Disclaimer: Winchesters are not mine. If they were, Sam would be married to Jess already, and Dean would probably be living with Lisa and Ben. *sigh*

A/N: Yay. Hope you're all still hanging in there as this story wraps up. My next story will have WAY more Winchester involvement *teeheehee* :) Geronimo!


Despite my initial misgivings, the stake-out was actually not too bad. After parking in the very back of the lot, I'd climbed into the passenger seat, so that if anyone passed the car, they'd just think I was waiting for the driver to come back. Plus, it gave me more room to work. I had my iPod going, and I was sketching on my pad, so the time was passing pretty quickly. Well, quickly-ish.

My pencil skated lazily over the paper, and my forehead wrinkled as I searched for inspiration. Nothing was coming to mind as I tilted my head against the window and surveyed the parking lot.

I watched another waitress pull into the wide side alley, where the staff parked, and hustle into the club, waving at the bouncer as she scooted by. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, wary of the whole situation. There was potentially a killer in there. And if I found out who it was, I still didn't know what I was going to do about it. I sighed, dropping forward to rest my head on the dash.

This was so messed up. What was I even doing here?

A face appeared in my mind's eye. Sad, bedgraggled, scared. Big, dripping curls framed a face full of fear and helplessness. I sat up, pencil flicking to life, and I started to draw. First came the hand, reaching out in a desperately inquiry for help. Then came the big eyes, so full of terror and pain. Then the gentle slope of her nose followed by the rest of her face. The hair was harder, because I was trying to make it look wet, just like I'd first seen it.

It was morbid and disturbing, but when I was done, the most previous drowning victim was staring through the page at me. It was a good drawing, easily capturing the emotion that I'd seen before in her eyes and face.

That was why I was doing this. She was why—her death. I was here to make sure something like that didn't keep happening.

I closed my sketchpad and put it in the backseat, having ruined any semblance of a good mood with my recollection of the girl. It was probably a good thing that I did, though, because only a few minutes later, Mister FBI showed up.

He drove a black, nondescript car, and he pulled up and parked with clinical precision and efficiency. I ducked low in my seat, not wanting him to even catch a glimpse of me since he was only a row away.

He did something curious, though, before climbing out. As I peeked over the edge of my dash, Mister FBI pulled out a small box and rooted around in it for a minute. Then he plucked something from it and put the object in his jacket. Setting the box somewhere out of sight, he exited the car and strode off towards the club. Upon reaching the bouncer at the door, he reached back into his jacket and pulled out the familiar ID badge.

It wasn't until the bouncer waved him inside that I dared get out of my car. Tiptoeing like a loony, I scurried over to Mister FBI's car and peeked through his passenger side front window. The box I had seen was sitting on the floorboard, slightly nestled under the dash. It was a simple cardboard box with the flaps tucked down inside it, not much bigger than a Harry Potter book. Inside were what looked like random cards.

I leaned over, cupping my hands against the window in order to see better. It helped, and I was able to make out the general gist of the numerous objects. There were multiple drivers' licenses, each from what looked like different states. There were also a couple different IDs and two different badges. The first, I couldn't tell what agency or place it was for, but it was definitely not from the FBI. The second, I knew from watching the TV show Justified. It was a round circle with a star in the middle, and I automatically recognized it as a US Marshal badge.

I stepped back, puzzled, and leaned against the car next to Mister FBI's. I wasn't a wiz regarding the federal government, but even I knew that there was no good reason to have multiple IDs and badges for different agencies. Unless your name was Jason Bourne—who Ted Rinsler was not. In accordance to the many different IDs, Ted Rinsler might not even be his real name, and he was more than likely not even an FBI agent. Who even knew at this point?

I didn't have time to contemplate the implications of that, because all of a sudden, the doors to the side alley burst open, and a man came running out. He fumbled for his keys as he skidded to a stop next to a grey Fiat, and my eyes widened as I recognized him.

It was the man that had almost run me over while he was walking away from the crowd at the dock. He had been glued to his phone at the time, and he hadn't even looked up or apologized. Potentially Faux Mister FBI's words came back to me. Two crime scenes in one day, what a coincidence, he'd said. Can I see some ID? It's normal procedure when a person is present at more than one crime scene.

This wasn't a second crime scene, but it was strange that I was seeing that particular guy again. Plus, he looked suspiciously like he was fleeing in direct correlation with the entrance of an FBI agent into the building. And if I was taking a page from the potentially faux FBI playbook, I should probably find out why or even if this guy was connected to the whole ghost mess.

I pushed off the door of the car and pulled out my phone, taking a picture of the guy's license plate. I got a good shot of it as he peeled out, and his erratic driving just furthered my suspicions. So I put my phone away, checked around the parking lot one more time, and ran back to my car. Then I upped my creeper-status to full on stalker-status as I started to tail the guy through traffic. It wasn't hard. There were lots of cars and lots of stoplights. I had no problem staying multiple cars away and still keeping Fiat Man in sight.

The horrible feeling in my stomach started, though, when he led me to a more industrial side of town. There were a few warehouses, and he pulled up at the creepiest, most abandoned looking one. He turned off his car with a couple of loud backfires and hoofed it up to the giant sliding metal doors. Ignoring the padlock and chains across them, he slipped right between the doors and out of sight. Typical.

I parked behind an ugly mess of dense trees and shrubbery, slowly sneaking my way closer to his hideout. I wasn't stupid enough to follow him into the dark warehouse, and I certainly wasn't stupid enough to have left my car in plain sight for him to see when he left. No, instead of just rushing on in, I was content to wait him out. I was going to wait until he left, and then I would go check the place out.

My plan worked wonderfully. If "wonderfully" could be considered crouching in the dirt behind a rusting dumpster for a good half an hour. But eventually, out Fiat Man came, and he drove off again with several more backfires. I jumped each time the engine popped, skirting my way around the dumpster as he drove by so that he wouldn't see me.

I waited another twenty or so minutes, just to make sure he was gone and not secretly scoping out the place. Then I stood and stretched my legs out, walking up to the doors and slipping inside, just like he had.

It was dark and gloomy inside, and I pulled my flashlight out of my backpack along with my salt gun. I didn't know what to expect, and in turn, I wanted to be prepared for anything.

I crept along silently, warily skirting around metal beams and weird remnants of shipping containers. There were broken crates and loads of shredded packing plastic strewn about, but the worst thing was the dirt floor. It ate up the sound of my footsteps, and it made everything insanely creepy and silent.

Darkness and silence—one of the most terrifying combos ever. Yet at the same time it was kind of comforting. Silence meant that I was alone, more or less. And if I was alone, then I was not in the presence of a serial killer. And of the two, I would totally choose silence over a serial killer. Silence also meant that I could potentially hear things sneaking up on me. So, yep, silence was good.

My phone went off, vibrating wildly in my pocket and scaring the everloving crap out of me. My heart beat wildly as I transferred my salt gun to the same hand that held my flashlight, fishing with my free hand for my phone. I didn't recognize the number, but it had the same area code as a certain towering Hunter that I kept on speed dial. Wonderful timing—right smack dab in the middle of the only time I really needed to be quiet.

"Hello?" I answered casually, trying to keep my voice down but not sound suspiciously hushed.

It was Dean. He didn't bother saying hello back. "What's this I hear about a new Hunter based out of Oregon?" he asked sharply.

I peeked around another crate and came up short when I found a weird table thing right in front of me. It had a table cloth on it along with a bunch of other weird crap. More than that, it looked oddly close to something akin to devil worship. Or the pop cultural version of devil worship, anyway. It was like something out of a bad horror movie.

My mouth pulled into a confused frown. "Uh…complete and utter fabrication strictly unrelated to myself?" I said almost questioningly, studying the creepy altar in front of me. "I spend my days doing homework and working towards a degree in the Fine Arts." That was totally true, so long as omitting my Hunting extracurriculars wasn't lying. Which it was. Okay, it was totally not true, then.

I tilted my head to the side with a frown and scratched the side of my head with a finger, taking in all the ritualistic mumbo jumbo littering the altar. "I'm even studying some unconventional art right now, in fact." Technically, that wasn't even a lie since the table had lots of weird symbols painted on it in red paint. Or what I hoped was red paint. And the whole thing looked like some of the stupid "modern art" sculptures I had seen at museums. Art, shplart—it was all just crap if you asked me.

Across the top of the table were candles galore, spread in random arrangements, and they were getting pretty short—with dried pools of wax around them—like they'd been used enough to reach their current length and not just made that way. Along with the candles, there were several small wooden bowls that looked hand-carved, and they held all manners of weird things. I didn't want to even begin to guess what the items were. Suffice it to say that all of them couldn't possibly have held things that were easily, or even legally, procured.

However, it was the centerpiece that was most disturbing. At the center of the table was a white cloth, painted with the red symbols that I was "studying." Sitting on the cloth was a large silver chalice, and it gleamed wildly against the glow of my flashlight. "Yep," I said, trying not to be completely creeped out, "just studying."

"Good," Dean grunted, sounding like he actually believed me. Maybe my lying was getting better. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. I pursed my lips and leaned over the silver cup to see what was inside.

I really shouldn't have.

There was thick, red liquid pooled at the bottom, and I didn't even have to guess to know what it was. Even worse, there were three different locks of hair, and I knew they were from the three girls that had been killed. One was blond, and another was brown and curly, just like the latest victim's had been. There were also a ton of pieces and fragments of bones, which meant that I had most likely discovered the missing half of Tom Sorbenth. Oh joy.

I sighed, surveying the entire altar with disgust, not even sure how to proceed. This was way out of my league. Ghosts, I could handle. Voodoo altars or whatever this was, not so much.

Fortunately, I happened to be talking to a guy who might know how to deal with it.

Unfortunately, I had just finished up telling him how normal I was supposedly being.

I rubbed my forehead with a sleeve, grimacing and fighting the urge to find a wall to bang my head against. "Hey, Dean?"

"What?" He sounded tired, and I felt a little bad, but I still needed answers.

"Hypothetically, if there was a ghost that was maybe, like, forced to kill girls, and someone somehow stumbled upon a weird-ass altar type thing in the middle of a creepy, abandoned warehouse, then the best way to deal with it would be…"

His hand slapped down against the surface of something, making me flinch even though the noise was just coming through the phone. "Damn it, Riley, you were supposed to stay out of this life," he growled.

"No, you said to try and be normal," I pointed out quickly in my own defense. "Well, I totally did. It wasn't my fault that Libby's house was haunted."

"Oh, and I suppose Libby is forcing you to Hunt in the entire state, too?" I thought back to his original accusation of being the new Hunter based out of Oregon.

"Don't be ridiculous," I said glibly. Then, after a pause, I conceded. "It's actually two states." Then I hurried on before he could say anything. "And really, how much crap can happen in just two states? Case in point, you and Sam have to bounce from state to state to find jobs."

Actually, the answer to my question was "quite a lot." I was mostly working out of Oregon, with the occasional side trips into Washington to make sure Libby didn't get herself killed. But it was more work than it sounded like. Libby was in Seattle, and seriously, Seattle people were crazy.

Like now, for instance. I wasn't investigating my typical, normal little haunting. Oh, no. No way was it that simple. Right now, I was staring at an altar that someone was using to get a ghost to take care of their personal vendettas. Not a ghost. Not a serial killer. It just had to be a mash-up of the two. Frigging Seattle people.

Still, Dean didn't have to know just how busy I'd been lately. I'd keep that one to myself. Though, if he'd been hearing word of a Hunter based out of Oregon, then maybe my work was getting around. That particular thought filled me with a weird sense of pride and then a flash of unease. Should I be proud about killing things, even if they were bad things? I mean, it wasn't exactly something you could pad your resume with. And did I really want to garner a reputation as a killer? I didn't have an answer to that either.

Luckily, Dean snapped me out of my thoughts. "You're going to get yourself killed. And when you do, what's your family going to say?" He had a point, but then again, it wasn't anything I hadn't already debated with myself about since the start of this whole Hunting thing. So I plied him with the same answer I continuously ended up with during my ongoing self-debates.

"Look, I don't know if you were really paying attention to the whole 'Turn Riley Into a Vampire Phase,' but let me fill you in." I paused, just for effect. "I almost got turned into a vampire. And kidnapped. So really, I'm living on time that I shouldn't have had in the first place." I let him stew on that before hitting him with the whammy. "You and Sam saved me when probably no one else could have. So how can you expect me to do anything less for someone else?"

He sighed and took a drink of something. I could hear the clink of ice and his swallow. Part of me sympathized and wanted to join him. Then the rational part of me kicked in, and I remembered that I was only nineteen. It was too early in life to start hitting the bottle, no matter how old and mature I felt these days.

"Dean, listen—" I said slowly.

"No, you listen," he said, cutting me off. "Sam and I grew up in this life. We know what we're doing. You can't just take care of one ghost and then assume you're a Hunter."

"Oh please," I snorted. "All Hunters start out somewhere. It's the same old story. Encounter with the supernatural, unintended consequences, and boom—new Hunter." I suppose the fact that I had actually survived a vampire invasion and salted-and-burned nine spirits and put two changelings out of commission made my tone a little sharp and annoyed.

I think Dean sensed it too, because he went silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his tone was rough and tired. "You know what? If you want to get yourself killed, fine. I don't have the time or energy to argue about it. Just don't expect Sam and me to come bail you out if you get in over your head, which you will."

I took a step back, kind of stunned, and a slow grin spread across my face. "I understand," I said dutifully, acknowledging his disclaimer. If I got myself killed, then it was my own dang fault—that much was clear. But I knew that they would still come. If I called them and truly needed help, they would come. That was just who they were.

"Write this number down," Dean said sharply, like he was done with this conversation. He listed off a phone number, and I toed it into the dirt—not having anything to write on—before repeating it back to him. "Name's Bobby Singer. He's a friend of ours. Knows a lot more about monsters than me or even Sam."

"Okay, thanks. And about that altar?" I chewed on my lip again, wondering if he would still help me.

"Knock it over. And when in doubt, torch it." Good old Dean.

"Got it," I said, resting my foot on the edge of the altar. Shoving hard with my leg, I sent the table crashing onto its side. The candles and bowls of weird stuff went flying, and I pulled a container of lighter fluid out of my backpack, squirting the flammable goodness all over the mess. I paid special attention to Tom's remains, squirting them with an overly liberal dose of lighter fluid and tossing a handful of salt over them.

"Riley?" Dean asked, his tone changing from weariness to a kind of melancholic pensiveness. "What happened to having a normal life?"

I thought about giving him a cheap, witty response, but something stopped me. I pressed the phone to my cheek with my shoulder and pulled my backpack around to the front, resting it on my thigh as I put the lighter fluid away and zipped the pocket closed again. "It didn't work out," I said finally, shoving my backpack around and onto my back with a little more force than necessary.

Then I hesitated, chewing on the inside of my cheek."I tried for months to forget what happened, to move on. But in the end, I just kept seeing you—bursting through my bedroom door. You saved me, Dean. And after that, I couldn't just go on with my life pretending like everything was normal. Not when someone else out there might be dying because no one bursts in to save them."

I faltered, for a second, becoming strangely emotional. "It might have started out with taking down the ghost in Libby's house. After that, it was just some stupid haunted house she went to. And then after that, even, it was just me making sure she didn't wander around and get herself killed. But now? Now I can make a difference, Dean. And even if it's only a few ghosts here and there, I can help people…the way you helped me."

I twisted the toe of my Converse in the dirt, making a perfect circle inside my flashlight beam as I sought out the correct words to explain. "You know that Spider-man quote? 'With great power comes great responsibility.' Well, I kind of feel that responsibility. If I have to go through life knowing that monsters and the things of nightmares are real, then I'm at least going make use of it. Hardly anyone knows about this stuff, and that's definitely a good thing. Heck, I almost wish that I didn't know any of it. But I do, and if I have to know, then I'm at least going to do something about it."

I was desperate, then. Desperate that he understand what I was trying to say, desperate that someone—anyone—finally understand the struggle that had been weighing on me all this time. And, because I had seen a similar kind of weight on him, I think he did.

He sighed, and I could imagine him running a hand across his jaw. "Well, kiddo," he said slowly, "maybe you're meant to be a Hunter after all."

My eyebrows shot up, and I let out a choked little laugh. "Maybe," I agreed, scrubbing a sleeve across my eyes. Why was I tearing up? Gosh dang did I need to get a hold of myself.

"And your parents think you are, what, traveling around for shits and giggles?" He sounded distracted now.

"Pacific Northwest College of Art—Portland, Oregon," I explained, reaching back around to the side pocket of my backpack and pulling out a lighter. "My professors all say that I'm incredibly imaginative and wildly talented. I send home their glowing reviews all the time. My parents just don't know that I'm taking online classes. So, I really only have to check in on campus and turn in my pieces every two or three weeks. I'm an exemplary student."

"Of course you are," he said dryly.

I stared down at the phone number I had carved into the dirt, realizing how many doors that had possibly just opened for me. Then I bit my lip. "Dean? I saved a mom and her little boy. It felt…right. Good, even."

He sighed. "It always does…when you save them. But when you're staring down a barrel or a blade at some mook, and you know you have to end them, but you also know they're probably someone's daughter or mother or son…well, it doesn't feel so good, then. But you finish the job, because that's what Hunters do. And you have to live with the lying and the killing and the fighting, knowing that at any moment, it might be you that doesn't walk away from a job. That's something you'll always have to live with, and the weight of it adds up pretty quickly."

"I know," I said quietly, and I did know. Back when I had first discovered that supernatural things existed, my boss and friend, Sara, had been turned into a vampire. It had been days before I realized what had happened, and in those days I had waited and hoped to hear from her. Then she'd been killed, albeit while on her way to kill my family, and I had hated that she was gone, hated that no one would know what had happened to her. She had been turned and then killed in the space of a week, just blinking out of existence like she'd never been there. And then I'd had to go around lying my face off about it—to Libby, to my family, to the cops. It had weighed on me. It still did.

But I was doing this. I was Hunting. Because I could. Because if I did, then maybe—just maybe—some other seventeen year old girl wouldn't get a rude awaking in the form of monsters. Maybe some other mother wouldn't have to go home and face a life-sucking changeling child. Maybe some other college girl wouldn't get drowned by a serial killer wielding a pet ghost.

My future was full of maybes, but one thing was certain. I was Hunting, and I was reasonably good at it. "I got to go," I told Dean, having nothing else to say.

"Yeah," he agreed, still not sounding happy as he hung up. The warehouse morphed into silence again, and just like that, I was alone to face the consequence of my choice.

I sighed, shaking my head slightly as I entered the phone number for Dean's "Bobby Singer" into my phone. Then I kicked the dirt over the scratched out numbers, wiping away the evidence. Somehow conversations with Dean always managed to leave me reeling. "Whatever," I muttered, stuffing my phone back into my pocket before flicking the lighter and producing a flame.

There was a small noise at the door of the warehouse, and I spun, sudden adrenaline exploding throughout my body. Fiat Man shouldn't be back, and I definitely would have heard his rust-heap backfiring if he had driven up. But I hadn't heard anything, so who was here? It probably wasn't the ghost, and nobody else knew about this place. Nobody else—

Oh. Who else would have cause to investigate this warehouse? Who else would have put the pieces—apparently ridiculously quickly—together? Potentially Faux Mister FBI, himself. That was who.

"You got a proclivity for pyrotechnics, Tara Lynn?" came his slow drawl through the darkness. I looked at the lighter in my hand, and the flame wobbled and danced against the darkness. Why yes, yes I did. But that wasn't the issue here.

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and dropped my head in defeat, wondering if my luck could get any worse. Ghost, check. Serial killer, check. Random man who had impersonated a federal agent and was now alone with me in a dark warehouse, check.

Awesome. My life was just awesome.