reason we should scope her casa, get more information."

"We know what happened Dean, now we just have to track it. And cops have been crawling all over that place...it's actually kinda weird."

"Why's that?"

"Because it's not marked off as a crime scene but there has been someone there almost 24/7 since the attack happened."

"Trying to cover something up?"

"I don't know, but I'll tell you what, something about this doesn't feel right."

A stretched out silence, broken by the sound of a hand thumping a shoulder. "Alright we'll keep an eye out, wait for something to go down, crack down on research. We really should wait till she wakes up to drill her though."

"She doesn't remember anything , post-traumatic stress disorder, we wouldn't get much out of her."

"Okay Sammy M.D. If you say so." a shuffle of feet and then nothing other than the soft sounds a hospital normally makes.

I wake with a quiet gasp my body tangled in the covers and I curse softly as I try to free them. Tears dry at my cheeks and I irritably wipe at them. No waterworks are going to get my sister back. I decide to retrace my steps, having come fresh from the dream world, to see if my subconscious has knocked anything useful loose. There is no way I am going back to sleep. Already I can't remember the names of the two gentlemen in my dream, their voices are fading to whispers as I become more and more awake.

"Dammit." I grumble, because I have a feeling that the unreachable information is important and I have no idea why.

My trek leads me to the dining room table,my hand traces old cuts and gouges in it. Familiar faces glow in my memories. God, I miss them. I shake my head and swipe at tears again. This isn't helping; I don't have time for this.

"What are we going to do tonight Kay?"

Baileys' voice makes my head shoot up, my eyes stare intently at the spot where she last sat. And suddenly I am pulled back in time, to that night…

'I really need to get her off to bed' I think staring blearily at the digital display off to my right. 10:33pm, I'm not doing either of us any favors by being this run down.

"You are going to go to sleep." I state, dragging my body up from the table and trying not to think of happier times.

"Me? You're the one who looks like she is going to fall over." She teases softly as she places her half-finished book onto the table.

"Then we are both going to bed." I reply, reaching over to take her hand I flinch when a bolt of lightning lights up the living room…Illuminating a terrible being it's red eyes glinting with malice.

My voice drops to a whisper and I duck my head down towards her. "Bailey, run." She doesn't need to be told twice as she slams back her chair and makes a mad dash for the stairs.

She doesn't make it. The creature jumps towards her and knocks her on her face. I dive for the nearest weapon, and have only a minute to react as my hand closes around a vase. I chuck it at the beasts figure.

It turns on me, wings (wings?) outstretched, and it looks dark and terrible and is making my whole body shake with fear. But one look at Baileys' sprawled out form as she scrabbles to reach safety has something dark and terrible rising up in me as well.

I dive for its legs as it turns towards my sister, and I manage to catch it off guard for a few seconds. I pray it will be enough. It shakes me off like I am nothing and sends me flying into a wall before it stalks back towards my sibling. "Bailey, RUN!" I yell this time, the scream rips from my throat. She stumbles to get back to her feet as I charge whatever the hell it was again, this time leaping up to grab it around its waist? I don't stop to check as I bite into soft flesh. The thing roars, and then sneers down at me as…

Agony tears through me, the only thing that anchors me to consciousness is my sister screaming "KAYLA!" it is the last thing I hear as I watch that abomination yank Bailey from the bottom of the stairwell and take off through the open skylight. I scream for my sister until I pass out.

My face presses into the table and hard, harsh gulps for air scurry past my throat. I sound like a dying animal and I try to calm myself, but the scream that has been trapped in my memories claws its way out of my stomach and echos in the empty house. I have just enough time to feel embarrassed about it before my front door flies open.

I don't see anything as I rush to the door and swing out in blind panic. Whatever it is blocks me as I swing again. There is a voice that tries to calm me down, a voice I know, but all I can think of is the stark terror on Baileys' face. Rage fuels my punches much more than professionalism or even skill, but I feel slightly proud as one of my frantic flailing hands connects with flesh and a "Son of a bitch!" Is bit off in front of me.

"Mckayla, stop!" The voice is authoritative and something in me responds to it. I blink slowly, as if coming out of a trance and try to focus on the face that is dimly revealed in the overhead kitchen light.

"Sam?" I ask puzzled as I drop my fists to the side. All the fight literally drains out of me. The victim of a nasty jab to the nose, evident from the thin line of red he wipes at, backs away from me and back towards Sam.

"Jeez lady, what the hell?" he grumbles as Sam pulls him up to examine the injury.

Yeah this isn't weird at all…

The other guy swats irritably at the hands that check his face muttering "Dude, back off. I'm fine."

Sam takes a few steps back, still hovering but less noticeable now. But the look of utter concern he graces the other individual with. Huh, he didn't give off a gay vibe before…

"Actually I think I have earned the right to that 'what the hell' as in, what the hell are you doing in my house?" I cross my arms over my chest, and fix them with a glare I hope is intimidating.

Sams' eyes do that soft, dewy thing again as I let out a soft sigh. "What are you doing here?" softer now, less like a dragon lady.

He shuts the splintered door behind him, (great one more thing to fix around here) and gestures towards the living room. "Mind if we come in?"

"Mind if I call the cops?" I retort before I remember ,chagrined, that this guy is a cop.

"Look I know you have to be completely freaked out, but we heard you scream and were just coming in to check on you, promise?" He holds both hands up in surrender and the other guy follows suit.

I turn about ten shades of red I'm sure and feel instantly stupid. "Oh that… I…" I look down towards the ground. "I was having a nightmare."

"Must have been some nightmare, sounded like you were being attacked." A flash of talons and pain and terror.

I let out a gasp and Sam instantly tenses up.

His eyes meet mine across the expanse of the table, apparently reading something in them.

"You remember?" he asks quietly and his partner moves to join him.

I shake my head. I feel slightly dizzy and sick, but yeah I remember.

"Whoopee for me." I say.

I take a deep swallow of the water glass in front of me, and tilt my head towards the pair of men at the other end of the table.

The shorter one has one of my dish towels pressed up against his face and I would apologize if I didn't have so much pressing into my head right now.

Sam treats me gently, guarded, like I am a trapped animal. I must look it, I think absently.

After I tell my tale and they still haven't said anything in response I blow out a dejected sigh.

"So you think I'm crazy," I start and weave a hand into my limp hair.

They lock gazes, a silent conversation carries on between the two of them. The intensity of their connection is a little overwhelming and I can feel myself flush.

"No Mckayla, we don't think you are crazy," That's Sam and as he moves to the side of the table, the shorter one stands to join him.

"We think you have a Tascona on your hands."

All I can mutter up in reply is a "Huh."

They talk about the creature, explaining it to a T, only takes virgins (so of course Bailey and not me), keeps natural disasters from the area, big, nasty, winged, harpy like things .

And when they are done I raise the bottle of vodka to my lips (with this sort of day I need something a little stronger than water) and it burns all the way down.

"Okay so this," I make a wide sweep with my hand, as Sam supplies.

"Tascona."

"Right Tascona, took my sister for some sort of virgin sacrifice in a ritual and flew away with her?"

A double nod of heads.

"Yeah that's about it." The other one states.

"So, you're as crazy as me, that's just great." Head meet table, table meet head.

Someone lets out an exasperated sigh and I can't quite tell if it is one of them or me.

"I know this is a lot to take, and believe me, we would take this from you if we could,"

I glance up at Sams' earnest voice.

"But you are the only one who has seen this thing and lived through one of its attacks. Please Mckayla," he sits down closer to me. "We need your help."

"Can you find Bailey?" my voice is tiny, barely more than a whisper.

"We are going to do everything we can to find your sister." Its' the other one again and he looks a shade softer as he steps behind Sam.

"Fine," I shove the vodka bottle into the middle of the table. "What can I do to help?"

What I can do, apparently, is go over the story again, and dissect every detail, and drive myself a little crazy in the process.

When I am done for the umpteenth time, after showing the pair of men the now faded and freshly scrubbed blood stains and the broken sunroof and the deep scratch along the railing of the stairs, I lower myself onto the worn sofa in the living room, and wince as it pulls at the tears on my side.

Sam looks like he wants to get up and check on me, but my eyes must have told him to stay away, because he settles back onto the arm on the adjacent recliner. Good, I had been manhandled enough in the last couple of days.

"Is your side still hurting?"

I wheeze out a laugh, "No, it's rainbows and butterflies." More pain, need to take some more pain killers.

Sam turn and whispers something to the other guy. All I catch is "wasn't that deep, should be healing," before he turns to me with a grave face.

Every one of my nerves stands on end as he approaches me, hands at his sides.

"I think it might be infected, can I take a look?" I want to tell him no, but my body feels uncomfortably warm and I am already leaning over in order to give him better access.

We hiss in unison when he lifts up the side of my shirt, and then says the other guy's name quietly as the man comes over to join us.

I feel a second hand on the injury as he states. "Poison."

"Yeah and it's been festering for a couple of days by the looks of it,"

"We need to clean that out fast Sam. Bitch really dug her claws in."

"Wait what?"I ask as bits of their conversation float down to my ears.

"Mckayla, listen, this thing, this,"

"Tocata?" I ask dazedly.

"Tascona, it poisoned you. It's slow working, but this thing doesn't leave any victims behind and the doctors at the hospital didn't know what to look for so they sent you home, I have to flush it out okay?"

"Flush it out….okay there is hydrogen peroxide in the upstairs bathroom," I begin and lift my suddenly shaky form from the couch.

I am stopped by an arm to my elbow.

"Not hydrogen peroxide,"

"I don't have anything else." I state dumbly.

There is a flash of silver as he pulls a flask from his jacket.

"We do."

I sit on the floor, not sure how I have gotten there, I am pretty sure that I saw the flash of metal and thought the flask was a gun. Sam is in my line of vision and he shakes my hand gently.

"Hey, you okay?"

I laugh, a choked sound protruding from my lips. Bailey is gone taken by some hell spawn, I am poisoned by said hell spawn and the two guys who broke into my house are taking care of me. Okay doesn't even begin to cover it.

Sam watches as my eyes nervously track the flask. He opens the lid and puts it under my nose.

"It's holy water, that's it, see?"

"Holy water?" I croak and look up at the other one and then back to Sam.

"Who the fuck are you guys?"