Alice O'Conner, the only child of Caitlin O'Conner and Dan Genovesi.

The product of a Hunter and Mythology Fanatic that decided to make a career out of his obsession.

Born in New Orleans, where her family stayed until she was four years old. But then her dad got a job at a University up in Boston and they had to move. Boston wasn't so bad at first. At least, not until her mother realized it was full of the things she used to hunt on a regular basis.

Those 'things' being monsters.

Monsters that she went out to find most nights. Always came home covered in cuts and bruises, looking worn out and pissed off until she saw her daughter and gave her a sad smile. When asked, she would tell the little girl that she was keeping strangers safe and that she wasn't as hurt as she looked.

Dan didn't believe her excuses as easily as their daughter, but they never fought over it and he never said as much. Even when he was so obviously bothered by her injuries.

Alice always felt so proud when her mom came home looking like that because she knew it meant the woman saved someone from something evil, from a monster.

Apparently, the first monster her mother killed had been a Banshee. It was a hard job. Left her slightly traumatized and maybe gave her a slight case of tinnitus, but it also made her stronger, tougher, and maybe even a little smarter. That was back in Ireland, though. She came to America with her parents when one of them pissed off some seriously bad people back home. She still doesn't know which of her family members was stupid enough to do something that made them run away to another country.

Her father had always been interested in legends and folklore, studied it in his free time and became a professor on it at a young age. He taught himself Latin to make his life easier and went on a few archaeological digs to find magic-y shit, but always came up empty handed, much to his immense disappointment.

The two met when her mother needed something translated from Latin to something remotely understandable. He was the only person willing to help her. And of course, the stuff he read peaked his curiosity, so he followed her after handing over the translations.

What he saw that night...

Well, it sealed the deal.

He was in love.

They got married after a year together, and had Alice about year and a bit after that.

Her dad died when Alice was around eight years old, and her mom basically snapped from the shock of it. Alice only has vague memories of that night, but she knows for sure that it was done by something she couldn't see. Something that growled and tore her dad open and left long trails of claw marks in the tiles of the kitchen floor.

The two remaining members of their small family became a mother/daughter Hunting team, traveling around the country, moving from city to city, state to state, every couple weeks. Never somewhere for more than two months. Alice researched the monsters for her mother and made anything special her mother might need. Her mother did the actual hunting and killing, leaving her daughter to fend for herself in either a motel room or at a good friend's place.

She used to transfer schools every few weeks because they 'moved' so often, and after a while Alice started to hate the time school wasted. She could be doing something useful; something that could help her mom not get killed! Soon enough, she stopped bothering with school. Skipped a lot until a teacher pulled her mom aside for a chat after school. When they got back to the motel that night she told her mom school was stupid and useless, and the woman agreed.

You don't exactly need Algebra or Home Ec to hunt and kill a Vampire or Demon, after all.

Two years of no school, no weird looks for being the new girl, no wondering where the Hell her mom was at all times, no worrying herself sick about her mother's well-being. Just regular amounts of worry, none of that flip-flopping stomach shit.

Even after everything she'd been through and a few years of training that left her bruised and sore all over, courtesy of Mother Dearest and her fists, Alice never would have guessed there would come a day when she had to finish a job for her mother.

Finish it with her, maybe.

Finish it for her, never.

Yet there she was, in front of some poor California boy her age, attempting to purge his poor battered body of a Demon that amplified his own rage so much that he acted like a wild animal while possessed. Her mother was positive the creature was a Specter or Evil Spirit, but Alice thought it was actually a Demon that was feeding off the boy's anger and hatred; using all of those bad emotions to it's advantage. To make it easier to get into the boy's vessel.

She uses every trick in the book. Spends two days on the exorcism. Feeds him and helps him drink some water so he wont die when the Demon finally smokes out.

But, see, the thing is:

Her mother never properly trained her for this; for the Getting Something Evil Out of a Human part of their job. And because of that, at the beginning of day three Alice starts panicking. She's tired and worried and pissed off and doesn't want to go overboard, but also wants to get the stupid thing out of the poor boy already! She even apologizes to him, hoping he can hear her past the creature that is controlling him, every time she has to get rough.

The monster in the human's body laughs at her, taunts her, tells her the boy 'checked out' ages ago.

"He was broken, he is broken, so he left."

"And you can shut the hell up."

It laughed and she apologized to the boy trapped inside his own body before decking said body across the face; her left fist connecting with his right cheek. The skin of her knuckles split open, as did the skin along his cheek bone. Their blood mixed and dripped slowly down their skin in weird trails that left Alice feeling sick and the Demon laughing like the jackass it was.

By the end of night three, she had won and the deranged Demon -"Ha, take that Ma!"- was gone. Out. Left in a flash of orange light back to the fiery pit it belonged in. The boy who owned the body had yet to wake up, but he had a pulse so she wasn't too concerned.

She took the chance to go through his pockets, suddenly very curious about him and too tired to feel bad for snooping. She found his wallet and the student ID thing it contained with his name on it. She memorized his name quickly before going through the rest of the wallet.

A picture of a blonde woman and a younger version of the boy beside her was the only interesting thing in there, tucked carefully into the billfold. It was old, crinkled around the edges, obviously folded and unfolded multiple times what with the creases that divided the photo into four squares. It was also obviously precious, much like the few pictures she kept of her dad, so she carefully tucked it back into his wallet along with his ID thingy, then put the wallet back in his pocket.

He groaned, then. Filled with pain and exhaustion, but didn't wake up. Just shifted uncomfortably on the floor of the motel room. He was too heavy for her to move, even with all the strength training she'd done, so she laid him out on the floor when the Demon fucked off. And she was too exhausted to get up to grab pillows off the beds. Instead she shifted closer to him, lifted his head up slightly, and moved her thigh under him. Her legs were sort of thick, enough so to make a decent pillow, anyway.

She looked down at him, bloody and bruised because she was too tired to clean him up after the exorcism, and ran her fingers through his mess of blonde curls. A fuckin' mullet, she mused when she caught a tangle. She smoothed it out gently and then got back to playing with his fuckin' mullet.

That will never not be funny.

She drifted off leaning against the foot of the motel bed with her hand still in his hair.

When he woke up the next morning things were only a little awkward, as he had no idea how he got to the motel. Actually, he had only the vaguest of memories spanning over the last week or so. She called him by his name at some point, wanted to get his attention. Totally forgot that she went through his stuff to get it until after it came out of her mouth. He gave her a weird look so she shot into an explanation in hopes it wouldn't set him off.

"I'm sorry! I went through your wallet to get your name an-"

"I use Billy, not Will."

"Oh. So... you aren't mad?"

He shrugged, continued washing the blood off his face so she could apply some first-aid crap like butterfly stitches and antiseptic.

So, yeah, not mad. Just wanted to correct her.

To lift some of the tension she called him all sorts of variations of Billy. From Billiam to Billy Boy to fucking Billabong, because why the fuck not? It seemed to distract him from the pain of the injuries she caused, so she did it with a smile. It made her feel like less of an asshole. Along with the stupid nicknames they talked about mundane shit, like music and bands and TV because they were actively avoiding the topic of what the hell happened to him.

But then it came to that and she had to tell him. She had to. She couldn't just tell him to forget about it. He needed to know so he could take some precautions. Demons sometimes liked to use a previously possessed vessel and that's what Billy was to them now.

She said just that and he gaped at her for a moment before he seemed to remember something fucked up that the Demon used his body for, and he got so mad. Fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Grinding teeth as he worked his jaw. Eyes that went dark and looked right past her as he processed the new info.

She sat next to him, shoulder to shoulder. The contact pulled him out of his own head and she told him how to keep the Demons away. Salt and circles and a charm that she gently placed in his palm after she told him to hold his hand out.

She showed him her own and chirped about them matching, then watched as he slowly broke into a fit of laughter. It was such childish way to talk about something that would keep actual Demons out of his insides, and that was what made it so fucking funny.

She asks him to stay an extra night because her mom will be out for two more night and she doesn't want to be alone.

This was at a time when Billy Hargrove could be anything besides a raging asshole, so he agrees. Also, he really wanted another night away from his dick of a dad. They go out to grab some fast food, then go back to the motel to eat and watch TV shows with shitty reception side by side on one of the beds until they both pass the Hell out.

Even after everything that went down Billy, the absolute idiot that he apparently is, was more worried about what his dad would do to him for being gone so long, rather than the bruises, burns, and cuts scattered across his skin.

"That's normal." He'd told her with a lazy shrug, "And knowing my luck, I'll get more of 'em when I get back."

"Want me to scare your dad for ya? I'm pretty good with a gun, y'know."

He smiled at her, all white teeth and amusement and maybe a little bit of sadness, too.

She mirrored it, but with less teeth.

He declined the offer of a shotgun in his father's face. Said it would just make things worse once she left because she's a girl and having a girl defend him is pathetic in the old dickbag's shitty opinion.

They split up that night, after she warned him about what telling other people would do. Padded walls and colourful pills await those who tell their story, she told him in a well-practiced imitation of her mother's accent. He laughed at her and gave her a tired smile that she returned.

They hugged before going their separate ways, Alice whispering be careful into his ear as she slowly pulled away.

She didn't miss the way Billy tensed up when she wrapped her arms around him.

He didn't miss the lonely look in Alice's eyes when they backed away from each other.

Billy went home to a hard, backhanded smack across the face that knocks him to the ground and opens one of his butterfly stitches, followed by some snarled insults from his dad.

Alice went back to an empty motel room with blood in the carpet that she needed to scrub out and an empty feeling in her chest that could only be there because of the absence of her new friend.

Could she even call Billy her 'friend' when they had only spent one day together with him un-possessed?

After a particularly nasty fight with her mother back at the motel she ran off. Wandered down random streets, curling and uncurling her fingers around the butterfly knife in the pocket of her hoodie. She didn't like big cities even though she'd lived both New Orleans and Boston for a while each. There are always packs of shitty people roaming the streets at night, and crimes being committed everywhere, and she feels danger behind her no matter where she goes.

She ran into Billy the morning after she ran away. He was standing out in front of his school with a couple other boys, probably his friends, when she saw his familiar head of blonde curls and grinned to herself.

She hadn't known he lived in the area she wandered into, but she was happy she had found him and he seemed happy to see her as well. The boys he was with, two sketchy looking kids around their age, hooted and hollered at them when they ran to each other. Teased him the way friends do about being so excited about seeing a girl, and leered at her until she brought out the knife she had been gripping in her pocket.

They watched how expertly she flipped the weapon around until it was open and, thankfully, stopped being creeps.

Alice and Billy ended up spending a full week together after that.

He would sneak her into his room through his window late at night so she had somewhere to sleep. Every night was stretched out as far as it could go, the teens staying up into the wee hours of the morning; just talking quietly until one or both of them passed out.

On day one of their weird, secret cohabitation she started calling him all those stupid versions of his name again.

He took to calling her Wonderland in retaliation. When she made a face he blushed a bit. Like the place Alice goes to in that book, he explained. It made her grin. And when he found out her mother was from Ireland he started calling her Lucky Charms. He'd grin because she would pretend to get offended, just like he did every time she called him something stupid. That one was saved for when he wanted to get her attention though.

Mostly he just called her Al. It was short and boyish and simple. She liked it.

On day two she taught him how to use a gun. She thought he should know how to shoot Neil if the bastard ever went too far, and he agreed.

In exchange he taught her how to 'act' because he thought she needed to know how to hide things from people with just a look. Figured he should help her practice her 'Poker Face'.

She wasn't very thrilled to learn that he was so good at 'acting'. Acting like he's okay or happy or not completely messed up, hiding all the bad shit behind a mask of I'm fine, I'm tough. She had never been very good at hiding her bullshit, but he was a master at it.

They spent that night in a park drinking cheap beer they bribed some homeless guy to get them and shooting the shit. Ranting about shitty people and sometimes their own parents. It was like therapy without judgement or a stupid bill.

Day three was spent skipping school.

It was a Monday morning, and when they went back to Billy's house for his school shit Neil caught him. Knocked him around so bad that Alice felt like she had to intervene. Left herself no other choice.

She busted down the front door of the little home and threatened Neil with a crowbar she'd picked up the night before. Smashed it against the kitchen counter to get his attention, then marched over and stuck it in his face, waving it around threateningly. She waited until Billy had slid behind her on floor, then launched into Protective Mode, knowing well enough that Billy would be pissed at her for it later on.

But Billy's feelings didn't really matter to her in that moment.

"I've fucked up worse than you, asshole! You'd be a piece of Goddamn cake compared to the monsters I've dealt with over the years! I know where you live, fuckin' remember that."

Her voice got low and dark at the end, that's what Billy will always remember best about that morning.

She sounded just as dangerous as Neil, in that sentence. Her voice echoed what he usually sounded like while he was berating Billy, sneering as he kicked his own son in the ribs or back. But she used that tone against the bad guy, and not him.

She helped Billy up then, grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up to his feet, then pulled him backwards with her; towards the door she'd basically kicked in. They turned around and sprinted when they made it outside and Alice shouted over her shoulder at the fucker.

"Don't make me hafta come back here!"

They ran to a motel that night; one far away the motel they shared after his exorcism.

That was still weird to think about, and he knew it always would be.

Alice used a fake credit card to pay for the room. Lied about their mom being right behind them when the guy behind the counter questioned them about being alone together in a parental tone. The old bastard didn't believe her, so she pulled out some bills and raised an eyebrow at him. A silent bribe. He accepted it and asked if they wanted a double or a single. Double rooms were more expensive and Alice didn't want to over use the fake card, so she asked for a single.

He handed her a key and said something like be safe as they left.

They went to the corner store before getting settled in, had to get some stuff for the new cut on his mostly healed face. More butterfly stitches and antiseptic. After patching him up yet again she told him to keep it all in his bag because she knew he would need them again eventually.

Once Billy was all stitched back together he tried to make himself look more than pissed, then started on his halfhearted attempt to scold Alice for getting in Neil's face.

To end it he sighed, "I have to go back there, y'know..."

"Not tonight." She replied cooly.

"But at some point."

"I'll give you a gun."

He had no response for that. He just laughed.

Days four and five blended together. Both were spent in the motel room that was payed for with a fake credit card Billy still hadn't asked about. The two teens went out once or twice to get some food and cheap beer, then they would go back to the room and do something boring but time time-consuming while they ate and drank.

They played their own version Twenty Questions at some point.

Billy asked about her 'job' and her mom and dumb, simple stuff.

Alice asked about his dad and California and what having friends was like.

"You should know, Wonderland. We're friends. Always will be."

"Why? 'Cause I got that Demon outta ya?" She asked, feeling downright self-loathing in that moment.

"Nah." He paused, shrugged, looked her in the eye. "Okay, maybe a little. But mostly 'cause you're fun. Y'ain't fuckin' annoying like most girls, or boring like almost everyone I know, and we like the same shit."

Music, TV, people, she reminded herself.

"And you care. Which is, like, nice, I guess." He trailed off into a mumble at the end, his hand rubbing nervously at the back of his neck.

He wouldn't look at her, cheeks flushed just a tiny bit.

She flushed too. "You're the first friend I've had since I was six." She admitted.

"You're my first, uh, girl friend. Ever, I think."

They grinned at each other then. Chugged a few more beers. Passed out side by side on the only bed in the room.

Day six, Billy decided he had to go home.

"Gotta take my punishment like a man, I guess."

She protested, but he insisted.

He won the argument, but she went with him. Slipped in through his bedroom window with her trusty, rusty crowbar in hand. Ready to smash it against Neil's ugly nose if need be.

Billy came in through the front door expecting to get hit. Instead he found his dad sitting at the kitchen counter with a woman. The freaky part of the whole thing wasn't that there was a woman in the house, but that Neil was being kind of... nice.

He seemed concerned. Even asked Billy where he'd been and if he was okay, but looked him over with eyes that didn't match his words. They said something more along the lines of keep your trap shut. And when the bastard asked him where the new cut on his face came from, Billy knew it was an act.

An act his old man was putting on for his new girlfriend.

He only played along so Neil would let him go to his room, and once he was there he locked the door behind him with a heavy sigh.

Alice could tell something was up right away, went straight for the tape player on his nightstand and picked out a random tape of his, then popped it in. She hit fast forward and waited for a few seconds before she hit play. The song ended up being "Black Dog". They played it as quietly as possible so Neil wouldn't come in to flip out on Billy.

She thought the music would be a good distraction, and she was right. Another good distraction was the moment she laid her head against his chest and wrapped an arm around his waist.

He was shocked stiff, staring down at her with wide eyes. When he tried to say something she sweetly said shut your douche nozzle. He didn't look at all upset as he obeyed the order. Chuckled at her weird choice of words and the tone she said them in.

They fell asleep a while later, just like that, while Kansas quietly sang "Carry On My Wayward Son".

Day seven, the last day, sucked the most.

Not during the actual day which was great! They hung out in Billy's room until late, did nothing but talk and listen to music.

At some point Alice popped out through the window to run down to the store for snacks. Billy said his dad would notice food missing because the guy was an ass, but he was an observant ass. If she wanted to eat, she would have to go get some food. She had no problem with that. Bought enough to leave some behind for whenever Billy needed it, actually.

But Alice knew that eventually she would have to go back to her mother. Her vacation with Billy was nice and she liked having a friend, but she had a job to do and her mom had probably been freaking out the entire time she was gone.

She kissed him goodbye this time, the hug that followed only an afterthought.

He gave her his phone number for whenever and whatever, but when she finally found the time to call him nobody picked up.

And thanks to her mother they never went back to California.

Sometimes, Alice catches herself wondering how Billy is doing. Asks herself if it's possible that Neil killed him, or if the stress of everything caused him to snap and do something stupidly reckless.

Billy has a bit of darkness in him that grows with all of the bad shit he goes through everyday. It's what lured in the Demon that possessed him, and it's one of the things she sort of liked and still likes about him.

Because she has a bit of growing darkness, too.

They match, almost like two twisted puzzle pieces made of anger and hate and some other deep down issues the wouldn't even discuss with each other. Or like the charm she always wears and the other one that she gave him that night. It's always been strangely comforting to know all of that that, she thinks, and she's positive nobody else will ever match her the way he did.

She thinks about this shit a lot while in the hospital, two years later, after basically getting ripped apart in the middle by a Werewolf's claws in Connecticut. The morphine makes her feel nostalgic. The bed is so cold she starts wishing someone would cuddle with her to warm her up. The bandages are painfully tight and itchy.

She cries for the first time in a long time.

I might do more, I might not.

Tell me what you want and I may just comply.