Waking up was always the hardest part of the day, and it always took the most effort, out of everything. Especially this morning. As I peeled myself off of the couch, I realized my entire body ached and it wasn't just because of the bite in my neck or the pounding that had finally ceased in my head.
I could feel dried tears sticking to one side of my face and I drew the line that no, I hadn't been crying in my sleep, but had just been lying in such a position that the tears had squeezed out of the corner of my closed eye and mingled with my make-up down my face.
I was afraid to go into the bathroom and see what a state my hair and my face was in. As soon as I had entered my apartment the night before, not bothering to even knock on Olivia and Brax's door to let them know I was home - something I usually did to ensure my safety - and instead let myself in the front door and collapsed straight onto the uncomfortable two seater, not even changing clothes from my skimpy hooker dress into a comfortable pair of sweats.
In that way, I was lucky that Mason and Trent wouldn't be home for several days, seeing as the two of them had absolutely no clue of my true career choices and would probably kill me if they ever found out and I had fallen asleep on the couch, not even in my room, in a tight, black dress that hugged all the right places to make what was already pretty pronounced, pronounce even more.
Heading towards the bathroom, I thought about closing my eyes as I passed the mirror above the basin, but thought against it - seeing as the last time I had closed my eyes near a bathroom was when Mason and I had been playingMurder in the Dark when we were younger and I had smashed my chin straight into the sink and it had needed stitches.
I grimaced at my reflection; my hair was in tangles and calling my eyes raccoon eyes would have been an understatement. Apart from having mascara and eyeliner smudged below and above my eyes, I had it smeared down one cheek and dry and mingled with sticky tears on the other side.
Without thinking about it twice, I stepped out of my dress and barely-there-underwear and stood under the hot jets of water in the shower. I washed my face, hair and body and stayed standing under the water for several minutes, letting the boiling water relax my cramped muscles, though I had to move the shoulder with Jacob's mark away from the spurts of water, seeing as all that did was sting and I didn't want to deal with that right now.
Getting out of the shower, I pulled a white towel around myself and wrung my hair out with another towel, picking up the dirty clothes from the floor and pushing them into my laundry hamper before I headed into my room.
It was basic, a desk, a bed, a wardrobe. Some photo frames on my side table of Mason, Trent and I, some of Olivia and Brax and some of the girls, but not so many that it would bring attention to my life. My room showed my life, basic and plain with a sprout of emotion somewhere within.
Pulling a comb and then a lotion through my thick, dark hair, I let it hang down my back as I pulled a black singlet and matching sweat pants on, leaving my bra off because I wasn't leaving the house today and I wasn't working tonight either.
I stared in front of the mirror on the back of my door, sighing. Pushing back the thin fabric of the singlet, I took a closer look at Jacob's bite. It looked nasty, not like it usually did. It was red and looked worse around the edges of the wound, the teeth marks sunk deep into my skin and I headed towards the kitchen and the first aid kit, where I knew we kept it.
Pulling it out from under the sink, I sprinkled some Dettol on a cotton ball and dabbed it on the wound, gritting my teeth in pain as I did so before I stuck a gauze on it and then fastened it in place with medical tape, knowing that I would need to change it in a few hours.
I was about to make some lunch, seeing it was after one o'clock, but was distracted as the doorbell rang. Figuring it was just Olivia or Bianca or even Emma coming to check up on me, I didn't bother slipping on a jacket so that I wouldn't have to answer unwanted questions about my bandage to my guest, as it turned out, I was wrong about it being someone checking up on me.
Sam and Dean Winchester stood at the door, their mouths wide with easy grins and their stance at ease, which I figured it probably wasn't a lot of the time - being hunters, and all. I looked between the two of them warily, wondering what they were doing here and how they had found my address.
"Hey, Reed," As if not understanding that this was someone's house, Dean pushed past me and looked around the apartment, his brother not far behind him. I swallowed slowly as I closed the door, figuring there was no getting rid of them as I watched them look around before Dean lounged over the couch I had slept on the night before and Sam stood behind him.
"Excuse me?" I blinked, wanting answers. I didn't know if this was a normal thing for the Winchester brothers and wherever they grew up, but in Chicago - and everywhere else I had lived over the years - it wasn't ethical to just walk into someone else's house and lounge around on their furniture like you belonged there.
"Yeah?" Dean glanced at me, a sly smirk crossing over his face as he knew exactly how his actions were causing my blood to boil. I clenched and un-clenched my fists before taking a deep breath and resting a hand on my hip.
"What are you doing here? In my house?" I asked haughtily, I had already made two mistakes including the Winchester's in the last twenty four hours - not realizing who they were and then talking to Dean in the alley - and I was not inclined to make a third just yet.
"We were just dropping by to say hi to Mason and Trent," Dean said and I opened my mouth to speak a quick quip about them being out of town so they should just leave and not come back later when Dean raised a finger to shush me, "But they don't seem to be here, so we'll stay and talk to you," Dean gave Sam a knowing look and I bit my lip, wondering what they were discussing silently.
"About what?" I leaned against the kitchen counter, crossing my arms over my chest as Sam Winchester's eyes zeroed in on my white gauze bandage and narrowed his eyes.
"What happened?" Though I was sure that he already knew exactly what had happened to my neck and he was just asking to hear a verbal confirmation so that he and his brother had proof that the vampires in Chicago were harming innocent people and needed to be killed - though I was hardly innocent.
"Boys love to bite," My eyes sparkled as I spoke, I didn't tell him a vampire, though I may as well have, but I didn't, so they had no real proof that vampires were harming people in the heart of America.
"What sort of boys?" Sam retorted and I raised an eyebrow, looking over at Dean who just stayed silent, pursing his lips and waiting for my answer. I didn't reply for a long while, I just busied myself with filling a glass of water and drinking from it.
"Client information is confidential," It wasn't strictly the truth, but it was true enough that if I had have been strapped to a lie detector while giving my answer, it wouldn't have noticed a thing. Sam mirrored my movement and raised his own eyebrow before letting out a breathy chuckle.
"Of course,"
"So can I help you with something or are you just here to fuck up my day off?" To say I wasn't in the mood to speak with the two Hunters was an understatement. If Dallas got wind that I was spending time with Hunters - with the Winchester's, of all - then I would be in some serious trouble, possibly ending in my death.
Dallas Braylen was a Kitsune and the owner of one of the most successful, legal monster brothel's in the city of Chicago after all. He could easily get rid of me and replace me with a flick of his fingers and a flash of his pearly whites.
Before Dean could respond, there was another knock on the door and instead of whoever was there waiting for me to answer it, they just barged in by themselves.
"Emma told me to check on you because she knows you didn't tell Liv to stay with you last night, and I want to know if you're dead and what sort of excuse you've come up with to tell Dallas about why you were talking to that Hunter last night -" Daisy Connor, one of the escorts at The Pentagon, stopped in her tracks as she spied who was sitting on my couch.
"Crap, Kale," She breathed, "Dallas is gonna kill you," She doesn't know how literal she's being right now, I thought as I bit down hard enough on my lip to draw blood, knowing that I'd been caught.
"Would you believe me if I told you they just came to see Mase and Trent?"