"Paper, rock, scissors," Alice and Dean chanted simultaneously.
Alice threw down rock while Dean chose scissors. Dean's lips pursed and his face soured as he saw that Alice had won. His leafy green eyes glanced at Alice before he dragged himself backwards. He let his hands fall to his sides and groaned. Everyone declared in a playful tone simultaneously, "Dean, always with the scissors."
"Whatever," Dean shrugged it off and got his keys from the table.
Victoria ran to his side with a map in hand. She had drawn out their destination in red crayon. "So, Dean's going to guide me on my first hunt?" Her head turned around to see Sam and Angel walking out right behind her. Tori's curly black hair flew about as she looked around with her dull gray eyes. She waved goodbye to Alice and Castiel; they were staying behind to search for other jobs to take on. Tori was excited and frightened at the same time to go on a hunt. What if she messed up? What if she accidentally shot someone? What if she completely lets everyone down?
"Yeah. He lost the bet. We'll be with you on the sidelines," Sam referenced to him and Angel as they climbed into the back seat of the Impala. He carried his laptop in his hands and adjusted in his seat. He took up more than half of the seat because the back wasn't that big.
Angel chimed in, "We won't let him leave you there, promise." Victoria shivered. Her nerves twitched at the thought of being left by her family again. Angel noticed her sudden agitation and quickly added, "Dean left me once. Let me just say, that didn't end well for him."
"I didn't sleep for two days. When it comes to getting revenge, Angel knows how to do it," Dean responded and glared at her through the rearview mirror.
Victoria giggled softly out of sheer nervousness. There was so much pressure on her to do this right. She trained for months. This was finally her time to shine against these well-known hunters. She waited patiently as they dropped Angel and Sam off at the local coffee shop and went to investigate the crime scene. The drive there was silent which made Tori jittery. She didn't know exactly what to say to Dean. They hadn't gotten along very well in the past few months, but they managed.
Dean exited the Impala without a word after they drove up to the crime scene. He walked on without her, but held the door open for her after she scurried to catch up. He might have been silent, but he was still somewhat a gentleman.
Victoria led the way to apartment number 54 on the second floor. Police tape was wrapped around the door in the form of an X and was closed for privacy purposes. The neighbors crowded around on the first floor to see what the detectives rolled out of the apartment, but the crime scene analyzing was coming to an end.
"Well? What are you waiting for?" Dean questioned behind her.
Victoria hadn't even noticed she was standing there idly and moved forward. She opened the door leading into the small one bedroom apartment. The furniture in the room was flipped over and on their sides. Pictures that hung on the walls were crooked and the glass was shattered. Mirrors were drawn over in black marker. Scribbles of random phrases were printed on the walls and some of the carpet was ripped up. Blood was splattered in random areas of the room.
Tori noticed a man in a suit examining certain parts of the room and approached him. "Excuse me." When the man didn't turn around, Tori decided she didn't want to bother him and turned away.
Dean rolled his eyes and tapped the man on the shoulder, "Hey, my partner was talking to you."
The man leisurely spun around. His thin black hair was graying at the roots and his brown eyes glanced between the two of them. His gray suit was old and had a few stains on the inside. His black beard was just growing in, leaving only stubble on his face. "I'm sorry. And you are?"
When Victoria didn't answer, Dean stepped up and continued the conversation. "Agent Barton," he showed the guy his badge and pointed over to Tori, "and this over here is my partner, Agent Romanova."
She quickly snatched her badge from her coat pocket and nearly dropped it before showing it to the man. "We're here investigating the death of Jacie Medie. Do you know where her body is located?" Tori had already glanced around the entire apartment. Nothing revealed where her body had rested before the police got here.
The man's deep voice echoed through the walls, "She's with our medical examiner. I can tell you about where we found her, if you want." He put his hands on his hips and put all his weight onto one foot. Tori nodded to ensure him he could keep talking. He sighed and pointed at the bed in the bedroom, "We found her on the bed. The medical examiner said that she was asphyxiated, but there was something else he couldn't figure out."
Tori noticed Dean had left to the bedroom, so she kept the man's focus on her. Whatever he was doing, she knew it would draw suspicion to them and their 'profession.' "And what was that, exactly?" Her iron colored eyes kept direct eye contact with him to show she was fully engaged in the conversation.
"Her mother said Jacie was on a few medications for her insomnia, but clearly, it didn't help." He referred to the torn up place and handwriting everywhere. "The neighbors said she was bat shit crazy, which led us to believe she suffocated herself. If anyone did kill her, they were inside the apartment before it happened. The locks weren't broken and no damage was done to the windows."
Victoria saw Dean walk out from the bedroom and nodded to the man she was interrogating. She gave him a shy smile and stated, "Thank you for the information. We'll come down to the station later to help you guys on a lead if we find one." The man nodded and went back to work taking pictures.
Dean strolled out of the apartment and lead Tori to the Impala. When no one was in earshot, he started talking. "There was definitely ghost activity going on in there. Whatever she got into, it was some deep shit."
Tori scrunched her nose up at his cursing. She was never a fan of it, but decided to refrain from complaining. She opened the passenger door and sat down inside. "So what do we do now?"
He revved up the engine before leaning back against the seat and looked in his rearview mirror. He didn't want to look at her. Something about their relationship wasn't right. The tension was thick, they bickered, physically fought, and more. The last thing he needed was to screw up her training and get yelled at by the rest of the group. "Whatever you wanna do," he simply answered.
Tori tapped her fingers against the seat and bit her lip. There were only a few number of things they could actually do. Sam and Angel were already researching. They had no leads yet. They could stay and interrogate the neighbors, but the detective just said they thought she was insane. "I guess we'll go check out the body. Maybe that will give us something to go on."
"Smart idea." Those were the last words spoken until they got to the examiner's office.
Sam scrolled through endless pages on the internet trying to find what could have killed the victim. Names of murderers, vandals, recently deceased, and random complaints around the neighborhood popped up in the searches, but he couldn't find a single thing pertaining to this case. Unless Dean and Victoria had a lead, they didn't have anything. Sam rubbed his temples and ran his hands through his hair once. It had only been a few hours since they were gone, but being at a small quiet café didn't help with how boring it seemed.
Angel pulled up a chair across from him and handed him some coffee. Her wavy brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her blue eyes looked at him curiously. She took a sip of her own coffee before asking, "You find anything?"
"If you count anything as in something important? Then no. I haven't found anything." Sam took the cup and drank some of the coffee. "Did you find anything in the newspapers?" Angel shook her head and sighed. They had hit a dead end. Whatever Victoria found in this place, it was something special and new to the hunters. Sam clicked on a few links and his eyes shot open. He sat up straighter and brushed his hair behind his ear. "So get this, the girl's mom talked to a journalist about the death. Jacie Medie said that she saw these shadowy figures in her apartment. She never caught a full look at them because they disappeared out of her peripheral vision. Jacie heard noises, scary groans, and whispers in her ear."
"So what, do we have a ghost on our hands?" Angel questioned with a bored look on her face. Another ghost hunt? She thought tiredly. Ghost hunts were not that exciting. They were the same every time. She put her coffee down on the table and cocked her head. "Why didn't I find that in the local newspaper?"
Sam shrugged. "The journalist probably couldn't post it in the paper. Online might have been the only place to write it. It's convenient for us, though, because I'm always searching for new things online." He smirked and glanced up from the laptop screen to see Angel's blue eyes staring back at him. His heart fluttered a bit just remembering the magical wedding that took place only two months ago. Sam's phone vibrated on the table with an incoming text message. His eyes scanned it and said, "They're waiting outside. Come on."
Sam and Angel met Dean and Victoria, who were sitting against the hood of the Impala silently. Dean pulled out the map of the town and grabbed the black marker from the Impala's glove compartment. He drew an X in every place he and Victoria went. "The crime scene, the graveyard, the mom's house, hell, we even looked at the freshest bodies at the morgue. We came up with nada."
"I found an article saying that Jacie saw shadow people. As long as we can research that, as vague as that sounds, we can probably figure this out," Sam explained shortly. He put his hands in his dark green jacket's pockets and shifted his weight to one leg. He had hoped it wasn't something other than the shadow people terrorizing the citizens of the town. It would take them forever to figure what the creature was if that were the case.
Dean looked up at Sam and furrowed his brow slightly. "So, what, are we supposed to go back home and research this thing?"
"We're just going to sit back and let it kill someone else?" Victoria brought up. Her hands rubbed together to get warm under the cloudy weather and pushed the hair out of her face.
"Would you rather have us go in without knowing how to stop it and possibly get killed?" Angel asked in a hard tone. "We don't know what this thing is, what it does, or how it chooses its victims."
Sam huffed, "Alright, no fighting. We are going home and that's final." He looked over at Angel, who was a little bit peeved. He knew exactly what would cheer her up.
Dean ended the conversation when no one moved from their spot, "Well, you heard the man. Let's go."
A soft, southern voice came from behind them, "Sam Winchester, get those nasty thoughts out of your head boy. I would expect those thoughts from Dean, not you."
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