Chapter 3:

Bordeaux France, March 17th, 2000

"Strike!"

Veronica took a step forward, hand curled around her hanbō. Her left foot lead the swing. Her right arm came up and in, supporting the half staff against the line of her forearm and adding more power to her swing. It was blocked.

"Defend!"

Her hands found their proper placement and came up just in time to block a blow that would have come down upon her face.

"Strike!"

She swung the bō low, swiping at his feet. He slid back to avoid it.

"Defend!"

She was slow to block. His staff struck her ribs. Hard. Sending a shock of pain through her left side.

"Strike!"

Her swipe at his side went unmet. He was starting to get irritated now. She knew that he expected a certain level of performance from his student. And he was currently not getting the skill he demanded of her.

"Defend!"

He jabbed the end of his staff into her sternum. She stumbled back, the wind knocked out of her. She clutched at her chest, fingers clawing into her shirt trying to grasp onto something unexplainable. Veronica almost dropped her own weapon in the wave of pain and panic that washed over her. She quickly raised the stick in a halfhearted attempt to block the next strike that came at her.

"What are you doing? Push through the pain. Focus!"

He swung at her again. She managed to throw herself out of the way just in time. "You are a Potential. You must be ready to perform your duties with the skill necessary to defeat the forces of evil." His statement was punctuated with a slash of his staff, it rapped upon the bones in her wrist.

"Do you think that the vampires and demons you will face will take it easy on you? As I have been doing?" He swept her off her feet and onto the floor with a lazy swipe of his bō. "I'd be surprised if you made it a month."

Veronica was used to this speech. Her Watcher was a very strict man. He liked things done a certain way. His way. And when his standards weren't met he wasn't afraid to tear into her until they were right.

When she was younger she used to cry when he'd raise his voice at her, or discipline her. She couldn't understand what she was doing wrong. It seemed no matter how hard she tried it was always wrong. It would always be wrong because Blake didn't seem to care for her very much. He seemed to actively resent her presence. It didn't seem to matter to him that she was an actual person. To Blake she was just a weapon. Just an extension of his will. So if she was doing something wrong or performing poorly than so was he.

"Get up, you silly girl!"

Veronica was tired, they had been going at it for hours, but she knew that she wasn't going to be allowed to leave the mat or the training room until she had proven her skill to him. She just needed to get him one time and then she was free.

Just once.

She hopped onto her feet with a renewed sense of purpose. "Come now! Strike!" She swung hard, her staff connecting with his. The recoil sent a sharp pain through her fingers but she kept her grip tight.

The intensity of the sparring increased. Her Watcher was no longer pulling punches. He struck at her with a strength he rarely showed in training. He was quick as well. She was lucky that even as a Potential her strength and reflexes were stronger than average, she would have been out ages ago.

Strike. Defend. Strike. Defend. Strike. Defend.

"Faster!"

StrikeDefendStrikeDefend.

"Faster! Strike!"

One hand came to grasp the bottom side of her staff and lead the weapon in a quick jab towards her opponent's navel.

"Defe-"

He dodged the jab but left himself open as he raised his staff doing so. Her bō went out under his armpit coming up behind his shoulder. She widened her stance, planting a foot between his open legs. She leaned forward hooking the staff under her opponent's arm and pulled him forward, tripping him on her leg as she did so. He flipped over head first and slammed his back against the mat. He grunted as he pulled himself up off the mat, his back to her.

"Finally." She could hear the sneer in his voice. She quickly stood at attention, holding her staff to her side and dropping her head down, eyes focused on the floor.

Veronica's Watcher turned to face her. "You will die." He slowly approached her, each step deliberate. She watched his bare feet as he stalked towards her. "You need to listen to me, Veronica." He stopped, inches from her. "Look at me." His hand came up to grasp her chin. His fingers digging into her cheeks as he forced her head up. She stared into his cold eyes.

"You will die a violent and cruel death, Veronica. And you will die alone. You are weak, I can see it in you.

This world is full of Evil and eventually you will be called upon to fight against it. You have the potential to be a great soldier. A powerful weapon. But as of now you are wasting my time."

"You need to try harder, Veronica. You need to be stronger. Do you understand?" She wanted to rage at him.

What do you want from me? What more can I do?

She trained and she studied and she fought and she tried. Every single day. She had no rest, no breaks, no weekends. She ate, slept and breathed demonology, battle, war tactics, and witchcraft. She knew that she would spend the rest of her life doing exactly that. Nothing but that until she died.

Sometimes she hoped she'd die soon. That she would be called as a Slayer and she would die a quick death at the hands of some random vampire. Just a quick snap of the neck and she would be free from the burden.

"Yes." She swallowed back her anger, making sure that her face showed no outward emotion. She stared into his cold dark eyes. "Yes, sir. I understand."

He released her face and turned to leave the room. He paused as he reached the doorway.

"Happy Birthday, Veronica." He never looked back at her.

Oh right. She had forgotten.

She turned eight that day.

—

Hawkins Indiana, July 25th, 1983

Veronica had been in this alternate universe for almost three years.

She had been picked up at the concert back in 1980 and had been driven into Akron, Ohio instead of Cleveland. She had quickly let the officers that had taken her in know that she had no parents or living relatives and that she suggested they called Child Services. This had baffled them a bit but they had done what was asked.

Veronica told these cops that her name was Veronica Lehane, not Hernandez like she had back in Cleveland. She figured that she might as well start new. New life, new name. But she still wanted to take a piece of home with her, so Lehane it was. Plus she had wanted to disassociate her case with the one in Cleveland. So she was now ten year old Veronica Lehane whose parents had died years ago and who had been unofficially living with "family friends" for a few years. She made it all sound really shady, moving around every few months, never going to public school or visiting the doctors, how her parents' "friends" asked her to call them Mom and Dad from the moment they took her in. She implied she had been kidnapped.

The woman from CPS had been horrified. They immediately asked for a description of said kidnappers, she gave them a description of the future "Brangelina" and called it a day. When asked for information on her birth parents she told them she didn't know as she was very young when they had died. They put out a search to see if she had matched any old missing children descriptions. She hadn't. They kept her in a group home near the police station while they made sure that no one would be missing her before they began the process of putting her in the foster system.

Veronica was then officially Veronica Lehane, and boy was that a mind fuck. She had secretly hoped that she eventually would have bore the Lehane name. She just hadn't expected that this was the way it would have happened.

Veronica was officially a ward of the state and she had been put into a group home for a month before she was forced to move on to the next one. She had witnessed a male member of the staff take a fifteen year old girl into a back room, alone. She had then followed faking naivety as she claimed to have been looking for the bathroom. The girl had looked relieved. The man not so much.

He had cornered Veronica, trying to threaten her into keeping quiet. Saying that if she didn't keep her mouth shut that both her and the older girl would be out on the streets. Big mistake. Huge. Veronica did not take threats well. Her initial plan had been simply to be there to stop him from acting on his urges. But now he had threatened her. She didn't give a fuck if he thought he ran that group home. She wasn't worried about living out on the streets. She would be fine. She could take care of herself. But the kids in that home could not, and she wasn't about to let him think that he could mess around with the lives of these kids.

Fuck him.

She broke his wrist. Shattered it really, but that was his fault. He shouldn't have put his hand on her shoulder like that. She told him that he should quit. That no one would believe that she had hurt him because she was just a little girl and he was a grown ass man. How could she have physically hurt him? It wasn't possible. He was gone for a week but came back with a cast on. She didn't like that. So she claimed that he had touched her. Told every staff member that she could. Even roughed herself up a bit.

They believed her.

He was fired and arrested. And she was transferred into another group home. Before she left though, the girl he had actually tried to assault had come up to her. She had thanked her, with tears in her eyes. Gave Veronica a hug and thanked her. And Veronica felt a sense of pride in herself that she had never experienced as a Slayer.

It felt good, saving the world from evil and whatnot but it was a thankless job. The people she saved rarely even acknowledged her work. The whole vampire reveal and anti-Slayer shit just made the public see her as a monster. Yes, she killed things. But they were demons, soulless creatures that fed on human beings, killed viciously and indiscriminately, and ate kittens. She was doing it to protect people and all she got in return was hate.

It wasn't like she needed praise or whatever to do her job. She knew that that wasn't going to happen. She just wanted to be acknowledged every once in a while. She did put her life on the line, after all.

So when that girl came up to her, shaking and crying and thanked her. She damn near almost cried herself. She felt like what she had done had mattered for once. That she would be remembered for what she had done. And that she had saved this girl in a way that was more important than all of the demon victims she had rescued put all together.

It was the first time in a long time where she felt like a hero.

So she left that home with a smile on her face, knowing that she could live through whatever it was that came her way next.

What was next happened to be another group home. For six months. It was an all girls home. She had no issue with this one. They just were underfunded by the state, she could tell that they were struggling to keep up with the amount of girls they had already had. She asked her case worker about a transfer it took a couple weeks but she had found Veronica a new home.

She was taken in by a lovely family as a foster daughter. An interracial couple in their late forties. They were both doctors. The husband was a pediatrician and the mother was an OBGYN. They met in medical school. They were kind and sweet and had two older kids that were nice as well. They were genuinely good people. She kind of liked them and for some strange reason they seemed to like her back.

The oldest teen, the son, was to start college the fall after she arrived. At Perdue University. The family was going to make the move with him from Akron to Indianapolis, so they'd only be a few hours away. Veronica fully expected to be sent to another group home but they surprised her by wanting to take her with them. It took about a month of paperwork and petitioning but it happened.

Veronica hadn't been sure how she felt about that though. She liked the family well enough but she knew that she shouldn't allow herself to get attached.

This world she now lived in didn't have magic, but that didn't mean that she was cut off from whatever source had previously powered her own. She still had her magic, she was still a Witch. She still had her Slayer strength, speed, reflexes and healing. She still had that instinct that told her that she had some kind of purpose in being here.

During The Battle,and she felt as though capitalization was required when referring to the event that had brought her here, she had this tight feeling in her gut that she wasn't going to be there after the fight. She had been right about that, just not in the way she had originally thought. She didn't die, she somehow tumbled into an alternate universe. She had actually felt like she had known what was going to happen at least a few days before The Battle.

Slayer dreams were ways in which Sineya and the Powers that Be were able to warn a Slayer of what was to come. Most Potentials began to dream of past Slayers and the lives they lived and the deaths they experienced. It was Sineya's idea of a history lesson. Faith and Buffy had both mentioned sharing dreams and somehow predicting Dawn's creation. So sometimes the dreams were prophetic. They believed the ominous future-y dreams were provided by the Powers.

Veronica wasn't sure if she had dreamed something like that leading up to The Battle, but the moment she stepped foot on the site of the Hellmouth she knew what her destiny held. Sometimes she still got that feeling, that tightness in her gut that told her she needed to do something, or go somewhere.

She had that gut feeling when she asked to transfer from her second group home. And she had a similar feeling when her foster family asked to take her with them when they moved out of state. She wanted to tell them no, that she couldn't be what they wanted her to be. She was never going to be able to be a full fledged member of their family. She had too many secrets that she had to keep hidden. She could never truly open up to them the way they did with her. And that was unfair. They deserved to have someone that wanted to be a part of their family.

She was going to ask them not to bother but as she opened her mouth to object she was suddenly hit with a force of knowledge that she needed to go out of state with them. She needed to be in Indiana. She didn't know why, just that she needed to do it. So she kept her mouth shut.

She let them get their hopes up.

She felt like an asshole.

Veronica had been with them 11 months when they had asked for her permission to adopt her. It was the day of her birthday and they had all been there for her special day. She received presents and cake and then they dropped the bomb.

The hopeful look on the mother's face was enough for her to say yes. She couldn't be so mean to the woman who had tried her hardest to make her feel welcome in their home. She had prepared a room for her, bought her new clothes and bought her a Walkman as a Christmas present when she found out her love for music.

They had actually bonded over their mutual love for music. Veronica had had a thing for oldies in her time. Songs of the 60s and 70s were her favorites. She loved the punk scene of the 70s and Motown artists of the 60s. She had spent a lot of time in her universe sitting around listening to records with Faith and Robin, they'd take turns playing tracks and educating her on good music. The woman was surprised that the little Hispanic girl knew every word to most of the records she played: Marvin Gaye, Mary Wells, Brenton Wood, Al Green and Gladys Knight. She was happy to have someone to share her music with as her own kids didn't really enjoy it much, they preferred their own generation's music.

She had bonded with this woman and she didn't want to be the one to hurt her. She found herself about to say yes, but the Powers stopped her voice in its tracks. She had to tell them no. She did tell them no.

The family had been disappointed but hadn't pushed the issue. They had had other foster children before. They knew that most children in the system had issues. Mental and emotional. They planned to let her stay, work on having her open up to them and asking again when she was more comfortable. She knew that that was their plan. They were the type of people to never leave someone they loved behind. And they had grown to love Veronica. And she couldn't allow herself to love them back.

She contacted her new caseworker and asked to be placed in a group home. She apologized to her foster family, and they said they understood, but they never really would understand the reason behind her decision. She thanked them for everything they'd done for her and offered to give back the things they'd bought her. They refused. They made her take all her cassette tapes she collected, all the clothes they'd bought her and the Walkman they gave her.

Her foster sister even gave her a brand new sketch pad as a goodbye present. The rest of the family gave her colored pencils and charcoals. She hadn't even realized that they had noticed her habit of drawing. It wasn't something she did often, but it was something she had like to think she was good at.

She really felt like an asshole.

She moved into a group home a month after her foster family had asked to adopt her. This group home was co-Ed, but was meant for younger children. She was one of the oldest children there at 12. She spent 11 months there until she turned 13 for the second time in March 1983. She was now over the age limit for the group home she was in. But for some reason or other every other group home in Indianapolis was somehow unable to take her in. The surrounding counties were somehow also unable to take her in.

She had a feeling there was a little Divine intervention taking place.

She spent another three months in that group home until they were able to find a foster home willing to take her in. She ended up being placed in a little town in the middle of Roane County.

So that brought her to where she was today. Stepping out out of her caseworker's car. They had spent the last couple of hours making the drive over.

She was now the newest resident of Hawkins, Indiana.

Yay.

—

It turned out that Veronica's new foster parent was a single woman in her fifties. Her name was Marianne Wilkes. She was a short woman, only about 5'1" at best. She was blue eyed and blonde haired, or at least she had been so when she was younger. She had many pictures lining the walls of her house. Pictures of her in her youth, mostly. She had been a delicate looking thing, all dainty shoes and ruffled dresses, pale smooth skin and shiny hair that curled into ringlets.

She looked like a porcelain doll in the photos of her past and she still held herself in the same delicate fashion. Small kitten heels clacked against the wood of the porch as she met them at the wore a simple dress that swished about mid calf as she walked. It was a pale blue. She looked like Julie freaking Andrews.

And it was a far cry from the way Veronica carried herself.

Veronica's body was now currently thirteen. She was almost caught up to the way her body had previously been before she had been de-aged. She was just shy of 5'2" which was awesome because that was actually an inch taller than she had been in her world. Veronica liked to think that her being an activated Slayer had affected her new growth, plus she had a little more muscle in her legs and arms than she had previously had as well. The only reason she would say that she was still not physically caught up to her fourteen year old self was that she was still waiting for her breasts to fully kick in. She had liked where she was at previously and she was still waiting for them to reach that point. She was little more than an "A" at the moment and it kind of made her sad.

Veronica's sense of style reflected what she had worn in the year 2006. She was a grungy bitch and she knew it. She was wearing a pair of high waisted black skinny jeans. She'd actually had to tailor the pants to fit the length of her legs, they were a good four inches too long at first. She wore a loose fitting grey Clash t-shirt tucked into her pants and the same black bomber jacket she had nicked from a lost and found back in 1980. She also wore her black Doc Martens and a black choker necklace around her bare throat. Her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail that brushed across her back as she walked.

She definitely dressed older than she looked, but she couldn't help it. She was not about to run around in the things the other girls her age did. She had the taste of the seventeen year old that she should have been. And though she guessed she should have also had the mentality of a seventeen year old as well, she often found that her behavior didn't match that.

She found that being here in a world without magic and without responsibilities made her feel younger than she had ever felt even when she had lived through her first childhood. As a Potential being raised by the Watchers Council she had never experienced a regular childhood and despite the Scoobies' best efforts her life as a Slayer hadn't been much different. Sure she had been free to be herself, to discover who she really was as she hadn't really known before. But she still had the weight of the world upon her shoulders. She wasn't alone in that burden but it hadn't really lightened the load either.

Being where she was now allowed her the chance to finally be a real kid. She got to go to school. That had been a new and fun experience. She had been homeschooled while she had been trained by the Council and she had received her GED after being taken in by the Scoobies. Her peers had been less mature and less emotionally developed than she had been, but she soon found herself to be none too different from them. She had a lot more academic knowledge than her classmates but she had fit right in with the other kids at her school and in her group homes.

She wasn't really sure what that said about her psyche. She chose to ignore it.

Her caseworker left almost as soon as the introductions had been made.

"Well don't just stand there young lady, have a seat." Marianne went ahead sat herself down in an armchair, leaving the sofa open. Veronica left her bags where they had been piled by the door and followed the woman's lead.

"Yes, ma'am." She gently lowered herself onto the cushion, crossed her legs at the ankles and placed her hands in her lap. She was doing her best Princess Diaries impression, she had a feeling Marianne would appreciate the effort.

She did. The woman nodded in approval. "Let's get down to business. This isn't my first rodeo. So let me get through my spiel and then we can move on. Now I don't like to think of myself as a particularly strict person but I do have my rules and I expect them to be followed."

Marianne's blue eyes gazed into her face, searching for something. It unnerved her. She felt like the older woman was stripping back the layers of everything that Veronica was. And judging it. Whether she approved or not had yet to be seen.

"I don't suffer fools." She wagged her finger at the girl. That was good. Neither did Veronica.

"Rule number one. You are to call me Marianne. I don't need the false proprietary and I do not tolerate nicknames. So it is Marianne or Ma'am. Number two. You go to school, without fail. We'll head off to get you signed up in a little bit. Rule number three, you tell me where you are going and when you will be back, and no staying out after ten. Rule four you help out around here. I cook and clean myself but I expect a little help from time to time. And rule five, no boys. Just follow all that and we should be okay."

"You got all that?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Any questions?"

"Just, where will I be staying?" The girl walked back toward her bags by the door. Swinging the two heaviest on one shoulder and scooping up the last bag in the other hand. Her bags were really heavy. She didn't want the older woman trying to help pick one up and question how Veronica had held them all so easily earlier.

"Don't worry I have a room for you." Marianne lead Veronica down a hallway passed a kitchen, dining room and a few more closed doors before reaching the end of the hallway.

It was a fairly large room, with a full bed against the far wall with two nightstands on either side. The comforter was a nice shade of blue, dark and fluffy looking. A desk and a few shelves were by the left hand side and a closet with a mirrored door. To the very left of the room's entrance, opposite the bed was a long dresser, with three drawers and a cabinet on either side. On the right side of the room was a tall lamp and-another closet?

Veronica opened the door on the right to reveal a bathroom. Well that was generous.

"This room was originally the master bedroom. There were two other rooms connected by a bathroom, I've converted one into an office and the other was a guest bedroom. I spent so much time in that office I decided to just knock the wall down between the two."

The Slayer looked back at the older woman. "Thank you." She placed her bags onto the bed before turning back to Marianne. "I really appreciate you letting me into your home. I'll make sure to follow your rules."

"Good." The woman nodded before turning from the room, she paused at the threshold and turned toward the girl. "Come now, we have to get to the school soon before it closes. We need to get you enrolled, pick out your classes and see about getting you anything you need from town as well."

"Yes, ma'am."

—

It turned out that Hawkins Middle School had not received her transcripts from her previous school. They wanted to put her into seventh grade based on her age. She flat out refused. She had already finished the seventh grade the previous year. It was bad enough she had already had to redo a middle school curriculum, she wasn't about to do the same year over twice.

She opted to test into her classes. It would take a couple hours but at least she would be able to leave knowing that she would be taking the right classes come the end of summer. The teacher assigned to her testing, a Mr. Clarke, told them it would take a few hours to administer all the tests. He'd managed to gather the final exams and answer sheets from the finals taken the previous school year. Veronica didn't expect it to take that long. They didn't know her academic level though and she understood the caution. Marianne decided to take the time to head out and get some chores done and pick up some dinner.

The tests were easy. She finished up each exam in under fifteen minutes each. They were just multiple choice for the most part, some fill in the blanks. She was sure she'd passed with flying colors. Math, Earth Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, Spanish. She was an hour ahead of schedule.

She sat patiently while Mr. Clarke graded her tests and took the man in. He seemed like a genuinely nice man. A teacher that actually liked his job. She knew this to be true as he had volunteered to give her her exams, unlike the other teachers who had all looked perturbed at the thought of staying after their meeting had finished. He had introduced himself with a carefree smile and gentle voice. He also had several pictures of his students littered across the room. Winners of science fairs, what seemed to be an AV club, and a class photo of what was probably last year's eighth grade class. He actually cared about his students.

That was rare in teachers. She'd been to six different schools at this point. She'd know.

"Well," Mr. Clarke had settled the last of the exam papers into the pile with the rest. "I'd hate to be the bringer of bad news…" he trailed off.

Veronica stood from her seat, an objection on her lips.

"But, welcome to Hawkins Middle eighth grade class."

His mustache twitched as he smiled, and Veronica let the fight die out of her. He walked out from behind his desk and met her at the desk she had been using. "Wow. You sure did go through those tests pretty quickly. And you received perfect scores!" He grinned at her as she

Veronica let out a little laugh, she really had been scared for a second. Though she knew she knew her stuff, she actually knew stuff beyond this stuff. She just hadn't expected a joke like that from a teacher.

"Yeah, well the tests weren't actually that hard. I'd actually already taken these classes, my transcripts just weren't sent over. I just wanted the problem dealt with as soon as possible."

"I completely understand. I'm glad to see that you were willing to give up a summer afternoon to sit around and take tests at a school you don't even go to yet. That is the kind of dedication to education that I like to see in my students." He held out his hand for a shake. "I'm looking forward to having you in my biology class. Hopefully that dedication stays true."

She accepted his handshake. His grip was firm, as was hers, she respected that he treated her like an adult in that regard. Men seemed to barely make an effort in shaking a woman's hand, treating them like delicate flowers in doing so. And most adults didn't even shake the hands of children, dismissing the sign of respect completely.

Mr. Clarke was good people.

With an awesome 'stache.

"Wicked. I'll see you in class then." Two quick pumps and the shake was done. She quickly scooped up her jacket and waited by the door as he also had turned to gather his things. They walked down the hall towards the main office to give the results to the administrators.

Veronica took in the nice shade of blue that lined the lockers and walls. "Was that an accent I heard earlier?"

That made the girl pause. "Most people don't notice it right away, if at all. I was... raised by a British couple. My accent is mostly American, I'd had some…foster sisters in the beginning. We were all American but once it was just me my accent began to take on some British pronunciations. I also spent a while in a lot of different European countries. My accent likes to switch between a lot of different things." She shrugged her shoulders at an attempt at nonchalance. "I don't have to try very hard for the American, it is my natural accent, sometimes the others slip in on certain words though."

"Hawkins must seem like a big change from all that. You're probably used to big cities, right?" They'd almost reached the office, just one more corner to turn.

"No. Not really. We mostly stayed in the countryside."

She was visualizing large isolated manors, empty except for her and her Watchers. "And so far I like the people here a lot better than those in Europe. Far better."

With that she turned the corner and spotted Marianne talking to one of the office clerks. "Aw. There she is." She waved Veronica over. "Figured I'd come back early. You seem the smart type."

That made her smile.

Things were settled quickly after that. She would be starting school in three weeks and she was free to go.

Her and Marianne made their way back to the woman's car, an old Ford Pinto in a fading yellow.

They turned the corner looping around to head back toward the house. "I don't feel like cooking today. There's a diner not to far from the house. Benny's. We're eating there."

Veronica nodded her head, humming an affirmative. She drummed her fingers along the outside of the passenger door, her arm resting half in and half out of the car.

They'd just reached the train tracks when a group of kids riding bikes rounded a corner she had not noticed was there. Four boys around her age were riding their way, taking up both lanes. Three stayed to their right, the other broke off and rode along the grass on their left.

He was about her age, maybe younger. He looked small, but then again so was she. Brown hair in an unfortunate bowl cut. And as they began to pass each other she noticed his eyes were brown.

His eyes locked with hers and it was like she couldn't breathe. She felt that pull in her stomach, that tightness in her chest. But this feeling was different from the way she had felt when she had been "guided" before. It felt cold, and dark.

It felt familiar though.

He rode on, not seeming to have noticed anything off. She watched him in the side view mirror as he and his friends merged back together. Her eyes stayed focused on his yellow vest as they got smaller in the distance.

This feeling in her stomach was something she hadn't felt in over three years. It was like her Slayer sense had awoken.

Something horrible was coming and that boy was somehow involved.

She wanted nothing to do with it.

The pull in her chest told her she didn't have a choice.