Race to Kill
Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke.
A/N: If you haven't read The Boogeyman you won't understand Autumn and Athena Daemon and there relation to the Winchesters. These Supernatural fics are being written by myself and my younger sister Katie. So feedback is VERY welcome!
Chapter One
November 12th , Kelsey, Virginia (thirty minutes outside of Richmond)
"Jason!"
"What?" Jason spun back around and glared at his sister.
"I saw something." the younger girl whined. Jason rolled his eyes.
"Where's the others? We're supposed to stay together. Jenny?" he'd turned around to examine the hall they were standing in and in that split second his little sister had disappeared. He tore through the hall looking for her and the others. He knew the stories about this place. The old house was supposed to be haunted, that was the whole reason the seven kids were here.
It seemed to take years to get through all the rooms. Finally he made it to the master bedroom on the second floor at the very end of the hall. It was said that a man was poisoned by his wife, so she could take up with her newly freed slave lover, in this room. He cracked open the door and found his friends and sister. He dropped to the ground screaming like a wounded animal.
November 15th, Dixie Motel, 2 hours from Richmond
Autumn pulled off her cloth gym shoes as she ran through the meadow, once not so very long ago it had been a corn field. But those days were long gone. It scared her to think about the girl she'd been. The girl who had so recklessly played in amongst the stalks. The girl who had laughed, and screamed in so many games played with her sister and the other children on the dirt road she lived on. That girl was dead now. She'd been killed in order to allow the young woman she now was to live. It hadn't been a pretty thing to witness either.
It had taken her the whole morning to find a reason to escape to her farm, with the two acre pond, fishing boat, and dock. The place that had become her heaven in the years since her parents deaths. She knew when she got their lounging on the dock, half asleep in the afternoon sun would be her boyfriend. The man who she wanted so badly to believe was the love of her life, her soul mate. She knew better though. She'd changed at college. Ideas had been planted and an old friend had been found. Her changes of self were making her relationship, that had survived the funerals of two parents, high school, and college, more than a little rocky. She came to a quick halt when she got to the mowed grass ring that surrounded the pond.
Her heart jumped and her knees went weak at the sight. Her boyfriend, the boy next door, was just as she'd predicted. His shirt wadded up under his head two fishing poles discarded poking their ends just over the lip of the boat. The dock had been submerged in water two weeks before and was just starting to really reclaim it's above water life. The hot summer sun, the light breeze, the absolute perfection of her life in this split second was beyond anything that had ever existed in her mind. But then he sat up and looked at her. His tanned face was handsome, sun bleached blond locks threatening to kidnap his crystal blue eyes, his chewed lips curved into an innocent smile.
"Hey baby." he called waving her over. She didn't need to be asked twice she made her way to him dropping her shoes on the bank.
"Hey." She wasn't sure how she could just reply with 'hey'. But he knew exactly what the one word, barely above a whisper meant. He knew it was her standing on top of the mountain and declaring her love for him. He knew it was her hiding behind a shield, forged in a fire kindled from years of hurt.
"Want to go for a dip, baby doll?" she shook her head and dropped down on the wooden boards her grandfather had placed when her father was just an infant.
"No, just want to sit here with you holding me." Billy-Jack didn't ask why. He'd known her since the unfortunate incident in kindergarten when she'd broken his nose for picking on a mentally challenged boy. All those years had seen them through more rough spots, and near misses than he could count. But there was one thing he was always sure of: when she just wanted held she was terrified. So he wrapped his arms, sculpted and shaped from years of farm labor, around her.
"What's going on?" she turned her head around and gave him a crooked grin.
"Not just yet." She had finally made the decision the world had been pushing her to make for a long while now. Life had made her a writer, but now a childhood nightmare she had been forced to live was about to make her something she wasn't sure she could do, but she knew she had to at least try. "I don't want to talk about it just yet. But I will tell you before we go back home."
Together the young couple sat for a long time just curled up on the splintering wood until the sun finally heated their skin so much it was red and soon to blister. Only then did they dive into the water. Splashing around just as they had when they were children. But never far from her mind was what she needed to tell him. The thing that was going to ruin everything she'd worked so hard for. What might even lose her, her baby sister. The stars were twinkling in the sky, while Autumn and Billy-Jack lay on a patchwork quilt in the bed of his rusted old ford.
"I'm going to be a hunter." she whispered into the night.
"You already are." he answered her.
"I don't mean deer and wild turkey. I'm talking demon and spirit." she felt him tense up.
"Why can't you let it go? It's just a story." she sucked in her bottom lip. Don't cry. Don't get angry. Just keep moving. Don't stop.
"My uncle was killed by spirits. No one would believe that story so Daddy lied and said he was protecting Athena and I from a deer. Its not what happened. I have to do this."
"Sweet heart, why don't we go see that therapist again?" he asked. The loony bin. Great, she thought, he thinks I've fallen off the deep end.
"B.J. I won't sit around here any longer. There are other hunters, people who will help me get started. I know a few, have been talking with one for a long while now. John seems to think I'll survive."
"John? You mean that nut job who squatted at your house with his boys when we were kids?"
"Yes, it's the same John. But Billy," he stopped her.
"If you leave don't expect me to be here when you come back." she bit back the retort that was choking her. No way she was going to make this worse. Autumn slid out of the truck and took off. She knew the woods and fields of this farm as well as her great-great grandfather who had purchased it for his wife so many years ago. She knew every nook and cranny and that provided her the ability not to be followed, even by a pissed off boyfriend. It took ten minutes before the yellow flood light popped on in reaction to her walking up the drive way.
The moment Autumn opened the front door she woke up. Looming above her was John Winchester's oldest. Worry graced his eyes. It was really grace that made that worry acceptable. He gently swept away a few tears from her cheeks before straightening back up.
"You okay?" he asked whispering.
"Yes, of course." she tried to sound cheery but her voice was raspy from not being used the past few hours while she'd been passed out on some motel bed. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"You were crying. You want to tell me what that's about?" He'd only seen her cry twice before now. The first time was when he and his family left her standing in her driveway at the ripe old age of ten, the second time was a few weeks before when she'd embarrassed herself in a local bar.
"Just a dream about an old flame I thought I had put out." he didn't seem to believe her but backed off a little more.
"Did I wake you?" he shrugged.
"Maybe. Sammy has nightmares a lot so"
"You sleep kind of light to protect him." she finished for him. That was the thing about being the oldest. You would do anything to protect your younger siblings. If it meant you didn't get to be in scouts or that you got an extra beating you did it. You didn't think. You didn't blink. You just did whatever needed done.
"Yea." she pushed herself up in bed and slid over a bit patting the vacated spot next to her.
"Climb in dork." the young man did so hesitantly. They were just friends and it was a fine line, they both crossed too often for comfort, keeping them from being more than 'just friends'. "Did I wake anyone else?" he shook his head.
"No, I think they are getting used to it." he didn't mean her having nightmares. They were used to Sam's.
"I'm sorry." he put an arm around her pulling her closer to his bare chest.
"Don't worry about it." it would have been far to easy to melt into him. To forget that they're younger halves were in the room, or that they were strictly business partners.
"How long we have until we get to Richmond?" she asked.
"Just a few hours."
"Then why did we stop?"
"You were falling asleep at the wheel and Sam and Athena were out cold." Not for the first time she thought about suggesting selling their cars and just buying a traveling van. But she had worked all through high school to buy her baby, and his dad had given him his.
"You hear from your dad lately?" she felt his muscles tighten.
"No."
Dean and Sam had traveled around looking for their dad and killing whatever they came across for a year when they bumped into daddy dearest. John Winchester agrees to allow his boys to help kill the demon that took their mother and Sam's girlfriend when things got complicated. In the long run they did have that great encounter. But John and his boys weren't really in a good state. Dean even being left in a coma for a short while. As soon as they were capable they parted ways to start over. That was when the boys had met up with Autumn and her sister, while they were hunting a boogeyman. It had only seemed logical at the time to combine forces.
"I'm sure he's fine and thinking about you boys."
"He's an idiot, did you know that?" she smiled. She'd thought the same thing about her own father.
"Dads can be, but they only do stupid things, like sacrifice themselves, to protect their kids. Wouldn't you do the same thing for your children?" she asked him.
"I suppose." she smiled.
"I know you would. It seems so selfish. But love always is." he squeezed her tighter.
"Thanks." she thought about asking what for but it really didn't matter, with him everything was impulse.
"That's what I'm here for," They both inclined their heads toward each other letting their temple touch "and, Dean, I'll always be here when you need me." Sitting there safe and warm and closer than 'just friends' usually sit the pair drifted back to sleep. It wasn't long after they fell asleep that Autumn's phone rang. She sprang out of the bed and flung herself across Dean to grab it. "Autumn Daemon." she answered.
"That's no way to answer your mother." a woman on the other end half screeched into the phone. Autumn held it away from her ear.
"Sorry, Mom. I didn't know it was you." Dean cocked an eyebrow at her.
"You realize that you have one week till Thanksgiving and you and your sister are to be here?" the woman demanded.
"Yes, Mom. I know Athena and I are to be at your house by eight o'clock Thanksgiving morning, dates. I'm not a total screw up. We'll be there with bells on." Autumn sat herself back up made a face at Dean.
"So, who are you with?" her foster mother asked.
"Athena and I got a motel, we're a few hours from Richmond." she tried to evade the question.
"Right, and you have a boy over too."
"Mom, I'm a big girl now." the woman on the other end sighed.
"I'm sorry, dear. But you don't call me then when I call you you're always busy or with someone."
"Mom, cool it. I'm not always with someone. Right now I'm with Dean and Sam, they're old buddies from college."
"You never mentioned them."
"Yea, I never mentioned a lot of things."
"So what have you been up to lately?"
"We went after a boogeyman last week, and I sent in my newest project yesterday."
"That's good sweetie, how's your sister?"
"Teenie's fine." there was a snort on the other end of the line. "We're all fine and we'll be back home for Thanksgiving."
"You sure?"
"Yea, I'm sure. But I've got to run."
"I love you baby, give Athena a kiss for me."
"I will."
"Bye honey." Autumn snapped her phone shut and tossed it back on the bed stand.
"So you do have a mom?" Dean asked grinning.
"She was my foster mom, and had things gone the way originally planned she would have been my mother in-law by now." Autumn bounced out of bed. "But things don't go as planned. In fact life rebels against all plans." she rummaged through her duffel bag before going to the bathroom to get dressed. Dean got out of bed when the bathroom door shut. He walked outside the door and turned right. This motel was much smaller than the one they had been in last week so there weren't as many places to sleep, and it certainly wasn't as comfortable, so Sam and Athena had put a comforter on the floor and slept on it and had another blanket on them. Dean walked over beside the TV where his duffel bag was. He grabbed a shirt out of it and slid it onto his body. Autumn walked out of the bathroom talking louder than necessary.
"Shhh…" Dean put a finger over his lips to quiet Autumn who stopped talking as soon as he touched her. Autumn turned away quickly to hide a blush, inwardly cursing herself for letting this go so far.
"Get your pants on, Dean. I'll leave a note, we're going to Waffle House." she said going into the other room.
There were only three rooms in the motel, the bathroom, a bedroom, and a living room. There wasn't much of anything walling the 'living room' and bedroom off except a pull, vinyl divider. She'd taken the bedroom and to begin with her sister had been in there too. Autumn sighed, she knew they were going to have to make huge changes or pull back and leave. She wasn't going to fall for another guy who she would just have to leave, and more importantly than her own heart break she wasn't going to let her sister fall for someone they were going to leave in the dust, or would leave them. But not just yet. John Winchester, her knight in shining pick-up truck, had sent his sons coordinates to a speck of a town in Virginia, and she'd be damned if she missed a chance to be somewhere he thought worthy of his sons' attention.
She pulled a post-it out of her duffel bag and scribbled a short note: went for breakfast, clean up we'll bring you something Kill you later. She stuck it to the bathroom mirror where she was sure her sister would see it. Athena had been allowed few rituals in her life on the road and her morning routine was one of them. Dean was lacing up his boots when she returned. He barely looked up at her while she stood braiding her hair in to pigtails. She was going to have the windows down on the drive later today and she wasn't going to have her hair all over. When Dean had finished she slipped her feet into her black, slipper like shoes and headed out the door, making sure to lock it behind them.
"Are you sure there's a Waffle House near here?" he asked climbing into the driver's seat of his car.
"We are right off an exit ramp, babe. If there is one thing I learned road tripping its that off every exit ramp is a beautiful yellow sign reading Waffle House."
Sure enough not five minutes after pulling out of the parking lot Dean was pulling into a Waffle House. A pretty bleach blond took their order, flirting the whole while. Autumn didn't seem to mind she was absorbed in the paper. He left her to her own until the waitress went to take a phone call, leaving him with nothing to do. He started rapping his fingers on the table. She glared at him over the paper, and he stopped. Only to start it over again the moment she started reading again.
"Okay, what's wrong?" she snapped folding the paper calmly and setting in beside her on the bench.
"Nothing." he said innocently. She rolled her eyes and managed to recover the look in time to smile at the forty-something man who was giving them their coffees.
"Thank you, sir." she add too the grin.
"If there is anything else you need, miss, just ask." he said with a slight wink. Autumn nodded and her left hand found the end of her pigtail.
"I won't hesitate." she replied before sipping at her drink.
"How is it? Too strong?" the man asked.
"No, it's perfection in a cup." he gave a short chuckle and walked off.
"That was sick." Dean mumbled.
"No sicker than you and Miss Boob-job." Autumn retorted. "Besides, always butter up the waiter, it might get you a discount."
"You're a strange little woman." Dean commented.
"Thanks." she turned her smile on him. But he didn't get time to enjoy it because she ducked her head and stared into her coffee.
"You told your 'mom' you'd have dates?" he asked trying to start some sort of conversation.
"Yea, she's always worried Athena and I'll end up that old lady who lives in a run down shack with a million cats. So she makes a point of demanding a date at all functions." she didn't look up once.
"Why would you become creepy, cat lady?"
"Our real dad killed himself because he couldn't live with out our mom. The only person I ever got close enough to, to fall in love with broke me into a million pieces and gave me that final push to run. It isn't exactly a good way to look at love, or life in general. Beside that she knows what we do. She knows we don't have a lot of time to date or anything," Autumn paused for a moment to mix a pack of sugar into her coffee. "We humor her. We don't really bring date-dates. We scrounge up a couple of guys we went to school with who don't have anything better to do, or we even grabbed two hitch hikers one year."
"So who are you going to drag this time?" he questioned farther.
"Don't know." she shrugged. "I was thinking maybe you and Sammy would like a good home cooked meal for once. It's only a days drive from here, we're only required to spend one full day and night with them, getting us back on the road in three days. Easy re-coop time." Before he could answer Miss Boob-job brought out their breakfast and Autumn ordered a couple of waffles to-go for Sam and Athena.
"Sam?… Sammy wake up." Sam opened one eye to look at Athena sitting beside him.
"It's Sam. And I was up a few minutes ago. No one was here except you and me." His voice was still a little croaky his once deep sleep.
"Autty and Dean left. She said to clean up and she'd bring us something back." Athena got under the covers next to Sam who welcomed her in by lifting up the blankets for her.
"What if we don't clean up? Is she still going to bring us something if she don't know?"
"Probably. And she won't know if we did or didn't until she gets back anyway." Just then the door swung open and Autumn and Dean walked in. "Fake asleep." Athena and Sam quickly closed their eyes and Sam put his arm around Athena the way it had been when he'd woken up the first time.
"That don't work anymore, smartass." Autumn said. "And besides that, you snore."
"I do not!" Athena exclaimed.
"Yes you do!"
"No I don't!"
"Yeah huh!"
"Nuh uh!"
"Yeah huh!" Athena started shaking her head no, and Autumn shook hers yes.
"Okay fine, you don't… but you do. Anyway, we brought you waffles. But you don't get them until you clean up like I told you to. Athena started grunting at her sister who just cocked an eyebrow at her younger sibling.
"Fine." Athena growled. She got out from under th , warm blankets and stomped off.
"Come on Sam you're clothes aren't going to change themselves." Autumn urged. Sam rolled his eyes and he too got out from under the covers and began folding them.
"How come they obey you?" Dean asked.
"Same reason I obey Athena." She answered
"Why's that."
"I'm not sure why Sam listens to me, but Athena does it because she's afraid of what might happen if she doesn't"
"She fears you…?"
"Not really fear. It's more like… I don't know. But it's not fear."
"Sounds like fear to me."
"We don't fear each other, Dean. If we did, we'd never spend time together. It's just we have to get along because if we don't then nothing gets done. So we're best off to just do it and shut up about it." Athena came out of the bathroom about five minutes later. About the time Sam had finished folding the blankets and tossing them back where they came from.
"Autty, I heard your phone ring this morning. Who was it?" Athena asked.
"Our dear ole mum." Autumn answered straightening the blankets on the bed while Dean sat the to-go boxes on the bedside table.
"You're alive?" Autumn nodded just as amazed. "I'm impressed. What'd the wicked witch want?"
"ATHENA! The woman took us in when no one else would. She's not the wicked witch… she's just a little difficult to deal with." Autumn amended.
"Whatever. What'd she want?"
"Make sure we were alive, and coming to Thanksgiving." Autumn busied herself stuffing their dirty clothes in their respective duffel bags.
"We don't have to take hitchhikers again do we?"
"No. Thank God. I was actually hoping Sammy and Dean would be our dates as she calls them."
"Sam." Sam corrected.
"Whatever. Anyway, are you guys up for it?"
"Sure. We don't have anywhere else to be, so why not?" Sam said looking at Dean. Dean just slung his duffle bag over his shoulder.
"I'll go load up, you two hurry up and eat." he said pointing a finger at Sam and Athena.
"What do I do then, Dad?" Autumn joked. But Dean didn't answer her either he just grabbed his brother's pack and started out for his precious car.