Disclaimer: I own Jack, her history, Chris and other oc's. Everything else is borrowed.

THREE YEARS AGO

Jack woke in the middle of the night, not sure why. She laid perfectly still in her bed and listened. There, a strangled sound coming from the other side of the small apartment she and Chris had been living in for a month while she studied for her GED. Jack lowered her feet to the floor carefully and waited.

"No! Don't!" Chris's voice cried out. Jack was on her feet, gun in hand and across the threshold to her room in a second.

Chris was thrashing in his bed, whimpering and gasping, trying to break free of the nightmares hold. Jack put the gun on the dresser and crossed the room to him.

"Chris, wake up." She said firmly shaking him by the shoulders. Chris's eyes shot open and he looked fearfully around him like he wasn't sure where he was till he focused back on Jack.

"What was it?" Jack asked, wanting to get the information before the after effects started.

Chris was shaking to hard though to answer. Jack stood, went to the bathroom they shared and wet a cloth for his forehead, the way she'd done for as long as she could remember. Next she went to kitchen, poured a glass of orange juice, for some reason that always settle him, and a codeine tablet. She brought all three back to him and started mentally packing.

"We have to get out of town." Chris mumbled when she came back into the room.

"How long?" Jack asked. She was used to this. Every time Chris had a vision about something bad going down in the area they currently lived in, they'd pick up and leave quietly. Jack stopped questioning it, but she was sure that Chris had found some way to induce the visions to keep them a step ahead.

He was in pain because he wanted to keep her safe.

"A couple days." Chris managed before starting to gag. She was there with the waste basket.

"Here." Jack said in a soft voice holding the cup of juice up to his lips. Chris gulped it down greedily, downing half the liquid till she stopped him.

"Open." Jack ordered holding the painkiller out to him. Chris opened his mouth obediently and downed the pill, chasing it down with the rest of the juice. He laid back in his bed and Jack put the damp cloth over his eyes.

She always marveled at how young her uncle looked at moments like these. He looked so scared, vulnerable and just plain lost. Like he wanted badly to take care of her and himself but wasn't entirely sure how. Her whole upbringing was hit or miss. She wouldn't have changed it for the world, aside from the occasional bad guy trying to kill, maim, enslave, etc. her that is.

Jack stayed by Chris's bedside all night, staying there for when he muttered nonsense, cursed himself, his visions, the fire that killed her mom and dad. He never cursed Jack's name though.

Sometimes she really couldn't believe something as common as a house fire could have taken them, with what she saw and faced everyday.

Jack woke with a sniff neck from falling asleep in a chair next to Chris's bed. She rolled it till it cracked, stretched her shoulders and back till they resettled. Chris was still asleep, finally able to rest at the crack of dawn. It was now noon and she had to start packing before chancing to wake him up.

First she needed good coffee and a long hot shower. She'd settle instant and lukewarm though. After stripping out of her t-shirt and boxers Jack carefully removed the old bandages from her wrists. The stitches held the formerly smooth skin together but the wounds needed to be cleaned every twelve hours and they would leave a nasty scar, the docs said that couldn't be helped. Nastier now that they were moving on and they'd have to take the stitches out at home.

"Damn witch." Jack said wetting down a hand towel with antiseptic and dabbing it gently around her wrists. After she was done Jack fingered the long strand of beads looped over and over around her throat, she could use that as a bracelet, she mused.

The water was warmer than she'd thought it would be, an almost unheard of luxury

"She was a black haired beauty with big dark eyes, with points of her own, sittin way up high.." Jack sang to herself stepping under the spray. "Way up firm and high."

"Out past the cornfields was where it got heavy out in the back of my '60 Chevy."

She scrubbed her hands through her hair whistling the tune that was stuck in her head.

"Workin on a night move, trying to lose those awkward teenage blues, mmm and it was summer time. In the sweet summer time." Chris teased her relentlessly for singing in the shower, claiming singing while cooking wasn't nearly as dopy as shower karaoke. Those were his exact words.

All things considered Jack was in a good mood when she stepped out of the shower. She wasn't one to brood, this was how things were. She grinned at her reflection in the mirror, maybe when Chris hauled his Psychic hotline reject ass out of bed she'd broach the tattoo subject with him again. He had one, she reasoned, why couldn't she?

Breakfast was a dozen Twinkies and the last of the Krispy Kremes. The she went into her bedroom and started to take her clothes out of the rickety dresser that came with the apartment, putting them in her duffel bag. She took the sawed off from behind the headboard, the throwing knife from under the mattress and the other miscellaneous weapons and wrapped them carefully before putting them in a separate bag. In total she had ten types of blades and six automatic weapons hidden in her bedroom. The apartment may not have been much but nothing got through that front door unchecked.

Jack heard a shuffling groan and smirked. This was one of less fucked up visions, if he was able to move less than twenty hours later

"You up?" She called.

"This sucks." Chris groaned. Jack laughed. It was easy to forget he was her guardian, mother/father/uncle all in one. Sometimes it felt like she was living with a big brother. He was barely twenty when her parents died, leaving him with a baby girl.

"Did you clean your-"

"Yes, did you take the other pill I left you?" Jack countered his question.

"Yes, mom." Chris retorted, s he could practically hear him roll his eyes.


"Two days, a week at most." Chris said over dinner. "I'll tie up the loose ends here and meet you in Atlanta."

"You better take care of yourself." Jack said. They'd spent the day packing things up and making calls to get a bus ticket waiting for Jack at the station and a motel on the edge of the city they'd picked for their new temp home.

"I will Sparks. We'll call each other every two hours to check in." Chris said growing serious. This was their arrangement every time they split up. Calls every two hours exactly till they were back together and the letters. In case something went wrong.

"What's trying to eat me this week?" Jack joked.

"Not funny." Chris said his eyes darkening.

"C'mon it is a little. Things are always trying to eat me. Its like my thing." Jack said being glib.

He was so much more serious since she was nearly bled dry a few of weeks back. She took in stride, she was alive right? And the bad witch was dead.
"Jack." Chris had a pained expression on his face. He looked tired and haggard. His reddish blonde hair was disheveled, starting to get shot through with some premature graying and his dark eyes were glassy. He wasn't sleeping enough, even less than usual and he wasn't eating as much as he needed to.

"Maybe I should just go with you." Chris said rubbing the back of his neck.

"We need the money from this weeks paycheck." Jack rationalized shaking her head. He'd found work as a bartender and the money was too good for him not to finish out the week, especially if they were starting fresh again.

"When did you get older than me?" Chris asked narrowing his eyes at her with a small smile.

"When I turned six." Jack answered.

The next morning she was on a bus to Atlanta, lazily bobbing her head to The Perfect Drug.


A week after that she was standing over Chris on a desolate back country road with his blood on her hands.

He hadn't called for four days. He never missed a call. Ever. The only time he had it was a disaster so he never missed any anymore. Jack was about to go back for him when he finally did. His voice was indistinct and scratchy. She got a location. She stole a car and everything else was blank.

Jack was hyperventilating, staring down at Chris's vacant eyes. Blood was dripping from the corner of his mouth and his throat…..God his throat. It wasn't there anymore. Just a gaping red gore was left, he was nearly decapitated. Jack's legs gave under her as hysteria took over and she started screaming and she couldn't stop. When he voice died and she was left empty and cold her common sense took over where everything else failed.

She reached gingerly into Chris's jacket pocket and found his cell phone. She pressed 911 and let it ring. She rubbed down anything that might have her prints on it and climbed to her feet. Getting back in her stolen vehicle and driving through the night and most of the next day were a blur. She knew she didn't stop and that she ditched the car far from her motel.

The shock came and went. She was dead inside when she opened his letter, reading and re-reading the words till the tears threatened the ink on the page. She felt when she looked at the drying blood on her hands and clothes and practically tore them off, running to the bathroom. She turned the water scalding hot and stepped in, ignoring pain of the too hot water. She scrubbed till the blood was gone, she scrubbed till her skin broke and her blood replaced his.

After awhile she slid to the ground rocking back and forth on the shower tiles. Something was wrong, why couldn't she remember? Something happened between getting the call from Chris asking for her help and him being dead. Had she seen the killer? Was she losing her mind? What did it? What the fuck took her family from her?


The police and social services found her in that motel. Madeleine broke the news to her, not knowing she already knew.

"She's in shock." She heard the woman's voice say to the police that had escorted her there. She felt a jacket being thrown over her shoulders and she was begin herded out of the room. She made some whining broken noise trying to go back for her backpack but for once Madeleine was stronger than her and simply gestured for the cop holding it to give it to her as she pushed Jack out the door and down the stairs towards the car waiting there.

There was a plane ride she couldn't be bothered with paying attention to and she was in New Orleans, staying with Maddy till they got something else sorted out for her.

"Didn't make any arrangements-"

"Poor child-"

"No family left-"

"Cursed-that family is-"

"Where will she go?"

Scattered bits of conversation made there way to her ears as the people dealing with the arrangements spoke about her like she wasn't there. In a way she wasn't, nothing felt real. Nothing but the howling pain.

"What's wrong with her?" Madeleine asked the counselor she was made to sit with. Jack barely uttered a word during the session.

"Post traumatic Stress Disorder." The doctor answered.

"You knew didn't you?" Madeleine asked during the car ride back. Jack looked at her dully. The older woman' eyes were rimmed with red, she looked so desperate Jack wanted to reach out and tell her it was going to be okay. She knew how to take care of people, now who would she take care of though?

Chris was buried in the family plot. An above ground cemetery, like the ones she used to love playing in as a child. He was in the plot between her father and her grandmother. A surprising number of people showed up, family friends and acquaintances. Some approached her offering condolences and offers of help, "if she needed anything", "if they could do anything". Most thought, stayed away, there were more whispers about her cursed family. More people pointing out to each other that she was the last of her family.

She was placed in a foster home within a few days of the burial. Maddy kicked up a ruckus, saying she didn't give a damn about a conflict of interest, Jack was staying with her. In the end she lost that battle.


'Nathaniel.' The name rang in her ears, waking her from her sleep her third night in the facility she was placed in.

Jack shot up in bed, feeling the first real emotion in weeks. Anger, raw, hot fury boiling in her veins. She didn't remember, just knew. Vampires. One in particular, name of Nathaniel. The leader of the pack that Chris had run afoul of.

Jack kicked the sheets off her legs, carefully, suddenly aware that she was in a crowded dorm room. She opened Chris's letter again and read it over. She fixated on him telling her that if something had killed him not to go looking for revenge. Did he know? Did he see his death? Or did he see hers and that's why he sent her ahead alone?
She didn't know. All she knew was that she was going to disobey his last request to her. All her life she'd lost people. Now she could do something about it. Make this one thing right. If she tried this she'd die, more than likely. She didn't care though.

Jack wrote out a quick, smartass note to Madeleine, packed her meager belongings and was out of the city by morning.

She poured herself into her revenge. First she found out everything she could about the species. Jack kicked down the door of a witch she'd run errands for a short time in Baton Rouge telling the woman she needed information.

"I don't nuthin bout vampires." She'd insisted.

"Then tell me who does." Jack said with deadly calm.

"I know a hunter name of Joseph Black, he might know." She said writing the man's name and number with a trembling hand. She knew the child who stood in front of her's power. Before leaving the state Jack cut her long red hair short enough to pass herself off as a boy, to get past the Amber Alert setup about her. Then she was gone.

Joseph Black told her he wasn't taking kids under his wing. She embedded a knife in his car tire and told him she didn't need training she needed to know how to track a vampire and what myths were real.

He pointed her in the direction of a man named Daniel Elkin.

"Who did you lose, little girl?" The old man asked when Jack wandered into the out of the way bar in the small mountain town he lived near.

"Everyone." Jack answered. "I heard you were the best at hunting them." Jack spoke low taking a sip from his shot. He glared at her and ordered another from the waitress.

"What makes you think I'll help you?" Daniel asked eyeing her cautiously. He took in her ripped cammo pants and the black shirt, the slight outline of blades underneath. She'd walked into the place unnoticed by everyone but him.

"I don't. But I'm going after Nathaniel whether you help me or not. This way I have a better chance of taking as many of them out as I can." She said.

"You'll die." He said.

"Already have." She replied letting the never ending sorrow bleed into her expression. It was a look all of their kind could recognize in themselves. No one chose to do this in the beginning.

"Come on." He said laying down a few bills on the bar top, then leaving the bar.

"How'd you get here?" He asked warily.

"Walked." Jack shrugged. She'd hitched to get as close to the town as she could and then hoofed it the rest of the way.

Daniel grunted something about young people under his breath. He was carrying a brown leather, beaten up journal stuffed with papers under his arm. Jack wondered how long he'd been at this.

"You got a name?" He asked.

"Jack." She answered.

"I'll give you a ride." He said pointing to his truck. "Just so you know girl, if you try anything funny I can put a clip in you faster than you can blink." He warned when she put her hand on the passenger door handle. Jack looked at him and nodded once in acknowledgement.

They drove in silence to his cabin. The place was hidden against a backdrop of forest, invisible unless you were looking for it. Jack hopped out following him inside, past lines of salt and runes. He had a shotgun pointed at her almost as soon as she stepped inside.

"Weapons." Daniel said. Jack gritted her teeth but complied, removing the knife under her shirt and the gun from her pocket. She took off her jacket so he'd see that was all she had.

"Come inside." Daniel said after he collected the weapons. Jack stepped lightly away from the entry way.

"You already know some things." He stated.

"I know what's out there and how to fight, but I don't know much about vampires." Jack answered. She wasn't going to tell him about her ability, he didn't trust her, she didn't trust him. It wasn't personal, just fact.

"You know anything about vampires?" He asked her beckoning towards a chair at a table that only had two chairs, on of which was covered in dust.. Jack nodded and sat down. He let the gun rest against his chair, always within reach.

"I know they can go out in the day, that they travel in packs and that a cross to the face won't do a damn thing to stop one from killing you." Jack said recounting her scant knowledge.

"And I know the name of the one I want to kill." She added.

"What name would that be?" Daniel asked her running his finger over his book. Jack couldn't believe she'd found someone who knew as much as this guy was said to know. Someone who'd spent their whole killing what was now her prey.

"Nathaniel." She said. His hissed through his teeth.

"First of all Jack," He said sitting forward with his hands clasped together. "You don't kill just one of them. If you know they're pack animals you should have realized that."

"Shut up and don't say anything yet." He said when she opened her mouth to defend herself.

"You don't kill just one. And once you kill one of them the rest of his pack will hunt you down till you're dead or they are. Are you willing to get a target put on the back of your head?" He asked looking her dead in the eye so she'd know the full weight of what she was attempting.

"Yes." Jack answered without hesitation. She couldn't tell him she already had a bulls eye on her back without telling him about her ability.

He studied her with clear eyes that had seen a lot in their time. The locals had said he was a crazy old man when she asked around about him, but she knew better. Hardened, yes, paranoid, of course but definitely not crazy.

"You stayin in town?" Daniel asked.

"Yup." She replied.

"You think you can make it up here in the afternoons?" He asked.

"Yes." Jack promised. If she had to hike there every damn day she would till she got the information she wanted.

"Good." Daniel said.


Everyday for a month Jack trekked to Daniel Elkins cabin and he taught her what she needed to know about vampires, hunting and tracking them, knowing how to spot them before it was too late.

"The one you're after, Nathaniel, he's a dangerous sonuvabitch." The old man told her one day while they were on his porch sharpening knives.

"Aren't they all?" Jack asked with a small smile.

"He's one of the last two of a whole damn family of bloodsuckers I killed. He and his brother Luther." Daniel told her passing the whet stone her way.

"This Luther gonna be with him?" Jack asked.

"They travel in different hunting parties, but Luther will come gunning after you when you kill his brother." Daniel told her gravely. Something about the way he spoke when Jack look up from her work. Till then it was always 'if' never 'when'. She wasn't going to say anything but it stuck out with her.

When she got back to her motel she gathered her belongings.


A month later she had them. In the backwoods of Alabama. She'd been watching them for two weeks straight, coming and going from their barn hideout. There were five in his hunting party including him. She looked at the face of the man who'd taken her family from her, memorizing it. Then all she had to do was let herself get caught.

"Wakey wakey." A female voice purred in Jack's ear. She looked up eyes wide with confusion at the woman kneeling over her in her tent.

"Wh-who are you?" Jack squeaked.

"Don't worry about that sweetie." The woman said running a cold hand along Jack's cheek.

"Are you alone here?" The woman asked. Jack bit her lip and looked down.

"It isn't safe for a kid to be out here by themselves." She said grinning at her hungrily. Jack trembled pushing herself backwards in her tent but the woman reached out and hit her once, knocking her out cold.

Jack woke hearing voices. She was being carried somewhere, then unceremoniously dropped on the ground somewhere. She kept her breathing steady and her eyes close when she heard a door being locked.

"Billie I want to go home." A young boys voice said somewhere close by. The voice was terrified.

"I-I know Tommy." An older male voice answered sounding just as desperate. Jack stayed still for hours listening to the two speak to each other in terrorized whispers. She kept thinking that any moment one of them would come in to take one of them for a snack or to toy with. She'd kill them before she let it happen.

"Is she dead?" Tommy asked after awhile. Jack cracked an eye open and glanced at her watch. It read eight a.m. She lifted her head.

"Oh thank God, we thought you were dead." Billie said when she got to her knees.

"Shhh." Jack put her finger to her lips and looked around at her surroundings.

They were in the open space of the barn, locked in wooden cages. She looked around for any other captives but it was just the three of the,. Her heart thudded in her chest so loud she was sure the vampires sleeping in the lofts and the ground close by would hear it.

Jack reached under her pant leg to retrieve the lock picks there. The cages were connected by a single chain with a big padlock securing them. She reached around the outside of her cage and carefully felt around the lock with them till she thought she had a pretty good idea where all the tumblers were. It took three tries and she broke two of her picks but eventually she sprung the lock. Billie clapped his hand over Tommy's mouth through his bars just as he was about to cry out in relief.

"Get out of here as fast as you can and don't look back." Jack hissed at them when she eased open their cages. Tommy flew into Billie's arms.

"What about you?" Billie asked holding his little brother tight. The two followed her as she led them to the small dog door she'd spotted while watching the place.

"I'm fine." Jack said. "Go, get him out of here." Billie hesitated for a moment then he pushed Tommy through the hole.

"Thank you." He said before joining him.

Jack bent to take the buck knife strapped to her calve. It wa long, good for decapitation. She didn't plan on getting to all of them. She didn't plan on living. But she would be damn sure to take as many of them down with her as she cold. Starting with Nathaniel.

She crept into his loft soundlessly, taking the chance to study his face up close. He was good looking, all dark hair and pouty lips, that hid the monster inside. Jack staggered a little as a flashback hit her hard. Chris covered in blood with deathly white skin.

Her lip trembled and she lifted the eight inch blade with both hands and she brought it down with all her strength. He woke with a blood choked roar. He was already dieing looking up at her in shocked hate.

From there it was chaos. She was attacked from all angles. She directed her fire at the entrance, determined to take them with her as she dodged and fought back. She lopped of the woman who'd brought her there's head and took a hard kick to the side of her head from the woman's mate. They couldn't escape from the flames, one was already shrieking and trying to put himself out.. Jack felt her sight start to blur and she crawled low to the ground, away from the fray.

Anger was leaking away, she was convinced she was going to die then. She closed her eyes, ready for it to come when she felt someone pulling at her. She thought it was one of them but then realized she was being pulled out, away from the fire and fury. She tried to fight her rescuer but she was tired and she'd lost a lot of blood.


When Jack woke up she was in a bed, she had just enough time to see a worried face look down at her before her eyes closed again.

"We were camping." A quiet voice said at her bedside. "Me and my brother and my mom and dad." She opened her eyes a little and turned her head to see the boy, Tommy sitting with his knees to his chest. His eyes were closed, moonlight from the window filtered thought illuminating his light blonde hair. He looked skinny and frail to her, but she thought, she was the one on the bed hard up so she couldn't really talk.

"Where am I?" Jack rasped.

"You're awake." He jumped to his feet startled.

"Where am I?" Jack asked again sitting up. She felt like shit. Her mouth tasted like it too.

"Our house in Birmingham." Tommy answered eagerly.

"How did I-"
"Billie went back and pulled you out of the barn." Tommy said.

"Why?" Jack asked. She wasn't sure what she should be feeling. She wasn't relieved. She'd wanted to die, she had nothing else now. She'd killed the ones that killed Chris. Yet, there she was, alive.

Tommy didn't seem to know what to make of her question. Of course, he wouldn't, she chastised herself, he was just a boy. Ten or eleven at most.

"We were camping," He started over gain again, "they killed mom and dad in front of us…." He sniffled, "Then-then they took us back there. They had us for weeks and they would drink from us and…"

"And what?" Jack asked. Tears were running down the boy's face.

"And they did other things to my brother. He wouldn't talk about them but I heard him scream when they took him into the other room."

"They're dead now." Jack found herself reassuring him. "I killed them myself."

Tommy nodded, wiping away his tears. The door opened and Billie came in looking surprised to see her sitting up.

"You're up." He said with an open smile. Jack nodded. She looked at him for the first time. He looked like what she imagined Tommy would look like in a few more years. Tall, fair haired with a boyishness to him, nice light brown eyes.

"Tommy, why don't you get to bed? I'm sure that uh-" He looked at her expecting her supply a name. She just blinked at him.

'Um I'm sure our guest wants to rest up." Billie said after the awkward pause.

"But I don't wanna." Tommy whined.

"Tommy please." Billie said with the air of someone not used to giving instructions to someone else. Tommy looked from him to her, she sighed and gave a jerk of her chin. He obeyed immediately, pouting the whole way out.

"You'll have to teach me that." Billie said smiling sadly.

"How long have I been here?" Jack asked him.

"About a week. I asked a doctor neighbor to look at you, no questions asked." He said.

"Thanks." Jack said. Then she ran out of things to say. Billie shuffled from foot to foot for a long minute.

"You're welcome to stay here as long as you want." He said nodding at her then leaving her alone again.

Jack swallowed and looked down at her hands. What now?

She stayed a week then moved on. She never thought she'd see them again.

TBC………

AN: Okay, so I was going to it as one long chapter but just this portion of it took up ten pages, so now its going to be two chapters of back story. Hope y'all enjoy. I'm going to bed.