"I still don't understand why we can't use my car." Alex said moodily from the backseat of Dean's Impala, she was feeling some separation anxiety at leaving her car at the Winchester family friend, Bobby's, house.
"Relax, your car's going to be fine." Dean said for the umpteenth time, knowing she was more worried for the safety of her car then she was upset about not having it. Hell, he'd be depressed too if he was forced to leave the Impala behind.
"Yea, yea…" She muttered, looking out the window.
Sam was listening to a voicemail from Dad, who'd taken off a few days after the four of them left Alex's apartment in Champaign, Illinois, apparently because he'd gotten a call from an old friend, one who's name he refused to reveal, and didn't want three kids slowing him down.
"Dad said he'll be a few more days, and he'll call when he's on his way back." Sam said dully, Dad drives me crazy, I hate how he always treats us like we're a bunch of typical immature kids.
"That's all he said?" Alex inquired quizzically. John really underestimates Sam and Dean…and with the guys' stubborn streaks, he's going to cause a hell of a fight one of these days.
"That's all Dad ever says." Sam replied irritably from the front seat.
She took that as a sign to end that conversation, and decided to change the subject. "So what about us? Where're we headed?"
"Well, Dad left us a list of possible jobs. One of 'em isn't far from here." Dean answered as they passed a road sign that said, Welcome to Ohio! He motioned for the newspaper article Sam was reading and passed it back to Alex for her to look over.
"Junior Murdered at Homecoming Dance." Alex read out loud, "Seventeen year old Jennifer Stephens of Cleveland, Ohio was found dead Monday, March seventh, in the high school girls' locker room by Officers Bradley Loft and…Blah, blah, blah…" Alex skipped over the part about what policemen were involved and how special they thought they were, and passed right down to the murder details. "Authorities believed she was killed by some kind of," Alex paused and squinted at the paper, the next word making her think she must be reading the wrong line, "animal…" She laid the paper in her lap, "Animal? What kind of animal would be in a high school locker room?"
"Exactly." Sam said, twisting in his seat to look at Alex, "That's what we have to figure out."
Alex already had an evil little smirk on her face as she flipped through her day planner to the calendar inside, once she got to it she glanced at Sam with an extremely smug glint in her eyes. "Take a look at this." She held the calendar out to him, her finger on March seventh, the day Jennifer Stephens was murdered.
Sam looked at the date, "So what?"
"Come on, Sam. You're a smart kid." Alex's eyes were shining, she was really enjoying the fact that she knew something that the whiz kid didn't.
He took another look at the calendar, recognition finally gleaming on his face, "Full moon?" He glanced up at Alex to see if that was what she was getting at and she nodded at him, "You don't think this is a werewolf, do you?"
"Werewolf?" Dean said incredulously from the front seat, "Come on, those things are normally found in remote areas, like parts of Montana and Colorado. But Cleveland? Tell me you're kidding."
Alex frowned at him in the rearview mirror, "It's entirely possible. I mean, they're humans most of the time, so they'll blend in in a highly populated area."
"Yea, but most werewolves choose to live in remote areas so that they're less likely to hurt someone during their transformation." Sam told her.
"So, what? You really think that there aren't werewolves out there who are as mentally twisted in their human form as they are in their werewolf form?"
Dean and Sam glanced at each other doubtfully, then Dean shook his head, "It's a long shot."
"But a shot, nonetheless."
Sam and Dean both nodded their approval, a little reluctantly, and Alex whipped out Sam's laptop to do some research.
A while later Dean parked the Impala in front of the Hampton Inn, about ten miles from the Cleveland Lighthouse East High School. Once they'd checked in, they grabbed their stuff from the car and settled into their room.
"Find anything interesting?" Dean asked Alex as she sat down on the bed.
"Actually, yea." She pulled the laptop out again and opened up a web site, reading aloud the important parts. "As far as becoming a werewolf goes, becoming a werewolf simply by being bitten by another werewolf as a form of contagion is common in modern fiction, but rare in legend, in which werewolf attacks seldom left the victim alive. But if it were to happen, the saliva has to enter the bloodstream, and since the victim would have been bitten during the full moon, they'll know immediately if they've been infected. There are other ways of becoming one, such as drinking the water out of a werewolf footprint, or German lore says that the seventh son of the seventh son will become a werewolf. As for a silver bullet to the heart, it'll work, but it has to be a direct shot to the heart. Throwing silver at or over a werewolf is supposed to bring out its true form, so if we were to shoot the thing and miss its heart, it'd just really piss it off. There are other methods of removal, such as being saluted with the cross, to be addressed three times with a baptismal name, to be hit three times in the forehead with a knife, or to have at least three drops of blood drawn, but they're only possible cures, not to mention they all sound a bit ridiculous to me. The only sure way to kill it is by piercing its heart with pure silver."
Once she was done rattling off details, she glanced up at Sam and Dean, who were busy going over everything in their heads.
"So tomorrow we can find the girl's friends and family, talk to them and see if there was anything weird going on before she died…"
"Right." Sam and Alex said in unison.
XXX
Sam had gotten in the shower a few minutes ago and Alex and Dean realized they had a chance to be alone for a little while.
Dean lay propped up against the headboard of one of the queen sized beds with Alex's head resting on his chest, she was running her finger over the 'v' of skin that showed at the top of his shirt while he had his eyes closed just enjoying being close to her.
"This sucks." Dean said suddenly.
"What does?"
"We're going to have either Sam or Dad with us all the time."
"So what's wrong with that? I love Sam, and your Dad…well, he and I will warm up to each other eventually."
"Hopefully." Dean smiled at her, then frowned again, "But I want to spend some time alone with you."
"What does it look like we're doing?"
"I mean, well, you know what I mean!"
Alex grinned, then sighed, "Yea, I know what you mean. But relax, we've got plenty of time to have fun, right now we've got a job to do."
Dean sat up, making Alex take her head away and lay down on the pillow. He leaned over her, smiling at her, "So how bad do you think Sam will freak if he walks out and finds us like this?"
She contorted her face into mock concentration, "Hmm…I don't know, we could always prop a chair against the bathroom door in order to protect his sensitive eyes." She told him with false sincerity.
"Sounds good to me…" He leaned down and kissed her lightly, then rolled onto his back, holding Alex's arms so she was forced to go with it and ended up sitting on top of him straddling his hips. She sat up straight, gazing down at him with hunger in her eyes, her hands sneaking downward.
Wouldn't it be fun if she'd just rip off his pants right now?
And Alex was gearing up to do just that when she heard the shower turn off, she glanced at the bathroom and then back at Dean, who could hear Sam ripping open the shower curtain.
"So much for fun." Dean said miserably.
He sat up, with Alex still on him, and she wrapped her legs around his back and her arms around his neck, "We've got a few seconds yet…" She whispered. She leaned in, Dean's hands on the small of her back as he pulled her hips closer to his body. Alex let him part her lips with his and felt herself positively melt into that kiss. Dean slipped his hands under her shirt and upward, pulling his mouth away from hers and kissing her neck and shoulders. She breathed lightly on his ear as his hands wandered to the inside of her thigh, biting her lip to keep back a moan of longing.
For goodness sake, Sam, stay in the damn bathroom…
Dean could feel well-defined muscles on the inside of Alex's legs as she tensed and gently thrust her hips against him, he felt like the moment when they could let themselves loose control wouldn't come soon enough. He heard the door to the bathroom click as Sam turned the knob and brought his face away from Alex's neck to look in her eyes. For one second they just watched each other with passion sending sparks throughout their bodies, and then the bathroom door opened and Alex swiftly rolled to the side, grabbed a magazine off the side table, and sat up against the headboard while Dean snatched the laptop off of the foot of the bed and flipped it open.
All that in a matter of seconds…damn, they're good!
Sam flopped down onto the second bed without even glancing at them, and Alex and Dean let out a small sigh of relief.
XXX
It was around six in the morning when Sam woke up. After he'd gotten dressed and ready for the day, and Alex and Dean were still asleep, he chucked one of his pillows at Dean's head, hitting him square in the face.
Dean just rolled over, facing Alex, and covered his head up with the blankets. The movement was enough to wake her up though, and she moaned, stretching, and opened her eyes.
"Wha' time is it?" She asked tiredly, tossing the blankets off of both her and Dean.
"Six thirty." Sam said, chuckling to himself at Dean's reluctance to get out of bed. His brother still had his eyes closed and was groping for the comforter to cover back up.
Alex yawned and stood up, "Dean, get up."
"Why?" Dean had given up looking for the blanket and was face down in a pillow.
"Because we have to go to school."
Dean lifted his head up and blinked at her, "Excuse me?"
Alex rolled her eyes at him and grabbed her bag of clothes, "I'm going to go shower while your brain catches up."
"Then you'd better take a long shower…" Sam told her seriously, dodging the pillow that Dean threw back at him.
XXX
"Cleveland Lighthouse East High School…Dude, check out the ass on that chick!" Dean said, glancing over at Alex in the passenger seat to see what she'd do, but she just shook her head and sighed. "Well, you're tons of fun."
Alex got out of the car and slammed the door, walking up the sidewalk to the main entrance, with Dean and Sam close behind.
The three of them walked into the principal's office, Principal James Tillman sitting in his comfy-looking leather chair waiting for them. Alex had made a call the night before to let him know that he'd be getting three new temporary students. She'd lied and told him that she and her two brothers had lost their parents recently and decided to move in with some relatives near Cleveland until they could find a place of their own.
And he bought that?
Principal Tillman looked up from his paperwork, he seemed a bit irritated after having to look over the transcripts and fill out the various forms needed to transfer the three new students at such short notice.
Dean had stayed up late too, making up fake IDs for the three of them, (all of them kept the same first name, but their last name was now Wakeman) fake transcripts, fake records and the like. Sam was easy, since he was technically still in school back in Kansas, so Dean was able to get a hold of his paperwork and make copies of it, changing things when necessary. But he'd had a harder time with himself and Alex, since he'd graduated a year ago and couldn't get his high school paperwork anymore and Alex had had enough credits to graduate early after her parents' death. But in the end he'd managed to make up some pretty convincing stuff.
"Alright, you're all ready. Here are you're schedules." Mr. Tillman handed them each a schedule and a student handbook, their names sketched on the top. He motioned to someone outside the door to come in, and two students walked in, "Alex, Dean, this is Ethan Hudgins. Sam, this is Rachel Witnem. They'll be giving you a tour this morning before your first classes."
Alex blew a piece of hair out of her face in boredom, gazing at their tour guides. Sam's new companion was a short little blonde Sophomore with thick glasses, she looked like a typical know-it-all Science whiz who'd rather be taking a Math test than showing around new kids. The guy, Ethan, was an inch or two taller than Dean and built the same way, he had dark brown hair that was bleached at the tips and styled to perfection, and his green eyes twinkled in Alex's direction.
"Try not to get in trouble your first day, eh?" Mr. Tillman said as they stood up and faced Rachel and Ethan.
Dean grinned wickedly, "We'll try."
They walked out of the office and Sam and Rachel turned to the left, while Ethan veered to the right.
"You guys are lucky, we're getting ready for the Senior Prom, next week, so classes are real easy right now, most of the time Seniors get let out of class for class meetings and to decorate the gym." Ethan said pleasantly as he offered Alex an arm, which she took, glancing back at Dean with an evil grin on her face, This is what you get for checking out other girl's asses and rubbing it in my face. She wanted to say to him.
"April fifth, huh?" Dean asked, making a mental note to check the next calendar he saw.
"Yea, wait until you see the gym, we've gotten most of the decorations up already."
Alex nodded, asking with mock shyness as she held onto Ethan's well-toned upper arm, "So, Ethan, do you play any sports?"
Ethan smiled at her, not even bothering to hide his gloating, "I'm captain of the varsity football team, and the basketball team. I played baseball last year, too."
Alex rolled her eyes, but hid it from Ethan, "Wow." She said, her voice thick with false emotion, but Ethan didn't seem to notice because he started rambling about all the accomplishments he'd made, like taking his team to the state championships in football last year…and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…After the first few minutes Alex stopped even pretending to care and just looked around the different rooms they explored.
Finally, Ethan shut up and looked back at Dean, "How about you?"
Dean shrugged, smiling briefly, "Nah, I never really had time to do any extracurricular stuff." I was too busy keeping morons like you from getting your heads ripped off by supernatural sons of bitches…
Ethan looked down at Alex, "I was captain of the varsity volleyball team back at my old school, and I played basketball too." She said casually as Dean scowled at the back of Ethan's head as he and Alex talked about the things they had in common, and when he and Ethan left Alex in her first class, Physics, he and Ethan had their first class together and they walked down the hallway in an uncomfortable silence. Ethan was just thinking Dean was an overprotective brother, little did he know Dean was plotting to hit him in the back of the head with a tennis racket in P.E…
Sam mingled with the Sophomores, making a few friends easily with his laid-back and friendly attitude. He was trying to find any leads on their case, but none of the Sophomores really knew Jennifer Stephens, so he waited until lunch to catch up with Alex and Dean and see if they found anything.
Alex was back in her element, she had already gotten herself into the middle of the giggling group of "popular" girls that she was used to and found that Jennifer and Ethan had been dating when Jennifer was killed, but she also found out that Ethan hadn't been at Homecoming because he had supposedly stayed home with the flu that week. Alex found that a bit too convenient, and would definitely tell Sam and Dean to keep an eye on Ethan.
Jennifer had been found by a Freshman girl, Savannah Rider, who claimed to have left her purse in her gym locker. There was no evidence pointing to Savannah, but there wasn't much pointing away from her either. Alex found out that Savannah was in numerous clubs, such as the Mathematics Club of Cleveland, and was an all around good kid who got straight A's and Honor Roll status year after year. Apparently, Savannah was dating a Junior, Brian Jacobs, who was also an almost to-good-to-be-true student. Not really the kind of people you'd suspect of murdering someone.
She checked into various other possible suspects, casually, of course, so no one ever caught on that Alex was investigating the murder.
Or so she thought.
None of the other students seemed as if they could be likely culprits, they were either way to popular and had dung for brains, or they were total "geeks" like Rachel Witnem, Sam's hostess, and were to busy trying their hardest to cram for a Spanish exam that was six weeks away. Alex had buddied up to some of the teachers too, asking casual questions about "that one girl who, like, got killed, like, last month by some kind of, like, animal" but not discovering much of anything that she and the guys hadn't already known.
Dean managed to get himself on a couple of guys' bad sides when they thought he was hitting on their girlfriends, and was too busy trying to avoid empty hallways all day to really do any digging.
"How's your first day going?" Alex asked Sam and Dean pleasantly when she was finally able to loose her overly-enthusiastic and falsely-loyal groupies by hanging back in the bathroom while they all headed off to the lunchroom and Alex detoured to the Impala parked in the school parking lot.
"Peachy, just peachy." Dean said moodily.
"Good!" Sam said, sitting on the trunk of the car. "Have either of you found anything?"
"I did!" Alex said enthusiastically, sharing the little tidbits of information that she'd learned about the relationship between Ethan and Jennifer, the girl who found her, and Jennifer's friends. "There's not a lot to go on, but I think we should start with Ethan, he seems to be the most likely suspect right now."
"I knew there was something I didn't like about him." Dean said irritably.
"You just don't like him because he was hitting on me." Alex retaliated and Dean scowled at her.
Sam jumped in, changing the subject, "Alright, so let's find out everything there is to know about this Ethan kid, and later tonight we can go talk to Jennifer's family. But right now I think we should go take a look at the murder scene."
Alex and Dean nodded, following Sam back into the high school.
There wasn't a whole lot to find, everything had been cleaned up, and the lockers had been repainted to cover up bloodstains and scratch marks. But Sam found a few long, deep gouges in the tiled floors and walls near the showers that could only have been caused by something really big, really mean, and really hungry…
Dean also found a few remnants of course brown and gray hairs stuck in the hinges of one of the locker doors, and Sam found some more that were caught in the wood bench just inside the locker room door.
Alex scoured the place high and low, finding small amounts of blood samples that the janitors had missed. She was an expert in Chemistry and biology, and planned on taking what samples she could find up to the lab to check them out. "Jesus…" Alex muttered to herself after scraping blood from places all over the room, rather than just one area.
"What?" Sam and Dean said together, coming over to stand next to her.
Alex finished placing the dried blood samples in a plastic bag, she had access to the Chemistry lab and planned on using it later. "Either Jennifer put up one hell of a fight, or this evil bastard is a really messy eater…" She tucked the plastic bags into her jeans pocket, and Dean handed her the hair samples, "I'm going to go to the Science room and take a look at these. You two had better get back to class!" She smirked wickedly at Dean, and he and Sam just grinned at her, shaking their heads.
XXX
The night of the full moon rolled around, and Dean, Sam and Alex were all on edge. It had taken a few days before the three of them could do anymore digging after investigating the locker room, they were already drawing too much attention to themselves by asking questions about Jennifer Stephens, so it was one day before Prom when Dean and Sam went to talk to the Stephens family while Alex stayed late after school to use the Chemistry microscopes on the blood and hair samples. Principal Tillman already adored her, and had left her a key to lock the front doors when she was done.
Alex was carefully placing the different blood samples and hair samples on glass slides, after looking at several of them she was surprised to find more than one type of blood, and the hair samples were also different. In the end, she stared at three groups of samples. The first was a slide with Jennifer's blood, the second had three slides, two of which were blood, and the other fur, from one werewolf. And the third group was what had Alex so surprised, there was a third blood sample, from another werewolf, and the hairs that Sam found didn't match the hair that Dean discovered.
The werewolf blood was infused with oddly distorted blood cells, and the white blood cells were extremely limited. Alex sat back in her chair and stared at the slides for a few seconds, then she pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and flipped it open, dialing Dean's cell number.
"Hey." Dean's voice came from the other end, he and Sam were just getting back in the Impala after talking to the Stephens. "Jennifer's family's a mess, I don't think they were involved in any way. What'd you find?"
"There are two of them."
"What? Two of what?" Dean asked, his eyebrows snapping together and Sam sitting straight in the seat watching Dean intently.
"Two werewolves. The hair that you and Sam found have a different genetic makeup, along with the blood samples. I found Jennifer's blood, but the other two are different from a humans, similar, but not quite the same, and they're also different from each other." Alex paused, then repeated herself because she was having a hard time believing it, "Dean, there are two of these damn things! They must fight each other too, when they transform, because I doubt Jennifer could have inflicted enough damage on the two of the bastards to draw blood from them."
Dean exhaled sharply, "Damn…" He shook his head, "Alright, we'll be there in a few minutes to pick you up. Meet us outside."
"Ok." Alex flipped her phone closed and gathered up all of the slides, slipping them into her bag. She turned around and almost dropped everything when she saw Ethan standing in front of her.
"Ethan!" Her body went rigid, cursing herself for not bringing her .44 with her. What the hell is he doing here! There aren't even any damn teachers around! Hurry up, Dean… She recovered quickly and smiled at him calmly, "Hey! What are you doing here?"
"I had a test to make up in Calculus. I was just leaving when I saw the light on." He grinned at her, "What are you doing here?"
Math test? You're a really shitty liar…Alex thought quickly, "Chem project…It's for a scholarship, I just wanted to get a head start on it."
Ethan nodded, still grinning, "Um…I'm glad I caught you alone, actually."
Alex's body tensed even further when Ethan took a few steps toward her. Tomorrow was the night of the Prom, and the full moon, but just because he wasn't going to go nuclear hairball on her didn't mean she could trust him.
"I wanted to ask you, uh…if you'd found a date for Prom yet." Ethan finished shyly, unlike his normal cocky and confident self.
Alex sighed a breath of relief and smiled at him, "No, I hadn't. I forgot all about Prom actually…"
"Would you like to go with me?"
She grinned at him, wondering what Dean was going to say when she told him about this, "I'd love to, Ethan." She glanced at the door, "I've got to go, my brothers are going to be here any second to pick me up."
"I'll walk you out." Ethan said with a smile, taking her bag from her and walking her outside.
Dean scowled when he and Sam pulled into the school parking lot and saw Ethan with a hand on the small of Alex's back, handing her her bag back. He pulled up next to the two of them and put the car in park, "Hey, Ethan." He said tensely, shooting Alex a nasty look.
"Hey, Dean." Ethan said, not noticing the livid look on Dean's face as he opened the back door for Alex.
Alex waved goodbye to Ethan as Dean floored it out of the parking lot, "What the hell was he doing with you?"
"I'm not sure why he was there…He said he had a test to make up, that was an obvious lie though." Alex was anxious to know the real reason for Ethan's presence at school so late at night, when she was the only other person there, but she pushed the thought out of her mind, smirking wickedly at Dean in the rearview mirror, "He asked me if I'd like to go to Prom with him."
Dean almost choked, "What?! And what did you say?"
"I said yes."
"Why the hell would you say yes to a goddam werewolf?"
"We don't know that he's the werewolf, and I said yes because you two are going tomorrow night too so it's not like I'm going to be alone with him. Would you rather I said no and pissed him off? That would have just given him more of a reason to rip me to shreds." She paused and added, "If he's the wolf."
"Are you forgetting one little detail?" Dean asked, a deep growl giving his voice an extra sharp edge.
"Like what?"
"Like the fact that you and I are dating?"
"You're supposed to be my brother, remember? And, besides, who would you rather went with the possible hairball? Me, the girl who knows what she may be up against and can stand a fight, or a girl who has no clue and couldn't defend herself even if her life depended on it?"
Dean's eyes shot back to the road, and he didn't say anything to either of them.
Alex had Dean drive downtown so she could rent he and Sam tuxes and find herself a dress for tomorrow night. Dean didn't stop complaining about having to wear the monkey suit until Alex came out of the dressing rooms and modeled a dark blue, low-cut, floor-length, satin dress with silver embroidery around the edges for he and Sam.
"What do you think?" Alex asked, studying herself critically in the full-body mirror while even Sam had a hard time keeping his jaw from dropping to the floor.
"Uh, you, um…" Dean cleared his throat, "You look great." He said, staring at her.
Alex just sighed thoughtfully, inspecting herself from all angles before turning to face Dean and Sam. "Are you sure?"
Dean got over his shock and snorted at the sincerity in her voice, "It's not even your prom night, Alex."
She scowled at him, "Shut up." She blushed at her lack of a good comeback and faced the mirror again.
Sam elbowed Dean in the ribs, "You're such an ass…" He raised his voice so Alex could hear him, "Relax, you look really great, honestly." He told her with a smile when Alex grinned at him.
"Not that it matters, it'll probably get ripped to shreds by werewolves in the next twenty four hours…"
XXX
Ethan picked Alex up at eight the following night, and Dean and Sam followed them closely to the school.
Sam, Alex, and Dean each had a .44 hidden somewhere in their formal wear. Sam and Dean's were tucked in the back of their pants, their shirts covering them, and Alex had hers strapped into a holder, placed safely on the inside of her thigh.
"So what's the plan?" She asked Sam and Dean when she managed to get away from Ethan for a few seconds.
"We mingle." Sam said, "And if anyone leaves, alone, then we follow them. If you find one of the wolves, then come find us."
Alex nodded and rolled her eyes when she saw Ethan headed her way, "Be careful!" She whispered quickly, catching Dean's eye and giving him a small smile before she followed Ethan onto the dance floor.
Dean sulked around the edge of the gym room, his eyes dancing around the room as he tried to watch everyone at once, but he kept focusing on Alex and Ethan. He didn't even give Ethan a second glance when he saw him leave the room through the small doors at the back of the gym, toward the boys showers and bathroom.
"I've got to go to the bathroom!" Ethan shouted over the music, "I'll be right back!"
Alex nodded to let him know that she had heard him, rather than try to be heard over the deafening noise around them.
She sat down at the edge of the gym room and smiled when she saw Sam dancing with a cute little blonde, while she noticed another girl glaring at the blonde enviously. At least he's having fun, the poor kid gets tossed around all the time between hunts…the kids back in his school in Kansas hardly even know him.
Dean had noticed a young freshman couple leave, headed toward the parking lot, and even though they didn't look suspicious, he decided to tail them for a few minutes just in case.
Alex glanced around the large gymnasium for Ethan, he'd been gone for almost fifteen minutes…She stood up and walked out to the boy's bathroom, knocking gently on the door before opening it, "Ethan?" She quickly scanned the restroom, not seeing anyone, and walked back into the hallway. She also checked the boys and girls locker rooms, but didn't find anyone, so she decided Ethan must have gone back to the gym by now and was just about to walk back into the Prom when she noticed a red smear on the wall at the far end of the hallway, leading away from the gym and down a lesser used hallway that lead to the weight room and boiler room.
She frowned and lifted her dress, taking the .44 out of its strap and holding it in front of her as she slowly walked down the hallway toward the wall. She touched one finger to the stain and wiped away fresh blood, then noticed a few large scratches in the floor just beneath. Not wanting to double back and find Dean and Sam when someone could be in trouble, she rounded the corner of the hallway, seeing more stains along the tiled floor where someone had apparently been dragged. Her muscled were all tensed and ready for anything as her eyes followed the red marks to the door of the weight room.
Sam was having fun back at the dance, but he was also doing his job, he had seen Alex leave and immediately went to find Dean. He ran into his brother at the main entrance of the gymnasium, "Alex left." He said simply, but a little nervously.
"Where?" Dean asked, his stomach twisting slightly, hoping she hadn't gone and tried to find Ethan. Dammit! Ethan's probably one of the damn wolves and she goes off to find him! If she gets herself killed…I'll kill her.
"Out the back doors, toward the guys bathroom." Sam replied, the two of them already walking quickly in that direction.
Alex's nerves were definitely getting a workout, she pushed the weight room door open and flicked the light switch up. She saw Ethan laying in the middle of the floor, unconscious, and ran over to him, kneeling next to him and checking his pulse. It was strong, and he was breathing fine, but the blood she'd seen on the floor and walls was from a large gash on his forehead. Oh, God…It's not him! She patted his chest sympathetically, Please don't turn into a giant furball while I've got my back turned, two of the creepy bastards is enough. She straightened and scanned the room, her entire body freezing in place when she saw Rachel Witnem, Sam's Sophomore tour guide, standing next to a treadmill. Rachel looked completely normal, except for one thing, her eyes were a bright, burnt orange and her pupils were dilated to twice the size of a normal human being's.
"Rachel?!" Alex said incredulously, forgetting to raise her gun.
Rachel smirked, taking a few steps toward Alex, "Amazing, I know. Who would suspect dear, little, ol' me? There's an upside to being a teacher's pet, no one ever even thinks about pointing the finger at you when something goes wrong."
Alex regained her footing in the blink of an eye, she pointed her .44 straight at Rachel's chest, her finger on the trigger, "Yea, who would have thought the geek was a freak too?" She said with a growl.
Rachel stopped walking and snarled at Alex, showing pointed fangs, "I don't think you're in any position to be insulting a werewolf right now, Alex."
"And I don't think you're in any position to be insulting the girl with a clip full of silver bullets, Rachel." Alex replied icily. "So why'd you kill Jennifer? Why Ethan?"
"Jennifer was a bitch, and I was getting hungry." Rachel told her, grinning, "As for Ethan, I knocked him out and dragged him here just to get you to come looking for him. You and your brothers have been sticking your noses where they don't belong, if I hadn't been careful you would have found me out already."
Alex cursed, wishing she hadn't been stupid enough to fall for this bitch's poorly set trap, "Who's the other werewolf?" She asked, circling away from Rachel as she continued to come closer, small brown hairs starting to appear on her hands, arms, face and chest.
Rachel stopped walking toward her again, "What?"
Alex smiled, "That's right, I know there are two of you ugly bastards. We found the different blood and hair samples." She heard a scuffle behind her, "Sorry to ruin it for you, I'm sure you were looking forward to watching your partner attack me from behind while I was too busy focusing on you." She quickly whipped around and aimed at the chest of Brian Jacobs, Savannah Rider's boyfriend, the girl who'd found Jennifer dead, and shot.
Brian was partly transformed, his face had started to shift into a long, doglike face and his elbow and knees joints were opposite from a human's. Brian screamed, clawing at his chest with long yellowed finger nails and fell to the floor, before he died his body was transformed back to its normal human form. He hardly even knew what hit him.
Alex tried to turn again, but felt something rip the shoulder strap on her dress and decided to dart forward instead. She heard a yelp and stopped, turning around to see Rachel's once normal face and body turned completely, bristly tail and all. She was down on all fours, her hands now large paws with deadly-looking claws, her face was elongated and saliva dripped from pure white fangs which were bared as she snarled at someone standing in the doorway. Alex looked over and saw Sam and Dean there, both of them had guns pointed at the werewolf.
Sam had been the one to shoot, but apparently he'd missed. He swore and aimed again, waiting for Alex to move before he shot. Dean darted off around the werewolf toward Alex, and the wolf lunged for him, knocking him to the ground with its superior weight.
Sam and Alex both leaped in, Sam pulling out a silver bladed knife and plunging it into the beast's shoulder, making it growl again in pain and taking its focus off of Dean. Alex wasted no time, when she saw the thing jump back off of Dean, biting at the knife embedded in its shoulder; she took aim and fired, hitting the wolf straight in the heart. It to screamed in agony and collapsed on the floor, Rachel once again.
Dean lay panting on the floor, adrenaline rushing through his veins even though the whole fight had taken less than a minute. Alex and Sam each took a hand and pulled him to his feet, worry written on their faces.
"Did it bite you?" They asked him in unison, inspecting him closely.
"No." He said shortly, all three of them breathing heavily.
They just stood and stared at the two bodies before them, until finally Sam came back to reality and said, "We need to get Ethan out of here…" Alex and Dean nodded, one of Dean's hands was wrapped around Alex's waist and she had a finger in his belt loop, glad that he was okay.
Dean and Sam supported Ethan back down the hallway, where two teachers were busy chatting with each other. When they saw the "Wakemans" and Ethan's limp form Sam and Dean stopped and dropped Ethan gently to the floor, propping him up against the wall.
The next few hours flew by in a blur of police, detectives, yellow police tape, and EMTs. Alex, Sam, and Dean fed them a bullshit story about how Brian and Rachel had been working together, and they were the ones who murdered Jennifer Stephens. Their story was helped along by the fact that Ethan remembered being ambushed by Rachel and Brian, but didn't remember a thing about the fight that had taken place in the weight room a few hours earlier.
After they'd been questioned, and the police accepted the phony story, Alex, Sam, and Dean were free to go.
"I'd rather go up against spirits…" Alex said matter-of-factly as she, Dean, and Sam pulled out of the motel parking lot, everyone in Cleveland Lighthouse East believing the three "Wakemans" had found a house in Michigan.
Dean sighed, agreeing, "I know what you mean. Those kids were messed up, but they still had families."
"And we just destroyed their families lives…I mean, how do you think they'll handle the thought that their children were murders? And people are always going to treat them like criminals…It's just terrible." Alex mumbled, looking out the window.
Sam agreed with them too, but he decided not to make the mood any more depressing, "At least we know that the other students are safe now." He said lightly, trying to improve their spirits.
Alex sighed, and smiled, "Yea, another job well done, I guess."
Dean looked over at her, and she could feel his eyes on her. She scooted over and tucked herself up next to him on the front seat, he threw an arm around her shoulders in a small hug, then turned his eyes back to the road. Sam bunched up his jacket and used it as a pillow, all three of them were tired after the shittiest Prom night ever, and just wanted to reach the next motel room as fast as possible.