"And what do we owe our monsters- our fear or our blades?" -Julia Knox

Do you ever

get the feeling

that this life

isn't yours?

That you have

no control?

That everyone

around you is

living, and

You're just

breathing.

Watching.

Waiting.

For what?

- S.J.B

It was easy to get lost in the heat of fury, lost in every second of adrenaline that dove itself through Milena Lachel's system as she stood panting at the edge of the small town. Her group had been assigned to the town somewhere deep in the Black forest, the location not as important as what resided deep in the foliage. Behind her, Milena could hear the shouts and shrieks of her companions mingling together with their prey to create a cacophony that grated against her bones, feeding the shifting tide of darkness she forced away.

It would be easier to let go, to join her family in the play behind her but the girl took one step after another away from the town, her erratic breaths evening out as she took a few moments to rest. Her face felt sticky, half of her hair plastered to her head, her pony tail swinging with more weight than usual. The extra grams did nothing to ease the exhaustion Milena felt deep in her bones, just as her shuddering breaths had nothing to do with her physical excursion.

Just breath Milena. She took another shaking breath, trying to calm herself. It's okay.

A branch cracked a few feet away from the girl, a sound that immediately brought the curved blade she held to a ready position with an ease bred from hours of practice. Monster. Milena recognized, inhaling the scent of smoke and the coppery tag the breeze carried her way. A splash of liquid glistened a deep black on the broken branches of a low growing tree, glinting in the firelight. Something large has been through here. Milena felt herself stiffen, creeping forward on quiet feet, hands shaking as a new wave of adrenaline coursed through her veins. It was already wounded and based on the position of the blood on the leaves, it had been wounded below the hips, most likely a knee.

Wiping her eye clear of her own stinging sweat, Milena studied the newly made path with tired eyes, not acknowledging that her hand came away red. Someone on my team might have gotten injured. She considered, turning the thought over in her head. They might be too weak to call for help. A terrified scream rose over the overall din of the noise from the town; the abrupt silence of it a moment later sent her walking into the cover of the trees more than her rational thought.

The trail was easy enough to follow, snapped branches and deep uneven footprints pressed into the relatively undisturbed forest floor allowed her to track it with relative ease. In a few short minutes, Milena could hear its ragged breath and a minute after that she could see it.

It was tall, almost 2 meters, hand to its knee as it limped through the brush. It either didn't care that Milena had tracked it or it hadn't noticed the girl yet. Knowing that her long blade was ill suited for fighting in the close quarters of the trees, Milena sheathed her saber and drew two knives.

It barely even turned before the first blade sank deep into it's uninjured knee, dropping it to the ground. Sprinting forward, Milena drew her knee back before allowing the leather clad joint to crack against the back of it's head, sending it's face crashing into the ground below. The fight was over before it even had time to release the scream of pain Milena heard when she flipped it over onto its back and the knife she pressed to its neck immediately silenced the beast.

Licking her lips, Milena readjusted her blade to an angle that would allow the wesen before her a quick death. In a single second, the woge had faded away, leaving a bleeding man underneath her. She didn't know what made her pause; her Mother would have done the deed minutes before when she followed him, the knife sent to hit his spine, finishing the beast with an ax to the neck. To her mother, the decision would have been easy, her actions confident and without a doubt in her mind afterward.

Milena knew what would happen if she but twitch her hand. Blood would spray from underneath the wesen's delicate skin, coating her already stained leather armor with a fresh shade. Gurgling, her prey would thrash on the ground, staring at her like the horror of a nightmare had incarnated itself with her entire existence. No one in her family would have even hesitated, their instincts running on overdrive, eager to kill the beasts they lusted after. Milena hated that she hesitated, loathing the voice that told her this was wrong.

She flinched at the fear in the eyes of the man beneath her, reading the object terror she saw dancing in this man she held at her mercy. He had a right to fear her, had a right to expect everything down to the exact detail. He might not know the exact orders her superiors had trained her to follow in this type of situation but he knew what to expect of her, the bloodstained beast above him. He had been told the legends about her kind since childhood and here was his nightmare finally made flesh and blood, ready to inflict punishment, vengeance upon him because that was who she was, who she had been raised to be.

That was the only problem. He didn't know her.

Milena growled deep in her throat, removed the beautifully crafted blade away from his neck and took a step back. The man cowering on the ground looked at her in disbelief. One of her kind, allowing prey to slip through their fingers willingly? The deed was unheard of. Before she could change her mind or attack him, the man was on his feet, adrenaline allowing him to limp away with two brutalized knees; running away from the reaper that had almost delivered his life to Hades. Milena watched his havoc retreat with sad, ancient eyes, feeling every ache and pain on her sore body catalog itself in her mind.

Run before someone finds what I have done.

She stiffened as a knife touched her bare throat. Too late.

"I will give you one chance to complete your requirements properly." The familiar voice wrapped around her tense muscles like an adhesive. After a moment the weapon was removed, the women holding it stepped into the younger woman's view. She was older than Milena by many years but they shared the same brown-black eyes. The woman jerked her sharp chin, replacing her knife to a sheath strapped to her muscular arm. "Go."

Milena shuddered, raising her hands to cover her ears however, the deed was done and her body was more than willing to comply. It was easy, far too easy to get lost in the small moments, far too easy to submit to the tidal wave of darkness that erupted from the the pit of her stomach. A small smile replaced the grimace of pain as her feet began to fly through the darkened woods after her quarry. He was wounded, she made sure of that, the scent of his heady blood excited the darkness sliding beneath her own skin, the fluid splashing against the ground, the leaves, leading her straight to him.

She could feel the women at the back of her mind, feeding her a steady stream of encouragement that made her run faster than any regular human being. A bolt vicious pleasure shot through her as the wesen she had foolishly released made the mistake of looking over his shoulder as he retreated, fear in his eyes as he tried to run away from her. Milena was no longer present in her mind, the mercy so easily given a moment ago was gone. She was a creature from the man's nightmare and would live up to the name.

His screams were soon heard over the tree tops, winning a smile from the women from where she stood back in the small clearing before. "Enjoy yourself Milena." She whispered before turning on her heel and stalking back to where they had made camp the night before.

X

Eyes drooping from exhaustion, Milena dragged herself and the body, or what was left of it, to her home camp. She had made several stops along the way, heaving what was left of her meager meals out of her stomach, trying to settle her reeling mind. She made me do it again. The worst part was that Milena liked it. Her hands shook, a thick coating of the man's dried flesh had crusted itself to her hands, leaving a rubbery feel that Milena did the best to ignore.

In a couple of hours, she would be in a car and in a couple of days she would receive orders that would drag her to another place with other monsters and she would hunt again. The girl dropped the body a moment before her knees met the ground. It was hard to breath, hard to think. Breath Milena. She took one breath after another, hands gripping the damp ground beneath her. I don't want to do this- she remembered the shiver of pleasure the sound of his breaking bones produced, her own laughter as he babbled, screamed, the warm wet splashes of red, so much red-

Stop. Milena took another shuddering breath, forcing herself not to gag. Get up. Her body didn't obey the order and Milena gritted her teeth. Get up Milena. Get up. She put one foot underneath her, groaning as pain flashed through the bruised limb before the other followed. Get up. The girl took another breath before gripping the body's leg again, heading in the direction of the camp.

Dragging the body back was a necessity. If the women didn't see it, she would ask Milena to hunt again and that was an outcome the girl would not be able to survive.

The sun would rise soon and they would be moving out when dawn first lightened the sky. Milena knew in her heart they would not wait for her, no matter who's daughter she was. Either you regrouped or you were left behind. She entertained the thought of being abandoned by the group, of being left in the wilderness to die or make it alone. It would be a fitting end for the thing trapped in her skin, beating in her heart. For a second she wanted to stop, to fight the vary thing by killing its source but she forced one foot after another, trudging back to the others.

A twig snapped behind her. Milena didn't allow herself to be fooled, deftly drawing her knife with well practiced movements and blocked the thrush from another blade, which revealed itself to be a stick.

She flicked her blade upward, meeting the base of a throat underneath a familiar grinning face. "Ruisseau," Milena breathed, not dropping the knife, "prepare to die." A sharp tip of a longer blade touched the middle of her back, making her freeze.

"Meme de vous cousine." A voice whispered behind her.

Milena grinned and dropped her knife. She made the mental shift and spoke in French, "You two are getting better." The blond haired, blue eyed girl in front of her squealed in happiness, scooping up her knife and danced around the girl who was two years her senior. Another girl came out from behind Milena.

She was tall, 1.8 meters of pure muscle and armed to the teeth with an assortment of blades, knives, guns and poison to coat them all. Black hair coupled with dark brown eyes made her intimidating to most and look nothing like the blue eyes, blond haired sister prancing around their captive. "Morning to you cousin." She whispered in perfect French. "We were not expecting you."

Milena swallowed thickly, gesturing to the body beneath her feet. "She sent me on another kill."

Her cousin lowered her knife, shrugging. "You should feeling honored." She shot a well suffered glance at Ruisseau as her sister danced around them. "Ruiss, stop." The younger girl pretended not to hear, tilting her head to instead studied the body.

Ruisseau stooped, squinting at the tattered corpse. "Is that a Eisbiber?"

The older girl cracked a half smile, reserved only for decapitations and her little sister. "That's a Blutbad."

The smaller girl blushed and even Milena smiled. "Go easy on her Lilith, she's still learning."

"That makes no excuse." A deep voice rumbled. All three girls watched as another person revealed himself. He was a stout figure, little over 1.5 meters with muscular forearms and an air that showed he knew how to use them. Pale scars marked their way across his skin, the most noticeable being a deep cut that ran along the ridge of his nose. A gnarled nose, probably broken and re-broken in his training, and had not healed well, twitched as he drew a deep breath.

Staring him down with annoyance that bordered on contempt, the youngest girl quickly wiped the blush from her cheeks. "You should be at your post Hundjager."

"Your Aunt has sent for you to return as well." The older man growled, flashing his teeth. The primal noise stopped when Lilith drew her large battle ax and twirled it, studying the brutal weapon with ideal fascination. Being the same age as Milena meant nothing to the tall girl. She had created her own record within the last few years, having a large unstated blood thirst no hunt seemed to quench. Lilith's dark eyes met the man's.

"If you speak to any Grimm like that again, I will have your tongue and find someone who can appreciate your broken nose on a plaque." The Hundjager broke the stare, fear in his eyes. Many wesen who died screaming at her feet saw no compassion or mercy in her gaze.

With barely a whisper, her ax met the man's throat. No one had see the weapon deviate from the complex pattern the girl had been weaving and in a single heartbeat the girl had her prey trapped against a tree. Her expression did not change, the ideal fascination at odds with the fire suddenly burning in her eyes. "I didn't hear you."

His voice shook. "Yes, I understand."