A Hunter's Heart

Prologue

Sang honestly thought she was going crazy. She couldn't explain it. Two days ago she was fine, normal even, if you could call a girl who suffered from horrific nightmares each night and who was treated as a slave by her stepmother, normal.

But now she was seeing things.

At first she thought that maybe she wasn't getting enough sleep, and that her nightmares were starting to become daymares, but that didn't make sense. She had actually been getting decent sleep as of late since her mother was away at the hospital for one of her treatments and Marie, her half sister, was away at a friends for the weekend.

She wasn't being forced to wake before dawn to clean the house before her mother woke, and the lack of tense atmosphere from her family being gone allowed her to actually sleep without dreaming at all.

So why was she now seeing evil smokey gray masks over the faces of the people in her town. She didn't see them on everyone, but she had seen more and more of them over the last two days.

And it didn't help that they always seemed to be watching her with a dark glint in their black eyes. They all looked hungry, the way she imagined the evil men her mother always raved about to look like when they attacked young girls before leaving them in ditches.

The poor girl honestly just wanted to stay home and avoid the scary masked people, but she unfortunately couldn't. It was Saturday and the only day that she could go out shopping for the things her mother would need when she returned from the Hospital. She couldn't go Sunday as a few of the stores she needed to go to were closed on that day, and it was also the day she was delegated to do laundry, summer homework, and deep cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen.

And she definitely couldn't go on a week day, as to not build a habit for when school started up again. And not to mention her stepmother would be home by Wednesday night.

Her punishments were always worse when she returned from long treatments, as her temper was already worn thin from having to be around doctors and nurses for several days. She really didn't want to give her an excuse to dole out a punishment, though to be honest, she would likely make an excuse anyway.

Sang glanced around wearily as she left the supermarket, her rolling basket filled with groceries. She had had to do something she had never done before now, which was go to a checkstand with an actual cashier, as she didnt want to brave the self checkouts that were being watched by one of those masked people.

The cashier was fortunately a nice older lady who didn't get upset when Sang dropped her change, her hands shaking violently from nerves, both from the evil eyes she could feel on the back of her head, and for the fact that she was interacting with someone other than her family.

She prayed her stepmother would never find out. She really didn't want the shower punishment again.

Sang turned left from the market, heading off to the hospice supply store down the road to pick up some more supplies for her stepmother, such as bed pads, wet wipes, and diapers.

Her mother didn't always need those items, but on her worse days it was better to have her in a diaper that Sang could easily change instead of fighting to get her to a toilet. Less chance of either of them getting hurt.

She could feel more eyes on her as she walked down the street, all of them making her terribly anxious and uncomfortable. She kept her gaze down, hoping that if she didn't make eye contact with any of them, that they would leave her be.

That wasn't the case.

The blonde girl stumbled back after walking face first into another person. Her head snapped up to immediately apologize, only for her words to get caught in her throat.