Summyr Ackerman

What did you do, idiot? he thought when he saw Summyr walk away, the wind ruffling her hair that shone in the distance. Knowing her temper, he should have just shut up and followed her to the van. Anyway, too late now. She was gone. He could walk a few more blocks and look for somewhere to buy the materials needed for the stitches. When he took a few steps he saw a van stopping in front of him, the redhead in the driver’s seat. Thank you he thought as opened the door and sat in the passenger seat

“I promise I’ll clean up all the mess later” he said, trying not to stain the car seat with blood. “Thanks for coming back and I’m sorry, I’m just not in the best situation in the world right now. I think it was some kind of shapeshifter”

She slammed the door after him, rolling her eyes, there were plenty of blood stains on the seats already from misadventures with...

She flinched, clenched her hand, took a breath and calmed herself down as best she could before walking back over to the drivers side and getting in. She looked at him, “don’t worry about the seat and tell me about the shifter later,” She said, “you get to choose where I stitch you up. Fun, huh? My place, an alley or a motel room, unless you can think of somewhere closer and cleaner.”

Lucius had met Summyr a few years ago on one of his trips to North Carolina. He had discovered her sister Autymn’s YouTube channel and quickly emailed her when he found out about his trip. He had recently discovered that they were in Cresthill, and it was somewhat of a relief, he had been worried when Autymn disappeared from youtube. They hunted together a few times, Summyr was always quite cold and liked her space, so he was used to teasing, and he often retaliated. The man closed his eyes for a few minutes, his eyebrows furrowed “I’m in pain ok? I want less fucking talk and more fucking action. Can you do it or it’s hard during your PMS?”

He looked around, she said it wasn’t far away and it was the best option he had at the moment “It will need stitches, can you do it or will you shake like a pinscher?”

She blinked, stunned “P.M.S huh?” she said slowly, annunciating every word. “Maybe I’ll just leave you to bleed out in the middle of the street, hm? I mean, since my PMS is just so, so, bad and you clearly don’t have any faith in my ability to do a clean stitch.” A part of her really meant it, she was highly intolerant to people claiming she was incapable of doing anything for any reason, let alone for being in her body. 

OPEN STARTER

He was walking down the main avenue, his shirt tied to his leg like a tourniquet, blood dripping on the floor as he walked. He had been injured a few minutes ago during his hunt, the scratches were deep and occupied his entire thigh. Lucius leaned against the wall for a few minutes, his vision slowly darkening, a small blood puddle forming on the floor. He catch a glimpse of a silhouette “I’m fine” he said, his voice shaking trying to hide the pain, his hair dripping with sweat

-

For once, she came upon a familiar face while she wasn’t on active duty for the sisterhood, the sisters, the hemlocks, whatever the fuck they felt like calling themselves. She saw him walking ahead of her, she saw the red droplets that speckled the ground and decided against her better judgement to get closer. “Oh yeah, you sure do look fine to me. Yep.Totally accurate assessment of the situation Blackthorn.”

@summyr-ackerman​

His car was no closer to being fixed, which meant he was nowhere near ready to leave this town – at least without his dad murdering him in his sleep. However, his curiosity had been twisted by the strange events that had occurred during his time here, the panicked outcries of the town’s residents of monsters in the night, creatures lurking in the shadows, and a war that Frederick was sure he’d never really understood. Although, it made him think about the night that caused him to crash, and inevitably, brought him to Cresthill to be trapped in this prison. The animal, or person, he’d seen on the road.. he couldn’t fathom which of the two it was. It was a mixture, or perhaps the dark playing tricks on his mind.

The male wandered into the road as soon as dusk had fallen, the same road he’d begun his journey on. He could see the sign that welcomed him into Cresthill in the near distance, and he noticed the debris left over from his vehicle. 

“Fuck this place,” he muttered, before he heard a rustling. Spinning around quick on his feet, he scanned the forest edge at the side of the road and tried to pinpoint the source of the noise. Before he could come to his senses enough to realise he should leave this area, something on all fours began to appear out of the darkness. It didn’t look.. normal.

With a few steps backward towards the town and it’s safety, Freddie tried to figure out an exit plan in his head. Perhaps if he stayed calm, everything would be okay. Unfortunately, once the creature began to growl, the male was picking up his pace and turned to run away, screaming for an escape, some help, anything. 

-

Summyr couldn’t avoid the hunt, now that she was a full fledged Hemlock but she could keep to herself. Her arrow knocked, bow drawn, she waited up in a tree near the sign that welcomed folks into Cresthill. She watched the sunset, setting the sky on fire, a clear night it would seem, she had a preference for that. Watching the sunset, alone with her thoughts, the breeze against the skin on her left arm, the one with her new tattoo felt too powerful, she found herself fixated on it. 

Summyr never dreamed of getting a tattoo, she didn’t like that she had one but the rules were the rules and it was a small price to pay for the help. That said, the tattoo was fairly small, even if she thought it looked ugly on her. Had it been up to her, she would have chosen the back of her neck. 

She heard voices bellow and saw the disgraced, stranded rich kid wandering about. She rolled her eyes, doing and saying nothing. How was she supposed to explain to him why she was up in the tree with her bow? No, it was better to wait and let him leave without even knowing she was there.

Fate, it seemed, had other plans.

Darkness of night fell and out of the woods came a werewolf, or so it appeared, large and half turned. It wasn’t a full moon so it was strange to see an attack...but perhaps that was because it was in control, maybe there was a goal in this attack, a goal to turn him and add him to their ranks. 

She saw him run but not fast enough, the werewolf pounced at him and Summyr fired her arrow, right through the wolf’s back. They fell to the earth with a thud. Summyr fired a second and a third for good measure, each arrowhead silver coated. Her position was revealed and she couldn’t leave the arrows. Hanging the bow back on her back, she swung down from the tree and walked over to retrieved her ammo. 

TW: killing, violence, gore

Side step. Side step. parry. duck.Side step. Parry.

Stumbling towards the lake, Franklin noticed a mop of red hair and nothing else. “Autymn, Autymn, Autymn, Deacon is probably looking for you. He needs some cuddles.” He said, walking up to the woman, placing a hand on her back. He didn’t even notice that the woman’s voice was different than the red head dating his cousin at first. 

Getting a look at the woman’s face, he let out a laugh. “Oh! You’re not Autymn…. you’re… You’re grumpy! The hunter who burns vampires in the woods.” He laughed, putting a hand on her shoulder again. “Maybe you should get the one that killed my Father. I bet one of the Windham fuckers wanted revenge.” He slurred. “But they killed the wrong Marsh. Hunter killed Katya, not Dad.”

x

She felt a hand on her back and turned sharply. She gripped the stone until her knuckles went white. Oh right, she thought, this motherfucker. Her her shoulder went his hand, babbling about his father, “the last thing I’m going to do is kill anything on behalf of a Marsh,” she sneered, “now get your hand off my shoulder before I remove it from your wrist.”

Echo Lake was a good place to practice magic, it was peaceful and the view was incredible, the sweet sound of birds conveyed peace. 

He was sitting under a tree trunk that was on the ground, his spell book in his hands, he took a pen out of his pocket and drew the rune on his arm that he would need. He stared at the water again, imagining it moving, and slowly there were small undulations that grew bigger and bigger as he concentrated.

His attention was stolen when he heard a female voice coming around. He opened his eyes, closing the book and taking a cigarette out of his suit pocket.

“It would be if I was actually watching you, which was not exactly the case. But I can go somewhere else if it makes you more comfortable”

She turned towards the voice, tossing the skipping stone, up and down it went in her hand. “You can do whatever you want,” she rolled her eyes. She spotted the book, “odd time to be reading, odd place, most people would want a bit of light.”

she tossed her stone, one, two, plop.

Zachary hadn’t intended to come across as creepy, but his campervan’s location for the next few nights wasn’t far from where the redhead had positioned herself to skim stones, and the sound had roused his suspicion. He had to make sure he wasn’t going to be at risk of being caught, as he was 90% certain he shouldn’t be pitching up near the lake. But he’d assumed a couple of nights wouldn’t hurt. 

“If I say I’m not a creep, does that make you think that I’m almost certainly a creep?” He joked, allowing himself to walk closer to the edge of the water now that he had been spotted. “Mind if I join you?”

“It helps I guess,” she mumbled, she didn’t know this guy and for all she knew, he was human. “You can do whatever you want, I don’t own the lake, just don’t mess up the water with a bunch of ripples.” 

she threw the stone, one, two, three, plop. 

With the full moon behind him, Berkeley was feeling better than he had been. It always came with mood swings and muscle aches, and it took a decent bit of time to actually get over it. Still, he was pretty much back to his normal self, and decided to take the risk of swimming in the lake. It wasn’t smart, especially by himself, but that’s also what made it fun.

He stopped as he saw someone through the dark, illuminated by the moonlight. The young man stood and watched as they tossed a rock across the surface of the water. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He’d always wanted to be able to skip rocks, but never could figure out how, especially with his left hand.

“Oh, sorry! I was watching you do the whole… skippy rock thing. I never could do it, even when I had my dominant hand.” He grinned and approached casually, slinging his towel bag over his shoulder as he did. “Do you mind if I swim? I don’t to disrupt your rock throwing though. In movies it usually means you’re doing it to think or escape from stuff, so maybe that’s what you’re doing, and I’m not here to bother.”

Summyr turned and saw perhaps the least intimidating person in town approaching her. The young man who was known first as a happy chatterbox and second as the one without a second arm, it wasn’t his second signifier that made him unthreatening. His disposition was so different from her own and it pissed her off. 

She shrugged, tossing the stone up and down, “it’s a free country, do what you want,” she said before she tossed another stone. 

“Eh, it was kind of something I always ended up doing in high school, I can be very quiet when I want to me.”Jessica chuckled as she walked closer to her. “But in all seriousness I’m sorry for not speaking up, won’t happen again. I was just watching you skip rocks, I can never get them to go further than one.”She said as she walked up to the bank of the lake and looked over it. “Think you can teach me how to get it more than one? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” 

x

She listened to the woman’s explanation, stone faced. Summyr wondered if she was a supernatural, if she could be that final head she needed. Truth be told, even if she was, Summyr had no will to fight anyone in that moment, not physically at least. “It’s fine,” she said, “and I think I’ll pass, I’m a pretty shitty teacher. Bad communicator.” 

She tossed her next stone

One, two, three, plop. 

On, two, three, four, plop!

“What? Because you’re too drunk or because you’re physically stuck to the ground?” Frederick sarcastically replied, as he patted the wet patches on his designer suit dry. He was irritated, but something about Summyr seemed to make him forget about being the egotistical narcissist he was known to be. Maybe she was some sort of mythical creature that could induce a certain power over him.

His eyes wandered from his own attire to hers, secretly admiring the dress she wore and how well she donned it. He was so enticed, he almost missed her question. “Well, I have to make an appearance at these things.” Maybe back home, but nobody in Cresthill would even notice if he was here or not. “Besides, free booze and everyone not looking like they’re homeless.”

She rolled her eyes, “no, Jackass, I’m here to meet someone,” she snapped, “and it’s important, even if it isn’t fun so I’m staying.” It wasn’t his fault she was irritated but he usually did or said nothing to ease those feelings either. Kind was not a word she would use to describe Fred, kinder than expected? Sure, but kindness and calmness didn’t come naturally to him like they did to Vyrnal. She’d spotted her sister across the ballroom, she was as poised in death as she was in life...

When she pushed him away, Frederick composed himself too – trying to not let her see his own vulnerabilities. That perhaps he had a heart. “Yeah, I’ll do whatever you want.” He agreed without thinking about his choice of words. Shooting her a glance, he wondered if he should leave her by herself, but figured she’d be strong enough to deal with whatever it was on her own. “I’ll ask who I can, but I can’t promise you we’ll find her today.” He was blunt with his honesty. He had to be though. “Just don’t worry if nothing turns up. We’ll find something, a clue or whatever, eventually.” We.

They weren’t going to find her, she knew that in her heart, she was just setting him off on busy work, a task he could complete so he could feel he at least tried. She just nodded, “yeah, sure, I’l...see you around I guess,” she said, walking off away from him, down a street that veered off towards the forest.

After the adrenaline went down he could see how strange it all seemed. He had killed someone of his own kind to protect someone who kill his species.

At first sight Summyr looked like a warrior, but looking deeper she was just a girl, confused, hurt, with all her insecurities and a life full of possibilities, and it seemed wrong for him to let it all end by a selfish choice.

The arrow pointed at him no longer intimidated him, he stood up, relaxing his body. He was still staring at her, his eyes fixed on hers, after a while in silence he finally spoke

“I know what they do and who they hunt, but this war is not mine, at least not tonight. It’s way bigger than us. I know you are a great warrior, but you would have no chance”

He didn’t expect a thank you and didn’t even want her to, and every time he looked at her he was sure he had made the right choice.

“You are full of energy, full of life, you have many choices and paths to follow and I would not let you die, I wish someone had chosen the same for me. I am not your enemy tonight”

She wouldn’t stand a chance, huh? “Oh wow, a vampire underestimating a human, I’m sure that’s going to work out just fine for you,” she sneered, rolling her eyes. She wanted to loose that arrow right through his chest but he’d saved her and now she couldn’t and it pissed her off. 

She lowered the bow, not because she felt safe, simply because she knew she couldn’t actually use it against him. “I’m not going to kill you tonight,” she said, “just tonight. The next time I see you? You won’t be so lucky...or I won’t, I guess it doesn’t really matter.”