Molly and Frank Argent had a nice life. They didn't often leave New York City, opting for settling into a permanent residence nearby and hunting the odd supernatural that turned up. Neither of them enjoyed killing, maiming or injuring. Their broadsword (a wedding gift) was kept securely in a locked box in the cupboard.

Yeah, Molly and Frank Argent hunted werewolves.

Their daughter, Ellie, remained blissfully unaware, which they were grateful for. They didn't want her to have a life like theirs, or, rather, a life like Molly's. Her father, Gerard, was a tyrant, and a psychopath. His wife, Diane, had died years ago because of a werewolf, and the previously good-natured hunting party turned into a group of sour murderers.

Diane had been a beautiful woman, with long, chocolate brown hair and crystal blue eyes. Her smiles never faltered, and her love for her children was pure and strong. Her close friend, Michael, was bitten by an alpha. Ignoring her husband's advice, she'd tried to help him during a full moon. He attacked her, tore out her throat, and then, once he'd regained consciousness, told the authorities it was an animal attack.

"We Hunt Those Who Hunt Us," was Argent law, but very few really stuck to the hunting regulations that they were all meant to follow. As a family, the Argent's were the leaders of the group. Others joined, be it by marriage or recruitment, but they never rose to a status as high as an Argent would. Molly was trained her entire life, never really given a childhood and moved unceremoniously from town to town, with her older brother Chris and younger sister Kate.

Kate was much like her father, with the same dirty blonde hair and hazel eyes, and the same absolute hatred for the supernatural. She took their mother's death hardest of all, and was easily brainwashed by Gerard into thinking the entire annihilation of the species was what was best.

Molly didn't think the same thing, and, she knew, deep down neither did Chris. He just possessed an unfortunate desire to feel accepted by Gerard, and make his father proud. Molly's lack of respect for the man made her the black sheep of the family.

In college, the four,euphoric years away from her crazy, terrifying family, she met Frank Barnes, a young man who wanted to be a professional photographer. They became sweethearts very quickly, spending almost every waking moment with each other and learning everything they could about each other. It got to the point that the pair were so in love she told him the family secret, and what being with her would mean for him.

At first, he avoided her. The information was too much, even for a man so in love with her. For months, he didn't talk to her, didn't stay in the same room as her for more than five minutes. Molly was beginning to think there was no hope for their relationship, and she would be forced to go back to her father, and to a life she didn't want. But then he turned up at her door one evening.

He was sweating, his clothes stuck to his body from the rain outside, and a black box clutched in his hand. He thrust it out toward her, opened it to reveal a silver ring with a sharp, clear diamond.

"Will you marry me?" he asked.

Of course, she said yes, and they resumed the honeymoon phase. She told him soon that if they really were to be married ("Of course we're to be married!" he'd yelled), he would have to take her last name. Argent's were always Argent's, and his agreement to this would make her father respect him.

When Kate, Chris and Gerard met Frank, they weren't openly hostile. Kate sneered a bit, and Chris scowled, but her father obtained the same understanding air as he did when he met an increasingly interesting cadet ready to slay the supernatural.

The wedding took place two years later, with Frank's brother, Del, as his best man, and Molly's best friend, Victoria, as Maid of Honour. Victoria and Chris immediately hit it off, and Kate entered a steady relationship with Del. It ended not long after, creating an uncomfortable air at a lot of family gatherings, but Frank and Molly didn't let any of that get in the way.

Four years into marriage, Molly became pregnant. The couple were thrilled, as was Chris, who also revealed that Victoria, whom he'd married two years previous, was with child, also. The girls were born two hours apart, and were instantly the best of friends.

Ellie grew up in their apartment in New York, unknowing of the outings Molly and Frank went on occasionally when she was told that she could visit her Uncle Chris and Allison, his little girl.

On a hunt around six months before Ellie's seventeenth birthday, they were both bitten by an alpha. Molly knew the fate of those bitten, and so did Frank, and they knew that they couldn't remain living as werewolves, even if the bite didn't kill them.

The last time they saw Ellie, two days before their first full moon, their goodbye was long and heartfelt.

"We'll be gone for a long time, Ellie," Molly had said, hugging her daughter to her chest. Ellie had laughed lightly, and shook her head.

"Mum, you've said that everyday for the last two years. Okay," she pulled back, "So, you'll be gone for a month or so. That's fine. I like spending time with Allie,"

Molly started tearing up, and Frank turned to his daughter. "Ellie, we'll be gone longer than a month," he said seriously.

"Uh..."

"You have to promise me something," Molly said, "You have to promise that, no matter what they tell you, you'll follow your heart. If you don't want to, you don't have to feel obligated to do something you feel is wrong."

"You're going to be away for over a month and you're giving me a speech on peer pressure?" Ellie asked amusedly, "It's okay, mum. For that to work, you have to care what other people think of you, and I don't."

"Goodbye, darling," Frank pulled her into him, before wrapping an arm around Molly. Ellie didn't know that that would be the last time she saw her parents.

A two day journey ensued for Frank and Molly, who were in search for Motel Glen Capri. A lot of suicides took place there, they knew, but that didn't stop them being worried about it. They rented a room, duffel bags filled with guns strung over their backs, then sat opposite each other on the dingy bed.

"Which..." Frank cleared his throat, "Which one do you want?"

"I don't know," Molly said nervously, "The smaller one, I guess,"

"It's okay," he gave her a reassuring smile, "Smaller's better, there's less kick. I'll chamber the round, alright, so..."

"Wait, wait," Molly held up her hand, "When do I... I mean, do you count?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "Yeah, I'll-I'll... I'll count to three."

"So, after three, or on three?" she asked, biting her lower lip.

"You tell me."

Molly thought about it for a moment, before taking a deep breath and saying, "One, two... then pull the trigger."

"I love you," Frank said.

"I love you, too," Molly said.

"One, two..."

Then they both pulled the trigger, their last sight each other, the last sound they heard was the other telling them they loved them, their last thought their daughter.

Ellie found out about their death not long after. She received a phone call from the police, and then she was asked to identify the bodies.

Gerard, Chris and Kate flew out to help with preparations for the funeral, as did Del and Victoria and Allison. It seemed that everyone was crying, everyone was suffering, everyone was sad. Everyone but Ellie.

No, she was resentful. She hated that her parents' left her. She hated that they didn't try to work through whatever depression they were going through and stay with her. She hated that they preformed ritual suicide in a motel thousands of miles away under the pretence of a trip to work. She hated that Gerard seemed to know something about it, but refused to tell her.

Allison was the only thing that got her through the funeral, standing next to her in silence for most of the day.

Ellie went to the podium in front of the church of people, looking over the people she knew, people who'd known her parents. Her speech wasn't that long, and it was mainly a composition of things she'd heard on TV.

"I think that we can all agree that the worst day of loving someone is the day that you lose them," she began, "And people always say that a funeral, a funeral like this one, or a wake, or whatever, will give you closure. It celebrates the life they had and makes the poeple left behind feel better.

Like lighting a candle in a church will make them feel like they having just had some of the most important people taken from you. Like saying a prayer will numb the pain you have from the fact that you'll never see them again. So, it makes people feel better.

But, for how long? A minute, a day? What difference does it make? Because, in the end, when you lose somebody, every candle, every prayer is not going to make up for that the only thing you have left is a hole in your life where that somebody that you cared about used to be. A rock with a birthday carved into it and a couple of dead flowers. None of this," she waved her arms around, "will ever make up for the fact that they're gone, that I've lost my parents, and that I'm never getting them back. It's over. Their lives are over, and I know that this will be the last remaining memory I'll have connected to them.

And that sucks, because they deserved so much better. I don't want to remember their cold, lifeless eyes staring up at me from a casket. I want to remember waking up on my birthday to the same shitty music channel my mum used to like and my dad slipping me wine at family gatherings.

But it doesn't matter, anyway. There's no point in getting worked up. They're dead, and they're not coming back. So, we might as well get over it and carry on with our lives. So, raise your glasses everyone! Maybe if I drink too much I'll get lucky and choke on my own vomit."