Aeslyn wiped the blood off her face with the bottom edge of her shirt, which was also streaked with blood. Her assignment had turned sour and she'd had to resort to untraditional methods to wrap things up. She ran her hands through her hair and then tilted her head to the right, feeling her neck crack several times, and repeating the process to the left. She closed her eyes and headed towards the door of the bar. She'd been here before, granted it'd been a while now, but the bartender was an old friend of hers… that is to say she'd once had a nice torrid fling with him, and they'd kept in touch over the years. She pushed open the door and ignored all the stares at her appearance as she just made eye contact with Freddy and walked to the bar and sat on a stool off to the side, one just slightly in the shadows where a light bulb had blown.

"Hey Freddy"

"Hey" he smiled at her "Bad day? You finally kill your landlord?" He chuckled at her, his English accent still strong after five years in america. He knew full well she was a gypsy who pretty much lived out of her car, but he always teased her about killing her landlord.

"I wish…" she muttered smirking at him and his joke. "I'll take a Guinness, a whiskey on the rocks and a shot of cuervo." She stated with pursed lips that told him it'd been one hell of a night for her.

"Comin right up luv" he said with a wink and walked away.

Aeslyn looked at the small mirrored panels that ran along the wall behind the bar, and saw her reflection for the first time in hours. Her shirt had streaks of splattered blood across it, a big smear along the bottom where she'd wiped her face a few times and a tear at the sleeve where she'd gotten caught on a protruding nail escaping the premises. That one had her cursing the fates for their use of irony. I mean honestly, how many times in your life do you actually come across a protruding nail? She looked at her own face then and noticed that she hadn't so much succeeded at wiping the blood off her face, so much as just smeared it across her forehead and cheek. She had streaks of dried blood flowing through her light brown hair and dark circles were forming under her eyes from lack of sleep. She had a rather small lump up toward her hairline where she'd had to head butt someone to get away… she figured it'd turn a little purple, but nothing major. She looked like hell and felt like worse. Freddy came back rather quickly and set the drinks down in front of her, along with a moist bar towel.

"Saw you lookin" he said as he nodded towards the mirrored panel next to her. "Thought you might want to wipe your face a bit. There's more than a few people starin at ya wondering why yer all covered in blood" he whispered and motioned with his head to the rest of the bar behind him.

"Thanks Freddy" She said with a tired look in her eyes just before downing the shot of tequila foregoing the lime and salt. She slammed the shot glass back down and took a large gulp of the whiskey to help with the taste. She looked at Freddy as he smiled, shook his head and picked up the shot glass and tumbler after she drank the second half of her whiskey.

"I'll be right over here if you need me"

Aeslyn just nodded and picked up the moist towel wincing as the pain in her arm shot through her shoulder reminding her of the poorly bandaged wound she had. She shirked off her jacket and noticed that the fabric she'd wrapped around her left forearm was now bright read with the amount of blood it'd absorbed. She'd gotten sloppy tonight, and it was because her nightmares had come back to plague her with insomnia. She finished wiping the blood off her face and set the cloth down on the counter letting her injured arm rest a moment before she raised the ale to her lips and drank half the bottle in one go. She just wanted to be numb… plus the fact that the pain from the still fresh gash in her arm was a bit unbearable, she tried her hardest to get drunk as fast as possible. She ignored the fact that she knew the alcohol would just make her bleed faster as it thinned… but that wasn't even a thought in her mind. She laid her jacket over her left arm to keep people from asking too many questions. Plus she knew that if Freddy saw it, he'd make her go to a hospital… and that was the very last place she'd ever go.

"Wow… you look like you've had quite the night there" came a rather rough and scratchy voice from behind her.

"Oh you could say that" she replied and felt a little more than light headed.

"I did… mind if I join you?" He asked and sat down on the stool next to her without waiting for her reply.

"Boy… you're a cocky son of a monkey aint ya?" she said and raised her ale to her lips again finishing it off and waving the empty bottle at Freddy, who promptly supplied her with a fresh one… and another shot of tequila. "Thanks babe" she winked at him, suddenly feeling the loss of blood mixing with the hard liquor. She shook her head lightly, hoping to get some of her reasoning back, but knew it wouldn't be long until she passed out completely.

"Son of a monkey?" Dean asked, brow furrowed into a confused look. "That's a new one"

"Well considering how many people have threatened my life for calling their mother a bitch, I took the liberty of creating a quote that would prove less offensive to the particular individuals. Most people don't have problems with the term 'son of a monkey', especially given that we all, as is believed, are derived from monkeys of some sort. So they can't really argue with what is factually notated in anthropological science." She looked at Dean then and smiled at the stunned look on his face. "What? Did I speak beyond your comprehension level?" She muttered as she slammed the shot of tequila and immediately sipped from her ale. She didn't even have to look at him to see the stunned and almost hurt look on his face. "I can see by the look on your face that you're not as dense as you appear to be. Or perhaps you only appear to be dense to make yourself more appealing…" She pursed her lips and cocked her head to the side giving him a sarcastically quizzical look.

"Wow… I don't know if that was an insult or a compliment" Dean said slowly still trying to sort through precisely what she'd said to him. "You could give my brother a run for his money…" he mumbled the last part suddenly wondering if his choice of conquests was indeed a good one.

"Wait… so you mean to tell me that there's another one like you here?" she said her words dripping with sarcasm as she looked away from him and sipped on her whisky.

"Wow… you're uh- feisty." Dean stated and stood a moment wondering if he should just give up on her. He heard her sigh then and looked over at her as she set her glass down on the counter.

"Listen I'm sorry. I have a tendency to be a bit… bitchy is what my girlfriend called it." She said and rolled her eyes at that memory.

"Girlfriend?" Dean asked suddenly feeling a mixture of intrigue and doubt.

"Yeah… my girlfriend hated how aggressive I am… but my boyfriend liked it" She said as she smiled at Freddy. When she didn't hear any reaction from Dean she turned her attention towards him but the small movement reminded her just how badly she was in fact hurt. She knew she wasn't going to stay conscious much longer and had to figure a way out of here without drawing attention. "I just scared you off didn't I? Why is it that men feel challenged by a sexually liberated woman?" She looked at Dean then and had to laugh at the look on his face.

"What?" he asked her when she started laughing.

"That look… you don't know what to think of me do you?" she asked him just before she felt the room spin and she felt her head try to drop. She blinked a few times and tried to focus her eyes again but it wasn't working.

"Hey… you okay?" Dean asked and placed his hand on her right shoulder.

"Yeah… yeah I'm okay, I just need some air I think" She said and stood up slowly, smiling at Freddy as she walked towards the door. Dean just blinked a few times and nodded toward Sam and started to follow her out. That was when he noticed the large spot of fresh blood on the bar and walked over to his brother.

"Hey, we might have an interesting situation with that one…" Dean stated quickly as he walked past Sam and out the door. Dean stared as he saw the woman standing still outside, and he walked towards her as she groaned and collapsed. Dean reached her just in time to catch her good arm and keep her from falling to the ground, trying his best to hold her up as Sam finally walked out the door.

"Sammy… a little help please!" Dean muttered as his brother ran and slipped his arm under the girl's left shoulder, trying his best not to cause any more injury than she already had. The girl's head bobbed as she tried to keep her mind focused and remain conscious as the two men tried to help her to her feet, but she found that her legs weren't quite capable of holding her weight. Just then the boys heard the door to the bar open and two of the largest men they'd ever seen stepped out.

"Aeslyn, you okay?" One of the burley men asked "Aeslyn?" He said again as the two men began to walk forward leaving Dean and Sam to look at each other with startled looks on their faces. They both knew what the situation looked like, and hoped like hell that she'd wake up to let these gargantuan men know she was okay.

"I'm-"she cleared her throat "I'm fine Ralph…" she said quietly, but the two men stopped walking and just narrowed their eyes at the Winchester boys.

"You sure? Freddy wanted us to make sure you weren't in any trouble…" the other large man stated.

"Yeah Allen… These two were just helping me to my car. I'm fine… just had a bit to much to drink" She said as she tried once again to stand, and with Sam and Dean's help was able to.

"Alright… well you got my number still if you need it" Ralph stated as he motioned for the other man to follow him back in.

"Whoa… those guys were like Arnold on super steroids…" Dean smirked at Sam over her shoulder. "What? It was funny…" Dean mumbled before scoffing at Sam's irritated expression. Dean's brow furrowed then as he heard what sounding like water dripping. When he looked around he noticed the red spot starting to grow on the ground and found that the dripping was coming from the girl's hand… which was now covered in blood.

"Jesus!" Dean shouted and lightly lifted her hand as her eyes fluttered with the threat of passing out.

"Dark blue Pontiac" she muttered as she felt her head get fuzzier.

"What?" Sam asked as he leaned towards her

"Dark blue Pontiac, towards the back… mine" she managed to say in a clear voice before her eyes rolled back, her head lobbed backwards and her body collapsed into Sam's arms. Sam picked her up gently and started moving towards the back of the lot, with Dean holding the girl's hand up.

It took Sam a few minutes to realize that the 1967 midnight blue GTO was her car. It just didn't seem like the sort of car she'd drive, but then again, they didn't know much about her. He realized then that he hadn't a clue where her car keys would be.

"Dean…" he tried to get his brother's attention, but failed. Dean's eyes were glued to the car. It was in pristine condition… and had been well cared for.

"DEAN!" Sam tried a little louder and finally got a response.

"Hmm?" Dean said as he pried his eyes off the car, with an effort.

"I need you to find her keys… we need to get her someplace where we can patch her up, she's lost a lot of blood." Sam said as Dean began to go through the pockets in her jacket.

"Jesus… this thing has more compartments than my wallet…" Dean grumbled as he reached into the last pocket of her jacket. "I got nothing"

"Well Dean, considering I'm holding her, you think you could check her pants?"

"Why? They look just fine to me" Dean said as he looked over her lower half with a smirk

.

"For her keys Dean!" Sam spat at him.

"Oh… right. I knew that…" Dean said as he checked her back pockets first with a small smirk on his face. It turned out that her right front pocket held the single car key. "Got it." Dean said pondering why she only had one key… most people at least have some sort of house key, or room key even.

Dean quickly unlocked her car and helped Sam to lay her down on the backseat, which he noted was large enough to sleep in. Once the girl was settled they agreed that Sam would drive her car back to their motel, given that Dean was not about to let Sam drive his car without him in it.

Twenty minutes later both cars pulled up to the motel. Dean hopped out quickly after locking up his baby to unlock the door to the motel, making sure that Sam could get the girl from the car to the room easier. Once inside Dean locked the door behind them as Sam laid the girl on the bed and shouted at Dean for towels and the med-kit they always carried with them.

"Dean, bring me a clean towel… she's still bleeding" Sam said as he unwrapped the blood drenched cloth from her arm and noticed the tear in her arm that was deeper than any he'd ever seen. "Jesus… I don't think I even want to know how she got this one…" he mumbled as he pressed the clean hand towel against her arm and looked around for something he could tie around her arm to keep the blood flow down. "Dean… give me a belt"

Dean unhooked his own belt and pulled it free from the loops of his jeans and handed it to Sam. He stared at the blood that was already seeping into the white towel as Sam wrapped the belt around her arm, just above her elbow. He used the loose end of the belt to wrap around the towel to keep it in place.

"She's gonna need stitches Dean… that's really deep." Sam said as he stood up and looked at his brother who was a little whiter than normal. "You okay? It's not like you've never seen blood before" Sam said with a chuckle as his brother just looked at him and blinked a few times.

"Yeah I'm fine, just feel bad for her. Wonder what did that to her." Dean said quietly and went to the bathroom to wash off his hands, which had collected a rather large amount of blood from the girl. Sam knew there was more to what was bothering Dean than that, but he let it go. Dean brought back a wet washcloth and started to wash the dried blood off the girl's face. Other than being covered in blood, she didn't look that worse for wear. There was a small purple lump on her forehead, but that was it. The dark circles under her eyes made Dean a little concerned, it was a sign that she'd barely slept in days… a symptom he knew rather well.

"We should check the rest of her for injuries" Dean said as he looked at Sam.

"Oh man… can't you go one day without thinking up ways to get a girl naked?" Sam said sarcastically, knowing Dean was right… but not about to let him know that.

"Dude, not what I meant!" Dean said as he furrowed his brow at his brother.

"Uh-huh. Sure" Sam retorted before his face became a little more serious. "Dean, that cut, it's bad. Maybe we should take her to a hospital…"

"No way Sammy. She could be a hunter for all we know, we are not taking that chance. I stitched Dad up with some pretty bad wounds, I can take care of this. Thankfully she didn't loose as much blood as she could have, so we don't have to worry about anything major happening. You have to loose 20% for serious risk factors to play in, and 30% to make it life threatening… I doubt she lost that much. She may wind up with a fever during the night from shock, but it should break pretty quick and we just need to make sure she gets fluids in her body… other than that, we really only need to patch her up." Dean rambled off like he'd said that a hundred times before. Sam just stared at him, wondering if perhaps he'd somehow memorized a scene from E.R. or something.

"How the hell do you know all that?" Sam sounded astonished that his brother had withheld this knowledge from him.

"Dad. Made sure I'd know how to take care of business if things got rough. Made me read up on things…" Dean trailed off as he noticed the tear in the back of her right sleeve. "Hey… you see this? Looks like it got caught on something, but it's not what cut her" Dean said with Sam just staring at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Dude… when were you going to tell me you knew about this shit?" Sam couldn't keep the stunned sound out of his voice. Usually he was the one with all the lengthy answers, so this little twist floored him. Dean just gave his brother a stern look and Sam shook his head while shrugging his shoulders letting his brother know he hadn't noticed the tear. He thought he knew everything about his brother, but he just found out he didn't.

Dean finished wiping the blood off the girls face and noticed how much was in her hair… and knew that would have to wait until she was awake to be washed out. He brushed a few stray hairs off her face and looked at her a moment. She wasn't strikingly beautiful, but she had strong features that gave her a gracefulness he couldn't help but notice. He decided it was best that they keep as much of her clothing on her, so that when she woke up, she didn't panic and think the worst. Sam just scoffed and unlaced the combat boots she wore and pulled them off her feet, dropping them at the end of the bed followed by her socks.

Dean lifted the girl's head and checked for any injury then proceeded to check the back of her neck and shoulders, then laid her back down. Sam raised her pant legs to her knees and began to look over her lower legs, noticing that she had a rather bad scar on the back of her right calf just below her knee and what looked like the scars from wire or something that wound around her ankles. Sam furrowed his brow as he lifted her right ankle and looked closely at the scars. It was defiantly scars from wire, and some looked like it might have even been barbed.

"Hey Dean…" Sam looked up at him "What do you make of these?" Sam said as he went back to examining the girl's ankles. Dean had been examining her arm and shoulder for any other injuries. He'd noticed that the bleeding was stopping and was working up the gusto to be able to stitch her up. It'd been a while since he'd had to stitch a wound on someone else and he wasn't looking forward to it.

"What's up" Dean asked as he moved to look over Sam's shoulder. "The hell…" he said as he looked a little closer. "Is that from barbed wire? How in the hell would she have gotten that…" Dean muttered. Both boys damn near jumped out of their skin when she moved. She wasn't awake, but she was dreaming and came close to kicking Dean in the face given that he was looking at her foot.

"Son of a-!" Dean shouted as her foot came about an inch from his head. Aeslyn tossed on the bed again, her whole body twitched as if she was having a nightmare. "You know… I hate it when they kick." Dean mumbled lightheartedly trying to hide the fact that an unconscious girl got the drop on both of them.

Sam just leaned forward again, and placed his hand gently on her ankle, making sure that both of their faces were well away from her feet. The moment Sam's hand made contact with the girls ankle, she whimpered and pulled her legs up to tuck close to her body as she rolled over onto her left side and tried to pull her arms into herself. Dean, sensing the action she was intending on taking, moved to the side of the bed and grabbed hold of her left hand to be sure she didn't pull her arm in.

"Sammy get the med kit… I gotta stitch her arm up." Dean said as he sat on the edge of the bed and ran the back of his fingers down her cheek soothingly and smirked as she calmed down. Dean unwrapped the belt and towel from her arm, and winced at the sight of the wound. Dean swallowed audibly as Sam brought the med kit over and tossed it on the bed.

"Jesus…" Sam muttered as he looked at her arm, turned a little white, and moved across the room to sit on the sofa. "What could have done that?"

"It's a clean cut. So my guess is a human with a very sharp knife..." Dean said as he pulled out the needle and surgical thread and closed his eyes for a moment before bringing the needle to the edge of the wound.

Ten minutes later and Dean had the wound neatly stitched and was wrapping the gauze around it to keep the stitches clean. Once the med kit was re-packed, Dean got up and went to the bathroom to wash his hands again and had to throw cold water on his face to keep from vomiting. He'd never had to stitch up a wound that bad before and it had taken its toll on him. He was glad that he hadn't eaten anything recently, or he'd have lost it. When he walked out of the bathroom he was a whiter shade of pale but he needed to make sure the girl's vitals were steady. Sam had passed out on the couch watching tv and Dean sat on the bed next to the girl who had shifted her position in her sleep. Her ankles were locked together and pulled up underneath her, and her wrists sat atop one another above her head. Dean raised an eyebrow at this, as it was not a normal sleeping position. That was when he noticed a set of scars on her wrists and hands. They matched the look of the scars on her ankles, but there were also some marks on her arms and hands that looked like lacerations from imbedded rope of some kind. Dean knew these marks a little to well… he'd found himself hung by his hands on a few occasions.

"Oh man" he muttered to himself as he gently picked up her left arm and looked at her wrist a little closer. "I don't know who you are, but these are not normal…" he muttered as he saw the spiral of dots that ran up her wrist into her forearm from barbed wire, and then the faintest of white scars that did a double loop on her wrist and twisted like rope. They sat right below her thumb and were too high on her wrist to have been from simply restraining her… these were from too much weight pulling on the rope. Dean sighed as he checked over the bandage on her arm for any signs of excessive bleeding, then checked her pulse and placed his hand on her forehead to check for a fever. He could tell that she was running a low grade one by how warm her skin was, but nothing to cause worry over. He rubbed his sleep filled eyes then and decided that he wasn't going to be able to stay up all night to watch over her. He looked over at Sam dead asleep on the couch, his long legs dangling off the end of the short piece of furniture. Dean had to chuckle as he stood up and switched off the light, and flopped down on the other bed, falling asleep almost instantly.