It wasn't meant to be like this. It was never meant to end up like this.

The body count was never meant to be this high. Her hands were never meant to be so blood stained. She should have been worrying about her next chemistry assignment, not worrying about the right chemicals to remove blood from her clothes. This energy inside her was never meant to grow so strong. It was never meant to get so out of control. It was never meant to consume her like this.

But it did.

There was a plan, at least back then when it was just the three of them. A trio of violent orphans: a force to be reckoned with. It had been a good solid plan with an easy exit strategy for the three of them. A way of surviving until they could start just living. The three of them were meant to follow this through together. They weren't meant to abandon her.

But they did.

She was never meant to fall for him. Falling for him had thrown everything off course. It shifted away from everything she knew. She should have walked away as soon as she learned the truth. She should have never let him take her hand that day.

But he did.

Her name was never meant to be on the list. She was never meant to switch sides like this. She had taken a side, quite strongly. She had grown up with her solid beliefs, glad that she was nothing like them. She was not meant to become one of them. She was never meant to get so deep into this world.

But she did.

And now she was going to lose it all. She'd had her chance to show them the good inside and instead she had thrown it all away for something impossible. For a chance to be whole. All she had left now was this last shot at redemption. But doing that could mean giving him up. It could mean losing the one person she had left. But it was her only option. Doing this was the only way she could live with herself. Even if it meant losing everything.

So she did.

It was never meant to be like this.

SEVEN MONTHS EARLIER:

Ariana Petrakis liked to consider herself a fairly patient person. She was good at waiting around when she had to. It was almost a requirement when it came to science. Sitting in Chemistry class waiting for the chemicals to react meant that Ariana had practically mastered the art of waiting and she liked to think she could apply that patience outside of her favourite class.

Her best friend however, did not have the same patience.

"It's been an hour. He should have at least called with an update by now. What the hell is taking so long?" Violet was pacing up and down the dusty floorboards, phone clutched in one hand and the other running through her long dark hair for the hundredth time. For a girl who exuded so much confidence, it baffled Ariana sometimes to see the dark haired beauty so wound up. But then again being an orphan whose mother had gone out and never returned made it a little more understandable. But then again Violet was always impatient, no matter what the scenario. Violet had always been the impatient one in their little group, always wanting fast results. She was definitely one to live in the moment, unlike Ariana who preferred to let things play out while she could sit back and observe.

"Relax. He's probably just being a jerk because he knows we're waiting. He's Garrett. Give him another twenty minutes." If Violet was the one stressing about what was coming next and Ariana was sitting back waiting for things to play out, Garrett was the one taking action himself. He was always the one making the moves and leading their little trio forwards. They were kind of lucky that they had all found each other in a way. But Garrett also loved to taunt the girls and it wasn't uncommon for him to make them wait around a little longer just so his arrival was fully acknowledged.

Ariana stretched out from her sitting position on the couch, and shuffled around until there was enough room to lie down instead. Her light blue acid wash jeans were riding up slightly and she snuffled around for a few more moments in an attempt to get comfortable. She tried to ignore the creaking sound that emerged from underneath her. She didn't need another reminder of how crappy this couch was. "And if we don't hear anything then you can send him a long angry voicemail until you feel better and I'll make pasta."

Violet paused briefly in her pacing to give Ariana a half hearted glare before resuming her attempt to wear down the floorboards completely. Her dark navy skirt swished as she paced and Ariana could practically hear the necklace she wore bouncing off her chest with every step. For someone who dressed as effortless as Violet did, pulling off the cute tops and skirts with her long legs as if the clothes were made for her, it was almost astounding to see the high stress hiding behind it all.

"I'm serious, Ari. What if something's happened to him and he can't call?"

"Then more pasta for us and you know you'd love that!" Ariana said with a cheeky grin. That was enough to break the tension in the room and Violet let out a laugh. She'd stopped pacing finally and was just leaning against the wall now, her eyes glued to the front door.

"He never takes this long," Violet muttered half under her breath, and Ariana let out a sigh in response. She couldn't think of anything else to say that wasn't a lie at this point. Ariana couldn't fault her friend for the impatience she was demonstrating, not that she was going to admit it aloud. Violet was right, he never took this long. Part of her was feeling a bit worried but she trusted Garrett enough to come back, tacos in hand and enough money for the next few month's rent. He would come through as he always did. He knew the consequences of failure.

At fifteen years old the three of them really shouldn't have been worrying about things like this. Honestly Ariana was surprised they had even been able to get away with living alone this long but that was the perk of having a foster brother who cared enough to rent the apartment in his name. As long as they gave him money for rent they had a roof over their heads and no one else to answer to.

Ariana was about to send Garrett a sneaky text when the sound of a key jingling in the lock caused her head to snap up. Violet froze in place, her eyes widening slightly as they both waited for the door to swing open.

"Uh, I have a delivery for Pet-dorkus?" The door swung open and there he was. Garrett was standing at the doorway, tacos in hand as promised, a smirk on his face. Yeah, he had definitely stalled to mess with them. Jerk. Ariana also noticed that he had changed out of the green polo top he had left the house in earlier and was wearing a grey t-shirt instead, letting it sit half tucked into his old black jeans.

"Garrett!" Violet practically squealed, pushing herself off the wall and launching herself into his arms. Ariana rolled her eyes as she dragged her body off the couch. Still, she flashed Garrett a grateful grin as she took the tacos out of his hands so he could return Violet's embrace properly. Honestly fifteen year old boys were the worst sometimes. Still, he had brought tacos and that made up for his dumb nickname for her.

"Alright, you two have your gross reunion while I get the plates," Ariana said half to herself as she moved into their tiny kitchen, placing the packaged food onto the granite counter. Pulling out some clean plates, she quickly sorted the takeaway onto each person's plate. A few moments later Violet and Garrett made their way over to the kitchen area, making it almost instantly crowded. You'd think after living here for a few months they would be used to the cramped space but it still bugged Ariana that they could barely fit all three of them in the same kitchen area without bumping elbows. Still, it was home and right now she was too excited by dinner to actually care.

The three of them piled onto the couch together, plates carefully balanced on laps, and they fell into their comfortable Sunday night routine, arguing over salsa and spilling too much sour cream on the floorboards. To an outsider they probably looked like any other group of normal teenagers eating in on a Sunday night.

But they weren't of course. Normal fifteen year olds didn't sit around in a shabby apartment with zero parents in sight. Normal teenagers were spending tonight arguing with parents and siblings, worrying about going back to school. Worrying about assignments and tryouts. Ariana was worrying about all of that too of course, it's just that she and the other two orphans sitting beside her had other things on their minds too.

"So, what the heck took you so long tonight?" Ariana finally asked, wiping salsa off her cheek as she raised an eyebrow at Garrett.

He raised an eyebrow right back at her, blonde hair flopping into his eyes slightly. He was definitely overdue for a haircut again. "Heck? Seriously, Ari? You still say heck? We're literally teenage mercenaries and you say heck." Violet giggled from his other side, ignoring Ariana's glare.

"Heck is a great word. And excuse me for not conforming to the scary assassin stereotype. My hands are clean and so is my mouth."

"How are your hands clean?" Violet questioned, leaning forwards with a laugh already prepared on her lips.

"I have never killed a man." Ariana said simply, jutting her chin forward proudly.

"No, you just poison them until they die from internal organ failure," Garrett replied drily as he reached across to grab the guacamole from beside Violet. "Much better."

Ariana huffed as she sunk back into the couch, ignoring the laughs from Violet and Garrett. "Whatever, at least when I get something done I don't take hours and hours and make everyone else wait while they slowly starve. And by the way you're avoiding the question," she turned back to Garrett, nudging him. He rolled his eyes again as he slowly finished chewing down his taco.

"Well, what do you want to know?"

"I want to know what took you so long." Ariana shot back. "Violet nearly wore down the floorboards completely. I'm surprised she didn't fall through the floor into the Walsh's lounge downstairs." Violet opened her mouth to protest but was cut off by Garrett's sharp laugh.

"Right, my bad. No, it all went fine. The guy just put up a bit more of a fight than I was anticipating. It was good though. You know I like a challenge." Garrett winked at Violet, leaning over to press a kiss to her lips.

"Ugghhhhhh. Gross." Ariana groaned, faking a gag as she hastily swallowed down the last bite of her taco. "But you got it done?"

Garrett pulled way from Violet, a smirk on his lips. "We're eating tacos aren't we? Of course I got it done. We'll have the rest of the payment tomorrow morning. And if we don't, I'll just kill that guy too." He shrugged, leaning back to sit comfortably between the two girls. To some people it would be alarming and even unnerving to see a young fifteen year old talk about murdering someone while casually eating tacos, but the orphans' body count had been increasing quite steadily over the last year and they were used to the odd juxtaposition. Plus, it got the bills paid and as long as Ariana focused on that she was able to sleep at night just fine.

"Oh, shit. I almost forgot. How did I forget? Alright, I found something in the letterbox and you both need to see it. This could change everything." Garrett sat up suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence that the trio had fallen into as their food comas kicked in. His sudden movement jolted the two girls and Ariana shook her head, curls from her long caramel ponytail brushing against her face.

"It could change everything but you forgot about until after tacos? You're such a guy." Violet remarked with a smirk.

"Shut up Vi. Just check this out." Garrett fished through his pocket for a second before pulling out the last thing she had expected. A cassette tape, with the words 'PLAY ME' written on the label.

"What the hell is that? Is it an actual cassette tape?" Violet snatched it off him to examine it, her eyes wide and curious. "This is ancient! And Play Me? We don't even have anything to play it with!" She seemed about as stunned Ariana felt.

Ariana's brows furrowed as she reached out a hand to Violet who passed it over reluctantly. Ariana examined it, turning it over several times. What kind of a person would send them a cassette tape? Ariana did love a good mystery, her love of science constantly pushing her to find answers, but this was just ridiculous.

"It was in our mailbox. With a letter." Garrett was being ridiculously dramatic now, as he always did. He was the leader of their little group of a reason and that reason was his love of creating and being at the head of anything interesting. He was probably thriving off the knowledge that he knew something the two girls didn't. Ariana on the other hand, was getting a little frustrated. She was patient but even she had her limits.

"A letter? What are you on about? Stop being all mysterious, Garrett. What's going on? Who sent us a letter?" Violet interrupted Ariana's thoughts, her curiosity beating the small brunette's.

Finally Garrett seemed to have had enough with drawing it out. He was clearly too excited as he whipped out a letter from the same pocket as before. "Apparently word has got around about our little weekend activities. We're getting famous. And now we've been given an opportunity."

He held the letter out, and Ariana leaned forward to read it. It was a short brief letter, written in a scrawling hand writing.

Hello Orphans. You have been selected because your skills have been recognised.

This town is being overrun with supernatural creatures. It is time to put your skills to work.

You will have received an email that requires a cipher code.

The code is provided below. This is part one.

Good luck,

The Benefactor

Violet was already booting up her laptop before Ariana could open her mouth. "Okay, I'm going to assume they sent it to Garrett's email since his email deals with everything usually." Garrett didn't reply, choosing to grab the laptop out of her hands instead. He quickly logged into his email, even though they all knew his password anyway.

Sure enough, there was the email from someone called The Benefactor . There was no message or headline in the email. Just a link. Garrett clicked on it, his finger hitting the key hard with impatience. The link lead to a page with a small text box labelled: Keyword.

Garrett typed in the code, his hands completely steady and careful as he pressed each letter.

ALLISON.

The code worked and immediately the screen began to shift, a list of names slowly appearing in front of their eyes until it finally stopped. And there it was.

Sean Walcott - 250k

David Walcott - 250k

Michael Walcott - 250k

Christina Walcott - 250k

Lydia Martin - 20m

Scott McCall - 25m

Demarco Montana - 250k

Derek Hale - 15m

Carrie Hudson - 500k

Kayleen Bettcher - 250k

Kira Yukimura - 6m

Elias Town - 250k

There was a long silence between the three orphans as they all stared at the list in front of them. Finally Violet spoke up. "Does...does that all mean what I think it means? Those numbers?"

Garrett had a wild look in his eyes as he looked over at his girlfriend. Turning to Ariana, he grinned. "It's a hit list. A supernatural hit list. We take down a few of those creatures and we'll have rent sorted for the next five years at least. Shit, we'll be set for college."

Violet let out a whoop, throwing herself back into the couch with a gleeful smile. "Hell yes! Big money and getting rid of the werewolves? Oh my god, yes." She clapped her hands together a few times, clearly over the moon with this proposition.

The couple both turned to Ariana, whose eyes were still on this list.

"Ari? What do you say? It's gotta be all three of us if we do this." Garrett gave her a careful look. Ariana knew that, of course she knew that. It was always the three of them, no matter what. They couldn't do this all without her. They were a trio and they stood by each other. But looking at Garrett, Ariana could tell he saw her uncertainty. It wasn't that she didn't care about the money, but she had really hoped that this year she could focus on school, try and be a normal freshman without all the murdering. She was in danger of getting her hands dirty the deeper the orphans fell into their mercenary roles, and Ariana wanted so hard to get the chance to be normal. This chance was anything but normal.

But then it was a hard offer to pass up and she couldn't let down her friends. Ariana knew if she said no Garrett and Violet would be disappointed but they would turn down the offer too. They needed her alongside them, and it was either all in or all out. She couldn't do that to them. She couldn't deprive her two best friends of the chance of a life time. Maybe this was the chance to get themselves out of this dumpy apartment. Maybe this could be her final job before she traded her poison for a normal life. Maybe she could track down the creatures that made her an orphan in the first place. This really was a no-brainer.

Ariana looked down at the list, her brain churning in time with her stomach as she stared at the names.

"I'm in."