PROLOGUE
It was the same boring, lifelong routine: eat, hunt, sleep, repeat. Life on the road was as far from enlightening and exciting as you could get. After you've been around the States a couple of times, every gas station, every diner, every hotel, every person, it all looked the same. It was only the moment that I was sinking a silver blade into a werewolf's heart, or slicing a machete through a vampire's thick, cold neck that I received any satisfaction for the "job" I have, the life I lead.
No matter where you went, you always saw things with hunter's eyes. It was easy to appear regular, ordinary; normal, but it was a whole other ballpark to actually be it. I was always looking over my shoulder, sleeping with a blade underneath my pillow, scouting seedy looking men in whatever bar or restaurant I was dining in, assessing their behavior, their body language, searching for clues; always hunting. It never stopped.
You learn to have a rucksack of supplies: a bible, dead man's blood, holy water; to draw a demon trap at your every doorway; to put lines of salt on every window sill. You learned to live a life that appears to be out of fear, but is crucial to survival. Once one knows there are monsters among us, it's impossible to forget. The screams of the people you lost, left behind or couldn't save remind you every day what you do and why you do it. The life of a hunter is a solemn, morbid one, where the only place you can go is down, and the more you lose as a consequence, the quicker your heart turns to stone. As a result of my life's endeavors, I am often referred to as a "cold bitch." Or maybe that's just what Cole says, I don't know.
Cole is my partner. Now when I say "partner," I don't mean it in the sense that we are attached in anyway that is beyond platonic. Cole and I have known each almost our entire lives.
Both of our remaining parents, our fathers, are the best of friends, so naturally Cole and I grew up around each other, it just happened to be in a brother-sister kind of sense. We argued over directions; when Cole purposely screwed up my order at Burger King just to piss me off; played Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who got the bed vs. the couch for the night, but at the end of the day, he had my back. And I'd always prefer two sets of eyes than one.
So we hunt together, on our own, and have been for the past three years. Our fathers were hesitant to let us go on our own at first, but witnessing Cole grow up into the widely perceived asshole that he is today, they figured we wouldn't get ourselves into too much trouble.
Over all the petty fights and occasional round housing, Cole and I didn't actually speak to each other all that much. It's not like we talked about home or even complained when we were tired or hungry, we just moved along, found leads, killed all the things that went bump in the night, grabbed a burger afterwards and called it a night. It was a moment exactly like that that I found myself asking Cole the question, "Do you ever think there's anything else for us?"
We were in St. Louis, at Mickey's Diner, a favourite, shoveling in burgers and fries coated in cheese, and discussing the day's kill, a djinn. I watched as Cole's mouth froze mid-chew, his jaw sharp and harsh as he stared at me, carefully calculating his response. "What did you just say?" He mouthed around his monstrous burger. This was a prime example of how most of our conversations went. I would ask something ambiguous, and Cole would first ask me to repeat myself and then relay the same answer to me: "You think too much." I groaned silently, muttering, "Forget it," and rolling my eyes briefly as I took a sip of my coffee, contemplating how someone as irrevocably handsome as Cole managed to be such an asswipe.
Standing at almost 6'6", Cole was lean and toned, especially from all the battles that we've endured over the years. Though his body is riddled with scars and marks, his face remained wholly intact and annoyingly attractive. He had dark hair long enough to tuck behind his ears, which he only ever did when we were trying to read a map, or when he first gets out of the shower. He assessed me silently, and quickly, his dark brown eyes searching my face for an answer I couldn't bear to give him. I mean, I took the hunting gig seriously, but Cole? He lived it. If I gave any indication of happiness on the "outside," as Cole likes to call it, he'd either drag me back to Washington to face our fathers, or put me down where I stood. Or sat. Whatever.
I'd learned to deal with Cole's temperament and attitude a long time ago, and through the long, agonizing process of elimination, I settled on a never-fail method: ignore him. No one could handle Cole like I did. He had tried hunting with a few of his dad's friends a few years back, but none of them had the patience for Cole like I do. It was like he's a circus lion and I'm the dude with the chair. He always tried to take charge, to be at the forefront of the plan; the leader, I was the one who brought his ego down enough to control him in a dangerous environment where if things were to go south real quick, people got hurt.
I had a harsh voice and mean eyes; attributes that Cole said reminded him of his mother. She was killed by a botched exorcism when Cole was nine. The only thing I've ever seen Cole give himself over to is hunting, so that after his mother was torn apart from the inside out, he pledged to never get it wrong. The one thing we have in a great abundance is holy water, and sometimes he still chants Latin phrases in his sleep. I knew it haunted him, but just as almost every other hunter in this godforsaken world, he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
My own mother, I never knew too well. She was a fierce hunter; nothing could shake her resolve. She got ripped to pieces by vampires when I was eight, so I have enough memories to remember what she looked like, sounded like, but not enough to wish she were still here.
It was dad that got her into hunting; a condition of their marriage was that Rachel, my mom, would learn to live like a hunter. I could never understand why she never wanted a normal life for me, maybe she thought I deserved a more exciting one. But when she didn't come home from the hunt that claimed her life, I vowed never to put my kids through that. And here I am now, contradicting myself. I could never forgive her for forcing me into this life, even if it is all I've ever known. She put the thirst for monster blood in me the day she died, and I'm fearful I'll never be able to shake it, or stop.
It was this that bonded Cole and I the most: the crystal clear concept of vengeance, that if we killed all of the monsters in this world and the next, it wouldn't matter that they killed our mothers, we could finally have some closure.
It was a tough job for kids, now that every hunter lived in the shadow of the Winchesters. I had met them before, briefly, years ago, when I was maybe eleven or so, they helped Cole's dad and mine with a case of wendigos up in Wyoming. They were done by the end of the day, they were that good. They may have been tall and tough and intimidating as hell, but I was old enough then to know pain when I saw it. A fire burned inside both of them, Sam and Dean, one that fuels them to keep pushing on, and it gives me peace of mind, to know that even the big shots in this business have dark days, and that all we are is human.
I took one last swig of my now-cold coffee as Cole scrunches up his burger wrapper and tosses it at me, indicating it's time to go. I pull out enough cash to pay the bill, but leave a lousy tip because our money supply is beginning to dwindle, and we need to save for gas.
We get our money the way most hunters do: credit card fraud. Cole might be a pain in my ass ninety-three percent of the time, but damn, he could rake in some serious cash for us both, so I never complained about the methods.
My heavy-set Doc Martens pounded the pavement as we sauntered across the street and down two blocks to our motel, The Plaza Motel. The 'P' letter was flashing abruptly, surely an epilepsy hazard, and the vending machine, conveniently situated right outside our room, hummed viciously.
Cole and I didn't say anything as we each stripped off our dirty clothes, showered, cleaned our weapons, did inventory, counted the remainder of our cash and finally played Rock, Paper, Scissors for the sleeping arrangements. Cole played Rock, his favourite, and I pulled Paper, my favourite, and before I knew it, lights out.
As I lay awake in the shitty king single, I count the drips I hear reverberating off the cheap bathroom sink in the room above us, and I sigh. Partnered with the buzz of the bug zapper outside every few seconds and Cole's labored snores, and the occasional sporadic burst of Latin, I almost felt at home, at peace. I had become so used to this boisterous silence, the sound of the regular world bustling around me, that I almost felt like a typical nineteen year old, lying in bed stressing over tomorrow's calculus exam. If only. I would've been at college now, I wonder what I would've studied.
I felt the familiar cool steel of the blade I always kept beneath my pillow, or otherwise in one of my boots, and began to remember who I am, and what I do, and what I must keep on doing. I sigh again, much heavier this time, wrapping my fingers around the edge of the blade, feeling the familiar burn of pain as I pushed the edge into my curled fingers, hoping the pain would ebb the flow of tears threatening to break the surface. It was in these small moments that I had to myself, that I let a few tears slip, if not for all we've endured, for myself. I hate to be selfish, but it's hard to want things you can never have, for the reality of a normal life to be dangled in front of you, taunting you, but the blade in your boot reminds you of your duty, of the promises you made to people you love.
I allow one tear to fall, letting it nestle in my collarbone, as I close my eyes, but kept my grip on my dagger tight, sure. I open them again to stare at the water-damaged ceiling, and for just a moment I thought I saw a different life for me in the cracks, and I whisper aloud, "Is there anything else for us?"