Chapter 1

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Jackie's POV

I let out a slow, deep breath and focus my eyes on that red mark on the far end of the barn. Keeping the string taught, I lift my bow and aim, quickly releasing the arrow and sending it sailing through the air, hitting the target set about forty yards away right on the red. A satisfying thud echos through the early morning air.

Shooting first thing in the morning is the one thing I have never let slip out of my daily routine. I love the silence of early mornings in Faulkton, South Dakota. The birds are chirping and the sun's killer heat isn't radiating through the atmosphere just yet. It's just calm.

After shooting a good fifteen arrows consecutively, I lower my bow and place in on top of the stack of hay barrels lining the wall of the run down barn that my father and I have come to know as the training barn. I retrieve the arrows I had shot and slip them one by one into the quiver that is strapped across my back. Walking back to my bow, I grab it then walk over the the far end of the barn.

Here, the wall is quite literally covered in weaponry of all sorts. Guns, crossbows, machetes, you name it, it's there. I find the hooks where my bow is to be stowed and place it there carefully, then do the same for the quiver of arrows. Letting out a quick breath, I look around and make sure everything is put away before heading back to the house.

I slide the heavy barn door open and step outside. The sun is finally up, just barely over the horizon, but its up. I glance around the farm that I have come to know as home, watching as the sun's rays cast shadows behind the barns and the house, and listen as the horses and other animals begin to rouse.

My dad decided to finally settle down after endless years of hunting down the thing that tore my family apart when I was nine. As a hunter, my father took on the responsibility of always being on the radar of supernatural creatures when he joined the business, as did I when he began to train me, but no amount of preparation could have allowed us to become prepared for what took my mother from my father and I's grasps sixteen years ago. Even though my father had never actually hunted down and got his revenge on this unknown supernatural creature, I can tell he refuses to die unless he finds what did this to my family.

Together, my father and I have interrogated demons and captured countless other supernatural creatures and demanded any information out of them on the whereabouts of this death-bringing creature, but to no prevail. It was only after my eighteenth birthday that my father decided to stop running in endless circles. He has in no way given up on his search, and neither have I, but my father found that in training me properly and giving me the best parenting he could in this life of hunting, he would better raise me as my mother would have wanted. She was a hunter too, and she would no doubt understand his decision to stop seeking for revenge.

I shake my head clear of the thoughts that haunt me daily and close the barn door behind me as I set out for the house across the farm. I walk past countless run down structures until I reach the white, two story farm house. I jog up the porch steps and swing open the screeching screen door, letting it slam behind me.

Setting out for the kitchen, I slip off my boots and light jacket. I find my dad divulged in the newspaper, sitting at the small kitchen table.

"Morning," I say, reaching for a coffee mug from the cupboard. Can't start the day without the bare necessities.

"Morning," he says back, not even glancing up from his newspaper. I roll my eyes and poor myself coffee from the pot brewing on the stove.

"How's your leg? Doesn't seem to be giving you too much trouble lately." On our last hunting trip about a month ago, we were hunting a wendigo in Illinois, and my dad's leg got pretty banged up in the process. Thankfully it wasn't too serious but it did stop us from hunting for a while. Not gonna lie, the break from being on the road 24/7 was a bit nice, but I'm itching to get back into action.

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