Sorry for the extreme delay with this one! My 4th of July week was insanely busy and I've also had a few other plot bunnies trying to take over my mind.
Juliet awoke with a killer headache, a feeling that she was somewhere she shouldn't be, and a strange but potent sense of dread.
Her hand went to her head before she even opened her eyes. There was a nice egg already forming on her scalp, but otherwise she seemed to be alright. She glanced around but could see nothing. Slowly it all came back to her, and she got to her knees quickly as she remembered that Shawn was in trouble.
That wasn't really the phrase, she reflected. In trouble for Shawn usually meant that he was locked in a room with a killer, or that he had managed to get himself in the middle of a dog-fighting ring, or even that he had pissed off a very dangerous member of the Chicago mafia. Dealing with the supernatural was always much worse. That black smoke, whatever it was, had control of her boyfriend. And God only knew what it would do when it found the Winchesters.
She had a watch, but with no light coming in through the crack underneath the door she couldn't see the time. By the ache in her skull Juliet estimated that she couldn't have been out for more than an hour. The pain hadn't yet dulled to a throb and the blood beneath her blonde hair hadn't been completely dry. Even so, an hour was enough time for everything to be over with… and for the victor to have been decided.
Juliet's stomach dropped. If Sam and Dean had beaten the creature (and hopefully gotten it out of Shawn), they would have started to search for her by now. Shawn could have told them where she was and she would have woken up to his face instead of this darkness. That she was still locked in here could only mean that the battle wasn't over yet, the Winchesters had lost… or that Shawn was unable to tell them her location and they were looking for her on their own. That Shawn was unconscious… or…
She stood up completely, pushing the thought away for the moment. If he was, there wasn't anything she could do about it but destroy the creature. And she couldn't do that while she was locked in this damn closet. She tried the doorknob just to be 100% sure, and of course it didn't move. However, she would have felt stupid if she had broken down the door only to discover that the Not-Shawn had neglected to lock it. With the obvious solution disbanded she concentrated on finding a way to break down the door. It would be somewhat difficult. She felt the shelves and stood on tiptoe to touch the ceiling to estimate the amount of space she had to work with. Juliet figured that the closet was about five and a half feet in length, four feet wide, and the height was just barely within the length of her fingertips. Not a lot of space to knock down a door, but she had no other options.
Juliet took a few steps back, bringing her to the farthest wall of the closet. She thanked God both that the door opened away from her (which would make the possibility of her knocking it down possible rather than very unlikely) and that the housekeeping staff kept the closet neat and tidy, giving her more space. She brought her right leg up a few times and placed it near the lock of the door, not kicking with force but judging how much room she had to move and trying to figure out the best way to avoid whacking any of the shelves. When she finally felt she had a path that would cause the least damage to both her and the door, she took a few deep breaths. She could hear the voice of one of her physical instructors at the police academy in her head, telling her to lean into the kick and to focus on the door's weakest point. Then she let out a huff and slammed her foot next to the lock.
The entire door shuddered and there was a loud creak, but no crash. Juliet wasn't worried. Sometimes doors took two kicks, and she wasn't able to get her full force behind her with the confinement. She took a few more deep breaths and kicked again. This time she was rewarded with a loud bang as the door fell onto the worn hotel carpeting. She took the time to roll her ankle a few times, but the kicks had been well-placed and she hadn't twisted anything. She stood in the doorway of the housekeeping closet for a moment more, trying to decide the best place to go. If Sam and Dean were looking for her they could be anywhere from this floor down, and she'd run into them eventually. If the creature had overtaken them—assuming it hadn't just killed them and left—it most likely would have done so on one of the lower levels, where the brothers had been investigating. She jumped over the door and jogged toward the nearest staircase. The Not-Shawn had taken her purse with it, but if Sam and Dean had been overcome by the creature, there probably wasn't anything in it that would help her anyway. She'd go with nothing but her sharp instincts and her burning desire for revenge.
At each landing on the staircase she opened the door a few inches and listened, but didn't hear either the Winchesters or the Not-Shawn. She walked through the lobby just to be sure that all of their vehicles were still in the parking lot, and saw her car, Gus' Blueberry, and what looked like a very old and classic black Impala in the lot. She raised her eyebrows at that but confirmed that everyone was most likely still in the hotel. It was then that she heard a yell. And it wasn't Shawn's.
Juliet sprinted to the staircase and hurried down the stairs, stopping before she opened the door to the basement level. It felt like she had just been shocked. Adrenaline ran through her, making her heart pound in her ears and her chest flutter wildly. This was the feeling she got before a take-down or when staring down the barrel of a gun, but she had never felt as vulnerable as she did at this moment. She was going up against a supernatural enemy with absolutely no weapons or knowledge on her side. An enemy that had subdued the Winchesters, who both had several years of experience. An enemy that was possessing Shawn.
For the first time she actually considered the implications of that fact. Could she do harm to Shawn's body? If she had to, to protect not only Sam and Dean but the citizens of Santa Barbara… could she kill him? Juliet clenched her fists tightly, feeling her nails digging into the flesh but not registering the pain. It was without a doubt the most awful decision she would ever have to make. And she knew that she wouldn't know her choice until the moment came.
Without another thought, Juliet pushed open the door and began to creep toward the storage room, where a door was cracked and light spilled out onto the floor.