Summary: Sam and Dean pick up a hitchhiker, a sixteen-year-old girl. Though she's perfectly fine with riding silently in the car all the way to New Mexico, trouble finds them quickly.
Rating: K+
Three Miles an Hour
Chapter 1:
Sam looked up from his laptop to the door of the motel room as Dean walked in, shutting the door behind himself. Sam was comfortably sitting at the small table, or sitting as comfortably as one could in a wooden chair, his feet propped up on the bed as he scanned the Internet for anything of interest.
"Hey, sleeping beauty finally woke up," Dean said with a smile.
"You're the one who got six hours of sleep yesterday in the car." Sam glanced at the clock on his laptop, realizing that he'd lost track of time. "The note said you left at noon. What took you so long?" he asked, looking back to Dean.
"Well, there was this little old lady crossing the street on the way to the sub place, so you know me…" Dean murmured absently.
"You ran her down in your haste to get food and had to stop to mourn the damage to the Impala?" Sam asked, proud of himself for how well he kept a straight face.
Dean narrowed his eyes at Sam and tossed the sandwich none-too-gently at his head, snapping, "Smartass." Sam caught it one handed, which increased the intensity of the glare.
"Uh huh," Sam said with a dry smile. He unwrapped the sandwich, took a bite, and chewed and swallowed before speaking. "We should be able to make it to Corona by nine if we leave in like ten minutes."
"Awesome," Dean replied.
After finishing their lunch, the two brothers gathered up their few belongings and took off, Dean behind the wheel, Foreigner blaring from the speakers. The scenery mostly included fields and farms, giving them few interesting things to look at, though the weather was warm and sunny so they kept the windows down for a while.
They drove mostly in silence for an hour or so before Sam straightened up in his seat, narrowing his eyes. "Is that a kid?" he asked, staring down the country road at the outline of a person walking.
"Huh. Looks like." Dean turned down the music and slowed the Impala as they reached the girl, who lowered her thumb and approached Sam's open window.
"Where you headed?" she asked, shifting the duffle on her shoulder.
"Ah, south. Central New Mexico," Sam said, staring at the girl. He estimated she was about sixteen and knew she couldn't have been older than eighteen. Short brown hair framed her face, not quite messy but it looked like it could use a cut. The duffle she had was big enough to live out of but small enough not to strain her if she needed to walk for a while. "You okay?" he asked.
"I'd be better if I was going faster than three miles an hour," she replied. "Give me a lift?"
Sam nodded slowly. "Yea, sure."
The girl opened the back seat, getting in and shifting her duffle around so it sat on the seat next to her before she shut the door. Sam looked to Dean for a moment and mouthed a single word to him, a questioning, worried expression on his face.
Dean gave him a short nod and turned in his seat, looking back at her. "Can I ask…how old are you?" he asked, his green eyes slightly troubled.
"Still jail bait," she said without hesitation, her face carefully blank.
Dean blinked. "Uh huh. Can I ask what the Christo a girl your age is doing hitchhiking?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't have money for a car, much less a license, and public transportation leaves a trail," she said, raising an eyebrow right back at him.
Dean looked over to Sam for a second before looking back to her. "And getting rides from strangers doesn't worry you?"
"If it didn't worry me, that would worry me. But the chances of running into something hitchhiking that could top the rest of my life are slim to none," she told him.
Both of Dean's eyebrows rose at that one. "O-kay," he said with a sigh. "I'm Dean. That's Sam." The girl stared at him silently. Dean nodded once. "And you don't care." He turned and faced forward, taking his foot off the brake and starting off again, turning the music back up.
Time slid by, each of the passengers in the Impala mostly silent. Though obviously curious about the girl, Sam and Dean said nothing. Sam took out a book to read after a while to pass the time. After another two hours or so passed, Dean spoke up. "Sam. Pit stop?"
"Yea," Sam replied, slipping a bookmark into his novel and setting it on the floor.
Dean pulled into the parking lot of a rest stop, parking, and each of them got out of the car, the girl taking her duffle with her. "We'll take off in like five minutes," Dean said, looking to her. "You sticking with us?"
"Yea," she replied. "I'll use the bathroom and meet you back at the car."
They walked into the small store, Sam holding the door for the teenager, and went into their respective bathrooms. Dean came out first, buying a bag of chips and soda before heading out to the car. He snacked on some as he waited. Sam came out a minute later, also with some chips and soda.
After waiting a while for the girl to come out, Sam glanced at his watch and then to Dean. "You said five minutes."
"That I did. You'd think with her attitude before that she would want to take off," Dean replied, looking over his shoulder at the small convenience store. "Want to see what's taking her?"
Sam sighed and nodded. "Yea." He got out of the car, shutting the door, and walked back inside and over to the woman's bathroom, knocking a few times. "Hey," he said, suddenly realizing he didn't know her name. "Uh, it's Sam. You in there?" He paused and, getting no response, he narrowed his eyes in confusion and knocked again. "Hello?" He opened the door a foot or so, looking in.
At first Sam didn't see anything, but as he was about to close the door, he spotted a shadow in a stall that shifted slightly. Pursing his lips, he glanced down the hall for anyone looking, and noiselessly stepped into the bathroom, letting the door shut. He remained still, his back against the wall, ears pricked to hear the slightest sound.
It was another few seconds before someone spoke up. "Guess your ride's leaving," a male voice said. "So here are our options, Jasmine. We get out of here and I take you back to Iowa or I slit your throat and leave you here to bleed to death. If you think you can take me, you can go ahead and try, but I doubt you will. So you want to go with option one or option two?" Sam's heart started to beat faster. "That's the one I'd go with too. Move it."
As quietly as he could, Sam reached behind him and took out his .32 mm and waited as the stall door opened. As soon as he heard the first footstep, he walked quickly over and grabbed the girl's arm, pushing her behind himself. He took a step back as he pointed the gun at her assailant, cocking the weapon. "Don't move." The man froze, eyes narrowed dangerously. "Drop the knife. Kick it to me." The man simply stared at Sam. "Now."
Pursing his lips, the man let the knife fall from his hand and kicked it toward Sam. "Jasmine, pick that up," Sam said, not moving his eyes from the man in front of him. She did as she was told, shifting the duffle on her shoulder as she did so.
"You really don't want to get involved in this," the man said quietly.
"You're probably right," Sam replied. "But I've always been good at getting into things that are better left alone."
"You cannot possibly understand what's going on," the man told him.
Sam glared at him. "You want to give me a hint then?"
The man let out a shadow of a smile. "Sure." At that, his eyes flickered black.
Sam's eyes widened and he instinctively recoiled an inch or so. "Son of a…."
"Now look. You can shoot me with that gun all you want—," he started.
Sam didn't hesitate another second before leaping forward and slamming his fist into the man's jaw in a hard left hook, letting the gun drop to the ground. The man faltered and Sam grabbed a handful of his shirt, using the momentary astonishment to his advantage, and slammed the man's head into the ceramic toilet. "Exorcizamus te, omnis imundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestus—."
With a harsh thrust, the demon shoved Sam off of him and out of the stall and into the wall with a cry, and he fell to the ground. "Nice to meet your new friend, Jasmine. I'll tell Trevor you say hi," the demon spat. At that, with a harsh yell, the smoke flew from the man's mouth, expelled out of his body, and into a nearby air vent, disappearing.
Sam didn't hesitate before snatching his gun up from the ground and grabbing Jasmine's arm. "We gotta go," he snapped. Jasmine wasted no time dashing after Sam, past the store employee who had apparently heard what was going on, and outside.
"Dean! Let's go!" Sam yelled. Covering the ten yards to the Impala quickly, Jasmine and Sam got in. Dean, immediately upon hearing Sam's order, started the car, quickly getting them out of the rest area and back onto the highway.