AN: Hi everyone :3 Long chapter to make up for the slow update, haha xD Sorry, this took me a bit longer than the others to write. I started at the end then sort of built myself backwards, if that makes sense. Sometimes I write stuff funky, pft. Also, the Winchester bros will be appearing soon o3o I don't know about in the next chapter for sure yet, we'll see how that goes, but soon! Very soon! But also...if I may huff and puff a bit about this story, haha. I don't know yet or not if anything romantic will ever happen in this story. Which is odd for me o.o Because I love romance -rolls the r- And I'd love to write it in! I'm not saying it won't, I'm just ridiculously confused as to how. And at the moment, I'm really damn sure it won't be a Winchester x Jenna. Jenna's sort of...uh. Not their type. I can't see it working, really. But the guys...Hm. I'm still thinking on it. At the moment, all they'll ever think about her relationship-wise is like she's the kid-sister, you know? But hm... If any of you have any thoughts, feel free to share xD
Chapter 4
Three weeks later
...
..
.
The first thing Deacon realized as he began to wake up from his murky, uncomfortable sleep, was that there was an arm tossed over his chest, and the vampire had a distinctly unpleasant realization that he was being cuddled with.
His gaze shifted from the cheap, chunky hotel ceiling down at the person beside him, and his frown at seeing Luca next to him curved downwards so deep that his mouth resembled a large C. So with a growled out grunt of early-morning groggy disgust, he pushed the doctor's arm off of him and sat up, blinking.
He glanced at the thick, drawn together curtains, squinting at the barest touches of setting sunlight creeping in through the top of the curtains and grunted. In the vampire book, especially for him, waking up with any sunlight still outside was 'early'.
A light clicking noise took his attention from the window and he turned his head, finding Jenna in the dark easily. Her back was facing him as she sat at the 'complimentary' tiny desk, settled in the low backed chair with cushions more akin to rocks than anything else. The clicking was a little pen she was tapping against her palm pilot—one of the only things of real value she had had on her when they found her all those days ago.
He remembered her asking where her things were, only an hour or so after agreeing to the whole 'partnership' thing. Cole had gone outside to the truck to bring in the old, frayed backpack, and handed it to her so she could promptly start sorting through it to make sure everything was accounted for.
One palm pilot, two shirts (both short sleeve), one extra pair of jeans (just as torn up as her other), some of what he could only assume were 'undergarments' by how she didn't lay them out on her lap to count, one toothbrush in a plastic bag along with a nearly-gone tube of toothpaste, seventy eight dollars in twenties, fives, and ones all stuffed in a film tube, two phone cards, a granola bar still in its wrapper, and a brush with a few of the bristles broken off. He knew there were other things kept in the smaller pockets, but she left them where they were after she merely checked to see if they were still in their rightful places before closing them back up, safe and sound. Before she could ask, Dustin had told her that the gun and silver bullets were back in their truck.
He remembered walking her out of the hospital after she'd been deemed healthy enough, and the awkward silence that had stretched between them on the way back to her hotel. She had a car still waiting for her there, actually. It was odd to Deacon though, because he had assumed she was a hitchhiker. She looked it at least, but he didn't say that out loud. And he didn't like the idea anyway.
The vehicle was an old 1990 Toyota Camry in need of one, or five, serious car washes. Jenna refused to sell it when they managed to talk her into using the larger, more comfortable truck as the car they would all travel around in. It was her father's car, she'd said. Dustin dropped any more pressing to sell it and told her she could leave it on their property if she wanted. And that was where it was, with the keys tucked away in one of the little pockets in that backpack of hers no doubt.
Without making a sound, he stood, glad enough he hadn't slept under the damn covers because Luca was buried into them like a mole. He stopped behind her after crossing the room silently, arching a brow before reaching up and rubbing his fingers over his eyes, still feeling a bit dazed from sleep. "Up so early?" he rumbled, and the girl jumped.
"Deacon, shoo," she scolded a second later. "This is like five in the morning for you. Nobody gets up that early."
"…" Deacon snorted and Jenna turned and tilted her head up to look at him.
"Do you have a problem?"
"Yeah your clickity-click shit woke me up," he lied, and grunted as he grabbed the other uncomfortable hotel chair and twisted it so it faced the desk, dropping himself in it with all the grace of a boulder reaching the end of its joyride in a rockslide down the side of some exhaustingly steep hill. "You aren't still researching that one bastard, are you?"
"His name," Jenna began, though not before apologizing for waking him up, "was Robert DeLake. And yes. I am."
"Dustin finished the research up last night for you. I thought we were all set to go," Deacon huffed, and looked out across the small hotel room.
Two queen sized beds, and a loveseat. It was awkward enough to jam four grown vampire men and a girl into one hotel room, let alone try and figure out how the hell the sleeping arrangements would work. But Luca had come up with a good enough plan that kept most of them happy. At the moment, Luca and (previously) Deacon were on one of the beds, Dustin was on the small couch, Cole had the floor to himself, and the top rule was that Jenna always got her own bed. Whoever got the floor rotated between the four vampires if they couldn't figure something else out.
"No but…something doesn't seem right," she sighed.
"Well. Go on, read me the bastard's history one more time," Deacon grunted, waiving his hand absently before sinking lower in his seat and closing his eyes.
Jenna tapped a few things on her little palm pilot searching for the right information, sighing before she started to shell out the facts, keeping her voice soft, all too aware of the three other sleeping forms in the dark room.
"Robert DeLake, born 1935, died 1966. He was accused of murdering his two younger sisters after they were found in his house, both shot once. It took police a while to find him, because they thought he'd fled the scene, but his own body was discovered in his basement, with a bullet in his head. He presumably left a note saying he basically killed himself out of guilt."
"Yeah, and now the fuck's haunting the place right?"
"Yeah I guess," she muttered.
"Any chance those sisters of his'll be there?" he added.
"There have never been any reports of the sisters being sighted. Just Robert. But the sightings are funny. Robert never does anything to hurt anyone visibly. He appears for a brief second, and then something violent happens, like a plate being tossed at someone, or someone else being shoved down some stairs."
"Hn. So, tonight is when we try and Ghostbuster 'im right to hell right?"
Jenna frowned, quiet, and leaned back in her chair a bit. Deacon cracked an eye open at her silence, and tilted his head, eyes falling on the palm pilot. She had scrolled to an image of the man—Robert, a man in his mid thirties with short, wavy black hair—and was staring at him, gnawing on her lower lip.
"So what do you think is wrong with this picture," he sighed, closing his eyes and dropping his head back against the wall.
"I don't buy the motive," she mumbled. "Their father was rich…and he was sick around the time the murders took place. I guess he was leaving all of his money to his kids. I mean…if Robert really did kill his sisters, maybe he'd hoped to get a bigger inheritance, but…I mean, he shot himself."
"Yeah, outta guilt. He said so himself."
"I don't know," she muttered, frowning. "I mean…someone as cold hearted as that, you'd think, wouldn't feel guilty enough to shoot themselves after doing something so terrible. Not when they had a reason like…like money."
Deacon grunted.
"But listen to this," she went on. "I did a bit more digging this morning—evening, darn, sorry, I'm still getting used to the new schedule," she mumbled.
"Hey, evenings are our mornings. Let them mix up all you want," he shrugged.
"Anyway, I found some other information out about the DeLake family. Apparently, Robert had a twin brother." She looked at Deacon. "And fifteen years after the first three deaths, one Mr. Alex DeLake killed himself in his brother's old house."
Deacon lifted his head and looked at her. "No shit?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "And no one reported any haunting from the place until a couple of years after his death."
"So why wasn't there a big story on him then? I've never heard of this Alex guy. And I even helped out with some of the research shit."
"He did the same thing his brother did. Killed himself in the basement of the house. And the place had been abandoned for years. It was another ten before anybody even found him. And it didn't stir up too big of a fuss when they did." She clicked some more and nodded. "I think the ghost we'll be dealing with is Alex's spirit. Not Robert's."
"Alright." But Deacon shrugged. "I don't know why you woke up so early to figure this out, though. Not really going to change any sort of strategy of ours is it? And sleep's important you know. You should take a nap."
She looked at him. "I'm eighteen. I know I don't look it but I'm an adult. I don't need to take a nap." She let out a mock-offended huff before pausing, tone dropping again. "And... No, but…" Jenna turned her palm pilot off and left the room in near complete darkness. "I mean, if Robert was innocent…"
Deacon could see her perfectly, despite the dark. She was frowning again, and he let out a sigh, rolling his eyes despite himself. "Yeah, yeah. I get it. Guilty, not guilty thing. It's cool. So we gotta burn this Alex guy's body then, huh?" He sat up a bit straighter, leaning his elbow onto the desk, smirking a bit. "But hey, ghosts are easy right?"
"When did I ever say that?" she looked at him even though she couldn't see a thing.
"Well I'm just assuming. I mean, over a fuckin' shapeshifter, I'd think ghosts would be easier."
The girl shrugged. "Maybe."
"Maybe? Tch, c'mon. This'll be fuckin' cake."
.
When everyone was up and about later that 'morning', Jenna told the others the story about Alex while Deacon grinned and nodded along as if he'd done most of the research himself. She convinced Dustin it would be smarter to hunt down Alex's grave anyway, since Robert's wasn't even listed. Buried unmarked as a murderer, shunned by his family after death.
He agreed with her, and with the sun safely set, the five piled into the car, Jenna taking her usual spot in the passenger's side while Cole, Luca and Deacon squeezed into the back. She had offered to replace one of the men in the back many times, and while Deacon would grumble and mutter about that being a great idea, Dustin and Luca would scold him into silence and he'd drop it.
"It's okay, though," she said before Dustin started the engine. "My stitches are gone and my arm's all healed. Bumping into one of you won't hurt it anymore—"
"Really, Jenna," Cole sighed. "It's fine."
"…You all just looked so squished is all."
"That's a good word for it," Deacon mumbled, and Luca elbowed him, starting up a shoving match that had Dustin pressing his fingers into his temples to ward off a headache while Cole crossed his arms and frowned while he just pushed himself up against the car door to get as far away from the two as possible. Jenna swore she heard him curse under his breath and twisted in her seat to look back at the two, shaking her head before sitting back in her seat.
"I'm sure they'll stop soon. They usually do," she said, hope tracing the edge of her voice.
Five minutes into the drive, the pushing had stopped and pure bickering had taken its place.
Jenna looked at Dustin, then at his hands, which were gripping the steering wheel tightly enough to make his knuckles pale. "You okay?" she asked him.
"I'm used to it. But that doesn't make it any. Less. Irritating," he growled.
She only nodded.
Fifteen minutes in the shoving had started up again, as well as a full on insult-war. It was another forty five minutes to the cemetery—and at that point Jenna turned in her seat again, eyes narrowed.
The two usually argued and fought like siblings, but matches that went on for more than five minutes were rare. Dustin or Cole usually broke it up by then, but neither seemed interested in speaking up, just in case they lost control and snapped someone's irritating head off.
So, Jenna reached back and yanked at Luca's sleeve, narrowing her eyes when she was ignored.
"Stop—Deacon! Luca, quit it—Deacon, don't pull his hair!"
"Just let them go," Dustin sighed, and turned the radio on. Cole actually unbuckled his seat belt then so he could lean forward and between Jenna and Dustin, turning the volume up to the point where Deacon and Luca were completely drowned out by the thrumming bass of the rock music.
Jenna was positive she was deaf when they finally reached the cemetery, stumbling out of the truck as Dustin shut the car off and stepped outside, the utter silence almost alien sounding to her still-pulsating ears.
Deacon and Luca were incredibly quiet as they stepped out of the truck as well, she noticed. But maybe that was because she really was deaf and if they were arguing she wouldn't have heard it anyway—
"Where was this Alex's grave again?" Cole spoke up, and Jenna let out a small sigh of relief. Deacon grabbed the four shovels they had brought along from the back of the truck, and when Jenna scolded all of them for 'forgetting' hers, Deacon nudged her along with one of the handle-ends of the shovels, whistling.
Dustin lead the way, having been the one to do that leg of research. When they pinpointed the right grave, on a family plot surrounded by many other 'DeLakes', Deacon crossed his arms and frowned, all but dropping the four shovels in a heap on the ground.
Alex hadn't been buried under the earth. He had been buried above it; in a large, solid stone coffin.
"Fancy," Deacon huffed. The vampire had actually been looking forward to digging up his first grave. Dirt style.
"They were rich," Jenna reminded him, moving closer to the stone tomb and looking it over. His name and birth/death date were carved into the heavy looking lid. "Okay," she knelt and rummaged through her backpack, placing a carton of table salt and a small jug of lighter fluid on the grass beside her, hesitating before she remembered to pull out a small pad of yellow sticky notes as well. The four vampires circled the coffin and each gripped a corner of the lid, hoisting it up and placing it on the grass.
The body inside the tomb was skeletal; paper thin dried tissue clinging to the bones like the man's skeletons were shrinkwrapped with the stuff.
"Gross," Deacon mumbled, and the others rolled their eyes.
Jenna grabbed up the lighter fluid and salt, sprinkling the entire body with each before putting the two cartons down and fishing a small, cheap lighter out of her pocket. She scooped up the sticky notes and plucked one of the yellow papers off, putting the rest in her pocket while she held one corner of the small square carefully, setting the other end on fire.
Her thumb left the lighter, the flame disappearing, and she dropped the burning little note onto the body in the stone coffin, igniting it instantly.
When the bones were blackened and turning to ash, Deacon looked away and around at the group. "So now we go and see if this Alex guy is really gone, right?"
"Uh-huh," Jenna nodded. She knelt again and placed the lighter fluid and salt back in her backpack, zipping it up and tossing it over a shoulder again. She plucked at the sleeves of her new red sweatshirt and looked back at the body as she stood. "If the haunting stop, our job is done."
"Wow," Deacon grinned. "Y'know, if this is all there is to this ghost shit, it really is easy."
"We didn't even meet the thing," Luca said, rolling his eyes.
The flames' crackle was dying down; the glow it cast on all of them was diminishing.
"I know. We didn't have to. Were the two ghosts you went up against this easy?" he looked at her.
"Nope," she said, and left it at that, ignoring Deacon when he asked for details, watching the final flames sizzle out, leaving nothing but dust in the coffin. The four moved to hoist up the lid back to its rightful place, and Deacon snatched the shovels back up after the stone lid was settled. "Robert's old house—it's abandoned right?"
"I guess. It's for sale, but nobody's buying. The sign isn't even up anymore. It's just sitting there," Luca shrugged.
"Good," Jenna nodded. But as they reached the truck, she had to narrow her eyes when Cole and Luca all but crammed themselves into the back before the door was all the way open.
She eyed the remaining seat with an arched brow.
"Up front, Jenna," Dustin called as he slid into the driver's side.
Deacon wasn't budging either, eyes flicking from the back seat to shotgun.
"It's okay," the girl smiled at him. "You can have the—"
"Goddamn, stop smiling at me and being nice, Jesus," Deacon growled and stormed his way in front of her, slumping into the final seat in the back of the truck and slumping down. "How the hell am I supposed to steal shotgun when you're smiling and shit."
"Shut up," Luca grumbled, and Deacon told him where to shove it.
Jenna was laughing when she climbed into the front seat beside Dustin, closing her door lightly while Deacon slammed his shut.
"Seriously though," Deacon said after elbowing Luca to nudge himself a bit more room. "This was easy. Easy Bake Oven easy."
Jenna glanced back at him. "Yeah, we'll see."
.
"Shit!" Deacon yelped and ducked, barely dodging the heavy, solid oak table as it flew across the room towards him, fast and hard enough to knock his head off should it have hit. He let out a curse as he crouched, staying low to the ground, eyes darting around for the spirit of Alex DeLake to show himself.
"Luca! Luca, it's in here! Just threw a fucking table at me!"
"No shit it's not!" called the doctor from another room. "I just had a—"
There was a loud crash and a loud, barking shout.
"You alright?"
"I'm fine, my chest broke the bookshelf's fall."
"Cool." Deacon stood slowly and cautiously, narrowing his eyes. "Jenna! Jenna, you good?"
"I don't understand," the girl called back from another room. "We burned Alex's body! This shouldn't be happening!" she gave a yelp and Deacon rushed to the doorway into the dusty, peeling living room, spotting Cole as the dark haired vampire blocked a heavy marble bust that had been heading straight for Jenna's head. "Maybe it was Robert after all," she admitted slowly, blinking as Cole dropped the statue and remained alert for any more attacks, keeping the girl close.
"Great. Fucking great," Deacon groaned. "We come to check if the ghost is gone—and we get assaulted. No shit it's fucking Robert!"
"I'm sorry, okay!"
Another crash, the sound of shattering, tinkling glass mingling with the resounding thud.
…
"Who got hit with that one?" Luca called. "Wasn't me."
"Dustin?" Cole shouted.
"M'fine," the man called, voice muffled. He was upstairs. "Chandelier. I thought there was only one ghost in this place."
"There is!" Jenna said, looking around for danger as diligently as Cole. "We need to get back to the graveyard. I think it was Robert—"
"Robert's grave isn't even marked," Dustin called. "You would have to dig up the entire cemetery. They wouldn't even give him a headstone—not after what they thought he'd done."
"I don't…" Jenna hesitated, ducking her head and looking at the floor, scattered with wooden debris and broken glass. But something moved in the corner of her eye, and she and Cole swerved to look at it at the same time.
Robert's spirit was standing beside an untouched shelf with elegant glass doors, filled with old picture frames and old family keepsakes that hadn't been removed from the house out of respect. He stared at Jenna, ignoring Cole completely, and lifted a hand. It took her a moment to realize he was pointing at something in the shelf.
"Get behind me," Cole hissed, but she shrugged out of his grip when he tried to tug her back and rushed forward, ignoring his shout as she drew closer to the spirit and the shelf.
Robert vanished before she got too close, but she had seen what he was pointing at.
It was a picture of the two sisters.
"…Dustin!" she shouted. "Dustin, the sisters weren't cremated, right?"
"What?"
"The two sisters!"
"No," he called. "No, they weren't. Why would that matter?"
Jenna studied the picture for a moment, narrowing her eyes before opening the glass door protecting the shelf, and reached for the frame.
"Jenna!" Cole barked, and her fingers grasped the edges of the old wooden frame the instant the vampire got a handful of her sweatshirt, yanking her back hard as the entire shelf simply tipped forward and crunched to the ground with a heavy crash where she had been standing a second before. "What was going through your head?" he scolded angrily, but she wasn't listening, and he growled at her when he realized this.
"M…Maybe it…" she mumbled, staring at the frame. She flipped the picture over, staring at the clasp on the back keeping the photo in place, and took it off.
"The hell are you going on about?" he demanded, frustrated that the close call didn't seem to be bothering her. But he quieted when he peered over her shoulder and saw a small folded up piece of paper, hidden behind the photograph. "What is that?"
She dropped the frame after snatching up the note, opening it up and reading the small message quickly.
When she looked up, two new spirits appeared in front of her.
The two sisters. Blonde, beautiful, and furious. One of them shrieked and charged at her, fingers outstretched like claws, only for Cole to tug her out of the way again, the two ghosts vanishing.
She slipped from his hold and he cursed, following after her as she rushed for the front of the house towards the front door, and threw it open when she reached it, jumping down the stairs and racing for the truck.
"Jenna! Jenna stop—" Cole crashed into the door as it slammed closed an instant before he would have gone outside after her. He shook his head, blinked, and tugged at the handle. It took him a moment and a few shoulder slams to realize he wasn't breaking it down, vampire or not. "…Luca. Luca we have a problem."
"Does it start with a 'J'?"
"Partially."
"The fuck did Jenna go?" Deacon hissed, and entered the front room with Cole. Luca followed a moment later. And Dustin stopped halfway down the stairs. "The fuck aren't you kicking the door down?"
Cole waved a hand, offering the job up to Deacon. "Try it. Something's wrong."
Deacon threw himself against the door a few times himself, blaming the problem on Cole being weak for a few seconds before realizing that he wasn't breaking through either. "…Fuck?" he blurted, staring at it. "What?"
"Jenna said something about…about the sisters and bolted. I think she's onto someth—"
A plate crunched and destroyed itself on the back of Cole's head.
"…"
"Bitch nailed you hard that time." Deacon grinned.
Cole lifted a hand and brushed the spot where the plate had hit tenderly, frowning. He grunted, feeling blood well up there for a moment. He knew it would heal shut momentarily, but pain was pain, and was as unpleasant as it ever was.
"So Jenna's on her way to try and burn the sister's bodies then?" Dustin said, gripping the railing of the stairs tightly, brow creased. "By herself?"
"I was just thinking that," Luca growled. "That's a lot of fucking digging for one girl."
"With one fucked up arm," Deacon added. "He better as…as hell not…"
They stood in silence for a moment, ignoring the far-away crash of something tipping over from another room. With mixed growls and grunts, the four pushed the thought from their minds; they would have to trust she'd be alright.
"They weren't buried," Dustin shook his head, breaking the darker thought. "Like Alex, they had been entombed in stone coffins. You saw his wasn't the only one like that out there. But that won't be easy either."
"Fuck it, so we're stuck in a house with two stark raving mad bitches until she gets the giant stone lids of the giant stone coffins and burns both of them?"
Dustin made a noise in his throat as he jolted forward, all but rolling down the rest of the stairs, landing in a heap on his back at the bottom of them, dazed for a moment as he stared up at the ceiling, and then at three vampire faces as they leaned over him. "…It would appear so," was all he said before the furniture began to fly again.
.
She sped down the narrow, empty road, squinting over the steering wheel. She'd had to bring the seat forward quite a bit to even reach the damn gas pedal, and felt far too short to drive the truck. But awkward and small as she felt, she was still breaking the speed limit by at least ten miles per hour. Maybe faster. She was going seventy and she couldn't remember what the last speed limit sign had said.
The tires kicked up dirt and rubbed across pavement as she veered into the cemetery's parking area, leaving the truck running, headlights blaring and giving her light as she all but fell out of the driver's side, dragging her backpack along with her as she sprinted through and around tombstones and statues and mausoleums.
When she found the DeLake family plot, she dug a tiny flashlight out of one of the smaller pockets, running to every stone coffin she could find and reading the names. She had seen the sisters names written on the back of the photograph that note had been hidden behind—Josephine and Penelope. And her breath hitched in her throat when she found Penelope's coffin first.
It took her a moment to realize that the lid probably weight twice as much as she did.
She looked at her ruined arm, hidden under the red fabric of her sweatshirt, and held her breath. Conall had taken chunks of muscle out of her. Not enough to hinder the movement of her arm too much, but it was much weaker. And even if had been perfectly healthy…
Jenna looked back at the lid.
...She probably wouldn't have been able to do anything anyway.
But she shook that thought away, gritting her teeth and dropping her backpack and little flashlight before placing both hands on the lid and pushing. The muscles in her ruined arm screamed for a moment at such an unexpectedly hard push to work, but she ignored it, sweat appearing on her forehead as she strained, not wanting to give up. She wasn't going to give up. She couldn't even think about it—not after everything that had happened. The guys—her friends—were trapped and she had to—
There was a sudden movement that shifted in the corner of her eye, and she almost chose to ignore it and brush it off. But she glanced up, and stood absolutely still as she looked up at Robert DeLake's face.
He stared at her, expression blank.
"I…" Jenna cleared her throat and swallowed. "I found the note," she managed. "The one that Alex wrote before he killed himself." She swallowed a little thickly before taking in a breath. "I know…I know you didn't do it."
The ghost didn't blink, but he ducked his head a little, brows furrowing.
"Your sisters… They killed you. Didn't they?"
Robert said nothing.
"They killed you for the inheritance and—and Alex walked in and he—he killed them before they could kill him. And he panicked and… wrote that fake suicide note for you all those years ago. And everyone…"
Her eyes softened as she watched his brows drop, genuine hurt flashing through his cold stare.
"Everyone believed it."
Robert looked away, still silent. For a moment his image flickered, as if he were threatening to vanish.
"I don't believe you did anything," she breathed, and he looked at her again, his image strengthening. "I know you didn't do it. Alex was wrong to blame you for what he did. And now…now your sisters—they've been hurting people for years in that house. I can stop this. I can—"
The girl blinked when Robert turned, facing the coffin just like she was, and placed his hands on the edge of the lid. He nodded at her, and even though she knew he needed none of her help with the task, she pushed the lid as hard as she had been before, and the stone thing fell off the coffin as it was shoved aside. She followed him to Josephine's coffin, and they both removed the lid in the same way as before.
He watched her for a moment as she ran back to her backpack, tugging out the salt and lighter fluid.
"Thank you," he said. And he was gone when she looked up.
.
Cole growled as he pushed at the heavy table that was pinning him to the wall, nails digging grooves into the wood as he struggled with it—he wasn't used to his vampiric strength to mean nothing in a fight. It was his trump card. And this ghost had all but torn it in half.
He looked up, snarling when one of the sisters appeared in front of him, nothing but the table separating them. She snarled right back, baring her teeth before she opened her mouth wider than any human should have ever been able to and let out a shriek that seemed to shake the house before surging at him, rushing right through the table as if it weren't there.
Her cold hands closed around his throat, and he couldn't breathe. It took a moment for any real worry to start sinking in—her grip was growing stronger. Tighter. Around his neck. He released the table and grabbed at her wrists, trying to tug her free. She laughed at him.
"D—Dus—!" he began, but his words were cut short in his throat, and not because he was being strangled.
The spirit burst into flames.
Cole let out a gasp as he slumped from wall, shoving the table away easily then, and barely took in the startled cries from upstairs where the second sister had lured and chased the other three.
"Bitch barbecue!" he heard Deacon cheer after his initial yell of surprise, and Cole couldn't help but roll his eyes as he caught his breath, shaking his head and straightening himself up as he heard the other three come down the stairs all together, with no one to push them down to hurry up the trip.
"Is the one down here gone?" Dustin growled. When Cole nodded, the redhead went on. "I'm sorry I left you alone, Cole, she—"
"The bitch totally locked him in a closet," Deacon grinned. "It was beautiful."
Dustin shot him a withering glare before looking over his shoulder and at the front door. He moved over to it, hesitating before trying the doorknob, and let out a breath when it swung open easily. "We're out," he said with a grin. "She did it." He stepped onto the porch and looked around.
"Atta girrrl," Deacon grinned as the three others filed out of the debris-scattered house after him. "Stronger than she looks," he smirked before his eyes slid over to Dustin. "…Better keep that in mind, Dustin. She might lock you in a closet."
"Ugh," Dustin reached up and rubbed his temples, but he moved to the steps and sat down without a word, stretching his legs out in front of him. The others were silent as they followed his example at first, sighing and groaning as sore muscles were eased out of their previous tenseness. They all had bruises and nicks and cuts, but as fast as vampires healed, those little pains were just as unpleasant as they had been when the four were human.
When Jenna drove back up to the old estate some time later, they were almost dozing, and Luca had to kick Deacon to snap him out of his half-awake trance.
Jenna gave them a little wave after she'd parked. The girl climbed out of the truck, and left it running as she approached them on the porch. When Deacon stood and gave her a pat on the back he almost knocked her over, the vampire managed to toss an apology at her before Luca barreled down on him and began his scolding.
She wound around the others, and only stopped when she reached the door, pushing it open a bit farther, broken glass and pieces of wood scraping along as she did. "They made a mess," she said slowly as she peered around, and Cole snorted over her shoulder.
"You could say that. The current owners won't be so happy when they find the place like this. ...Whenever they feel like checking up on it."
Jenna paused before stuffing a hand in one of her pockets, pulling out the old, wrinkled note that Alex had written, confessing what had really happened on the day his three siblings were killed. She stepped into the house, careful of broken glass, Cole trailing after her quietly while the others stayed outside. She rooted through some debris in the room with the tipped-over shelf, finding the picture frame that held the photo of the sisters. She scooped it up and put it back together, tucking the note back inside with the photo, but placing it on the outside facing the glass instead of behind it. When that was fixed she placed it on the still-standing table shoved into a corner.
"When they clean this place up, they should find it. Robert's name should be cleared, if they do," she mumbled.
Cole pushed his hands into his pockets, eyes flicking from the frame to the girl. "I hope so," he said. He watched her nod, leaving it at that, and followed her back outside. Deacon had finished being scolded, and the group moved for the truck, their work in the estate done.
Jenna jogged ahead of them, and she hopped into the back seat when she reached the truck before anyone else could beat her to it, settling herself in the middle.
"Girl, get out of there," Cole said, and she leaned back, making herself comfortable in response.
"Nope," she grinned, and even went as far as to cross her arms behind her head after buckling herself in, her backpack on her lap while she closed her eyes and pretended to doze off, looking perfectly cozy in her spot.
The vampires shared an eyeroll before climbing into their own seats, Dustin taking the wheel, Luca getting shotgun, and Cole and Deacon sliding into the truck on either side of her. There was a chorus of car doors slamming shut, and Dustin started the engine, saying something about sunrise coming in only a little over an hour.
"Well," Deacon began after they pulled onto the street. "That wasn't so tough."
Jenna smiled, eyes still closed. She took her arms away from her head and folded them on top of her backpack, fingers slipping around one of the buckles there. "No, it wasn't so bad," she agreed. Her eyes opened slowly, surprised at how heavy they were. "I'll just have to start looking for a new job for us," she said.
Luca smirked before glancing back at her in the rear view mirror for a moment. "Washington," he began. "I was looking into a string of murders there. I don't know if you're interested—Hold on though, I have to ask again. But werewolves are real, right?" he asked. "Because I think I might have found one."
Deacon blinked when he saw the girl beside him stiffen, her fingers clenching into the buckles on her backpack to the point where her knuckles were deathly white. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. He looked at Cole, who seemed to have noticed the same reaction, brow furrowing as he watched her.
Deacon was quick to move to her rescue, snorting and shaking his head. "Let's not jump from ghosts to werewolves just yet, Luca. Werewolves are probably considered Big League, and we're still green. Let's do something else before Washington. Did you do anymore research on anything?" he asked. But Luca's answer went right over his head. Deacon's attention had shifted back to Jenna, who was looking down at her backpack, silent.
She looked up at him for a second, their eyes meeting before she yanked her gaze away, clearing her throat.
"So what do you think?" Luca finished, turning to look at them.
Jenna looked back up, blinking. "S…sorry, I think I zoned for a second. Getting tired—could you repeat that, please?"
Luca paused before he grinned and shook his head. "I'll tell you later. You look like you're about to fall asleep. Get some rest—I need to double check the research I did anyway. Plus, I still don't know exactly what I'm looking for. I could probably use a refresher course on your little 'hunting' lesson on the internet."
"You know as much as I do now," she said slowly, eyes half open as she looked at him. She really was tired. "You guys are hunters now. It's official." Her eyes slipped closed but she smiled. "Totally officially good guys."
"What, we weren't before?" Deacon smirked.
"Well, yeah," she yawned. "But now you've got points to prove it."
"Ah," Deacon smiled a bit, watching her head duck a bit as she relaxed. "…That makes sense," he said quietly. For a moment he glanced up at Cole, who looked up at him at the same moment. Concern and curiosity bubbled up above everything else as they looked back down at her. The sort of uneasiness and fear they sensed from her when the werewolf was mentioned was the sort only felt from experience. And a bad one, at that.
Cole looked away from her after a moment, rubbing his neck absently while his jaw tensed. "Doesn't matter right now," he said, voice so soft that despite Jenna being right beside him, Deacon knew she couldn't hear.
He shrugged, playing it off. She never did explain how she got into the 'hunting' business exactly. They had asked a couple of times, but she always became so uncomfortable when certain details were asked for that they would always just drop it.
But Deacon shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He ignored the voice in his head that told him a kid like her shouldn't be out traveling with four guys—vampires nonetheless—hunting ghosts and goblins or whatever else was out there. He was actually afraid to ask where her damn family was. Truth be told, he'd become rather attached. They all had, really. A month full of rescues and near-deaths and hospitals and hotel rooms would do that to anyone.
So for the moment, Deacon pushed aside the negative thoughts and questions about why she was doing what she was doing, closing his eyes and replaying the image of the ghostly blonde woman locking Dustin in the closet back at the house until a smile spread across his face.
Ten minutes into the drive Jenna had fallen asleep leaning on Deacon's arm. Fifteen minutes in Deacon had dozed off as well; his head tilted just enough to rest on the top of her own.
Luca took a picture with Dustin's phone.