Sympathy for the Hunted

Who: Alexis and her father
Where: Their house
When: Evening

It was a conversation she was dreading, but one she knew she couldn't put off. Ever since her talk with Thia and Michael, Alexis had been thinking about her father's job, who he hunted and who he spared. She'd been able to put it to the back of her mind for a few hours here and there, but then it would pop back up again. After months of worrying that she might be on the list, she'd finally reached the point where she needed to know. The last time they'd had this kind of conversation, she'd been a child. He'd said he hunted the bad things. Now that definition needed to be expanded on.

The table was set for dinner when Alexis arrived home, her father in the kitchen finishing up the final preparations. It had been a while since they'd sat down to dinner together, with her school and her social life conflicting with his increased work habits. The appearance of ghosts had him out more than usual, doing something she assumed related to work. Again, she felt like she didn't know enough about what he did. For all she knew, he was ridding the world of ghosts in a less than pleasant way.

"What's for dinner?" she asked, leaning against the counter as her father pulled a dish from the oven. Thankfully, the man wasn't too bad a cook.

"Baked salmon," he answered, looking over his shoulder with a smile, then set the dish on the cool part of the stove. "Green beans and potatoes. Would you mind getting us drinks?"

"Sure," Alexis said, moving to two glasses from the cabinet, then fill them with ice and water. Just because she knew what she wanted to talk about, didn't mean she could walk right in and jump into questioning. She was hoping there'd be a right time, that he wouldn't feel attacked and she wouldn't feel like running away.

"How was your day?" he asked as he prepared their plates. He'd noticed that Alexis seemed a lot happier in Marquette than she had in a long while, and so he was glad that there was plenty going on in the area, hopefully enough to keep them from moving any time soon. His daughter deserved a normal life, and he did his best to give that to her, but his own occupation made it difficult to reconcile the two. If he could keep them rooted longer than usual, he would.

"It was okay. I went to work. Sold some books. Learned a little more about ghosts," she said, setting their drinks on the table, then going to grab her plate from him. There was a lot more going on in her life than just that, but she didn't really want to get into boys and how frustrating they could be. That would get her off topic. "You know that ghost that I said was following me around when you were gone? Thia and I helped him rest."

"Really?" Jonathan asked, surprised and pleased to hear his daughter had taken such an initiative. His experience with ghosts was lacking and he wasn't even sure how she might of gone about it, so he had to wonder how she'd figured it out herself. Maybe her friend Thia knew something about ghosts. "What happened exactly?"

Alexis took a deep breath, getting herself settled at the table before she tried to continue. She knew what this was going to start, and she told herself she could do it. She could handle this discussion wherever it went. "Well... after we talked to him, we figured out that he'd been bitten by a werewolf. Changed on the full moon. Got shot in the head. And he was hanging out at our house because you were the last person he saw before he died." Okay, that hadn't been smooth at all, but it had been to the point, and she wanted some answers.

Based on Jonathan's expression, his daughter had obviously caught him off guard. She's said there'd been a ghost, but there were ghosts everywhere. How was he supposed to help when the ghost ran away when he was around? Now that made a bit more sense, though solving that mystery wasn't going to help him out of this situation. "He was killing people, Alexis," he said patiently. "He'd shredding his way out of the hospital and would have spent the rest of the night tearing up Marquette if I hadn't stopped him."

"You mean there's no other way to take down a werewolf?" Alexis asked, her voice rising despite herself. "You couldn't, like, knock him out or lock him up? I mean, he couldn't have been more than twenty, dad! It's not his fault he was bitten and now he's dead!"

Unlike his daughter, Jonathan Byrd was not quick to anger. Plus, this was a conversation they probably should have had a long time ago. He just didn't expect it to sneak up on him in such a way. "I didn't have the tranquilizers necessary to deal with the number of werewolves that were running around Marquette and, no, I don't have any way to lock them up once they've transformed. It's not like I can throw a net over them and haul them off. They're deadly once they've hit that point, and while I would have liked nothing more to save that kid, it was more important that he not kill anyone else."

That was enough to give Alexis pause, having not thought through the complications that might arise for a hunter with so many cursed werewolves running around Marquette. Since talking to Michael, she'd been much more in touch with what the werewolves themselves would feel. "So... so do you kill all werewolves? Just the cursed ones? Or just the ones in the process of killing other people?" she asked. Maybe that wasn't the best way to phrase the question, but it was the way it came out.

"Just the ones that put people in danger," he said, the decided he needed to clarify. "If a cursed werewolf is running around killing people on a full moon, I usually try to knock them out, not kill them dead. When they come to, in the morning, I can tell them what they are and what happened, then make sure they take precautions so that it won't happen again. I only shoot to kill when they're out to kill-- when they don't lock themselves up and they know better. I'm not a monster, Lexi, but when things go out of hand like they did here, it's hard to save them all."

Alexis was quiet, looking down at her food as she pushed it around her plate. That wasn't what she'd been led to believe when she was a child, but he could have changed his strategy over the years. It was hard to know when they didn't talk about it. "What about vampires?" she asked, going for the big one, since they were what he'd originally been seeking revenge against.

Jonathan sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. As frustrated as he was, he supposed it was better now that she wasn't close to shouting. "Again, I only hunt those that are endangering human life. Some species, I hunt them all, but that's because they'd kill any human they got their hands on. Others... it depends on the situation. If I hear they're killing humans, then I have no sympathy. They're not like cursed werewolves. They know what they are and they know what they're doing, bloodlust or not."

They were on the same page, which made Alexis feel immensily better. She didn't like vampires either, but she supposed that if they weren't hurting anyone, they deserved to live. And if he could refrain from killing human-friendly vampires, then surely he wouldn't hurt other non-violent beings. "What about witches? And psychics? Elementals or demons?" she asked, hoping that throwing her own there in the middle might make it a little less obvious how concerned she was on that one point.

"Don't be stupid," he said with a frown. "If I'm willing to let a vampire go, of course I'm going to let a witch go, provided she's not killing people. Same with psychics and elementals. They're all humans with extra powers, which means they're not monsters unless they're psychopaths. Demons, on the other hand, are always worth killing. They are evil, and if you don't take them out, they're likely to kill you instead. Don't tell me you think I should stop killing demons?"

"No!" Alexis protested, "That's not what I meant! I just-- I just wanted to understand. There are a lot of weird things here and-- and sometimes you meet people who are different." Her eyes dropped to her plate, eyeing a dinner than no longer sounded good. "I don't like the idea of you hunting any of my friends."

Now he knew this conversation had been too late in coming. If she was jumping to those sort of conclusions, then this had to have been something bothering her for quite a while. He knew her imagination could run away with her, but he didn't realize things had gotten so out of control. "Honey, unless your friends are killing innocent people, then you have nothing to worry about. I don't hunt kids, and I don't kill unless absolutely necessary. You should know me better than that."

Alexis wondered if sliding down under the table was a feasible escape plan, but was pretty sure her father would notice when she was about halfway down. She felt awful for asking him such a thing, relieved that he wasn't a threat, and confused about how she should know him when he was never around. Then again, she'd just asked her father if he was capable of murder, so maybe she should feel like a rotten daughter. "I'm sorry," she said softly, unable to look up at him, ashamed. "I just... didn't know. And... I guess I thought you used to believe differently."

She had a point there, and Jonathan thought it was important that she knew she hadn't imagined what she thought she knew. He'd rather not admit to it, but they all made their mistakes. "I didn't always know that everything different out there wasn't evil," he said, his voice still very calm. "But it's been a long time since I hunted in that fashion. I know better now. I... should have told you sooner." Some days he still felt guilty for those he brought harm to that might not have deserved it. Some days he allowed himself forgiveness. Right at this moment, the guilt was stronger than ever before.

Nodding, Alexis glanced down at her fish, her appetite completely gone. Maybe she should have waited till after eating to start this conversation, but then she might have ended up feeling ill instead. "I'm gonna go lay down," she said, pushing back from the table. Her eyes moved up to meet his, but she couldn't smile, not after what she'd done. Once back in her room, Alexis curled up on her bed, unable to sleep, unable to do anything else but think. She'd been wrong about a lot of things: about what her father was capable of and, most importantly, what he was not. But she'd paid a price for the way she'd gone about finding out. Their relationship had never been perfect, but now he felt even farther away. She told herself that was okay, that they weren't ever going to be close as long as she was afraid. Now that the fear could die, things could change. She would just have to wait and see.