There was the familiar sound of the Impala cruising down the road accompanied by Dean's long outdated rock music.
"Dean, I think I found us a job in town." Sam spoke loudly, trying to overcome the blasts of the radio. Dean absent mindedly tapped his hands on the wheel, oblivious to Sam.
"Dean." Sam tried again. "Dean!" Dean had heard him the second time, but ignored Sam, because that's what big brothers do.
Sam reached over and turned off the radio, because that's what little brothers do.
"Hey! I was listening to that!" Dean said in his mock hurt voice.
"Yeah well, while you were too busy listening to that, I was trying to tell you I think I got us a case." Sam stated plainly.
"What do you got?" Dean asked.
"A few weeks back, a girl was killed in a car accident."
"That doesn't sound like our kind of thing." Dean said.
"Let me finish, Dean." Sam snapped rather harshly. "Then about three days ago, her whole family was found in their house sort of… missing."
"What do you mean 'they found them, but they were missing'?" Dean asked.
Sam pushed his fingers through his hair uncomfortably.
"Well, uh, they only found, parts of them." Sam said rather disgusted.
Dean scrunched up his face. "Well. That's unfortunate." Sam rolled his eyes at his brother's lack of sympathy. Dean ignored the gesture and questioned, "So, what are we thinking, family curse or something?"
Sam stared down at the newspaper he had been reading from. "Could be." Sam huffed. "I mean, girl dies in an accident, next week her family ends up getting ganked in their own house? That's something right?"
Dean nodded. "Or the girl could have turned into a spirit and now she's taking it out on her family."
Sam considered the possibility. "We should talk to her friends and neighbors and see if they can think of any reason she might have to come back."
Dean shook his head in thought. "Spirits are weird, man. I mean they finally get out of this crap hole of a world, but then they come back just to mess with some people that screwed with them? Once I die, I ain't gonna come back."
Sam looked down as he thought of the idea of his brother being dead. Dean noticed Sam's sudden change of mood. He nudged Sam's side as he tried to reassure him "Hey don't worry Sammy, I'll make sure to stick around for a while longer, before I move on to god-knows where."
Sam chuckled lightly and his lip curved up in a small smile, as brief as it was.
Dean stepped on the gas, and the car roared as they ventured to their next job.
Sam hunched over by the door as Dean stood in front him, trying to disguise the fact that Sam was picking the lock. The police tape still littered the door, but "keep out" signs never really bothered the Winchesters.
There was small click as the lock was picked open and Sam turned the knob, and stepped inside.
Blood. Blood was everywhere. Red-stained handprints were scattered all the way down the hallway, and up the stairs and across the wall.
Sam made a disgusted face. Dean walked in and took in his surroundings. He scowled. "Ew." Sam shot him a look. "So insensitive" Sam thought.
Dean didn't even register Sam's glare. "Alright, let's start checking the house for anything the cops might have missed. You take the main floor, I'll check upstairs." Sam nodded and set off to look for clues.
Dean headed up the stairs, following the red trail. He checked every room and found nothing but more blood stains.
"Hey Dean, I think I got something!" He heard Sam call from below. He tromped down the stairs, not caring to be quiet. He found Sam crouched by a heating duct on the floor. Sam motioned Dean to come over with a flick of his head.
"Check out what I found in the vent." He called as he shone his flashlight in the vent.
Dean bent over and peered inside. There was a clump of hair still attached to part of a scalp, of course, coated in blood.
"Guess the cops missed this by a hair." Dean chuckled at his own joke. Sam huffed out an annoyed breath.
"Dean, a family was mauled to death in their own house; can you have a little decency?" Sam snapped.
"Hey, calm down, I'm just trying to lighten the mood!" Dean protested as he lifted his hands.
Sam rolled his eyes. "You don't have to try and lighten the-"He was cut off by the sound of a gun clicking behind his head. He gulped.
"Stand up, slowly." The voice instructed. Sam shot Dean a wary glance. He knows Dean well enough to know that he wouldn't want to do as the voice told. Normally he would be slightly amused by Dean's hardheadedness, but seeing as how the gun was at the back of his own head, it was less amusing than usual. They both began to stand.
"Good. Now turn around." As they complied, they were both surprised by who wielder of the gun was. It was a girl no older than 16. Her short blonde hair covered her forehead in a wisp of bangs. Her hair was long enough to cover the back of her head, but didn't go past her neck. She wore glasses and hidden behind the lenses were fierce blue eyes fixed on both brothers. When she opened her mouth to speak again, the hunters noticed she had braces.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?" She demanded.
Dean stared at the gun. "You know we could probably answer without a gun being pointed at us." A half smile made a brief appearance on her lips.
"Yeah, but this just makes sure that you'll tell the truth." She retorted.
"How would you be able to tell if I'm lying?"
"Here's an idea. Lie, and see if I can tell the difference. If I can, I'll shoot you in the face." She said in an almost eager tone. Sam finally spoke up, not wanting his brother to get himself shot because he can't watch his own mouth.
"I'm Sam, and that's my brother Dean." He spoke as much truth as necessary. She suddenly lifted an eyebrow in disbelief.
"As in, Winchester Sam and Dean?" She asked doubtfully.
Sam unknowingly mocked her gesture and raised his eyebrows.
"How do you know who we are?" Sam questioned.
"Every hunter knows who you guys are. Well, I do anyways."
Now Dean widened his eyes. "You're a hunter?"
She huffed air out of her tiny nose and rolled her eyes. "That wasn't implied?" She asked like a parent scolding her child. Dean noticed the tone and glared at her. No one treats Dean Winchester like a kid.
"Who are you?" He spat, already not liking her.
She smiled again and started to put the gun into the waistband of her camouflage patterned jeans.
"Name's Alex. I assume you're here for the same reason I am." Dean took his chance to show off his sass.
"Well considering how we're in the same house, it's probably a safe assumption." Alex frowned at him and he produced a mock smile. She angrily sighed.
"Either way, I was here first and I don't need anyone holding me back, so you boys can find yourself another case."
"What do you mean you were here first? I seem to recall you walking in on us-"Dean started to argue but Sam stopped him midsentence.
"Aren't you a little young to be hunting? And couldn't your age get in the way?" Sam asked with sincerity.
Alex eyed him up and down. "Doesn't all that hair get in the way?" She countered.
Sam opened his mouth to respond, but he closed it just as fast. He didn't really know how to answer that. Dean snorted at him.
"Besides, my age just makes people less suspicious of me. Shifters sure get surprised when a fifteen year old girl pulls a silver dagger on them." She explained with a cocky grin. Dean tilted his head to the side in agreement.
"Touché". He said. "You still shouldn't be hunting. How'd you get sucked up into all this?"
Alex shot him a dirty look. "Haven't you been around enough hunters to know that that's one question you should never ask if you don't want to piss them off? Every hunter's got a sob story, I'm sure you do, but I have the decency not to ask. Unless you'd like to relive the horrors that probably got you into this hell of a life."
Sam looked down at the floor. True Dean and he shared a similar "sob story" so to speak, but Sam's was more personal than Dean could ever understand. Dean was only four when he lost his mother, but when Sam had lost Jessica, it was the one person he loved most. He shook his head, putting the memory at the back of his mind.
Dean spoke up. "We lost our mother in a house fire that was caused by a demon. Our Dad used to drag us around trying to find the damn thing. He'd wasted nearly twenty years of his life. And now he's dead, and he never got his revenge." Dean's voice was harsh, but was secretly a mask of the pain that it caused him.
Alex sighed heavily. "I know how you feel. I lost my mom too, but it was just some shifter. It made itself look like my dad and when I walked in on him-it-, it ran off. My dad had been downstairs not two seconds before, so I knew it wasn't him. My father swore vengeance against it, but even when he got it, he just kept fighting. Up until the day he died."
"What happened to him?" Sam asked.
She rolled her slightly watering eyes. "What do you think happened? The same thing that's gonna happen to every hunter out there someday. He got killed by some supernatural son of a bitch and now I have no one left. This is the only life I've ever known, and it's the only thing I'm good at." She flicked her head and the bangs slowly fell back into place just over her eyes. "So if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to it."
Dean was never too fond of the idea of being around other hunters, but he didn't like seeing kids get sucked into the life of a hunter.
"Look, normally I wouldn't do this, mostly cause I'm the best out there" Sam rolled his eyes at Dean's arrogance for the thousandth time that day. "But we'd like to help you. If we work together on this, it can be done a hell of a lot quicker. What do you say?"
Her mouth twitched slightly in a sad, yet grateful smile. "Yeah, I'd like that."