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It was a brisk Thursday evening, and most of Cat's Tytonidae pals had gathered for a fight night in the Dungeon. The group enjoyed sparring, it took the edge off of things and strengthened bonds between them. Cat liked seeing her best friend Zoey more than she cared for play fighting, but sometimes she did go up into the ring. She didn't mind playing around or even losing. Tonight she was more of an observer. She had not been feeling well that evening, because of the voices giving her a harder time than usual.

Just when things had been going well, that was when the voices tended to hassle her. Green would worry, Red would troll and Yellow would lurk in ponderous silence. Cat could hear them droning on like cicadas. Her only comfort was listening to the others talk. They made sense, and didn't really judge her. Someone was trying to get her sire to fight. She knew how that would turn out.

Cat sighed in her chair and looked over at Doc declining to fight yet again. She wasn't even in the mood to make chicken noises at him. He was so snooty sometimes, sitting there turning his nose up at a perfectly good fight. Was he worried that his suit would get dirty or something? Before she could think about it anymore, Cat realized that she was being selfish. She knew why she wanted to see her adoptive father and sire fight. It was because of her biological father. And, before Cat could realize what was happening, a memory took hold of her brain with startling clarity.

((Begin Memory 1))

With a promising thud, dad's fist crashed across his opponent's chest. Mom and Beatrice-- Cat was called Beatrice back then-- added their cheers to the deafening roar of fans calling for blood. Dad sweated in the cage, muscles taut as he took a defensive stance. He was a brick wall, ready for anything, and when the opposition, a steroid-addled youngster with muscles like bowling balls, lay into dad's stomach with a series of jabs, dad let him. He kept his fists up by his face to block any stray blows but made no move to counter just yet. He liked to tell little Beatrice that he had to protect his grape.

"Get him daddy!" she shouted impatiently. She didn't know if he heard her or not above the roar of the crowd. People had money on this cage match. They wanted it to end quickly, but dad was always kind of slow. He rarely disappointed. Getting hit seemed to only add to his strength. He only stumbled back a few times as he let the other fighter wear himself out beating his abs. There was a single moment, unspoken between them, when dad sensed a weakness in the opposition. Was it the way he panted, the way his shoulders slouched? Was it the desperation in his eyes? In that single moment, the platinum haired Adonis lowered his guard. The opposition took the bait and punched at his face.

"Look out, daddy!" Beatrice screamed. Was that a smirk on the man's face? CRACK, the opposition's fist plunged against dad's right cheek and the crowd collectively boiled. THUD, at the same time dad delivered a left hook that knocked the opposition off his feet. Beatrice and mom hollered themselves hoarse while dad pinned the opposition.

When the match was won, sweaty dad kissed mom and lifted Beatrice up on his shoulder. The grinning kid had his green eyes and his hair. They were still working on her muscles. That night in the car, mom told dad that she wished he wouldn't have let his face get hit. It was swollen. "Sometimes you have to take a hit to deliver a finishing move," dad explained and wiped some blood from his nose.

((End Memory 1))

Cat shook her head and came back to reality. Flashbacks made her dizzy. The green-eyed girl smiled lopsidedly and dismissed the concern of those who asked. Doc was already gone, he tended to slip off home early. He didn't like social events. Cat didn't mind them, when she wasn't hallucinating about the past. "I guess I should go get something to eat," she informed Zoey and Blake. She glanced nervously over her shoulder but didn't see any scary wraiths stalking her. After saying her goodbyes, she headed out and south. Usually Cat hunted around Stag Heath, where it was less crowded, but she happened upon a guy south of the Wickbridge Station who looked every bit as out of it as she felt.

She wouldn't kill him or play with him, she just wanted to make the voices go away. It was easier to deal with them on a full stomach. Cat followed him to the restaurant district. He must have been on his way home or something, but he was drunk and slipped behind Ristorante Torrioni to take a piss in an alley.

"You know you can't get rid of us, stupid," Red announced as Cat crept up behind the pissing human. "What would you do without us?" Green fretted.

"Probably have a big party," Cat said out loud. Oops. Her cover was blown. The human turned around after zipping his fly. He was at least present enough to look quietly embarrassed, and wiped his nose and tried to move past the kid.

Cat stepped in front of him and grabbed his shoulder. She talked to the voices as she pushed the man twice her size back toward the dumpster. "I mean, you're not real. Making me see flashbacks and **** isn't going to help you guys be real. I don't know what your ******* problems are. I'm not going to let you win or anything."

"Let me win what? What are you talking about? Look I'll give you money. Just let me go, you little freak!" The human struggled, and Cat focused on him.

"I'll show you freak," she grumbled and tore him down by his hair until his neck was at her face level. She drank deeply and stepped behind him. The human stumbled off in a daze, and Cat felt a little better. Stomach full, the voices were more muffled. The platinum haired vampire made her way out from behind the restaurant. It took her a second to realize where she was.

She could feel herself being pulled into another trancelike state of remembrance when she looked at the neon sign. Ristorante Torrioni. "****. Not again."

((Begin Memory 2))

Beatrice was six years old. Dad had just won another match, showered off in the locker room and put on fresh clothes. He looked like a royal mess, but Beatrice and mom thought he was the most handsome man in the world. Ristorante Torrioni was the best place to get pizza in town. Dad had a large pepperoni all to himself, and he was scarfing it down. Beatrice watched his face, and he reached over to mess up her long hair. "I get to eat as much as I want tonight, kiddo," he said cheerfully. He had been working hard to stay just barely below his weight requirement. He had to bulk up, but couldn't surpass his weight before a match. After the match, it was a free for all. Beatrice challenged him to an eating contest. "I can eat more!" She wasn't going to back down.

She remembered mercilessly plowing through slice after slice, then she heard mom gasp. When she looked up, she saw mom trying to hold dad steady. He was shaking and bleeding a lot from his nose. There was blood all down the front of his shirt. A guy was calling an ambulance. Beatrice had never seen his eyes roll back like that before. She got up from her side of the booth and went next to mom to help try and call out to him. Mom was touching him even though he was gross from blood. He stopped shaking and slumped down.

Just like that, she'd lost her hero. One blow to the head too many, and he'd had an aneurism. Beatrice would never watch him fight again.

((End Memory 2))

"Ugh. Blech! Oh ****," Cat groaned as the world suddenly burst back into clarity around her. She had run off from the restaurant as fast as her feet could carry her, but she couldn't get the smell of blood out of her face. It was that drunk guy's fault. When she stopped, she was in Stag Heath. It was close to the trailer park where she'd grown up, the crown on a great big pile of crap. Cat hadn't been back there in a while. She needed to clear her head. Why was she remembering all this stuff? Her dad was dead, but she had a new dad now. Sure, he was scrawny and not brawny, and he turned his nose up at fights all the time, but that didn't make him a bad dad.

"We should go see mom," Green said. "Well, if she wasn't dead."

"Yeah, I guess," Cat agreed.She didn't care if anybody heard her talking to herself out loud. Cat might as well take a peek at the old homestead before she headed back home. It had been a rough night. In a quiet daze, Cat hopped the trailer park fence and headed toward...

"What the hell?" It was a pile of rubble. Her former home was gone, it was as if somebody had burned it to the ground. Cat had a suspicion. She started going through the rubble. Anything of interest had been looted by her old neighbors. A charred beam creaked beneath her weight as she sat down. She could feel herself being swept up in a memory, but this time she didn't fight it.

"Fine, whatever. I guess I can't stop it. What's wrong with me tonight...?"

((Begin Memory 3))

Beatrice tried to wake up mom. The ten year old was hungry and they were all out of food. None of the neighbor kids wanted to play with her because she was dirty and talked to herself. The ones who did want to play with her said that their parents told them to stay away. Beatrice was a bad kid. She got bad grades. She cussed. She got into fights. Anyway, mom wouldn't wake up, and nobody was going to feed Beatrice. Stephen offered to take her to get tacos, her favorite, but she was scared of Stephen. He had been playing with her since she was nine, games she hated.

Beatrice shook mom. Stephen told her that it would be okay. Mom had too much medicine and was just tired. He asked Beatrice if she wanted medicine too. He had pills and needles. Beatrice shook her head no and headed outside. She walked all the way to the Landfill. Beatrice made a house out of the trash. It had a mom and a dad, who loved her and played with her, and spent lots of time with her, and there were no scary voices.

"Her dad is dead, mom is going to die too," Red sang.

"Shut up!" Beatrice shouted.

"Shut up," Green taunted in a whiny voice.

Beatrice kicked her house down. Just as soon as most of it was demolished, a police officer walked up to her. She glared at him. He was going to make her go home. She hated home. Her mom's boyfriend was there. She hated Stephen. Sure enough, the treacherous officer gave her a ride home in spite of her pleas to the contrary. It was getting late, she should be at home eating dinner.

Stephen thanked him at the door as Cat scowled. **** the police.

((End Memory 3))

"Okay, I kind of asked for that one," Cat mumbled to herself and headed out of the trailer park. She was never going back there again. Stupid flashbacks making her feel all insecure. It was time to go home. She didn't feel like toming to the Eyrie. She felt like seeing Doc at the apartment. Just to make sure the old man was okay.

"What if he's gone," Green taunted.

"I don't think he'd just disappear," Cat grumbled. Then she pushed the voices away. They were not helping, they never did. Cat was going to head to West Tower. The bus ride was peaceful and quiet for the most part. It went past Harper Rock University, where she would be attending autumn classes that year. Doc had signed her up as a surprise. She had been a high school dropout, so she felt like a fraud getting into college. Paperwork had to be forged just for her. Legal documents, illegally and painstakingly prepared by Doc, ensured that she would start there.

"She doesn't deserve it," Red grumbled.

Cat thought he might just be right. It was only one class. She would be starting slow with a non-lab related anatomy 101 course. It was probably going to be a breeze, but it still didn't feel right. A memory haunted her while Cat stared out of the bus window at the passing campus.

Even sleeping, it loomed ominously, an unexplored world where Cat had a bad feeling she wouldn't fit in. It would be just like school before, wouldn't it? The other students would think she was weird and dirty and mean. They would keep away from her.

((Begin Memory 4))

It was lunch on the first day of high school. A lot of the freshmen were wearing shirts from their former schools so that they could all meet with old friends, but Beatrice didn't have any old friends. It didn't bother her anymore, she was used to it. She decided to find somewhere private to eat her lunch, so she wandered into the property behind the school. It was heavily wooded. She came across an group of older kids, and one of them smiled at Beatrice.

She had seen him around the neighborhood back home. He was Leo, another bad kid like her. Beatrice smiled back and sat down on a log. She kicked a beer bottle out of the way and started to eat. "You don't talk much, do you kid?" he asked. She shook her head. She knew that the moment she said something, Leo and his older friends would call her a freak and she would have to leave.

"That's cool, that's cool," Leo said reassuringly. Then he started talking with the others.

"So I told him we were going to move the goods tomorrow. He rats us out, his peeps are going to be real confused when we aren't there." Beatrice listened to Leo talking about goods and peeps. It seemed like Leo had a product, and that there was another group of kids who had the same product and wanted to sabotage Leo's group. It was pretty interesting.

When the lunch bell rang, Beatrice stood up, but nobody else did. "You got somewhere to be, little sis?" Leo asked and some of the other kids snickered. Beatrice blushed. "Um. School?"

Leo shrugged cooly. "Suit yourself. But we were going to hang out here just a little longer. Talk business." Beatrice wanted to listen to them talk business. She tossed her tray on the ground and sat. They passed white powder around. Leo taught her how to snort it, and Beatrice felt great. The voices even took a backseat. She was happy to fit in with her new friends. And Leo even invited her to a party that night.

"I'll be there," she promised with her usual straight face.

((End Memory 4))

Cat was in a memory-riddled haze when she finally arrived at the West Towers apartment. She let herself in. Doc was a permanent and reliable fixture on the couch. He was reading a book and barely looked at Cat when she came in. Did he understand that she was having episodes? Cat had no way of knowing if he could sense it or not, but she was secretly relieved that he wasn't picking at her. She could always rely on her sire to read her mood even when she was unaware of her mood herself. She sat on the couch and flipped on the television. It was hooked up to her laptop and she was able to start Netflix up. She started The Usual Suspects and let the precious noise wash over her.

Ah, noise. That was so much better. She wasn't going to have any bad memories now. Nope. No memories. But Cat couldn't concentrate on the movie, either. It was a good one. It was one of her favorites, actually. Even though she knew what was going to happen every time, she still got a thrill out of the violence, and especially the ending. That sequence with the match, and the guy limping away from the interrogation, it was cinematic gold. Even so, Cat found herself thinking about the past. Thankfully, the memories only seemed to capture her when she looked at something that triggered them. And the only one here was her new dad. She smirked at him, then blinked. Uh oh. Cat looked quickly away, but it was too late. The room seemed to dissolve around her, and she was standing in the old gang hangout.

((Begin Memory 5))

Leo was dead on the ground. Beatrice was crying. People were leaving the hideout faster than rats fleeing a sinking ship. This was all her fault. She had lured the monster back to their nest and now he was picking guys off with his gun. The ones who stayed to fight, the ones who ran. Where was he getting all those bullets? How was he taking so many hits? Why the **** was his blood black? Beatrice was frozen in place. She watched her girls-- the ones she had been in charge of since she was sixteen-- flee. Not a single one had time to look for Beatrice or even call out to her to hurry up. She wouldn't have listened anyway. She may as well have been turned to stone.

Leo was dead. Her big brother, the one who had shown her how to run dogfights and break into commercial buildings, snuffed out in half a second. Beatrice knew that she would be next. She should never have tried to mug that suit. She was really sorry and she wanted to take it all back.

"You're going to die," the voices informed her helpfully. She wiped her tears away and stared at the monster. He was speaking to her. His words were like a bunch of knives being shaken around in a pot. He clattered at her. The corpses cheered her on. She was trapped in an enormous cage.

Beatrice assumed a defensive stance. "**** you. You guys are wrong. I won't let you win," she growled through clenched teeth. The monster was smirking at her. Every time he hit her she landed a better blow. Sometimes you had to do that. Take a blow to deliver a finishing one. The corpses cheered for blood. That night's dogfight was apparently not over. Beatrice's fists crushed into him. He should have gone down. Why didn't he fall down? Why was he letting her wear herself out?

The corpses started getting quiet. The monster knew she was worn out. Maybe it was in her exhausted stance, or the way her eyes stared out into oblivion. The monster knew the fight was over, and he was just as disappointed as Beatrice. He grabbed her as easily as a hawk scooping up a rabbit.

"He's going to kill you," the voices chanted.

Even as a sharp pain stabbed through her neck, Beatrice growled at them.

((End Memory 5))