Chapter 6 On the Road
It was decided that we would leave immediately; to lessen the chance that Alice would see our departure in time to stop us. The next morning Jo had everything we would supposedly need packed and ready to go in the bed of my truck.
She looked saddened to be leaving her motorbike behind, but she agreed that the truck was the only sensible way to transport both of us and all of the weapons she had crammed into the long metal cases and strapped down.
By noon we were on the road. The butterflies in my stomach had made it impossible to eat anything since we had formed our plan. Nor had I really slept since Edward had left. My own face in the mirror startled me. The circles under my eyes made me look like a patient on her deathbed, and my skin was paler than normal, while my eyes were eerily over bright- they looked huge in my face.
As the house grew ever smaller, I squeezed my eyes shut, the panic was at bay, but I couldn't help wondering if it was the last time I would ever be there.
"So," Jo started, as I gunned the engine and heard the Chevy groan in protest. "The most important part of being a hunter, is to know where and what the danger is, but not to let the people around you know it too."
And so the process began. Fear for what may happen to Edward sharpened my focus, so when I pulled over at a Phillip's 66 three and a half hours later, I had memorized numerous facts about ghosts, witches, werewolves, and vampires. Jo skipped the finer points, she said she needed to get me caught up enough to fight, and we didn't have a lot of time to waste on the details. Basics, she told me, were going to have to be enough.
By ten o'clock, we were somewhere in eastern Montana. I followed the directions she gave me without asking exactly where we were going. I wasn't sure if I could handle that yet.
We stopped for the night at a motel 8, and Jo grabbed one of the big metal cases as she headed into the room.
"Now, this will be the most vitally important thing I can teach you, so you have to try hard to get good at this, okay?" she said, somewhat doubtfully as she unlocked the box.
"Get good at what… exactly?" I asked, apprehensive.
When she turned back around, my breath caught. In her hand was a gun. "I'm going to teach you how to battle demons, trust me, you're gonna need this." She said, and tossed me the revolver. Of course I didn't catch it, it glanced off my fingers, and fell with a dull thud to the floor.
"Jo… I don't know if this is a good idea. I'm not especially coordinated." I sighed.
She groaned. "I think I can see that, but this is the only way we can do this, you at least want to have a fighting chance, don't you?" she asked.
By the time we finally quit, I couldn't sit without wincing. There were bruises on my wrists, knees, and fingers. After I had learned to shoot straight, I was also instructed how to properly use a knife and a bow and arrow. The room, needless to say, was a complete train-wreck when we stopped.
Jo seemed happy with my progress, even as I glared at her while she bandaged up my shoulder. "You're getting the hang of this, really, you're a natural." She said, grinning.
I sighed and rolled my eyes. "well great, who would have ever thought my secret talent would turn out to be handling illegal weapons." I muttered.
My cousin chuckled. "Hey, this is really useful, now if I toss you a gun in a bad situation, I don't have to worry about you giving me a blank look and asking me if I'm kidding."
Her certainty that we would be in such a situation was unnerving, but I reminded myself what I was fighting to save. I finally got the chance to swoop in and save him… funny I didn't feel grateful.
The rest of the night- which was approximately four hours- I spent twirling a knife around in my fingers, while Jo slept. Adrenaline pulsed through my veins, and I got the distinct feeling I wouldn't be sleeping at all until our little mission was over.
Another day passed before I worked up the courage to ask her what the plan was.
We were driving through the plains of Nebraska, and there wasn't enough in the bleak landscape to keep my mind from wandering.
"Well, we're going to go talk to some other hunters." She said. "We've got to have more info before we get to far into this."
Before I could ask her whom exactly we were going to talk to, music started playing from inside Jo's bag. She muttered something under her breath and pulled out her cell phone.
"Hello?" she asked breathlessly. She winced. "Charlie, please calm down. Bella and I just decided to take a little vacation, you know, get to know each other better… I know she's in school… we should be back by the end of next week. No, I didn't mean for that note to freak you out… you what?! Why?? No Charlie, bad idea… what did she say? Alright… I'll tell her… bye." She shut the phone and sighed.
"What did he do?" I asked, apprehensive.
"Oh, he called my mom… we can be expecting her to call any second. There may be an explosion. She hadn't heard from me in like, a month, and I was trying to keep it that way." She explained, rolling her eyes.
And sure enough, less than two minutes later her phone rang again. She made a face that I couldn't help laughing at, before answering. "Hey mom." She said softly. I didn't need supersonic hearing to know how her mother was reacting. Jo had to hold the phone a whole foot away from her ear in order to not go deaf.
"Joanna Harvelle! You had me worried sick! What the Hell were you thinking not calling me for this long? Where have you been? For all I knew you were dead somewhere and I was never going to see you again!" I heard.
Jo's face reddened. "Mom, I'm okay, I'm with Bella. We're on a hunt." She said, pulling the phone back to her ear.
This time I didn't hear the response. All I could do was guess from Jo's answers.
"Well actually I went to see Uncle Charlie…. Yeah, and then I found out that there was a demon after Bella's boyfriend…well…he's kinda a vampire, but that's not the issue! No, it's the Winchester's demon, you know, the one with the yellow eyes? I was just going to come check with Ash to see if he knew where it was… no, I haven't talked to Dean, why? Yeah sure, whatever… I'm teaching her… got it… bye." She mumbled
"What was all that about?" I asked, wondering who Ash and Dean were, and if they were going to help us.
"Well, she was mad, obviously. She wanted to know if you knew about this 'stuff'. I told her that you were learning as fast as you could. We're going to go see a guy named Ash, he can usually track down people, and demons." She explained.
"Who's Dean?" I asked, surprised that there were so many people interested in getting themselves killed.
Jo's eyes went hard and her face turned red again. "Dean Winchester, and his brother Sam, are hunters, like me. They're the ones that have been after this thing for so long. I worked one job with them… but we didn't operate well together… I haven't seen them in a while."
They were obviously a sore subject with her. By the end of the day we had pulled into the parking lot of an old building. A lit sign advertised that it was open. The place itself was creepier than the stories Jo had been telling me. The sign said it was called The Roadhouse.
"Come on, we're going to go see if anyone has heard anything about this demon." She said, grabbing her phone and heading inside.
I quickly jumped out and followed her, not wanting to be left behind.