Brie was in the passengers seat looking down at the map, wondering where their first stop was going to be. Too many options she thought, she sighed as a sign of giving up. She folds up the map and puts it back in her back. She looks at Elena who was currently driving. "Do you think we are doing the right thing? Leaving Mystic Falls and all our friends behind?"
Elena turns her head "You having second thoughts? You said it would be a great idea to get away from it all. Do you want me to turn back?"
"I mean it would be nice to have a break from the supernatural that is Mystic Falls. But leaving Caroline, Bonnie. Our friends Elena. What about Jeremy? Do you not feel a little guilty for leaving them behind?"
Elena squished her lips together "Maybe. But we did tell them Brie. Its not like we left them a note and not saying goodbye. Besides they all agreed we should get away for a while. We deserve it don't we? Well I don't know about you but I cant wait to get away from the Salvatore love triangle. Goodbye Salvatore's, hello new boys" she waves behind her as Brie laughs.
"Yeah I guess. Would be nice to see and meet new faces. Mystic Falls is a small town. Everyone knows everyone. Yeah it would be nice to get away. And who better to go on a road trip with my number one girl" Brie smiles as she nudges Elena playfully on the shoulder.
"I love you, you know that right?" Elena asks as Brie leans in and gives her a kiss on the cheek.
"Of course I do. I love you too" Brie says as she looks at her phone. A message pops up from Damon. She rolls her eyes and reads the message out loud "Brie, answer your god damn phone right now or at least get Elena to get a hold of me. Tell her she needs to come back right now. Or I will come and drag her back here myself. If she comes back with a hair out of place or a bruise anywhere on her body I will kill you" she rolls her eyes. "He's so lovely isn't he?" She said sarcastically as she starts typing a message back "No" she types and sends it before switching her phone off. "To a Salvatore free life" she sighs.
Elena shakes her head and laughs "So decided where we are going yet?" Brie sighs again before taking out the map from her bag and opening it as she puts her chin in her hand skimming the map.
The Impala is parked next to a sign that says "Ranger Station Lost Creek Trail, Lost Creek National Forest".
"So Blackwater Ridge is pretty remote" Sam looks at a 3D map of the national forest, paying particular attention to the ridge labeled "Blackwater Ridge". Dean looks at the decorations.
"It's cut off by these canyons here, rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place."
"Dude, check out the size of this freaking bear" Sam looks over. Dean is looking at a framed photo of a man standing behind a much larger bear.
Sam comes to stand next to Dean "And a dozen or more grizzlies in the area. It's no nature hike, that's for sure."
A forest ranger, Ranger Wilkinson walks up behind them when he speaks, Dean and Sam whip around, startled. "You boys aren't planning on going out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?"
"Oh, no, sir, we're environmental study majors from UC Boulder, just working on a paper" Sam laughs a little.
Dean grins and raises a fist "Recycle, man"
"Bull" The ranger spat as Sam's eyes flick to Dean, who doesn't move. "You're friends with that Haley girl, right?"
Dean looks like he considers and nods "Yes, we are, Ranger" Dean checks the Ranger's name tag. "Wilkinson"
"Well I will tell you exactly what we told her. Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the twenty-fourth, so it's not exactly a missing persons now, is it?" Dean shakes his head. "You tell that girl to quit worrying, I'm sure her brother's just fine"
Dean nods "We will. Well that Haley girl's quite a pistol, huh?"
The Ranger scoffs "That is putting it mildly"
"Actually you know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know, so she could see her brother's return date" The Ranger eyes Dean as Dean raises his eyebrows.
Dean and Sam leave the ranger station. Dean is holding a piece of paper and laughing. "What, are you cruising for a hookup or something?" Sam asks as Dean raises an eyebrow.
"What do you mean?"
"The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge, so what are we waiting for? Let's just go find Dad. I mean, why even talk to this girl?"
Dean and Sam stop on opposite sides of the Impala. "I don't know, maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk into it?"
He pauses "What?"
"Since when are you all shoot first ask questions later, anyway?"
"Since now" Sam turns away; the sound of the car door opening is heard.
"Really?" Dean goes around the car.
Dean and Sam are standing at the door to a house. The door opens to reveal Haley Collins.. "You must be Haley Collins. I'm Dean, this is Sam, we're, ah, we're rangers with the Park Service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. He wanted us to ask a few questions about your brother Tommy."
Haley hesitates. "Lemme see some ID"
Dean pulls out a fake ID with the name 'Samuel Cole' and holds it up against the screen. Haley looks at it, then at Dean, who smiles. Haley opens the door. "Come on in"
"Thanks" The door swings open Haley catches sight of the Impala.
"That yours?" Sam is looking back at the Impala. "Nice car" Haley turns to lead Dean and Sam into the kitchen, where Ben is sitting at the table on a laptop. Dean turns his head to mouth something to Sam, who rolls his eyes.
"So if Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know something's wrong?
Haley comes back into the room with a bowl she places on the table. "He checks in every day by cell. He emails, photos, stupid little videos we haven't heard anything in over three days now"
"Well, maybe he can't get cell reception" Sam shrugs his shoulders.
Haley shakes her head "He's got a satellite phone, too"
"Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check in?"
"He wouldn't do that" Ben finally says something. Dean eyes Ben before Ben looks away.
Haley puts more food on the table "Our parents are gone. It's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other."
"Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Sam asks as Haley nods. On a laptop, Haley pulls up pictures.
"That's Tommy" Haley clicks twice and another picture comes up, then the still frame opening the latest video.
"Hey Haley, day six, we're still out near Blackwater Ridge. We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow" Sam spots the shadow flicking past.
"Well, we'll find your brother. We're heading out to Blackwater Ridge first thing"
"Then maybe I'll see you there. Look, I can't sit around here anymore. So I hired a guy. I'm heading out in the morning, and I'm gonna find Tommy myself"
"I think I know how you feel"
Sam looks up at Haley "Hey, do you mind forwarding these to me?"
"Sure" Haley nods taking the laptop from the counter and starts playing about with it.
Someone breaks a game of pool. Brie is sat at a table waiting on Elena who was carrying their drinks to the table. Brie grabs the glass and takes a sip before setting it back on the table. "Needed that" Elena smiled as she took a sip out of her drink. "So this place. Black ridge you do know its in the wilderness right? Secluded. No one for miles?"
"Well I want to go hiking and we are here now so might as well go" Elena said crossing her arms on the table.
"If that's what you wanna do then fine. But just wanna warn you that theres two hikers went missing out there. They were never found"
Elena raises an eyebrow "How do you know that?" Brie pulls an article to show Elena. "Where did you get this?" Elena said reading the article.
"I got it when you were filling up the car. And that's not all" Brie pulls out another article. "In 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack" Brie looked at Elena looking for some sort of reaction.
Elena pushes the articles back towards Brie. "You think some sort of grizzly attack story is gonna scare me to not go hiking tomorrow? You do remember we've dealt with a lot worse right?" Elena looks around the room to make sure no one was listening. "Like Vampires and Werewolves. We can handle it" Elena said taking another sip.
"Its not that I am worried about. Elena we were vampires, nothing could beat us but then we took the cure. We are fragile humans now. Don't you remember that? We cant take care of ourselves the way we use to. We need to be careful"
"Brie we are going...end of" Brie held her hands up in defeat.
On the other side of the bar Sam opens the laptop, which already has a window open to Tom's video. "I downloaded that guy Tommy's video to the laptop. Check this out" Sam pulls up the video and goes through three frames of the video one at a time. A shadow crosses the screen.
"Do it again."
Sam repeats the frames "That's three frames. That's a fraction of a second. Whatever that thing is, it can move"
Dean hits Sam. Sam looks up. "Told you something weird was going on"
"Yeah" Sam closes the laptop "I got one more thing" Sam hands over another newspaper article. "In 'fifty-nine one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive"
Dean looks at The Lost Creek Gazette. "Is there a name?"
Sam shakes his head "No first name just a man called Mr Shaw"
Dean nods his head "We'll check him out in the morning" he says before turning his attention to the room. He looks around the bar and see's Brie and Elena sitting at a table on the other side of the room. "Damn" he takes a swig of his beer.
"What?" Sam looks up from his laptop.
Deans nods at the direction he's looking in "Look at them. Gorgeous" he smirks, licking his lips.
"Dean we've got a case to solve. We don't have time for you to be picking up girls at random bars" Sam says looking back down at his laptop but something caught his eye to look back up. He looked over at Brie who was smiling and laughing with Elena. He could hear her laughter echo in his ear. A smirk formed looking at Brie.
Dean coughed, breaking Sam's attention. "See something you like?" Dean smirked at his brother. Sam blushed before shaking his head quickly before putting his head down before taking another glance at Brie.
