It's the middle of November and I'm trudging through three feet of snow because, much to my dismay, bodies don't just bury themselves.

Julia stumbles a bit, jostling the body. The neck twists in the most awful way - Like a twisler. I gag, bile rising from the emptiness of my stomach. It's been a few days since we started Hunting. No time to warm up canned soup on the Hunt.

"Sorry..." Julia mumbles, eyeing the sky, trying to look anywhere but at the creature we're dragging, "He's heavy."

"_It's_ heavy." I remind her firmly, breathing a little harder then I'd like. Gotta' start doing cardio again. "This thing stopped being a '_he_' four victims ago."

She nods, looking as young as she is. Just nineteen, fresh outta' high school. Something soft and wounded aches inside of me at the youth of my baby sister... But I bury it down deep. Just like we're gonna' bury this body.

"How much further before we can burn it?"

I huff a laugh, arms aching from the weight, "We're gonna' bury it."

Julia gives me the look she always gives when I say something stupid. I see that look more often than I'd like.

"It'll come back to life if we bury it. We have to burn it."

Oh yeah. I didn't read the information part of our assignment. Mom gave us a file, I read the word 'Terminate' and got my rifle. Julia does the fine print.

..._Maybe that's why Julia is mom's favorite daughter._

I drop the legs, letting the long contorted body of the creature fall into the snow.

"Then I guess we're having BBQ tonight, Julie."

Julia drops it's arms, the head sinking deep - It almost looks human like this. Almost, but the torso is too long and mouth filled with too many canines.

"Here should be fine, I think." My breath leaves white trials in the air, like smoke. "You brought any gasoline?"

Julia swings her threadbare baby blue backpack off her shoulders, pulling out a canister of fuel. The smell barley registers to my frozen nose.

"What if he- _It_ doesn't burn, Amber?" Her big brown eyes widen with distant terror, like we'll have to kill it all over again. "What if we just piss it off."

I laugh, taking the canister from her gloved hands - Mine are pink from the cold. Only one pair of gloves.

"Fire kills everything, trust me Julie." I uncap the gas, pouring it on the body. The grayish tint of it's skin glistens with the fuel - _How sexy_.

Julia's face shifts from worry to sarcastic so fast it could give a girl whiplash. She pulls a pack of matches out from her bag, tossing them to me.

"Oh yeah? Fire kills everything?" She shoots me with a raised brow. She looks just like Jacob when she does that. It makes my chest hurt a little bit.

I give her my best cocky grin, "Oh yeah."

"What about Texas?"

My cheeks burn hotter than the match I've just lit. I drop it on the body, the fire eating up the fuel as fast as it eats up the dead monster.

"Texas was a fluke." I toss another match on the damn thing for good measure.

The firelight dances on Julia's pale cheeks, her eyes glowing with the orange light, "A fluke? Is that what we're gonna' call the single stupidest Hunting trip of our damn-"

"Ok ok, geez, relax kid." I put a match in my mouth, chewing on the stick, "Don't blow a fuse."

"M'not a kid." She mumbles, holding her hand out for the matches. "And don't waste our matches just so you can look cool."

I raise my brows, waggling them, "I look cool? Huh Julie? I'm gonna' quote you on that."

She smiles, then smothers it as she snatches up the matches. "No, You look _cold_. We should get outta' here before you get frostbite."

I nod, stepping around the charred carcass. It smells like burnt hair and bacon. A very confusing mixture for a hungry girl like myself.

"I packed some beef jerky and peanuts." Julia gestures to her backpack, wiping at her runny nose.

I've swallowed a few mouthfuls of jerky and a handful of peanuts before she's even done saying 'peanuts'. Julia snickers at my desperation. _Ha ha very funny I'm dying of starvation_.

I speak through a mouthful of food, "Why the hell were you hidin' this?"

She shrugs, giving me a cool little grin, "Thought you could lose a few pounds."

I shove at her, tipping her over into the snow. She squeals, flailing in the four-foot powdery hell. I keep trekking, swallowing my food before saying,

"Watch your step, Julie."

"Screw you Amber," she yells, finally escaping the snow, "You're such a-"

I hit her square in the face with a snowball before anything else can leave her lips. She sputters, snow clinging to her lashes. I laugh, and it feels almost unnatural with how long it's been.

My joy is rudely interrupted by an ice cold baseball slamming into my open mouth. Julia's hysterical laughter mixes with my aggressive coughing. We must make a very elegant pair right about now.

"You... suck..." I catch my breath, hands on my knees, an unruly smile breaking free, "so freakin' much, Julie."

"No, you suck way more." She throws another packet of beef jerky at me, which I catch with ease, "At least that's what everybody is saying."

"You don't know anybody but me, dork." I ruffle her perfectly curly hair, the ringlets bouncing with every step.

She shrugs, going silent. It's not necessarily untrue. Between the Hunt, we don't have much time for socializing with anyone but Family... and even family is dwindling.

Jacob's youthful smile flashes like a knife in my mind before I say, so quietly I'm almost speaking to the wind, "But I'll always protect you? Ok kid? Always."

I'll protect her like Jacob protected me, with his life. Because sometimes, when the Smith and Wesson is out of amo, and the knife is buried to the hilt in some other evil creature...

_All we have is our lives to offer as a shield._

And that's what Jacob did for me last summer, and that's what I'll do for Julie one day. I'll lay down my life so she can live on. Maybe start a family of her own, with the kids and the dog and the hammock.

She could spend summers by a lake, shoot fireworks for fourth of July and maybe name some kids after uncle Jacob and Aunty Amber, who they'll never meet...

But for now I'll keep fighting the good fight. Because that's all I've never been good for. Fighting. I'll leave the living to Julie, and she'll leave the dying to me.

"M'not gonna' let you sacrifice yourself like Jacob did." Julia mumbles as she gnaws on some jerky, "I'm not gonna' let you kill youself."

Something much colder than snow stabs at my chest. I pull my olive green jacket closer to my body, wishing I had more dirty blonde hair to cover my exposed neck.

"Jacob didn't kill himself."

Flashes of Jacob's life sprint across my mind. Endless sleepless nights, night terrors, Mom's ice cold comments to '_be better or die trying, Jacob_.'

His girlfriend Rebecca, bled dry by a BloodSucker not even two months before he died for me...

"Yeah, ok..." Julia sounds about as convinced as me.

I shake off the guilt and focus on the task at hand; Getting out of the snow. Julia sticks to my side like glue, falling silent.

Death is just part of the job. Daddy died Hunting, Jacob died Hunting, I'll die a very human death at the hands of a very inhuman thing.

It's in our family genes...

Expect Mother's genes. She never pulls the trigger and realizes she'd already shot her last bullet. Never felt the sickening emptiness of a vacant chamber.

Never looked into the eyes of a monster and knew it was the last thing you'd ever see. Knewing you'd soon be burning in the Hellfire you see in their eyes.

Maybe death is what I deserve after all the blood I've shed. Maybe hands these dirty can never be washed clean. Maybe I-

"You wanna' get IHOP when we get to civilization?"

Julie pipes up out of the blue, startling me out of my downward spiral. I laugh, a rush of golden warm memories saturating my mind. Daddy use to take us to IHOP after Hunting.

"Yeah, dork," I ruffle her curls, and she doesn't pull away, her lips curved into a smile soft as snow, "Let's get some pancakes."

"I want waffles."

"They don't sell _waffles_ at the international House of _Pancakes_, idiot."

"Yes they do, it's not like the two are mutually exclusive, moron."

"Don't use big words to confuse me, buttface."

We land in the snow already wrestling. It'll be a little while before we get some flapjacks. But this moment is just as sweet syrup anyways.

... _I can still smell the faint scent of burnt hair and bacon._