"This is Dean's other, other cell so, you must know what to do."
The sound of beeping filled the motel room and Indiana hesitated before speaking, voice trembling softly.
"Hey, this is Indiana. Indiana Leason. Look, I don't know if you remember me. We met a few years back on a hunt and you told me to call if something ever came up," she breathed deeply. This was a new low for her, asking another hunter for help. Especially if that hunter happened to be Dean Winchester. Yes, he was good at what he did, but he also had a tendency to leave a string of deaths wherever he went. Or so she'd heard- somewhere.
Still, she needed the help. With three deaths on her shoulders and still no lead on what caused them, Indiana was way out of her depth.
And then there was Karen, but she couldn't think about her. Not here, not now.
"I need help," she continued, the words having trouble escaping her mouth. "I'm in West Virginia, so if you're in the area...give me a call." She hung up.
Indiana awaited his answer impatiently, hating herself every time she checked the phone. If he wanted to call, he'd call, and no amount of stressing out was going to change that.
What she could however do was take a shower and get the day's sweat off her body, not to mention the tears. Plus, warm water tranquilized the mind, or so she'd read.
Shooting the screen one last glance she grabbed a towel. If there were no new missed calls when she was done, then and only then, she'd try calling him again.
Sighing, she shuffled to the bathroom, leaving the door ajar. She'd still need to hear the phone if it rang, she told herself as a way of consolidation. It had nothing to do with being afraid, nothing at all.
The water hit her back, instantly warming up her whole body, feelings of patheticness settling in as a new wave of anguish and tears hit her.
It was then, with a tear stricken face and a patched voice, that the phone decided to ring.
"Fudge!" Indiana grunted, because swearing was a sin, and she did not sin, as she turned the tap off and wrapped a towel around her arms, grateful for a distraction.
She scrambled to the phone, picking it up a bit breathless as she held the cloth in a tighter knot, wiping her face and sniffling her nose.
"Hello?" She said, looking around for her shoes. The floor was very cold and not a pleasant feeling at all to her exposed feet. Didn't this place have heating? At all?
"Indiana?" Dean's voice called from the other side. "You okay?"
She laughed nervously, clearing her throat in the process. "Yeah I'm fine, you just caught me getting into the shower," She explained and then frowned upon realising what just came out of her mouth. Seriously? He did not need to know that!
"Right, I meant the phone call," He said slowly.
"Oh, that. There's a case here, in Virginia, and I kind of need your help." Not a complete lie in her defense, but a somewhat omitted and changed variation of the truth.
"Case? Since when do you hunt?"
She ran her spare hand through her hair. "I don't, not really-it's complicated." That was an understatement. "Look, can you come or not?"
There was some muffled talking on the other side before he agreed, informing her he'll be there first thing tomorrow morning.
"There's a park near where I'm staying. Little Beaver State Park, Beckley. I'll meet you there."
Once disconnected she let out a long puff of air. Time to finish that shower then.
The following morning Indiana was perched on a park bench, hair a mess and outfit crumpled. She kept forgetting to iron it, and the creases, although barely noticeable, bothered her.
Dean spotted her almost immediately, the park didn't have a lot of visitors.
"That's her," He signaled to Sam. His brother had been hesitant to come, insisting they had more troublesome things to do than helping a fellow hunter. They still needed to find their MIA father after all.
But they had no current leads, Dean had argued back. And Indiana wasn't a hunter the last time-and only time-he'd seen her, so basically they were just on a normal case where, coincidentally, they knew someone. Well, Dean did, Sam had been at Stanford at the time.
"Hey," He says, approaching the blonde.
"Dean!" She exclaimed, face lighting up when she saw him. She went in for a hug but decided last minute to shake his hand, resulting in what ended up looking like a weird handshake she didn't want to think back on, ever.
"And you must be Sam," she greeted the younger Winchester, smiling. She'd never seen him in person, but his reputation preceded him like his brother's. And the deaths, so many deaths. But she tried to skim past that part.
"I'm Indiana Leason, an...acquaintance of your brother per se."
"Nice to meet you," Sam frowned unsurely, but reached out and shook her hand nevertheless. His handshake went by more smoothly and Indiana internally praised herself before realising how pathetic what she was doing was.
"So, what's going on?" Dean asked, straight to the point as always. Or so Indiana deducted, she didn't know him well enough to say, but he seemed like the type.
"Right," she clasped her hands together. "There's this case we've been working on, and, honestly, I'm swamped. I have no clue what I'm hunting," She sighed heavily. "And we're up to three victims...in the past two days," Pause. "Last night it-well it took a fourth person, hence the call," She gestured.
"What's the time-frame been for the others, between getting snatched and killed?" Sam inquires, eyebrows creased. He'd noticed she'd spoken in plural, but skimmed past the detail, storing it as a grammatical error.
"It's varied from three hours to ten. Hopefully, this one is the latter." It had to be, otherwise, Indiana would never be able to get past this. It was her fault, after all. All of it was. They should have never come here in the first place.
"Okay, that gives us some time," Dean tried to smile, eyes tired from the drive. When Indiana had called, the brothers hadn't exactly been in the vicinity. " Any idea where the victim was last seen? Name, people she was with?"
Here it was, the question she'd both hoped and prayed they would and wouldn't ask. "She was at a bar called 'The Jungle', just like all the others." She didn't need their pity, she scolded herself. She had to put up a solid front, stay strong. But who was she trying to fool? She wasn't strong, or brave, or fierce, or any other of the qualities hunters usually possessed. "Her name is Karen Leason, and she was with me."
Dean frowned, "Karen? As in your sister Karen?" He asked, perplexed. Oh, did he 'remember' Karen-good times. But now was not the time or place to be reminiscing on those memories, not with her sister present. Especially with what he seemed to remember was her very prude and catholic sister.
Indiana nods, concentrating on keeping her tears at bay. Now was not the time to cry, she had to concentrate, work the case. For Karen.
Sam cleared his throat. Alright, this changed things. "Dean?" He shooted his brother a pointed look, for he seemed to have spaced out. Not the best reaction, nor the most professional.
"Two days? Maybe some sorta witchy ritual?" Dean suggested, gradually snapping out of it.
Sam nodded his agreement, "Could also be Wendigo, coming out of hibernation?" He added in.
"That's why I called you guys in. At first, I thought vampire, but...well I'm not so sure anymore," Indiana shrugged with a grim voice. Hunting, she'd established, was not her forte.
"First victim was found right over there," She pointed over at a tree, ten feet away. "Name was Carla Brenson, twenty-six years old. They found her three hours after her roommate reported her missing."
"Is there anything you've found that connects the vics?" Sam asked, just as Dean opened his mouth to say the same thing.
"Apart from the bar? Yeah, they were all blonde women in their twenties." It should have taken her, she also fitted the profile, she thought darkly.
"And you've already checked the place out?"
"Yeah, last night," She answered Dean. "Left five seconds to go the bathroom, when I came back Karen was gone. She wouldn't answer my calls or texts."
And that was when she'd called them.