Alex doesn't know how long she lays on the floor of the storeroom for once the demons disappear, but she does know that it's long enough for Dean to slowly pull himself to his feet and move to retrieve the guns from the other side of the room. She can hear him swearing under his breath while his heavy footsteps shake the ground beneath his feet, the dull vibrations thrumming against the side of Alex's face, but she pays him no attention; all she can think about is Noah and his current predicament.
Figure out where the journal is.
What journal?
515 Howitt St.
That's several blocks away from Jackson's main street.
Eight o'clock sharp.
What time is it now?
Tick tock.
There's a heavy thud right beside her head and seconds later, Dean appears standing above her. In his hand, he holds her gun, and he stretches it out for her to grab. "You good?" he questions, his eyes scanning over her for any obvious injury.
She snaps out of her worried haze at the sight of him, and her eyes narrow to slits as she pulls herself up, practically snatching the gun from his hand. He only raises a brow as he watches her pocket the weapon, but his jaw is quick to slacken when she angrily accuses, "This is all your fault!"
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, come on. A group of demons just happen to walk into town and kidnap my uncle the day that you and your brother show up on my doorstep? I'm not buying it."
"My brother and I had nothing to do with this-!"
"Then how the fuck do you explain this then?"
"I don't know! Bad luck?!"
Alex scoffs and shakes her head, but Dean isn't ready to back down just yet.
"If anything it's your fault-"
"What did you just fucking say?"
"You're the ones with the bookstore! That's not exactly being fucking discreet if you're trying to lay low-!"
"Do you honestly think that we would be that stupid enough to register the store under our actual names?!"
Her lips press into a thin, almost non-existent line as she pulls away from him, knowing that she would likely punch him in the face if she didn't. She threads her slim, shaking fingers through her thick locks to give them something to do instead, and her eyes squeeze shut. She had thought that her day couldn't get any worse; clearly, she had been wrong.
It's been almost three and a half years that she and Noah have lived in Jackson. Three and a half years of nothing but peace and a rare sense of safety that they haven't felt since Santa Rosa. Aside from occasionally crossing paths with them on her cases, she hasn't been bothered or hunted by demons since relocating to the small town, and she had truly thought that she and Noah were in the clear.
But now that peace has been torn apart on the very same day that two other hunters come looking for her, asking her for help. It can't be a coincidence. It can't.
There's a shuffling noise behind her but with her back facing him, she can't tell if Dean is inching closer or shrinking away at her little outburst. Either way, he still awkwardly clears his throat. "Look, I'm sorry about your uncle. But I'm telling you right now, that Sammy and I had nothing to do with this, alright?"
If not for the sincerity lacing his tone, Alex might've decked him. Her growing frustration coils tightly inside her and she is more than prepared to unleash it on him, but when she turns around and sees the earnest look on his face, she hesitates, allowing Dean to ask, "Do you know about whatever journal it was they were looking for?"
She shakes her head. "No."
"And you've never heard of this Fredrick guy?"
"Not exactly."
He pauses. "What do you mean 'not exactly'?"
She gnaws at her lip, debating whether or not telling him the truth would be too revealing of some information that she would rather keep close to herself. But when her mind can't conjure up any reasonable excuse not to tell him, she reluctantly caves. "If he's a Stevenson, then he's likely in my family on my father's side. But I've never met him, and I've never heard of him before day either."
"Can you call someone who does know him?"
"That's not an option."
Dean opens his mouth as if to argue but upon taking one look at Alex's face, he is quick to clamp his mouth shut, correctly choosing not to push.
Tick, tock.
She shakes her head as Duke's taunting words echo in her mind; time is running out. She shouldn't be here arguing with Dean- she should be out there, looking for her uncle. Without another word, Alex moves past Dean and makes a beeline for the very same door the three demons had disappeared through moments before. She's just about to turn into the hallway when Dean calls after her, "Where are you going?"
"To figure out a way to save Noah," she replies without breaking stride. She marches down the hall with determination, and she hears Dean's footsteps following after her seconds later.
"And how exactly do you plan on doing that?"
Her face hardens at both the scepticism in his tone and the truth to be found in his words. Truthfully, she has no idea what the hell she's going to do. She knows that she can't go in there guns blazing when Noah's life is on the line; it's not something that she's willing to put at any sort of risk. But she also doesn't have her hands on the one thing that can guarantee his freedom; this mysterious damn journal that the demons seem so eager to get their hands on. She's reached an impasse, and she doesn't know the best way to go about this.
"I don't know," she ruefully admits. "But I'm not just going to sit by and let him get torn about by some demons."
"If you barge into that house right now, then you're just asking to get killed."
"Thanks for stating the obvious."
She can feel his eyes burning in the back of her head as they reach the front of the shop, and he slams the back door with more force than necessary. "I'm trying to fucking help you right now. So can you tone it down with the bitchiness for like, two seconds please?"
His bitter words sink in and cause Alex to come to a halt in the middle of the stacks. She knows that she isn't being the most cooperative person right now, but she knows that she has a right to be angry; her uncle has been kidnapped, for God's sake. The Donovans' lives have been turned upside down in less than twenty-four hours and lives literally hang in the balance as all hell threatens to break loose at any given moment. It's her life that is currently in shambles, so she'll be bitchy all she wants.
But that small, annoying yet reasonable voice in the furthest corner of her mind whispers that while she can be angry, she doesn't have a right to lash out at Dean. Because, as he said, he is trying to help her, and supposedly doesn't have any involvement with Noah's kidnapping. Nor will arguing help rescue Noah in the end either.
So, she does her best to swallow her white-hot fury and turns around on the spot to face Dean. He still hovers near the back door as if bracing himself for whatever it is that her response may be, but the steely expression that he wears indicates that he believes he can withstand whatever wrath she might potentially throw his way.
But he has nothing to worry about. Physically deflating as she allows the anger to leave her, she asks as calmly as she can, "What do you propose we do then?"
If he's surprised by her sudden willingness to listen, then he makes no comment on the matter. He only says, "I know that they have your uncle, but we don't know how many more black-eyed bitches could be waiting at the house. There's a chance that we might be severely outnumbered with just the two of us, and the demon, Duke or whatever his name is, seems to be packing some serious mojo. So, I say we go meet up with my brother, take a minute to breathe and work out where we go from there, alright?"
She doesn't immediately jump on the offer. She knows logically that three hunters against three or more demons will help even the odds a little and will ultimately play a huge part in ensuring that Noah returns home in one piece. But the unease she feels whenever the thought of working with other hunters happens to cross her mind starts to now creep in and is the cause behind her hesitance.
She doesn't know the Winchester men. Sure, they might be good hunters, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they would have her back in the middle of a fight. There's a strong possibility that they wouldn't be willing to go the lengths that she is to ensure that Noah is returned to her, and there's no telling whether they will back out of the offer to help at the last moment, citing that it isn't their problem to deal with.
And no matter how much assurance Ellen was more than happy to supply her with this morning, Alex knows that she can't allow herself to trust them. She won't.
Her reluctance doesn't go unnoticed by Dean. Stepping forward and without taking his eyes from her, he assures her almost coaxingly, "We'll help you get your uncle back. You can trust us."
She bitterly smiles. All day long she has adamantly refused to countless people- the brothers, Ellen, Isla- that no force on hell or earth could ever persuade her to work with hunters again. Her will had been as strong as steel, and she had refused to back down with everyone who had tried to reason with her that it was the right thing to do. The safer and, supposedly, smarter option.
Yet here she stands, ready to concede and admit defeat by agreeing to do the very one thing that she has been unwilling to do since they first showed up on her front porch this morning. With Noah's life in the balance, what other choice does she have?
Her head shakes, the bitter smile still tainting her lips as she looks up to the roof, unable to make eye contact with the silent Dean. "No, I can't. But you're really all I've got right now, aren't you?"
When Oscar doesn't pick up the phone on the first call, Alex doesn't panic. There's a mild sense of anxiety that bubbles within her, but she doesn't allow it to get the best of her. He might be flooded with work, she has to tell herself. Or he might have just gone to the toilet, or gone to grab his lunch from the staffroom. She would be able to get a hold of him sooner rather than later, surely.
By the time that she calls him the fourth time, Alex is an anxious mess. The fear that the demons have managed to get their hands on yet another one of her loved ones grips her tightly, and she's seconds away from tearing off down the street and rushing as fast as she can to the news agency to make sure that this fear isn't actually a reality. She can feel Dean watching her from the corner of his eyes as they hurry down the streets of Jackson, but he wisely decides not to comment on her obvious distress.
"Hey, you've reached Oscar. Obviously, I can't get to the phone right now-"
"Answer your motherfucking phone, you idiot," Alex swears, half shouting into the phone as the stress finally gets to her. "It's an emergency."
She snaps the phone with an angry click, and she starts to slow down so that she can tell Dean that they need to make a quick detour on the way to the motel. But the moment that she moves to put her phone away, it starts to ring. She can't contain the gasp of relief when she sees Oscar's name flashing on the screen, and she accepts the call quicker than lightning.
"OK, so, I'll admit, that little fib I told you about my fiancée being absolutely livid with you might have been a bit nasty," Oscar cheerfully greets before Alex can get a word in. There's not an ounce of guilt in his tone despite the rueful words that he speaks, and Alex can easily picture the relaxed and easy-going smile etched on his face right now.
"So, if you're calling to give me the heads up that you intend to hunt me down to the ends of the earth and beat the crap out of me, I understand-"
"Shut up and listen to me for two seconds," Alex harshly snaps, taking Oscar by surprise and effectively getting him to do what she wants. Dean raises a brow at the blunt greeting, but she barely pays him a second thought as she continues, "I need you to drop whatever it is that you're doing right now, call Isla and get her to meet you at your place."
"What? Why?"
"Oscar-"
"I'm meant to be in a meeting in like, fifteen minutes."
"Then come up with some excuse! Same with Isla! It's not safe-"
And with those three, little words, Oscar immediately sobers. "What's going on?"
"Demons," she spits, tasting a bitterness on her tongue as the ugly word rolls off it. "There's a group of them in town, and they have Noah."
His lack of an immediate response tells Alex that she has caught him off guard, but she uses this to her advantage to continue, "Get Isla, and go home. Don't talk to anyone or let anyone inside the house. Do you remember what I told you? What you have to do?"
"S-sure."
"Run it by me."
"Get- get the salt and put it on the windows and the doors. And paint the weird star things around the house."
She lets out a sigh of relief, but his words of assurance aren't enough to ease her growing fear just yet. "If anything, anything happens then you ring me straight away, alright? Even if something just doesn't feel right, you call, and I'll come and get you guys."
She hears a shaky breath from the other side of the line, and it kills her a little inside. She hates seeing the usually bubbly and optimistic Oscar turn into an unsure bundle of nerves, terrified by the supernatural dangers that this cruel world has to offer. She doesn't even want to think how Isla will take the news, though her change this morning at the mere mention of demons gives Alex a pretty good idea. She would be back at the bakery for more jam doughnuts this time tomorrow, she thinks.
If she's even alive by then. She almost flinches at the thought.
"Alright," Oscar now agrees, before letting out a long, slow breath. "Alright. OK, we've got this. I'll go and get Isla, and I'll take her straight home. We'll be fine."
Alex doesn't know who he's trying to convince more right now; her, or himself.
"What are you gonna do?"
"I'm going to get Noah."
"I… I hate to even ask this, let alone think it, but…"
He doesn't need to finish for Alex to know where this conversation is heading, and she stops him before he gets the chance to let those dreaded words slip by his lips. "He's alive; the demons won't kill him until I've given them what they want. He'll- he'll be fine, Oscar."
"You shouldn't be dealing with this by yourself. I know you're like, a badass and everything, but it's still not safe."
"Don't worry," Alex says, finally turning her eyes to a still silent Dean beside her. Sensing her gaze, he turns as they continue to walk to shoot her a questioning look, but she only waves him away with a dismissive hand. "I've got help."
"How?"
"It's a long story- just tell Isla that I'm doing the one thing that I said I wouldn't do. She'll explain everything to you then, alright?"
There's a beat of silence, and then; "You be careful, OK, Donovan? Don't go giving my fiancée another reason to be angry with you. Or me, for that matter. Because if you die, I might just have to kill you myself."
Despite the uncertainty and the anxiety flowing through her veins and making her heart thump almost painfully against her chest, she manages the smallest of fond smiles. The last of his words don't make a lick of sense, but she loves him for them all the same. "Wouldn't dream of it. Same goes for you too. Stay safe. And if anything happens-"
"Call you, I know."
"Good. I'll see you soon." And with that, Alex promptly ends the call and shoves her phone in the back pocket of her jeans.
"Who was that?" Dean questions.
"A friend."
"You have friends?
"Shut up."
He raises his hands defensively, a look of pure doubt masking his face. "Sorry, but you just don't strike me as the type to have friends."
"I don't see how it's any of your concern."
"God damn, you're defensive. Seriously. You need to seriously lighten up."
"Tell me; if it had been your brother that had been kidnapped, would you be keeping your fucking cool?" He's silent at this. "No? I didn't think so."
He grumbles something unintelligible under his breath at this, though Alex has a sneaking suspicion that it's something along the lines of 'fucking bitch'. Sending him a glare that makes him know that she heard him, she decides to say nothing for the time being and enact payback for the comment later. They currently have bigger fish to fry, after all.
They reach the Leisure Inn after five more minutes of walking, and Dean is quick to guide her through the carpark and to room number 23. He raises his hand to bang on the lime green door but it opens before his fist can make contact. A very surprised Sam Winchester stands on the other side, and his eyes widen almost comically when he sees a very angry Alex standing behind his older brother, her mouth pressed into a thin line.
"Dean?"
"Heya, Sammy. We've got a problem," Dean sombrely greets.
Alex is quickly ushered inside the motel room which is surprisingly clean and rather homey, with two twin beds and a television in the corner. The brother's gear is spread out all over the place and Sam politely goes to move his pile off one of the beds for Alex to sit down, but she prefers to stay upright on her feet, the adrenaline inside her causing her to pace up and down the length of the motel room while Dean recounts the events of this afternoon. She puts input where necessary and Sam listens attentively, sitting down on the corner of the bed with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.
The sun has started to set by the time they are finished, and the golden rays that shine through the gaps of the black curtains is enough to make Alex feel sick to her stomach. Time is running out, and it's Noah who is paying the price for her cluelessness. There is only just over two hours until the deadline is up, and she still has no idea how to save Noah without giving the demons what they want.
Sam's hazel orbs follow her every tense step, and Alex can detect hints of sympathy hiding in features of his sharp gaze. When Dean finishes their tale, he slowly pulls himself to his feet. Alex has never felt so small standing next to someone before, and she physically has to crane her neck back to look up at his face while he stands before her.
"I'm sorry about your uncle," he says, the words sincere. "We're gonna do our best to get him back."
There are no false promises that slip past his lips, and it surprisingly doesn't irk Alex as much as she thought it would. It's rather refreshing that he isn't trying to sell hopeless lies to her, promising that they're gonna get her uncle back in one piece when there's no such thing as a true, happy ending in this world. In reality, someone always gets hurt, and chances are, that will happen tonight- most likely to one of the three of them. Like he said, he'll still do their best; but he's not promising a potential false, happy outcome.
He's being honest, and she appreciates it. Even if it's not something that she really wants to hear right now.
"Thanks."
"Look, I hate to ask this, but have you ever met any of these demons before?"
She shakes her head. "I haven't crossed paths with a demon for over seven months now. The last I saw one was during a case in New Orleans, and I sent it back straight back to hell. There's no way it managed to crawl its way back out this quickly."
It's what had given her that false sense of safety in the first place. With every day that passed and no demons came barging into town, she had begun to believe the lie that everything would be alright from then on it. She hates herself for falling for it- if she hadn't, then there's a chance that Noah wouldn't be in this predicament right now.
"What about the house they're holed up in?" Dean asks.
"There's nothing really interesting about it- it's two storeys. It belongs to the Haysmiths, but they're travelling abroad and won't be back for a few more months."
Sam nods, scratching thoughtfully at his smooth chin. "We have to play this smart. We can't just go charging in there with guns blazing, and I don't think trying to sneak in is an option either. We don't know how many more are waiting for us, and we have to assume that they think you'll try and do something."
Dean nods his head in agreement. "Might be worth heading down there and scoping out the house for a bit. See if we can figure out how many demons there are, and get a good idea of the layout of the house as well. Could come in handy."
It might, and it sounds like the smart thing to do, but Alex is shaking her head before he even finishes speaking. "We so don't have time for that. And you heard what that demon, Duke, said. If we try anything funny, or if they see us watching the house, then they might kill Noah. That's not something I'm willing to risk."
"So what do you suggest we do then?"
"If I had a clue, I'd be out there doing it."
Sam's eyes flicker almost uncertainly between the two hunters, but if he's curious about the underlying tension between them, then he doesn't make a comment about it. "What about this boss of theirs? Did they give any indication or drop any clues as to who it might be?"
Her emotions are thrown into even deeper turmoil at the question. She doesn't have a sound answer for Sam, but it's still pretty glaringly obvious as to who these demons are working for. And it's enough to make her knees buckle. "I mean, it's pretty obvious, isn't it? There's- there's only one demon that would want anything that my family has."
The words fly over Sam's head, but Dean understands her perfectly. A harsh glare forms on his face with the realisation. "Yellow Eyes."
She tastes bile in the back of her throat. "Bingo."
It seems that while she holds more fear than anger for the thing responsible for turning her life upset down, the brothers are the complete opposite. Sam has a similar reaction to his brother, as his whole demeanour changes. He straightens and stands taller- if that's even possible- and his jaw is left tense as he grits his teeth together, burning hatred for the demon beginning to simmer in the deep pools of his hazel eyes.
Ellen wasn't kidding. They really do hate this evil bastard as much as she does.
Dean scoffs and rolls his eyes before Alex has time to even think of a response. "Dude, don't ask. She'll bite your friggin' head off."
"Ha, ha. Go fuck yourself."
"Well, aren't you a charmer?"
She flips him off with a humourless grin, and he only reciprocates the gesture with a snide smirk of his own. Alex resists the urge to scream. She's barely known him for a day, and already he infuriates her.
Sam is once again left to observe Alex and his brother silently and warily, but he's smart enough not to try and step in. Clearing his throat likely in an effort to steer the conversation back on track, he gently implores, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. But us knowing might give us a better idea of what we're walking into, and might help your uncle in the long run as well."
She purses her lips, knowing that he has a point. Besides, it's not like Dean doesn't already know. Even if she did refuse to spill the truth to Sam, he'd likely just do it himself later. Her lips part, but it's not her mouth that the truth spills from;
"She's on its hit list."
"Dean!"
"What? She's fucking taking too long!"
Sam lets out an exasperated sigh and reaches up to squeeze the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his forefinger. "I apologise for my brother," he says to Alex. "He was dropped one too many times on his head as a baby."
"Trust me, it shows."
Now it's Dean's turn to toss his head to and fro between Alex and his brother, although his face wears more betrayal and annoyance on it than Sam's had. "I- uh- hu- wh- whose side are you on man?!" He finally sputters, rounding on his brother.
"Just let her talk!"
"Well, I would if she just got on with it! There's no need for the fucking suspense-"
Tick, tock.
Alex throws her hands up, a noise of frustration emitting from the back of her throat. "We don't really have time for this bullshit, but your idiot brother's right. Yellow Eyes wants me dead, but I don't know why."
Sam's face softens. "I'm sorry."
"Nothing you can really do about it," she shrugs. She hates it when people apologise for things that are well and truly beyond their control. It's not like they have any power to make things better, though she supposes that it's ultimately the thought that counts.
"So you think that Yellow Eyes sent those demons after your uncle?"
"I mean, it makes sense."
"OK. So, we figured out the who, but we still need to figure out the what. So, what makes this journal so damn special?" Sam questions.
"That's the thing; I don't know. Up until today, I've never even heard of this Fredrick guy."
"She reckons that it belongs to someone in her family," Dean pipes up, acting more level-headed than he had been a few moments ago. Which is probably a good thing, too. Alex doesn't know how much longer she would have been able to restrain herself from hitting him in the face if the smart ass attitude had remained. "But she's never met the guy before, and the demons still think that she has it."
"His last name- Stevenson- is also my father's last name. How this Fredrick guy is related to him exactly, I don't know, but it must be important if the demons want his journal."
"And you have no idea where this journal could be?"
"No. We don't even keep journals of our own."
Sam nods his head, slowly and thoughtfully. "OK, well, what about the store? Did your uncle ever buy or trade one for a book or something?"
"I don't know- probably not. As far as I know, we've never had any journals come in with our shipments-"
"I'm about half an hour away from the farm," Alex says. "I'll talk to him once I get home, find out what's going on. It might have something to do with the new shipment he ordered from home."
"What shipment?"
"Before I left, he told me how he had ordered some books for the store from a friend back home. He seemed rather eager to get his hands on them."
She falters, the memory of her conversation with Isla the previous night before suddenly sticking out in her mind like a sore thumb.
She pauses in the doorway, however, at the sight of Noah leaning over a pile of books on the table while the kettle boils on the counter behind him. His eyes trail rapidly back and forth across the open pages of a leather-bound book, but Alex is too far away to make out what the words say. All she can make out is a dark, messy scrawl littered on the worn pages, leading her to believe that it is a journal of some sort. Whatever it says, he appears to be too engrossed by it to notice her staring at him in the doorway.
She sucks in a sharp breath. It couldn't be…could it?
She remembers him stacking the journal under all the other books, and popping them in a cardboard box. She can still picture the way that he had made a quick escape, carting the box filled to the brim down to where he keeps all the other books at home before she could question him any further;
"The basement," she breathes, already backing up towards the door.
Sam and Dean watch her carefully, brows furrowed and heads tilted forward as they struggle to make out the almost silent words that she had uttered.
"Basement? What basement?" Sam is quick to inquire.
She has it. She has the thing that can save Noah. Her hand reaches into the pocket, where her fingers are quick to curl over her car keys.
Sensing that she will bolt at any second, Dean starts, "Just wait a second-"
But it's too late. She's out the door and rushing off towards the main street where she had parked her car, ignoring the desperate and confused cries from the brothers behind her before they can stop her. She doesn't have time to stop and explain everything to them. What she needs to do is get back to the farmhouse as quick as possible, and get her hands on that journal. Maybe then she would have a stronger chance of rescuing the one person that she can't afford to lose now.
It takes her all of half an hour to drive at neck-break speed to tear up the very same driveway that she had angrily flown down earlier in the day. Dust and pebbles fly out from underneath her back wheels until she brings the car to a screeching, dangerous halt outside the farmhouse, and in her frantic haste, she leaves the car door open before she tears up the porch steps. She just has enough time to make out the reflection of the Impala turning down the long driveway in the distance before she bursts through the door- the brother's had followed her home.
She doesn't bother to wait for them but leaves the door open for them to easily slip through. She tosses her keys into the bowl on the table by the door with almost unnerving precision before she hurries towards the basement door. She takes the steps two at a time and flicks the light switch on, letting out a small cough from the musty air as the room is quickly illuminated by light.
Alex doesn't often come down into the basement. It's more Noah's space if anything, and he usually uses it to store some new or old books. Occasionally, she might help him carry a box or two up and out into the back of his truck, but she doesn't make a point to come down here unless necessary. What would there be to find anyway, besides boxes of books?
It's because of this that she is entirely surprised to find that a small space has been cleared away in the corner to make room for a desk, that has even more books, papers, pens, and even a small lantern spread out across it. Noah must have set it up sometime during her hunting departure, as she can easily recall that it had never been there before.
But the key thing that sticks out? The object that immediately grabs her attention sitting right in the middle of the desk, almost as if it is waiting for her?
The potential damn journal that has caused this whole mess in the first place.
She spurs into action at the sight of it, bumping into more stacks of boxes than she would like. She's a little surprised that it's not in the box that she had seen Noah put it in the previous night, but the half-filled cup of now cold tea placed beside it provides her with an answer; Noah had obviously taken it out. Whether it was straight after he had promised her that he would turn in for the evening or before he had left for the shop this morning, she doesn't know. But his suspicious behaviour when she had caught him reading it last night and how he had gone back to read it unsettles her especially, considering everything else that is currently going wrong.
She almost knocks the cup of tea over in her haste to grab the leatherbound book, but she manages to right it before it's content spills all over the papers. Her fingers trace over the dark pentagram carved into the journal before she then flips the cover open. She almost lets out a cry of relief when her eyes scan over the neat scrawl etched into the corner of the page;
Fredrick Stevenson
1939.
She lets out a long sigh of relief and briefly cradles the journal to her chest. She can save Noah. She can bring him home, and then this whole fucking nightmare can end.
Her relieved thoughts are interrupted by two pairs of heavy footsteps thudding on the floor above her, likely belonging to none other than the Winchester brothers. Small flecks of dust float down from the ceiling above her with every step that they take.
"Donovan?" She hears Dean call.
She pulls the journal back from her chest, but never takes her eyes from it as she screams back, "Basement!"
She hears the men change direction as they gradually make their way closer to their intended destination, but she once again pays them very little attention. All she can do is focus on the thick text held between her slim fingers, and wonder how the hell it can cause such a big fuss. What the hell is in it that makes the demons that eager to get their hands on it?
There's only one way to find out…
Her heart races almost painfully in her chest, threatening to leap to her throat at any given minute. Her slightly shaking digits pick at the cover and the first few pages, flipping them over to reveal a random page in the journal-
It takes her all of three seconds to scan the contents of the worn pages, and she feels her face twist into a look of confusion that precisely matches how she feels as her eyes flicker back and forth, trying their best to make sense of the written mess in front of her. She had believed that the dark ink that she had glimpsed the previous night before had contained letters. Letters that form words that could help clue her in as to how she and her family got pulled into this big cluster fuck in the first place.
But she had been wrong. It isn't words that greet her; it's symbols.
Small, black and oddly shaped symbols that mean absolutely nothing to her.
What the actual fuck?
The Winchesters reach the bottom of the basement stairs as she flicks through some more pages, wondering if they are all the same as the first one. Her frown deepens when she discovers that they are, but she continues to study the strange marks, hoping- in vain- that they can give her some insight.
Sam is the first to speak, and he steps forward when his eyes zero in on the object in her hands. "Is that…?"
"Yeah," Alex mutters, her eyes never leaving the page. "Fredrick Stevenson, 1939. This is what they want."
She feels the atmosphere in the room change. A thick tension is quick to settle over the small band of hunters, and Dean even raises a slow hand in her direction, as if trying to calm an anxious animal. "Hey, I know that they have your uncle, but you can't- you do realise that you can't give this to them, right?"
She ignores him entirely, abandoning her search for answers in the small book. She doesn't think she'll find them in time, anyway. Her fingers move to the binding, tugging on it and pleased to find that there isn't a whole lot of resistance.
"Dean's right," Sam adds at her lack of response. "Whatever they want it for, it can't be good."
"Right."
"They're demons."
Dean clicks his fingers. "Exactly."
Her frown deepens as she tries to get the best angle, turning the book this way and that…
"We've just gotta think about this rationally and clear-headed here," Sam continues. "We'll still figure out a way to get your uncle back, but under no circumstance, can we give the demons this-"
Got it. Grasping the pages in one hand and the binding in the other, she rips the two apart from one another, the tear smooth and sounding inconspicuously loud in the suddenly silent room.
The brothers blink.
"…journal."
Alex lets them stare at her with mouths agape as she places the binding momentarily on the desk before she then rips the front page- the one that lists Fredrick's name and the year- away from the rest. Placing the pages beside the binding and picking the latter back up, she turns to the brothers with a gaze of steel.
"I know," she says as calmly as possible, her fingers digging sharply into the leather between them. "That's why I'm giving them a fake journal instead."
It takes a few seconds for her words to hit the Winchesters and when they do, Dean lets out a small scoff of disbelief. "You're going to give the demons a fake journal?"
"Yep."
"That's not going to work."
"Well, if you've got some better plan in that thick head of yours then by all means, share it. I'm dying to hear it, really."
Unsurprisingly, silence is his only response.
"That's what I thought."
It seems that Sam shares the same sentiment as his brother, as he implores, "Demons aren't stupid- even if they don't notice that the journal is fake straight away, they'll figure it out at some point. Giving a fake copy is risky. You could be putting your uncle in more danger than he already is."
"And they will kill him even if I give him the real thing," Alex seethes. "You think I'm an idiot? I trust demons about as far as I can throw them. They promised that Noah would be fine if I gave them the journal, and they were lying straight through their teeth when they said it. I can't win here. If I show up with it, they kill Noah. If I show up with it, they'll still kill him. Giving them a fake journal might buy us the time we need to grab Noah and get out of that house. Is it risky? Yeah, it is. But I don't have a lot of options right now."
Her voice is thick with emotion by the time that she has finished her rant. She swallows the heavy lump in her throat before clearing it and holding her head high. Whenever she finds herself in situations like this- where she's left doubting herself, confused and, she'll admit, even scared- Noah is always the first person that she would turn to. He always seems to have an answer to any problem that she can't solve, and is always more than willing to help in any way that he can.
But Noah isn't here right now. For once, he needs her. And she will be damned if she lets him down when he's done nothing of the sorts and has sacrificed so much for her in the past twenty-one years.
She owes him in more ways than one; it's time she finally repays him.
"I don't have time to sit here and try to come up with a better plan, or listen to you both try and talk me out of this. Whether you like it or not, this is how I'm getting Noah back. I'm not just going to sit by and let him get torn apart by a bunch of demons. I won't. I understand if you would prefer to not get involved, but I have to do this. So if you excuse me, I have an uncle to go and save."
And with that, she moves around them, feeling their eyes bore into the back of her retreating figure as she marches up the stairs without giving them a second glance.