"I'm telling you, he was lying," I said for the fifth time that evening.

The moment I returned from my trip with Marx, I had to see my best friend and empty my swirling thoughts. If I didn't, they would consume me and drive me to actions that I would later deeply regret. Mostly because it ended with me cleaning parts of the village that I'd rather not.

"It smelled like overdue meat or something else. It was super stinky," my feet were paving a path in the moisty forest ground. "There were a lot of things that were just not believable."

"Can you stop it already," she whisper-shouted. Her eyes darted around and I followed them, looking from one side of the empty forest to the other side.

"What?" I lowered my voice to a whisper as well.

Her jaw clenched and the warmth of her chocolate brown eyes had turned cold and serious. "You're questioning a higher ranked hunter." A crack in her voice slipped in between her hasty whisper. "What if someone questions your loyalty?"

"My loyalty?" My voice rose to a normal volume again. "I'm not the one clearly lying about certain aspects of a mission."

"If a higher ranked Hunter says there wasn't anything out there, then there wasn't anything out there. Stop involving me in this. Our devotion to the Hunter community could be questioned. I'm not dying like that," Ura's fear came out as burning anger, yet she couldn't hide the tremble in her voice when she spoke.

Before I had a chance to reply, Ura had already taken off towards the village again. As always, I sighed deeply before following her and pushing away that nagging feeling that kept me up at night. One day, my feelings and beliefs would become the death of me.

***

If Ura was too scared to even listen to me, well then there was only one other option that could clench my curiosity; figure it out myself. What did Marx hide from me?

To do so, I had to at least go back to the scene of the crime. It wouldn't be easy with all those eyes on me.

The perfect idea hit me the next morning, well, more like Ura got hit - unfortunately that was in the literal sense of the word. The dark skinned girl was sitting on her little crutch, doing her daily chores of cleaning and repairing in front of her house. Her father, an enormous beast of a man, with muscles bulking out of his dark skin, walked out the front door, throwing a holster of arrows at the girl. It hit her straight in the back, making her almost fall from her seat. He shouted something at her, his hands making aggressive gestures. They were out of earshot, but it was probably something in the lines of 'clean this, girl!' or 'they're not clean enough, have you never learned how to do a proper job?'.

My fists clenched at my side. From experience I knew I couldn't interfere, it didn't change anything, it only made things worse for my friend. Her father would hit her for sharing personal stuff, he would prevent her from being friends with me. It would only backfire.

With a shaking head and pressed together eyes, I looked away. How anyone could hurt their own family was a mystery to me. No one from the other Hunters seemed to give the scene a second look while they passed by. It wasn't their business.

A slap echoed between the houses. My eyes squinted. With tense legs, I walked away - a bit faster than before - to prevent myself from turning around and throwing a punch in Diodes, Ura's father, direction. With a mantra that my mother had made me repeat time and time again, I kept my eyes forward, locked onto the forest side. Stay out of their business. Stay out of someone's business.

Once I reached the forest side, I tried to focus on the idea that had formed itself inside my head. There was a tradition in our community - Jagtag. Once you learned how to shoot with a bow and arrow, everyone, no matter the age, had the right to a full day hunting. Alone!

Basically, it was a day that I used to get away from everything in Helfarch. No responsibilities, no father's hitting their children and no cleaning weapons. Just quiet nature.

Today, it would be the perfect way to investigate what Marx had been so clearly hiding.

An hour later, I was well on my way to the Poltry's. My hunting gear was strapped on my back - ready in case I needed them -, my throwing knives were hidden on the inside of my high boots and daggers were tucked into my belt.

Glad that the council approved my hunting day, I strolled through the forest. It wasn't just because my curiosity and the endless secrets were making the world feel smaller again, the expectations of the council were starting to weigh down on me. It became harder to breathe again.

My feet jumped over protruding roots. Splashes of dirt flew up. Thank goodness I had been smart enough to wear my higher boots. Rainy days in the Green Lands were always a perfect mix for dirty and cold feet. Squashing noises joined the music of the singing birds. Unconsciously I hummed the song with them, in return they sang louder as an appreciation of my input. Or because my tune was just so bad that they wanted to tune me out. I prefered to believe the first.

By the time I arrived at the open place of the human estate, I was happily smiling. This was going to be a great day!

Unfortunately the smell surrounding the house put a damper on my mood. The same sour and tangy smell from yesterday filled the air. It was less noticeable, probably because of the rain and the wind, but it was there nonetheless. My nose steered me in the direction it came from. The tall trees seemed to have kept the smell a bit more contained, which was fortunate and unfortunate. The stench definitely was proof of something. What wasn't clear yet. The smell made investigating a lot harder as well. I would've definitely preferred the smell of spring flowers or wet grass above this.

With my nose crinkled up, I moved through the trees step by step. My eyes were focused on the muddy ground, hoping to find some clue to what happened here. They landed upon broken twigs and trampled grass.

"There was a pretty big fight here," the voice came out of nowhere.

It took me by surprise, so much so that I jumped back and lost my balance. With an ungraceful tumble backwards, I landed on my butt in the mud. As a trained fighter, I rolled to my side in a fluent motion and sat in a fighting position close to the ground within seconds. My legs were ready to push myself off and my hand was already holding the handle of my knife in front of me.

"Leos," I prayed to the God of medicine for calming my heart. Not that I was much of a believer, but I had picked it up somewhere along the way. "Who are you?" My free hand pressed against my chest as if I was trying to hold my heart back from jumping out.

A brunette girl was leaning with her back against one of the trees. She seemed small in comparison to the big trunk. Her red flannel and her auburn hair, which bordered on red, stood out between the green and yellow of the forest.

"Do Hunters always investigate crimes?" She asked, ignoring my question. She didn't seem to be threatened by the knife I was holding.

Her eyes were almost black from where I was sitting on the ground. Careful to not let her out of my sight, I pushed myself back up and put away my knife - but left the holster open. You never knew.

"Crimes?" I asked.

"Something was clearly killed here," her chin nudged in the direction of the space surrounding us.

My eyes stayed on her. She was here for the same reason I was?

Her eyes pressed close for a second, probably because of the sun breaking through the leaves above us. In the light her face lit up and I had time to analyze her. Admittedly, she had a nice face. It was elegant and natural, with delicate features. Her lips were pressed together in a thin line, and her long eyelashes caused small shadows on her rose tinted cheeks. There was something about her that was appealing, drawing me in. Something almost familiar.

"So it seems," my feet were bringing me closer to her. The decreasing distance sped up my heart. The corner of her mouth curled up a tiny bit and her eyebrows moved further away from her eyes. It was a minimal reaction, but it was there nonetheless. "Are you investigating this as well?"

"So you Hunters do investigate crimes. That's new." Her mouth curled up in a thinkful smile. "You wanna compare notes?" She kept her distance. To the untrained eye her posture seemed relaxed, but as a Hunter the tension in her muscles told me a different story. She was on alert.

"I don't even know who you are."

We were standing at an awkward distance from each other. She didn't move, and I was trying hard to not step into her personal space. I wanted to see what the reason was for her defensiveness. Her words had sounded inviting, yet her body language kept me at a distance.

"Kate," she spoke.

The single syllable was pronounced so carefully. It was interestingly accurate with her body language. Her hand had stopped making circles against her leg and for a second I thought she would extend her arm. Instead she nodded and moved her weight to her other foot, her hand staying right where it had been all this time.

"I'm Skylar, but you can call me Sky. Everyone does."

If she wasn't going to shake hands, I would. My curiosity for her was stronger than my manners. With deliberate steps I walked closer. At first, her shoulders tensed, but then they slowly dropped. Her eyes held mine for a moment in an analyzing gaze, before they fell to my floating hand between us. Her hand reached up and took mine in the softest grip. My fingers squeezed in her hand. My gaze had followed my hand down to her small hand. Dirt was covering her nails, yet they weren't chipped or spliced. There were no weird angles, or little lesions. When I looked back up, she was giving me a curious smile.

"What are you trying to do exactly?" Her brown eyes twinkled in the few rays of sun. She seemed much more alive than before. It was like a light had been turned on inside of her. Inwardly I kicked myself so I wouldn't lose my focus in investigating her weirdly colored eyes - was that red and gold interlaced with that brown?

"Just making sure your skin is as soft as it looks," I shrugged but didn't let go. The coolness of her hand was nice, it felt a lot cleaner than the big warm, sweaty hands from the Hunters.

She laughed. My gods, she laughed and it was the most wonderful thing. Little bells rang inside my stomach, causing little flying insects to flutter around. I couldn't help but smile.

"You're strange."

She let go of my hand and immediately brought it to her brown locks. She pushed the few stray strands behind her ear.

"You're the one walking alone in a forest filled with monsters," I pointed out. She smiled again and then shrugged.

Was she really not afraid of them at all? Maybe she was one of those people that lived in the forest, who didn't think humans needed to live in big cities to keep themselves alive. Usually I thought those people to be stupid, but not this time. This girl I admired for her bravery. I wondered what her story was, it must've been an interesting one.

"I'm just trying to figure out who is behind these murders," her voice was soft. She moved towards me. My heart sped up and I had to swallow. Instead, she walked past me and towards the bushes behind me. But not before I could see her lips twitch into a little grin.

"Why? Did they kill someone you know?" I asked, this time it was me who stayed at a safe distance.

She turned around and looked me in the eye. It wasn't entirely clear what was written on her face, but her features had turned hard again.

"No," she crossed her arms before her. "It's just something that needs to be stopped. It has killed too many times already, yet no one is talking about it."

"How many times has it killed?"

Until now, I had thought we were looking for the same creature, but nerves were making me doubt who or what her monster really was. It couldn't be me, right? She couldn't have known. What kind of human would care about a Vampire Killer? These fears were driven from my mind as she continued.

"At least five times, brutal murders. Pulled off limbs, deformities to the point that the victim was unrecognizable. Horrible scenarios." She trailed off and shook her head, her fingers squeezed her arms that were still entangled with each other.

My skin tingled with a need to touch her, to tell her it would be okay, but I managed to restrain myself. Huksta! The voices of the other kids in the village echoed through my head. Huksta! Huksta! The shameful memories pushed down my desire for contact. Instead, I lifted my gaze to meet hers.

"We'll find this monster." The certainty in my voice made me smile. It wasn't just my curiosity that gave me reason to follow up on it, now I could make it a true mission. I could help this girl, maybe spend some more time with her.

She smiled back at me and again, I was mesmerized by the beauty of it. Hunters weren't so beautiful, I was certain.

"It was a quick fight. Not as dirty as the stories I've heard," she spoke again.

She moved closer to me until she was standing right next to me. I could almost feel her shoulder touching my upper arm. It was only now that she was standing next to me that it became evident how much smaller she was. At least half a head. It suited her, the tiny and elegant features.

Her fingers pointed in the direction in front of us. "I believe there must've been two people. I'm guessing they fell together there, and continued the fight on the ground. See how much those bushes are damaged?" Following her small finger, I tried to imagine the fight. My lips curled up and I hummed in agreement. When my eyes returned to her, her soft dark ones were watching me.

"You've analyzed the whole scene already?" I asked in awe. I was impressed by her remarkable eye for detail.

Kate gave a casual shrug, but her lips widened into a small grin.

"I was here before you, just simply hid myself when I heard you coming."

"Good thinking," I smiled. This girl kept impressing me. "You never know who you're going to meet in these woods."

She walked forwards and crouched down to the ground. Her slender fingers took a broken twig and she twirled it around, waving it through each finger individually. Where did she learn to do that so expertly?

"Why are you investigating this?" Her question caught me off guard. Not that it should've been a surprise, I asked her first after all.

"Uhm," I was trying to find a better reason than the truth. "Heard something?"

The fine line of hair that was her left eyebrow rose up.

"You heard something?"

I sheepishly smiled while I scratched the back of my head.

"If I tell you the truth and word gets around, it might end up with me being dead," my words tumbled out of my mouth.

"So ... you heard something," she agreed, and then we both laughed.

After averting my eyes, something that was way too hard for it to be healthy, I focused on the scene in front of me. She was right, there had been a fight, but it wasn't an ugly fight. It didn't seem like anyone was murdered, which raised the question again: what did Marx hide? How did Marx stop someone or something that allegedly killed multiple people in gruesome ways?

If Kate was searching for a monster that killed multiple people already and that was connected with Marx, then why hide it? The only explanation I had so far wasn't a pretty one: he must've known about it, or tried to protect it. That couldn't be it, right? The Hunters were strict in their rules, they were hard and cruel when it came down to vampires, but they would never let a monster go that killed humans. That was our ultimate goal: to protect all humans.

So there had to be another explanation for it. And I was going to find it!

"I would never rat you out, you know," she said. I turned around while I stayed low to the ground. She was at the same place as before, only now she was standing. "It's good that you don't trust a complete stranger, but I wouldn't do that. That's not the kind of person I am."

For a while I stared at her, not entirely sure how to react to that. When she turned away, I pushed myself up and spoke.

"That's good." It was the only thing I could think of, and now that it came out, it sounded stupid. It's good, that was it?

Her lips curled up in that specific way. It was a small smile that didn't completely break through yet, but lighted up the seriousness in her face.

"It's good to know for future run-ins," I tried again. It was still a bleak attempt.

This time her smile did break through.

"So you wouldn't mind running into me again, uh?"

My face turned red when I realized what I had just said.

"I mean," I trailed off when no plausible excuse popped into my head. She laughed.

"Don't worry, just messing with you," her hand reached for the stray lock of brown hair that she put behind her ear. "Thank you. I really needed this."

"I'm glad I could be of service then," I smiled at her.

My attention returned to the scene around me. Quickly I took notes of specific details and ideas that I wanted to check out in the future. When I was finished, the brunette was still standing in the same place, her mind somewhere far away.

"What's the reason that you needed a run-in with a complete stranger?"

Her eyes blinked away the confusion of her return to reality. Her lips curled up, but she was guarded yet again.

"Not a lot has been going the way I would like it to," she admitted. Her hand reached for her hair again where she combed through it multiple times.

"Yeah, I know the feeling," I huffed. With careful steps I walked up to her and sat down on the ground, my back resting against a tree. Kate's hands didn't stop moving, they went from her hair to her arms to rubbing her upper thighs again.

"All I want to do is make my father and everyone else proud, but I keep messing up."

Her legs gave way and she dropped to the ground. With a thud she leaned against the opposite tree of mine, her arms holding each other as if she were hugging herself.

"Doesn't everyone mess up sometimes?"

She chuckled. "Yeah, but you don't know me. I mess up a lot."

"I'm constantly at odds with my superiors and I'm pretty sure it will cost me my life one day. I'm not perfect either," I responded. "No one is, all we can do is try to do what we think is right."

Kate stared at me while she let my words sink in. Then her half smile brightened her features again.

"You're wise."

I laughed while I took a twig from the ground and focused on it instead of the girl in front of me.

"I don't think my superiors would agree with that." I sighed, thinking back at home. "Not if I come home without at least one deer."

"Well, then, if you'd let me, I would like to help, I'm quite the hunter myself," she laughed awkwardly, before her smile dropped and a darkness fell over her. The view made me shiver. When her eyes focused back on me, that shadow was gone yet again. It almost made me doubt what I saw.

"Sure, that'd be nice. I don't mind company," not yours at least, but those last words were only for my own mind.

And so we went on our way, deeper into the woods and farther away from the Poltry's house.