AN: I'm feeling kind of down right now and doubting my ability to write satisfactorily. I don't normally ask this, but for those of you who read this and don't usually leave reviews or haven't left reviews, can you please let me know if you like this new story and if you want me to keep going? I've only written the Jessie story before and this is a new area for me. I'm just feeling like a failure right now and I need either some encouragement or the knowledge that it's time to stop. Thanks.
I sat on the bed covered in blankets and told the three of them an abbreviated version of what had happened to me. I left out the entire story of my parents and my sister, including them going missing. I left out all the stuff about how I got hired at the bar and had been working there for five years. I gave no indication that I was anything but a normal 24 year old living in a trailer on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, broke and living paycheck to paycheck.
All I told them was that I'd been kidnapped off the street on my way home from work at three in the morning and taken back to my trailer.
"I don't know why they decided to make my trailer a nest," I explained to John, clutching Merry tighter to me. "I don't know why they even kidnapped me in the first place. All I know is there were four of them and the blond woman was their leader." I lapsed into silence then, staring down at the lumps where my knees were under the blankets.
"Why didn't they kill you?" John prompted.
"I don't know, dude," I responded irritably, lifting my head. "I wish they had."
John's eyebrows popped up when I called him dude, but he just asked. "Can you guess why, based off anything they said or did?"
I thought for a moment. "They all called me sweet blood, and only took small amounts of blood every time they fed off me. They talked about not wasting my blood, but for all the talk, they didn't feed me or give me enough water. And you know, they did this…" I gestured to all of myself. "So clearly I wasn't that important." I looked down again. "Sometimes they called me dessert."
"How often did they feed on you," John asked.
"I don't know, chief. Every couple of days? You think I had a calendar I tracked it in?" My barmaid snark was back. I couldn't seem to help it.
John frowned again, but I raised my eyebrows at him. "Look, dude," I added. "I thought I was going to die. After I tried to escape and they caught me again, I would have killed myself if I could. But I was too weak and there was nothing in my sister's room to use."
Dean cleared his throat and looked down at his feet. Sam's face was soft with pity. Even John looked sympathetic, but that didn't stop him from asking more questions.
"You tried to escape?" he prompted. So I laid that part of the story out and how I stabbed myself in the leg and the black lady had made it worse to punish me and just left me bleeding on the bed.
"I'm surprised they wasted that much blood," I admitted. "So they must've been pretty pissed."
"Hmmm," John said, his eyes distant in thought, but Sam spoke up instead.
"You keep talking about your sister's room and your room. When we looked through the house, there was another room in the back with a closet full of men's and women's clothing…" He was trying to get me to offer up the information about my parents, but it wasn't going to work.
"You're right, darling," I responded. "You win the gold star."
Dean frowned then. "So why didn't we find your sister there too? What happened to the people who owned that stuff?"
I gave him a brilliant fake smile. "No," I said.
All three of them looked confused until John said, "What do you mean, no?"
I raised my chin and straightened myself up. "Look, I appreciate you saving me and all, and I appreciate that you cleaned me up and bandaged me up and didn't take me to a hospital. I know you didn't have to do that. But I'm not talking about that. It's over. It's done. In fact," I slid to the side of the bed where the IV was and swung my legs over the side, getting ready to stand, "I'd appreciate it if you gentlemen would unhook me from this IV and let me go back home. I got a job I need to get back to, bills to pay, things to take care of. I can't just stay here or Rick will have to replace me and I won't have a job to go back to."
John stood up, his expression determined, and I froze as he towered over the bed. "You're not going anywhere until you're healed," he growled at me. "That leg can't support you right now. Get your butt back in bed."
I didn't like his tone or the way he was standing over me, trying to intimidate me. He was nothing compared to those vampires, and I'd dealt with tall men trying to intimidate me the entire time I'd been working for Rick.
"Look, buddy," I said, setting Merry to the side and bracing my hands on the mattress. "You rescued me and you helped me, but you are not the boss of me. I've got responsibilities. I'm going home." I had to get home. What if my parents and my sister came back and I wasn't there to take care of them?
Putting all my weight on my good leg, I pushed myself up into a standing position and got ready to pull the IV out of my left hand, but John was suddenly standing in front of me and reaching for my right hand to stop me.
His hand never landed. My head spun and I fell back onto the bed, unable to stand under the onslaught of the dizziness. John sighed and slid me around until I was lying prone again, blankets over me.
"Stay there," he growled at me.
I swallowed hard and nodded.
His eyes narrowed. "That's not how it works here," he rumbled. "You answer me right away and out loud."
Taken aback, my mouth dropped open. "Yeah, okay," I responded.
His short, jerky movements as he sat back down in his chair told me that my answer didn't satisfy him and maybe even pissed him off more. I glanced at Sam and Dean. Sam's lips were turning up at the corners, although I could tell he was fighting it. Dean was looking at the floor and shaking his head. I wasn't sure if he was actually annoyed with me or if I was amusing him too.
Not that I really cared what Sam and Dean thought. The grumpy bear sitting near the bottom of the left side of my bed was more my concern right now. We all waited in silence for a few moments while I watched different expressions cross his face until he came to some decision.
"All right," he said. "Let me make some things clear to you, and they are not optional."
"Everything is optional, sugar," I said, unable to help myself.
"Yeah?" he asked. "Looks like you staying in that bed isn't optional. You can't even stand on your own right now."
My own eyes narrowed. "I can probably crawl, even without putting weight on my bad leg." I responded in a dark, steely voice. "I won't be forced to stay anywhere ever again."
John's face darkened. He opened his mouth to respond, but Dean stepped away from the cabinet and interrupted with a quick "Dad."
John stopped then and rubbed a hand over his face. After a second, he seemed to have his temper under control, but I still scowled at him and kept in mind that I could reach the enameled metal bowl now and crash it over his head if he tried anything physical with me.
He didn't look at me as he spoke, his voice quiet. "By your accounting, you spent five weeks with those vampires where they drained some of your blood every couple of days. They beat you, bruised you, and cut you. By the time the boys found you, you were suffering from severe dehydration, blood loss, and infection. You were almost septic and your leg was still seeping blood. They brought you back here and I had a hell of time putting you back together. We kept a 24 hour watch the first three days, alternating blood infusions, saline, and antibiotics, and we still almost lost you three different times." He raised his head and his expression was a weird mix of anger and concern.
"Oh," I whispered, for once at a loss for words.
"Since you've woken up, all you've given me is sass and attitude, which I've let go because at least you've been answering our questions, but you will not undo all the work I did and you will not leave that bed until I say you are well enough to do so. Are we clear?" he asked, his hazel eyes boring into mine.
"We're clear," I whispered.
"You will follow my orders about your health the entire time you stay in our bunker. You will take care of yourself—eat, sleep, and take any medications I give you. If you don't, I'll take care of you instead and you will not like that."
I sucked my lips between my teeth, biting down on them lightly. "What does that mean?" I asked. "That you'll take care of me?"
"A hell of a lot more supervision," he said, leaning forward, his voice terrible. "Someone will be in here with you at all times, making sure you do what you need to do, and if you resist, I'll put you over my knee, and you'll still do it."
I sat up faster than I had ever moved before, struggling to ignore the dizziness that swept through me. "The hell you will, you Neanderthal! No one has ever spanked me and it's not going to start now!"
"You don't want a spanking, then you take care of yourself and stop trying to leave before you're healed. You got me?" John snapped back.
We glared at each other, my chin raised and set, his jaw twitching and his lips tight. Neither of us was willing to give in.
Finally, he snapped. "Answer me, or you can go over my knee right now."
I thought it was probably a bluff. How couldn't it be a bluff with how he'd described my current state? But I couldn't be sure. I dropped my eyes.
"I got you," I said to the blanket.
John huffed and leaned back, the tension draining out of him. That was just fine for him, but I was still struggling with these new commandments. Commandments that went against anything that had ever happened to me before, how anyone had treated me before. I was the one in charge, the responsible one, the one who sacrificed for other people. It was hard to swallow.
And then something occurred to me. "How long have I been here?" I asked, raising my head and looking past John to Dean.
"About a week," Dean replied gently. "You were in and out of consciousness through the whole thing. I'm not surprised you don't remember."
I thought then and found small flashes of memory—their faces above me, blood pressure cuffs, my leg being stitched, my temperature being taken. I flushed with embarrassment when I realized they probably had to take care of some of my more private needs. I shuddered. The less I remembered about that, the better, and I hoped they never, ever brought it up. Ugh.
"So what happens now?" I asked, trying to push the embarrassment out of my thoughts.
John stood. "What happens now is we get some real food in you and change out your IV for your next round of antibiotics."
"So I just sit here bored until you deem me well enough to get the fuck out of here?" I asked, annoyance growing inside me.
Dean sighed. "I can get a TV in here for you to watch."
"I can bring you some books," Sam offered.
"Not really a book girl," I responded. "Can't really read that well and was too busy to learn."
"TV it is, then," Dean said.
"Stay in the bed," John growled at me one more time as he stood.
"I heard you the first time, sugar," I growled back at him, looking up to meet his eyes.
Behind John, both Sam and Dean smirked, and it occurred to me that not many people must talk to John the way I did. I so didn't care.
John left then and I heard his footsteps fade down the hall.
"See you later, kid," Sam said on his way out.
"I'll be right back with that TV," Dean said, pushing away from the cabinets. He came to my bedside and picked Merry up off the floor, handing him to me. I accepted and smiled at Dean.
"Thanks," I said, dropping any sign of the barmaid act that I'd put on for John.
His green eyes were brilliant as he looked at me. "Dad's gonna kill you if you keep up with that sass," he said with a smile.
"I'd like to see him try," I responded, smiling too. "I've survived five years of bar patrons and four vampires. I think I can hold my own."
Dean laughed. "At the very least, it'll be fun to watch." He stood there looking at me for a moment. "Be right back."
I watched him leave the room, heat rising within me that had nothing to do with my health.