Chances are probably really good that you’ve already talked to Talisin. Maybe you’ve even talked to Trey. And if that’s the case, then you probably have a pretty bad picture of me. I won’t lie about what I’ve done or the life that I’ve lived, but it’s not everything that Talisin and Trey would like to believe it is. You came here to find out about me. Or maybe you just wanted to know what the whole MacLeod branch that I come from is like. And everyone tells a slightly different story. Everyone sees our childhood and youth in different ways. So keep in mind while you’re reading that just because I see things as having happened differently than Talisin did, that doesn’t make either one of us wrong. I’m not going to start off telling you about my parents. Talisin already did that quite well. I will tell you that I was a rather unexpected surprise for my parents. They had three children already. Talisin and Trey don’t talk about Thane, because he betrayed them when it counted most, but there were three of them when my parents found out about the pregnancy with me. My parents had only managed to have one child together. Thane was my mother’s from a previous relationship. Trey had been adopted at birth. And Talisin was the only child that they shared. So the prospect of having another baby that was theirs was quite joyous. I remember Mama telling me the story about how I came into the world. It was always my favorite bedtime story. She didn’t know she was pregnant until she went to the doctor for the flu. And the doctor, while listening to her heart, picked up the sounds of a second, much faster, heartbeat. That’s how she found out about the pregnancy. As far as the actual pregnancy went, everything was as smooth as could be. There was no morning sickness, my mother didn’t gain too much weight, and I never kicked hard enough to cause her pain. I was also active on a regular schedule so my parents never worried about if I had died, or if something had gone wrong. Everything was perfect. All the ultrasounds of me showed that I was a small infant, but I was within the range of normal. My Mama told me that she had dreams of me while she was pregnant. Dreams of what I would look like when I was born, and the kind of life that I would lead. She saw me growing up and starting my own family. Sometimes I wondered if she did the same thing when she was pregnant with Talisin, or if I got to be the lucky one. The rational part of me knows that she definitely did the same thing with my sister. But the part of me that wants to be special says that she did it with me because I was the last she was going to have. As far as my siblings went, there were mixed reactions to the fact that they were going to have another sister. Thane was resigned. He was the oldest by quite a bit and he just wasn’t really attached to either of the siblings he already had. Trey was excited about the idea of having another sister. He was going to protect me and show me the world the same way that he had with Talisin. But Talisin was absolutely enraged with the idea of a younger sister coming along and taking her place. She wasn’t happy throughout the pregnancy, and Mama said Talisin would occasionally storm out of the room if she saw Daddy or Trey feeling her belly or listening to me move inside the womb. She just was not going to accept another sibling, or at least not a little sister. I came into the world on January 21, 1988. It was a cold winter day and I was six weeks early. My mother wasn’t a high risk for a premature delivery, so they really weren’t expecting me. But my mother’s water broke while she was in the shower, getting ready for the day. Our father rushed her to the hospital, and they had hopes that the labor could be stopped. Unfortunately, the labor was too far along when my mother got to the hospital. There was nothing they could do except deliver me. Mama says that I was the hardest labor she’d ever had. Talisin just slipped into the world, and Thane came out grudgingly, but without too much struggling. Me, on the other hand, I didn’t come out until the doctors came in to get me. Mama was in hard labor for 15 hours. The doctors decided that I was in distress and rushed Mama into the OR for an emergency c-section. The official stats are 4lbs, 2oz, and 14 inches long. I was too small for the nursery, so I had to be airlifted to another hospital with a NICU. Apparently Mama and Daddy got a few minutes to hold me before I was taken away, and it was clear that I looked more like Mama and Thane than I did like my Daddy. A fine cap of blonde hair, blue eyes, and a very pale complexion, despite the red and wrinkly that I was. I don’t know if Mama and Daddy ever fought over who sired me. It was never within my hearing if they did. But I think Daddy knew that I was Thane’s sister more than Talisin’s. I spent a month in the NICU until I was big enough to go home. And there were plenty of people to greet me when I got there. All three of my siblings were there, although Talisin stormed away as soon as she saw me, and the rest of our extended family was there. With so many people being a part of our lives, you’d have thought that they’d come in handy when the times got tough. But they didn’t. And really, none of them were around much when I was growing up, either. There were family picnics once in a while, but generally we didn’t see the other MacLeods. We were just on our own. That’s the way it was from the beginning, so I don’t see why Talisin and Trey expected anything different when the time came for them to become adults. The first six years of my life were really rather boring. I was an average baby once I got home from the hospital. I did everything a couple months late because I was premature, but nothing that was outstanding. Although I didn’t say a word until after my third birthday. I think, at that point, Daddy knew that I wasn’t his. Otherwise I would have been talking way before that. He knew that my biological father was a Wingrider, and their children do everything early except talking. That never happens until after the third birthday. I was three when my father put a children’s guitar in my hands for the first time, and within a year I had figured out how to play quite a few songs on it. My father helped a lot with the learning, but a lot of it was also on my own. I’d hear things on the radio and try to mimic what I was hearing. It was quite impressive to my teachers when I got to kindergarten and could play just about anything that was aired on the radio. I just couldn’t sing the songs for shit. It would take a long time and a move to Canada before I’d discover a type of music that I could actually take lead singer for. The age of seven is where my life begins to get interesting. That’s when my parents were stolen from us. We never did find out for sure if it was foul play or a genuine accident that took their lives. If it was foul play, then I have no idea who would have been behind it. I mean, I don’t think my parents had any enemies. If they did, I was never made aware of the situation. So I kind of lean towards the opinion that it was an accident. Talisin glares at me whenever I say that. She can’t accept that God, in His infinite wisdom, would just steal our parents away like that. But I don’t think God is all He’s cracked up to be. And I think fate is just cruel enough to leave three children to fend for themselves. Right from the very start, Talisin and Trey wanted to make sure that my life didn’t change at all. They wanted everything to be exactly the way it was while our parents were alive. But I think they failed to realize that, no matter what they did, everything did change. It wasn’t Mama who tucked me into bed every night and told me the story of how I came into the world. It wasn’t Daddy who came into my room to clear out the monsters before I fell asleep. In fact, once our parents were gone, no one cleared out the monsters before I went to bed. Trey was off working, and Talisin could barely manage a fairytale without cutting out the middle to be done with it sooner. Don’t get me wrong. They tried really hard to make things as normal as they could be, but normal had flown the coup. There was nothing normal about our lives after that. They were just two kids playing at being parents and adults. And I was the scared kid that they were playing with. By that point Thane had gone and joined the foreign legion. He knew what was going on, but he couldn’t help at all. He was enlisted, and he couldn’t leave without the threat of death hanging over his head. So it was just Trey, Talisin, and me. I guess things weren’t that bad between the ages of 7 and 12. I was happy just so long as I had my guitar, a notebook, and a pen. I threw myself into music to escape the pain of losing my parents. I can’t count the number of songs I wrote to try and purge the pain from my soul. And around the time I was 12 I started my first band. It was just a bunch of kids in a neighbor’s garage. During the summer months we’d go down to the park or to the shores of the loch and play for whoever wanted to listen. And once in a while we’d be invited to play at a teenager’s birthday party or for one of the battle of the bands type of contests that the city occasionally held. But we had a good time, and we were all doing something that we loved. I spent a lot of time doing that, and it kept me out of trouble. I don’t think my siblings ever really realized that it was really good for me. They just saw me standing around with a bunch of kids who were smoking and decided that I was in trouble. Or, at least, Talisin did. I was only in my band for two years before she forbid me to play with them anymore. I didn’t even get to tell them what was going on before she up and moved us to snowy Canada. I started my freshman year of high school in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I didn’t know anyone. I went to school on my first day of classes with my guitar slung across my back and a backpack on one shoulder. I can’t count the number of kids who tried to hit me, trip me, or shove me into lockers those first few months of class. The kid with the guitar was target practice. And it didn’t help that I wasn’t even five feet tall. I was like a grand total of 4’9 when I started high school. It wasn’t until I met Link that school began to get a little better. He was a junior, and he was the lead of a band called Atlantis. They were five guys and a girl who played in the basement of Link’s house. The girl was the lead singer. She didn’t do anything special with an instrument. But Link asked if I’d be interested in joining his band. He said Rachel was upset with being the only girl, and if I was good, then it might help them book some more appearances and events. I tried out for their band that day, and Link absolutely adored my lead guitar. He put me in the front lines so that the audience would see Rachel and me mostly, while the guys just rocked out in the back. It was awesome. For most teenagers, high school is a time of dating and socializing with other young people. For me, high school was a time to get an education and work on my music. See, the music was the dream. To one day have a band and break into the music industry. That’s what I wanted to do. But the education was the back up for if the music dream failed. It was something to keep food on the table once I was out on my own. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with that education, or where I wanted to go, but I knew I needed it if I was going to survive in the world. My grades in high school were excellent. I had an A average and I was sure to win any number of scholarships when I decided to go on to university. My future seemingly looked really bright and filled with all kinds of promises. But they never tell you that there’s always someone waiting just around the corner to knock you on your ass. Now, you knew that Talisin and Trey were both Fallen Angels. They knew that they were both Fallen Angels. And they knew that I was supposed to Awaken as one of them, too. But no one told me any of this. I was left clueless and in the dark until an Angel came to me one night and stole me from my bed. She took me to Heaven and she told me that it had once been all mine. That I had served God as one of His messengers, and that for some reason I had decided that life wasn’t good enough for me. I gave it all up and Fell to earth so that I could be born into the life of a human. I asked her why I had chosen that. Why would I leave something so perfect for a life that is far less than perfect? Her answer? “You’ll find out when the time comes.” Basically I got patted on the head, told to be a good kid, and sent back to my bed to wake up and realize I was going to live forever while everyone else around me died. Talisin and Trey were going to grow old and die. They would leave me here on this planet all by myself. Thane would be gone even before Talisin and Trey. And then I wouldn’t have anyone to protect me or keep me sane. I was devastated. I should probably mention here that Link and everyone in Atlantis were into the drug scene. They did the hard shit like heroin and cocaine. Sometimes they even dabbled in crystal meth. So, after I woke up from that experience with the Angel, I was in desperate need of something to numb the pain. It was so bad that I couldn’t even think. It just hurt. I got to practice, and Link offered me a line of heroin. He said, “It looks like you could really use this.” And without really thinking, I did the line. The feeling was amazing. It was like everything just faded away, and nothing that was bothering me mattered anymore. For a while I passed out on the couch and just slept. And when I woke up Link put a guitar in my hands. We rocked out and I just had a good time with my friends. I did another line before I went home that night, and that was the beginning of something that I never saw coming. I never thought that I could become a drug addict. It just hit me from nowhere. For three years I was completely addicted to drugs. Lines of heroin gave way to shooting up and bigger rushes. And while I never traded sex for drugs, I did steal from Talisin and Trey to get the money I needed for my fixes. It started out as forging checks from Talisin’s bank account. I was always careful how much I took, so that I wouldn’t get caught, but when I felt that was getting too risky, I switched to getting credit cards in her and Trey’s name. I learned very quickly that Trey’s credit wasn’t as good as Talisin’s. The limits on his cards weren’t nearly as high as the ones on hers. So I began taking out more and more lines of credit in Talisin’s name. And when the bills came in, I’d just tuck them away in my desk drawer and leave them. I’d max out the cards until they cut me off, and then I’d apply for a new card. I think I took out a total of eight cards in Talisin’s name, and about four in Trey’s. And all in all, I ran them into debt to the tune of $3 million. But that wasn’t discovered until after they discovered the drug habit. The drug habit was discovered when I came home high one night. I was loopy high, and seeing things that weren’t there. Talisin and Trey confronted me, and when they wouldn’t leave me alone, I threw the only thing I had in my hands at Talisin’s head. That thing was a brick of heroin that I had just bought. It would have kept me going for a week. And I hurled it at my sister’s head. The brick exploded when it made contact with her face, and she inhaled a lungful of the drugs. Trey called 9-1-1 and got an ambulance there immediately, but a lot of damage had already been done. Talisin was stroking and suffering a massive heart attack by the time the paramedics got there. The police arrived shortly after, and I was arrested and hauled off to the city jail. It wasn’t a fun place to be, and I stayed there for about two weeks before I went in front of a judge. By the time I went in front of a judge, I was suffering withdrawals from the drugs my body thought it was supposed to have. But I pled guilty to the assault charge and the fraud charges. I was sentenced to three years in prison, and hauled off to start serving my sentence. I was in prison for two months. I should have been there a lot longer, but my lawyer got me a deal with the DA. I would be signed into Talisin and Trey’s guardianship and placed on an ankle monitor for the rest of my sentence and then serve another three years probation. That was the deal, and my siblings agreed to it and signed the papers. Then about two weeks before my release date, one of the officers on my block got himself into my cell. He raped me repeatedly until he couldn’t anymore. And that night not only did I lose my virginity, but I also got pregnant. That’s not the way I had intended things to go. Things were vastly different when I got home from prison. Trey could barely look at me, let alone say anything to me. Talisin was concerned, but aloof. I couldn’t blame either of them. I couldn’t blame them for the restrictions they placed on me, either. But I had more freedom when I was sitting in a jail cell. That’s honestly the way it felt. Sure, I could walk outside whenever I wanted, but I couldn’t even go to the end of the driveway without the monitor turning red and calling the police. And after I had been sent away, Talisin and Trey sold most of my stuff. They wouldn’t allow me to have my computer, my guitars had all been stolen, and I wasn’t allowed any video games or anything. I either went to classes, or I sat at home on my bed and stared at the ceiling. I did manage to finagle an iPod and computer access for downloading songs, but that was all. It was absolutely miserable. And then, on top of that, there was a baby growing inside of me that I didn’t want. For six months things went on like that. I had scheduled doctor’s appointments and once in a great while Talisin would get the officers to turn off the bracelet so that I could go to a coffee shop with her. But then Talisin and Trey took off to Cambodia for a trip to try changing the world, and I was left with nothing. It was during that time that the depression came to a head. I just couldn’t handle being caged anymore. So I thought that there had to be a way to kill myself. Everything has to die eventually; I couldn’t be the exception to the rule. So I did the only thing I could think of and slit my arms from the wrist all the way to the middle of my forearm. Talisin’s friend, Dylan, found me just before I bled out. She got an ambulance to the house, and they got me to the hospital. They said it was a miracle that I survived. But I know I survived because God doesn’t want me. The baby didn’t make it, though. Apparently he wasn’t Forsaken by God. I had to deliver him, and that was excruciating and hard, but I was glad when it was over. I named my son Collin Scott MacLeod. He was born on April 28, 2008. He was a beautiful baby, but I couldn’t look at him long. There was a funeral that I couldn’t attend. Dylan planned everything for me. I think that was one of the lowest points I’ve ever hit in my life. I spent two weeks in the psych ward until Talisin and Trey got back from Cambodia to rescue me. By that point I had gone manic and they’d used horse tranquilizers on me to knock me out. I was stripped naked, thrown into a padded room, and kept sedated. It took me three days to wake up from all the drugs once I got home. After that I started seeing a private practice doctor that Talisin was paying for. Thanks to the mental breakdown and the need for spontaneous trips to doctors, the terms of my parole were changed. That was partially thanks to Talisin, too. There was no more bracelet, but if I got into any more trouble, then I would have had to face a 20 year sentence that wouldn’t be suspended and I wouldn’t have the opportunity for parole. Tough love, they called it. For six years I’ve lived in constant fear of fucking up and ending up back in prison. Despite everything I put them through, Talisin and Trey were incredibly supportive. Although it did take Trey a long time to forgive me for what I’d done to Talisin. I don’t blame him. It took me a long time to forgive myself for what I had done. And that was only with a lot of years of therapy to help me come to terms with everything in my life. I was in drug rehab for a long while, too. It took about nine months after the psych ward before Talisin took me out shopping for a new guitar and amp. She let me pick out what I wanted and paid for it. That’s when I started feeling more like myself again. I started working on my music again. I poured everything into my music. Although I wasn’t allowed out of the house to share it with anyone. Only on rare occasions when I could talk Talisin into leaving her son and mate to go to a coffee shop with me. Yeah, Talisin and Trey adopted a child while they were in Cambodia. An adorable little boy that she named Damian Hunter MacLeod. For those first three years when I was on lockdown in the house, I got to watch Talisin and Trey as they raised their son. I was a bit leery at first. Scared that I’d do something wrong and hurt him or something. But he was just too cute and sweet to stay away from for long. It hurt sometimes, watching him play and love on everyone, and knowing that I had killed my own baby. Sometimes it would get too much and I’d have to go upstairs. I know it always confused Damian, but I just couldn’t handle it sometimes. During those first three years I had a lot of time to think and plan. I knew that I wanted to go to college. I wanted to finish my education and have something to fall back on if my music career didn’t pan out. I wasn’t sure that I’d get a chance on the music scene again. Three years is a long time to be away from everything. Everyone forgets that you even exist. I got my GED, since I wasn’t able to graduate because of the trouble I got into. And, close to the end of those three years, I applied to a local community college. I knew that I’d have to prove myself before I could get into a university. I can’t describe how good it felt to get back into school. I should probably tell you that my private practice doctor was a Wingrider. She was someone Talisin met through a mutual friend. It was safer that way, because I could talk about everything without being thrown back into a psych ward. It was while they were doing blood tests to figure out my medications that we found out that I was a Wingrider, as well as a Fallen Angel. Everything Daddy suspected was true. I was Thane’s sister more than Talisin’s. Although that didn’t really change anything for me. It just meant that I had the opportunity to do more with my life than I had originally thought. I started going to the Wingrider community to train with the other kids who would eventually be Awakened to their abilities. For most kids it takes two years. It took me three. But, eventually, I was a fully Awakened Wingrider and able to form a soul bond when I eventually met the other half of my soul. It gave me hope that I wouldn’t be alone my whole life. Talisin and Trey had each other, but I didn’t have anyone. But, after being Awakened, I knew that there was someone for me. It was just a question of finding that person. Three more years passed while I was in training to become a full Wingrider. I managed to make it through all six years without getting into trouble. That was such a relief when my parole officer said I didn’t have to come see her again. I was cut loose and my record was cleared. I started school and did a year at community college. My grades were straight A’s, just like they had always been in high school. It was challenging, getting back into the swing of school after being away for so long. But I really buckled down and did what I needed to do. The next year I applied to the University of Calgary. They accepted me and I started working towards a bachelors degree. You should probably know that university and community college are totally different cans of worms. At community college it felt like high school. But when I got into the university, well… Lets just say all my carefully laid plans fell apart. My mental illness got in the way. All the pressure just made everything go out of whack. I attempted suicide again, and Talisin found me in a bathtub that was more blood than water. I was rushed to the hospital and thrown into the psych ward again. Talisin had to get my doctor to come get me out so that I could go to the place I actually needed to be. My meds were all changed on me, and I was forbidden to go back to school. I thought my life was pretty much over at that point. I didn’t know what to do. For about six months we worked on getting me stable again. Then Talisin suggested that I try taking freelance work teaching music. She said it’d give me something to do that would bring in some cash, and it wouldn’t be the pressure cooker of university. So I started taking on students. At first it was just a couple, but then it turned into a full time job. I made enough money that I could support myself. I got an apartment not far from Talisin and Trey. They’re my life support, so I couldn’t be too far away. Thankfully Talisin was always willing to talk to me at 3:00 in the morning when I was in a bad place and need someone to talk to for a while. It happened more often during 2013 than it had before then. Probably because I was pregnant and scared to death again. I kinda fell for one of my students. He was 21 and wanted to learn guitar. Over the course of a couple months we began to forget about the guitar and became intimate. I always made him use a condom, but I didn’t realize he was poking holes in them before putting them on. He wanted a child, and he wanted to trap me into marrying him. I walked in on him sabotaging the condom one day, and I kicked him out. I was so pissed off. Then two weeks later I found out I was pregnant. He told me that he’d get a court to give him the baby once it was born. But, thankfully, courts here in Canada favor the mother. Talisin got me a lawyer and my ex’s rights were terminated immediately. The judge was quite irate about sabotaged condoms and threats to take a child away from a mother that wanted the child. Because I did want this one. He was unexpected and unplanned for, but I didn’t want to give him up. I know that a baby is going to up the ante on my mental illness, but I also know that I have great doctors and family who will help me through the hard times. Talisin wanted me to move back in with her and Trey. The house is plenty big for me and my child, and for them to have a couple more, so when my doctor told me I was about a week away from delivering, I made the decision to move back in with my siblings. It’s probably a good thing that I did, because my son came into the world a bit earlier than expected. Although a little bit later than he should have. I guess he liked it in there and didn’t want to come out on time. On March 21, 2015, Killian Logan MacLeod was born. He was a bit late, but still weighed in at about 4lbs and 8oz. The doctors kept us overnight at the clinic to make sure that we’d both be okay. We came home the next day. Killian is a beautiful baby. He’s got mocha skin, dark eyes, and a cap of dark hair on his head. I’m glad he’s not bald like everyone says that I was. But he’s perfect in every way, and I’m so glad that he’s healthy and okay. I was planning on staying with Talisin and Trey for the first few months of my son’s life. Just to get the extra support while I tried to get used to taking care of a baby. There was just one problem with that — Talisin kept trying to take over caring for my son. I had to fight with her to pick up Killian when he cried. Eventually Trey stepped in and reminded Talisin that the baby wasn’t hers, and that she should back off. It didn’t go over well. I was contemplating moving to the Wingrider community when the choice was pretty much taken out of my hands. I met Colin, and that meant I had to move to the community. Colin is a Vampire. The Wingriders have been working for a long time to get a treaty between themselves and the Kindred. Colin is part of that effort. There are about six or seven Kindred living in the community now. It’s a peacekeeping effort between two races. I was at the community for Killian’s three week check up when I met Colin, and that’s when everything changed. I became bound to him, and I could have easily died if I hadn’t gotten to the clinic quickly enough. Caleb was able to give me an injection of something that stopped my body from syncing to Colin’s. It’s happened before, a Wingrider and a Vampire, so Caleb knew what to do. Caleb advised us not to let the bond go both ways, but after talking to the other pair like us, we decided to make the bond go both ways. We went to the temple, and Seraph (the head priest of the community), completed the bond. Three days later Caleb called me to his office. Colin came with, and while we watched, Caleb scanned me for pregnancy. It shouldn’t have been possible. Colin is a Vampire, but because the bond goes both ways, he’s not completely undead anymore. His heart thumps in his chest occasionally, trying to sync to mine. His body is constantly trying to match mine. We didn’t realize that would allow us to have a child together. I should probably mention that Talisin was outraged when she found out that I was bound to a Vampire. I’m not sure how much of that outrage was actually out of fear, and how much of it was because she realized I wasn’t going to be coming home now. She tore into the community as soon as I told her, tried to snatch Killian from Colin, and slapped me hard enough to split my lip. Talisin ended up storming out of the house, and Trey was told not to bring her back until she could behave like a civilized person. And, from what I hear, Talisin has been banned from the community for six months. I know she’s going to blow another gasket when she finds out that I’m pregnant with Colin’s child. I’m not sure how Trey will take that news. But, at least Trey came out to the community and met Colin. He met Colin’s family, too. So he knows that I’m in good hands. He knows that I’m safe. This is where things are now. Now I know why I Fell from Heaven. It was to be with Colin. Talisin and Trey Fell to be together. So it only makes sense that I would Fall to be with someone that I’d fallen in love with. Right now everything is still so new that I don’t know what’s going to happen next. All I know for certain is that I have my mate and my son, and soon we’ll have another newborn to raise. But this one will be ours. That doesn’t make him more special than Killian, just a different kind of special. The challenge this time will be to gain weight and have a healthy baby while I’m still nursing Killian. Caleb has some tricks up his sleeve, though. So I have all confidence that everything will be fine. I told Colin that I wanted children close together, I think the Fates misunderstood my meaning. But I won’t complain. I have the best support system in the world. I have Colin. We’ll make it work, and our child will be amazing.