They really hadn't thought this through.
There was no telling exactly when the hunter had regained consciousness, but he'd evidently been playing possum long enough to slip his bonds, because he came up swinging when they were still some distance from their motel. It was all DJ could do to keep the van in the right lane, his attention divided between the road, his navigation app, and the drama unfolding in his rearview mirror.
"Fuck! Ow!" Cass yelped as the three of them tussled in the back seat.
"Dude!" Sam exclaimed. "Are you trying to piss him off!? We just talked him out of killing you!"
"There's duct tape back there somewhere!" DJ shouted helpfully, taking the next turn a little more sharply than he intended and sending them all careening into a pile on the far side of the van.
The twins did manage to get him down again, but then the guy began to scream like he was being murdered—and well, okay, DJ couldn't exactly blame him—and DJ started anxiously drumming his fingers on the steering wheel every time he had to slow down or stop at a cross street.
"Guys! Come on, shut him up! We're going to get caught!" he said urgently; he'd never been more grateful for tinted windows in his life.
"Here, choke on this," Cass panted, followed by the distinctive tacky ripping sound of a piece of duct tape being torn off the roll.
The screams thus muffled, DJ dared a quick glance over his shoulder, just to make sure his friends were still in one piece.
"Everyone all right?" he demanded.
"Son of a bitch stabbed me!" Cass complained, shedding his jacket to get a better look at said stab wound.
"Don't be a baby," Sam snorted. "It's not even a silver knife."
"How the fuck did you miss that he had a knife!?" DJ yelled, alarmed.
The twins exchanged sheepish looks, their silence very telling.
"Oh my god," DJ groaned in disbelief, running a hand over his face and neck. "You didn't search him."
Their prisoner was subsequently relieved of a loaded handgun, a spare magazine, a couple more knives—one of which was silver, Jesus Christ—three burner phones, and a wallet. As DJ backed nervously into their assigned motel parking spot, Cass started reading off the hunter's aliases.
"Jackson, Mason, Ethan…" Cass chanted, flicking each corresponding fake ID at the back of the guy's head as he did so.
"Okay," DJ muttered to himself, taking a steadying breath. "Okay, let's do this."
He checked to make sure the coast was clear before swiping his key card and popping the hatchback; while he collected the roll of duct tape and their captive's effects, he let the werewolves do the heavy lifting and frogmarch their recalcitrant companion inside.
"Duct tape!" Sam called, clapping his hands and cupping them expectantly as Cass manhandled the hunter into a chair.
DJ tossed it to him, more than happy to hand it over. While Sam tore strips off with his teeth, handing them to Cass one at a time, DJ shoved his hands into his hair and paced.
"This is insane; we're insane," he mumbled, stripping out of his jacket and tugging loose his own tie; he felt like he couldn't get enough air.
"Relax, DJ," Cass said reassuringly, patting the hunter's leg to secure the final strip of tape. "No one saw us."
"Sit down, DJ," Sam advised. "Breathe."
DJ sat down hard on the end of one of the beds and stared, first at the hunter glaring murderously as he gurgled curses at them, then at Sam looking mildly annoyed but otherwise calm, and finally at Cass, who grimaced as he rubbed absentmindedly at the dark patch of blood staining the shoulder of his white dress shirt.
"You're bleeding," DJ said dumbly, unbuttoning his cuffs and shoving them up to his elbows on autopilot.
"It's fine," Cass dismissed him. "It's already healed up, it just itches."
"Maybe he's just a dumbass," Sam said, jerking his thumb at the hunter. "He hunts vampires with silver bullets and stabs werewolves with regular knives."
The man made a disgruntled sound behind his gag, and Cass barked a short laugh.
"No," Cass said when he'd recovered, expression sobering. "He's no dumbass. DJ was right; he's a lead. Did you think we all just happened to be in Chicago at the same time? On the same street? At the same time of day, even? Come on," he scoffed.
"He's been following us," Sam concluded with a sigh, crossing his arms. "Come to take another shot at us, is that it?"
The hunter rolled his eyes and shook his head; Cass reached over and ripped the tape off without warning.
"Well?" he demanded as the man hissed in pain and opened his mouth, pushing the remnants of Cass' tie out with his tongue. "My brother asked you a question."
"You stupid fucks," came the hoarse reply. "You have no idea who you're messing with."
"We weren't born yesterday," Sam retorted. "We get it; you hate monsters, we're monsters, so—" he clicked his tongue in the corner of his mouth and mimed shooting with a finger gun. "Doesn't matter to you that we've never killed a human."
"Never met a monster without blood on its hands," the hunter spat, defiant. "I'd put a few more bullets in you right now, if I could; you and your brother. And the he-witch, too," he finished, nodding in DJ's direction.
"What?" DJ said, startled. "I'm not a witch."
"Goddamnit, DJ," Cass snapped, annoyed. "He's talking about your fucking tattoo!"
DJ looked down at his exposed forearm.
"This isn't a pentacle," he said slowly, frowning. "This is a devil's trap; keeps demons out. You'd think a hunter would know that."
The man shifted nervously in his chair, eyes darting from DJ's face to his tattoo and back again before skittering away to fix determinedly on the floor.
"Hey," Sam said sharply. "He's talking to you, douchebag. That's a hunter's tattoo; we've all got one, because we're all hunters. We kill monsters that kill people, same as you."
"We are not the same," the hunter protested emphatically, scowling at Sam as he tested his restraints.
"You're right," Cass snarled, looming over him. "We're nothing like you, you fucking backstabber!"
A car door slammed in the parking lot outside, breaking the tension.
"Uh oh," Sam said warningly, head swiveling towards the door. "Incoming."
This time, there was no polite knocking; the door rattled in its frame as Garth pounded on it.
"Boys!" he shouted. "Let me in!"
"Who does he think he is, the Big Bad Wolf?" Cass grumbled, but he scurried over to open the door just the same.
Garth burst into the room, huffing and puffing; Bess followed, more composed, giving the boys a quick once over as she shut the door.
"We could smell the blood," she explained, hand going automatically to the rip in Cass's shirt.
"What did you do!?" Garth demanded, still frantic. "Who the hell is this!?"
"Nothing!" Cass insisted.
Sam snorted, rolling his eyes at his twin's absurd lie.
"Mom, dad," he said, gesturing towards the hunter. "Meet the guy who shot me."
"What?" Garth choked, goggling at the man taped to the chair.
"I scented him on the way back from Ross' place," Cass said, a little smugly.
"Whose place?" Bess wanted to know.
"Oh," Cass faltered. "You, uh, you guys don't know about that part."
"We ran into my dad at lunch," DJ answered, taking pity on him. "He gave us a tip about the case; the name of someone we should talk to—"
"A name we definitely should not say in front of the bad guy again," Sam interrupted, giving his brother a dirty look. "What the hell, Cass?"
"Anyway," DJ continued, talking over him. "We got some decent intel; we'll fill you in later. But when we went to leave, Cass caught a whiff of this guy and just sort of… jumped him, I guess."
"Thanks, DJ!" Cass threw out sarcastically, pulling a face.
"Yep," Sam smiled tightly. "Apparently, the asshole's been tracking us."
"For weeks now," the hunter volunteered unexpectedly, implausibly.
They all turned to look at him, slightly confused and increasingly suspicious.
"No," Bess said softly after a beat, eyes narrowing. "No, I don't think so."
As she stalked across to stand in front of their captive with her hands on her hips, one of the burner phones they'd taken off the guy started vibrating on the bed next to DJ, jerking and jolting its way across the coverlet until the call went to voicemail.
"If you'd been following my boys since Missouri," Bess began, taking the hunter by the jaw and bending down to look him in the eye. "You would know that they're no threat to any human; you'd have seen them working with other hunters, going after the monsters that are," she paused, considering. "And even if all that didn't change your mind, you'd have tracked them back to the packhouse; what hunter could resist temptation like that, huh?"
The man's teeth ground together audibly, and he leaned as far away from Bess' flashing eyes and lengthening canines as the chair would allow.
"If you're gonna kill me," he bit out, breathing hard, "then just fucking do it already."
"We don't kill people," Bess said firmly. "Especially not before we get some answers."
The phone started buzzing again; DJ snatched it up before it could fall off the edge of the bed.
"Looks like someone wants to know where Dog the Bounty Hunter fucked off to," Sam muttered.
"Is your buddy in town, too?" Cass asked, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.
"Caller ID says 'Boss,'" DJ informed the room, holding the screen aloft.
"Boss?" Garth queried, brow furrowing.
"Boss," Bess repeated thoughtfully, extending her claws until the tips made the hunter wince. "Would you like to tell us who you work for, young man?"
The hunter swallowed heavily and, were it not for the fact that it would have drawn blood, DJ was certain that he would have shaken his head like a naughty child.
"But you do work for someone," Bess mused, straightening up and letting him go. "Hmm."
"Holy shit," Sam breathed, "What if they're in on it?"
"Huh?" Cass grunted, questioning.
"Dude, think about it," Sam continued, looking more horrified by the second. "They approached us; they're the ones who told us we were tracking vampires when we still thought they were vetalas. What if Krissy's right, and it's a goddamn hunter trap!?"
Bess' gaze cut sharply over to her sons; Sam was as white as a sheet, and Cass had started up a low, rumbling growl. DJ stood up and caught hold of Cass' arm, for all the good that would do if his friend decided to get his teeth out again.
"Is that it?" Garth demanded of their prisoner. "You gain their trust, you walk them right in… and they never know what hit 'em?"
The man said nothing, but his chest was heaving and sweat was rolling down his face; it was actually kind of pathetic.
"You're not a hunter," Garth shook his head, disgusted. "You're a hitman."
"You work for the fucking Lassiters!" Cass snarled, dragging DJ forward a couple of steps before Bess intercepted him.
"Don't," she said, soft but unyielding.
The burner phone went off again; DJ swore quietly, half-turning to pick it up, but Garth beat him to the punch.
"Only one way to find out," he said, snatching the device up and gesturing for quiet.
"No!" the hunter objected, suddenly vocal again.
"Oh, shut up!" Cass pushed past his mother and clapped his hand over the man's mouth, nodding at his dad as he did so.
DJ's heart was in his throat as Garth answered the call, pitching his voice lower and dropping the Southern accent like a ditchable prom date.
"Yeah?"
The werewolves all went very still, cocking their heads to the side in a manner that DJ thought must be hereditary, as Garth listened silently for long moments to the voice on the other line. Then, without further ado, he crumpled the phone in his fist like an empty can of pop.
"Balls!" he blurted. "That was Julian Duval."
[Insert, "Dun, dun, dun!" sound effect here.]
In other news: What a treat to hear that Ackles referred to Sam Winchester's son as "DJ" on stage at SPNNC2021; that's as good as canon to me!