Sarah

It took three hours to calm Jeremy down. He screamed and freaked at first. Then got angry, then drunk, and finally passed out. Sarah waited patiently for him the next morning. When the twenty-four year old did wake, she was making breakfast.

"Oh god." Jeremy stumbled into the kitchen.

"Good morning to you too," Sarah said irritably.

"So last night," Jeremy asked, keeping his distance. "It was all real?" Sarah nodded, her hair falling over her eyes as she pushed the cereal around the bowl. "And you can turn into a dog?" Sarah nodded again. Jeremy groaned and collapsed onto the couch. "My sister, who I thought was dead, has been living out her life as a dog?" his question was meant to be rhetorical but Sarah answered anyway.

"Technically I'm a skin-walker, and I didn't spend the past four years as a dog."

Jeremy mumbled under his breath. "I heard that you ass." Sarah growled. Jeremy looked at her.

"Whatever." He ran his fingers through his hair. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"I was in town and I heard you were here, so I looked for you."

"Why were you in town? And what have you been doing for the past four years?"

"Basically the same answer for both questions, I was tracking down the skin-walkers that changed me."

"Changed you?" Jeremy sat forward, staring at her.

"Well, to become a skin-walker, you have to be bitten by a skin-walker. The night of the fire, the ones that changed me came to the house and bit me. They torched the place and took me with them. I was unconscious at the time so it wasn't exactly hard to do."

"So they kidnapped you?"

"Yeah, basically." Sarah sighed. "They tried to make me like them, conformed to some weird society of human dog things. I wanted nothing of it especially once they told me what I had to do." Sarah fell quiet.

"What did you have to do?" Concern and fear filled her brothers voice.

"Kill someone." Sarah whispered the words. "They wanted me to eat someone's heart."

Jeremy looked at her. His eyes were locked on her and he began to tremble. "Did you-?"

"No," Sarah cut him off. "I left before that. I was on my own for a while and they let me be for a while, but then they sent others after me."

"What happened?"

"I," Sarah looked away from her brother. "I killed them."

It was silent for a moment, then Jeremy spoke. "Good." Sarah looked up at her brother. That was not what she was expecting.

"Good?" Sarah moved toward her brother. "How is that good? I killed people. Not just the first ones but others too. That's why I'm here, to kill people, you can't possible think that is a good thing!"

"Sarah," Jeremy stood and met her gaze. "They were monsters. They turned you into a dog! They deserved to die."

"I murdered people, Jeremy."

"Have you killed anyone who isn't a skin-whatever?"

"Skin-walker, and no."

"Then you didn't murder people, Sarah, you murdered monsters."

"But I'm a monster too."

"No you're not."

Jeremy

Jeremy eventually convinced Sarah. But more than that he joined her. Her quest to kill the monsters that changed her became his too. Surprising to him, the world of monsters was a lot bigger than half human half dogs. It came packed with secrets. Demons, werewolves, ghosts and vampires were among a few. Killing the skin-walkers was only half the job. In truth, Jeremy was in it to protect Sarah, if not from the skin-walkers than from herself.

He had little knowledge of this new world but picked up quickly. The life style wasn't easy, the pack of skin-walkers moved, changing several in a city before moving to the next. After several months of this, a new threat immerged. These weren't monsters but men. Men and women who like Jeremy had knowledge of the hidden world of monsters. They called themselves Hunters. Most they met worked jobs with them or just passed by. The ones who they worked with gave them knew knowledge and a good cover.

Sarah and Jeremy became Hunters, but they never bothered with demons or ghosts. They had one target. Their start-up cover story was simple enough and close enough to the truth that if anyone investigated it wouldn't be questioned. A brother and sister pair avenging the death of their father and sister, killed by skin-walkers.

Keeping Sarah's secret was easy at times, but she could be reckless. More than once Jeremy had to clean up a mess. A Hunter would get suspicious of her and start asking questions. Jeremy would take care of the Hunters before they got too close. He was lucky they traveled in small groups. Sarah didn't know. She liked the Hunters. They were misfits, as she put it, like her. Jeremy just saw them as threats.

Since before he could remember Jeremy was taking care of his sister. Six years younger than he, she was always needing looking after. Their father wasn't the nicest man in the world and Sarah wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. She would make him angry and Jeremy would play defense. It was how he had gotten the broken nose. Sarah was ten when she nearly brunt the kitchen down trying to make macaroni. Jeremy had taken the beating for her. That was their relationship, Jeremy took the beatings and Sarah stayed safe.

Tracking the skin-walkers was difficult by himself. He knew the signs to look for but much past that he was lost. Finding the walkers was next to impossible without Sarah. If he could do it on his own he would. Sarah didn't need to be in the line of fire.

They sat in a dinner somewhere in Colorado. "Got anything?" he asked.

"Well it's not much and it doesn't follow the pattern they have been taking, but I think so." Sarah passed the newspaper to him. The headline read, "Family died in house of animal attack". "The family didn't have a dog, and there were no signs of break-ins, but it looks like skin-walkers."

Jeremy skimmed the article. "It happened in Utah?"

"I know, its west. Weird right?"

"They've been traveling south, why change directions?"

"I don't know, but I think we need to check it out."

The siblings finished their meals and left.