Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or anything you recognize from it.
The world is round and the place, which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning. —Ivy Baker Priest
Chapter Seven
Fresh Blood Part Two
One day later…
Tony winced and stretched her arm again, ignoring the gut churning feeling of her skin pulling on her stitches in her left arm and repeated the stretch. It had taken her longer than she'd thought necessary to stich the wounds in her arm two nights ago and it had taken quite a few shots of vodka to numb everything to the point where she had finally stopped shaking. Her arm was sore and very tender so she had decided that stretching in the middle of her motel room wearing an oversized shirt and boots was a great idea. She ignored the fact that she had stolen the shirt from Sam and the boots from Dean when she had left them those months ago and continued to stretch. She glanced at the clock on the wall and winced, she hadn't slept in the past three days: too caught up in the adrenaline of tracking and hunting to realise just how tired she was. It was already nearing the afternoon and she still hadn't slept or eaten anything.
She glanced at her discarded phone sitting near her closed laptop on the bed, and was about to turn it on when her stomach grumbled and she mentally shrugged, she had no intention of putting pants on to forage the outside world for food when she had a perfectly good excuse to sleep. Nor did she have the energy to tell the Winchesters of her plan on uniting with them…at least until they hunted Gordon down. No, as far as she was concerned, everything else could wait. Tony sighed and shoved the mass of papers, pants, computer, phone, and stale cookies aside and fell onto the bed. The way she saw it, sleeping with boots on was very logical, especially when it made her feel safe and comforted by the fact that she was wearing their things. It was a crutch but at that point, she didn't even care.
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Dean unlocked the door to his and Sam's motel room, "I must have checked three dozen motels, two dozen hotels and there is absolutely no sign of her." Dean said, locking it shut behind him. He had gladly taken the errand to try and find Tony, as long as it meant fresh air for him to think. Both he and Sam had tracked down Gordon with Bela's help to a warehouse on the edge of town at yesterday's dusk, only to find the vampire Tony had been hunting crying near two headless female corpses. He had been enraged when he found out the vampire had been dumb enough to turn Gordon into one of them but he had been more worried when he realised that the missing fang Gordon had now become the Terminator. He had even tried to make a stupid Terminator joke with Sam to lighten the mood when they both had been in the safety of their motel room but Sam had just rolled his eyes. Sometimes he missed Tony's laughter; at least she appreciated his fine humour.
Bobby had phoned back two nights ago and told them quietly that she had been thinking of hunting Gordon down with them and both brothers had felt a surge of hope. But Bobby had torn their hope apart and mentioned that she wouldn't be staying with them after. Sam had stayed up brooding over his computer and he had gone a little stir-crazy himself. A part of him wanted to find her and make sure she was safe with his own eyes but he had much more worrisome things to think about. And they all began and ended with Gordon and his slight vampirism. "She's probably laying low." Dean commented. "I also checked three dozen warehouses and empty buildings for Gordon the vampire but nothing either."
Sam sighed, running a hand through his hair in frustration, "It's a damn big city."
"Its like a freaking needle in the haystack and Gordon is this deadly needle. We're loosing daylight fast and soon we won't have the sun slowing him down." Dean called out from the bathroom, emerging a second later with his face-dripping wet.
Sam rolled his eyes, Dean had always made it a habit to never dry his face when he found out it annoyed Tony to no end. But now that she was gone, it had actually become a habit of his now. And it killed Sam every time his brother did it.
"Well, it's damn impossible. Give me your phone." Sam extended his hand and accepted his brother's phone, "If Gordon knows our cell numbers, he'll use the signal to track us down." Sam explained when Dean continued to squint at him. Sam hesitated for one split second, thinking if Tony would call them but he shook his head and dropped both his and Dean's phone on the floor. He knew she would take time to think and she should have received the email from Bobby by now about vampire Gordon. It wasn't his preferred way of telling her but he knew time was running out and Gordon especially was getting impatient. Hopefully she would read the message and hide. It killed him to think only of him and Dean now but she had made the decision for them all and for the first time ever, he was going to abide by it. He would find her but for this moment in time, Gordon was priority. He stood up and slammed his foot down on both of the phones, gaining a swift sense of satisfaction when a few minutes later, they were shattered into many, many pieces.
"Good thinking." Dean nodded and went to his duffel, rummaging around. "You stay here okay, Sammy?" Dean ordered.
"What?" Sam asked incredulously watching his brother arm himself with a machete. Tony's own machete lay on the table besides his very expensive laptop and a part of him was very worried that she was unarmed if she 'bumped' into Gordon. But she wouldn't be, she was a hunter…or at least he tried to remind himself of that.
Dean shrugged, "I'm going to hunt down Gordon." He said as if the answer were obvious.
Sam snorted, "Not alone, you're not."
"Sam, I don't need you to sign my permission slip, okay? He's after you, not me, and he's turbocharged. I want you to stay out of harm's way. I'll take care of it." Dean said putting down the machete and reaching for the Colt.
"You're not going after him alone, you'll get yourself killed." Sam reasoned.
"Just another day at the office." He retorted. "It's a massively dangerous day at the office." He quietly muttered to himself. "And its better if I go after him then if Tony gets caught in the crosswire. And how long is she going to think it through? It's better if I go myself. Keep you and her safe." Dean shrugged.
"So wait, you're going to go and put yourself on the line to try and make up for the fact that Tony beat you to the deal?" Sam snapped seeing the bigger picture to Dean's cavalier act.
Dean shrugged, not bothering to deny any of it, "If the shoe fits."
"Dean, stop trying to be funny and stop trying to prove yourself or whatever the hell you think you're doing. Tony sold her soul and beat you to it. Stop with this sick contest." Sam shouted for once beating Dean to the yelling match.
Dean blinked but kept frowning, "I'm your older brother, Sammy. Its my job to take care of you!"
"No, Dean. Its my job to take care of myself." Sam retorted.
"What do you want me to do, Sam? You want me to write shitty sad poems about how much I miss her? Or that I'm elated you're not going to die and then get pissed at myself because that means she's going to die instead? What do you want from me, Sammy?" Dean snapped.
"I want you to stop pretending you're okay. We're all screwed, Dean and we're all not okay. So stop trying to act like you're fine and you're tough and that you aren't bothered by it all. Stop putting yourself on the line just to prove to yourself over something no one cares about." Sam quietly said.
Dean blinked, annoyance-fuelling anger when he realised his brother had found him out, "And just how do you think you know this?"
"Because I've been following you around my entire life, Dean! I've been looking up to you since I was four: studying you, trying to be just like you. So yeah, I know you. I know you better than anyone else in this entire world. And this is exactly how you act when you're scared and hurt. But I don't blame you, it's just…"
"What?" Dean asked quietly, staring his brother and ignoring the tears in Sam's eyes.
"I just wish you'd drop the show and be my brother again. I don't what to lose you too." He quietly said.
Dean stared at Sam for a full minute, trying to control his own tears from falling before placing the Colt back onto the table beside Tony's machete, "All right. We'll hole up here and wait the night out. Cover our scent so he won't track us and hope that Tony is doing the same."
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Tony yawned and turned on her left side, waking up with a cry when she felt the shooting pain flutter from her arm. She had forgotten about her gunshot wound but that hadn't kept her up until she decided to roll around on the bed. She opened her eyes and met the inky darkness; she must have slept into the late evening with the way her motel room was shrouded. She was very groggy but nothing a good cold shower couldn't cure—
"Sorry about shooting you, I meant to hit Sam."
Tony swallowed, hearing Gordon's dark voice emanate from the shadows all around her. She tried to slow her breathing and calm her erratic beating heart to try and hear where his voice was coming from but it was no use. He was as silent as the shadows. She nodded, more to herself than anything, "Of course you did. I would ask how you found me but…" She forced herself to sound light and conversational but inside she was screaming, her hands fisted under the covers. She would rather face a very pissed off demon, a starved vampire, and an annoyed ghost all at once than face Gordon in the dark. Wearing nothing more than a long shirt and boots. If she thought about it, sometimes it scared her to remember that she had first started hunting with Gordon, that he had been the foundation of her early hunting life. But things had changed—they had changed. Tony shrugged into the darkness, "If you could give me a few minutes to compose myself before you and Burke torture me." She was going to be nonchalant even if it killed her.
"Burke's dead." Gordon quietly answered, "So if you don't mind, I kind of want to finish this up before I end myself too."
Tony frowned, ignoring the slight sadness in his voice: what the hell was he talking about? "Why did you kill Burke? Did he get in your way?"
"You could say that. He wouldn't let me do one good thing before he wanted to kill me." Gordon explained and if it weren't for their talking about killing, they could easily have been talking about flowers.
"And why is that?" She asked wishing she had her gun or machete or an entire army.
Tony felt a slight movement in the air before being shoved back onto the bed, Gordon lying on top of her, "Because I'm a monster, Tony." He quietly said and she swallowed, staring into his bloody eyes.
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"You don't think she's going to go after him do you?" Sam asked quietly, grasping her machete in his hands. It was stupid but holding something that belonged to her made her presence more concrete than just a figment of his imagination. When she had left, she had taken everything of hers and anything that would remind them of her; he had been dumbstruck by how clever she was. That by somehow removing all traces of her, the brothers could somehow forget about her existence and later write it off as a long dream. But both him and Dean weren't like that. Even when Dean had refused to acknowledge her presence, he still caught his older brother smiling fondly at a Twix chocolate bar or at the television when a certain movie came on. At the end of the day, it was because of her that both he and Dean had come alive. And both of them could never forget her, even if they tried.
Dean sighed, glancing around the dimly lit motel room they had barricaded themselves into and tightened his fists around his own machete. It had been a few hours since he had decided not to leave Sam alone and hunt Gordon down himself. And in those hours he had imagined every possible scenario of Tony facing Gordon by herself. And after every scenario, Dean was swamped with such self-loathing and guilt, at times he barely could breathe. He hated that both he and Sam had destroyed their old phones and only Bobby had their new number. A part of him just wished she would phone Bobby and let them all know she was okay but she wouldn't. It killed him to admit just how close their personalities were. He was running on blind hope and not wanting to worry Sam any more than necessary, he opted for casual composure. "I think she's smart enough to know the difference between a fair fight and a suicide mission."
Sam nodded; maybe they weren't giving her enough credit. Maybe she had read Bobby's email and had disappeared; she always was the logical one out of them all. It was why she was such a great hunter. He nodded to himself; he would try and not worry or imagine any more horrible scenarios of her fighting Gordon. She was smart and she would stick to her word about waiting to finish this fight with them. One thing could be said about Tony and it was that she always stuck by her word.
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Despite the constant burning radiating from her left arm, Tony fought against the binds around her wrists. It physically pained her to admit that Gordon had ripped one of her old t-shirts to tie her hands behind her back with: her own shirt. Ugh, a part of her was happy she was alone in the dark room with him and the Winchesters' weren't around. Because it was embarrassing, even for her.
She blinked past the acrid stinging of blood in her eyes from the gash on her forehead and struggled, trying desperately to get to her knees. Fighting Gordon had always been a challenge but now that she was fighting a vamped up Gordon: it was a wonder he hadn't snapped her neck by accident yet. Oh, she had sustained enough injuries just from his displeasure to last a lifetime and the fact that he wasn't even trying made her jaw clench. Gordon hadn't even bothered to be ceremonious about her torture; he had simply thrown her off the bed and beaten her until she had lost consciousness. And so she found herself, gods know how long with her hands tied behind her back and her face smashed against the motel's mouldy carpet. Her feet weren't even bound and yet, she couldn't move more than a centimeter without wanting to succumb back to the sweet oblivion free from the physical agony.
"I know you're awake." She heard Gordon's slow drawl behind her somewhere in the damned dark room.
She ignored the graceless position of her butt in the air as she forced herself to her knees, wavering like a newborn taking its first step, "Will you give me a second? I feel like a went a round with a bulldozer." She muttered, spitting blood from her mouth and thanked her lucky stars she hadn't lost a tooth.
"All I want is Dean or Sam's phone number. It's not that hard of a request." Gordon commented.
Tony slowly stood, ignoring the fact that it took her near five minutes to do so and the fact that Gordon hadn't stopped her. He was placating her and giving her a sense of freedom before he would knock her back down. But she ignored the pragmatic voice in her head: she would not give in to him. If she hadn't succumbed to the shock of finding out Gordon was now a vampire, she sure as hell would not succumb to handing out Dean and Sam's phone number. And for what seemed like the tenth time that evening, she mentally high-fived herself for not adding Dean and Sam to her contacts in her mobile phone. Even if Gordon somehow managed to vamp his way into talking to Dean or Sam, at least she knew she hadn't made it easy on him.
"I…would rather…eat shit." She wheezed knowing she had a few cracked ribs thanks to him.
"Well, I don't know about shit—" Gordon mocked.
She turned her head and found herself face-to-face with a very pissed vampire, "I told you. Stop wasting all of our time and just kill me." She snapped, making a move. She didn't care if Gordon had somehow sensed her impending attack or that he could easily overpower her: she was going to fight, even if she went down, she'd go down swinging. She managed to head-butt his nose and felt a surge of pride when she heard a loud crack before searing white heat blinded her and she fell backwards, unconscious once again.
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Both brothers were ripped from their thoughts by a high-pitched ringing and Sam rolled his eyes, "You've had this phone for three hours, Dean. Who'd you give the number to?" He asked, a slither of hope igniting in both their eyes when they realised it could be Tony. He began to list all the apologies he would say to her when he saw her next: he would apologise about doubting her word, about wanting to shake some sense into her for making them worry—
Dean shrugged, "Hello?" Dean asked politely, not at all like his usual phone persona. Even Sam was taken aback for a few seconds, Dean almost sounded…polite. Sam smirked to himself; Tony had a way of affecting Dean—
"How'd you get this number?" Dean asked sharply and glanced at Sam.
Sam swallowed and ran a hand through his hair, it wasn't Tony and it sure as hell was someone Dean hadn't been expecting to hear from. He ran through the possibilities and decided if it were Bela, he would at least make a rude joke. That left—Sam's heart thundered in his chest and he stared stonily at Dean in anticipation.
Dean hit the small green button on the keypad and instantly the call came through the speaker from his phone, "—scents all over the cell phone store." Sam swallowed, recognising Gordon's slow drawl. He frowned as the worry grew and glanced at Dean, seeing the worry cast shadows on his older brother's face. "Where are you?"
"I guess you're just going to have to find us now." Dean retorted, keeping a firm grasp on his worry and rage.
"I thought an old acquaintance would help me but she seems—uninterested and disappointingly reluctant."
Dean glanced at Sam but shook his head when Sam made a movement to stand, they weren't sure if Gordon meant Tony and they sure as hell had no concrete proof that he had her. He couldn't risk Sammy running into what obviously was a set-up. He felt the rage begin to simmer in his veins and he wasn't too sure if he was angrier with Gordon for fucking with them or Tony for lying and hunting him down herself. Either way, he was going to beat someone up tonight. It was as simple as that. Dean snorted derisively and glanced worriedly at a pale Sammy, "Don't screw around, Gordon. Just come and get us. We're sitting here and very bored." Dean sneered ignoring the worry that threatened to push him over the edge.
"Oh, I'm done playing. I'm sure Tony has had enough of the games too."
Sam slowly stood, gripping the machete in his hands and swallowed audibly, wanting to curse Gordon until he lost his voice but Dean shook his head silencing him. "See? No wonder you have no friends. It's not nice to hurt your old buddies, Gordon." Dean mocked. If he could somehow pretend the screaming in his brain or the agony ripping through his heart didn't matter, he would be fine. But the way Sammy was holding onto Tony's machete, tears forming in his eyes, or the way Gordon sounded so pleased with himself: damn it all to hell! And damn Tony for putting him in yet another horrible situation.
"Come on, Holloway, say hi to your little friends for me." Gordon bit out, a slight fumbling on his end, "Oh, you're going to play coy now?"
Sam shook his head, ignoring Dean's look of censure when he grabbed the phone away from him, "Gordon, this is between you and me. Leave everyone else out of it."
A laugh emanated from the telephone, "It's too late for that Sammy. Every war has it casualties and tonight, Tony is going to be one of them."
Dean stood up to join Sam, wanting to grab the phone from his little brother and yell at the top of his lungs: he needed to hear Tony to make sure she was okay but at the same time, he was so damn proud of her for not playing into Gordon's sick games.
"Scream for them, Holloway." Gordon bit out and in the next second, a quiet whimper emanated from the phone.
Dean locked his knees and clenched his jaw, forcing himself not to react to her pained moan. It would only entertain Gordon if he shouted and threated the bastard, and he had no intention of saying anything until he got his rage back under control.
Sam fell into the chair and ran a shaking hand over his face. He wanted to croon and tell Tony it would be okay but he wouldn't say anything in front of Gordon. What they shared was between the Winchesters and her. "I swear to god Gordon, I will make you pay for this."
