Summary: 35-111 had to be the creepiest place she had ever been. It promised to be one hell of a first hunt, Jess sure of that.
When Jess demanded to accompany Dean on the quest to find his father, she hadn't really thought it through. Intellectually she knew they weren't just going to go to some random town and look him up in the phonebook. When she finally threw her old pink and purple duffle next to his army surplus bags in the trunk of Dean's car, and slid into the passenger seat, reality didn't hit until Dean handed her a map and told her to navigate.
That was when she got the whole story.
She'd been afraid and Dean had been reluctant to tell her more than the bare bones of why and what he and Sam had been doing the weekend they disappeared together. But sitting in the dark, driving down a two lane highway in the middle of the night listening to Dean tell her about Women in White, cryptic voicemails, and messages left in coordinates the shine of running away with him was gone and fear of the unknown took its place.
So, they were following coordinates that Sam and Dean's father had left them in his most prized possession that supposedly never left his side. There was no guaranty that John Winchester would be there or that he'd been there, but she didn't feel it was her place to say that to Dean. She could tell just how much he was clinging to the idea that John would be waiting for them when they pulled into town.
The coordinates John had left for Dean in his journal, 35-111, led to the middle of the nowhere in a forest in Blackwater Ridge State Park.
"He's got a bunch of hidey holes scattered around," Dean had told her, trying to convince himself more than her. "Maybe he's holed up in a cabin there or something."
She didn't think so and judging by the grim look on Dean's face he didn't really think so either.
They pulled into the parking lot for the visitor's center at the park and Jess followed Dean as he sauntered up the steps and inside. She was pretty much clueless when it came to pretty much anything they were going to encounter on their journey, so it went unsaid that she was going to follow his lead no questions asked.
She'd been camping a few times with her family when she was younger, her relatives had a thing for family reunions in the middle of the "great outdoors", so the rustic visitor's center wasn't an unfamiliar sight.
"What are we looking for?"
Dean glanced away from the picture of the biggest bear she'd ever seen and gave her a shrug. "Just some info for now." Moving over to a 3D map of the area, Dean tapped a finger on the raised portion labeled Blackwater Ridge. "Look, it's remote, cut off, dense forest, filled with abandoned mines and," he nodded toward the picture on the wall, "some big ass grizzle bears."
"Can I help you?"
Turning to the ranger Jess could tell he was older, experienced, and by the scowl on his face didn't like the looks of them.
Dean stepped forward and flashed him a disarming smile. "Yes, sir. We're environmental study majors from UC Boulder and we'd-"
"Bull."
Jess's mouth went dry and her palms got clammy. How did he know they were lying? Was he going to turn them in? Shit, were they going to have to run?
"You're friends with that Haley girl, aren't you?"
Throwing Dean a wide-eyed look, she saw him give a split second pause then his entire demeanor changed. He shrugged and the grin on his face turned embarrassed.
"You caught us."
Ranger Wilkinson just rolled his eyes and huffed. "Well, I'll tell you what I told her. Her brother's backcountry permit doesn't end until the twenty-fourth. He's hardly a missing person."
Jess tried to make it look like she was just worried about her friend, but she was pretty sure she failed since the Ranger was giving her a heavier scowl than Dean.
She gave him what she hoped was a reassured smile and he just huffed again. "Just tell that girl to stop worrying."
Dean opened his mouth to say something else, but Jess decided that if she was going to be lying to people of authority often then no better time to start than the present. Plus it wasn't like Dean knew much about being friends with a girl. Or at least she assumed so.
She thought about that one time her friend, Stacy, had fretted on her couch for an entire weekend when her cheating boyfriend went off for Spring break. With that memory in mind it wasn't too hard to look as sincere as possible.
"It's just that Haley's really worried. Isn't there anything you can tell us that will make her feel better?" Jess threw in some earnest doe eyes and a light flutter of eyelashes for effect.
Stacy had needed a lot of fake sincere comforting.
Ranger Wilkinson eyed her dubiously and Jess turned the wide concerned expression up a notch. Finally he sighed and turned back toward his office.
"I'll print off a copy of the permit. See if that will stop her bothering me about it."
"Thank you so much, Ranger Wilkinson. It'll mean a lot to her." Jess smiled at him gratefully earning herself a put-upon scowl before he disappeared into the back office.
Dean looked at her with a small smirk. "Not bad," he murmured quietly.
Jess shrugged trying to appear nonchalant under the praise. "You get pretty good at faking sincerity when you have to listen to your girl friends complain about boy troubles."
Chuckling quietly, Dean shook his head in amusement.
Back in the Impala driving away from the visitor's center Jess examined the backcountry permit with a frown. She had no idea what they were supposed to do with it. Dean had scanned it for a second then handed it off to her. It seemed that was all he needed because he drove into town like he knew exactly where he was going.
"So, what are we doing now?" Jess asked looking at Dean.
"Now," he drawled making a quick turn and pulling to a stop in a parking lot. "We become park rangers."
"What?"
Dean nodded toward the building they just parked in front of and Jess read the sign. "Kinkos?"
He grinned at her and shoved his door open climbing out. "Yep."
Watching Dean create really credible fake Park Service ID's for Samuel Cole and Alice Wester was a little bit impressive. If she hadn't watched him do it, she wouldn't have been able to tell they were fake at all.
"You make fake IDs at a Kinkos." Hers was still warm from the lamination.
"How do you think we get people to actually talk to us?" Dean asked while sliding his into his wallet for safe keeping. "It's not like people will just spill their guts to a couple of random dudes in t-shirts and jeans."
Jess looked down at her stretched out high school pride tee and her faded jeans. "Okay, that makes sense."
They found Haley Collins' house from the resident address on Tommy's camping permit. Jess would be lying if she said the dry mouth and sweaty palms weren't back.
A young woman with dark wavy hair and a tired expression opened the door.
She eyed them warily. "Can I help you?"
Dean gave her another of his charming smiles. "Haley Collins? I'm Dean and this is Jess. We're with Park Services. Ranger Wilkinson sent us to ask about your brother."
Haley Collins eyed them again and scowled. "Let me see some ID."
Smart girl, Jess thought even as she panicked a little bit and nervously tugged her ID from her pocket. Dean had just spilled their real names and Jess was sure the Haley girl was gonna end up calling the cops on them, but Dean just smirked and flashed his ID like it was nothing.
Haley seemed to peer closely at them then glanced back up and looked around Dean.
"That your car?"
Dean couldn't resist glancing over his shoulder with pride. "Yep."
"Nice car," she said and stepped back opening the door wider. "Come in."
Jess felt weak in the knees, but followed Dean's lead and stepped inside as calmly as she could. The inside of the Collins house was nice, cluttered with the evidence of a home and littered with family photos. It only took a closer look to figure out that the siblings were alone, their parents were gone.
Following Haley into the dining room, Jess felt awkward when it became apparent that they'd interrupted the siblings' dinner. Dean however carried on without pause.
"So what can you tell us about your brother's disappearance?"
Haley and Ben Collins were eager to tell their story and truthfully they had good evidence to back up their suspicions. While looking at the last video message Tommy had sent them, Jess couldn't quite put her finger on it but something wasn't right. Maybe she was just imagining things.
Glancing at Dean to gage his reaction, she realized by the frown of concentration on his face that it wasn't just her being jumpy.
"Maybe if we took a closer look at the video," Jess started to say petering off when Dean turned to look at her. When he didn't give any indication for her to stop she finished, "we might be able to find clues to what happened."
"Alright," Haley nodded not noticing the small exchange between them. "Let me email it to you."
Dean was regarding Jess with an unreadable look and she shifted nervously. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to speak up without prompting. A second later the look was gone and he'd turned to give Haley his email address.
They'd gotten all they could from Haley and Ben so Dean and Jess made a quick exit.
"Thanks for your time," Dean said with a charming smile. "We'll let you know if we find anything."
Their motel room left much to be desired. It was clean sure, but the decor hadn't been changed since the '80s and the bedspreads were thick ugly polyester. Jess was almost afraid of what the bathroom looked like but was pleasantly surprised that while it had mustard yellow tile it had also been scrubbed in between occupants.
When she came out of the bathroom freshly showered, Dean was seated at the small table on the other side of the room with a laptop open and the local newspaper spread out next to it.
He glanced up taking in her braided wet hair, her Strawberry Shortcake t-shirt, and her favorite pair of comfy leggings before turning back to the laptop.
"Come on, I'll show you what I found." He hooked a boot on the chair next him and tugged it closer.
She dragged it the rest of way and sat down when she had a good view of the screen.
"Tommy Collins, Haley's brother, isn't the only person that's disappeared from Blackwater Ridge." He turned the laptop toward her and she saw a backdated article on a missing couple from The Lost Creek Gazette.
"Two hikers disappeared last April, they were never found." He clicked to another article this one older. "Eight people went missing in '82, ruled a grizzly bear attack."
Jess watched more articles pop up as he clicked through them. Each one was older than the next and each one had a morbid title of missing campers or hikers.
"People went missing in '59, and earlier in '32. Every twenty-three years. Whatever is going on it's on a schedule."
Jess's stomach was rolling as she read about the people that just disappeared. No bodies, no one ever knew what happened to them. Even if they'd been attacked by a bear at least some of their remains would have turned up eventually, but what Dean was showing her, it was scarier than a bear attack.
"What's taking these people?" She asked licking her lips hoping that the nervous dry mouth wouldn't be a permanent thing.
"No idea." Dean shrugged casually like they weren't just talking about missing persons going back almost a century. "Could be a hundred different things. That's why we gotta do more research and narrow it down."
"Okay," Jess nodded and latched onto the idea. Research she knew. She'd had to do unbelievable amounts of research for her history degree. That was something she actually knew how to do. Then a thought occurred to her and she deflated.
"Where are we supposed to start?" She asked. "I mean, how do you even research something like a supernatural creature that takes people from the woods?"
Dean smirked at her and gestured to the laptop. "You start with prior deaths. Look into local myths and legends. See if any of that pans out."
"You already looked up prior deaths." Jess gestured at the laptop. "Is there any local legends about that?"
Dean turned back to the laptop pulling up the video message from Tommy Collins. "No legends. The locals did a good job of covering it all up blaming killer bears." He pressed play. "Watch the video again. Let's see what we can see."
The video played, Tommy giving his greeting and smiling at the camera. Jess watched it as close as she could. She watched focusing on the background since Tommy wasn't what they were looking for. The light flickered like a camp fire outside, but still something about the light was bothering her.
"Wait." Dean paused it and looked at her questioningly. "Play it again."
Again something about the light in the background was wrong. Jess didn't notice she was frowning until Dean spoke.
"What do you see?" It sounded like he was testing her, but she could tell that he was also genuinely curious about her answer.
"I don't know there's something wrong with the shadows in the background," she explained. "Maybe slow it down a little?"
"Okay," Dean fiddled with the settings and clicked through it frame by frame.
"There!" She pointed at the screen right where she'd seen it. "Right there, did you see it?"
Dean leaned closer and squinted. "Hold on a sec." He went through the frames one by one again and suddenly his expression lightened and he glanced at her with a small smirk. "Good eye."
"What is it?" She reached over distractedly prodded at Dean's hand until he relinquished the keyboard. "Can you tell what it is from that?"
Dean shook his head and watched as Jess played the three frames again. "No idea, but whatever it is, it's fucking fast."
Leaning back into her seat, Jess lifted her feet off the floor and folded her legs Indian style. "Okay, so, it takes people every twenty-three years, and it's fast. That's not really a lot to go on."
"Nope." Dean sprawled back into his chair and closed down the windows, shutting the laptop he shoved it aside and snatched up his father's hunting journal. "But it's a place to start. Dad left the coordinates to find so maybe there's something in his journal that'll help us."
Jess watched him flip through the journal for a moment before she reached over and pulled Dean's toward her. As gross as some of the stuff in it was, the actual cases were interesting. It was like reading a mystery novel. Only with less "the wife did it" and more "the dead wife from a hundred years ago did it". Still it was easy to see that it took a pretty intelligent person to put together some of those patterns, especially since having a time lapse of years wasn't an uncommon occurrence.
The last case before the Woman in White was a hoodoo priestess stealing exotic zoo animals to use in a spell to raise her husband from the dead and bind him in servitude. Dean drove all the way to New Orleans based off a small article about the theft of an albino python and an endangered tree spider.
Jess sent a surreptitious glance Dean's way. If you just looked at him, on first appearance he was a low class drifter; fraying jeans, scuffed boots, an overabundance of plaid, and a perpetual three day scruff. But it took a certain kind of intelligence to make leaps of intuition like that. Not to mention the sheer amount of research that surely goes into hunting, separating the bullshit lore from the real thing. That had to take some serious dedication and outside the box thinking. Especially since fact checking this kind of research meant the difference between life and death.
Flipping through Dean's journal Jess thought about how scary smart Sam had been. He'd gotten into Stanford on a full ride and by what she knew about how they'd grown up, he'd done it while moving schools every few months. Dean, despite not having any kind of higher education, was obviously at least as smart as Sam.
It must run in the family, because from what little she'd been able to see of John's journal he was just as thorough as his son.
"Have you been able to find anything?" She asked breaking their working silence.
"Nah," Dean answered absently as he flipped to another page. "Dude wrote like freaking Yoda, but from what I can tell he'd noted the pattern but hadn't mentioned any theories on what did it."
Jess looked back down at the page in front of her not really seeing it. She fiddled with the corner of a newspaper clipping stapled to a page about ghouls and debated about whether or not she should say anything.
Apparently her mouth made up her mind for her because she suddenly found herself asking. "Do you think your dad is actually here?"
That drew Dean's attention away from the journal and he pinned her with his eyes.
"I mean," Jess fidgeted, "he gave you the coordinates to a case. If he was going to be here don't you think he would have already been working on it?"
Anger flashed his green eyes and she was really regretting saying anything. John Winchester had been a touchy subject for Sam. Even though they obviously got along better, it seemed he was a touchy subject for Dean too.
Dean had lost his brother, a brother he'd practically raised, his father was missing and the foundation of his life was in upheaval. His life was already so precarious, Jess couldn't even imagine what the thought of his father not even stepping foot in Blackwater Ridge made him feel.
"I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything," she stumbled over her words, but Dean just raised a hand halting them.
"No, it's okay." He dragged his hand down his face. The anger was gone and he just looked tired. And sad, she thought. "He's not here. He's probably never even been here."
Closing Dean's journal slowly, Jess studied him trying to figure out what he was thinking. "If he's not here then what are we going to do?"
He flashed her a grin, all remnants of his dark mood gone. "Well, since we're already here, we work the case."
Jess gave a small smile back and nodded. "Okay, then."
They spent another hour and a half futilely researching. Dean combed through his father's journal some more while Jess tried her hand at searching the internet. Unsurprisingly she found jack with a side of shit. Most of what she came across were conspiracy theories on Bigfoot sightings and wilderness survival manuals. The first was ridiculous and the second could be mildly helpful but not what they were looking for.
Finally they had exhausted all their resources for the moment and had exhausted themselves on top of it. Dean disappeared into the bathroom and Jess threw herself down on the closest bed shoving her face into the pillow trying to get the energy up to crawl under the covers.
She heard the water shut off and the door open then Dean walked over to her and started pushing her off the bed.
"Hey!" She rolled over and scowled at him, trying to shove his hands away.
"Nah-uh." He avoided her hands and shoved her shoulder again. "Get up. I get the bed closest to the door."
"What? Why?" Jess finally stood up and grumbled unhappily as she slouched over to the other bed.
"Because," Dean drawled as he shed his shirt leaving him in a ratty pair of sweatpants, "if anything comes through the door, it'll have to go through me first."
Jess paused in dragging the covers over herself and stared at him. He wanted that bed so he could protect her. Just like in the hospital and in her childhood bedroom, the knowledge that he was there was so comforting.
A small smile on her face, she finally slid all the way under the covers and hugged the pillow to her chin. She looked over at him as he placed his gun on the bedside table and his huge bowie knife under his pillow. When he leaned over and turned the light off she whispered, "Thanks Dean."
She didn't have to say for what.
"Sure thing, darlin'," he murmured back trying to sound causal as he rustled the covers around to get comfortable.
"Good night."
He sighed trying to sound annoyed. He failed. "You too, now go to sleep."
Sam was pinned to the ceiling above her, bleeding and burning and there was nothing she could do. The fire was consuming everything and the smoke was choking her. She was in pain and afraid and Sam was just looking down at her with a peaceful expression on his face. How could he be so peaceful while his flesh was being burned from his bones?
"Hey! Jess, get up."
Jerking awake, Jess blinked her blurry eyes and groaned. Her joints felt stiff and her back ached from restlessly curling into the fetal position in the night.
She rubbed at her eyes and rolled over squinting up at a fully dressed, completely awake Dean. "What? What are you doing?"
"Waking you up," he answered with a careless grin even as his eyes regarded her with a heavy understanding gaze. He knew then, that she'd had a nightmare. It wasn't hard to figure out what it had been about either.
Jess flopped over onto her belly squinting past her pillow at the bedside clock. "5 a.m.? Why are we up at 5 a.m.?"
"'Cause we need time to interview Mr. Shaw if we want to catch Haley before she leaves on her hike."
She squinted at him as he moved away and started packing up their stuff. "Who's Mr. Shaw?"
"The only survivor of the supposed bear attacks in '59."
"Oh yeah." Jess rubbed at her face trying to wake up some more even as she thought about the terrible story they'd discovered last night. "The little boy that'd been camping with his parents."
He shoved all their research in the laptop bag, snatched a to-go coffee cup off the table and brought it over. "Crawled out of the woods barely alive. He's the only person who might have seen something." He shoved the cup in her hand. "Here, drink up and get dressed. We gotta shag ass if we want to get there in time."
Dressed in a college t-shirt, worn in jeans, and a pair of running shoes, Jess leaned against the car window and dozed through the short drive to their interview. Dean was nice enough to keep his music turned low and let her get what little more rest she could. She wondered how he was so energetic this early in the morning. She thought about her own restless sleep and nightmares and hated the idea that he'd woken from his own night terrors and just never went back to sleep.
The house was actually an unkempt apartment. The clutter inside spoke of a lonely haunted old man and if he'd seen what they thought he did it was no wonder that he'd had trouble moving on with his life. She knew what it was like to see something and never come back from it.
"I don't know what more I can tell you, Ranger," Mr. Shaw tossed over his shoulder as he led them deeper into his apartment. He had a smoker's voice and a lit cigarette in his mouth. "It's all public record. My parents were killed by a grizzly bear."
He said it like he'd said that exact same sentence a hundred times before. It was the kind of thing that if you said it enough you might start to believe it too.
"Yeah, a grizzly bear," Dean agreed. "And do you think all the attacks that year were a grizzly bear too?"
Jess bit her lip at the leading question and studied Mr. Shaw's reaction. He stiffened and hunched over on himself as he collapse in his chair, but he didn't respond.
"The missing people this year? They were a bear too?"
Mr. Shaw shakily lifted his cigarette to his lips and took a heavy draw. "What else would it be?" Even as he said it, Jess could tell he knew it had to be something very different from a wild animal.
He unsteadily exhaled smoke and his fingers clinched and unclenched around the arm of his chair nervously. Jess could feel the tension rolling off of him.
"Sir," she stepped around Dean and sat in the chair next to him, trying to project as much of a comforting presence as she could. "If you tell us what really happened, we might be able to stop it from happening again."
He snorted at her and lit up a fresh cigarette. "I seriously doubt you could even if you did believe me."
"Just try us," she urged gently, sharing a look with Dean before turning her attention back to the old man. "What did you see, Mr. Shaw?"
He huffed darkly and shook his head. "Nothing. It moved too fast. Hid too well. I didn't even wake up until I heard my parents screaming."
She was breathing faster, feeling his fear and her own even just from his words.
"It had a roar like nothing I'd ever heard before, man or animal." He looked at them with wide uncomprehending eyes. "It didn't smash a window or break the door. It unlocked it. What bear could do that?"
"Did it kill your parents?" Dean asked lowly.
Mr. Shaw just shook his head. "It dragged them off into the woods. Why it left me alive I'll never know." He brought a hand up and pulled down the collar of his shirt. "It did leave me this though. I barely got out of there alive."
There were four massive raised claw marks across his shoulder and down his chest. It was terrifying to think of something that could do that haunting the woods. Jess's mouth was dry again and she rubbed her damp palms on the thighs of her jeans.
Mr. Shaw let his shirt go and settled uneasily back in his chair. "There's something evil in those woods. It was some sort of monster."
The hair on the back of Jess's neck rose up and she couldn't stop herself from looking at Dean for reassurance. His face was grave and his body was stiff. Whatever it was that they were hunting, it was bad.
"It's not a demon or spirit, that's for sure." They were walking back to the car and even though it was broad daylight, Jess couldn't help glancing around in paranoia.
"'Cause it can't move through walls, right?"
Dean flashed her an approving smile. "Yeah, so whatever it is it's corporeal. Which means we can kill it."
"Oh good." Jess let out a strangled chuckle. "Now how do we do that?"
"No idea." He popped open the trunk and the weapons locker. "Take a bit of everything to cover our bases."
"Shouldn't we, I don't know, maybe research it some more?" she hedged, watching him load a duffle with weapons.
"That Haley girl and her brother are going to be hiking around in those woods looking for their brother. If we don't catch up with them, they'll be the monster's next victims."
She sighed, resigned. "Well, if we're going to be hiking we're going to have to get some supplies."
"Like what?" Dean sounded honestly curious.
"Like water and food," she answered incredulously.
"Oh." He blinked. "Yeah."
The trip for supplies consisted of a stop off at a convenience store on the way to the park. Jess rushed through grabbing granola bars and beef jerky and bags of nuts. She grabbed 4 liter sized bottles of water from the fridge and turned to find Dean debating between peanut butter M&Ms and original M&Ms.
"Dean!"
"What?" Dean glanced over at her his face a picture of innocence. "Peanut butter's good for you."
She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Whatever, let's just go."
They got to the cashier and checked out with a small pause to toss two of those novelty lighters in with the rest of their stuff. Both lighters had semi-naked ladies on the sides.
Dean grinned in the face of Jess's scowl. "You can never have too many lighters."
She supposed she should be lucky he hadn't picked up any of the porno mags he'd been not so discreetly eyeing earlier.
Provisions packed away in Dean's backpack and weapons duffle almost too heavy to lift, they pulled up behind Haley's truck just as they were about to set off.
It seemed they had interrupted an argument between Haley and an older man carrying a rifle, presumably the guide. Everyone turned to look at them as they got out of the car and Jess shifted the backpack on her shoulder nervously. She got the feeling their intrusion wasn't going to be overly welcome.
"Hey, got room for two more?" Dean grinned and sauntered up to them completely ignoring the suspicious looks they were getting.
"You know these guys?" the guide, Roy, asked Haley scowling.
"They're apparently the best the park service could muster up for the search and rescue," she said. "You want to come with us?"
Dean kept grinning in the face of her dubiousness. "You said it. We're the search and rescue team."
Jess wasn't at all surprised when Haley and Roy looked them both up and down disbelievingly. "And you're hiking out in jeans and biker boots?"
Dean scoffed, "Oh, sweetheart, I don't do shorts," and walked past them toward the trail.
"You think this is funny?" Roy demanded stomping after him. "It's dangerous backcountry out there. Her brother might be hurt."
Dean turned back to look at him, his grin gone. "Believe me, I know just how dangerous it can be."
Haley scowled and turned to Jess. "Is he serious about this, 'cause it doesn't seem like he is."
Jess met her gaze and nodded. "He is. We know how dangerous it is out there. We just want to help you find Tommy."
She held Jess's gaze recognizing her sincerity. "Alright. Let's go then."
Roy scowled some more and grumbled, "I don't think this is a good idea," but no one said anything to that.
The hike up to the campsite was filled with tense silence and sporadic flirting. Dean flirted with Haley and she usually declined to flirt back. Jess's options were either walking with Ben or Roy if she didn't want to be stuck in the middle of that.
Unsurprisingly, she figured Ben would be the less contentious choice.
"How are you doing with all this?" she asked as she sidled up to the teenager.
He pulled his earbuds from his ears and eyed her. "Okay, I guess." He paused and weighed the choice of telling her more. "It's scary," he admitted. "Haley and Tommy are all I have."
Jess felt for him. She could relate. "I know what you mean. Dean's pretty much all I have right now too."
He looked ahead where Haley and Dean were discussing Dean's lack of real food supplies.
"What happened?"
Taking a breath, Jess pushed down the reflexive grief. "About a month ago, my boyfriend, Sam, died in a fire. Dean was Sam's brother and they'd just been on a weekend trip. Dean pretty much pulled me out of the fire. He saved my life, but it was too late for Sam."
Ben frowned in sympathy. "I'm sorry."
She smiled sadly. "Me too. But now it's just Dean and me. We got close after Sam died, supported each other. Now we're on the road looking for Dean's father."
"You're looking for family too." He'd lost some of his tension now that they had something in common and gave her a smile.
Jess squeezed his arm comfortingly. "Yeah. Don't worry, we'll find your brother."
"I hope you find Dean's dad," he offered.
Jess smiled again. "Thanks, me too."
The rest of the hike to camp would have gone smoothly if Dean hadn't started to irritate Roy.
"So, Roy," he drawled. "You said you've done a little hunting. Tell me, what kind of things did you hunt?"
Roy shot him a scowl. "Buck mostly, sometimes bear."
Dean opened his mouth and Jess could just tell something smartass was going to come out of it. She shoved her way between them.
"Dean, don't needle him."
He pouted at her then smirked. "Aw, come on, Jess. We were just having some friendly conversation."
She frowned at him. "That's not what-"
Roy's hand shot out, he grabbed Jess's arm and yanked her back. She barely had time to gasp before Dean pulled her away with an arm around her waist as he grabbed Roy's wrist with his other hand twisting it painfully until he released her.
"Don't touch her," he growled. Everyone was frozen in shock.
Roy appraised Dean, taking in his dark glare and his protective stance. He raised his hands non-threatening then bent down, picked up a long stick and shoved it into the ground.
Two giant metal jaws with huge teeth snapped closed, crunching the stick in half. Jess's breath caught in her throat as she stared at the trap with wide eyes. Dean's arm around her middle tightened.
"Bear trap," Roy explained into the tense silence.
Jess looked back up at him and swallowed thickly. "Thank you."
"Sure, just watch where you're stepping." He turned away and started forward again.
Dean's arm wrapped around her slowly retreated until she wasn't pressed into his side any more.
"Are you okay?"
She nodded jerkily and rubbed her palms shakily over her thighs. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."
Dean studied her for a second then nodded. "Just stick close to me, okay?"
"Sure thing." She kind of wanted to plaster herself to his side again, but didn't think that was socially appropriate or safe when walking around in monster infested woods.
The rest of the hike was pretty quiet. They followed the curves in the trail and stopped for a rest near an island of boulders. Jess leaned against a tree and tried to catch her breath. She was really out of shape. Even with Dean's quick defense lessons she was nowhere near being able to handle a steady march for more than an hour or two.
She pulled a bottle of water out of her backpack taking long gulps until she didn't feel like she was dying of thirst anymore. Dean gestured wordlessly at her and she passed it over. The quick rest was nice and she used the time to study their surroundings. That was when something caught her eye.
On a boulder five feet away almost hidden by some ferns was a pictogram. It was a humanoid figure with a pointed tapered shape for a torso, a single line for a spine, a wide hip area, and thin stick like limbs. Its fingers were elongated and spread out, like claws.
It wasn't a pleasant image.
"I've seen that symbol somewhere before."
Jess turned to see Dean looking over her shoulder. "What is it?"
"Some kind of ancient Native American symbol. Can't remember what it means though." He shrugged and straightened up leading her back to the others. "It's been a while since I brushed up on my obscure Native American lore."
When they finally hit the coordinates that John had left in his journal, 35-111 was unnaturally still and disturbingly quiet. How anyone didn't notice the absolutely creepy vibes the forest ahead was putting off was beyond her.
"That's not normal, right?" she murmured to Dean, not taking her eyes off the woods. "That's like a really bad omen."
"Oh yeah," Dean agreed. "No way there's not some kind of creepy crawly in there."
She swallowed down a whimper. "It's like every single horror movie ever. Don't go into the dark scary woods the crazy ax murderer is probably waiting for you."
Dean huffed in amusement and grinned at her. "That's the job, darlin'. All we do is go into dark woods looking for crazy ax murderers."
They hiked to the camp where Tommy and his friends were staying in tense silence. Jess didn't think the other three really knew why their internal alarms were going off, but she could tell that they were definitely feeling it. Even Roy had slowed his determined march through the forest and was scanning the trees around them warily.
When they got their first glimpse of camp Haley ran ahead and that feeling of imminent danger only got worse.
"Oh my God," she gasped. Jess stumbled into the clearing right after her and her heart sank.
The tents were ripped apart. One was blood stained, the other two totally destroyed. There were supplies and backpacks scattered across the campsite and it was hard to believe that anyone could have survived an attack like this.
"Looks like a grizzly," Roy observed.
Dean scoffed and started to examine the outer edges of the campsite. Jess just stood frozen looking around at the destruction. She was scared. She was woman enough to admit that. Just looking around at the aftermath of whatever was out there made her stomach knot up.
"Tommy!"
Jess jerked her eyes to Haley as she started shouting out into the woods. Oh that was such a bad idea!
"Tommy!"
"Wait!" Jess hissed and jogged to grab at the other girl's shoulders stopping her from moving further out. "Stop, yelling. Something might hear you."
The bushes rustled and Jess almost jumped out of her skin until she saw Dean step back into sight.
He was frowning and stiff. Catching Jess's gaze he jerked his head to the side and she followed him away from the others.
"There were drag marks," he told her. "It dragged them away from camp then the tracks just vanish."
"Do you know what it is?"
He shook his head. "I can tell you it's no skinwalker or black dog."
"Okay." Jess took a breath and tried to look on the bright side. "That's two down, there's only like a hundred more left to go."
His lips twitched in amusement. "Gotta look for the silver lining."
Jess glanced back at the others and sadly watched Haley pick up a crushed satellite phone. "Do you think he could still be alive?"
Dean followed her gaze and shrugged. "Maybe." He didn't sound particularly hopeful.
As if things couldn't get any creepier, suddenly someone, or something, started screaming out in the woods.
"Hey! Help! "
Roy jets into the woods and like idiots they all run after him chasing the distressed yell.
"Somebody help me!"
The calls stop abruptly and Jess's heart raced. "It stopped."
"It was coming from over here, wasn't it?" Haley asked quietly.
Dean gritted his teeth and ordered, "Everyone back to camp. Come on!"
Their packs were gone. Haley and Ben's packs, Dean's weapon duffle, Jess's provisions backpack, and Roy's satellite phone and GPS. Things looked grim and they were screwed.
"What the hell is going on?" Haley demanded.
Dean kicked at some ruined camp detritus on the ground. "It's smart. Distracted us so it could grab our stuff."
"It?" Roy scoffed his hands clenching around his rifle. "You mean some nut-job out there stole all our gear."
"I mean, something out there wants us isolated and cut off from help," Dean bit out.
The pictogram Jess found earlier flashed through her mind. "Dean," she grabbed his arm and pulled him away off to the side again. "Dean, remember that drawing we found."
"Yeah." Dean looked at her curiously.
"Maybe it was a sign," she said. "Maybe the Native Americans were trying to warn against something."
His eyes widened. "Shit! I knew I'd seen that somewhere before."
Reaching into his jacket he pulled out John's journal and started frantically flipping through it.
"Yahtzee."
He snapped his fingers and pointed at an almost exact copy of the pictogram they saw earlier. Jess skimmed the page and a shiver when up her spine.
"A wendigo?"
"I never heard of one this far west, but it fits," he said. "The claws, the fake distress call, the way it takes its prey alive."
Jess leaned closer and read through the passage more thoroughly. She looked back up at Dean and she knew her face was pale. "It says it's impervious to all weapons devised by man."
Dean snorted and pulled out his gun. "Yeah, means these are useless."
Jess pressed a hand over the weight of Sam's gun in the shoulder holster Dean had given her. "If guns and knives don't work, how are we supposed to kill it?"
"The only thing that'll work is fire."
She let out a strangled chuckle. "It's probably a good thing, then, that you picked up those lighters."
"I told you." Dean grinned. "You can never have too many lighters."
Turning back to the others, Dean clapped his hands to get their attention. "Listen up, people. Shit just got a whole lot worse, so everybody pack up and let's get you to safety."
Haley looked at him incredulously. "Wait, what?"
"Kid, you're in no position to give orders and I can take care of anything in these woods." Roy snorted derisively.
"This isn't a rabid grizzly bear or a psychotic nutjob, Roy. This thing is a damn near perfect hunter," Dean growled back. "It's good during the day, it's unbelievable at night. If we want to get out of here while we still can, now is the time to do it."
"I've been hunting in these woods while your mommy was still kissing you goodnight, there isn't anything in these woods."
Dean stomped toward him and, despite being a couple inches shorter, loomed over him. "Tell me, Roy. You ever heard of Yogie or Bambie hunting you back? You ever heard of them stalking you in the night then dragging you off somewhere to eat you alive?"
Roy just sneered. "You're talking nonsense."
"I'm trying to protect you!"
"Stop it! Just stop!" Haley snapped stepping between them. "You said it takes them alive. If there's a chance Tommy might still be alive I'm staying."
"Me too!" Ben moved closer to his sister, resolved even though Jess could tell he was scared.
Dean just glared between Haley and Roy debating which one he should try to convince, but Jess knew there was no way they were going to get anyone out of here until they either found Tommy alive or found his body.
She walked over and slipped her hand into Dean's giving it a squeeze.
"Dean. It's their brother."
He held her gaze for a long tense moment then looked away. Giving her hand a quick squeeze in return he moved away.
"If we're going to stay the first thing we need is a fire."
Nightfall didn't help anything, much less sooth anyone's tempers. Roy was scoffing at everything Dean said, Dean was growling and gritting his teeth, and Haley and Ben were just terrified. Jess wasn't any better.
Something was out there stalking them. She swore she could feel its attention on them, its anticipation for the hunt. Outside their small circle of campfire light the forest was completely silent. Even the animals knew to stay away.
Dean was circling their camp with a stick and a knife he'd had in his pocket, drawing symbols in the dirt and carving them in the trees. It was a familiar sight. Jess had grown accustom to Dean adding his supernatural protections around her and watching him do it now was comforting. She knew she wasn't really safe out here in a wendigo's hunting grounds, but the illusion was helping her keep her cool.
"How does he know all this stuff?"
Jess turned to Haley, tearing her eyes away from Dean. "He grew up in it. It's kinda like a family business."
"What a terrible family business," Haley murmured her eyes following the motion of Dean's stick drawing in the dirt.
"Yeah," Jess sighed. "I wouldn't wish this on anyone."
"Aw, it's not so bad."
The girls jumped and looked to where Dean had come up next to them to scratch the final symbol. "The family business; saving people, hunting things." He gave them a grin. "Hell, on a good day you even get to save a pretty girl."
Haley didn't look too impressed when he winked at her.
Huffing, Jess shoved at Dean's shoulder. "Seriously, Dean. We could get eaten by a mutant cannibal. This isn't the time to flirt."
"Sweetheart, it's always the time to flirt."
Both girls rolled their eyes, but Dean had accomplished what he'd aimed to do which was to lighten the mood. One of the most important rules of the hunt was to keep the civilians calm. Panicking civilians equals dead civilians.
By the softening in Jess's expression he knew she'd figured him out.
"Okay, one more time, you're doing what?" Haley asked, turning back to their predicament.
"I'm circling the camp in Anasazi symbols to ward off the wendigo," explained Dean, pulling out John's journal and turning it so Haley could just see the symbols without getting an eyeful of the gory details.
"So they can't cross the circle?" Ben asked having inched his way closer to his sister.
"Yeah, as long as we stick to the circle we should be safe."
He gave Ben a reassuring smile then pulled Jess to her feet to sit a few feet away.
"How are you doing with all this?"
Jess pressed her hands between her thighs to hide the fine tremble. "I'm doing okay," she murmured lowly. "It's not as bad as being burned alive on the ceiling."
"But it's not a picnic either," Dean finished for her.
"Yeah," she breathed. "Definitely not a picnic. On a picnic you don't have to worry about the ants carrying you off to eat you."
"You'd be surprised."
Jess really didn't want to know if he was serious or not.
She frowned and whispered, "Dean, how are we going to get out of here?"
He reached over and laid a hand on her shoulder. "This is what I- what we do," he answered tapping at his journal with a finger. "Saving people, hunting things. We'll find that fucker, gank it, save their brother, and then go find Dad."
Jess sucked in a steadying breath and nodded. "Okay. So we kill it, then we leave."
He grinned at her. "Sure, it should be a piece of cake."
"Help! Help me!"
Every head in their little hastily erected camp snapped toward the screaming distress call and Jess felt an icy shiver run up her spine.
Dean jumped to his feet his gun held steady in his palm putting himself between them and the direction of the call.
"It's cool," he murmured even as his eyes flickered back and forth into the darkness. "Everybody stay calm. It can't get us in here."
"Stay in the magic circle," Roy muttered warily as he inched closer to the center of said magic circle.
Jess moved back to Haley fighting her instinct to just plaster herself to Dean's side again and never leave. Grabbing the other girl's hand she tried to give it a reassuring squeeze as she reached across toward Ben too. It kinda failed spectacularly. Especially since the next call ended in a terrifying roar.
"Okay, that's not a bear," Roy said lifting his rifle to his shoulder.
Jess's breath caught in her throat. "Dean."
"It's okay, just stay-"
The wendigo, because seriously there was little to no doubt about that now, buzzed past them on the very edge of their protective circle. Jess didn't even try to stop her yelp of fear, she just held onto to Haley and Ben tighter pulling them as close to the fire as they could get.
It made another pass flying around the camp, racing through the brushes too fast for the eye to see. Jess could just barely hear Haley whispering, "It's okay, it's gonna be okay," to her little brother over the sound of her own pounding heartbeat.
Suddenly there was an ear splitting pop then Roy was shouting victoriously and running off into the bushes. Jess's knees gave out under her when she realized Dean was about to give chase.
"Dean!" she yelled. She was not afraid to admit that she was pretty close to tears.
"Just stay there!" he snapped, pointing at them then he disappeared into the trees too.
"Are we gonna die?" Ben asked with a barely suppressed whimper.
Probably.
"No." Jess's voice came out steadier than she would have guessed. Almost like she wasn't about to pee her pants. "Dean's been hunting these creatures his whole life. This'll be a piece of cake."
If she got out of this alive ,she was pretty sure she'd never look at cake the same way again.
Their situation didn't look much better in the daylight considering their number had been shortened by one. It was like every horror movie cliché ever. The cocky asshole gets axed first. Jess was just glad she wasn't a slutty bimbo. The slutty blonds always bit it pretty early on.
"We hunt it in the daylight," Dean said as he tested his new gas station lighter to make sure it worked. "It evens the plaything field a bit. So we have half a chance."
A slim, almost negligible chance, but sure let's be optimistic. Jess was sure Dean was only holding back on his cynicism for Haley and Ben's benefit, but she was grateful nonetheless. There was only so much grim truth she could take after a sleepless night of being goosed by an immortal cannibal monster.
"Only thing that'll kill it is fire," Dean reiterated holding up the Molotov cocktail he'd scrounged up from the cheap crappy alcohol Tommy and his friends had brought. "Since I got our only ammo, I'll lead. Just stay close and don't fall behind."
"Sure," Haley muttered exhausted and scared. "Don't get picked off by the man eating monster. Easy."
Dean amused by her sarcasm, gestured regally toward the forest, "This way, mi'ladies."
They trudged out into the woods following the bloodied claw marks scored high in the trees. The air was thick with tension and the woods around them were still utterly silent. It was baffling how anyone would choose here to make camp. Jess wasn't even an expert hunter and she could tell that there was something wrong in these woods just by the silence.
They hadn't gone very far when the first bits of Roy started showing up.
Jess stared down at the thing on the ground and swallowed thickly. "Is that…"
"Yep." Dean was crouched down examining the severed limb. "That's about one-fifth of Roy."
There was a miserable groan and Jess felt her stomach turn in sympathy as Ben heaved at the base of a tree again. Haley was resolutely not looking at the dismembered body part as she rubbed her brother's back.
"Why didn't it, you know, eat him?" Jess asked in a murmur trying not to let her voice carry to the siblings.
"Roy shot at it." Dean straightened up smoothly not a single indication that seeing a ripped off leg bothered him. "Pissed it off."
"And it just decided to rip him apart and leave us a trail of Roy to follow?" Jess muttered skeptically.
Frowning, Dean looked from the leg to the trees and the now suspiciously convenient scattering of claw marks. His face turned grimmer. Obviously he didn't like where his mind was going.
"Yeah, I'm not liking it either."
Despite that ominous realization, the four of them doggedly continued on. Though the further they got into the forest, the more strategically placed claw marks and seemingly haphazard bits and pieces of Roy they stumbled upon Dean became increasingly unhappy.
It didn't take an idiot to figure out that the wendigo was leading them into a trap. It went unspoken between Jess and Dean that they were trying and probably failing to keep Haley and Ben from catching on.
"It's playing with us," Jess hissed in Dean's ear, her growing unease turning her voice sharp. "Like a cat batting at a mouse."
Dean made some inappropriate smartass crack about Tom and Jerry and Jess just wanted to smack him.
Before she could though there was a rustle in the trees above them and a hair raising growl.
Freezing like the aforementioned mouse in front of a cat, their group paused for a split second then Dean shouted.
"Run! Run, run!"
Jess had been on her high school track team, had been one of her team's fastest runners, but she had never run so damn fast in her life. She was pretty sure she'd just broken the sound barrier she jetted so quickly.
Somehow Dean ended up at the back of the pack, Haley a step behind Jess and Ben lagging a dangerous few feet behind her. Jess didn't slow her pace until the sound of a body hitting the ground made it past her panic. Skidding on dirt and rocks she tried to change course and go back. Ben had face planted tripping over a tree root and Dean was trying to yank him to his feet again even as he waved violently at them and shouted.
"Go! Go!"
It was almost Pavlovian how compelled she was to follow his orders. Jess sped up again snatching Haley's arm on her way past jerking her into forward momentum.
Unfortunately, they didn't make it very far.
It came out of nowhere. From the side or above or behind, Jess couldn't tell. She was running then she was tossed ten feet in the air as Haley screamed in terror. Landing hard on her side Jess tried to roll to lessen the impact, but she didn't even get a chance. A clawed hand dragged her up with an agonizing grip around her ribcage. She was pretty sure she was bleeding.
Her body left the ground and it almost felt like flying. If flying involved the smell of decaying flesh and a steely, leathery arm wrapped around her waist. The sight of trees racing past was nauseating, Jess's head was throbbing from hitting it on the ground, and her side felt like it was on fire. The last thing she saw before she passed out was Haley's wide terrified eyes staring down at her from over the wendigo's shoulder.
Jess reluctantly flickered in and out of consciousness. She saw tunnels of rock, rusted iron tracks in the ground, the barest peeks of sunlight through wooden planks above, and piles upon piles of mud crusted skulls.
The muscles in her arms and shoulders were pulling painfully as her weight bore down on them. She was vaguely aware that she was cold and the entire left side of her body was covered in blood. Her position hanging from her wrists just pulled the slashes across her ribs open and prevented them from clotting.
She had a thought, before she passed out again. Dean was going to be all alone after the wendigo ate her. Then she weakly smiled and thought that Dean was going kill the fucker so fucking dead that its creepy evil wendigo ancestors would burn.
Gasping awake to the feel of a warm callused hand against her neck and the sight of Dean's concerned face was like seeing an angel.
Jess choked on a sob and tipped her head forward to knock uncomfortably against Dean's. "Dean, you're an angel."
He chuckled relieved. He pulled a knife and cut the rope around her wrists. "It's my divine good looks, isn't it?"
"Shut up," she muttered then groaned when her arms finally lowered and the pain came back with a vengeance.
The sight of another hanging body appeared in the corner of her eye. "Haley," she rasped as Dean helped her stumbled down to sit against a pile of discarded camping gear along the cave wall. "Is she okay?"
Dean wasted no time in getting to the other girl and cutting her down. She was awake and coherent and relatively unharmed. Then she caught sight of her brother hanging not ten feet from her.
"Oh, God. Tommy!"
Tommy, unsurprisingly, was in bad shape. Dehydrated, injured, and concussed. It was a miracle he was upright even with being supported by his sister and brother on either side.
Jess sighed and collapsed back against the uncomfortable pile of hiking backpacks and duffels.
"Dean," her voice was dry and scraped against her throat. "Dean, is it dead? The wendigo, is it dead?"
The only response was the tearful murmurs of the Collins siblings and the sound of Dean rummaging through the camping equipment scattered around them.
Jess opened her eyes and blinked back exhausted tears to see Dean's grim, determined expression. He was arm deep in a familiar duffle.
"Dean?"
Turning toward her, he had a flare gun in each hand and a sharp grin on his lips. "Not yet, but it's gonna be."
He looked dangerous and energized and Jess thought that he looked completely in his element. Dirty, and bloody, and surrounded by death, Dean looked ready to take on the world and win. She wondered if this was what he looked like every hunt and was willing to bet it was.
The mad mischievous glint in his eyes gave her strength and she shoved to her feet steadier than she thought she'd be.
"What do you need me to do?"
His grin widened.
Mere minutes later, Jess was white-knuckling a flare gun and staring off after Dean as he ran screaming through the mining shafts.
"Chow time, you freaky bastard! Yeah, that's right! Bring it on, baby, I taste good!"
"Holy shit, he's crazy," Tommy croaked.
Jess turned back to the siblings willing herself not to completely panic. "Come on, let's go. This way." She led the way through the tunnels in the direction of daylight trying to keep the pace as fast as possible when three fourths of their group was injured and concussed.
It felt like forever until finally they were almost to the entrance. Jess could practically see the trees outside and she shoved the siblings ahead of her urging them to move faster. She couldn't shake the thought that once they made it into the sunlight they would be safe.
Five feet from the crumbling boarded up entrance Jess jerked to a stop when she heard a small explosion, an angry roar, and a yelp of pain that was unmistakably Dean.
Ben and Tommy were already out, but Haley had paused and was waiting for her. Jess gave her a shove and shouted, "Just go, we'll be right behind you!"
Then she turned back to the dark and ran toward the sounds of fighting.
She only had to run to the first tunnel offshoot, skidding into the rock wall as she tried to turn. Dean was bleeding on the ground backed up against a fresh cave-in. His flare gun empty and discarded in the dirt. The wendigo was poised over him with a long clawed hand raised a breath away from slashing Dean in two.
Time slowed and Jess took a breath, steadied herself against the wall, aimed center mass on the emaciated monster straight out of her nightmares, and squeezed the trigger.
It was different from shooting an actual gun, but it was fairly close range and Jess knew when she saw that monster standing over Dean that she wouldn't miss. Missing wasn't an option.
The flare exploded when it hit the wendigo and the creature went up like a match burning to ash in less than a minute. It was terrifying to watch and it smelled worse, but it was infinitely satisfying. If she wasn't so sure she was about to black out with adrenaline, Jess would have been whooping in joy.
The monster was dead, she killed it. It would never be eating anymore campers again, not ever.
Dean looked surprised even as he grinned proudly at her through the blood in his teeth. "Congratulations, darlin'. You just ganked your first monster."
Jess grinned back, then in the calm of the moment the adrenaline from the last forty-eight hours suddenly drained away and the smell of burning putrid flesh hit her full force.
Her stomach dropped and she paled. "I think I'm gonna throw up."
Dean pushed himself up to his feet and skirted around the wendigo's smoking remains. "Okay, but aim that way or you're gonna block the exit."
Jess missed the exit, but not Dean's boots. The disgusted disgruntled look on his face was kinda worth it.
Dean was pretty much the only member of their group that wasn't totally traumatized. The trek back to civilization was thickly quiet. Haley and Ben were on either side of Tommy and refused to move farther than an arm's length away from him.
It was lucky that all their gear had still been piled up in the mining tunnels or Jess was pretty sure none of them would have actually made it out of the woods despite having killed their evil cannibal stalker. It was an unspoken agreement that Tommy would get most of the water since he was dangerously dehydrated. There was a precarious moment when he tried to eat one of the power bars Jess had bought.
A starved, dried out, beaten up man throwing up in the wilderness was dangerous. After the heaving stopped he just kept to sips of water.
They didn't get through the woods until night had already fallen. It was a miracle there was always a ranger staying in the visitor's center at any given time. Needless to say Ranger Wilkinson's stunned expression when they pounded on his door bloodied and dirty was satisfying in a petty "I told you so" way.
It wasn't until the EMS and sheriff's department showed up that Jess really registered that they were truly safe. She almost cried in relief.
Tommy was loaded up into an ambulance and Haley was hovering by his side while Ben, with direction from Dean, was feeding the cops their cover story of a nine hundred pound killer bear.
Without the task of making sure that they all made it out of Blackwater Ridge alive, standing alone among the chaos of blue and red lights and bewildered park rangers Jess felt unmoored and abandoned. Her body finally started to feel all the pain of her injuries and she was pretty sure she was about to collapse.
She must have looked it too, because suddenly there was an EMT at her elbow tugging and shoving her toward a second ambulance. Between one blink and the next Jess was perched on the back of the ambulance with a professional male EMT cutting her t-shirt off. She could barely spare the energy to be thankful she'd decided to wear a bra when they'd left the motel the day before.
"Where does it hurt, ma'am?"
"Huh?" Jess jerked her gaze away from watching Dean placate the cops to look at her EMT.
"Are you injured anywhere else?" He repeated even as he poked her with needles to numb her side and started thoroughly cleaning her wendigo claw marks with saline and gauze.
"Uh, yeah," she rasped and vaguely waved toward her head. "I hit my head."
"Alright." The EMT reached over to snag something or other medical and started pinching her wounds together. "These actually aren't too deep. You won't need stitches so I'm just closing them up with butterfly bandages."
"Okay." Jess nodded gingerly her head pounding with exhaustion now that she had a moment to calm down.
"Lean forward, please." He cut her hair band releasing her hair to fall down around her shoulders so he could paw through it to get to her head wound.
After that there was a series of questions to assess whether she had a concussion or not. She went through the motions and found out she had a minor concussion but it wasn't serious enough to require a trip to the hospital.
She didn't notice Dean had come to watch over the proceedings until she heard his deep voice.
"She gonna live, Doc?"
The EMT regarded him unimpressed. "If she starts throwing up or gets dizzy take her to a hospital and keep her side clean and bandaged, but other than that she's free to go."
"Thanks." Dean nodded sincerely and turned the entirety of his attention to her.
"How you doing, Jess?"
She felt some of her strength return with his steadying presence. She snorted and answered him honestly as she tugged her jacket back on over her bra.
"Fucking terrible."
He grinned at her. "Yeah, that's about right. You get used to it."
"Remind me why I thought it was a good idea to hitch my ride to your crazy train?"
His grin just got bigger and he shoved his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. "I'm just that irresistible."
Jess had the strength to roll her eyes. "Yeah, sure."
Grin melting into concern, Dean reached over and placed a warm gentle hand on her shoulder. "Seriously, how are you?"
She was quiet for a moment taking stock of not just her aches and pains but her mental state as well.
"Just say the word and I'll take you home."
Meeting his eyes again, Jess found it was easy to give him a genuine smile. "I'm right where I want to be."
His expression lightened and his eyes glinted happily. "Just what I want to hear."
Reaching up to place a hand over his she curled their fingers together and squeezed hard before letting go. She stiffly pushed herself to her feet with help from Dean's hand under her elbow. Her knees quivered and she gave up trying to power through, leaning heavily into Dean's side. He took her weight easily and kept her upright with an arm around her waist.
The two of them hobbled toward the Impala. Jess looked up into Dean's face and grinned. "So, where to next?"
TBC...