CHAPTER ONE: NO CALL, NO SHOW
"YOU KNOW, MY BUDDY isn't too happy about you hustling him at pool."
The owner of the voice slipped onto the seat beside her, a beer clutched in his hand. Her dark eyes flickered up, pausing her count of the cash she had received as winnings from hustling his buddy. The guy beside her looked harmless enough and at least fifteen times less stupid as his friend had. Dark hair, crystal blue eyes, attractive features, and an easy smile, just the kind of normal that she was looking for tonight. From the looks of the way he was eyeing her, he definitely wasn't over here to demand she give the money back or even try to really call her out for cheating. Shoving the cash — which was at least a hundred dollars, she figured as she thumbed through the last of the bills — into her back pocket, she swiveled her body on the bar stool, turning to face him.
"Who says I was hustling him?" the young woman questioned, voice tinged with amusement and a mischievous glint taking hold of her eyes. "Maybe your friend is just really, really shitty at pool."
That part was true, at least. His friend, a hulking Neanderthal named Brad, had been all too eager to show off, as if his skills at pool would be enough to get her in bed. To be fair, she had slept with men for less impressive standards, but that was also because she had been at least five shots of tequila and tequila always did make her horny. But that was besides the point. He had no skills to begin with. Brad, who was one letterman jacket away from being deemed a total frat loser lost in the French Quarter, had seemed to be far too enthusiastic about teaching her how to play pool which, as per usual with guys like him, turned into him just being up her back and touching her a little too much as he tried to teach her to shoot. He had been hook, line, and sinker from the moment she stepped up to the table and it hadn't hurt that he was a terrible shot on top of being overly gullible.
She had played along for a few shots, before she innocently batted her lashes at him, wondering if they could play a real game for money. Brad had laughed, thinking that not only was this girl going to be all over him but that he was going to get something a little extra on top. He had clearly missed the way that her eyes had darkened and narrowed in determination. What he hadn't missed, however, was how she sank every single one of her balls without mercy and had walked away with the spoils of war.
Brad hadn't been pleased. But he was nowhere to be seen as his nameless friend sidled up beside her at the bar, a charming smile adorning his lips as he laughed at her previous comment. "Oh, he is shit at pool. But you are definitely not a beginner. I've never seen someone play that well after claiming they've never even seen a pool table, unless they were hustling."
"Someone was going to hustle him eventually, sweetheart. Anyways, what is it? You here to get your friend's winnings back, then?" the girl asked, leaning one arm back against the bar counter. She was watching him carefully, studying him, already too aware of what he was going to reply with. He wasn't here for the money, he was here for. His eyes had been on her the entire time she had played against his friend, since the moment she stepped into the absolute dive of a bar. She licked her lower lip lightly, patiently waiting for his answer.
"Actually," the guy started, scooting his bar stool a little, before leaning his arms on the bar next to hers as he came closer to her. A lip was caught between his teeth before he gave that same charming grin from before. "I was wondering how a girl as pretty as you ended up in a dump like this, all by herself."
The girl laughed, a real loud laugh as the line he was trying to feed her sunk in. Smirking at him, she said, "That's cute. You use that on all the girls you pick up after they wipe the floor with your friend over there?"
He rolled his eyes at her playfully. "Not exactly. But I mean, I'm going to have to deal with his whining for the next week and a half . . . maybe I could get some sort of consolation prize?"
"You only get a consolation prize if you lose and it wasn't your ass I kicked in pool," she pointed out. But she was smiling, a real, genuine smile as she let her darks eyes roam over his body. Biting her lip, she continued. "But I guess I could help you out. Considering you'll have to listen to him whine about losing to a girl, like the forefathers of this patriarchal society raised him to."
He didn't even bat an eye at the patriarchal comment, instead leaning closer to her. "It'd be much appreciated. Maybe this could prize could, oh I don't know . . . " he started, pretending to think. "Your phone number?"
It was in that moment that a wild look appeared in her eyes and a seductive grin covered her lips. Cocking her head, she gave him a knowing look before told him, "How about I give you something a lot better than just a simple phone number. If you think you can handle me, that is."
Unlike his idiot of a friend, he picked up on what she was putting down very quickly. A tentative hand raised up, gently placing itself on her waist. The man paused, looking in her eyes to gauge her reaction. When she didn't bat him away, continuing to grin like a giddy teenager, he smiled. "Oh, I think I know just how to handle you. I'm Nick, by the way."
The brunette smiled at him, before two arms raised up, moving to wrap themselves around his neck. She brought him close to her, before whispering her name in introduction. "Silver. Silver Hargrove."
X
NICK WASN'T A BAD kisser, from what Silver could gather. Hell, he was actually sort of perfect at it. His mouth slotted with hers effortlessly, hungrily kissing her as they stumbled further down the alleyway.
They had only kissed for a moment in the bar before retreating outside of the establishment, clearly a little too focused on getting straight to the point than beating around the bush. Silver didn't mind — she was in this for a quick fuck, not some long and drawn out mess of perfectly timed moves. She had come to the bar for three things and three things only: drinks, cash, and sex. She had found the drinks in the cheap beer she had purchased upon entering. The cash came in the form of the money she swindled from the friend of the man who was currently groping her ass. And the sex was going to be found directly from him, even if it was to be in the dimly lit and somewhat grungy alleyway in New Orleans.
Silver didn't bother asking him if they could back to his place. Her luck he lived in a frat house or some sort of apartment with the same general atmosphere. And the motel that she was currently staying at was certainly not an option for two very explicit reasons.
The first was that the motel room was crawling with things that Nick shouldn't have to see. Things that would scare him, things that would alter his world forever. Between the newspaper articles that had collected on the walls over the course of four days, all illustrating brutal murders in the city over the last twenty years and the salt that lined every entryway, it was a hunter's paradise. Something that Nick shouldn't have to concern himself with, shouldn't have to warp his entire worldview like Silver had to two years ago. His parents weren't killed by a pack of skinwalkers. He wasn't going to suffer like she had. He was going to get a nice fuck and that was it. He would get to return to his life when it was done.
The other reason that Silver wouldn't — couldn't — bring him back to her motel room was because of the fact that her room didn't house just her. No, instead of having her own room, she was currently rooming with one Dean Winchester, a move to save more money. And Silver would rather die before she let Dean see her with another guy. Sure, he brought random girls back to motel rooms all the time over the course of the past two years, usually when they weren't on a hunt with his father, John. But bring them back he did and yeah, to some it might seem like Silver should have fair game on bringing home a guy, but at the end of the day, Silver and Dean were two people with very different motives to sleeping with random people on the road.
Dean fucked to get off, because he thought a girl was hot, because his lines on her worked. Dean fucked in the way a normal person with a normal libido would.
Silver, on the other hand, fucked to forget the fact that Dean Winchester would more than likely never see her as something other than a little sister, someone that he needed to protect.
In the grand scheme of things, Silver Hargrove never meant to fall for Dean. It was something that hadn't happened overnight, but simply over a long course of two years. He and his father had come into her life at her lowest, when the world seemed like it was ending after being flipped over on its head. Her mother and father had just been murdered in the most violent of ways. The thought of falling for Dean had never even crossed her mind at that stage.
Instead, it happened gradually. Over the course of months. Through training. Through hunts. Through early hour bar crawls and midnight stints at greasy diners. Through him saving her ass time and time again when her novice abilities screwed her over. Through him caring for her when the world got all too much, the days where she'd break down. Falling for Dean hadn't come on suddenly. But it had been easy as breathing. As instinctual as breathing, too. Silver didn't even try to like Dean. It just . . . happened.
Her feelings for him were utterly complicated. She was enamored, head over heels. The Kansas born boy had charm for days, a simple glance into his green eyes and she'd be putty in his hands. His feelings for her were simple. She was the new protégé that John had taken under his wing somewhat as a favor to her deceased father, a girl who had gritted her teeth when her parents died and demanded a shot to pick up a gun and take down the skinwalkers that changed her life. It was something she knew. She knew he didn't see her the way she saw him. Silver accepted it.
If she was smart, she'd get over it, over him. She should be pushing herself to get over him. She should make herself bring this guy back to the motel, let Dean even catch a glimpse of the guy she was bringing home. It would help her move on. She should do a lot of things, but she doesn't do a single one of them. In some weird way, Silver was terrified to let Dean know that she was sleeping around. Not because she was worried that he'd think poorly of her, she knew Dean wasn't like that. It was her body, he knew she could do whatever she pleased with it. She was afraid, because she was afraid that he'd think she was unavailable. In some weird section of her brain, she had somehow come to the conclusion that if she remained unattached and they continued to grow closer, that he would make a move.
It was horribly wishful thinking, but she continued to do it. Silver was a mess, that was for sure, but her feelings for Dean were also something that she was sure of.
And because of that, she had resigned herself to hooking up in an alley.
Nick pressed her against the wall, head in the crook of her neck and lips pressed up against the skin of her throat. He was kissing and nipping with his teeth, letting out low groans as Silver pulled on his hair. She could feel the man grin against her, his hand squeezing along the curves of her hips and ass as he did so.
"Still think you can handle me?" Silver teased as she brought his head back up to hers, pressing kisses along his jaw. Her hands snaked down low, drifting over right where he wanted her, before sliding back up to dip under his shirt.
"Oh, don't worry, babe. I got you covered," Nick replied. "It all really depends on what you want."
She pretended to think for a moment, before tugging him closer. "Tell me you have a condom on you and you can do whatever your little heart desires, sweetheart."
A celebratory grin covered his lips, indicating that he did in fact have a condom on him. Mentally, Silver rolled her eyes. All men really were the same. He brought his lips back to hers and Silver was content for a moment. He wasn't Dean, but he'd do. They always did. This was just a minor moment when she needed something, something more than what she could give herself. The girl needed something that wouldn't cost giving up hold of her heart and one-night stands were always the trick. She could feel herself losing herself in the moment, even with the rough brick of the bar's building pressing into her back.
His hand slipped from her hips, dipping into the front of her jeans as he tucked his head back into her neck, sucking on the skin there. Silver's head tilted back as far as it could go as he found what he was looking for. Euphoria began to spark. A moan left her lips. She bit her lip between her teeth as he continued to work his way along her neck and another part of her body, fully and utterly content.
You know, until her phone went off, that is.
"Fuck," Silver groaned, both from the sound of her ringtone blaring in her pocket and the sensation that Nick's finger — or was it fingers? She couldn't tell — were giving her.
"Is that you?" Nick mumbled from his spot against her neck, continuing to work her. And then, like a schoolboy, he laughed, "Dare you to answer it while I'm down here."
Silver giggled, questioning, "What, are you five?"
"Oh come on," Nick said with a chuckle. "You're getting fingered in an alleyway behind a shitty bar. Might as well have a little more fun. And if you answer it, I'll promise to make the end of this extra special."
"You're a literal child," Silver scoffed, before moaning again as he curled his fingers just right. "Fucking hell."
"Are you chicken?"
"I hope you know that I could probably snap your wrist with my thighs, Nick," Silver told him, before biting her lip. She took a shallow breath. "Fine, fine, I'll do it."
Nick grinned. His hand moved faster. "You like that?"
"J-Just . . . just stay quiet," Silver told him, letting out a shaky breath as she slipped the phone out of her pocket. She flipped it open, not bothering to check the name on the tiny little screen as she brought the phone to her ear and her other hand to the nape of Nick's neck. Biting down on her lip to suppress a moan, she then asked, "H-Hello?"
"Silver? Where the hell are you?"
Oh no. Oh God no.
It was Dean. Even without checking the caller ID, she'd know that voice anywhere, the same voice she'd grown accustomed to over two years, the voice that sometime plagued her dreams, both day and night. His gruff tone had a hint of panic laced to it as he rushed out his question, making her briefly wonder what was wrong. They had come to New Orleans on a case, but they had closed it early this morning and where planning on shipping out of The Big Easy the next day. So it couldn't be the thing they had been hunting, no, that thing was dead and gone.
Nick propped his thumb against another part of her . . . lower regions, causing Silver to gasp and remember just exactly what in the fuck was going on. She snapped back to reality, no longer caring about the possibilities of why Dean sounded slightly distressed. She was on the phone with the guy that she was borderline in love with — she knew she wasn't there yet, but Lord, was she close enough to taste the final bit of the fall — while another guy had his fucking fingers in her. When she had accepted Nick's childish dare, she had expected it to be a telemarketer or some shit. Not fucking Dean.
The long pause that the girl had taken had Dean speaking into the phone again. "Silver?"
Shit. Fuck her, honestly. She tried to steel herself as best as possible, before answering. "Y-Yeah? I'm here." she replied, trying her best not to stumble through the words. She clenched her eyes shut, trying to ward off the feeling that was pooling through her.
"You need to get back to the motel. I got a voicemail from Dad."
At that, Silver froze. "W-What?"
"He called when I was in the shower, left a voicemail. You need to come back to the motel right now, Goldie," Dean told her, slipping his god-awful nickname into the mix as if that would somehow make the situation seem less serious than it was.
John Winchester had been a topic of interest for the past couple of weeks. Since the very day that Silver had joined up with Dean and his dad, they had traveled as a team, worked jobs as a trio. There were only a few occasions where John allowed Dean to go off on his own hunts, follow leads, and take Silver with him. Silver liked to tease Dean about the fact that, even at twenty-six, he needed his daddy's permission to go out on hunts.
Dean would then bitch about how he could easily just leave her on some dirt road somewhere and take off in the Impala like nothing ever happened. Yeah, right. He'd say that and ten minutes later he'd be at the gas station and come out of the store with her favorite gummy bears.
But regardless of that, the past three weeks had been filled with a couple of hunts that filled the category of the times where John let Dean and Silver go off on their own. But for some reason, Silver had known that this time was slightly different than the others. When Dean and Silver had finally finished sifting through the piles and piles of mysterious disappearances and murders filtered through the papers, John had instantly told them that he wouldn't be going with them. In fact, he had pretty much ordered them to go alone and leave within the day.
John had stated that while they went down to Louisiana for some voodoo thing, he was going to check out some place called Jericho, California where there had been a bunch of disappearances over the last so many years. It had sounded like a heavy case for just one person, but neither Silver or Dean went against his order that they go elsewhere. Practically raised to be the perfect soldier, Dean took his dad's words as law. Silver, not having been raised like Dean at all, instantly saw through the way John had been acting. He had been hiding something. But she didn't dare bring it up.
That had been three weeks ago. And they hadn't heard a word from him. It was normal to go a few days without communication, but by day four, Dean had started getting antsy. He wasn't stupid, he knew that John had picked up a different hunt. John had made that bit clear. And not hearing from him, in this line of work? It was enough to make anyone's skin crawl.
"Get off," Silver murmured then, to Nick, tugging the phone a bit from her mouth.
Nick grunted in annoyance, before continuing his fingers work, not listening to her. "Just keep talking."
Silver's brow narrowed, disgust filling her veins. "Get the fuck off of me you dumbass."
"Oh, come on, babe."
"Who the fuck is that?" Dean interjected by Silver's ear, his voice filtering through the shitty speakers on the phone. His tone had shifted in an instant, turning from laced with panic to laced with protectiveness.
"Hold please," Silver said into the phone, before glaring at the man she had entertained the thought of going all the way with. Turning to Nick, she snapped, "I said, get off."
In an instant, she tugged harshly on Nick's neck, pulling him back as far as she could, while knocking his hand free from her panties. He stumbled back with the force of her push, eyes wild with confusion.
"What the fuck?" Nick questioned, tossing his hands out in question.
"Stop means stop asshole. Go fuck yourself," Silver snapped, an icy tone overtaking her once passion filled moan. She could feel her near high evaporating instantly at the mention of John Winchester. Not caring about Nick, Silver started back down the alley towards the busy street that was crawling with drunks. She ignored the way that Nick continued to yell out behind her, distant echoes of a finish and not getting his fair share. Not giving a single fuck, Silver flipped him off as she continued to head out of the alley.
Making it to the street corner and heading down the sidewalk to the direction of the motel, Silver brought the phone back to her ear. "Sorry about that, drunk assholes, y'know?"
"Yeah." Dean let out a chuckle, but even through the phone, Silver could tell it was forced. Silver bit her lip. Something was eating him alive over there.
"I'm headed back to the motel right now, I'll probably be there in like fifteen minutes. Do you wanna tell me what the voicemail said now or later?"
Dean sighed. "Yeah, hold on, I wrote it down." Silver could hear the shuffle of papers on his end. "He said 'Dean, something is starting to happen. I think it's serious. I need to try to figure out what's going on. Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger'."
At that, Silver grimaced. "Sounds charming."
"And that's not all."
"You mean the extremely ominous, apocalyptic vibes your dad left you in a voicemail isn't it?"
Dean paused a moment. "Goldie, there was EVP on it."
Stopping at a crosswalk, Silver furrowed her brow. Over the past two years, John and Dean had walked her through a good portion of the hunting life, filling in all the blanks that her family had left her. She stood at the street corner for a moment, furrowing her brow as she wracked her brain for the meaning of EVP. "You mean that spirit voice crap that can pop up on — "
"Recordings like voicemails, yeah."
Silver grinned. Heading through the crosswalk, she teased, "See, I told you I listen to you sometimes."
"Yeah, okay," Dean scoffed, clearly not believing her.
As she headed down a near deserted street save for the drunks that were stumbling around looking for a new bar, the girl shoved one hand in her jacket pocket. "So, what did the EVP say?"
"After I slowed down the message, ran it through a gold wave, and messed around with the hissing that was on it, I got 'I can never go home. Never go home'," Dean replied, and Silver swore she could hear the cringe in his voice.
"Well, that's not disturbing at all," Silver muttered to herself.
"He hasn't been calling us in weeks and this is the first thing we get from him . . . something's not right."
Silver had heard Dean panic before. Sometimes she'd hear it during a job, like that one time his gun jammed in Aurora. Or sometimes with the Impala — mostly with the Impala — especially the few times that he had let Silver drive it. And while his current tone wasn't full blown panic, it was tinged with the beginnings of it. While the Winchester men were absolute shit with talking about their feelings, Silver could see the care and respect that Dean held for his dad, clear as day. Not hearing from him in three weeks had been driving him up a wall, as much as he tried to hide that from Silver. He needed something, anything, to know that John was okay.
And so, despite the fact that Silver had been hoping for a day or two off, she asked, "So this probably has something to do with the case in Jericho, then. And even if it doesn't, it's the last place we knew John would be. You wanna head out tonight and go to Jericho?"
There was a pause. "Actually . . . I was thinking that we should head to Stanford first."
Silver pulled a confused face, even if the man couldn't see her. Stanford? Like the city? Or the school? "Why the hell would we go there? Dean, your dad was supposed to be in Jericho. If we want to find him, we should probably start — "
"We need to get Sammy."
Silver froze for the second time that night. Sammy. Sam. Sam Winchester. It was a name she knew well enough, despite the way that the Winchester men seemed to avoid the topic at all. From the small bits of information that she had managed to wrangle out of them in the past two years, she knew who Sam was. Dean's little brother, John's second and youngest son. She knew that he was as tall as hell, that he was twenty-two just like she was, his birthday only eleven days before her own. She knew that he had been only a baby when the Winchester's story of hunting had begun.
She also knew that he had been the one to get of the hunting life at age eighteen, deciding that he wanted to make something more of himself, wanted to go to college. That was four years ago. Four years since he had last spoken to John. Two years since had spoken to Dean.
He was an off-limits topic with the Winchesters for the most part and the name was practically forbidden. John didn't care to talk of him. Dean only spoke of him rarely, off handedly, absentmindedly before he'd come to his senses. In fact, Silver was certain this was the first time in months that she had heard the name spoken.
There were a thousand questions on the tip of her tongue, so many things about Sam that she wanted to ask. Did Dean know where he was staying? Had it really been two years since he spoke to his brother? How come he had stayed in contact with Sam for two extra years than his father? What was Sam majoring in? These and many more had been burning within Silver for two years, the first time she had come across the fact that Dean wasn't an only child like she had assumed for the first few months of staying with the Winchesters. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to ask.
The big question was why they needed Sam at all. Silver was a novice at hunting, sure, but she was still valuable. Her father had been a hunter, one of the best, only stopping when she had been born. That's how John knew her father, through hunting. Even though Rick Hargrove had stopped hunting the things that went bump in the night before John Winchester picked up the fight, he still helped out in the hunting world. That's how they had met.
And it's why when the news spread of Rick and Nannette Hargrove's brutal murder — listed in the news as an animal attack — John and Dean had been the first to show up to finish off the skinwalkers. What they had found was Rick's twenty-year old daughter who had been shielded from a lot of hunting related things.
When Silver first asked to help finish off the skinwalkers, they Winchester men had looked at her like she had grown three heads. And then, she had fired off a gun, an expert shot, showing that while Rick had kept specifics of hunting out of the picture, he had still taught his daughter how to defend herself. She wasn't as useless as she looked. Which, again, begged the question of why Dean thought that they needed to get Sam.
Surely, the youngest Winchester would most likely want nothing to do with this, even if it involved his very own father. They hadn't spoken in four years and it sounded to the Hargrove girl that that particular bridge had been permanently burned.
So, this sent another round of questions through her mind. Did Dean want Sam to come along for back up? Did he think that he needed more help on top of Silver? Or simply did he just need his brother on this? Was there any real need to make a pit stop in Stanford? Was there a need to interrupt the life that Sam had managed to forge for himself, away from the person that he had been forced to be?
But instead of asking all the things she wanted answered, Silver nodded to herself, picking up the pace as she headed back to the motel. And it was then that she uttered four words that, while simple, would potentially change the course of everything.
"When do we leave?"
I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. I have a lot planned for Silver and I'm ridiculously excited to get it going!