Chapter 4
Reaching the door, Dean gently pushed it open and rushed inside, gun raised, with Sam close behind. The room was dim, the only light coming from the sun streaming in through the open door. The lights were out and the curtains were drawn. Sam reached behind himself and hit the light switch by the door, illuminating the room.
The first thing Dean and Sam saw was the barrel of another gun, pointed straight at them. The woman was huddled in a corner, bleeding and breathing raggedly; her left arm clutched against her abdomen. Despite her condition, she held the gun steady, her eyes like steel.
"Who the hell are you, and what do you want?" Her demand came out all iron and grit, with only the slightest hint of a tremor, most likely from the pain.
Dean assessed the situation: there was a woman on the floor, bloody and probably scared, with two strange men pointing guns at her. If the situation were reversed, he probably would have shot the intruders by now. So he had to give her credit for not blasting them away as soon as she saw them. Dean took his left hand from the butt of his gun and raised it in the air in surrender. Using his right hand he placed the gun on the ground.
Sam looked at Dean dubiously, but followed his brother's lead and placed his weapon down as well, mimicking the older hunter's actions, also keeping his hands in the air.
"Alright," Dean said, hands still in the air, "alright. We're not gonna hurt you, okay? I'm Dean," he said pointing at himself before motioning towards his brother behind him. "That there is my brother Sam. We saw the blood on your door and thought you might need some help." Dean made sure to speak low and calmly, treating the woman like a frightened and injured animal that he didn't want to scare away. Plus, injured animals have been known to lash out when they are frightened, and he didn't want that.
At the mention of their names, recognition flashed across the woman's face. "Sam and Dean?" She said incredulously. "Winchester?" She asked.
The brothers spared a glance at each other before turning back and answering, "Yeah," unanimously.
"You're hunters," she breathed out in disbelief and just a bit of relief. She finally lowered her weapon and warily regarded the two men in front of her. Sam and Dean cautiously lowered their hands and endured the scrutiny. After a few moments the woman said, "Alright. Well, thanks for checking in. You can leave now."
Dumbfounded, Dean and Sam just stared at her for a few moments before Dean found his voice and said, "What?"
"I'm fine. Thank you. Leave now!"
This time Sam spoke before Dean could lose his patience. "Are you sure, miss? 'Cause you don't look fine."
"Well I am!" Sam and Dean might have believed her, if her body hadn't chosen that particular moment to give her a new spasm of pain, causing her to squeeze her eyes shut and hiss in pain.
Ignoring the woman's protests, the brothers both rushed to her side, after pushing the door closed, and helped her onto her feet before they gingerly settled her onto the single bed. Halfway through the process, she gave up trying to fend them off and begrudgingly accepted their help.
"I think you might need to go to a hospital," Sam suggested. "You've lost a lot of blood." Sam had taken in her torn, blood-soaked clothes and the puddle of blood that they had just lifted her out of on the floor.
"No! No hospitals!" she nearly shouted out the order, causing a fresh wave of pain to shoot through her body.
Sam and Dean eyed each other warily before Sam said, "Okay. No hospitals." The brothers could certainly understand the woman's trepidation about seeking medical help. How many times had the Winchesters chosen to forgo professional help in favor of their own rudimentary skills? Turing to Dean Sam said, "Stay here a minute. I'll go get the first aid kit."
Sam turned to the door, but then the woman said, "No, wait. I have one. It's over there." She pointed to a medium-sized, leather bag that was lying on the floor, about a foot from the pool of blood. It looked like an old-fashioned doctor's bag that they used to make house calls with. Dean was closer to it, and he was also better at first aid than his little brother, so he grabbed the bag and looked inside.
The contents put the Winchesters' little med kit to shame. Where theirs only had two needles, some thread, gauze and some painkillers, this woman's looked like a she had robbed a hospital and a pharmacy in one go. It contained the usual gauze, needles and thread; but there were also syringes, vials of antiseptic, penicillin, anesthesia, painkillers, tranquilizers of every size, strength and color, a few small bottles of whiskey, some vodka, and even a few vials of sodium amytal, among other things.
After taking a moment to admire the woman's preparedness, he started to move closer to her, but then froze when he made the realization that he was most likely going to have to help her out of her clothes in order to get at her wounds; and if she had put up that much of a fight just for being helped off of the floor, then he could only imagine the stink she was going to make for having to disrobe in front of two strange men.
He wanted to help her, but not if it meant getting his head ripped off by the frightening little woman, who somehow managed to look intimidating, even in her current state. He was getting ready to tell Sam to take a walk, so that she would only have to get undressed in front of one of them, but he was interrupted.
Sensing the man's trepidation, the woman rolled her eyes and said, "Look, I've already resigned myself to accepting your help. But if you're having second thoughts, then I can do this myself. I was just getting ready to before you boys barged in. I am fully capable," She finished with a huff.
"Oh, I'm sure you are. But I won't feel right just leaving you here bleeding," Dean shot back.
"Okay. So stop being so damn bashful and get over here!"
So, with a little bit of work, Dean helped her out of her clothes, trying hard to keep his face from getting too red. She wasn't completely naked. Her bra was left in place, as were her underwear, though both were torn in various places from whatever it was that attacked her. And Sam had grabbed a towel from the bathroom to cover her crotch, even though she still had on her underwear and her jeans were only pulled down to her thighs, just far enough to expose the worst of her injuries.
With that done, Dean set about administering the first aid. He started with the large gash that went from her belly button and diagonally down to the midway point of her left thigh. While he worked to clean and stitch the cut, he decided to use the time to ask her a few questions, if only to help get her mind off of the pain, since she had refused the use of painkillers and local anesthetic, stating that those were to be saved for when she had to patch up someone else. She did however down a small, 8oz bottle of Jack Daniels like a champ.
"So, uh, we never got your name," Dean stated.
"That's 'cause I never gave it," she said, a bit snarkily. After a moment she said, "Milah."
"Alright, Milah. Nice to meet you."
"Likewise," Milah said around a painful gasp.
Dean finished with the first gash, then helped her pull up her pants before moving on to the next ones. As he did, he remembered something she said earlier. "So, you recognized me and Sam as hunters earlier. Does that mean you're also a-"
"A hunter? Yeah. And you two are basically famous. You've died so many times people are starting to think you're immortal or something. Or maybe you guys made some demon deal to keep the two of you alive." She chuckled at her own observation.
Sam and Dean exchanged a knowing look, but didn't say anything. Milah noticed the look, but let it go. If they made some sort of deal with a demon, it was none of her business.
Dean started putting pieces together. If she was a hunter, then he had to know if she was the one taking his all of his hunts. So he asked, "What were you hunting here?"
"Poltergeists," Milah answered simply.
Dean sighed. That's all the proof he needed to know that she was indeed the culprit. What were the odds that another hunter would be in the same town hunting a different set of poltergeists? He was still a little pissed, but seeing how injured she was, he decided to let it go. Besides, he held a tiny sadistic pleasure in knowing that she was hurt. Serves her right for poaching his cases. He kept silent and continued his ministrations.
Sam, on the other hand, had gotten curious. "So, did you take down a vamp nest in Nebraska not too long ago?"
Looking at Sam with a mild air of suspicion, she thought a moment before answering honestly, "Yeah..."
"What about a wendigo in Connecticut?" Sam pressed.
Still confused, Milah said, "No. That wasn't me."
Dean, curiosity now fully piqued, joined the conversation. "Well who did that one then?"
Milah looked like she wasn't sure if she should answer, but after a few moments she made the decision. "That was a cousin of mine." After a beat she added, "Hunting is sort of a family business."
At that, both Sam and Dean gave a short chuckle. Then Sam said, "Yeah. We know a bit about that particular family affair." Milah just gave a knowing nod in response.
"Why do you ask?" Milah wanted to know.
"Well," Sam said, looking at Dean. When all Dean did was shrug, Sam took that as a sign that his brother didn't care if she was told. "For the past few weeks, we've been going to different towns looking for cases, but every time we got there, the case was already solved: monsters killed, victims released, et cetera."
"Really?" Milah said with genuine surprise.
"Yeah. Dean was under the impression that someone was deliberately poaching our hunts," Sam mentioned with a chuckle.
Dean rolled his eyes, but for the most part he kept his focus on the task at hand.
Milah chuckled back as gently as she could without jostling her wounds. "Well, I don't think anyone knew about it. I know I didn't."
After a few moments there was a lull in the conversation and, wanting to change the topic, Dean said, "So the poltergeists did this to you? The little boys?" Dean asked.
"Yeah. They were buried together in a mausoleum. Their father was away a lot and their mother was very neglectful. She left them alone a lot and they actually wound up starving to death. I think that's why they killed Sasha Martinez. Both of the parents worked, so the girls were by themselves for a few hours every day after school. They would get themselves a snack and wait for their mom to get back – she would get home before Hector. The kids were perfectly safe. They weren't in any danger of starvation or anything. But the spirits saw two kids, alone, and just kinda lost it. Even though there was nothing to indicated that Sasha was a danger to her children. I mean, there are lots of latchkey kids that are perfectly fine, but no one ever said the dead were the most logical sort."
She took a moment to breath before continuing. "Anyway. Their father got home and found out what his wife had done to their boys, and bashed her head in with a hammer, before taking his own life. Some relatives from the father's side found out paid for the kids' and father's burials, but not the mother's. The county cremate her. So, I found the mausoleum the boys were buried in, but as soon as I got the stone slabs off their graves, they discovered me and attacked. I was barley able to get their bones salted and burned in time before they killed me. I'm just lucky I didn't end up like Sasha."
"Yeah. Really lucky," Sam commented. Dean grunted in agreement.
A while later, Dean had finished dressing her most serious wounds. She had a laceration on her right shoulder that had exposed the bone. There was the gash on her lower abdomen/upper thigh. A cut that went from her right side to the middle of her back. Then there were other minor scrapes and cuts that didn't need more that some antibiotics. Dean had also done what he could to remove as much of the blood as possible.
"Well, that should just about do it," Dean said, once he was satisfied with his handiwork.
Milah painfully sat upright and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. After she gained some semblance of balance, she looked at Dean and Sam in turn and said, "Thanks." And she meant it. It was nice of them to help her, when they really didn't need to. But she didn't say that. She still needed to keep her gruff exterior up. It was her best defense, after all.
"No problem," Dean said.
"Yeah. Any time," replied Sam. He felt a little awkward, since all he really did was hand over a towel and ask some questions, but Milah still seemed thankful to him as well, regardless.
Milah regarded the floor for a moment before saying, "Hey, have either of you seen my phone? I set it next to me on the floor before you guys came in."
Sam and Dean searched the floor around where they found Milah in the corner next to the bed, but didn't find it. Then Sam looked under the bed and pulled it out triumphantly. It must have gotten kicked under there while they were helping her up.
"Thanks," she said, checking it expectantly.
"No problem," Sam said.
"So, um," Dean said brilliantly, suddenly unsure what to do. Since Milah had taken care of the poltergeist twins, and he had finished patching her up, it didn't seem like there was anything else to do; and she seemed tough enough to not need any further assistance. She wasn't even wincing in pain with each movement anymore. "If you're okay... I guess me and Sam should get out of your hair."
"Dean!" Sam said incredulously. He couldn't believe Dean would just leave so soon after sewing her up. It seemed kind of heartless. But Dean just didn't want to disrupt the woman's personal space any more that he needed to.
"What?" Dean said, knowing full well what Sam's problem was. But he knew how to get his brother the cooperate. "Well, I figured she might wanna get cleaned up a bit and change into some fresh clothes. And I'm sure she can manage that on her own," Dean said. Then he added, "Unless you feel like she needs a hand..."
"I'm fine. Get out!" Milah said, not wanting that discussion to continue any further. It was making her uncomfortable, and she could tell they felt more or less the same way. Besides, she really could manage from here.
"You sure you're gonna be okay?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, I'll be fine." Milah said, waving them off with her good arm.
"Alright, well... I guess we can just come back in a few hours to check on you?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, we can do that," Dean added with a shrug, looking at Milah for confirmation.
"Whatever makes you feel better," Milah commented, nonchalantly.
"Okay," Dean said, backing to the door. "We'll see you in a few-"
Dean was suddenly cut off when the door was busted open with a loud bang. Then Dean was being whacked on the head with the butt of a shotgun. There was a sharp, skull-splitting pain before he hit the ground with a thud. He heard a struggle, and in his blurred vision he saw Sam hitting the floor just a few feet from him. Milah was shouting something that he could quite make out. It didn't really matter though, because the next thing he knew was darkness.
