Chapter One
"H-hello?" Violet called down the squeaky wooden steps leading into the dank, dark basement.
"Vi, seriously?" Dean whispered from behind her, startling her as he seemingly appeared out of thin air. She turned to him with wide brown eyes and a hand over her heart.
"You scared the hell outta me, Dean. Good-ness." She said as he rolled his eyes and none-too-gently shoved past her. "Then I know you aren't a demon." He muttered dryly, cocking the sawed-off shotgun as he stepped as lightly as a feline on the first stair. It creaked obnoxiously under his weight.
"See, it's telling you to stop eating so much damn pie," Violet whispered sharply, following him down the steps. Dean turned towards her rapidly just after the bottom step so that she bumped into him.
"You're calling me fat? That hurts, Vi. It really hurts," he told her in a mock-injured tone.
She socked his arm. "Ow, hey!" he yelped, raising an eyebrow at her as he rubbed his arm. Her face brightened a little.
"That actually hurt?"
"Yeeeeaa-no. Your silly little girl punches don't even tickle, are you kiddin' me?" he replied, walking around a wooden post and moving some holey curtains aside with the tip of his gun. Violet sighed heavily and shriveled in defeat. Who was she kidding? She wasn't cut out to be a hunter, yet here she was. She gagged at the first sign of blood, didn't have the heart to even kill a poor suffering soul, and what's more, she got scared easier than a cat.
Dean obviously hadn't wanted her to come along because of all this, as he had witnessed these things several times. So had Sam, but he understood her better and always gave her sympathetic glances and with those puppy dog eyes, he convinced his brother to let her come with them. She felt so useless and wondered multiple times a minute if she was just weighing the pair of expert hunters down.
"Sh," Dean said curtly, abruptly throwing his arm out in front of her to stop her, scaring her half to death. At least she had learned not to scream every time she got scared; that was better. But still. Useless.
She heard a small scraping noise behind her and turned swiftly on her heel, afraid for the worst. The ghost - black and white and bloodstained - towered over her as he looked down on her with an expressionless (and nose-less) face. She screamed bloody murder (quite literally).
"DROP!" Dean shouted, rapidly swinging the gun around and aiming it at Mr. Noseless. Violet yelped and threw herself onto the ground as the ghost tried to grab her. Dean pulled the trigger just as her hands hit the cold, rough floor.
The ghost disappeared with a low yowl and wisps of gray smoke. Dean crouched beside Violet and cocked his head, leaning his elbows on his knees. He blinked down at her as she rolled over and propped herself up on own her elbows. She looked back at him in surprise, which turned quickly into annoyance.
"What? Why the hell you staring at me like that?" she asked, irritated at his lack of expression. Typical Dean.
"Ya know, you make really good bait. Maybe you'll serve us as useful after all," he explained, grabbing her upper arm to pull her up off the dirty floor. Dusting herself off, she grumbled.
"I'm not sure whether I'd take that as a compliment or not."
Dean started up the stairs and she followed after him. Sam was waiting at the top. "I heard you scream. Find something?" he inquired, nodding to her then looking at Dean with his eyebrows raised.
"Yeah, found Mr. Hollow-head. Came up right behind Violet and scared the shit outta her." Here he chuckled at her like her horror entertained him. "Loaded him up with some rock salt and he went bye-bye."
She was standing on the next-to-last step from the top, just behind Dean, still in the stairwell to the basement. She shivered and rubbed her arms up and down, feebly attempting to warm herself. "Dean…" she whispered anxiously, trying to push past him. A feeling like something bad was going to happen swelled in her gut and she glanced around herself nervously.
"Hold on a sec, sheesh. Anyway, as I was saying, Sam, we'll have to find No-nose's remains and-" Dean was cut off by a piercing scream that reverberated through the whole house and rang eerily in his ears as he spun around.