The sun was well up into the sky by the time that Christi made it back home. The truck was still there, which meant that both her father and brother were home. Daniel could be anywhere, but at least her father was probably still sleeping off the night before. She paused as Jack rushed towards her from around behind the house, barking. Stopping to rub his head with her hands nuzzle her face between the German Shepard's ears, she smiled. "Hey there, boy. Are you happy to see me?" Her eyes stung as she blinked, and she gave him the last piece of jerky in her pocket. "There you go. Good boy. Good boy." As she stepped through the door, she wrinkled her nose at the alcohol-soaked air. Having spent the last of their savings from the past two months, Arthur Raines had decided to have himself a one-man pity party, compliments of the house. Although to look at the place, one could be forgiven for thinking that half the boys in town had been there. Empty bottles were strewn all across the floor, the front window had been smashed, one of the chairs had been over-turned. The whole bottom level of the house had been completely trashed, with the party ending in an unmoving heap on the floor in the middle of the room, a bottle still in his hand. Sighing, Christi laid her backpack and crossbow by the door, grabbed the lone garbage can from beneath the sink, emptied it outside, and began the oft-repeated process of cleaning up. 

As she worked, every so often she'd glance at the south wall of the house. On the other side, she knew, was a half-finished skeleton of an expansion. In one of his rare lucid moments, her father had told her that they had started building it when they found out her mother had been pregnant with her. The plan had been to make it a room for Daniel, while she would eventually get his old one upstairs. Of course, her mother dying had put a halt to those plans. Daniel was still upstairs, and while for the first few years she had stayed in her father's room, most of her life had been spent in the workshed outside with Jack. 

She was just walking in with an armful of two-by-four sections to cover the window with when her father finally stirred, pushing himself up off the floor. "Ugh." As he sat up, he blinked at her, as though not really seeing her. "Wh're the fug w're you?"

Christi swallowed. [I]Nope. Still drunk.[/I] "I-I was out hunting." She laid the pile of wood on the counter, clutching her arm nervously. 

"Mmph." He wiped a hand over his face. "Jya get a'ything?"

She shook her head. "N-no. I almost di-"

"[b]W'LL TH'N WHA GOO ARE YA![/b]" She flinched as the bottle whizzed past her head, smashing through the previously unbroken window in the door. Her father climbed to his feet, his eyes blood-shot and looking for more of it. "Fuggin stupid girl, can'sh ya do a'ything right!" He rushed over, seizing her by the arm and roughly smacking the side of her head. 

Christi sagged in his grip, half-stunned by the blow. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Daddy, I swea-" She was cut off by another blow to the head. Lost in his own drunken rage, her father didn't hear a single word she said, in fact she doubted he even knew what he was angry about. 

She didn't know when she had done it. At first, she didn't even realize her knife was in her hand. All she knew was that suddenly he had stopped, leaning on her and staring at her as if seeing her for the first time in his life. Slack-jawed, he stared at her, and her at him, eyes wide in terror. Ever so slowly his hand came up and brushed her cheek, his fingers touching with more tenderness than she had felt from him since she could remember. Off to the side, she could dimly hear Jack barking and whining. 

A ghost of a relieved smile crossed her father's lips, and his eyes closed as he fell away from her. She stared down at his body, Jack running to his side and whining, then down at the knife in her hand, and suddenly she felt sick to her stomach. A small part of her thought she heard somebody crying half-sensical words, and in muted surprise realized it was her.

She turned, staggering, then froze. Her brother was standing on the stairs, eyes wide in shock. Christi looked at him, at the bloody knife in her hand again, then back to him. "Danny, I-"

Shock turned to rage, and Daniel stormed towards his sister. "You [b]BITCH![/b] What, it wasn't enough for you to take Mom away? You had to kill Dad too?"

Christi stumbled away from him, tears starting to pool in her eyes. "Danny, please, I didn't mean to! It was an accident, I swear! I didn't... I wouldn't... please!" She brought her hands up, waiting for blow to come. 

It didn't. Instead, Daniel suddenly stumbled and swayed, eyes widening in surprise as the room seemed to spin around him. His feet went out from under him, and he fell, striking his head on the side of the table. Christi clapped her hand over her mouth, and for a moment thought that she had killed him too. When he groaned, she didn't know if she was feeling relief, or fear. 

Grabbing hold of the table, Daniel struggled to rise. "Ugh... whua..." Immediately he slumped back down, one hand pressed against his bleeding head, then leaned over and vomited on the floor. "What the... what the hell..." He finally managed to look up at Christi, frozen nearby. "Why..." 

For a moment, brother and sister locked eyes. Dawning comprehension mixed with fear slowly grew across Daniel's face, and a yawning pit of dread opened in Christi's stomach. "You're like her." 

Christi shook her head. "No. Danny, no..."

Her brother's expression gave way to such fierce hatred and utter disgust that she gasped. "You're like [u]her[/u], aren't you." Again he struggled to rise, causing her to take a step back, but he fell down again. "That's why..."

She started moving slowly, taking small steps backwards, then turned and broke into a run. She paused only to grab her backpack and crossbow on the way past, and just kept running, crying as she went. She was only faintly aware of Jack running beside her, barking, and her brother screaming after her from inside the house. [b]"YOU'RE DEAD, CHRISTI! YOU HEAR ME? YOU'RE DEAD! WE'RE GONNA FIND YOU, AND WE'RE GONNA DO TO YOU EXACTLY WHAT WE DID TO THAT HELTON BITCH! YOU CAN'T RUN! CHRISTI!"[/b] She didn't have a plan, didn't know where she was going, and in that moment, she didn't care. 

As long as it wasn't here.