Sam parked just down the street from the sprawling ranch home. He sat and he watched. The family that inhabited the house was outside in the large, unfenced yard. They were barbecuing. From the amount of people gathered he assumed they were having some sort of get together. An hour passed. Two. Three. While he sat he replayed the days events inside his head.
He'd gone to HemisFair Park that morning, taking the dog with him. He'd played the part of loving dog daddy while watching the crowds from a spot not too far from the Tower of the Americas. He had waited occasionally tossing a tennis ball until his arm began to protest. The day wore on. Finally just as he was going to give up and go back to the motor home he'd seen them. A youth soccer team in black and purple uniforms just like Lyssa had described. Among them was a singularly pixie-ish child with white blond hair and pale blue eyes, the same shade as over washed denim. Like Lyssa's. Like his own. The sight of her sent a jolt through him. Nothing could have prepared him for that moment. Where Lyssa had taken most of her traits from him the dark hair, the height, shape of her face Arika had taken them from her mother. She was almost a carbon copy, small with wide-set eyes in a heart shaped face. Her too blond hair would probably stay that way. Her mother's had.
She turned laughing as she kicked the ball. It flew high in the air landing a few feet in front of him. He bent to pick it up. When he straightened she was standing there staring at him her hand held out.
"Thanks." She called over her shoulder after he'd handed her the ball. He'd gone to sit on a bench and watched them play for a while. Then…...
The passenger side door of his Jeep opened the noise rousing him from his reverie. He glanced over to see Ruby holding the door with a very thick towel.
"Whatever you're going to do you need to do it soon. I heard it through the wire that there's a Vamp named Alexander looking for you. Guess you offed his mate? Good job smokey. Well seems he's managed to track you here and he's en route. E.T.A. one hour. You should have left a week ago when I told you to. I knew this would happen. Damn block-headed Winchesters." Then she was gone enveloped by the night.
When had it gotten so dark?
He took one last good look at the house that held his daughter, started the car and drove away. He shouldn't have stayed so long. He'd already made the decision to leave her when he'd watched her at the park, first with her friends, then with her…parents. They'd grown up damaged he and his brother. But Arika? She was whole. He'd done a lot of selfish things over the years yet he found he couldn't take that away from her. Even though leaving without her tore scabs from wounds he'd thought had become scars long ago.
X x X x X x X x X
As soon as he walked in the door Lyssa started asking questions. Since it was her dream that had led them there she was more interested in the outcome of that particular hunt than she had been in most of the others he'd left her in pursuit of. Unable to face her regarding what he felt was an irrevocable decision he lied to her about the girl's identity stating only that the threat against her had been taken care of. He could tell by the way she looked at him that she knew something wasn't right. She was too sharp by half sometimes. He was relieved when she didn't push just set to work helping him pull out what they would need to have handy in the case of a vamp attack.
Less than an hour later they were on their way out of San Antonio on one of the larger back roads. It was fairly dark and the road they were on wasn't as brightly light as it could have been. Sam peeked over at Lyssa while he waited for the light to change. She sat in the passenger seat legs curled beneath her. She had her nose in a book about occult symbols and their meanings.
A loud honk from the little red sports car sitting behind alerted him to the fact that the light had changed. He slowly eased the motor home into the intersection attempting to make a left turn without destroying anything on the narrower cross street. Halfway through an extremely bright light blazed directly into the passenger side window.
He wrenched his head around in time to see a Semi-truck barreling down on them. He slammed his foot onto the gas, yanking the stick, grinding gears and praying to god that the truck would hit them broadside behind the passenger nook.
It did ripping into the motor home like it had teeth. It pushed them a good 45 feet before crushing the motor home against the side wall of a warehouse.
Sam released the five point harness that tethered him to the driver's seat and slid over to Lyssa who hung limply by her own harness. He gently lifted her head. Her eyes fluttered open.
"What happened?" She asked sounding punch drunk.
He looked past her out the window. The red sports car was idling next to the trailer attached to the Semi that was currently residing in the motor homes small living room.
"Ruby's contacts are for shit that's what happened. How do you feel?" He turned his attention to getting her out of her harness.
"Little shaky and my leg hurts some." The car's engine revved. Headlights flickering. Sam finally got her out of the harness. He tried to lift her one arm behind her back the other wrapped around the tops of her legs. She cried out when he touched her right thigh. He pulled his hand slowly out from between her leg and the door. It came away glistening wetly. So much blood it wasn't red but black.
Gently. Oh so very gently he slipped his arm beneath her legs and lifted her settling her on the driver's seat. He heard the semi's door open and shut. Footsteps outside. No matter they still couldn't get in. They didn't want to anyway he figured. They wanted him to come out.
"Let me see it." He said reaching out to prod one of the overhead lights. Thankfully it came on. The sports cars engine revved again followed by several short high pitched blats. Lyssa shifted slightly, gasping when he pulled open the tear in her jeans exposing a gash at least as long as his forearm and probably an inch deep. Jagged and angry it seeped steadily staining everything crimson.
Something inside him snapped then and if it had made a sound it would have echoed across the world like a thunderclap before the perfect storm. He had the strange sensation of time slowing that accompanied an adrenaline dump.
He pulled off his belt and fastened it high up on her thigh tightening it as much as he could without doing any further damage then he pulled off his shirt and stuffed it into the hole in her pants.
He reached behind the seat and pulled his kukri machete out of the bag of vamp essentials. He also pulled out and handed her a compact crossbow with four bolts clipped to either side each one soaked in dead man's blood.
He didn't say anything. He didn't have to at that point. She knew her part and she'd play it. He stood and kicked the passenger side window demolishing it. He grabbed the bar over the door and swung himself out feet first landing in a crouch one hand on the ground.
Both the driver's side and passenger side doors of the car opened. He didn't know if it was Alexander or Meg or any number of other beings both supernatural and non he'd pissed off at some point. He also didn't care. What he did know was this. Whoever stepped out of that car would pay tenfold for every drop of blood his daughter shed.