CHAPTER ONE:
Broken Dams
I felt betrayed. I couldn't even begin to fathom why he would do this. He was just as insane as I was, just as much of a freak. We hunted monsters, for god's sake. My own brother... I didn't know what to think.
"Name?" the doctor barked. He was old, with a tuft of pure white hair in the centre of his shiny head, and he smelled of mucus. I looked up.
"Charlotte," I muttered.
"Welcome, Charlotte. In order to help you, I'll need to know why you are here," he cooed slowly, as if I was a blabbering child.
"My traitor brother," I whispered. I wanted to put all the blame on him, but in the back of my mind I knew I couldn't.
It started three weeks ago. I had always been strange, even for a hunter. I didn't sleep, ever, and I was immune to liquor, disease, and death. The couple who had found me were always so worried, up until July 4, 1992. I was nine years old. My adopted mother was slaughtered in her bed. By a demon.
My adopted father became obsessed with hunting demons and everything in between. He raised Damien, his son, and I to be fierce killers. He was shot by another hunter when I was seventeen. Damien and I carried out the legacy. We were unstoppable, we slaughtered demons by the dozen. Up until three weeks ago. I had started getting searing headaches and flashes of visions. I had pieced it together; they were memories. Damien thought that was the limit. He threw me into a small mental institution.
"This isn't your brothers fault, Charlotte," he said, slowly and softly. I sprang up, gripping a pen and shoving it under his chin, to his throat.
"He's not my brother. And it is his fault. Don't presume to know me," I growled. I backed up, dropping the pen.
I stumbled back to my room. Visions- memories- were flashing. I saw a tan trench-coat and a trickster I had slain many years ago. I pounded my head on the desk. Two men came running in and they injected something into my arm. It didn't effect me. I kicked and screamed.
They carried me into a smaller room. It was padded. I nearly screamed with rage. Instead I curled up and rocked back and forth. I was starting to look and feel insane.
Memories flashed again. This time, a more developed one showed itself.
"Sloan! You need to leave. Find the boys!" someone shouted. The trench-coat man.
I snapped back into reality.
The next week was torturous. The institution seemed to increase insanity rather than cure it. My mental 'breakdowns' were happening more often than not. The doctors all thought I was steadily going crazier. I thought so too.
After about a month, I was beyond repair. I hadn't heard from Damien at all, the lack of monsters was nerve-wrecking, and I had constant memories flooding my brain. I didn't even know my name anymore.
I found myself staring at my reflection in the small mirror in my cell. My face had thinned. It made my eyes look larger. My long, dark brown hair was clipped at the top of my head. My white clothing just intensified my very pale skin.
I stumbled over to the bed, taking the blanket and a pillow over to the corner where I always pretended to sleep. I heard the door lock, and I knew they had turned the night cameras on.
Night was always terrible. My inability to sleep gave me a lot of time to ponder. That just quickened my journey into insanity.
I closed my eyes, trying to shake away a particularly grim memory. When I reopened them, someone was in my room. Not just someone, it was him. The trench-coated man. The man who had reoccurred so often in my memories.
