Chapter 2.

Despite it's appearances from the outside, inside the hospital was white and gleaming. It was the kind of place people would go really expecting to get better from whatever they had, but it was too bright for Keller's panther eyes. As she tried to find out where she was, it reminded her blatantly of Illiana: clean, bright, a pain in the ass…sure, she had gotten to like Illiana after a while, and she supposed it could quite possibly be the same with hospitals, but that didn't mean she wasn't annoying at times. But it was because of her that Keller had Galen, and she couldn't forget that. For that reason, Keller loved Illiana like a sister.

She smelled a strong odour of disinfectant in the air; it carried to her nose and sent a tingling hot sensation up it. Making her want to sneeze her insides out if it made that stinging go away. Had she been human, she may have been crying Goddess, it burns! To anyone who was listening. Then again, had she been human, it wouldn't have affected her half as much, she reasoned.

Sniffing the air in loud, wet sniffs that she was surprised no one was coming to inspect, she tried to pick out anything but the disinfectant, but there was only one thing in the air that she recognized: death. Once over, the Rashka in Keller would have bathed in that intoxicating smell, loved the luxurious waves it sent over her, tingling her skin, but now it only made her feel disgusted at herself.

Just about everyone in this hospital who ever died would have had a living mother, a father, a child, a lover…some sort of family to care about them. And you used to get off on the lust off death? It's sick. If it was Galen here, dying…

No! she couldn't think of that. She just had to do what she'd come to this godforsaken place to do. Which was to get a woman over in the maternity ward the hell out of the hospital and to Thierry's mansion. It wouldn't be easy if there were Night People about, but as long as Galen and she could get her two blocks away, Thea, Eric, Rashel and Quinn would take over from there.

She had chosen each member of the team especially. Galen: because he was a comfort to her and a strong fighter if she needed backup. Eric and Thea because, from the whole of the available agents in Circle Daybreak, they were the two most able to deal with a pregnant woman, and since she was in a maternity ward they assumed the baby would be coming pretty soon. Quinn and Rashel were there to protect Eric and Thea while the two shifters were getting the woman. As well as that, Keller was impressed by Rashel's strength, the two had become good friends, and Keller had been in a car with her more than once. She would get them from Point A to point C without even stopping to pick up Point B. put her behind the wheel of a van and she was wild.

Keller herself wasn't sure what to expect for her part of the mission – facing the human woman (or at least she assumed she was human, because Thierry hadn't told her any different) the only experience she'd had lately with any kind of parents was Mrs. Dominic – Illiana's mother – who was sweet but had an uncanny ability to completely ignore the truth when it was waved in front of her face, and Galen's mother, who was a warrior almost as hard skinned and unemotional as Keller was. Somehow she doubted that the woman would be like either of those people.

Or at least she hoped. Hoped with all her heart. Because Mrs. Dominic would have just denied anything Keller told her, and Galen's mother was incomprehensibly too stubborn. This woman was going to have to let it sink in, believe it, and go – just like that.

So basically, Keller, you want her to be an unintelligent child. Even though you know she's a thirty-three year old woman with a degree in sociology? Yeah, that's real intelligent. I can see entirely why Thierry made you the leader of this little party.

She forced the thought from her brain and opened the door of the room she had broken into, peeking out into the corridor. It seemed to b empty, so she shoved the door open a little wider, swaggering through after changing. Instinctively, Keller knew there was something above her – ready to drop – and she poised herself, ready if it decided to stop hiding on the ceiling and start fighting.

It didn't move, and after a few seconds this begun to worry her. She looked up. Saw the buzzing lights and a neon sign that announced she was in ward 34. Helpful. She didn't even know what sector in the hospital she was in – could be in the morgue for all she knew – but she knew she was in ward 34.

Do they even have wards in morgues?

A sound alerted Keller, a squeaky sound, followed by footsteps. Like a vampire, she thought instinctively, a vampire…pushing something… she turned around and dropped into a semi-crouch, only to come face to face with a medical cart and a white-clothes woman, Keller followed the clothes up to the face and got up when she realised this woman was just a normal human: she was tall, almost as tall as Keller when she stood up, but with blonde hair feathered to her shoulders and wide blue eyes. Some would describe her as beautiful, apart from the long scratch down one side of her face and the black eye she was harbouring on the right.

"Hey, hun!" the nurse laughed, almost choking on a mouthful of chewing gum, "I know this ain't the best place in the world, but you don't need to fear the nurses," she grinned, showing a hap between her teeth – "you lost?"

Keller nodded, making up a lie as she went along, "my brother's wife just had a baby and I'm here to take him home. My brother. Not the baby. I'm looking for the maternity ward."

The nurse gave her a strange look that Keller couldn't entirely read but appeared to be confusion, "well, you're there! Not lost at all! Do you know what room your brother's wife is in?" Keller didn't, so she looked at her palm. She'd wrote everything she needed to know there, "Yeah, it's ward 33," Keller laughed at her own stupidity and shrugged, "sorry about that."

"Oh, it's okay, you made my day," she grinned, "nice speaking to you…uhh…?"

"Oh, it's okay, nice speaking to you…?"

"Rashka," Keller supplied.

"Rashka…I'm sure I know…no, never mind. Hope to see you again, my name's Paige. Look me up next time you're around," the nurse smiled a sincere smile then walked off with her trolley, squeaking like a vampire pushing something again as she moved down the hall, Keller chuckled, then stopped abruptly.

Elle Panter, Keller thought with a small melancholy smile, I'm sorry about this, but one day I hope you'll thank me…or at least Circle Daybreak.

Then she stepped into Ward 33.

Keller had been expecting a plump woman, looking quite old and motherly, to be lying on the bed. She didn't get what she had been expecting; the woman lying there was rather young-looking and beautiful, even though Keller knew her real age, she could have been talked into believing that she was a teenager. The eyes were dark, almost black, as was the long curly hair that cascaded from her skull and landed beside the bed, almost touching the floor.

And she remembered her.

She was only a baby when her mother took her out of the hospital, despite the protests of the doctors who wanted to concentrate on this strange – obviously diseased – creature. She took her to a hill and set her down on the grass. She didn't look like a normal baby, but that was to be expected. She had a tail and ears in her half-and-half form, but she was beautiful that way. Lying on the cool grass beside her baby daughter, sixteen year old Elle Panter firmly closed her arms around her baby, "I will love you, Rashka, more than you'll ever know. It's not your fault you destroyed my life. It's not your fault my parents hate me, you're a demon that destroyed me Rashka, and god help me, I love you for it!

Another image, this time she was in an undecorated flat, watching her mommy do it again. She was only a baby, didn't understand what was going on, especially not at one month old. But even then – even then – she'd known it must have hurt terribly. Her mother dug the knife into her wrist, and she and Rashka cried together, sharing the pain.

Keller felt strangely detached from these images, as though it wasn't even her, even as she watched her mother, setting down a cardboard box and filling it lovingly with newspapers, "this will be your home for a while, Rashka," she announced to the three-month old child, "I hope you'll find a parent who can love you like your daddy and me never can," she sneered as she said daddy but grabbed he box and carried it down the stairs of the ugly flats, setting it down onto the street, pausing just before leaving a note addressed to 'Rashka' only Rashka. So as she could not easily be found.

The memories stopped.

"People Die…

Beauty fades…

Love changes…

And I will always be alone," Keller whispered, not even thinking when she subconsciously changed the 'you' to an 'I', her mother looked up from her place on the bed, and something seemed to click, her eyes grew bright and full of life, and god…Keller hated her.

"Rashka?" she breathed out.

"Keller." The shape shifter said, "my name's Keller now. Elle Panter." And now she saw her own mistake. She should have realised that this woman wasn't human.

Panter: German for Panther. This woman was a Panther shape shifter too. How obvious. Keller cursed herself.

"Keller, honey, what's going on in there? Why are you quoting your mother's poem? What's happening?" she heard, reached for the pin on her jumpsuit and turned it off.