Supernatural: Next Generation

- THEN -

NOW

Figuring the best course of action would be picking up the Fed role before the actual Feds showed up, Claire went for the well cut, charcoal slacks and blazer. Then she remembered how she’d practically melted in the heat of the morning on her jog, and left the blazer back at the hotel. Thankfully the cream sleeveless undershirt was silk, and professional enough to get beyond the suspicions of small town school faculty. She and Jesse sat in the air conditioned office of Principal Harold Bronson, who she noticed had eye-balled her badge a lot closer than he had Jesse’s.

Her first instinct screamed ‘distrust of female authority’. It wasn’t long before he proved her right. He still hadn’t looked her in the eye.

“We’re going to need a list of faculty names and how long they’ve been here before we leave,” she said curtly, but without much room for escape.

“Beg your pardon, ma’am,” Bronson replied. ( “I just don’ see how the FBI would be so interested in this so quickly when our own police force hasn’t released a statement yet.” )

***

Ben was having second thoughts about volunteering to go with Jacob.

It wasn’t because the man wasn’t prepared and played the role badly. If anything, the first family they spoke to seemed a lot more at ease speaking to Jacob than him given the fact that like attracted like. He fit the bill for a Southern boy, and Ben had a horrible time faking the accent so he held back, only speaking up when a particular question came to mind. What gave him reason for having second thoughts was the fact that the more time he spent with the man, the more Ben didn’t like him. He introduced Ben as being ‘new’ to the paper, being ‘inexperienced’ and that he needed to be ‘shown the ropes.’

It was obvious what kind of shit he was trying to pull, and it took all of Ben’s energy to keep his face relaxed and neutral; to smile sheepishly through the role and play it believably. The moment they were out through the doors and heading back to the car, however, Ben grabbed his shoulder and flipped him around.

( “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” )

***

Even though the lead was small, it was something, and so Jesse was in a good mood, despite even the hot drive back to the hotel. When he opened the door to see Ben coming out of the bathroom, his first instinct was to smile. Then his eyes fell on the small bloodstains on Ben’s half-undone white shirt, and the swelling around Ben’s eye.

“Shit, what happened?” he said, not even closing the door as he hurried forward.

Ben finished peeling off the shirt and moved to his bag, searching for the Tide pen or a can of club soda. He kept his face mostly pointed down the entire time.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he muttered.

“What? C’mon, man, what happened? Did one of the dads get pissed at you? Or was it one of the moms and that’s why you don’t wanna talk about it?” It wasn’t that hard to joke, since Ben clearly wasn’t in any danger, but that didn’t stop his stomach crunched with nerves. He took Ben’s shoulder, trying to turn him around, but Ben shrugged out of it hard.

“I said I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said sharply, not quite a snap but halfway there. Clearly whatever happened hadn’t happened that long ago for him to still be so on edge; he was still shaking.

Jesse frowned deeply, taking a step back. What could’ve happened? It wasn’t like Ben had been alone, he-- “Jacob. It was fucking Jacob,” Jesse said, his voice hardening. “Where is he?”

Ben sneered slightly, looking briefly vindicated. “Oh, he didn’t get away on top. No need to white knight me, man. It’s fine.” Ben found the Tide pen and took it, along with his shirt, toward the bathroom.

“Who ‘didn’t get away on top’?” Looking a mix of confused and concerned, Claire appeared at the hotel door, three fully loaded Southern Barbecue dinners in Styrofoam containers stacked in her hands. Ben’s shoulders immediately tensed, his stride widening before he disappeared into the bathroom. It was only a temporary solution to the problem, though; he couldn’t hide in there forever.

“Jacob attacked him,” Jesse said in disbelief, even as he moved forward to help with the dinners. “He’s all bloodied up.”

“What?! Why?” The alarm in her eyes sharpened with her voice, but for one reason or another, there was a lot less confusion there.

“He didn’t attack me,” Ben called out from the bathroom, anger coloring his voice. ( “Attacking implies surprise. I wasn’t surprised.” )

****

Heat mirage drifted from the street in front and behind Claire, and gave the impression that everything that touched the cracked asphalt sizzled and baked, even in the shade. The oppressive heat was a distraction from the uncomfortable buzz in her muscles, but she was starting to regret deciding to take the long loop without packing a bottle of water. She’d been out for an hour, the dark green jogging shorts and black sports bra streaked with what perspiration wasn’t already clinging to her skin. Even doubled in a pony tail high away from her neck, Claire’s hair was damp and clung to anything it touched.

Climbing the tree-lined hill toward the hotel felt like a home-stretch, and though much of the tension she’d meant to purge was still there, the anticipation of air conditioning and another shower - this one, cold - flooded her burning veins with relief. Until she saw the green Caddy come into view from behind a shoddy SUV in the parking lot, and movement at it’s side.

Jacob clicked the auto-lock button on the car, which gave a muted beep as he came around the front of it. Pausing long enough to find his hotel key, he started trudging down the walkway toward it, oblivious to Claire’s presence. Claire just ambled there for a moment, for the second time that day pulled between decisions.

In the end, she decided to try and end the fuckery all together.

“You just couldn’t let it go, could you.” She stood behind him, out of swinging distance--tight as everyone was wound, sneaking up on someone she knew as dangerous would’ve been a stupid move. Another stupid move--seemed the area was ripe with them that day.

Jacob froze midstep, every visible muscle pulled tense before he finally relaxed and turned to look at her. Three very prominent bruises spread along his face, but the thing that drew immediate attention was the bandage along his swollen nose. He frowned a little at her, then shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

( “He was lookin’ fer a fight. I gave ‘im one.” )

****

Like the summer-showers they woke up to the following morning, drop by drop Claire’s frustration with this job was filling. Nothing came from another several hours of pouring over Jacob’s notes, and anything resembling a lead or hunch proved to be a path to nowhere. To top it off, at five thirty in the morning, the police scanner set up on the hotel table woke them up to another kid missing.

The atmosphere at the school was as heavy as the air, at least with the faculty. Claire and Jesse were on the receiving end of several concerned and worried looks; even a couple that were suspicious and accusing. Not that she blamed them--she was used to that kind of reception, but Claire’s nerves were wearing thin. She could feel the strain sharpen her looks to the music teacher seated in front of them in the empty teacher’s lounge, which was why she’d let Jesse take most of the direction of their interview so far.

Claire just leaned on the heavy table nearby, watching the last thread of a lead they had over the brim of her coffee; her eyes trained on any involuntary twitch or slip of the tongue that might give them more of a foothold.

It was Jesse who was getting more antsy as the interview went on, though. His questions were also getting more pointed. “You say a couple students were in your class. Did you ever notice them hanging out with any of the other missing students?”

“Sir, music is a mandatory class for the younger children,” the young teacher responded, fiddling with her bracelet for what must have been the hundredth time. “And we only meet once a week per grade until the older children choose it as an elective. I wouldn’t know who they spent time with outside of class.”

Jesse’s face pinched in a scowl. ( “Did you notice anything unusual going on with any of the students? Had they mentioned strange occurrences or people in town?” )

****

With interviews being out of the question due to his colorful battle scars, Ben eagerly jumped at the chance to get out from behind the computer research and library duty when they’d discussed raiding the teacher’s house. Seeing as it was a school day they had plenty of time to work, and when they arrived at the correct address he couldn’t help be glad for that little fact; her house was surprisingly large. No doubt she inherited it or something, all the houses here are family homesteads, Ben mused, driving them down a few blocks before parking and killing the engine.

“God, I hope she lives here by herself,” he muttered, pocketing the keys and double-checking his lock pick set.

“She goes by ‘Miss.’ I’m betting the only thing we might have to worry about is spinster roommates,” Jesse said wryly. “If you’re really worried, though, I can pop in alone, like I said before.”

It wasn’t the first time since they’d started hunting together that Jesse offered to be the human wall and while Ben knew he could heal or zip out quickly, he didn’t like the idea of them being separate. He also couldn’t help feel a twinge of bitterness that it seemed okay for Jesse to go into a situation alone but the moment Ben offered to do the same, both Jesse and Claire gave him shit for it.

“Let’s just do it the old fashioned way, shall we?” he replied. When they got up to the door he knocked swiftly.

Back to the door, Jesse kept a casual lookout as, after there was no answer, Ben set to work. It wasn’t long and soon they were walking into the musty old house. “Yeesh. Looks like someone vomited lace in here.”

Ben looked around from the foyer thoughtfully, then added. “Wow, she doesn’t own a hundred cats. Color me surprised.” His eyes trailed along the staircase leading up to the second floor, which was lined with framed photographs. ( “I’ll take upstairs, you take ground floor?” )

****

“Chackbay, Raleighville, Green Ridge, New Lennox,” Claire listed off tiny one-horse towns on the map she had spread on the hotel wall, each one in their turn and their own little red thumbtack, having no visible pattern besides being relatively close to the East coast. “Dawson, German Town, and about fourteen more that I haven’t put up yet--all of’em with ten missing kids over the course of a week. No one ever found.”

“Why the fuck haven’t the police made this connection? That many kids gone, you’d think someone would have pulled their thumbs out of their asses,” Jesse said, scowling as his eyes went over the map.

Ben frowned slightly, feeling a sinking feeling in his gut. “You’d be surprised how many mispers happen every day. It’s not something so out of the ordinary that they would notice and with the way they’re spread out?” Ben trailed his forefinger along the tacks. “It’s like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.”

“And they’re especially not looking for patterns that skip every twenty-five years.” Claire pushed the last of the pins in place and stood back from the board, her hands on her hips. She was glad to have at least something more solid as a lead--however, the idea of how old this thing was congealed the feeling as a brick in her stomach. “All the way back to before this was a country. Probably longer, if it came from somewhere else.”

“S’very possible it was brought over with the colonists,” Jacob said quietly, his laptop open in his lap and already starting research. “Betcha it would be inna ship’s log somewhere, if we can find the earliest township with this same pattern.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it,” Claire injected, pausing for a sip of water. “Unless it’s big enough to be considered cargo, whoever--or whatever--it is would’ve kept it close.”

Ben chewed his lips in thought, trying to think of any other way that it might come to someone’s attention, even briefly. “Well... if it is a cursed object,” he said slowly, “And a possibility that it came over from across the pond, wouldn’t somethin’ like that show up in, like, an exposition for a witch burning?”

( “Only if the person using it had ever been found out.” )

***

About twenty minutes into tailing Allweather, Jesse realized he might have gotten the short end of the stick after all. That was when he texted Ben, and was told he was SOL and to keep his eyes on the target. An hour in he called. He managed to squeeze in five minutes of talk time before they told him to get back to it.

It was worse after it got dark. Jesse found himself spacing out and having to tell himself to watch. He wished he had coffee. One by one the lights went off in the house. Likely everyone going to sleep. He wondered how Jacob was doing with the teacher.

He was about to try calling Ben again when he saw movement at the side of the house. It was dark, but it looked like a figure pulling a tarp off of something. There was a gentle start of an engine and then a man on a moped pulled out of the drive, going right past Jesse. He had one guess who.

Quickly texting “on the move” to Ben, he started the car and followed Allweather, keeping his headlights off and staying well behind. Five seconds before he’d been knock-down bored but now his heart was hammering.

The phone beeped with an alert of an incoming text:

Keep on him. If anything happens, don’t hesitate.

‘Don’t hesitate’ to what? Jesse wanted to ask, but he tucked the phone in his pocket, eyes on Allweather.

The road got twisty, and a couple times Jesse was afraid he might have lost him in the effort not to be seen, but he always managed to catch up and saw quite clearly when Allweather turned into the long drive of what looked like some old plantation house.

Parking the car on the road, Jesse waited until Allweather was inside before getting out of the car and following. He shot Ben another text: Big old house, middle of nowhere, he’s inside.

There was a pause, then Ben’s message jumped up on the little viewscreen: ( Thank you, Channel 4 News. What are you waiting for? )

It’d been a day and a half since they left Vegas, but the landscape hadn’t really changed until they reached the Texas/Louisiana border. Desert gave way to thicker and thicker trees, and a humidity that wouldn’t quit. The GTO, unfortunately, wasn’t built for air conditioning, and Claire was reminded of a few times she’d been below the Bible Belt on the edge of an oppressive summer. Also looming like the hot bayou air was the prospect of what was probably going to be a tense job, alongside someone she hadn’t seen in years--and wasn’t sure how she would react to actually seeing him.

Needless to say, they were all a bit uncomfortable.

Claire pulled the car into the first gas station after the ‘Welcome to Chackbay’ sign, where she and Jacob had agreed to meet via text after they crossed into the county. She killed the engine and nudged the squeaking door open, scuffing gravel and dust with her boots. Almost immediately, she became aware of the thick sheen of sweat that made her tank top and jeans cling uncomfortably. She swiped at her brow with the back of her hand, and swept the place with a sharp gaze.

Ben had kept mostly silent about their destination the entire drive, even at the hotel they’d stopped at, but it was obvious from his body language and the frown framing his face that he was unhappy. He knew Claire hadn’t meant to put him on edge with the ‘booty call’ comment back in Vegas, but it certainly had done the trick. He hadn’t even met the guy yet, but Ben knew he wasn’t going to like Jacob one bit. He could be the best damn hunter alive for all he cared; he’d been more-than-friends with Claire at least once in her past. Exes were never good news. He had half a mind to stay in the car, but it was too damn hot so he slid out and let it fall shut behind him, his eyes landing on Claire.

Grumbling, Jesse crawled over the bench seat and out Claire’s door. His shirt stuck uncomfortably to him. “Alright, the rest of this trip into the sauna, Ben gets to sit in back like the pet dog. I couldn’t feel the breeze worth shit back there.”

“I’ll see about getting an A/C installed,” Ben muttered, running the back of his hand across his forehead before foregoing the hell of a sticky shirt altogether by peeling it off.

Never one to ignore a bad idea, Jesse stripped his off as well, then threw it at Ben’s face. Ben made a disgruntled noise and yanked it off, balling it up to throw it back.

( “Jerk.” )

****

It was a relatively short drive to the neighboring town of Thibodaux, and once they passed the city sign Jacob took a left off the main road and directly into a parking lot. A brightly colored sign informed them that it was the Economy Inn, which was supposedly "Less Like A Hotel, More Like a Home."

They’d passed three other hotels along the way, most of which had pools. This one, however, did not.

Jacob pulled into a parking spot in front of what could only be his personal room before the brake lights went out, signaling his killing the engine.

Jesse was out of the car first. He didn’t care what the place looked like by this point; he was promised air conditioning. He was in the room on Jacob’s heels and froze in place as the cold air washed over him. Eyes closed in bliss, he spread his sweaty arms wide. Claire nearly ran into his back.

“Oh if this room was a person, I’d root it good,” Jess practically groaned.

“Classy. Now share.” Claire planted her palm on his lower back and put her weight into getting him to stumble on forward.

“I’m gonna go get us checked in,” Ben said from behind her, holding his hand out expectantly for the keys. Jacob pulled his sunglasses off and slid the left bar down the front of his shirt, leaving them to dangle there as he arched his eyebrows at the other man over Claire’s shoulder. Claire was watching Ben as well, the slightly baffled glint in her eye the only change from a neutral expression.

Still, she handed him the keys with a hand swung back from her hip. She hoped the look over her shoulder conveyed ‘don’t be long’ clear enough. He pocketed them easily and, without any warning, leaned in to give her a quick kiss.

“I’ll be quick.” Then he was gone.

Jesse watched it all with a half raised eyebrow before setting down on one of the beds. (  “So, how long have you and Claire known each other?” )

***

The fill-in did next to nothing, in all truth. Jacob really hadn’t come to much of a conclusion, which deeply annoyed Ben, but it proved how much he needed their help. There had been a connection in that all the children apparently attended the same elementary school, but that didn’t amount to much seeing as there was really only one elementary school that the Chackbay residentials shuttled to. They’d reached a dead-end, and the fact that night was already falling only made Ben feel more frustrated and useless. He sat with his laptop in his lap in a chair nearby the window, his face alight from the monitor as he worked.

“Alright--the Preston kid’s mom works for the Ma and Pop insurance place down on Main, and the Fairchild girl’s parents own the little grocery store. Two of us can hit them up tomorrow while the other two check out the school...” Claire lifted up on her toes to pin a picture of a mop-headed little boy on the web-map they’d tacked to the hotel wall. Jesse slid up behind her, helping push the pin in that extra bit. Claire smirked at him over her shoulder, but not unkindly.

Jesse returned the smile, but only briefly. It was probably the most depressing map they’d ever put up, full of smiling, missing little faces. “Think they’re...okay?” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say alive.

“Hope so,” she replied in the same tone; uncertain and cautious about putting her hopes into anything they didn’t know. She turned to face them both, hooking her thumbs in her pockets--her shoulders deflated. “We gotta do this quick and clean.” As if they didn’t know. For some reason, Claire felt like saying it might settle something unpleasant in her stomach.

( “I’ll work with Jacob.” )

***

For all the self-administered conditioning, strength training, and poise Claire had, retrieving three 20oz bottles of soda from the bottom of a vending machine while making sure three large bathroom towels didn’t fall to the dirt in the process required a few attempts. It was just barely past sundown, and it was still hot, and windless; the sort of atmosphere that clung like film, especially after walking out of the air conditioning. The added effort she put in bending over to get the drinks just seemed to exacerbate things. The tension back in the room didn’t help either.

“Need a hand, darlin’?” came a familiar voice over her shoulder.

Oh good. “I got it, thanks.” Claire forced the small flood of extra heat rising to her cheeks by telling herself it was just the angle, which she righted quickly. One arm pinned the three folded towels to her hip and held a soda, the other carried the remaining drinks, leaving nothing to take care of the hair sticking to her cheeks when she stood up and faced him. It would be her luck, that he’d catch her at that exact moment of awkwardness.

Jacob was leaning back against the side of the building, his lips curved in a relaxed smile and his head tilted just a bit to the side. A cigarette dangled between his thumb and forefinger.

“Momma needed a break from the boys, I take it?” he asked, his words light to prove he was only teasing her a little. Claire scoffed lightly, but took the teasing in stride. Still, she didn’t want to even chance a retort, knowing what conversational doors that may open.

So, Claire changed the subject. “Figured we’d tackle the school and two sets of parents tomorrow in pairs--sound good to you?”

Jacob nodded, bringing the cigarette up for a quick drag. He held it for three counts before releasing it in a slow, steady stream.

“Reckon yer not drivin’ shotgun with me then.” Claire tilted her head, studying his expression--which hadn’t changed. Her own settled into something that resembled fatigue, but only slightly. It seemed the tension wasn’t going to be completely one sided.

“Probably not, no.”

Jacob shrugged one shoulder nonchalantly, then smiled some. “Y’worried or somethin’? You’ve got that look about’cha.”

Claire shifted her weight from one foot to the other, sighing. Her eyes were cast somewhere in the darkening parking lot, or the black treeline behind it. “You knew me for three days, many years ago--what makes you think you know my ‘looks’.” Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t right. She sighed again, and met his eyes, almost apologetic. “It’s been a long year.”

Jacob pushed off the wall and took a step closer, then rested his free hand on her forearm. All the charm and suave was gone, replaced instead by quiet concern.

( ”If this is too much trouble, I can get back on th’wire t’morrow and see if Watt is freed up yet. I don’t wanna make yer life any harder’n it needs t’be, Claire.” )

***

Ben blinked at the screen as he reread the line again, feeling a little burst of adrenaline.

“Think I might’ve found something,” he called out. Jesse had left the door open again. “This article mentions an older brother to Leah Fairchild. His name’s Nathan.”

“He wasn’t taken with her? Too old?” Jesse called back, washing his hands.

“Apparently he was at a friend’s house,” Ben answered. He quickly put the computer on the side table and stood, going over to their work board and writing the name on the sticky note just beneath Leah’s picture.

“It’s a start, I guess.” Jesse came back in the room, not looking terribly enthused. “Don’t know how much we can get out of him, since he wasn’t there.”

Ben met his look somewhat grimly. “I wasn’t thinking an interview, exactly.”

Jesse’s expression sagged the moment it hit him. “You want to use him as bait?”

Alarm immediately rose in Ben’s eyes. “No! No, god, no,” he said rapidly. His jaw worked slightly. “Hell, never. Kids don’t deserve that kinda crap put on ‘em. But the way this normally goes, s’not often a sibling gets away unscathed.”

“So we just wait for the piper to come for him? Which is basically using him as bait and just not telling him about it,” Jesse said, his scowl deepening.

( Ben’s face fell. When he put it that way, it did sound pretty close to the same thing. )

****

Claire just looked at Jacob for a moment, caught somewhere between guilty and surprised. “Well to be fair, it didn’t exactly come up before, no.”

“So you’re not sleepin’ with Grumpy?” Jacob asked, brows arching a little higher. Claire’s jaw set a little and her eyes wandered off. This was going about as well as she anticipated.

“We’re dropping the subject now,” she said, already making her way down the walk toward the room. It was as good a solution as anything. Giving up certain details about who she cared about was off limits--Jacob should know that, and he should know why. On top of it, she certainly wasn’t going to say I’m sleeping with both of them--happy?

Jacob gave a little shrug in answer, smiling again. “Yes, ma’am,” he said after a moment.

Claire half-turned, still walking away, and putting absolutely no thought into the fact that she wasn’t going to be able to open the door without her hands. “And for good, right?”

Taking the silent cue, Jacob followed after her, hardly batting an eyelash at the intrusion into her personal space. “Yes, ma’am,” he murmured again, his hand reaching around her to twist the doorknob. Claire eyed him a little like a rattlesnake as he leaned in, but stood her ground out of a mix of pride and instinct.

The door opened smoothly before he pulled back. “Seeya in the mornin, darlin’,” he said in a slow, warm voice.

“Thank you,” she replied just this side of flatly, and tracked his movement away from the door before she went in, as if she were making sure he was actually leaving. When he was gone, she huffed a breath through her nose and made to toss the two sodas to Jesse and Ben, but saw only Jesse. Confusion and instinctive alarm washed over her face.

“Where is he?”

***

Claire’s phone was pressed to her ear a little harder than necessary as she paced the small walk-way of their hotel room, listening to the hollow ring on the other end. She was livid--or at least, told herself she was livid. In truth, the little El Nino brewing in her mind was a combination of anger, hurt, and legitimate worry, but it was a lot easier to concentrate on the anger part, especially how her evening seemed to be going.

“Pick the hell up,” she grumbled through her teeth and made a sharp turn by the door, heading back toward the counter for the fifth time. Watching her, Jesse decided he really didn’t want to sit awkwardly on the bed for this conversation. Without a word, he slid into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

On the fourth ring Ben finally answered, his voice even: “What’s up?”

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” she answered quick, and a bit sharper than anticipated. Claire regretted it, but moved on.

( “Jesse didn’t tell you?” )

****

Perhaps he’d been wrong about the siblings thing, or maybe it hadn’t gotten around to heading in the direction of the Fairchilds’ house, but at any rate Ben found the stake-out to be unsuccessful. He was exhausted by the time he finally pulled the GTO into the parking lot, the early dawn light just starting to brighten the sky. There was a long day ahead of them, and still so much to do.

I’ll sleep tonight, Ben decided as he climbed out of the car and shut the door, trudging toward their hotel room. Not like I haven’t pulled 48 hours before. Trying to be as quiet as possible, he slid the key into the lock and gave it a twist, then quietly opened the door.

Sitting at the small hotel table, Claire looked up briefly from the cheap Styrofoam cup of coffee beneath her lips, but she said nothing. Her phone sat next to the open lap top in front of her, neither of which she was actually touching. She’d been there for roughly three hours.

His eyes closed, Jesse’s back tensed where he was still curled on the bed. He hadn’t been asleep since Claire got up, and even before then he’d only caught moments of sleep in short starts. But he hadn’t wanted Ben to realize he’d been worried, and he didn’t want to ask Claire if she was up just because she was (she always got up before he did) or because she was worried. Hearing Ben come through the door didn’t relieve the tension, though. If anything, his stomach clenched tighter.

Ben looked between the two of them where they were settled and somehow managed not to sigh. Wordlessly he moved toward the little kitchenette, finding the pot of coffee and pouring himself a cup.

“Ended up being a bust,” he murmured.

At least there’s that, Claire uttered in thought, but only nodded and downed the rest of her coffee. There were several reasons why she chose not to speak, all switching places as the most prominent in her mind; everything from Jesse being asleep to the avoidance of a heated conversation she could just sense coming, one that wouldn’t be worth it. Either way, after staring at the screen for so long and not finding what she was originally looking for, she felt like her skin was crawling. Despite the weight of fatigue, she felt like a firecracker stuck in a jar.

Ben took a deep pull from the cup before moving over to where she was sitting. He hesitated for only a moment before putting it down, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders lightly before moving into a gentle massage.

( “I’m sorry I was acting like a jerk.” )

TO BE CONTINUED...

( Cut from 1x12, after Ben and Jesse fight )

- THEN -

NOW

All things considered, it was proving to be a good week. Las Vegas had a way of getting under anyone’s skin and making them feel more alive, and getting back to playing cards again after such a long sting without it felt great. They’d left at least three tables with a decent amount of money; more than enough to pay for a few nights in a good hotel and splurge in ways they normally didn’t. The only other time he’d held that much money in his hands was when he’d first taken up with Claire and sold his car. It felt good, having money that was untraceable. Lord knew, Jesse had mostly conned their way into hotels ever since the whole thing with his being tracked through his cash-creating.

Ben frowned at the thought and the person tied to it. He and Jesse had barely spoken more than twenty words to each other since they left Vermont, and Ben had a pretty good idea it was only just to keep Claire from being concerned. He could tell she still was, though, by the fact that she kept watching them so intensely. Ben knew Claire was smart. Perhaps that’s why she’d made a point of giving them time alone by taking a hefty amount of the money they’d made and taking a ‘spa day,’ whatever that meant. Ben imagined mud baths and pedicures were involved, and hoped that if she did get a massage that it was by a woman. He didn’t really like the idea of some Vegas guy feeling up Claire.

Not knowing what else to do, Ben had opted to go back to the hotel. Jesse hadn’t come with. It had been the first time he’d been alone by himself in weeks, and he had no idea what to do. Fortunately, their hotel also came with a pool table, but after three speed rounds and then several imposed handicaps, that got boring. He found himself flipping through the hotel’s event brochure book, trying to find something that catered to his interests.

Jesse came through the door looking distracted and jumped a foot when he spotted Ben. “Shit. Thought you’d be out or something,” he said, pausing an awkward moment before going through the open bathroom door. Even in the vastness of their Las Vegas style hotel room, Ben heard the very distinct sound of water on porcelain. He rolled his eyes and kept looking.

( Inconsiderate ass )

***

A ‘Spa Day’ in Vegas was unlike any ‘spa day’ Claire had ever experienced--mostly in the fact that she had never actually experienced one in her entire life. When they arrived the other day, the hotel concierge absolutely insisted that she give it a try while they were in town, and it seemed like a safe, relaxing time to get away from the guys while they beat the tension out of each other, if need be.

Claire could thank running into Kat for that realization: that Jesse and Ben were both very affected by her constant presence--and not always positively. She hadn’t known the exact cause, but there were tensions between them again, and they were holding back--for her sake. It came to the point where she had to take a step back, and hope for the best. It was more than a little nerve wracking (hence the ‘spa day’ decision), but she trusted them both, and her faith in them and how well she knew them both helped Claire get through the massage by Joch (the most effeminate man she’d ever met), the Swedish mud bath (which was just weird), the mani-pedi (clear polish only), and the trim & style for her hair.

Unfortunately, all that only ate up three hours. The other four, Claire had spent in a small casino, doing what she’d learned to do best--look innocent and naive, while cleaning up the gambling budgets of men of all ages.

Now, with the desert sun-set starting to marry blue sky with oranges and pinks, and after instructing Ben through text messages to bring himself and Jesse down to the circle drive in front of the hotel.

“You seriously won these?” Lucas asked her, toeing up to the curb next to Claire. She’d called him for a little help with her good-luck streak in order to surprise the boys. Her grin was bright and bold beneath the reflective Aviators that sat on her slightly sunburned nose. The silver trimmed 2005 Yamaha Roadstar Warrior he’d ridden from the dealership (whose owner Claire had completely taken in) was propped by the side walk right behind its twin--which Claire was languidly sitting on.

( “Viva Las Vegas.” )

***

Four days into their trip, Ben started getting antsy. He’d already started researching again, choosing to stay at the hotel on two separate awake-hour occasions while Jesse and Claire went out into the city. Of course, by the second one they were ragging him like mad -- not that he was complaining, given their choice methods -- so he tried to keep the researching down to late nights, and even then there had been... distractions. Lucas was supposed to be doing their researching, one of them had said. Ben couldn’t quite remember who said it, given the fact that he’d had very specific hands on his body at the time.

Nevertheless, he felt like he’d had his fill of rest and relaxation, and with his “piggy bank” recently re-filled and feeling more relaxed than he had in weeks, the three of them decided to pay Lucas one last visit to get info and maybe treat the guy to a night on the town. He deserved it, after all the work they’d imposed on him.

The desert dust coiled at her boots as they dropped from the Honda’s footrests, and braced the still rumbling motorcycle between her legs. After prying off the full-face helmet and smoothing her hair, she glanced behind her, watching Jesse pull up behind her, followed shortly by Ben in the GTO. Having the bikes had been a blast, but they weren’t practical, no matter how pretty--Claire was content to imagine the look on Lucas’s face when she got around to telling him they were his to keep. Good way to end a vacation.

She killed the engine and kicked down the stand, squinting into the sunset as Lucas’s footsteps greeted them from the walk.

“Y’know, if you’re going for a sneak attack sometime, the full convoy probably isn’t the most subtle choice,” he said, walking up to Claire with a grin.

Dismounting, Jesse was careful to keep his attention to situating his helmet; they’d be rid of Lucas soon enough. The door to the GTO closed with a muted clap and then Ben slid up to Jesse’s side, making sure to give him a not-so-subtle look over and a quick wink while attention wasn’t on them before giving a nod of greeting to Lucas.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of us already! We haven’t even been here a whole week.”

“Oh I’m always on my toes around hunters,” Lucas teased, nodding at Claire. “Especially the pretty ones. They’ll get you every time.” Claire’s smirk dipped deep into her cheek, but it was still pleasant. That was good enough a comment on that subject from her.

“You’re right, though,” she moved on, swinging her leg off the bike and snagging the keys in one smooth movement. Then next placed those keys in Lucas’s palm when she went to shake it in greeting. “Good way to remember us, I think?”

Lucas’s brow furrowed as he looked down at his hand, then back at her. “Seriously? You’re giving it to me?” His mouth twitched in a smile before he shook his head. “No, no payment needed. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Well it’s not like we can just take ‘em with us,” Ben answered, his brows arching slightly. “And we’re gonna need your help in the future, man.” Claire nodded, and her smile went a little lopsided.

“Use’em as bargaining chips, or somethin’.”

“Toldja, I don’t need payment. I got all the money I need,” he said with a smile.

Glancing at the house, Jesse gave a faint snort. Ben promptly punched him lightly in the shoulder.

Raising an eyebrow at him, Lucas’s smile never wavered. “It’s what’s on the inside that counts, man. Books, gear, and information are worth more than a McMansion. Not to mention a few lucrative patents and a few projects that’ll be in every household in America in a few years. But I could use the bikes, if you really don’t need them,” he said, turning back to Ben and Claire. “Always good to have something more to tinker with.”

“They’re yours,” Claire said, settling it with a warm smile, and a helmet pushed lightly into Lucas’s arms before heading toward the house.

“So long as we can borrow them when we’re in town,” Ben added as he followed a few steps behind them.

“Well, I’ll be sure to keep one of them in one piece then,” Lucas said with a laugh.

Helmet and keys in hand, Jesse followed with a scowl. “Won’t be long, right?” he said, just quiet enough for Ben to hear. Ben nodded rather than verbally answering, watching Lucas as he all but fluttered around Claire like a moth around a flame. It took a lot of effort to keep from frowning.

( “So I did more digging up on the Nephilim, like you asked...” )

Almost all the driving since Vermont had been either him or Claire, and Ben was starting to get annoyed with it. In fact, he was starting to get annoyed with a lot of things, the more he thought about them. Like how Jesse constantly complained every time they researched, or how he never seemed to take his studying seriously, or how -- when they were working a job -- he was always looking for the easy option rather than taking the necessary steps to get it done right. Hunters had tried and true methods, but nothing seemed to apply to him. Not even taking his turn driving. It was getting on his nerves. Claire didn’t seem to mind though, so for her sake he kept his agitation inside and unseen on his face.

“So we’re going to Kat’s contact’s place first?” Ben asked, wanting to be sure. They were maybe an hour outside of the city limits still, and from what Claire had gotten from the phone call earlier, Lucas didn’t live in the city proper but rather on the edges of it.

“Might as well.” Claire eased back a bit more against the front seat, arranging her hair out from behind her shoulder blades. She had her bare feet propped out the side of the open passenger window, crossed at the ankles. The wind on the soles of her feet was a strange sort of soothing. “See if anything’s up in the city--” unlike their last attempt at a vacation.

Jesse gave a light snort. “It’s Vegas. Something better be up. Or else the films are all lies.” Already slouched, he turned to sprawl across the backseat. His ass was going numb.

“All films are lies,” Claire reminded him lazily. She reached for the liter to-go cup from the 7-Eleven three hours back, only to find a disappointing mixture of flat, watered down Pepsi on the first sip. Her nose wrinkled in distaste.

“Oh I dunno, Highway was pretty accurate,” Ben said distractedly as he wrestled with the map, one hand holding the wheel steady.

Jesse raised his head slightly but decided it wasn’t worth it. “Alright. Take your word for it.” After a deep breath he said, “How much longer to Vegas?”

“‘bout an hour, maybe?” Claire pushed the cup back to its holder, lolling her head toward Ben and his fight with the map. “How’bout I handle that for a while, huh?” For all his talents, multitasking while driving was not one of them.

Ben passed her the map without further prompting, glad to have one less thing to worry about. “What exit do we need to get off on?”

“Kilgore Road.” Claire blanketed herself with the map, already fighting with the task of refolding it. “Lucas apparently lives just outside an old Industrial park.”

“Seriously?” Jesse rolled his eyes. “Why can’t you know people with big houses and pools?”

Ben clenched his jaw and kept quiet. Claire paused, then pulled her feet out of the window so she could sit up and turn around enough to look at Jesse over her shoulder.

“You in a hurry to go back to a pool?” she asked him pointedly.

Jesse went quiet a moment, a little red rising to his cheeks. “Well an unhaunted one might be nice.”

“What’s the exit number?” Ben asked, brushing the topic under the rug before it got any steam.

***

The narrow townhouse didn’t look any different from the others along the street, except for small things. The grass was dead or dirt; there were no curtains on the windows; no name on the mailbox out front. Jesse’s face was squinched tight but he didn’t say anything as they headed up the short steps to the door.

When they hit the doorbell, there was a buzz from the living room, but an echoed chime from somewhere higher, and a ringing from inside the garage. That’s where a sudden clatter of falling metal came from, too, before the intercom at the door crackled with static.

“Shit. Hello?”

Claire’s brows arched high, sharing a look between both Ben and Jesse before turning to the intercom.

( “Not interrupting, are we?” )

***

The slap of coins on fake wood lacquer stuck out from between the clack of billiard balls and the white noise around them. Claire picked her hand up from the stack of quarters that represented her claim on the next game. The way her grin leaned matched the confidence of the gesture perfectly.

She was rewarded with dubious looks, raised eyebrows, and bright, drunken grins. Perfect.

“You plan on takin’ us both on, Barbie?” The closest of the two Delta-Chi’s chimed in from his lean near the rack. He looked like he just stepped out of a campus-awareness safety video; perfect teeth, dimples, and a look of undeniable entitlement. Claire smiled sweetly at him.

“Two against one doesn’t really seem fair,” the other said. Though from the way he was eyeballing her, he obviously thought very differently of the scenario.

“Oh, I thought this was for the winner?” she sparked the innocence in her eyes--so easily faked, because she could remember the difference so well. A sheepish smile and an easily conjured blush was the icing on her cake. “Really, either way. I need the practice.”

“Oh, we can help you with that,” the first responded. She met his eyes with the chirp of a girlish giggle, and ran a hand through her hair. He looked like a Toby. Tobias. Something rich or snobbish sounding.

( “If you say so. What’re we playin’?” )

***

Checking his reflection in the mirror, Ben’s brows furrowed. He didn’t really do suits. He owned exactly two, and only for playing roles on cases. Neither of them had really been high roller poker room material, so they’d had to go “shopping.”

Ben didn’t really do shopping, either.

He and Jesse still weren’t talking, so Claire had to pick it out for him. She’d assured him that he looked good when he tried it on. She refused to let him see her try on her dress, though. Had he not been itching to get out of there as quickly as possible, he might have pouted.

“We’re gonna be late to the show!” Ben called out, his hands smoothing over his hair for what could have been the twentieth time since he’d slicked it back.

“We still have a half-hour,” Claire called back from the bathroom--the huge bathroom, compared to most of the Super 8’s or Ramada Inn’s they’d been staying at for the last who-knew-how-long. She checked herself in the mirror one last time, deft fingertips tucking a wide curl that fell from the rest. It refused to cooperate, so it remained laying loose on her shoulder. Claire had mastered many things for necessity in the last decade. Doing her hair for prom wasn’t one of them.

With one last swipe of cherry lip-gloss over her lips, she rolled them, then turned for the main room. Thin heels (that could easily be kicked off if she needed to run or fight something off) clicked on the bathroom tile under a drape of rich teal silk. Caught in the orange sunset through the window, it glowed with the same hue as her eyes.

“Ready?”

Ben caught the color of the dress in the mirror and turned, then saw her. The light made her hair shine like spun gold. Everything about her was made even more radiant in that moment. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.

My god.

Jesse had been slowly pacing the room, trying to pretend the air wasn’t heavy between him and Ben. He couldn’t help shooting a couple glances at Ben’s back, though. He hadn’t thought Ben could pull off sophisticated. He was wrong.

Claire’s entrance into the room was like a breath of air, and Jesse paused before grinning wide, very glad he didn’t have to sneak admiring glances at her.

( “You look so good in that, I wanna tear it right off you.” )

***

He’d seen movies and television shows that took place in Las Vegas poker rooms before, but nothing really could prepare Ben for what reality was like. There were so many people crowding the small spaces that it almost made it hard to even breathe. Getting to a table just to play was an obstacle, but once he was settled in, all the background noise faded from his mind. It was one of the only things he was genuinely good at that didn’t require putting his own life or the lives of others at risk, and it showed on in his eyes. He would have smiled, but smiling wasn’t exactly something a person did while playing poker.

Once the cards were dealt -- two down, one up (six of spades) -- Ben reached for his cards and gave them a quick glance. He just barely bit back a smirk, sliding them down on the table again and waiting until the lowest top card player placed their bet before adding in his.

“So do they flip over the two cards that are facedown, or do they stay down?” Jesse whispered close into Claire’s ear. They were far enough from the table that no one was likely to think they were helping someone cheat, but he figured it was better to keep his complete lack of knowledge about the game on the down ow. Plus it meant he had an excuse to lean in close to Claire.

“They stay down until the hand is called,” she whispered back, canting her head a bit toward Jesse from their vantage point above the table. Separated by a railing, the high roller’s and VIP section was sunk half a floor from the rest of the casino, giving the illusion of some expensively decorated, neon lighted gladitorial arena. The cinch of her waist leaned against the railing, most of her turned into Jesse--a stance that kept leerers, players, and other stragglers well enough away from them, but her eyes were on Ben.

“He’s riding the lowest bid, I bet.” Her lips quirked in a half-smile, which seemed connected to one arched brow. “Not drawing attention to himself, or his hand.”

( “Now you’re just making it sound dirty.” )

***

It took Lucas three trips to bring everything into the living room, spreading notes and books of various degrees of deterioration across the coffee table. He was practically bouncing with each step. From his spot leaning against the wall, Jesse was only just holding back a smirk.

“You guys brought me a real stumper,” he said, finally sitting down with a grin. “I mean, as far as I can tell, these could be run-of-the-mill demons just pulling off something we’ve never heard of before. I have some options, though.”

“Options are good,” Ben replied with a nod, sitting up from his slouch in the armchair and pulling his legs back in against it. “‘Cuz I’m still sold on them not being run-of-the-mill grunts.”

“Me too,” Claire chimed in, though quietly. She folded her arms across her chest and shifted weight, leaning on a support beam nearby.

“Well, the first thing that comes to mind is an incubus. The thing I can’t get over, though, is that this just isn’t how incubi work,” he said, arms spread wide as he leaned forward. “They generally target just one woman at a time, the nicer ones in their sleep. A whole group like this, I can’t find any reference for, although the mindlessness you described kind of sounds like the long-term effect of incubi and succubi.”

Ben frowned a little, his eyes drifting off to the floor. His voice was low and barely a mutter when he spoke: “Incubi and succubi don’t possess people, though.” Claire’s eyes glazed, then sharpened a bit--but they remained on Lucas.

“Not necessarily.” Lucas practically beamed as he opened the oldest tome to a yellow post-it note. “The Malleus Malificarum mentions they can be beaten with exorcism. That might imply that they can possess if they want. And if the goal is pregnancy, their needing human sperm would make sense.”

“Do you know of anyone who’s seen one?” Claire asked, picking her words a bit carefully.

“Not personally, no. Stories I’ve heard were always friend of a friend type of things, y’know?” he said with a shrug.

Ben chewed his lip, making a show of considering the option even though he knew it wasn’t so. “Did you have any other theories aside from incubi and succubi?”

( “Well, there’s something I came across, but I don’t even know if they’re real. Never heard of a hunter coming across them, at least. Grigori. You know the term at all?” )

TO BE CONTINUED...

- THEN -

NOW

The hotel room was quiet, mid-afternoon sun filtering though the curtains. Things were a bit scattered and there wasn’t a surface in the place where something hadn’t been knocked over or mussed up, but there wasn’t any rush in cleaning. Sprawled together on the bed, Jesse and Claire were naked and napping, one sheet mostly covering Claire. One hand halfheartedly dangling close to the nightstand, jutted out from under the pillow and her hair, the other pulled a bit on Jesse’s arm, using him as a veritable blanket in her sleep.

The peaceful image was shattered the instant the door opened. Ben had driven twenty miles over the speed limit in an attempt to get home faster. He’d had half a mind to call, but figured that it would be begging for a ticket if he did. He was quite surprised he wasn’t pulled over in fact, but the thought was fleeting; there was only room for one thought in his brain at that moment.

Unfortunately, the same could be said for Claire--in the moment the sudden and unexpected intrusion ripped her out of the short, but deep sleep, her brain clicked over to self-preservation, and her hand went for the pistol stashed against the side of the mattress. One instant, she was staring down the sight at the chest of the intruder--the next, she finally let out a breath and nearly melted when she saw who it was.

“For fuck’s sake, Ben...” She flipped the safety back on and collapsed back on the bed.

Jesse hardly had his eyes open by the time Claire was up with the gun, and he sat up as she collapsed back. “Wha’s going on?” he mumbled, rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand before looking around. “Oh, you’re back.”

It felt like all his thoughts had slammed into a wall in his head. For a moment Ben stared at the both of them and sputtered, then physically shook his head to clear it.

( “Please tell me you didn’t delete that text message from earlier.” )

***

Besides the proverbial sword hanging over her head, the last two days hadn’t been too terrible, as far as her experience with curses went anyway. Waking up the day after discovering the chain-text was responsible was terrifying, given the unknowns. Then she tried to speak--or she did speak, but apparently in a language that wasn’t English, despite what she could hear in her own ears and see on the pads of paper she tried to write on--but the result was always the same worried and confused faces on both the boys. They had heard the rumor of ‘gibberish’ being spoken by the afflicted, but besides utter frustration and crippling communication, at least it didn’t hurt.

The next day brought her native language back, but also the same fear of the unknown--of what would happen to her. They all found out after the fifth time she tripped on absolutely nothing, whether it was in the hotel room, on the way to the car, or anywhere else. Every fifteen steps or so, no matter how careful or cautious she was, Claire’s feet rebelled and spilled her to her knees, her hands, hips, elbows, and anything else that shot out to break her fall. By that night, she was bloody and bruised. She spent a lot of the night staring at the ceiling. The what comes next thought was always harder to banish at night.

Yet somehow, she managed to fall asleep--only to be ripped back into consciousness less than an hour later, when the clock flipped to midnight. With crackling pops, an arc of blue static bridged between her body and the multiple points of contact she shared with both Ben and Jesse, jarring her awake with a pained gasp.

Ben awoke with a jolt -- literally -- and a bit back yelp of pain. “Fuck! Jesus Christ, what the--”

Jesse jerked back from her, and right off the bed, landing with a crash. “What-- Shit, what’s happening?” he said, scrambling to his feet and turning in a circle to try to find what attacked them.

But nothing was attacking them--nothing more than a wide-eyed Claire, tense and poised on her knees on the bed, breathing like a frightened rabbit. Ben stared in bleary eyed confusion at her, trying to rub at least six different spots at once. Was this another damn curse in the works?

“Claire, are you--” he started, reaching out to touch her shoulder. Another static shock leaped up his arm and he withdrew hard, wincing, while Claire twitched back with a yelp of her own. “Fuck.” He turned his eyes heavenward and threw his hand out to his side. ( “Really? *Really?*” )

***

Kat was having a horrible time not killing everyone in the room right about then.

Playing at substitute teacher was proving to be a lot harder of a disguise than she thought, especially given that she’d chosen an actual class where actual learning took place and not something like art or music. Kat did not play an instrument, and could not do artistic things. In all truth, she knew absolutely nothing about Contemporary American Government either, but fortunately the teacher had a PowerPoint presentation. All she really needed to do was click the button and read it aloud.

If only it were that simple.

Kat was starting to wonder if her own daughter was as mischievous as these awful children were. She went to private school because Gavin had a well-paying job to make up for the fact that she was moreorless a drifter. Public school kids were monsters in designer labels. There was not enough rock salt and iron to handle it, though; not without spending time behind bars.

( “If I hear one more whisper or see one more note passed, you’re all going to Principal Myer’s office.” )

***

The boys were already leaning on the GTO when Claire made it out to the school parking lot. The look in their eyes was conflicted, but not hopeless--or maybe she was just projecting that part. Claire dug the post-it out of her pocket as she approached, squinting into the glare of the sun.

“Got something?” Jesse said, moving to meet her but keeping a safe distance. He never thought his heart would hammer so hard just over seeing a little scrap of paper.

“Another number,” Claire sighed tiredly, rubbing her eye with the back of her gloved hand. “And a name... Rayne Peterson.”

Ben frowned thoughtfully. “My kid brought her name up, too. Can’t be a coincidence.”

“You got her address? You need me to go in and get her address?” Jesse said quickly, nodding at the school.

“We can get her address in thirty seconds on the laptop--better idea than pushing luck with the admin.” In other words, Claire didn’t like the idea of going back in the school. In the time crunch, she’d been a bit...brisk with Sasha, and she couldn’t jeopardize Kat’s position, just in case. Claire very carefully handed the number to Ben, watching them both. “What’d your kid say?”

Ben pressed his lips into a thin line and swallowed, running his hand over the back of his neck. “That she was dating Robbie secretly and something about a rumor that she was pregnant,” he said in a low voice. “Was being the operative.” Claire paled, and felt herself get a little sick.

Jesse stared at him. ( When the fuck did we drop into an episode of /Rivalry High/? )

***

Trying to sleep on the GTO’s front benchseat might not have been so bad, if Jesse didn’t have to share it with Ben. He’d thought it would be pretty easy considering they slept pretty tangled with each other most nights, but clearly the bed made all the difference. Trying to make a pillow out of the door and his jacket, he stared out into the mostly dark campground. He could spot a campfire from where they’d parked, but he wasn’t surprised. The place was packed when they finally got there. Finding Rayne and her family before nightfall turned out to be impossible and they had to get a spot just so they could stay there. Since a couple of guys tromping through the woods looking for a teenage girl probably would set off a few alarms, they voted to get some rest and search in the morning.

It had been a very optimistic thought. The minutes were ticking away at a snail’s pace. Jesse wished he had a clock somewhere. It felt like it had been the whole night already but he had a feeling it was still early.

Sheer exhaustion had forced Claire to wrap herself in a blanket in the back seat and succumb to sleep, rather than wait out the clock to see what was in store for her after it switched over midnight. It had been surprisingly easy, but it hadn’t been long. For two, maybe two and a half hours, she’d been silent and still across the seat. She didn’t even hear the delicate alarm on her phone beep beep beep from under her jacket on the floor.

But she did wake up. Not with a jolt, like last night, but with a rolling roar of sensation that hit her consciousness like a tsunami. Heat, first just at an uncomfortable level but escalating quickly to a searing, chemical burn everywhere the blanket touched her. Claire’s eyes opened, instinct zeroed in on the feeling as she shot upright on the seat, and shoved the blanket off her shoulders--but her legs were suddenly on fire as well--reddening and sizzling the back of her thighs under the hem of her shorts. Barely two seconds had passed from peace to hellfire--and gasping, Claire started to kick against the seat.

Ben had barely fallen asleep -- the GTO was much less comfortable than his car had once been -- when suddenly he was awake again, fear sending his pulse off at a gallop. He shot up in his seat and turned around rapidly in alarm.

( “What’s wrong? What’s happening?” he pressed, Jesse jerking around at his voice. )

As Jesse said, the search went smoothly. There was an initial bump each time they woke the tent or RV up, but a quick word from Jesse found them complacent and quick to answer that no girl named Rayne was there. Jesse’s requests got terser and terser as he went on, but no one complained.

Finally they hit an RV where a girl wearing far too much make-up for the middle of the night in the middle of the woods was sitting outside.

“You Rayne?” Jesse snapped.

“Yeah,” the girl answered before really thinking about it. Her sour expression remained as thick as the make-up on her face. Obviously, she wasn’t exactly thrilled about the family camping trip, by the distance between her and her picnic-table perch, and the family Winnebago. Her eyes switched back and forth between the two. “Who th’fuck’er you?”

Ben frowned. “We know what you did, Rayne. With the chain texts. And we want you to make them stop.”

A clearer what-the-fuck expression would never be found. Rayne’s green eyes lost their focus for half a second, then widened before she got a hold of her usual, cynical self. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with a little less conviction than she had hoped. She looked away from them to put a cigarette between her lips and light it up.

In two short steps, Jesse snatched the cigarette away and grabbed her arm. Rayne stiffened and shrieked, trying to pull away. “You will tell us what you did and you undo it all! People have fucking died and that stops now!”

“Who the fuck are you?!” she croaked out.

Ben grabbed his forearm in return, pulling it back.

“Jess,” he said firmly, a warning in his voice.

Gritting his teeth, Jesse let go of her though he didn’t pull away. “Spill, brat. While you can.”

“If you don’t stop it, we will stop you,” Ben said flatly. “So we’re asking you to lift it, and we’re only asking once.”

New-found fear mixed with the confusion in the girl’s eyes--lost on just how she’d supposedly been tracked by two complete fucking strangers.

“I--I don’t know. I don’t know how to stop it...”

Ben fought the urge to groan. Great. An amateur, he thought bitterly. ( “So you cast a spell without knowing how to start it. Great. Awesome job, Silver Ravenwolf.” )

****

The sun hadn’t quite made it over the horizon yet, though the gray morning was slowly fading the night sky. Claire had slept the entire drive back to Burlington and the hotel, but the boys had only been out since they returned around four in the morning. She was still exhausted, but the plan was to leave before check-out in a few hours, and Claire had something to take care of yet.

Three knocks on Kat’s hotel room door accompanied the sounds of morning birds and the occasional truck down the road. She leaned against the jamb, long arms folded tiredly across her middle. It took a few moments before the door finally opened. Kat stood on the other side, her hair a frazzled mess and sleep in her eyes. Before Claire could even get a word out she opened the door further, silently inviting her in.

Claire wound through the open door, then nudged it shut behind her--a habitual and somewhat jovial look sent around the room. Not that she expected anyone else there. Even if Kat had taken some poor idiot back with her, he would’ve been kicked out long before dawn.

Kat moved toward the small kitchen on automatic, her hands going through the motions of starting up a pot of coffee.

“Just like old times, eh?” she muttered in a sleep-graveled voice. Claire smirked.

“‘Cept I distinctly remember always being the one making coffee.” She settled against the dresser, her hands curled on it’s edge by her hips.

“Figured I’d be nice, just this once.” Kat paused when the work was done, turning around to rest against the countertop, the edge of it making indents in the heels of her hands. Even when tired, her eyes were intent and sharp like a hawk’s. “You okay, kiddo?”

Again with the ‘kiddo’. Despite her lingering hatred for that pet-name, Claire looked at the older huntress, smiling faintly. “Can’t complain,” she replied, then scooted to actually sit on the dresser top. There may’ve been plenty she could complain about, but to little use. Plus, whenever something did slip out, Kat was always quick to knock it down. Put a lot of things in perspective. “We’re heading out in a couple hours.”

( “Don’t tell me you woke me up just to tell me g’bye.” )

Hunched over the hotel table, Jesse’s nose was inches from Claire’s laptop screen. Ever since they’d reached Burlington, they’d been focused on R&R: rest and research. Normally Jesse let Ben and Claire take care of the research part, but there wasn’t a whole lot he could do in the middle of the night. And sleep, well, he’d gotten maybe ten hours in the last week.

So focused on the screen, he didn’t notice when the first rays of dawn started peeking through the curtains, or when there was a shift of bodies on the bed behind him. The hand on his shoulder, though, that he noticed.

He nearly jumped out of his chair. “Fuck, don’t do that!”

Claire smirked in clear, but tired amusement. “Fine, I won’t touch you,” she teased, and started to slink toward her bag.

“I’m fine with touching, only when I’m expecting it,” he said, straightening and cracking his back. “Or when I’m naked. Then you’re allowed to touch me by surprise.”

“Ditto.” She snickered over her shoulder--which was feeling much better now. Her hair caught in the ribbed tank top as she pried it over her head, then dropped it in the pile of laundry that needed to be done that day.

“Find anything interesting?” she asked, digging out the new package of disposable razors from the Target bag. Sleep was still burning in her eyes, and a shower sounded good.

Rubbing his face, Jesse shook his head. “I don’t know. You guys know this shit better than me. Researching demon zombies is still outta my league.”

“They weren’t zombies, man,” Ben muttered from his side of the bed, his face still pressed partway into a pillow and one leg hanging off the end. “Zombies don’t bleed.”

“Take a break then,” Claire breathed tiredly, turning to face them both and lean on the dresser. “How’bout we go out for breakfast?”

“Sounds good to me.” Jesse stretched as he stood, walking over to the bed. “‘Course we gotta convince the human mattress to get up.” He punctuated the sentence by sitting on Ben’s back. All the air in Ben’s lungs wumphed out of him and he flailed. Claire chuckled, sipping at a stale Diet Pepsi bottle.

( '“Get offa me!” )

***

They were on their third cups of coffee, but still hadn’t found much information on any sort of history of “demon zombies” as Jesse had so dubbed them. Since that was a relative dead end, Ben decided to go off of the one thing they did know:

“How long do you think he’s been collecting?” Ben asked, his gaze lifting from the laptop sitting on the table. Claire shook her head lightly, adding another cream to her fresh cup of joe.

“God only knows.” Unfortunately it was a turn of phrase that wasn’t true. The demon knew--the one who had a particular fondness for Jesse. She looked up at him briefly, then back to her coffee. There were others that knew too--but they were equally as inaccessible. Like the white-eyed demon that’d taken Ben.

“That scarring looked old, and it takes a while to brainwash people to that extreme. I also don’t think we saw the whole iceberg.” She churned the brew with a spoon and brought it up for a sip.

Jesse’s expression sagged. “What are we talking? Months? A year?”

“At least months,” Ben said, frowning as he took Claire’s words to thought. “But... maybe more like years. Vessels are rare. They follow very direct bloodlines.”

“And so they should be after both of you,” Jesse said, scowling. “But he said they didn’t need Ben any more. That he was ruined or something.”

“He can’t be possessed anymore,” Claire answered quietly, indulging in a particularly long drink of coffee. Her mouth had gone a little dry. A lot of that cellar-room conversation she had missed--either by absence or by pain--but she didn’t say the logic that followed the sharp memory of those silent slaves trying to rip her from the both of them. She didn’t need to be possessed.

Ben’s expression grew tense from the memory, but he pushed it back. “Well unless we have some way of tracing back the lines, this is just another dead end.” His brows furrowed. ( “Kadiel would know, wouldn’t he?” )

***

Being that it was the transition point between first period lunch and class, the halls of Rock Point High School were teeming with teenagers. Some of them were in little clumps hiding out in archways and stairwells, while others moved with more purpose on their way to and from. Occasionally a teenage girl would look in their direction as Claire and Jesse walked down the hall toward the admission desk, either in intrigue or genuine interest. When they got to the door, a young man who’d been watching on the other side of it all but leapt up to his feet to open it, flashing what he must have assumed was a dazzling smile at Claire.

Memories flooded the back of her subconscious with just the smell of the place--pencil lead, coffee, and the odd-but-heady mix of perfume, cologne, and body odor. Claire had to force the small grateful smile at the ‘polite’ teenager, but it faded as soon as she and Jesse were alone in the office lobby.

“I hate high schools,” she said under her breath, digging the Press-ID with her recent picture out from the messenger bag on her hip.

Jesse brushed his hand against hers, one eye on the office in case anyone came in. ( “Why? Too many boys chasing after your hot tail?” )

***

“So you two were friends with Katie and Gail?”

Claire and Jesse stood at the thirty-yard line of the football field behind the school, opposite two Rock Point cheerleaders they’d snagged from practice. The two girls who’d been struck by lightning had been on the squad, according to the online year-book.

The brunette -- Missy -- nodded, looking genuinely grief-stricken at having to be forced to talk about her dead friends. “Basically since, like, preschool.”

“Yeah,” Kristen added, tugging on the end of her long blond ponytail over and over with her hands. “Our moms all went to school together, too. Second generation BFFs, y’know?”

“It’s so awful, what happened.”

“Totally awful.”

“That must be really hard on you,” Jesse said, brows knit in sympathy. “It sounds like you were really close. How were Katie and Gail before it happened? Their usual selves?”

Missy and Kristen shared a look, then Missy chewed her lip. Kristen spoke up, since it was obvious Missy didn’t want to talk about it.

“Well, I mean, not really. It’s weird. First Katie was the one spazzing out, then Gail started to. We couldn’t even practice for four days because they kept ruining routine.”

The words ‘spazzing out’ definitely caught Claire’s attention. Her head canted delicately, brows pinched in the middle in concerned curiosity. “Were they upset about something?”

Missy shook her head again. “I mean, no more than normal, I guess.”

“It’s weird. They were talking, like... jibberish language, right? Writing it, too.”

“Mr. Foges got so pissed off that he sent Katie to the Principal’s office.”

Kristen’s eyes started welling up with tears. “Gail didn’t even come to school the day Katie died. We didn’t find out she died too until the next day. It was so awful.”

Missy threw an arm around her and hugged her close. “I can’t even imagine how Robbie’s handling it.”

Setting a gentle hand on her back, Jesse waited a moment before asking, “Who is Robbie? Katie’s boyfriend?”

Missy nodded. ( “He saw her die. He was practically standing right next to her.” )

***

Ben rubbed his eyes blearily as he combed through the yearbook. Fortunately, there were only two potential Robbies in the same year as the reported deaths. It definitely made the interview process a lot simpler. Added bonus, it was his turn to go run out in costume, and with the facial scruff he was sporting, he was definitely looking the part of a grizzled cop.

“So she said she was calling? Or that she was coming by?” Ben asked after a moment, writing the addresses to the two houses on a sheet of paper to take with him and cross-referencing them with google maps.

“Calling,” Claire answered, her mouth full of Pad Thai with extra mushrooms from down the street.

Happily sitting back and eating on the bed instead of taking on any research. “Oh she’ll come by. They always come by,” he said with a grin before forking a piece of chicken. Claire shot him a sarcastic smirk.

“Does she even know where we’re staying?” Ben asked, sounding a little confused. Once he finished writing down directions, he started stripping out of his clothes, standing up to moving to his duffelbag and drawing Jesse’s gaze. Claire snorted, her smirk turning up to a full fledged grin, which turned to Jesse.

“Yeah, explain that one, mate,” she ribbed Jesse lovingly, still chewing a piece of rubbery chicken. Her attention split when her phone started to buzz on the nightstand.

“Oh, they always find a way,” Jesse said, a little bit of the flippancy tempered. Strange how just a bit of naked skin could seem so enticing. Shifting his take-out container on his lap, he tried to focus on Claire. “That her now?”

“Text message,” she replied, quirking her brows at the unknown number on the screen. Her expression turned a little more sour. “A stupid chain text.” Claire knew she shouldn’t have put her number in the hands of teenage girls. She tossed the phone lightly toward Jesse; it hit his thigh and settled on the bed.

Jesse snorted. “People still do that?” he said, picking up the phone. “‘You have been cursed, exclamation point, exclamation point. Send this to twenty people or suffer the Curse of Babel, little red smiley face with horns.’ Hey now, that’s just an ignorant stereotype.” With a grin, he tossed the phone back at Claire.

Ben had been midway through pulling on a new shirt, but immediately burst into laughter. His hair went every which-way once his head appeared through the neckhole. “Kids’ll be kids.”

Claire smirked at both of them and plucked the phone up from the bed. A quick swipe of her thumb deleted the nuisance. Ben settled on the end of the bed, pulling off his jeans and switching them out with trousers.

“So okay, I should only be gone two hours, three tops,” he said, standing and belting up. He grabbed his hairbrush ran it through his hair a few times before he tossed it back into the bag. That done, he grabbed his better tie and looped it around his neck, starting to knot it.

“Guess Claire and I will have to find a way to pass the time without you...” Jesse said wistfully. Claire snickered mildly, already on her feet from the side of the bed. A second later, she was toe to toe with Ben, wordlessly taking on the task of tying his tie.

“Keep your head low,” she muttered low, tightened the Windsor, and kissed the tip of his nose. He smiled in response. “I don’t want Kat throttling me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ben replied smartly, then leaned in and kissed her soundly on the lips. He grabbed up his wallet from where it rested on the nightstand, as well as his favorite gun -- which he tucked into his side holster -- before heading over to where Jesse was still sitting.

“Don’t tire her out too much,” he told the other man with a faint smirk, then pressed his mouth to Jesse’s as well. He tugged his bottom lip between his teeth as he broke it, then gave him a wink before heading out the door.

***

The headache wasn’t as bad today, but eyestrain wasn’t going to help. Staring at the lines of a social news feed next to the swirl of a music player with little to no light squeezing through the curtains was a sure-fire way of making sure his focus stayed in one spot. The hot feeling behind his eyes was a low tum, rather than the roar it’d been last night.

It wouldn’t take long for Robbie to work on that, but the light touch on his shoulder tore his attention away from the laptop screen. A vacant look turned up to the image of his mother, mouthing something below the bass in his ear-buds. He popped one out with a hooked finger.

( “There’s a detective wanting to talk to you.” )

TO BE CONTINUED...

( Cut from 1x10, when Ben, Claire, and Jesse recover from the hunt )

- THEN -

NOW

Having not found anything behind the main building, Ben had already been making his way back to the front. At hearing Jesse’s words, he looked around frantically. Which one was the leader’s? It wasn’t like they were labeled or anything. There was one that was closer to the main building, and he immediately sprinted toward it at a tilt, racing around the back.

Their shouts were muffled by the roar of her own pulse in her ears, but Claire could still catch them, thanks to the adrenaline and endorphins that shock finally started to release in her blood. It took just enough of the edge off to find the strength to let go of her arm and reach down for the gun she’d dropped.

“Go on. Stay with’im,” she gritted at Jesse when she noticed he’d turned back toward her. The pistol scraped the wood as she worked back up to her feet; she used the door frame as a latch to reset the flange. ( “I’m right behind you...” )

****

When Jesse opened his eyes again, he was facing a graveyard. A large monument rested in front of him, its door intricately designed with one sole lock in the elaborate shape of a pentagram. The demon stood just off to his left, his hands settled low in his pockets as he studied Jesse’s face. Jesse didn’t return the gaze, folding his arms against the chill.

“Graveyard, huh? Way to be original,” he said, his jaw tight.

“Oh, not just any graveyard,” the demon answered, smiling evenly. “This is an entry point. One of many. I found it... suiting.”

Jesse’s eyes snapped to him, overly wide. He didn’t have to ask where the entry led. “I’m not going. You’ll have to kill me first.”

“Oh no, don’t misunderstand me,” the demon drawled. “I want you here. I’ve always wanted you here. Others will be coming through the door, though, once you’ve retrieved the key and taken your rightful place. Foot soldiers, in addition to the army I’m making you.”

The laughter that bubbled out of Jesse verged on hysterics. “Yeah, I saw all that when you sent me that fucking dream. You’re mental if you think I’d ever do that, lead some crazy demon army. Even if I was in this fight, I wouldn’t be on your side.”

The demon’s brows arched slightly and his head tilted as he took a step forward, angling his body toward him. “All this time you’ve been alone, Jesse,” he said in a near-hypnotic voice. “Always drifting, never able to settle. I can feel the uncertainty and fear in you. You cringe away from your gifts. Why live a life like that, when you are so much more? You were meant for more than this life, son.”

Jesse’s insides tightened. “You aren’t my father, and you know shit about my life,” he said, glaring. “And if not wanting to get fucking stabbed means I’m cringing away from my ‘gifts,’ then yeah, I’m cringing and I’m not going to stop.”

The demon gave him a measured look. “That family you spent your early years with? Was a mistake. A wonderful one for you, I’m sure, but they held you back. Your mother told you as much, but those...” his lip curled back slightly, “...hunters... corrupted your mind. I am not so unreasonable. I would have kept them safe, had you simply come to me freely. And as for your temporary captivity,” his face relaxed again. “That was a test of your endurance. I apologize that you experienced physical pain, but once you let yourself go and come to your full potential, you will learn. All these mortal needs will fade away.”

“So now you’re some wise and caring guru?” Jesse practically spat. “You kidnapped a child, you nearly killed Ben’s mom, you hurt my friends, and what about those mutilated zombies you use like cannon fodder? All that seems pretty fucking unreasonable to me.”

The demon sighed and shook his head gently. “That’s the trouble with the help these days: they go to extremes. All I asked was that they bring you to me, nothing more. I could only do so much from the office.” He smiled slightly again. “The people at Canavilla were vessels for our enemy. They had to be neutralized. Such is the way of war. You’ll understand in time.” His brows once again arched in subtle question. ( “Feel free to punish Abbey, if you can pin her down. I encourage it, in fact.” )

***

Claire was currently in a bed nearby Krysta, asleep under the influence of heavy painkillers. Krysta had stabilized once they pumped her stomach, but was also asleep. Ben had called his mother, who was currently on a non-stop flight to Saint-Fabien-de-Panet, Québec to meet them and take her daughter home.

Ben was trying not to have a nervous breakdown.

By all accounts, he should have passed out from sheer mental collapse and exhaustion, but he couldn’t. Not until Krysta woke up or his mother arrived. He would not leave either of them scared and confused.

Jesse stopped in the doorway, two paper cups in hand. After the race to the hospital, with a quick stop so he could sweet-talk their way across the Canadian border, he was feeling rather at peace. Things were as good as they could be. Except for Ben. He almost wished they’d put Ben in a bed right next to Claire and given him his own round of sleep meds.

“Here,” he said quietly, waiting until Ben looked up to hold out the coffee.

“Thanks,” Ben replied, his voice low and barely above a whisper. Wordlessly he emptied the cup, his hands shaking when he clenched it in his fist and ducked his head over his knees again.

His heart giving a wrench, Jesse set his own cup aside before sitting at Ben’s feet, resting a hand on his knee. He gave it a squeeze. Ben shuddered in response.

His sister was alive and safe, and his mother had recovered by a sheer act of desperation through Claire and Kadiel, but he still couldn’t handle everything that had happened. It was all too much, hitting him too close to home. Worse still: there would never be an escape from it. Never. Even if he had entertained the idea of returning to a normal life, he couldn’t now.

“Hey, c’mon, wuss,” Jesse said, his voice soft despite the words. “Everyone’s fine. It’s gonna be fine.”

Ben made a choked noise, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and shuddering again. All it took was two short breaths and he crumbled, his whole body shaking with dry sobs.

Pushing to his knees, Jesse hugged Ben hard, his cheek resting against his shoulder. He’d been there just the other night and knew that words were useless at this point. Just the press of his body seemed enough to ease Ben’s shaking, but it was a long time before the other man calmed.

( “I have to tell them goodbye.” )

***

Two more Vicodin later Claire could actually lift her arm over her head without thinking she was going to pass out, a luxury she found especially freeing when it was finally her turn to shower. Rock-Paper-Scissors was never one of her favorites, but losing twice in a row at least gave the oxicontin a little more time to work itself into her blood stream.

By the time she stepped out of the warm, jasmine smelling bathroom, Claire’s endocrine system was wrapped in a warm blanket of endorphins and affection. She found the boys settled on the bed already, Ben in the middle of the bed, a little toasted from the liquor he’d convinced Jesse to let him have. Things were okay again, but the residual stress from the past four days were finally taking their toll on him, leaving him exhausted him.

Half sitting up on his elbows, Jesse quirked his head to the side. “Feeling alright, darling?” he said with a slight smile, trying not to stare at her long, bare legs too much. Claire shot him a sleepy looking smile, tossing her towel back toward the bathroom before slinking onto the foot of the bed.

“Can’t complain,” she sighed easily. So much weighed on all their minds, like looming thunder clouds, that Claire received their short sliver of peace brought on by Krysta’s rescue, pharmaceuticals, and a hot shower in the same light as an early retirement.

Ben tracked her with his eyes but remained mostly quiet as the two of them talked to each other in soft tones. While Claire had been showering, he and Jesse had simply lied there. He’d started off on his side, but then Jesse had spooned up behind him just like he himself had when Jesse had returned to them from their separation in Erie. Only things were a little different this time: Ben had felt Jesse’s arms circle around him and pull them closer, then felt the ghost of his lips along the curved back of his neck. With Claire’s reappearance from the bathroom, still glistening from the shower and looking so relaxed and happy, the only thing keeping her decent an all-too-thin ribbed tank and shorts that curved up with the shape of her creamy legs, it took all Ben’s effort not to visibly adjust the ache in his groin. They were all tired, ( but perhaps assuming they would want to sleep was wrong. )

****

The sun was peeking through the cheap window treatments, but eventually it found Jesse with all the insistence of a nagging old woman. He squinched his eyes, trying to turn away but a hand clamped down on his elbow, holding him in place.

“What the...?” he tried to turn the other way, but another hand pinned him in place. With a slight laugh, he smiled as he opened his eyes. “Alright, what are you two--”

But when he finally saw Ben and Claire leaning over him, they weren’t smiling. Their faces were drawn and serious, their eyes shining with an inhuman gleam. A wind roared up through the room, the window curtains blown aside and the sun streaming in, revealing the spread shadows of wings arching from Ben and Claire’s backs.

“No. No, Ben, Claire, please,” he begged, looking between them.

Their expressions impassive, Claire looked over at Ben, who lifted a short, silver sword in his free hand. Jesse bucked in desperation but their grips were like iron. He couldn’t move, couldn’t escape. He could only watch as Ben tilted his head and then brought the sword down, right through Jesse’s heart.

Jesse’s body spasmed and his eyes snapped open. It was dark. Oh God, it was dark. He sat up sharply.

‘Ow! Goddammit--!” Ben bleated, his hand coming up over the right side of his face. Jesse had hit him -- hard -- in the process of jolting awake. “The hell was that for!?” Claire half-rolled back, peering up at Jesse with the same confusion.

His body shaking, Jesse looked down at them, then up at the room. The dark, angel-free room. “It wasn’t real,” he breathed, not sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. Claire’s nose wrinkled when she tried to shift up to her hip. The Vicodin had worn off, and now that she was awake, she was fully aware of the twisted, recovering muscles in her shoulder.

( “S’just a dream, Jess.” )

Claire awoke slowly, her eyes opening and being met by the cheap textured ceiling of their Ithaca hotel room. A crack of daylight cut through the privacy curtain at the window, caught in a mussed spike of Jesse’s hair, his arm across her stomach and using her shoulder as a pillow. Another larger hand, Ben’s, dangled from over Jesse’s arm. A craned-neck glance found Ben’s face buried into the back of Jesse’s shoulder, his face scrunched up a little as though he was trying not to wake up.

With a breath of a sigh, Jesse shifted on Claire’s shoulder, trying to open his eyes, though his lashes stuck together some. The hand that had been under him came up to rub away the sleep, and that’s when he noticed Claire looking down at him. His expression turned sheepish, a light blush crossing his cheeks, but he didn’t look away.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Claire’s sleepy expression warmed with a tired smile. She hugged him a little closer, closing her eyes again as she sighed against his temple. In more than a few ways, this cramped hotel bed with it’s scratchy sheets and flat pillows was more warm and comforting than the dream she’d just drifted back from.

“Don’t be too loud,” she whispered, her lips tickled by Jesse’s hair. “Ben might hit you with a pillow.”

He smiled, his thumb running unconscious circles against her stomach. “Think he’s currently using me for a pillow,” Jesse whispered back. His expression smoothed some before he said, even quieter, “Thanks."

( “Will you two just make out already so I can go back to sleep?” )

****

Ben had the first leg of the driving, but fortunately they didn’t have much farther to go. If they didn’t stop except for bathroom breaks, they could get up to Maine that night. It was a very, very small window.

It was driving him crazy. The only thing keeping him from losing his cool was driving.

Claire was locked in a staring contest with the open laptop on her knees, studying the spiderweb of trails and dirt roads that apparently surrounded this massive Maine lake. The cherry sucker she bought at the gas station twenty miles back clicked against the back of her teeth, once, when she rolled the stick from one side to the other.

This isn’t gonna be easy, the thought parroted in her head for the third time in an hour. She’d looked at seventeen different maps taken over the last fifty years, and each one was different.

“The topography keeps changing,” Claire spoke around the lollipop, shaking her head. “Everything from the roads to the size of the damn lake...”

Leaning up from the back, his arms folded over the top of the front benchseat, Jesse frowned slightly. “We could drive around it. I’m getting a good feel for when demons are near. Don’t know how close I have to be though.”

“Claire, how do you feel about off-road driving?” Ben asked, not looking away from the road.

“In this thing?” She looked up at him and popped the sucker out of her mouth. “We wouldn’t make it over the first ditch.”

“Okay, next chance we get, we get bigger tires,” he muttered, then sighed, running a hand through the back of his hair and up through it.

“We could take another car?” Jesse said, looking back and forth between them. “I could just ask to borrow one of those bigass kinds from someone.” Claire looked at both of them like they’d briefly lost their minds.

“Have either of you ever been to the woods in New England? You can barely walk through the trees, let alone drive something through them.”

“I don’t normally go this far north,” Ben admitted. “Not a big fan of the cold. I mean hell, it’s May and it’s 60 out right now. That’s devilry.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Jesse said with a smirk. “So what do we do? Run around the lake until we find something?”

Ben took a deep breath and let it out. It was a lot of ground to cover, and a very large lake. He knew that the quickest way to look fast would be to split up, but he didn’t dare suggest it. Not after what had happened the last time they’d been split up. He took a breath to speak, but suddenly the phone buzzed out on its generic ringtone.

“Shit--” he blurted, struggling to pull his phone out of his pocket. The car swerved slightly in the process before he finally pulled it out and flipped it open.

“Braeden.”

“...is--is this Ben?”

Ben’s brows furrowed. “Who’s this?” There was a slight pause on the other end.

( “Um... This is Rosie Holt?” )

****

Rarely had Claire ever experienced darkness like this. Like a living thing, the northern Maine midnight swallowed the beams ahead of the GTO as it wound slowly around an endlessly winding road. The blue arrow on the dash mounted GPS followed their progress: a single line on a field of nothing. Even technology had no idea where they were.

Which to her meant they were close.

“Next time we get a chance, let’s get some night-vision goggles,” Ben murmured. The radio had gone quiet hours ago, not that he’d been that interested in listening to music by that point anyway. His thoughts had narrowed; nothing else in the world mattered anymore but getting his sister back. They’d hit the 24-hours mark.

Despite the urgency of the situation, Jesse was exhausted and fading fast. His eyes kept drifting from the road, so it was a while before he noticed it. Even then, at first he thought he was imagining it, or at most it was just a reflection. But the light was steady, even from this distance.

“Is that a car coming our way?” he asked.

Ben turned to look over his shoulder at him. “Dude, we’re in the middle of the wilderness. Unless moose suddenly come equipped with headlights, I doubt it.”

“Yeah, then what’s that?” he said, leaning forward to point out the window. The closer they got, though, the less he thought it was headlights.

“I don’t see anything,” Claire said, squinting into the dark. Still, on instinct, she let off the gas.

“The light right in front of you,” Jesse huffed. “It’s not on the road, though, it’s off to the left some, coming up in thirty feet or so.”

“You’re going delirious, get some sleep,” Ben replied, his voice a little strained.

“You need sleep if you can’t see what’s right in front of you,” Jesse said, getting testier. “Look, there’s two of them now! Stop the car and just look, would you? They’re glowing like--” He froze a moment before his head snapped to Claire. “Like the thing on your chest did.”

Though pulling over in this blinding darkness wasn’t Claire’s first idea of a smart move, Jesse’s correlation to the Enochian seal on her chest hit more brakes than just the left pedal on the floor. Her heart jumped and her stomach bottomed out all at once.

( He’s seeing sigils )

****

The advice turned out to be harder for Jesse to follow. With only Claire’s sigil as guidance, they walked through the dark woods for hours. Jesse never would have described walking as exhausting before, but he was barely keeping one foot going in front of the other now, stumbling over branches and dead leaves and gopher holes.

It was only a matter of time before one got him. He hit the ground with hard grunt, unable to even summon the breath to swear. Part of him just wanted to stay down, let them go on without him, but he pushed up to his knees.

Ben was at his side in an instant, looking equally worn out but also running on fear and adrenaline. He almost dragged the other man up, but he knew they were getting tired. They couldn’t fight on fumes.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Fine, fine,” Jesse said, waving him off as soon as his feet were under him. He started forward again, knowing if he stayed still too long he might not be able to get going again. Ben frowned, catching him by the elbow.

“No you’re not, you’re dead on your feet,” he murmured. “Claire, hang on.”

“We’re not stopping because of me,” Jesse said heatedly. He wasn’t going to be the reason they didn’t make it in time.

“We have to rest,” Claire barely chimed in. She’d stopped a few paces ahead and could barely imagine lifting her foot for another step. Nearing twenty-seven hours without any actual sleep, they were all dead on their feet.

“You two can go down for four hours,” Ben said firmly. “I’ll keep watch.”

“You need sleep, too,” Jesse said, his irritation making it sound more like an accusation.

“We’ll take shifts,” Claire injected calmly, from fatigue and her own sense of order. She was already spending the last of her energy coiling a salt circle around them and a large, sprawling oak.

“Shifts for a four-hour rest? No,” Ben countered. “I’m fine. I’ve had enough coffee and Monsters to fuel the Israeli army. You guys need it more than me.”

“Fine; we’ll see how you feel about that after an hour of sitting.” She looked directly at Ben, able to be knocked over by a stiff breeze, but completely unwavering on her compromise.

Jesse’s eyes looked between Claire and the circle she was making. “Do we have to use salt?” She didn’t glance up as she answered.

“Not much of a choice,” the line on the grass connected. Claire tucked it away and leaned heavily against the tree, making her way down to sit. Then the thought hit, delayed a lot more than she was comfortable with. Claire looked at Ben, then Jesse, concern in her eyes.

“...can you cross salt?”

Jesse ran a hand over his face. This wasn’t exactly a time he wanted to talk about it. “Yeah, it just fucks with me a bit. As long as you break it before we leave, though, I should be fine.”

Ben smirked slightly. ( “Guess I know how to protect my computer now.” )

****

The gray wash of dawn coming through the trees was a mixed blessing; at least the blackness wasn’t so complete, that they could actually see the dim stretch of an old road they’d stumbled on an hour before first light. Dawn also meant, however, that time was still moving. The last of the sand was running through the hour-glass; they were down to the wire.

The forest was tomb-still when the road opened up beneath a wooden sign that arched over it from two stripped trees, too old and weathered for Claire to make out clearly, save for the word ‘Camp’ at the end. The vine-choked buildings and crumbling tent platforms that surrounded the overgrown clearing were a further testimony to what this place had been at one time. Claire kept quiet, but as she stepped gingerly over dead and tangled grass, her pistol poised and aimed low, she notched this place as one of the creepiest sights she’d ever seen.

Gritting his teeth to keep himself focused, Jesse spread to the side as the campground widened around them. The place looked like it hadn’t been touched in ages. If it weren’t for the strange people who’d attacked them, he would have been sure it was empty. At this rate, though, he had no clue what to do. He looked to Ben.

Small cabins lined the narrow road leading in, all facing outward toward the lake. There were even a few overturned canoes on the shoreline. This is it. This is where Rosie said she’d be, he thought. But where?

“Let’s check the main building,” Ben proposed. Even using a voice very near a whisper, it sounded like a shout in such an empty, quiet place. “Stay alert.”

The old door looked like it would collapse to splinters if she touched it the wrong way. Claire eyed it cautiously, trying to see through the spiderweb of broken glass that served as a window. Everything inside was dark and still as the woods, but naturally, none of them trusted it. Her gun extended just beyond her hand as she grabbed gently for the handle, twisted, and nudged it open.

Nothing moved, not even the air. She tipped her head to get a better look, and slowly crossed the threshold. Before her extended gun had hardly crossed into shadow, a hand lashed out and grabbed her wrist, twisting her arm up behind her back with unnatural strength and speed. Before Claire got the chance to even look at her attacker, her arm was jerked up hard. There was a sickening pop, and Claire’s short, animal-like scream.

Ben brought his gun up sharply, his pulse off at a gallop at the sound. “Claire!”

Gasping hard and blind to anything but the tearing pain in her shoulder, Claire was marched forward, her attacker holding her firmly from behind and peering just a little bit around the side of her head. She flashed a pearly smile in Jesse and Ben’s direction.

( “You made it! I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show.” )

TO BE CONTINUED...

- THEN -

NOW

The hiss of running water drifted from behind the closed bathroom door. Claire looked at it mutely; Jesse had been covered in old and new blood, despite the lack of wounds. Before they could concentrate on getting the GTO back and distance themselves from this place, he needed a little time to gather himself. She needed it too...

It was her mistake to try and seal and bury what just happened without thinking it would resurface in some crippling way. It would be a moment of weakness that would bring a sort of pain she’d never known before; she knew better now, even if that didn’t takeaway the fear that it would crush her some day.

( And Ben... )
****

It’d been six years since Claire was last in a tattoo parlor, but even in a different town several hundred miles away, this place smelled the same. Rubbing alcohol and floor bleach, maybe a touch of stale incense or cigarette smoke coming from somewhere in the back. Not to mention the unique buzz of a motorized needle.

Claire was keeping her mind carefully neutral--or at least, trying to. In the emotional maelstrom all three of them had just gone through were relevant facts that needed to be picked apart and put in order. They still had a long way to go, a lot less rest to look forward to, and Krysta was still in the middle of it. At least it kept her from focusing on the raw experience; the minute or two between seeing Ben’s eyes whited out to the hurricane contained in the hotel bathroom--extracted by Jesse with barely five words. Like a cauterized wound, it scarred deep, but she couldn’t afford to let that swallow her completely. Her talk with him afterward helped turn that fire outward, at least. The acidic burn of hatred was oddly comforting in the light of what happened. She meant what she’d said to Ben: for hurting his family, for taking his sister, for trying to take him from her--Claire would see them all burn.

( For now, her focus to the only solid anchors in her life: Ben and Jesse. )
****

While he’d asked the two of them to sit, Jesse couldn’t stay down. He couldn’t even stay still. It helped. Walking up and down, avoiding their gazes, not seeing their reactions, it made it easier to talk about what he’d gone through. To separate it from himself. He was just stating facts.

And when all was said and done, that was the easy part.

He paused in his pacing, fiddling with his hands. “And...and I wish I could say that I don’t know why or how they’d found me, but the demon, he mentioned my father. And he’s not the first,” he said slowly, glancing their way for the first time since he started talking. If he prayed, right now he’d be praying Claire was right about Ben. He took a deep breath. “When I was eleven, I found out that I’m not human. Well, part human. And part demon.”

( He froze where he stood, waiting. )

Jesse woke up screaming. A pain lanced through his side, sharp and all consuming until it was suddenly gone. It was like a dagger in the side. Breathing hard, he opened his eyes, only to see a knife right in front of him. That explains it.

He didn’t question it; all he had to do was get out of there. An image in mind, he disappeared. Except he was still there, the knife-wielding FBI agent still standing over him. He twitched, trying again, and again nothing happened. So he tried to move, except he couldn’t. There were bindings at his wrists, his legs, across his chest and forehead. He could hardly even shift.

That’s when the panic set in, his terrified eyes on on the man he was utterly helpless before.

( Well, that's unfortunate. )

________________________

Forty minutes after the rumble at the road block, Claire sat in the familiar plastic discomfort of a police station chair. They called them ‘interview rooms’ now, but anyone who’d been in one at least once knew the true purpose of drab concrete walls and one-sided mirror. This wasn’t her first rodeo in one, but she was still on edge.

Ben was nearby--that much she knew. He’d been brought in with her when they arrived at the station, and presumably sat in another room just like this one. He also wasn’t a stranger to jurisdictional rules and how to slip through the legal loops; she wasn’t worried about him as much as she was for Jesse. Different car, different cops... God only knew what they’d tazed him for, and where they’d taken him. Her only calming thought was that he’d jumped away from his ‘escort’ as soon as he was able. They’d meet him on the outside. ( Now, of course, it was just a matter of getting out. )

________________________

“You’re still here?” A malevolent humor was in the familiar, gruff voice suddenly in the room with Jesse. The demon scoffed through a sneer in his casual approach to where he was bound, fixing the cuffs of his suit. ( I'm beginning to think you like it on that cross )

________________________

When Claire made the suggestion that they hide out for a couple hours until it was safer to go for the GTO, she didn’t necessarily mean stake themselves out at a hotel. It worked out, she uneasily supposed; it was a stationary spot where Jesse could more easily find them, plus it wasn’t hard to assume, if they were being looked for, that the local cops would check one of their own nearby places.

Plus, it gave her a chance to get rid of the grime of more than twenty-four hours straight on the road. Every muscle felt like it was threaded with wire as she peeled off her clothes behind the bathroom door, trying to forget the fact that she’d be putting them on again after getting clean. The water was almost too hot to stand, and given the circumstances--it was perfect. ( Jesse would be fine. )

TO BE CONTINUED...

- THEN -

NOW

It was late afternoon by the time the GTO needed another fill-up, and hunger scraped at their insides enough to pull over at a massive truck-stop off of I-80, somewhere in Ohio that Claire couldn’t remember ever being. The drive had been tense, but then again--so had the whole trip. With an unknown destination and a deadline fast approaching, the missing time earlier that afternoon was just another piece of the whole goddamned puzzle.

Through the open window, the tinny sound system in the GTO filled the background of highway traffic and eighteen wheelers hissing their air brakes. Claire cracked open the bottle of water in her hands. She was crouched next to Ben, who was sitting on the passenger side bench seat, bruised and bloodied knuckles held out from between his knees. She was gentle in her touch and her silence, and supported one of his palms with her own while half the water doused away crusted blood and bits of bark.

Ben clenched his teeth to keep from wincing. Jesse had been extremely close-lipped the moment they got back in the car from the woods, and that only made him more nervous. He wasn’t telling them something. Knowing that ate at him. Not only that, but it filled him with a deep sense of guilt. They’d never told Claire about the Trickster; he could understand keeping the hookers thing between them, but Ben was starting to doubt keeping a hunt from her.

“You think any are broken?” she asked him quietly, drenching the other hand until the water stopped dripping pink. She was distracted, obviously--they all were--but Claire had been ordering herself to keep what she did know in a carefully orchestrated line of priorities in her mind. It was her default method of operation, not just for hunts, but life in general. It was a task that had become much harder in the last few months...

“I don’t think so,” Ben answered, feeling that same twist in his stomach as he thought about his no-longer-broken ribs. He took a breath, then let it out. ( “I gotta tell ya somethin’.” )

***

For a Super-Target in the middle of nowhere, this place certainly was crowded. Claire narrowly avoided being barrelled over by three identical pint-sized soccer players fresh from some glorious victory, rounding out of the cereal aisle with their exhausted looking mother. Triplets. “God help that woman...” she admired over her shoulder, half speaking to Jesse, but mostly to herself.

She readjusted the red plastic basket slung over her arm and tossed in a large squeeze bottle of Smuckers Strawberry, right next to the Texas toast loaf of bread and organic chunky peanut butter.

Jesse’s eyes had been focused on the aisle and he looked up a little too late. “Hm,” he agreed, now studying the food. He’d only finished half his burger, but being around all this food was making him feel ill, and it didn’t go unnoticed by Claire.

“Hey,” she stopped and waited for him to catch up. The look in his eyes was distant and disturbed, no doubt from what had happened this afternoon. The questions were still in her head, and wouldn’t likely go away any time soon--but time was short. It’d have to go on the back-burner.

Which is why she lightly bumped hips with him, a commiserative and empathetic nudge before slipping her arm around his as they headed toward the check-out, and the Starbucks where Ben waited in line. “It’s hard to get past some things, I know,” she obviously attributed his disturbance with what happened. Claire gave Jesse’s arm a squeeze and offered up a gentle, tired, and somewhat sad smile. “That’s what we’re here for--to make it all a little easier.”

He tried not to let the twist in his chest show in his face, smiling down at her. The way they’d looked, the confusion and fear knowing that they had had something stripped from them, that was his fault. He didn’t want to see that confusion and fear, and anger, directed at him. “You do that already,” he told her.

The corners of her mouth quirked up a little more. Claire brushed his shoulder with her lips, then lightly bit down, just to keep the mood light. “Good to know I don’t have to try too hard. You want Funyuns or Doritos?”

Jesse held his breath a moment. That couldn’t be his doing, could it? Look at me and tell me what I feel isn’t real, she’d said. But he didn’t know. He just didn’t know. “You lot have really stupid names for shit.”

“You lot?” Claire snickered at him, and stuffed a bag of each in the basket. “How’bout we git some Amber Fluid an’Golden Gaytime ice cream, mate.” Her fabricated Aussie accent was piss-poor, at best--but the product names were easy enough to remember.

That got a wide, genuine grin, and a barely suppressed urge to kiss her. “Now you’re talking my language. Never knew you were actually born Australian, Claire.”

When Ben finally got to the front of the line, the rail-thin barista behind the counter smiled politely at him, her brown eyes wide and bright as she met his gaze.

“What can I get you today, sir?”

“Double Venti Caffè Americano,” Ben answered. The barista’s brow pulled together briefly.

“So you wanted two extra shots?”

“Four,” Ben replied. “Eight total.” The girl flashed him a wry grin.

“My kinda guy,” she said, tapping in the order on the touch screen. “That’ll be $5.45, please.”

“Mine too,” Claire’s sudden whisper brushed the back of Ben’s neck, followed by the quick warmth of her lips, just before she pressed her hand on the small of his back-plastic bags in her other hand crinkling. Ben’s cheeks immediately warmed, but he didn’t say anything. Claire flicked a look at the girl behind the counter over Ben’s shoulder. “We’ll be over here.” Meaning, of course, the little cafe tables by the exit doors.

“‘Kay,” he said, digging out the appropriate bills from his wallet that Jesse had recently filled. He held out the money to give to the barista, but the moment their skin touched it felt like static electricity. Her brown eyes suddenly widened.

“Maine.”

Ben blinked, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly rise.

( “What?” he sputtered. )

***

The nicotine couldn’t get into her system fast enough. Rose Holt sparked up before the metal bay door of Target’s shipment ramp was fully open, and set her back against the beige painted brick. It was difficult, considering the strength of the vibration in her fingertips like she was freezing cold. Christ, that hadn’t happened in so long...

Ben had waited in the car, eyes on the door, twitching like a junkie who needed a fix. The moment he saw the redhead emerge he was out the door and walking fast, splinters of pain shooting up his shins from his attempt at not straight up running toward her. He barely registered Claire and Jesse following him. He needed to talk to this girl.

Rose felt a trickle of ice water drip down the length of her spine a split second before a pair of footsteps rounded the building corner. Her eyes widened when she saw him --hunter-- flashing like a neon sign in her brain. Her cigarette dropped from her lips to roast on the ground.

“Look, I told you everything!” she hurried, stiffening up against the wall.

Ben stopped on a dime, his eyes suddenly widening at her defensive posture and his hands going palms-up in a sign of peace.

“I’m not out to hurt you,” Ben said in a similar tone and speed. “I just-- I just wanna talk to you, that’s all. I promise.” Rosie stared at him with a mix of sharp caution and natural warning. She looked behind his eyes and knew his intentions matched his words, which was a good thing. Didn’t change the fact that he made her nervous.

“So talk. Just--don’t touch me.” It was a common warning, but held an entirely different meaning for Rosie, and her tone reflected that.

“How did you do that?” Ben asked in an explosion of air and wonder.

This was why Rosie never went into crowds, especially when emotions were running high. Confrontation wasn’t her thing, and this was the worst kind. Hunters asked more questions. More directed questions, anyway, and there were some things she just didn’t need being spread around that particular community.

She looked at him, tight in the jaw and tense everywhere else. “It just happens.” She paused, trailing off there in favor of adding details, but one consolation did pop in her head. The psychometric parts of her ‘gift’ only struck when a subject was under extreme emotional distress. Someone missing a sibling sure would do that. She felt sorry for the guy, even if he put her on edge simply by being there.

“I wish I could tell you more, but like I said: that’s all I got.”

Ben’s eyes moved back and forth between hers, trying to find the words she wasn’t using on her face, but she hid them well. She couldn’t have been more than 18. He felt such a deep-seated empathy for her plight that it momentarily stunned him silent.

“All your life?” he asked finally.

“Since I was twelve, mostly,” Rosie answered after a thoughtful pause. Her voice had gotten a little softer, feeling the subtle wave of commiseration lift from him like steam.

Jesse went still, his eyes suddenly snapping to focus on Rosie. It wasn’t the same as him, but there was a familiarity that cut into him. Even made him wonder. He stayed quiet.

“Is there anything you could tell us about what to expect, at least?” Ben asked meekly. He’d never actually spoken to a real psychic before. Once or twice he’d tried navigating through the thin waters that tarot card readers tread through, but most of them were only after the extra money; they didn’t have any real access to knowledge of the future or the ability to communicate ‘beyond the veil.’

Rosie’s eyes flicked between the hunter and the guy a few paces back. Her nerves were on edge, almost twitching, making her hyper-aware of the two pairs of eyes on her--one pleading, the other in stark observation. The third was around; she could feel her. Just another thing that added to her extreme desire to remove herself from this situation.

She stared back at Ben, a breath pushed hard through her nostrils as she turned her focus outward, sifting for anything she could give them that would result in their leaving, hopefully not to come back.

( “They’re waiting for you.” )

***

After referring to the map, Ben realized there were two possible options to take: they could drive through Canada and get there in about eight fewer hours but risk that in border crossing wait times; or they could punch it and keep stateside. Even without the added pressure of not knowing where they were going and having 48 states to desperately comb through in too little time, Ben wanted to get there as quickly as possible. If that meant him driving two-thirds of the trip, so be it.

Claire wasn’t too fond of the idea of them not having a bed to sleep in or a shower after 24 hours in a car with two men, but luckily she didn’t press the issue as hard as he thought she would. He made sure to clean up as thoroughly as he could in the last gas station’s tiny bathroom, but there was no way he was going to stop. He’d promised his mom, and just thinking about what that demon bitch was doing to his sister was slowly eating away at him.

“Hand me another Monster, wouldja?” he said quietly to Jesse, trying to keep his voice down for Claire’s sake since she was sleeping.

Their supply bag was mostly empty cans by now, but Jesse found a new one, handing it over. Before he’d met these two, Jesse had no idea how exhausting it could be to just sit in a car for hours on end. He’d had his own rest not long ago but felt like it had been days since he slept. All this when he could be there right now.

“I could just have a quick look around. Make sure we’re going the right way,” he said quietly.

“And walk right into a trap, by yourself and with no back-up,” Ben finished for him. “No. We do this together. We’re a team. That’s how it works.” He cast a frown in the other man’s direction before turning his eyes back to the road again. “You’re not invincible. You can still get decapitated or shot in the head. There’s a million and one ways to kill a tricky kill; haven’t I taught you anything?”

“I don’t think the demon’s getting us there to shoot me in the head,” Jesse said, his gaze even on Ben. “They wanted to do that, they could’ve done it by now. You’ve taught me enough so I can be careful.”

“I appreciate the sentiments, but the answer’s still no,” Ben said. He worked his jaw for a few seconds before continuing on. “You heard the psychic. They’re expecting us. We have exactly zero chances of this even working out, Jess, and I need you alive.” He swallowed. ( “You need to get her back to my mom if I can’t.” )

Claire’d lost track of how much - or how little - sleep she’d had in the last few days. With everything that’d happened, the only thing that separated the days was the light and darkness, but even then, she’d lost count. The only thing keeping her conscious was the subliminal buzz of necessity: Ben’s sister needed finding. They were short on time, not just sleep...

But it’d do no one any good if they drove off the wooded back road into a tree or a fence. The blue lights on the dash reminded her that it was roughly four in the morning. Jesse was asleep in the back, and both her and Ben were obviously running on fumes.

She had difficulty staring past the ghost of her own reflection in the rest-area vending machine glass. A massive bottle of generic citrus soda condensing in her hand, the other pressed a random combination that dropped what looked like a bag of Funyuns down to the push-drawer. On closer inspection, the bag turned out to be Reeses Pieces.

This diet’s gonna kill me someday... she thought to herself, and cracked open the soda.

Ben was leaning against the car, looking very much like he was two seconds from falling asleep standing up. Everything inside him hurt, and the burning hatred in his chest felt like it was eating him alive. It killed him being away from his mother, and knowing that his sister had been a victim of his work was nothing short of devastating. He had never hated anything so intensely in his life than that day.

He kept playing with his phone, hoping for some word, some sort of sign, when suddenly it jumped in his hand and started ringing. He nearly dropped it in his haste to answer it.

“Ben?” Matt Carter’s voice cracked through the speaker, sounding flustered and frantic at the hint of a pick-up, but no voice on the other end.

“Sorry, sorry,” Ben said in a rush, bringing it up to his ear. “What’s wrong? Is she okay?”

“Yeah--” Matt replied, cutting himself off; obviously having some difficulty with his words. “Yes, she’s awake now, and...”

“And what?” Ben pressed, a hundred different emotions warring inside him for dominance. “Can I talk to her? Is she okay?”

“She’s with the doctors right now, but--Ben, it looks like she’s perfectly fine.” Matt’s own voice vibrated, baffled, grateful, but confused--and always with the undercurrent of worry about his daughter.

Ben felt his stomach bottom out. It took Matt calling out his name twice before he responded.

( “How?” )

****

The sea of people spread out farther than Jesse could see. A million bodies, a million faces, all turned towards him. Their eyes shone, attentive, admiring. Reverential. Waiting for him. It made him feel stronger, taller. He met every gaze with a steady, unwavering strength.

“They’re ready for their orders,” came a voice from behind him. “They’re ready for you to lead them into glory.”

Jesse’s back straightened, determination pulsing through him. There was no doubt the battle before them would be bloody, but victory was right in his hands.

“I’m so proud of you,” the voice said, a hand coming to rest on his shoulder. “This is where you belong, leading the way into a new world order. This is what you were born to be.”

Jesse turned to look up at the man behind him, the only one he felt more worthy to stand here than himself. He found himself staring as the road raced by just on the other side of the glass. He jerked back, looking around, finding Claire next to him, driving.

“Wha-what just happened?” he said, his heart racing.

Claire loosened her grip on his arm when he jarred awake, but her hand stayed there, the other on the wheel. She switched her eyes back and forth between the road and the faint blue dash-glow on Jesse’s face--her own painted with a mild worry.

“You were dreaming. Didn’t look pleasant, either.”

“D-dreaming? I-- no, I was somewhere else, it was--” He gave a shiver. It hadn’t been pleasant; it had been amazing. Frighteningly so. “I was transported or something.”

Claire made a confused, but skeptical face and shook her head. “Not that I saw.” She pulled her hand back after a gentle, reassuring squeeze, and set it on her own thigh. His words played over in her head. She understood the notion of thinking dreams were real--some of hers could be damn vivid--but there was just something about his tone that kept striking chords. A quick glance in the rear view mirror found Ben still sound asleep across the back seat. Claire wondered, automatically, if he was dreaming too.

“What did you see?” she asked softly, slumping back against the seat. She went back to driving with a couple of fingertips.

“There...there were all these people, standing, looking at me. Like some kind of...I don’t know. It was...I don’t know,” he said, looking at her, then at the road. “That’s never happened to me before. You think that was a dream?”

One of Claire’s brows lifted as she glanced back at him. “You mean you’ve never dreamed?”

He looked over at her uncertainly, running a hand over his face. “No. But lots of people don’t have dreams, right?”

Her brows pushed down over the bridge of her nose, but Claire didn’t answer right away. Jesse was a special case, even if they didn’t know the specifics. She guessed it wasn’t impossible that he’d gone his whole life without dreaming. So what did that mean this was?

( “What else do you remember?” )

****

It was Claire’s turn to drive, which left Jesse in the passenger seat with nothing to do. Ben was passed out in the back. The moment he’d gotten the call that his mom was awake and doing well, the stress had seeped out of him and left exhaustion behind.

Jesse, on the other hand, felt like he was going to fly to pieces. It wasn’t just everything that had gone down with Ben’s family, though that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t even the talk with the demon. It was Claire. Claire, who’d rung up an angel to find out what was going on. It’d been unnerving enough to hear that she was open to the angel possession thing. Now if she was just going to chat with them whenever she wanted, he was bound to come up. And what angels would have to say about him wouldn’t be good.

“It’s good about Ben’s mom, right?” he said, trying to fill the silence.

Claire pulled the Mountain Dew bottle from her lips and twisted the cap back on, momentarily driving with her knee. The question seemed somehow...off. Definitely out of the blue, if anything.

“‘Course it is,” She looked at him with a slightly quizzical expression, then paid attention to the road. “How do you think he’d be if she was still on the edge?”

“Yeah,” Jesse said, his lips pursing. “When I met those hunters, they told me staying around might be dangerous for my parents. Glad I listened to them. Don’t know if I could have gone through something like that.” Claire nodded once, but rolled her lips a bit. She tasted sugar and citrus flavoring, though she didn’t register them consciously.

“He’s still going through it,” she said after a pause. Her voice, a bit softened.

Jesse took a sharp breath. “We’ll find her. And we’ll make that damned demon pay,” he said, no doubt in his voice. Claire breathed in deep, agreeing, but keeping herself mildly restrained. There was no time off until this was over; she’d be perpetually serious from here on out.

Perhaps that’s why she switched hands on the wheel, and laced her fingers with his, squeezing lightly. It wasn’t a formal response, but it was clearly honest.

Jesse looked down at their hands, squeezing back but frowning. It seemed wrong, to want to talk about what had happened between the three of them when they had much more important things ahead of them. But they had time, and he’d rather talk things out with Claire first. She was more even-keeled about this kind of thing; after all, she hadn’t tried to exorcise them the first time they met.

“When we’ve got Krysta back, I think it might be a good idea if I went away a couple weeks,” he said quietly, not yet willing to pull his hand away.

“What?” Claire’s response was completely automatic, same as the slight double-take. The statement was as surprising as the sudden lurch in her stomach at the thought. She looked back at the road, though. “Why?”

His jaw tightened. This time he did pull his hand away, in case she was going to pull back hers. “You know I can get people to do what I want. The thing is,” he said, the words coming out slow and carefully chosen, “I can’t always control it completely. And I think I might be doing that to you and Ben.”

Okay..., that fear made sense, but at the same time it was near impossible to wrap around her mind. She could still feel the warmth from his hand leaching out of her palm. Her fingers curled in tight, then set on the wheel for something to occupy them. Claire inhaled deep, trying to keep her thoughts balanced with her words.

“Because of last night...” Over the din of all that had happened since then, it was coming back to her. How he’d reacted...

Jesse nodded, his eyes directed out the windshield. “We’re together constantly, night and day. I haven’t had that with anyone since... Well, never, actually. And I think, even though I wasn’t trying, some of what I want has been seeping into the two of you. I think that cutting off for a couple weeks will get that out of your system. And then...” He licked his lips. “Then we can talk about what everybody really wants.”

Claire listened attentively, well aware of the way direction this conversation was tightening a small vice in her stomach, as well as one in her heart. She sent him a sidelong glance, lingering as long as safe driving would allow. Jesse’s eyes were as distant as he tried to make his words; thin with reluctance.

( It was a few seconds before she spoke again, but she started with a soft, sad little laugh. )

TO BE CONTINUED...

- THEN -

NOW



Both Ben and his step-father were wrecks, sitting on either side of an unconscious Lisa, who was wrapped in several layers of gauze and plugged into life support. Matt hadn’t been able to explain what happened in his current state, so it had been up to the police officer on duty to tell them what had happened.

The fire department had yet to figure out the cause of the fire, but it was assumed that a gas line had ruptured. Matt had been on duty at the hospital the time.

( They hadn’t found Krysta. )
****

The air in the hospital hallway had shifted from heavy to nearly crushing. Claire felt a vaguely familiar pressure on her lungs not unlike when she was drowning, after Jesse relayed the cryptic game the demon from Dekalb was setting them to in exchange for the life of Ben’s little sister.

She felt every footstep vibrate like a tuning fork uncomfortably up her spine as she strayed a few doors down from where the Lisa Carter lay between the two men in her life, one whom Claire honestly would live and die for, even in the short time of knowing him. This wasn’t just bad--this had the potential to crush him completely. She could not--would not--let that happen.

She’d sent Jesse to jump to the hotel to gather their things and bring the GTO, but she hadn’t told Ben how dire the situation had truly been yet. It could wait the short time between now and when Jesse came back to collect them, so they could be on their way. The thought had crossed Claire’s mind to seek out Krysta with just Jesse, knowing how emotionally shredded Ben would be when he heard the news. She and Jesse would tear the world apart to preserve their friend’s family, and now she understood why. It was the same reason why she knew she couldn’t fight Ben to stay here with his mother while his sister was in danger. It was the reason why she ducked into an empty hospital room, making sure no one saw her, and shut the door.

The silence was deafening in this place, and Claire found it difficult to breathe. Her eyes stung from empathy tears she hadn’t shed, and likely wouldn’t until this was resolved. She kept her emotions carefully lidded, for necessities sake, and thought back to the other night outside the dance party.

( Kadiel... please find me. )
***

Already operating on too little sleep, his anxiety and fear for his mother sapped whatever energy Ben had left. He’d stared at her unconscious form for hours, hoping that she would wake up, praying with every fiber of his being that he at least get the chance to say goodbye. The day had been so perfect; for it to end this way would be nothing short of devastating for him.

Matt had refused to leave her side either, and nether man had said much of anything. When Ben finally fell asleep Matt stood, getting a spare blanket to drape around him. With his house in ruins and his daughter missing, Matt felt desperate and hopeless. The sleeping young man was his only tether. Once Ben was rested, he hoped to ask him to aid in the search.

Claire shadowed the room doorway just as Mr. Carter was covering Ben with a blanket. When he turned, she saw the skinned-raw pain in the older man’s eyes, and it coiled something wretched in her spine. A sad, commiserative look passed over her features. She wanted to tell him that his wife would be alright, but the situation was more complicated than she had time to explain. First thing was first.

“You could use some coffee...” Claire started warmly, then tipped her head toward the hallway. “The Starbucks in the cafeteria closes in a few minutes.”

Mr. Carter nodded and smiled faintly at her, but it didn’t touch his eyes.

(  “Thank you for being here for him. We were so glad to hear he wasn’t alone anymore.”  )

Despite what Ben told his mother on the phone, he couldn’t find it in him to ask Claire to drive in her current state. And after asking if Jesse knew how to drive and getting a rather vague answer, that really only left him as a suitable driver. Three hours in Claire finally convinced him to pull into a gas station so that she could drive, which Jesse interjected by saying he was more than happy to, but Ben ignored them both and climbed back into the driver’s seat. By the time they finally got to the hotel he was nearing zombie state, his eyelids heavy and every muscle in his body aching. He moved toward the hide-a-bed on automatic, but felt someone’s arms steer him toward a bed instead. After that, everything else faded away.

When the first slants of light finally hit him from the window he groaned and put a pillow over his face, ineffectively blocking out the awareness that was slowly seeping into his head. All he wanted to do was sleep.

Jesse noticed Ben’s movements and tip-toed a little quieter around their kitchenette. None of them had exactly gotten a decent amount of sleep, but Jesse and Claire had already been out to grab a few things. The little round cake was set up on the table, ( just waiting for the birthday boy to get up. )

------------------------------

It wasn’t a big gathering, which Ben was secretly glad for. His biological grandparents were currently summering in Florida, and Matt’s parents were more doting on Krysta anyway, so that only left his mom, step-dad, sister, and his two friends. Krysta was currently bouncing away on the trampoline. Ben was staring at the pool and seriously considering changing into trunks to get in. It’d been a long time since he’d swam, and he definitely hadn’t had the chance back at the Dells.

As he settled back and waited for the food to be finished, his mom kept bringing the phone out to him. At least four of his friends from high school had called to wish him a happy birthday, having had some sort of clue-in that he’d be around Arcadia that year. Ben guessed it was mostly his mother’s doing. She could be really crafty when she wanted to be. In fact, he was a little surprised she hadn’t tried to orchestrate some sort of surprise party, but he had a feeling the only reason she hadn’t was because he hadn’t given her a definite time.

“You know you should still have some trunks in your room,” Lisa noticed the deliberating look her son cast toward the pool. She tucked the cordless in her back pocket when he handed it to her, then leaned on the edge of the picnic table next to him, her thumbs hooked on her front pockets.

She looked Ben over from that higher angle, instinctively scanning for any hint of injury or need. Having him home any time was bittersweet, but the added bonus of his birthday thickened her natural, desperate desire to keep him close and safe. It was a need she’d kept quiet -- relatively quiet -- in the last couple years, but she still felt it with an acute sharpness.

Ben frowned thoughtfully, looking over at where his friends were mulling about. ( Finding trunks wasn’t really a problem when Jesse could make a pair for him out of thin air, but he had a feeling his mother might notice. )

------------------------------

The greatest thing about being at a bar on a birthday was the free drinks. Some of the joy in it was sorta gone given the fact that they were paying with monopoly money for the rest and Jesse could turn water into Scotch without even breaking a sweat, but Ben loved the atmosphere of a bar on his birthday. Everyone was smiling and wishing him well. The only thing that made it better was being with his two favorite people in the world.

“You guys are awesome,” he said, his voice jovial from his fourth shot and third beer. “I mean it. I dunno where in the world I’d be if it warn’t for you.”( Eaten by vampires, and I'da been chopped up by ghosts. )

TO BE CONTINUED...

Claire was at church, much like every Sunday since they had started traveling together. Outside of his daily showers, it was the only time that Ben was separate from her. Since Jesse’s joining them, however, even that had changed. To be completely truthful, Ben didn’t really mind. He’d been hunting mostly lone for the past seven years; it felt good to have company again. He didn’t feel the need to fill every single hour with hunting down monsters and his father when he had them there.

The only problem was that Jesse was still green to everything. Claire had taken up teaching him how to defend himself without his powers, and since he was supposed to be injured Ben opted to take up the more “geeky” of the options: monster facts and hunter knowledge basics. Of course, that job came with at least two dilemmas: first, that his patience was thin when he was frustrated; second, that Jesse was not the bookish type by a long shot. Ben was half-tempted to get Claire to pick up that part of the training as well, seeing as it would be more challenging to Jesse to defend himself and to try recalling hunting trivia at the same time, but pride held him back.

“What do you do to banish a ghost?” Ben asked without looking up from his notebook.

“Burn the b’nes.” Jesse’s answer came out a bit muffled because he was currently balancing a pen between his nose and upper lip.

It wasn’t that Jesse didn’t appreciate Ben’s effort, or that he didn’t understand the importance of what he was learning. There was just so much he could take in a day. He’d never had to be attentive in school in the first place, so it was hard to start now.

“What do you do before you burn them?” Ben asked, looking up with a slight frown on his mouth.

“S’lt,” he said, his eyes crossed in concentration. That was an easy thing. Salt took out most things, including him.

Ben flipped through a few pages of his notebook. “Of these three things, what works to disable a vamp: holy water, dead man’s blood, or garlic?”

Jesse hesitated a moment. “Dead ma--fuck.” He caught the pen as it tumbled then leaned back for another try. “Blood.”

“Dead mafuck blood?” Ben asked, his lips twisting in a small smirk. “Is that your final answer?”

Jesse snatched the pen away with a grin. “Dead man’s blood, asshole.”

“Don’t make me hit you with a yard stick, boy,” Ben said in his best old-granny voice, the flipped a few more pages.

“List three creatures affected by iron.”

Leaning forward on his knees, Jesse thought. “Demons.” Easy. “Ghosts.” Probably. And.... “Vampires?”

“Wrong,” the younger man answered. “One more try.”

With a huff, Jesse leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. If it was one of those stupid complicated things he’d never heard of before, he wasn’t going to remember. “Witches?”

“Legend,” Ben said. “Witches can be as normal and apple-pie as the chick at Taco Bell. Faeries.” He looked down at his book again, trying to find something a bit harder to go from. He could have him work on his Holy Water Latin, but Ben had a feeling Jesse would stop cooperating if he did. He was honestly surprised the other man had lasted this long without wanting a smoke break.

“What’s the easiest way to tell someone is a skinwalker?”

“Stab them with a silver knife,” Jesse said, his hand swiping the air.

“A less dangerous way to check if someone’s a skinwalker,” Ben rephrased, smirking a little. “We can’t just go stabbing people.”

“Maybe you can’t,” Jesse said, before running his hands over his face. Right. Skinwalkers. “Well if someone you know is acting funny, you can try stabbing them.”

“Retinal flare in a camera,” Ben informed him, frowning just a little. “It’s a safer bet, and it saves a bail-out from jail for first-degree assault.”

“Right. I’ll just make sure and take a camera everywhere if I think a skinwalker’s around,” Jesse said, facing Ben in a slouch. “It’ll never see me coming.”

“You can check in a camera phone as well, dumbass,” Ben answered, grabbing a post-it note, balling it up, and throwing it at Jesse, who batted it away. “If it’s people killing people, it’s not our business. Creatures, spirits, and demons only. We can’t go stabbing people.” He looked down again at the open notebook in his lap.

Jesse wanted to snark at that, but it wasn’t worth the effort. Besides, he didn’t disagree. “Yeah, can’t save everyone. Just gotta be ready at all times.” He said the words blandly enough, as though parroting them from somewhere. ( So Ben didn’t see it coming until Jesse was up and tackling him out of his chair. )

- THEN -

NOW

Jesse was quiet on the ride back. Part of him was back sixteen years ago, on the night an angel had come to kill him, a demon had come to rescue him, and a man had told him he had a choice, so he picked neither. Part of him was stuck with that girl, how panicked she had been when she woke up, the confusion of everything she’d gone through, and the calm that had spread over her when Jesse helped explain those memories.

The demon had crawled inside her, used her like a puppet. Jesse didn’t need to get inside people. He made them puppets with words. How different was what the demon done to that girl from what he did to her? Not much. That’s why he’d felt it, deep in his stomach when he saw the girl Abbey. He’d recognized her, alright. He saw himself.

Ben had been excited to pull his prank once they were back home, but looking over at his friend where he sat, sullen and pensive, the excitement drained from him. They were on a hunt for real now; the party was over. There was no way to know if the demon had gone far, but by all accounts they needed to at least try to find out. It’d snatched whatever girl it had very deliberately. Maybe they could find a connection. His hand came up to Jesse’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

( “You okay, man?” )

***

Color Claire unsurprised when she ran through the usual routine when tracking someone to find Lisa Hale wasn’t anywhere to be found among co-eds or coworkers. A few phone calls from an untraceable pre-paid specifically purchased for the purpose resulted in what all three of them already knew: Lisa had uprooted. Because Lisa was--at least for some period of time--not Lisa.

But the trail hadn’t gone cold yet. With the security around public campuses as it was, just wandering into a dorm and asking around would’ve brought out attention she wasn’t keen on, but apparently the dorm the girl lived and worked in held a weekly event every Saturday night--a mixer for the surrounding dorms and off-campus students. Open to all.

Claire leaned close to the bathroom mirror, carefully drawing a dark brown liner just above her lashes. Her hair was finally dry, set in a slightly tighter curl than was natural, thanks to a pomegranate smelling cream. Combined with slightly heavier make-up around her eyes and the slightly revealing outfit, she thought she looked like a twenty-one year old ready to ‘hit the bar’ for her own self-destructive initiation into adulthood. Claire rolled her shoulders back and stared hard at the image. ( It reminded her of a few things from her past. )

***

They could hear the throbbing of the music from their parking spot along the street. The sidewalks were crowded with chatty women in tight clothes and the scent of beer was on the air. Jesse kept getting ahead of Ben and Claire and then had to wait for them to catch up. He was positively bouncing to get his first taste of college life. The walls of the building had even been decorated for the party, covered in squiggles of what must have been some serious glow-in-the-dark paint. They were practically giving off light.

He was already bobbing along to the band as they finally made it through the doors, pushing past the ring of smokers. They were pressed up against people it was so crowded and a blacklight made t-shirts and teeth glow. He knew they were there for a job and he had to be serious, but he just had to turn to Ben and Claire and tell them how cool it was. Only he stopped short, his eyes going wide.

( “You got some of that paint, too!” he said with a laugh, pointing and the elaborate circle that glowed on Claire’s chest. )

***

When they got back to the hotel, they found out that seven different people had been reported missing in the area. There appeared to be no real link between them, which made it all the more frustrating. Ben pulled his hair out as he went over the profiles with a fined toothed comb. They were varying ages, upstanding citizens, no major records on file, everything was squeaky clean. It made no sense. His head hurt. Were they all possessions? But why here and now?

“Doesn’t make any damn sense,” Ben muttered. If they were possessions, they would have just stayed in the area and corrupted the people not too unlike the one in the Thompson Hall had, but they were gone. It was as if they’d vanished. Jesse wasn’t much help, pacing the room. He hadn’t taken too well to Ben’s insistence that they stay. As far as Jesse was concerned, the job was finished enough.

“What were you going on about before? About glowing paint?” Ben asked, looking up from the screen. However, before Jesse got a chance to respond, Ben’s phone rang: Mama, I'm coming home / Times gone by seems to be / You could have been a better fri-- He picked it up quickly and put it to his ear.

( “Hey mom, it’s kind of a bad--” )

****

Elliot Prescott paused at the red light just before the turn-off for the interstate, rubbing his eyes and sighing. The red bull he’d drank earlier was finally starting to wear off, but he’d promised to pick up Taco Bell for his friend and potential girlfriend Haley when he was heading home from work. She was pulling an all-nighter on an essay that was due the following morning. It was the least he could do. Distractedly he turned his eyes off the road, catching the sight of a pretty blonde girl with her thumb out, walking up the street. It was enough to make him roll his window out.

“Y’need a ride?” he shouted out the window, his eyes moving back to the light briefly out of paranoia. She smiled at him and trotted quickly up to the car.

“My car broke down!” she replied, her accent foreign. He winced in sympathy and unlocked the door, which she slid into.

“Thanks so much, I was really starting to get creeped out by everyone who was stopping,” she said, bending over herself to rub her feet. She’d been wearing heels. Elliot once again felt sympathetic.

“Yeah, that was kind of a crazy idea. All kinds of crazies out this late. Don’t you have a cell?”

“Battery’s dead,” she said replied with a weak smile. Elliot made a noise of dissent as he changed lanes. It was another 20 minutes before they reached his primary side destination.

“I can let you out at the Taco Bell so you can use their phone, maybe?” he offered. The blond just shook her head.

“Nah, it’s okay,” she said. “I’ve got my charger on me. Can I use your lighter socket?”

“Yeah, sure, no problem.”

The blonde reached into her purse, but instead pulled out what looked like an old goblet, followed by a knife. He barely had a second to respond before she was pressing the knife to his throat.

“Pull over.”

“Shit!” Elliot breathed out emphatically, doing as she said. “Okay, easy!” They were off the road in mere seconds, but he was already shaking. Was this a robbery? Would she take his money, or the car, too? “Please don’t take my car, I’m still paying on it. Here, here’s my wallet--”

( “I don’t want your money.” )

Claire wasn’t normally one to partake in childish things; the latter part of her childhood had been put on fast forward, and she never went to college. She was barely used to things like mutual cohabitation in the last several years, so when she discovered every piece of underwear she owned crudely sewn together like a string of paper dolls--and the not-so-innocent faces on the two men that now shared her life--needless to say, she felt a bit out of her element.

Luckily, Claire was an expert at internet research. So as she endured going commando for a day (a fact both Ben and Jesse found perfect for comments), Claire stocked up on the finer points of dorm-like living.

She’d start small, she promised herself. Hence the reason why she woke earlier than normal the morning after she snuck out of bed once both of them were asleep. She’d found a lovely neon pink colored nail polish at the 7-11 last night, and now it adorned Jesse’s finger and toe-nails, complete with White-Out penned daisies on the end of each long, masculine digit.

That acrid smell in the room on top of the scent of breakfast and coffee she brought in for the three of them? Superglue. No nailpolish remover was getting rid of her work anytime soon.

It was the smell of food that woke him up first, though Ben noticed the subtle difference from what it normally smelled like. His nose wrinkled up in distaste as he slowly rolled onto his side and pushed up. It had been his turn on the pull-out couch, and even with the nicer-quality rooms that Jesse had gotten them used to lately, he still hated how low-to-the-ground they were. It always threw him for a loop.

( “Mornin’,” he said in a tired voice, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. )

***

It both felt like Jesse had been training forever and that he was completely new to it. Sometimes the moves would come easy, the learned steps as instinctive as breathing. Other times Claire laid him flat without hardly moving a muscle.

Practicing out on the overgrown lot behind the motel made that second option suck all the more. Jesse circled cautiously, watching Claire’s chest to see which way she’d move next. He had an already-healing scrape on his arm from where she’d tripped him up, but he managed to get to his feet before being pinned. He liked to think this was getting tougher for her.

Which, he was, and Claire didn’t miss an opportunity to let him know that. She was a firm believer in giving praise as a reward, and quickly correcting mistakes so that they’d be remembered. By this point, he’d seen most - if not all - of her coordinated ways to take him off guard, but it was the quick thinking on his feet that really mattered. Steam from the early morning chill puffed and evaporated with her breath, held on purpose a split second before she lunged at his side with a grab for his wrist and shoulder, then faked back and tried to sweep his weight-bearing foot out from under him.

( At the very last second, a blaring and unexpected noise screeched out from Ben’s direction. )

***

It was too short of a trip to get either of them back in the car, but Ben didn’t let that bother him. He did, however, take advantage of his position in the front seat and Jesse’s inability to see his hands by messing with any spare patch of skin on Claire’s body while she drove, much to her chagrin and pink-cheeked glances. He was pretty sure by the end of the drive he had her worked up, but Ben didn’t take it a single step further. Instead, he immediately went into the bathroom and locked the door behind him, making sure to take his bag and laptop along just to be sure they didn’t mess with his stuff while he was out of sight.

From her sit on the dingy trucker-hotel bed, Claire looked at the closed bathroom door for the fifth time in ten minutes, and shook her head. No doubt in her mind, now, that his disappearance was fully intentional. She went back to filling the shotgun shells spread on a towel in front of her with rock salt.

“He’s either brooding or wants us to think he’s brooding,” she said to Jesse without looking up.

“Or he’s jerking off,” Jesse said, capping the shells as she finished with them. “He’s got his laptop in there.” The twist of his smile said he was joking, though inwardly we wasn’t so sure.

( “I can hear you, yanno!” Ben shouted from the bathroom. )

***

The ride out to the abandoned sanitarium was relatively uneventful, but what greeted them when they arrived certainly wasn’t. The building was no longer abandoned and appeared to have been converted into some sort of horror-based amusement park. Ben stared at the building from the driver’s seat with a frown as he pulled into a parking spot as close as he could manage to get without being conspicuous. Maybe this was a dud hunt, but then he thought back to the stories about tourist spots being haunted; they weren’t always bogus. It still deserved a thorough look.

However, night-time seemed to be their main operating hours. The occasional shriek could be heard echoing through one of the many windows of the building, interlaced with the throbbing ambient music the proprietors had decided on.

“I’m gonna interview some of the people in the parking lot,” Ben said as he pocketed the keys. “Call me if any real ghosts show up.”

Don’t remember this from the stories, Claire thought to herself, scowling at the looming building, made orange by early dusk. Tourist trap or not, it still looked like it should be condemned, if it wasn’t already. Nevertheless, she slipped out of the passenger seat and held the door by a hip for Jesse. She dipped back into the open window, holding on the GTO’s roof.

“Quick rounds, we’ll be out in a half hour at most. If not,” she pressed her lips into that you know what to do expression.

Jesse nodded firmly, his eyes overly wide. “See you back here then.”

Ben nodded, watching as Claire started off before reaching out to grab Jesse’s arm briefly.

“Keep her safe, okay?” he said, low and quick.

It felt like a fist closed over inside Jesse’s chest. He could only manage a nod before he quickly followed after Claire. Ben didn’t need to worry. Jesse was going to do it right this time. He wasn’t leaving Claire’s side until she was back safe in the car.

The front walk to the main office of the complex was the only accessible path--everything else had been blocked off by chain link or sheet metal, obviously for security and cheesy industrial effect. Claire would’ve liked to make her own way in, but this was just a casing. If they needed, they’d come back later.

It was the inside of the building that threw her for a loop. Not fixed up by any means, but the space had definitely been altered to be ‘livable’, and right there in front of what had surely been a nurses station thirty years ago, two heads perked at the sound of their entrance. Claire looked at Jesse, mumbling, “Apparently we’re early,” before she set her eyes on the two behind the counter.

The brunet flashed a winning smile at them, adjusting his glasses with a push of his finger before barreling into what no doubt was a well-rehearsed speech:

( “Hello there, fellow ghost hunters! Welcome to the official Ghostfacers Haunted Asylum!” )

TO BE CONTINUED...