A Winter's Fall

The Start

[Six months earlier]

“I don’t know why I’m doing this as it’s stupid but..... screw it. My name is Isabella Maria Winters, I come from a long line of hunters and huntresses who main objective it to rid the world of supernatural creatures or beings or whatever they call themselves now... anything but human. It’s dangerous for all my family to stay in one place together so we split up and go to different cities or towns and pretend to be a normal person until family business calls. I have an older brother, a twin brother and a younger brother, the only one I have respect for is the youngest. We are raised by the cruel, cold hearted man I have to call father, our mother died after an accident in the nursery with my youngest brother, no one will say what happened but our father became the cold hearted man his is today after that. I used to be a daddy’s girl but now I can’t stand to be near him. Anyways getting distracted, we all have a fake persona for when we’re not doing the family business, I’m a waitress at a small café about 15 minutes away from my apartment, which is fully paid by the institute. Speaking of the café, I need to get going so I’m late. This was nice voice diary but I’ll probably never use you again so....... bye.”

I switched the voice diary off and lifted the floorboard under my bed and threw the voice diary under it, I grabbed my sneakers and skateboard and did a quick inspection of myself ,I had my chestnut brown mid-length hair tied back in a low ponytail, my pale skin almost whiter than paper, my Blue eyes that look like the sky on a sunny, clear day, I don’t have much of a figure for someone 5'5" but I mostly wear a t-shirt and a pair of worn black jeans with my grey sneakers that were once white. I walk out my apartment and wave to the old lady who’s always feeding the birds before putting my headphones in, putting the music on loud and jumping on my skateboard.

As soon as I walk in the door the café owner, Jo, walks out with a warm, gentle smile on her face, she was about 5’3” at most with a rather plump figure, light brown hair that was slightly greying, many laugh lines, the only this that didn’t seem Warm and gentle were her piercing green eyes.

“There you are! I was starting to think you weren’t going to come in and I was going to have to try and get Vanessa to work for the first time in her life.”

Vanessa is Jo’s daughter who isn’t friendly to anyone who isn’t a jock or very popular so It would have been a difficult task to get her to work.

“I’m so sorry that I’m late, I overslept and forget to set an alarm.”

“Don’t worry about it dear, I’m messing with you. Your the best employee I’ve ever had. Now get to work.”

As soon as she said that our first customer of the day walked in, one of our regulars. I put my apron on, grabbed my notepad and walk over already knowing that he’ll order the regular of the full English breakfast and eat everything but the black pudding because he’ll wrap It in a tissue to take home for his dog. After the first customer I go into autopilot; until my phone starts ringing but it’s not my normal phone it a burn phone only used for family business. I tell Jo I’m going on a break and walk out the back and answer the phone already knowing the first question.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes”

“Check again”

I check all around, up on the roofs, in the old boxes till everything has been checked twice.

“confirmed, all clear.”

“Area is no longer safe. Meet at the Stags Head ASAP. Pack what you need and move quickly.”

“Got it.”

I end the call and go inside and tell Jo that I have a family emergency any I need to leave as soon as possible, she immediately let me go without any questions. I ran home and grabbed the trunk from under my bed and put it on the bed while changing into my protective clothing of t-shirt, trousers, jacket and strong boots all in black. As soon as I have all my clothes on I get my necklace with my family crest on and open the trunk and get as many weapons on me as possible. Once I had done all that I tied my hair in a high ponytail then walked out the back and pulled the cover off my Icon Sheene motorcycle and got on going into a different type of autopilot, this type was checking everything for anything out of place. The Stag Head is a hunters bar where both men and women brag about how many they’ve killed but normally shut up once a Winter walks into one because no one had a higher kill score then a Winter. As I walked in, everyone went quiet and I looked around until I saw my Uncle Jackson in the corner and just as I was about to smile I saw my twin Brother, Ethan, sat next to him, hanging his head in what looked like shame, I walked and sat down, dragging the chair slowly and everyone went back to talk but not as loudly as they could sense the tension in the room.

“Why’s the i***t here?”

“Be nice Isabella, I would much rather you be calm when I tell you the reason I called.”

“Fine. What’s wrong?”

“Promise you’ll stay calm when I tell you?” my Uncle had a worried look on his face which means it’s information I may react badly about. Then it clicked, my Brother was assigned to be looking after our younger Brother Benjamin.

“Where is Benjamin?” Both my Uncle and my Brother looked away from me.

I raised my voice.

“WHERE. IS. BENJAMIN?” Everyone became quiet and slowly moved away as Ethan mumbled an answer

“stop mumbling and answer my question! Where is our brother!”

“The shapeshifters have him...” after I heard that I blacked out and next thing I remember is my hands around his neck and his face covered in blood, it took six hunters to drag me off him and kept me restrained as my Uncle checked for a pulse.

“He’s still alive” from the look on my face many people could tell I was disappointed and angered at this statement. They lifted him up and took him into a room in the back to get treated but I damaged his nose enough that it will always be crooked now. My Uncle walked towards me.

“Are you calm now?” I glared at him, letting him know I was still pissed.

“Go sit down I’ll get you a drink.” He shook his head while he walked to the bar and ordered two whiskeys while I walked back to the table and sat down. Everyone when back to talking like nothing had happened.

Just as everyone had started talking, they stopped again but for a very different reason. A gunshot then a scream echoed from outside, then silence. It wasn't a scream of terror but a scream of anger of defeat. Everyone stayed still as we waited for the source of what caused the scream as whoever screamed will be dead or something worse then death. I looked up at my Uncle and nodded, we both confirmed what it was and had agreed who was going to sort it out without a single word uttered. Just as I was standing up to go outside, the door swung open.