Meg Masters and OTA; The Party; 8pm
Boredom was becoming a problem. Not that there weren’t lots of things to do in the hotel, but Meg didn’t trust them. Anything that seemed too good to be true usually was and this place was certainly far too good. Free food whenever she wanted it. Free booze in constant supply. Soft bed that she didn’t need but indulged in anyway. Gorgeous views. Swimming pools. Private beach. Luxury that she had no reason to expect or deserve. The whole thing made her skin crawl. She was a creature of comfort, at the core, and this wasn’t the first five star hotel she’d stayed in. But in the past she had been the one in charge. She’d chosen her destinations and possessed the right people to keep her happiest while getting the job done. Only in recent memory had she been forced to slum it in fleabag motels and run down cabins with hunters. A place like this might have made her happy, if she’d chosen it. Since she hadn’t, she’d been keeping to her room and generally avoiding everyone and anything. Until she knew what was going on it was just safer that way.
Except, how could she figure out what was going on if she never left her room? It wasn’t as though whatever or whoever had snatched her was going to suddenly change their mind and send her home. Things were never that easy. And no one, no kind deity or malicious trickster, would pluck her from death, drop her in paradise, and leave her alone. She counted the hours, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. She ate and drank to her heart’s content. She slept in the bed. She stood in the shower for what felt like days. But nothing happened. No one came for her. There was just…nothing.
When the invite slid under her door, she ignored it. But, in the end, curiosity won out. When pacing the room had lost its usefulness in burning off her excess energy, she strode to the door and snatched the small piece of paper up almost angrily. She had no place to vent her frustrations, and the strain was beginning to show. She read the invite once, snorted in derision, and threw it in the trash. Not only would she never be caught dead at a Halloween party, she definitely wasn’t walking into something that had “trap” written all over it. She had to do something, though. The walls were starting to close in on her. Opening the curtains to enjoy the view had helped a little but, no matter how she tried to ignore it, the room still felt like a prison. She had to get out, or she’d go insane.
Friday night found her trudging down the halls, the usual spring in her step noticeably absent, but who would be there to notice or care? Sam? Dean? With their colorful history it was doubtful they’d do more than roll their eyes at her presence, if they even saw her. She wasn’t even positive little Sammy had come along for this fun little ride, but she assumed so. Couldn’t get one doublemint twin without the other, after all. Arriving at ballroom K, Meg pushed open the door. There’d been a promise of costumes and, with the number of enemies she had, a mask certainly wouldn’t hurt. It might not help, either, but at least it was a chance at anonymity. All thoughts of hiding her face, however, fled the moment she walked into the room. There, sat jauntily on a Styrofoam mannequin head, was a pair of blood read devil’s horns made of smooth, shiny satin. For the first time in days, Meg laughed.
Slipping the horns on, Meg felt bizarrely like herself again. A crooked grin carved across her face and she turned to go back into the hall. By the time she pushed open the doors to the main ballroom and strode inside, she’d regained a touch of her swagger. Without so much as a glance for any of the people in the room, she headed straight for the cocktails, picking one at random, and letting herself enjoy the moment. If something bad was going to happen now that she’d walked into this “really it’s not a trap” party, at least she’d have a drink in her hand.