I thought since the last one was so uneventful that you guys deserved a better one. So here you are!
There are only a couple other people at the coffee shop when Carter walks in, two businessmen probably in for an early start as they type away on their laptops. Deciding not to go back to the cabin, Carter figured she could focus on the hunt. Sleep didn't really feel like an option anymore and the night would only join the hundreds of sleepless nights she's had.
Carter sat silently at the counter by the window, watching the rain fall and the sky gradually lighten. Her phone sat open in front of her, Dean's name highlighted in the address book as she contemplated calling the elder hunter, unsurely picking at the plastic lid on her coffee. Calling Dean for help was like admitting defeat, taking the easy way out. Carter didn't know if she could stand Dean's smug look as he came to help stop the seal. Her thumb slid over the call button on more than one occasion before she let out a frustrated sigh and pocketed the little Evo.
Sipping a bit of her coffee, Carter let the bitter taste roll over her tongue before swallowing and turning to leave. But when she turned around she found herself utterly alone, nothing but the sound of the moaning wind in her ears.
When did the other two leave? she wondered, all her senses going on high alert.
Then she felt it.
That all-consuming dread of hell that engulfed her nostrils and nearly made her gag. Carter didn't turn in time to block the demon's blow but as he took another swing she was able to fight back.
"Carter Augustine!" it laughed, lamely dodging her blows as if he wasn't really invested in the fight. It was toying with her, she knew that and it only angered her more. No matter which way she tried attacking, though, the demon was faster and when two more came up behind her she knew she had no chance.
"Blimey they told me you were a right little minx but I wasn't expecting this," he crooned in accented English, making his onceover of her painfully obvious.
She resisted the urge to spit in his face as her chest heaved up and down from the exertion of energy and her cheek still throbbed from the first punch.
"They also told me you were smart."
He doesn't want to kill me, she suddenly realized.
"There's the light bulb," he wickedly beams.
"What do you want?" she snarled, not at all in the mood to be used by a demon.
"A little more respect for one," he furrows his eyebrow, motioning to one of the others.
The one demon went to lock the door while other dealt a crippling blow to her stomach. She doubled over, reeling to catch her breath.
"I'm listening," she gritted her teeth, glaring at the demon.
"Come. Sit," he beckoned her to sit with him at a table.
She shook the big goon's arm off her before distantly sitting from the other. The host—seemingly eerily familiar to Carter— was one of the businessmen, a man in his mid-twenties with a mess of dark brown hair, piercing blue eyes, and a firm jawline. Carter would've found his smile handsome if it weren't for the ugly beast behind it.
"It's okay to look," the demon gestured to himself once more, clearly playing off of Carter's thoughts, "Oh and by the way, this bloke's not an ad exec. He's a hunter...a friend of that beastly brother of yours. Right piece of work he is..."
Carter gasped, realizing why he looked so familiar, "Damon!"
"Sorry, no. I'm Reaver. What's the matter, love? You look a tad off colour," he frowns.
Damon Casterly, for sure, was a friend of Todd's, one that Carter didn't know all that much about, save for that fact he was a hunter. And he wasn't stupid. He knew what went on in that Augstine household, even if Todd never actually admitted it. There were times in Carter's childhood that Damon didn't speak to Todd because of the things Todd pretended not to see. Damon wasn't a constant presence in Carter's life—not like Logan and Tania were—but when he was around, he was like a saving grace.
"Just what the hell do you want with me?" she forced herself to turn it into an aggressive demand rather than an all-out yell.
"I'm sure you're aware of the doppelgangers, no?" he finally got to the point.
"Are you going to tell me it's not you?" she snidely commented, garnering a harsh look from this Reaver.
"Of course it's me," he snapped but then regained his composure, "But we can only keep them under wraps for so long. Which is why I had been hoping you would show up. And here you are...alone no less."
Carter's nostrils flared as she not-so-patiently waited for him to finally just tell her why he cornered her.
"A seal, my pretty little friend," he finally brought it out, "We need you to break a seal."
"Fuck off. I'm not helping you break a seal," she scoffed, leaning back into her chair with a heavy thud.
"I could always just kill you," his face darkened, "And what would poor, unfortunate Dean do without you?"
Carter glowered at the demon, weighing her limited options.
"Besides, you wouldn't actually be breaking it," he admitted with a bored look, "You'd be saving it."
"Exactly how does that work?" she folded her arms across her chest.
"A race to finish!" he exclaimed with a wild flurry of his hand, "The proverbial good versus evil, love. You win, the seal remains intact. I win, the seal cracks like a Lohan out of rehab and we're one step closer to Lucifer walking the earth."
"You're presenting me with a deal?" she frowned.
"Only way to break the seal, love," he grinned.
She heaved a frustrated sigh. What choice does she have? There's no guarantee that if she lets the demon kill her that Cas will bring her back. Getting her out of hell one time was hard enough...but for a second? There was also no chance of her getting by the three demons in the store, not without her enchanted pistol.
"What do I have to do?" she sighed again, not wanting to meet the demon's gaze.
"Just be your noble, cheeky self. You represent the good: pure, innocent, a martyr. The doppelgangers are your opposition and they are the evil. They kill the innocent and you save them. First one to ten is the winner."
Carter felt sick to her stomach as she met the cold black stare of the demon. Her skin crawled and sweat beaded her brow.
"Fine," she breathed, the word tasting like poison on her lips.
"First things first, we can't have you with any advantages now," Reaver abruptly lashed out, taking hold of Carter's forearm and making a deep cut with a previously concealed pocket knife.
"What the hell was that?" she shouted, clutching her arm to her chest as it seared with pain, while Reaver the demon smoothed his thumb over the ruby red blood smearing his fingers.
"Think for a moment, it'll come to you," he instructs, wiping his fingers of blood.
For a few meticulous seconds all Carter could focus on was the anger boiling in her heart and the throb in her arm. But once she got passed all that she felt it...or rather didn't. She couldn't feel the dread of hell, or the stench of death. And when she looked at the demon in front of her, all she saw was her brother's friend, no shadow of a demon behind his face.
He took away her ability to sense the supernatural.
"What did you do?" she very quietly asked, her face growing pale at her sudden disadvantage and feeling very vulnerable as a result.
"Oh, don't look so upset. I'll give it back when it's over...if you win that is," he smirked.
"And what if I lose?" her voice rose, "What else am I risking?"
"Well if I tell you 'your life' then you have no incentive to play my game," he pouted.
She let out an irritated growl, "Have it your way then! But when I win, you're the first thing I'm coming after."
"Is that a promise?" he leaned forward with a smug smirk, his tongue wetting his lips in a suggestive manner.
The urge to punch him suddenly won out and Carter threw her fist in his face.
"Sorry, Damon," she muttered, standing to leave but was blocked by the other two demons.
"Ah, aren't you forgetting something?" Reaver stopped her, rubbing his jaw, "The deal is no good without a kiss."
"You sick son of a bitch!" she stormed over to him to swing another punch. But the demon deftly slinked his arm around her waist, pinning her arms to her sides, and eagerly slipping his tongue into her mouth. Despite being positively repulsed by his action, Carter kissed the demon back, feeling his fingers curl into her hair.
After what seemed like ages, he pulled away, smirking wildly at her, "Now that's a good girl. I daresay your brother's friend in here enjoyed it just as much as I did."
Carter shoved the demon away from her, no words to even describe the anger she's feeling.
"Run along now, love. You've got quite the challenge ahead of you."
Sticking her middle finger out, Carter blows past the other two demons and back into the rain. Although, for a moment there, she could've sworn she saw a dark shape out the corner of her eye. And it vaguely resembled her.
"You guys better get down here," Carter spoke into her phone, racing through the streets of New Haven, "I might've just made a really big mistake."
Carter slammed her head against the head rest in frustration. She knew if Dean were here he'd be chewing her out for making that deal, even if the alternative was risking death. But Carter didn't realize the painful want to stay alive.
"Ok. Logan said he's on to something so we'll be there as soon as we can," Tania says on the other end.
"No, Tania. Tell him to drop everything and get—"
Carter was suddenly struck on the passenger side by a school bus, ramming her into a traffic pole. Smoke and steam curled from the pretzeled engine underneath the hood and Carter disengaged herself from the deployed air bag and seatbelt that was cutting into her skin. Heading spinning from her aggravated concussion, Carter pulled herself from the car through the window, finding herself surrounded by three of the victims...the doppelgangers.
"Mighty fine time to be without silver," she grumbled, eyeing up her competition.
Then she spotted her phone lying on the ground, still connected to Tania.
"Hey, uh, T!" she yelled, as the doppelgangers closed in around her, "Get into town. NOW!"
Bursting into a run, Carter swiped up her phone from the ground and dashed into the park from earlier in the morning. Completely defenseless, the only thing Carter could do was evade the monsters and try to buy some time for Tania and Logan to find her. Fifteen minutes is all she'd need.
The rain had since stopped but the ground was slick with mud, slowing Carter's progress as she darted in and out of the trees in the small wood, trying everything to deter her pursuers. It killed her not knowing how far behind her they were because without her power she's completely blind. It scared her. But that fear is what kept Carter going, pushing the pain away and running on. The woods gave way to several picnic areas, riddled with trash from yesterday's parties. Carter tried the door on two of the shelters before the third one finally fell open and she rushed inside, diving over the counter to hide.
Her hand flew over her mouth to muffle her harsh breathing as she heard soft footsteps slowly following. Carter's hand crept over the drawers above her head, gradually sliding them open, dipping in her hand in search of a silver knife. The first drawer yielded nothing and one of the doppelgangers burst into the room just as her hand gripped the handle of a knife. She stabbed the humanly creature, praying that the knife was silver.
To her great relief, the life slid from the monster's evil eyes and Carter yanked the knife from his chest with a suctioned pop. There were two more doppelgangers somewhere in the building but she now had a viable weapon. Chest still heaving, she crept from her hiding position and slinked out of the room. Somewhere down the hall, a mass of pots and pans crashed to the ground and Carter paused. This was just the hesitation another doppelganger needed, to kick the knife from her hand and forced her against the wall, his fat fingers enclosing her throat, cutting off all source of oxygen. Beneath his fingers, Carter could feel her neck bruise but that was the least of her worries as her vision began to darken and stars swam before her eyes.
Then the doppelganger fell away, releasing Carter from his firm grip. The small girl collapsed to the ground, gagging on the sudden inflow of air to her lungs.
"We're here, Carter," she heard Logan's comforting voice and then felt his arm lifting her to her feet. Behind them, Tania was in a fierce battle with brute doppelganger, quickly gaining the upper hand with her speed. But no one saw the third one come up behind her.
The shot rang loud and clear and the bullet that was fired, imbedded itself in Tania's side. As Tania crumpled to the ground, the doppelgangers ran off, seeing that they wouldn't win this fight with two other vengeful hunters. Carter rushed to her friend's side yelling to Logan, "Call 911!"
"Ugh, sonova bitch," Tania groaned, holding her side.
"Stop moving, we gotta get you to the hospital," Carter held her friend in place.
"Hospital? Screw that, I'm fine," she tried sitting up but was forced back down, this time by Logan who said an ambulance was on its way.
Tania was forced to stay in the hospital for several days and despite the fact that Carter was losing the race with three more hunters being killed, the hunter had resolved to stay with her friend. Tania's heart monitor steadily beeped with beat of the wounded hunter's heart as she slept. Carter sat at her friend's bedside, silently watching over her. Her attention was drawn away, though, when Logan arrived.
"Hey," he offered her a small smile.
"Hey," she smiled back.
With Tania in the hospital, Logan and Carter were allowed more time alone. Time that they took full advantage of, rekindling old flames. Nothing has happened since the other night but Carter would be much better prepared if it did.
"Two more, Carter," Logan sighed, handing her a slip of paper with the information of two more hunters.
She only took a brief glance at it before crumpling it into a ball. Logan dropped into the chair next to her, observing how stressed she is.
"Tania would forgive you if you went after these doppelgangers, you know," he whispered, tugging at the ends of her hair.
"I should never have made that deal," she answered, recognizing that—even before Tania was injured—she never had a chance, "But I just didn't want to die."
The tremor in her voice gave away how upset she really was.
"There's nothing wrong with that," Logan cooed, "You did the only thing you could."
"And now a seal is going to break because of it," she hissed, angry with herself, not Logan.
"Maybe. Maybe not. I think I might've figured out how the demons are controlling the doppelgangers. You can still do this," he said.
"How? I don't know any of the hunter's they're targeting. I don't know where any of the doppelgangers are or when they're going to strike. I'm completely in the dark."
Despite Carter's rant, Logan let out a chuckle, earning him a funny look.
"Exactly what is so funny?" she sneered.
"You're just so angry all the time," he smiled and once Carter heard his words, her frown turned into one as well.
"It's been said."
"You put way too much pressure on yourself, Carter. You don't have to do everything on your own. Tania's here for you...I'm here for you," he gently brushed her hair from her face.
"That's the best you could come up with?" Carter giggled but then was silenced when Logan brought her face forward, pressing a sweet kiss to her lips.
This time Carter was ready and melted into that kiss, raking her fingers through his soft hair. Logan smiled against her lips at how she embraced his contact and he smoothed his hand down the side of her body, creating a trail of shivers on her skin.
"Must you two do that here?" Tania voice suddenly broke them apart.
The pair exchanged sheepish grins, Logan scratching the back of his head and Carter's cheeks flushing with pink. Feeling the ball of paper in her hand, a new sense of determination swelled in the young hunter and she stood, pulling on her jacket.
"Where are you going?" Logan confusedly stood with her.
"I've got a seal to save."
I wasn't planning on introducing a new demon but when I started writing this, Reaver's personality just hit me and I couldn't not include him. I don't have a picture of Damon/Reaver but I envisioned him as Richard Madden. And I mean the clean-shaven, brunette Richard Madden, not the Sirens Richard Madden.
But I'll let you know when/if I add him to my profile.