Chapter 16: Something In the Way
The painful throbbing in my head is finally what brings me to. I open my eyes, wincing as even the slightest movement causes the throbbing to get worse. Even with my eyes open, I can barely see a thing, it is so dark. The room I am in is damp and cold, it feels almost like some sort of basement. I go to rub my head, but that is the moment I realize my hands are tied above my head. I look up, there is a thick rope tied around my wrists, suspending me from a wooden truss in the ceiling. Thankfully, I am barely able to touch the ground with my toes, which keeps me from completely hanging from the ceiling. Suddenly, everything comes rushing back to me and I frantically look around for Dean. He is beside me, tied similarly to the ceiling truss, but he is hanging limp against the ropes. I panic for a second before I see that he is breathing slowly.
"Dean," I say, trying not to draw attention to myself in case whatever grabbed us is watching.
He doesn't move.
"Dean!" I call louder, hoping he is okay.
Exactly as I feared, once I call his name louder, I hear rusty door hinges creak in the darkness. A dim light floods the room, allowing me to see a set of stairs leading up to an overhead door. I can just make out a figure walking down the stairs, the wooden stairs creaking as the figure descends them. As the figure gets closer, I am finally able to see its face. I recognize our attacker, but I do not believe what am seeing. She scoffs at the clear expression of shock on my face.
"You hunters think you're so clever, but you aren't, not at all," the woman I know as Halley Jones says.
Halley's voice and appearance have completely changed. She has a new air of confidence that makes her appear a lot taller. Her hair and eyes have taken on exaggerated colors, far more striking than they were before. Her hair is like staring into a black abyss and her eyes are the color of ice. The shy, cowering woman I interviewed earlier is totally gone, replaced by this overconfident visage in front of me. My silence and shock prods her to continue.
"I mean, really, how foolish do you have to be? You fell for everything I threw at you. Not once did you ever suspect poor, innocent little Halley Jones," she says, mimicking the small, shy voice she used earlier.
The initial shock I felt is now starting to be replaced by pure anger, directed not only at myself, but at Halley as well. I glare at her through the darkness, yet she seems only pleased at my anger.
"Right, down to it then. I figured you would be the best one to help me."
"What?"
"It was foolish of me before, I didn't suspect your partner when he first came to town. Not until he shot at me with those useless, little silver bullets. But you...I felt you the second you came to town. All of that pain, it was like a beacon to me. From the moment I felt it, I knew what I had to do."
My anger subsides and is taken over by worry as she says this. Something about her presence unnerves me, more so than it probably should. She isn't human, that is the one thing I am sure of. Halley moves closer to me, looking me dead in the eyes. Her icy irises seem to gleam in the darkness.
"Old pain recently renewed," she pauses and sighs, "the most potent of all emotions. And you're drowning in it."
I feel my face flush and my body seems to go cold all over as she continues to speak. It is like every emotion I have had in the past few weeks is now at the forefront of my mind. Adrenaline rushes through me, quickening my pulse and breathing.
"What are you...what are you doing?" I manage to say through my fast breaths.
She smiles and moves behind me, making me even more nervous. I suddenly start to feel emotions I haven't felt in nearly a decade. Emotions so specific, I believe I will never forget them.
"You were so strong then. Taking that pain and those emotions and letting them control you. I can't even imagine what it must have felt like, to almost give into them completely. What strength that must have taken."
"That wasn't strength! That was a moment of weakness, one I still regret. I almost-" I stop, not knowing why I am saying this aloud.
Halley walks in front of me once more.
"Oh, don't be ashamed of it. Letting your emotions control your mind, that must have felt wonderful."
I let my head fall, tears coming to my eyes from the memories, the feelings, she is dredging up.
"Leave her alone," I hear Dean snap.
At the exact same time I am both relieved and worried. Dean is fine, but how much did he hear?
Halley turns to him now, that same cocky smile on her face.
"Oh, don't even get me started on you, beautiful. Your entire existence is a tragedy, but you hold it back so much I can't possibly imagine it being useful to me without a lot of work. Her suffering is much closer to the surface."
"What the hell are you?" Dean asks, hardly seeming to be phased by her words.
"You know, I'm so glad you asked…"
"She's an Addonexus," I say. "They feed off of emotions."
"Well, someone did their research. But, you're only partially correct. I'm not a true Addonexus; I was born during a solar eclipse, not during the comet."
"Comet?" Dean asks.
"Halley's Comet," I say, feeling like a moron as the words leave my mouth.
"And you still didn't suspect me. You really are idiots," Halley chimes.
She turns to Dean again, "Yes, my species is a dying one, but very powerful. Once every seventy-six years a new Addonexus, a true Addonexus, is born when the comet appears in the sky. Some Addonexi, like myself, are born during eclipses. I was raised by a true Addonexus after my parents abandoned me when I started showing signs of my powers. She was a great mentor to me, however, she suffered from the ailment of every true Addonexus. When the comet appeared again in 1986 and the new Addonexus was born, my mentor died."
"Damn shame," Dean says sarcastically.
"She left me to fulfil her mission, I am to find the child that was born in '86 and raise it to carry on our species. Unfortunately, my powers aren't strong enough to sense the child. So, I've been trying to strengthen them. I thought I was going to have to stay in this dismal town forever, that is, until you two showed up."
The shadows seem to writhe around her as she holds out her hand. The shadows twist until they form a dagger in her hand. The blade is the color of obsidian, yet seems to glint with a strange light. Halley looks at the blade for a moment before focusing her attention on me.
"Now, enough talking, I've told you more than I should have. Not that it matters."
She once again moves closer to me, taunting with the blade. As she begins to speak again, she slides the blade under my chin and across my face, leaving only hairline scratches on my skin.
"I can take that pain, the suffering, you feel and put it to good use. The truth is I didn't want to kill those people. A true Addonexus wouldn't have to, but I am not true born. The only way I could relieve their suffering was to use the powers I do have, with the help of a little dark magic."
As she runs the blade along my skin, I can see Dean straining furiously against the ropes. My mind grows foggier the closer Halley is to me, her powers seeming to amplify with proximity. She pauses for a second and smirks, turning her head slightly toward Dean.
"You clearly care for one another. Together, you both can serve a greater purpose. If I take both of you, I won't have to harm another person again, I'll have all the power I need. And, now, I realize how I can make this easier."
She points the tip of the blade at Dean, "Your emotions are far too suppressed for me to use my magic."
Halley again turns to face me, holding the blade close.
"But, if I kill you first, his emotions won't be so suppressed and useless. Two birds, one stone," Halley says as she slowly presses the blade into my skin and slides it down the center of my chest.
My heart, already pounding from adrenaline, doubles its pace. The knife leaves a long scratch and tears my shirt slightly, but nothing more. I can see the fury in Dean's eyes, but I am all but helpless due to my brain working overtime to keep up with the emotions flooding it. Halley sweeps the blade toward me, and at the last second directs it upwards, cutting the bonds over my head. The unexpected action surprises me and I collapse to the ground, my hands still bound together.
"Time for you to join the rest of your family," Halley says.
I frantically look around for leverage, but all I can see is a dark window across the room. In the few seconds I have to look at it, I can't tell if it is blacked out or if it's just that dark outside. Halley comes at me with the blade, and I am able to fight back until the emotions running through me start to become distracting. I can hardly think straight as Halley swings the knife at me. I grab her arm as the knife glides past me, but I am too late. The blade slices into my upper arm and I pull my arm back from her. She kicks at my legs with inhuman strength, knocking me to the ground. With one hand she holds down my arms, the other she places on my forehead. All of the emotions in me reach such a magnitude that I can no longer see straight. Everything around me becomes blurry and I find myself all but paralyzed. I lie on my back, and my whole body shakes with each frantic breath I draw. The hyperventilation makes me even more disoriented on top of the mental exhaustion. I can see Halley over me, trying to level the blade with my heart. She is unsuccessful because of the constant motion of my chest. I see anger flash in her eyes and, in the same moment, she draws her knee back and drives into my ribs. The breath is knocked out of me and I lie still, stunned. Halley is making the motion to drive the blade into me when I see her eyes widen and she stops mid-blow. She looks at Dean for a second, and I realize his emotions must have finally gotten to her. Not wasting a second, I am able to gather enough focus to rock my weight back and kick Halley off of me. She hits the floor on her back, the blade jarred loose from her hand in the impact. I scramble for the blade as it slides across the floor. I manage to cut my hands free before Halley is upon me once more. We both struggle for the knife, trying to kill one another. With her inhuman strength, Halley pushes me off of her and halfway across the floor. When I get to my feet, I stop cold. Halley now stands behind Dean, holding the knife to his throat.
"Down," she says to me.
I slowly get on my knees, and as my right knee touches the ground, I feel something beside me. I look out of the corner of my eye and see a large, rusted wrench lying on the floor. I look back at Halley, and she takes the knife away from Dean and starts to approach me. When she is more than halfway between Dean and I, I reach down and grab the wrench. Despite my head still reeling, I manage to throw the wrench through the window I saw earlier. The window shatters and floods the room with bright sunlight. Halley cries out in pain as the sunlight washes over her and she drops the knife to shield her face with her hands. I quickly dash for the knife, grab it, and run to Dean.
"Hey, are you okay?" I ask, trying to cut through the ropes.
"Me? What about you?" Dean responds.
"I'm fine," I say, cutting the ropes away from Dean's hands.
In that same second, something wraps around my ankle and pulls me from my feet. I fall to the ground, the knife is jarred from my hand and slides across the floor. I look behind me and see Halley manipulating the shadows to form a rope. She starts to pull me across the floor, towards her.
"Dean! The door!" I call as I'm dragged backwards.
Dean turns and runs toward the door at the top of the stairs.
"No!" Halley yells.
The shadows stop pulling me toward her. Instead, the shadow rope twists around my neck and starts to constrict. I try to grab at it, but all I can feel is my own skin. It isn't long before I feel faint and black dots start to swim in my vision. Before I can pass out, Dean throws open the rusty door, letting even more daylight into the room. Halley's eyes widen and the shadows she is manipulating disappear. She screams and falls to her knees, trying to shield herself from the sunlight. I get up, still feeling light-headed from the lack of oxygen, and run over to where I dropped the knife earlier. On a hunch, I pick up the knife and run at Halley, who is still on her knees. Before she even notices I'm behind her, I drive the knife into her back, between her shoulders. Thin lines of light appear on Halley's skin, the light slowly intensifies until I have to look away. There is a bright explosion of light and when I look back, there is no trace of Halley or the knife.
As it turns out, the basement was actually a cellar underneath a shed in Halley's back garden. Dean and I manage to get back to the sheriff's office without drawing attention to ourselves. Dean gives the sheriff a cover story for our sudden disappearance and for our injuries, while I sit in an adjacent room. I stare at the floor, my mind drifting to everything Halley said to me, everything she made me feel. The effects of her powers have not entirely worn off yet, so my emotions are still running high. The darkness of the room is slightly comforting, allowing me to start to calm down. It isn't long before Dean comes into the room. We haven't said much to one another since escaping the cellar, and I can tell he is being hesitant to bring it up.
"So, I told the sheriff that we caught a lead that the serial killer moved on to Colorado. I also told him before we got this tip we were investigating a lead outside of town and got into an accident. We should probably leave before he realizes both of those were lies."
"I don't think he'll really investigate that. He doesn't seem to have any reason not to trust us," I respond.
"You never know."
"True. Besides, I'm ready to leave this place anyway."
There is a quick pause between us, I expect Dean to say something, but he doesn't. We head back to the motel to get our stuff. I take the liberty of changing into fresh clothes before we leave, wanting to put the incident completely out of my head. As we leave the town behind us, taking to the open road, I realize I can't put the incident out of my head. Though the effects Halley's powers have now pretty much worn off, the feeling still runs deep inside me.
Unable to shake the feeling any longer, I finally turn down the radio and address the silence.
"Dean," I start, my voice sounding as nervous as I feel, "I need to tell you something."
Dean looks over to me before fixing his eyes back on the road. This will be a lot easier if I don't have to look him in the eye.
"Yeah?"
"This story, well, it isn't pleasant. I've thought a lot about this, whether I should tell you..."
"Look, don't feel like you have to tell me anything. The only way I want to hear it is if you want to tell me."
"I feel like, if we're going to continue to be whatever it is we are, then this is something you should know. So, yes, I'm only telling you this because I want to. This isn't something I just share with anyone. As of right now, Mike is the only other person who knows this about me. It's a lot to hear at once."
"Okay," Dean says, I can hear the curiosity growing in his voice.
"How much of what Halley said to me did you actually hear?"
"Enough."
I nod, casting my eyes to the floorboard for a second, trying to decide where to start.
"'Old pain recently renewed.' I believe that's how she put it."
I take a deep breath before continuing.
"After my father died, Mike took care of me and my brother. We started hunting with him every chance we got. When Eric turned twenty, Mike started letting just the two of us go hunting by ourselves. We were pretty good at it too. For two years, we hunted every sort of monster we had learned about from our dad and from Mike. Then, we caught a case that was far more difficult than any others we had worked. It was much like this one, we had a string of unnatural deaths, but no clear indication of what monster we were looking at. Mike was away on another hunt, and Eric didn't want to ask any other hunters for help. Looking back at it now, I understand why he was hesitant to trust other hunters, but at the time I only thought he was being stubborn and trying to prove himself.
"Long story short, we had been on this hunt for about a week before we found any sort of lead. And when we finally did find a lead, it only lasted for a day before we were back to square one. Eric and I got in a fight over asking for help from another hunter, I said some things I still regret. Then, he told me to stay in the hotel room while he went for food. When two hours passed, I knew something was wrong. My initial thought was that he had gone to finish the hunt himself. I went through the papers he'd gathered and finally saw the one word he had written on a news article: demon. I grabbed my gun, ran outside, and blacked out. I came to and realized that I hadn't blacked out at all. Eric was holding me and he was crying. I knew. Deep down I knew everything, but..I didn't want to believe what was right in front of me."
I pause for a second, trying to bring myself to say the next words without breaking down again.
"That was the last night I saw my brother alive. Ten years ago. A few weeks ago it was exactly ten years, Mike and I made a trip up to Colorado to visit Eric's grave. That's what Halley felt in me, what she was dredging up."
"Lara...I'm so sorry. I had no idea- I can't even imagine-"
"I hope you never have to," I say.
We haven't been driving long, and I can tell that Dean is still curious. When I decided to tell him all of this, I fully intended to tell him the full story. The next part just takes some extra strength from me to say aloud. It is so silent that a small fly could hit the Impala's windshield and we would both probably jump at the noise. Somewhere inside me, I find the courage to continue.
"Of course, that's not everything Halley said. And, honestly, if I'm going to be upfront with you, you deserve to know the rest. After I lost Eric, I sat at Mike's for days, lethargic, trying to cope with the fact that I was the reason my brother was dead. The demon had been waiting for me, and the second I stepped out of that warded hotel room, it killed me. My brother sacrificed himself to save me because I didn't listen. I didn't know how I was going to live with that. After a few days, I decided to jump back into hunting. I needed a distraction and Mike did too. In retrospect, I probably jumped back in too soon. I hunted for a year with Mike, but in that whole year I never felt the same. I didn't realize that I was slowly sinking into depression. By the time I did realize something was wrong, it was too late. Mike caught a case not too far from the house, and I stayed behind because I was having a particularly bad day. That particularly bad day descended pretty fast after that. I took some things I probably shouldn't have and started drinking. Luckily, Mike came back early and found me, only half-dead, in my room. A hospital stay, a lot of therapy, and some anti-depressants later and I was back at Mike's, but I stopped hunting. Mike doesn't talk about it, and I never bring it up, but finding me like that...that was about the worst thing I could have done to him. Eric and I were like children to him and losing Eric nearly broke him. Losing me too, I don't even want to think about what that would have done to him. From that day on, he never looked at me the same. Not necessarily in a bad way, just, not the same.
"It was another year before one day I just realized that, while I was sitting on my ass, throwing myself a pity party, a lot of good people were dying because I wasn't out there killing the monsters before the monsters killed them. So, I slowly stopped the medication and started hunting again. This time hunting helped me and now I'm better, even if I still do have bad days. The first case I met you and Sam on, that was the first demon case I worked since Eric died. Every day, I'm just so grateful that Mike came back early from that hunt and found me."
"I'm glad he found you too," Dean says.
I take a moment to absorb the sincerity of Dean's words.
"Sorry for unloading all of that on you," I add.
"Well, I'm glad you trust me enough to tell me all of that."
I smile softly, trying to find a way to shift the subject off of me.
"Speaking of trust...what's this I hear about a new hobby you and Sam picked up?" I say.
"What?"
"I guess hunting doesn't pay the bills, gotta get some quick cash some way. But, robbing banks?"
Dean breaks into a smile, laughing for a second.
"Yeah, that-that was a shapeshifter. Just a big mess if you ask me. Better not mention Sam and me to any real FBI agents, that's for sure."
"Wow, I'm riding with a fugitive."
Dean laughs again and reaches in the back seat with one arm. A second later he sits a box full of cassette tapes on my lap.
"Pick a good one."
I look through the tapes before one finally catches my interest. I pop it in the deck and "Something" by The Beatles starts to play.
"Damn, I didn't know you were a hippie," Dean jests.
I take fake offense to his comment, "It's not my fault if you can't appreciate good music."
"I never said I didn't like it."
The song allows me to take my mind off of things and just enjoy the ride. I can tell it is doing the same for Dean as well. That is, until the next song starts to play. My reaction makes Dean give me a curious look.
"'Twist and Shout'?"
"Yeah, it's not my favorite."
Dean still looks confused.
"It got ruined for me a while back," I say, switching it to the next song.
"Let It Be" starts to play and I sit back in the seat, relaxing again.
"Perfect," I say, smiling.
"Can't argue with that," Dean says, smiling back at me.