Thanks to CuppaTea13 for reviewing the last chapter, and generally being awesome. Also, thanks to everyone who's favorited and followed this story so far.

A quick note: I now have an AO3 account! Under the same penname – IronSparrow99. This is the only thing being cross-posted at the moment, but if you want to check it out, be my guest.

P.S.: sorry this is so long. I couldn't find a good place to cut it off.

"Help!" someone was screaming. "HELP ME!"

I'm on my feet and racing through the woods towards the sound of the scream in a split second, every single sense on high alert. The thing we were hunting could be out there, we could find its cave. Or one of its victims. Maybe even Tommy himself – or maybe Haley was right, that there was too much blood for us to keep up hope.

Before I can elaborate on that particularly depressing train of thought, I skid into a clearing, everyone generally stopping around me. At first, I want to ask why, and then I notice what we were looking at – or, rather, not looking at.

There was nothing here. The clearing was empty, and nothing was moving in the trees. There was no sound except for the six of us breathing.

Everything in my brain screamed trap, and every fiber of my being wanted to leave this place now. But I couldn't do that – couldn't leave these people unprotected, couldn't leave Sam and Dean without backup.

Damn.

"It was coming from around here, wasn't it?" Haley pants, pulling me from my thoughts. "I mean, you guys heard that too, right?"

"I think everyone for miles heard that," Dean quips. "I think that's just what it wants."

My hands clench around the old, beaten-up wood of the shotgun. Whatever this was, it knew we were here. It knew we were hunting it – or trying to, at least – and I'd bet a hundred bucks that it was trying to lure us out or away from something, or into its grasp.

I glance at Dean and Sam and find twin looks or apprehension on their faces, green and hazel eyes darting back and forth.

"Everyone get back to camp," Sam orders, his voice low. "Back to camp, now!"

However annoyed with Sam I might be at the moment, I knew not to argue. I quickly shepherd Ben and Haley towards Sam and Dean, raising the shotgun and falling in step to keep an eye out behind us.

Once we get back to camp, it quickly becomes evident that I was right – this thing's goal for the past fifteen minutes had been to draw us away from our camp and steal our supplies, half of which was now scattered around the campsite, torn to shreds. The other half was probably never going to be seen again.

"My SAT phone and GPS are gone," Ron sighs.

"As is all my ammo," I add, crouching down pick up half of an ammo box that looked like it'd been chewed on by an extremely tough dog. I show Dean the scrap, raising an eyebrow. "You ever seen anything like that?"

"Not that I can think of," he sighs, picking up a scrap of green fabric that might've come from his duffel bag. "I think we just entered a whole new ballgame."

"What do you mean?" Haley asks worriedly. "What the hell is going on?"

"Calm down," I advise her. "We're okay…for now."

"It wanted to draw us out," Sam explains patiently. "Cut us off so we couldn't call for help."

"What, so you're saying some – some nutjob just stole all our gear?" Roy asks in disbelief. "Come on. You're crazy."

"Has anyone ever told you your voice sounds like nails on a goddamned chalkboard?" I ask the guide in an overly-pleasant tone. "It does. Shut up before I find a creative use for this knife," I threaten, taking the knife from my boot and using it to point at him.

"Stop antagonizing the man with the gun, Lexi," Sam warns. "He might hurt you," he adds in a dry tone.

"Shut up, Sam!" I bark, rounding on him.

"I didn't do anything!"

"Don't even-"

"I swear to god it's like watching three-year-olds!" Dean exclaims, interrupting my argument before it can begin. "I need to speak with both of you privately. Now."

I tilt my head, confused, but shrug and follow Dean and Sam to a spot a few feet from the ruins of the camp. "What?"

"Both of you need to cut the crap, right now," Dean demands. "I don't know what's crawled up your asses and died, but right now, the priority is them." He jabs a finger at Haley and Ben. "Them and whatever else is out here, anyway."

Sam shifts awkwardly and clears his throat. "About that – I might have an idea of what we're looking at here. Lemme see Dad's journal."

Dean pulls the journal out from an inside pocket of his jacket and hands it to his little brother, who quickly flips it open to a page about halfway through. "Here it is."

I peer over his shoulder, anger momentarily forgotten. Curiosity takes its place as I frown at the page. "A wendigo? I thought those existed near Minnesota or Michigan. Farther northeast than here."

"It's obvious," Sam argues. "The speed, the intelligence, the way it can mimic a human voice…" he trails off and turns to his brother. "Tell me this isn't making sense to you."

Dean seems to consider this for a moment, eyes darting between Sam and I before he nods slowly. "It does seem like our best bet."

I huff angrily and cross my arms. "So, what, they're migrating or something now? Wonderful."

"Look, Lexi, I don't know what to tell you," Dean admits bluntly. "But if this is a Wendigo, we need to get these people to safety and quick."

"Yeah…" I sigh and roll out my shoulders. "Guess I won't be needing my ammo after all, huh?"

"I guess," Dean snorts.

"We need to get these people out of here, and quick," Sam announces, marching back down the slight hill we'd climbed up to get away from the heart of the campsite.

I move to follow him, but I'm stopped by a hand on my arm.

"Wait."

I let myself be turned around to face Dean, tilting my head slightly. "What is it?"

"What's going on with you and Sam?" he demands, forcefully but not necessarily harshly.

"I dunno," I shrug. "He's just being obsessive with one goal, and that one goal is to find John. I'm just trying to do my job, alright? He's making it harder than it needs to be."

Dean looks at me co a long time, an unreadable expression on his face. Just as I was about to turn back to the campsite, he speaks up.

"Whatever it is, you two need to work it out, and quick. Like I said earlier, our priority it that family tree over there. Take your aggression out on Roy if you have two, but the two of you is giving me flashbacks to kindergarten."

"Aw, poor you." I roll my eyes. "Now, if you're done reminiscing, we need to see about getting gear set up. Whatever we've got left, that is."

Dean nods, and I lead the way back to where Haley, Ben, and Roy were, arriving just in time to hear the latter make some disparaging remark towards Sam.

I decide to follow Dean's advice. I storm up to the trail guide, getting nice and close to his face.

"Listen to me, you massive dick," I growl. "You are so far out of your league here, it's not even funny. You don't know what's out there. Now me? I know exactly what's out there. It's stronger than you, faster than you, damn sure smarter than you, and it is more dangerous that you will ever be."

I snarl and then rock back on my heels, assuming a mask of indifference. "So if you want to go out there and get your insides ripped out through every hole in your body, be my guest. I've got no problem with that. But if you want to find Tommy, make it out of here, and not be slaughtered, I suggest you listen to me!"

Roy takes a step back, whether it be because of the sudden volume of my voice of the spit flying off my lips, I didn't know.

"Um…guys?" Ben ventures quietly. "What's going on?"

"The thing that took your brother? It's called a wendigo," Dean explains as I take step back and stomp a few feet away, leaning against a tree. "The name comes from a Cree Indian word that means 'evil that devours.'"

"That doesn't sound good," Haley mutters, and that was an understatement. "Do I want to know what it is?"

"It was once human," I offer. "Not anymore, obviously, but it was once a fisherman, a hunter, a frontiersman, something along those lines."

"How does someone become one of those things?" Ben asks, face pale. "Just naturally, or…?"

I shake my head and watch as relief washes over the boy's face.

"They all eat human flesh," I continue, and that brings the horror right back, bringing a little bit of disgust with it. "So unless you wake up tomorrow and decide to convert to cannibalism, you don't have anything to worry about."

"Good," he mutters weakly, sitting down and leaning back against a tree. Haley walks over and places a hand on his head, then looks at me. "So, what, we're just trying to kill some crazy cannibal?"

"Well…" Sam, Dean, and I share a grim look before Dean speaks up. "Not exactly. See, in a lot of folklore – Native American folklore, specifically – when a human consumes flesh, it gives them a bunch of special abilities. Super-speed, invulnerability, damn near immortality…but it sucks out their humanity."

"So, to answer your question, we're trying to kill a super powered, crazy, monster-human hybrid cannibal," I inform Haley.

She goes to respond, but she's cut off by a voice drawling, "Haley, don't listen to them. They're crazy, talkin' nonsense. They aren't gonna help you find Tommy."

"No one asked you," I fire over my shoulder, glaring daggers at him before turning back to Haley. "It's your call."

She stares at me for a long, long time, fear and desperation and disbelief all warring for dominance on her face until she says, "How can we kill it?"

"Well, guns are useless," Sam offers. "Knives won't work either."

"Basically," Dean continues a small grin on his face, "we've gotta torch this sucker."

He holds up a bottle of lighter fluid and a lighter, tossing the former over to me along with a partially chewed box of matches.

"Come on," I sigh. "We've got work to do."

.

A few hours later, after night fell, a camp had been re-established, a fire started, and guns loaded. Sam and Dean had consulted John's journal on wendigo protection, and I'd just made every effort to stay as far away from the Asshole Trail Guide as possible.

I walk back across the camp, grinding dirt under my heel as I turn and walk back the other way.

"Lexi, sit down," Sam snaps. "You're making me dizzy just looking at you."

"Well sor-ry," I huff angrily, stalking over to where Sam was sitting by a particularly large tree stump. He was staring off into space, absently threading a necklace between his fingers.

"Is…that Jess'?" I ask hesitantly, not entirely sure that I wasn't going to get my head bitten off just for asking.

"Yeah," Sam sighs, not even looking over at me. "I got it for her for Christmas a few months after we met."

I nod slowly. "She sounded nice."

"She was the best," he agrees, a dreamy, boyish smile spreading across his face. "Sometimes I still can't believe she's…she's…" He clamps his jaw shut and curls his hand into a fist. "We need to be out there, finding Dad."

"We're trying, Sam," I sigh. "You can't focus only on that. There's a family out there."

"What about my family?" he protests hotly. "Our dad isn't here, Lexi. He would've left a signal, a sign – something. He's not here, so what are we still doing here?"

"Um, how about saving people?" I ask him, beginning to get irritated. "There are lives at risk, Sam. We can't just pack up and walk out because we're being picky."

"I'm not being picky," he argues. "I just think we're wasting time."

"Wasting time?" I repeat incredulously. "Sam, we've got a wendigo and a possible dead boy. This isn't wasting time, this is saving lives. We can't just ignore that because you want to go off all half-cocked on some stupid quest-"

"Lexi, I'm trying to find my father!"

"Trust me," I hiss. "I know."

"No, you don't," he objects. "This isn't – you aren't family."

I squash down the pang that his words and look Sam in the eye. "I might not be, but I'm here anyway, and you need me. So man up, Samantha, and get the hell over yourself already!"

Sam opens his mouth to reply, closes it, opens it again, and shakes his head, rising to his feet and storming over to his brother.

I sigh heavily and run a hand through my hair, a part of me wishing the wendigo would attack already so we could wrap up this case and get the hell out of these goddamn woods.

My thoughts are interrupted by another scream – in the same voice as the one earlier – and I let out an internal groan. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

I calmly get to my feet and grab my gun, flicking the safety off and holding it steady in front of me. "Everyone stay calm. Whatever you do, do not go running off into the woods."

"She's right," Dean announces, he and Sam appearing out of the woods like ghosts. Their footsteps were light, their guns were out, but their voices were steady and sure. "Nobody panic…we're going to be alright."

"Easy for you to say," Haley mutters, but I can hear her voice trembling from across the campsite.

"We're going to be okay," I repeat calmly, although my grip on my gun tightens as another scream echoes through the woods, coming from somewhere close. Too close. "Just…stay inside the circle."

It's Roy (the absolute idiot that he is) that takes the first shot. And then another. And then-

"I got it! I hit it!" Roy exclaims, lowering his rifle and taking off towards where the wendigo had let out a yelp, not unlike a wounded dog.

"No, you idiot!" I shout after him. "What part of 'stay inside the magic circle' don't you understand?!"

"Come on!" Dean shouts, rushing past me with orders for Haley and Ben to stay put as we plunge into the trees, following the crashing sound of Roy's footsteps.

"It's over here!" he shouts gleefully. "It's in the tree-AACK!"

Silence.

I jump over a fallen log and whirl around – this was just where his voice was coming from. Roy should have been here – unless the wendigo carried him off. I voice these thoughts to Sam and Dean, and the latter shakes his head.

"No drag marks. He's gotta be here, somewhere…"

I give the small clearing another look and sigh; there was still nothing there. I was about to suggest that we just head back to the campsite; maybe Roy would show up in the morning, completely unharmed.

And then something wet drips onto my shoulder.

Oh god, I internally grimace, closing my eyes. Please let that be rain, please let it be rain, please let it be rain…

I crack open an eye and look up, discovering two things: one, that was not rain. Two, oh look, there's Roy.

I swallow the instinctive scream as my stomach sinks like a bag of rocks. "Oh my god," I choke out instead. "Dean-?"

"I see it," he assures me, craning his neck to look directly at the mutilated corpse that had been Roy the Asshole Trail Guide not ten minutes ago. "I wonder why he didn't get eaten?"

"It doesn't really matter right now," Sam sighs, tucking his gun away. "We need to get him down, make sure nothing else can snack on his rotting corpse."

"You're such a ray of sunshine, Sammy," I quip, ignoring his glare as I put my gun away as well, going up to the tree and tentatively testing my weight on one of the lower branches before hoisting myself up.

Fifteen minutes, a lot of cursing, a bunch of awkward shuffling and a bit of a balancing act on my part, we managed to get the body down, dig a hole, and shove what little remained of the corpse in, quickly burying it under a few feet of dirt.

We make our way back to the campsite, guns clenched tightly in our hands – not that shooting a wendigo would do any good, of course. Roy did that, and look how well that ended up.

"Finally!" Haley exclaims as we step back into the campsite. "Where is-" She cuts herself off, eyes widening at our blood-soaked hands and shirts. "Roy?"

I glance at the brothers, then back at Haley. "I'm sorry, Haley."

She gives me a shell-shocked look, tightening her arm around Ben and giving the woods surrounding us a wary look. "The wendigo…?"

"Yeah," I sigh. "It got him."

Her eyes flutter shut, and I take a step forward to catch her if she were to fall, but Haley opens her eyes again, squares her jaw, and gives me what had to be one of the most determined looks ever. "What do we do now?"

"Now…" Dean puts his gun away and grabs a half empty beer bottle, the bottle of lighter fluid, and an old rag. "Now we find this son of a bitch, and we end it once and for all. Gather all the supplies you can – we're moving tonight. Lexi, hand me that roll of duct tape."

I toss him the roll of tape from the pile of supplies we'd amassed earlier and walk over to look at what he was doing. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"If you're thinking about Molotov cocktails, then yes," he confirms, dumping the beer out of the bottle and filling it with lighter fluid, then stuffing the rag – also soaked with lighter fluid – in the top and keeping it in place with duct tape. "Should work against our Predator friend."

"Once we find it, you mean," I point out, taking a bottle and opening the lighter fluid. "There anything in the journal about where wendigos like to set up shop?"

"Cold, dark places, mainly," he offers, taping up another bottle and then handing me the tape. "It'd actually be a structure of some kind, it likes to keep it's food safe."

"Good point," I nod, quickly taping one bottle and grabbing the next. "Let's just hurry up and end this sucker. The sooner we end this, the sooner Sam stops bitching at me about finding John."

"He's just under a lot of stress," Dean defends with a sigh. "Don't be too hard on him."

"I'm not," I huff. "I'm just saying I'll feel better when we're out of the woods."

"You and me both," he agrees, taping one more Molotov and setting it down with the others, my last one soon joining it. We had enough for Sam, Dean and I to each carry two bottles, giving us only a few shots at killing this thing – without fire, we were defenseless against the wendigo's teeth and claws.

I carefully put two of the bottles in my backpack and zip it shut, hoisting the bag over my shoulder and grabbing a flashlight. "Haley!" I call. "You and Ben ready?"

"Ready," Haley calls back, the Collins' walking over to join us. Most of their gear had been torn up in the earlier wendigo raid, the durable camping material proving no match for the inhuman power of the wendigo's claws.

Quickly gathering up the rest of our supplies, our little party sets out through the woods, heading in the general direction of where we'd found Roy's body.

Something catches my eye as we pass the tree where the body had been hung; a set of claw marks scratched deep into the bark of a tree, about half a foot above my head.

"Dean," I call over my shoulder. "Come look at this."

The older hunter makes his way over to me, eyes landing on the scratches before I can point them out. "Shit. Sam, over here."

Sam makes his way over to us and runs a hand over the scratches, digging his fingers into the grooves. "A wendigo was here."

"No shit, Sherlock," I scoff. "Unless you know of a bear that's six feet tall."

Sam rolls his eyes at me and glances around the woods, eyes widening as they land on something behind us. "Look."

I whirl around and point my flashlight towards where Sam was looking, at another tree. The flashlight beam illuminates another set of claw marks, these streaked through with blood.

"Okay…" I mutter to myself, carefully stepping forward towards the second tree and examining the claw marks. They were at about the same height, and they looked at about the same, save for the blood. Q quick look around reveals a third set of marks on a tree a few feet away, then a fourth set, and soon we had completely deviated from the path we'd intended to take.

"Well, we're lost," I grumble, swinging my flashlight beam back and forth over the trees. "Great."

"If you hadn't seen those claw marks, we wouldn't be lost," Sam points out.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I snap, whirling to face. "Let me just ignore the obvious claw marks in those trees, even though they're dripping blood."

Sam opens his mouth to respond but closes it again, a look of realization flooding his face. "Repeat that."

"Repeat what?" I ask, bewildered. "The part about the dripping blood, or-?"

"The other part."

"Uh…let me just ignore the obvious claw marks on those trees?"

"Yeah," Sam nods, turning around and pointing his flashlight directly at the claw marks on the tree nearby. "Dean, these claw marks are way too obvious. Wendigos are better hunters than this. Especially…"

"Especially in the middle of the night," Dean finishes grimly. "In the middle of the woods, too, which just so happens to be where we are, so…I'll bet you fifty bucks this is a trap."

Just as the last word falls from his lips, a low growl resonates through the trees surrounding us, shaking the leaves and sending chills up everyone's spines.

"No bet," I whisper as I raise my gun. I could hear something moving through the trees, and I sincerely hoped it was just a raccoon or something. A very big, very angry raccoon.

Dean had other ideas, herding Haley and Ben so that they were sandwiched between the three of us, eyes darting wildly left and right.

"Run!" he shouts suddenly, shoving Haley and Ben in front of him. "Go!"

I quickly snap into action, grabbing Ben's arm and shoving him forward, the action harsh enough to get him to start running away from the beast that was quickly gaining on us.

I easily keep pace with Sam and Dean, all the while keeping one eye on Haley and Ben to make sure they didn't fall behind. If they fell behind, they would die, no doubt about it.

The "run for your life" plan worked spectacularly until Ben tripped over a root and went flying.

"Ben!" Haley screamed, skidding to a stop and moving to go back for her brother.

"No!" I shout. "Go! I've got him!"

She hesitates, looking torn between following her self-preservation instinct and the one that screamed to save her brother.

"I've got him," I repeat urgently. "Go! Now!"

Haley hesitates some more, looking ready to argue, but Dean cuts off all her choices by simply grabbing her again and running ahead.

Sam and I quickly dart over to where Ben was picking himself up, with no small about of wincing – his left ankle definitely looked swollen, but I couldn't tell if it was broken or sprained, and we had no time to find out.

"C'mon," I grunt, hauling him up by his jacket and throwing an arm around his waist, Sam doing the same with his shoulders. "We need to move as quickly as possible. Sam-"

"I'm good," he assures me. "Let's move."

And move we do – it's a little awkward at first, as I'm about a foot shorter than Sam and Ben falls right between us, but eventually the tree of us work out a relatively quick system of shuffling through the woods.

There was only one problem: we had no idea where we were going, and we'd been separated from Dean and Haley. Rule one of this whole thing had been not to get separated, and we'd gone and done just that.

My thoughts are interrupted by another growl, and my stomach sinks.

Please let Dean be okay, I silently plead as I draw my gun. Haley too. Please let them have gotten out.

Next to me, Ben whimpers and seems to shrink a bit. "We're never gonna get out of her alive."

"Shut up," I hiss. "Don't talk like that. We're going to be-" I'm interrupted by another growl, this one closer than the last.

"We can't move like this," Sam decides. "Lexi, take Ben-"

"You take him," I argue, gently transferring the boy's weight over. "You can run faster, and you're stronger than I am," I point out when he goes to argue. "I can – we don't have time to argue."

"Right," Sam agrees, shifting Ben so that he could comfortably support the teenager with one arm and hold his gun with the other. "Cover us."

I do just that, running ahead with my gun raised, one finger hovering over the trigger just in case. There were shivers running up and down my spine – I could practically feel the wendigo's presence, but I didn't know where it was.

Another growl sounds from just in front of me.

Ah, there it is.

"Stay back," I call to Sam. "It's just-"

I'm cut off by something massive leaping out at me, a massive blur of teeth and claws that's on me before I can ever start to fire a shot.

The next thing I know, there's a massive amount of pain in my shoulders, and then my head, and then there's nothing at all.