They have a service for his mother. Wreaths and a cluster of hunters in their best shoes, which are still scuffed as shit. Chris called the paper for the obit, no photograph, closed service, please stop fucking calling us, wrapped the telephone cord around his fist until it ripped his scabbed knuckles open. Their home in Veneta is only a cough away from the city of Eugene, from all those civic-minded Oregonians wondering about Clare Argent and her death, wondering about a grizzly attack so near.

Kate won't dress for the service when Chris tells her. She screams her throat raw and claws her way under her bed, no matter how many times he promises her Mom won't be there. All they have of his mother is her arm, her fingerprints, her burnished wedding band snug against her knuckle. They have Kate's night terrors and bile at the back of Chris's throat. Guilt tastes a lot like silver, he's found.

Their house hunches at the end of a winding road, peeling clapboards and a sagging porch. His mother never was much of a housekeeper. Never much of a cook, either. She would kiss Chris' cheeks extravagantly when he made grilled cheese sandwiches in the skillet, or concocted casseroles with frozen vegetables and condensed soup.

All the lights are on downstairs, after the service, pools of yellow cast over the towering pines. They have no neighbors, none in sight. None to hear Gerard and the others on their second case of beer, shouting over one another, arguing their old stories. Who got the wendigo, who skinned the mermaid. Their voices hammer in the dark rooms upstairs, and for the fleeting space between breaths Chris wants to take his crossbow and aim between his father's eyes.

In seven days he'll be fifteen. Chris can drive more than well, but getting pulled over after dark without a license deters him. No matter how he wants to climb into the pickup and disappear over the horizon.

So he drags Kate out from under the bed, wraps her in a quilt. Carries her out the window and onto the roof, chimney at their backs. His mother knew the constellations, but Chris could never keep them straight. Just liked laying on the roof, listening to her stories. There's an archer, in the stars, and a hunter. Kate cries silently against him until his shirt is sodden, and Chris tries to remember.

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A/N: Do not own. This serves as the prologue of the Chris-centric In the Blood series. Eventual Chris/Peter.