“Hey mom, there’s something I need to tell you.”
Little did Dakota know that underneath her mother’s skin, something was simmering. It was just waiting for someone to turn up the heat so it could start to bubble.
“I-I talked to some of my friends about this already, and they said I should tell you.” The brunette shoves her hands deep into the pockets of her hoodie and looks nervously from her painted toenails to her mother, then back again. “I-I’d like to start being a girl. Instead of a boy, I mean. I think I’m trans-”
“You...what?” The woman sitting on the couch looks up at her child with wide eyes, suddenly very attentive. “You want to what?!” Dakota flinches, withdrawing backwards out of instinct. Her eyes grow wide. No one else had reacted this way, and her mother was usually so supportive of all sorts of people. She boasted about watching Ellen and was more than kind to her children’s gay friends.
“I know it’s hard. I just wanted to tell you before I-”
“You will do nothing. You’re grounded! And I’m calling the doctor!”
“What? The doctor?” the teen asks, more puzzled than anything. “There’s nothing wrong with me, mom! I swear! It’s a normal thing. Lots of kids-”
“Lots of kids aren’t my kids,” her mom growls. She quickly gets up and storms over to the phone. The teen was too startled by the reaction to do anything as she watches her mother’s newly manicured nails tap the buttons. Just as she presses talk, Dakota’s younger sister runs down the stairs and wraps her small arms around her mother’s legs.
“Mom you can’t! Dakota isn’t sick! She just needs support from us! I’ve already promised to help her pick out dresses next weekend!”
The small girl beams, her smile riddled with holes from where she had started losing her baby teeth. It was so innocent. There was nothing but love in her eyes and it makes Dakota’s heart swell. Ever since she had confided her identity in her younger sister, Sarra had been nothing but supportive and excited to have an older sister. Whoever said children wouldn’t understand transgender people was entirely wrong.
“Do not call your brother a ‘she’,” their mother hisses.
“But mom-”
“Don’t ‘but mom’ me, Sarra. Dakota needs help!”
“No, I won’t let you!” Sarra screams and she grabs the phone from her mother’s hands. It’s hurtled across the room and leaves pieces of plastic across the hardwood floor. All three are silent for what seems like an hour. Thunder shakes the whole house. The lights flicker, then go out.
“Come on, Sarra, lets go find some candles,” Dakota says quietly. She cautiously keeps her eyes on her mother, who hadn’t moved an inch. She was glaring at the smaller girl with eyes filled with a fury neither daughter had seen before.
“Okay…” Sarra says, her voice small. She reaches for her sister’s hand. “I’ll follow you, sister.” There was a dangerous edge to ‘sister’. For a 2nd grader, she had a keen understanding of how to add venom to her words.
However, that venom was exactly what pushed their mother beyond boiling. With an inhuman screech, she runs at the two. Sarra screams and lets go of Dakota’s hand as both instinctively bolt towards the stairs. Before they get there, their mother is standing in front of them. Her eyes are black as voids and her gums bleed as needle-like teeth unevenly push between her usually perfect white smile. Her manicured nails turn into blackened talons that make her fingertips tear as they grow.
“What the actual-” Dakota is cut off by another clap of thunder that was loud enough to resonate in her bones. It’s followed by lightning that, for a split second, illuminated what she thought to be her mother just a few minutes ago. Her skin was covered in black lines and welts that swelled above her skin.
Sarra’s screaming is what brings the teen out of the frozen state she was in. She grabs her sister and runs past the monster, going up the stairs two at a time. At the top, she ducks into the bathroom, slams the door shut, and locks it. She sits against the wood, catching her breath and holding her sister, praying for her to quiet.
Heavy footsteps come up the stairs, accompanied by a sudden downpour of rain on the roof. Her sister was still whimpering, and Dakota kisses the top of her head. “What’s wrong with mommy?” the small girl asks.
“I don’t know,” Dakota whispers in answer. She had seen enough horror movies to know that hiding behind a locked door would do nothing to help either of them, but she could think of nothing else to do.
“I know.” Both of the girls jump at the voice, and the sudden light in the room. Dakota looks up and sees a woman sitting on the edge of the vanity. She was dressed in typical apocalypse movie gear: long coat, torn jeans, boots, semi-automatic rifle. Her rings had glowing stones on them, illuminating the room and making her own blonde hair glow. Immediately, Dakota holds her sibling tighter.
“I’m Anne. Demon hunter extraordinaire, at your service.” She hops off the counter and holds out a hand to the two. Sarra looks at the woman with wide eyes, then grins.
“I’m Sarra. This is Dakota, she’s my sister!” She hops up. “Are you going to help our mom?”
“Sarra, be careful,” Dakota says as she herself stands up. She could never understand her sister’s welcoming attitude towards strangers. “How’d you get in here?” She narrows her eyes at the stranger, who simply smiled in return.
“That’s not important. What’s important is getting rid of what’s inside your mother,” Anne says,”Which shouldn’t be too difficult.” She starts to pull her rifle off of her back.
“No, I can do this myself,” Dakota says, then immediately wishes she had swallowed the words before they came out. She had no idea what to do. She didn’t even know what was going on.
“I doubt it,” Anne says dismissively.
Sarra puts her hands on her hips. “Dakota and I can do it. I beat up Charlie the other day on the playground. I can beat you up. I’ll beat anyone up!”
“Well that’s very brave of you, but this gun is as big as you are,” the demon hunter says, reaching down to ruffle the small girl’s blonde curls with a smile. “Besides, boys usually aren’t good demon hunters.” She casts her gaze back up to Dakota, who glares back.
“I’m not a boy, I’m a girl,” she says. Her body tenses and her throat starts to ache. God, she couldn’t get upset about this now. She couldn’t get upset every time she had to clarify her gender.
Sarra nods and grabs her sister’s hand again. “And she can kick anyone’s butt. Even a demon’s. All we need is holy water and crosses and a priest and-”
“Where’d you get all that from, kiddo?” Anne asks, raising an eyebrow.
“I watch horror movies with my dad,” the girl says proudly, sporting a grin. Dakota feels a smile of her own tug at the side of her mouth.
Anne laughs. “Well then, I suppose you two can help. But stay on the sidelines.” She pulls a small pistol from a holster on her hip and passes it to Dakota. “Be careful with this. And Sarra, you’ll just be a distraction. I don’t have any weapons small enough for you.” Sarra nods wisely and passes a glance to Dakota. She didn’t look scared in the least. The older sibling doubted she even understood this was more than a game.
“Alright, let’s go.”
Anne opens the door slowly, and as she does, another roll of thunder echoes above. Lightning vaguely illuminates the hallway and for the first time, the scars can be seen all across the demon hunter’s dark skin. With her gun in front of her, she creeps down the hallway. Dakota follows closely after, with Sarra holding tightly to her hoodie.
The sight was like something from a horror movie. The walls and floor were splattered with blood so dark it was almost black. With only the light from Anne’s rings, everything had an eerie yellow glow.
“Where’d she go?” Dakota asks in a voice barely above a whisper.
“She probably wandered off. The demon inside your mother isn’t very powerful, so her mind is probably fighting back pretty well, and that’ll cause a lot of confusion in the body,” Anne replies. She starts down the stairs, and at the bottom, things were even worse. Blood was splashed across the dark hardwood floor and pastel painted walls in amounts that couldn’t be lost without dying. Shards of glass covered the floor and furniture had been thrown across the room.
Light came from the kitchen, and they go in to find a flashlight clutched in the hands of their mother. She lay face down on the white tile; silverware and glass were strewn everywhere like there had been a brawl in the space.
“Mom!” Sarra runs forward and kneels down next to the body. With the bit of strength she had, she rolls her mother over and immediately starts screaming. Embedded in her mother’s stomach were a countless amount of forks. The silver handles stuck out unevenly and with every breath, more blood swelled up around the wounds. Small cuts from glass shards only contributed to the gore.
Dakota grabs her sister’s hand and pulls her backwards then covers her eyes. She looks at Anne, who wasn’t evenly mildly disturbed by this. “She and the demon had a big fight,” the hunter says, leaning over to get a pulse.
At the touch, their mother starts gasping. Her entire body quakes and shakes, and her back arches. Bloodied lips move, trying to make words.
The three stand and watch as the woman’s eyes roll back in her head and her throat expels but one syllable in a voice too deep to be anything but inhuman. “DIE!” Joints crack and blood streams as she starts to get up. The forks in her stomach are pushed out by the movement and some fall out, clattering to the floor.
Sarra screams so loudly Dakota thinks her vocal cords were going to snap. She grabs her younger sister and turns the other way. “Do something!” she yells at Anne, who  was still entranced by the sight.
“W-what. Oh yeah!” The demon hunter raises her rifle, aims, and fires. The mother jerks as the bullet hits her in the chest, embedding itself past the bones and in the organs beneath.
This wound does nothing, and the monster lurches forward with surprising speed, grabbing the barrel of the gun with her clawed hands. With a strong tug, she pulls the rifle free of Anne’s hands and bends the barrel close to breaking point. It drops to the ground and thunder roars like a victory cry from the sky.
“...that’s not supposed to happen,” Anne says, slowly backing up. She looks at the two girls. “Run!” Sarra was too scared stiff to move. The demon hunter grabs her, picks her up, and then starts running. Dakota follows, and she can hear the pounding of footsteps behind her. The teen feels the heavy weight of the pistol in the pocket of her hoodie. Could she actually use it?
“Get out into the backyard!” Dakota yells, feeling adrenaline taking hold. She had a plan.
Anne nods in acknowledgement and runs head-on at the glass back door. She crashes through it, her boots crunching on the glass shards when she lands outside. The demon hunter lets Sarra go. “Run!” she instructs. Sarra nods and takes off around the illuminated pool that took up a majority of the backyard.
Rain still poured down so heavy that Dakota was soaked the second she was outside. All she had to do was hope that lightning would strike and blind her mother for long enough to shoot. That was it. All she needed was a second.
But before she could even pull the gun out, she feels her feet slip on the wet concrete. She lands face first, catching herself on her palms. Not stunned for long, she rolls over and finds her mother practically on top of her. Up close, the monster was even more gruesome. This wasn’t her mother anymore. This was just a demon.
She pulls the gun out of her pocket and aims with one hand. The teen closes her eyes, then pulls the trigger. There’s a click...then nothing.
“The safety, Dakota! The safety!” Sarra shouts from across the pool.
“Safety?” Dakota was shaking too badly to think straight or remember how a gun safety worked. Before she could do anything else, someone else grabs the demon above her, and with tremendous strength, throws it into the pool.
The body sinks to the bottom, tainting the water red with blood.
For a few moments, all is silent. “That should do it,” Anne says, wiping blood off on her coat.
“I don’t think so,” Dakota mumbles. She drops the gun and gets up, watching the body convulse and fight under the water. She stands, then jumps into the pool as well. The water was lukewarm and enveloped her completely. It was shallow enough to stand on this side, and apparently the demon had figured that out as well, because it was surfacing.
  The monster twitches as it rises, water and blood running off of it in streams. It coughs heavily, taking rasping breaths. Dakota grabs its hair and forces the head back underwater before it could recover. It struggled against her grip, fighting for air, but the teen refuses to let up.
Eventually, the struggling weakens, then stops completely. Dakota lets go, and the body slowly floats back up to the surface. She stands there, still in shock and shivering despite the warm rain and water.
“Dakota, come here!”
She snaps back into reality and turns to see her sister at the edge of the pool, with Anne behind her. They both help her out of the water and the teen sits there, clothes clinging  to her skin and chest rising and falling heavily as she tried to catch her breath.
Sarra hugs her sister tightly, then starts sobbing. Dakota feels her own tears join the raindrops falling on her cheeks. She looks up to the sky. It was still raining, but the clouds were thinning, and the thunder and lightning had moved on.
“Let’s get back inside,” Anne says, gently urging the two sisters to their feet and leading them back into the ruined house.“Do you two have anyone you can call to take care of you? My people can make all this look like a violent break-in or something...but there’s no way I’m leaving you two alone.”
“Our dad lives across town,” Dakota says, forcing herself to be strong. “I can call him. He’d love to take us in.”
“Okay, good,” the demon hunter says,”I’ll get you two fixed up before you call anyone.” She lowers her voice and leans in closer to Dakota. “And sorry for calling you a boy earlier. You really are a girl. No boy can fight that viciously.”
And at that moment, despite her body shaking with shock and her throat aching with held-back sobs, Dakota feels confidence.