Disclaimer: Supernatural characters are not mine.
A/N: Wolfenergy17, as requested. Since you, you know, read these things. :P
As it turned out, getting rid of a body wasn't nearly as complicated as I thought. Bobby Singer talked me through it with gruff, redneck charm, and I learned how dispose of a body at three in the morning.
Plus, I was once again reminded how advantageous cheap motels were for conducting illicit activity. I left a two hundred dollars, hoping that would cover the damage to the door, and drove out of there, body tucked neatly in my trunk.
I was driving a stolen car with a body in the trunk. Good heavens, I was a stereotypical Hollywood villain. Except this was real life, and I had a body in the trunk.
I let out a deep breath, turning onto what could possibly be the most abandon road ever. Yeah, this looked like an acceptable route to find a hole to bury the vamp. Holy crap, did that thought really just cross my mind? I clenched the steering wheel, shaking my head. Whatever it took to get the job done.
Deep breath. Deep breath, Ri, I told myself. I glanced over to see Mika sagging sleepily against the window, head pillowed against her arms. I was doing this for her, for Finn. No matter what it took.
It was kind of scary, all the things that kind of blanket statement could cover. It was even scarier that I meant it one hundred percent. I was reminded, yet again, just how chilling the Hunter mentality could be. Yeesh, we were a bunch of maniacs.
My phone rang, and I picked up quickly. "Riley," I said briskly.
"Is it done?" Bobby Singer demanded.
"Almost," I confirmed, pulling off the road into a tiny clearing. This would do nicely.
"Well, hurry it up, girl. You're making me nervous, cutting it so close." I could have taken offense at being called "girl," and ordinarily I would have, but Bobby had this tone about him. It was more of a term of concern than an insult. He knew how young I was, and that made him nervous. It used to make me nervous too, but I'd gotten over it when I realized that anything trying to kill me didn't give a flying hoot about how young or old I was.
Bobby hung up, and I shut the car off, climbing out and going to the trunk. I had another syringe of dead man's blood held ready, but it didn't sound like the vampire was conscious yet. After a long moment of listening, I popped the trunk and injected the vamp again. Boom, one and done. Then I dragged the man out, and got my newest purchase out of the backseat. It was a shovel, and I had felt like my face was broadcasting my criminal intentions as I'd gone into the store to buy it. No one had stopped me, though, or demanded to check the contents of my car, so I'd taken my purchase and driven out here to bury the soon-to-be vampire corpse.
The vampire was completely out of it as I dug his grave, and my thoughts grew darker and darker as I was overcome with the realization of what I was doing. I mean, who goes around digging graves for people they haven't killed yet? Psychopaths, that's who. I scowled, shaking the darkness away, and focusing on my work. Two feet deep, three feet, four feet. I got to five feet and took a break, already sweaty and gross. This was awful, definitely worse than digging up a grave to salt-and-burn the bones.
I finished the six foot grave requirement—anything less and the animals would just dig up the corpse, and I would join the ranks of idjits in who landed in prison through sheer laziness, Bobby had said.
Then I dragged the vamp over, pulling out my machete. I'd thought that after the first time, it would be easier to cut off a random man's head, but I was wrong. As I stared down at him, hands for some reason perfectly steady, I almost couldn't do it. Then I remembered, the clammy paleness of Mika's skin and the bite marks that had covered Kate's neck. The cold bloomed in my chest, and I brought the machete down in an unyielding arch.
After it was done, I rolled the rest of the body into the grave and set the whole thing on fire. Bobby hadn't specified it, but I didn't care. Replacing the dirt, shovelful by shovelful eventually put the flames out, and when it was done, I took shovel to the trunk and slammed the lid down. Climbing back in the car, I dialed up Bobby again. "It's done. Thank you for your help," I concluded flatly.
"Oh. Er, you're welcome…" Bobby seemed to be at a bit of a loss, and I took the opportunity to hang up. I didn't feel like chatting.
Mika didn't even stir in the passenger seat, and I was glad she had missed all of this. In fact, it wasn't until a few hours later that she actually woke up. She rubbed a hand across her face, sitting up. I was staring straight ahead out the windshield as I drove, thinking about how the vampire had found us in the first place and getting nowhere.
"What happened to your hands?" Mika grated out, her voice hoarse.
I glanced down at my hands clenching the steering wheel, noting the dried blood flecking the knuckles of both. "Nothing you need to worry about," I said sharply. "Drink some water."
A minute later, my brain caught up to me, and I realized how harsh that had been. "Sorry," I said quietly. "It's been a long morning."
"They found us, didn't they?" She sounded scared, and I didn't blame her.
"Yes," I said truthfully. Mika twisted in her seat, fishing a bottle of water from the backseat. She picked at the label, ripping it slowly from the bottle.
"I'm sorry," she said with a slight sob. "It's my fault they're coming after us. You should just leave me, before anyone else gets hurt." Her thin shoulders shook silently, and for a moment I flashed back to the time Sam and Dean had saved me from vampires. It was almost laughable how I was in nearly the exact same situation.
"I'm not going anywhere," I assured her. It took a long minute, but eventually her silent sobs stopped.
Then she looked over at me, anguish heavy in her eyes. "They killed Kate, didn't they?"
"Yes," I said, again completely truthful while wishing I could just lie.
"My fault," she said in a hollow voice.
"Vampires' fault," I told her, heat coming into my voice. I remembered feeling like that. Feeling that every death at the hands of a vampire was my fault, because it had been me they were looking for. "They killed Kate, but we're going to kill all of them."
"I don't want to kill anyone," she sniffled. Good, not as bloodthirsty as I had been back then.
"That's okay. I'll do it for you." She looked over at me, a little awed maybe. Holy crap, did I really just say that?
"Who are you?" she asked, incredulous.
"Riley," I said, feeling a swirl of Deja Vu. I'd had this conversation before, staring into those same gray-blue eyes.
Fear crept back onto Mika's face, replacing the awe. "What if they kill you?"
I pursed my lips. "Vampires may be preternaturally strong and freaking fast, but they were once humans, and let me tell you, stupidity...arrogance? Those are hard habits to break." I was thoughtful for a second, then I shrugged. "Look at me, though. I'm not very big or tall or super ripped. But then, I don't necessarily have to be, because I'm smart. I'm patient, and I think things through. I like being alive, and I've worked very hard to keep it that way."
Mika gazed out the window, maybe pondering that. "My mom fought vampires once. I thought she would come for me."
"She had something she really needed to do. But she sent me instead." I didn't know how much to tell Mika, didn't know how much her mom had already told her.
Mika twisted toward me, fire in her eyes. "Why didn't she come for me—her own daughter? And why the hell did you?" she demanded.
To save her son, I thought rather blandly, in answer to both. Actually, now that Mika had brought it up, this situation was totally screwed up from start to finish. Had Finn's mom seriously abandoned her daughter to go save her son? I mean, she had trusted me to save Mika. How messed up was that? She didn't even know me. Yowza.
Mika was still waiting for an answer, so I just gave her one, throwing all caution to the wind. "You have a brother," I said. Then I plowed on, words spilling out of my mouth so fast that Mika didn't even have a chance to speak. "He's been in a coma, and your mom finally found a way to wake him up. She made a deal with someone, but it was time sensitive, so she had to go to Michigan. She sent me here to get you and Kate out, which apparently entails killing the entire nest of vampires as they come after us. So that's pretty awesome."
Mika looked stunned, her jaw working. "You're lying," she said tightly.
"Yeah," I said cheerfully. "I am. I totally made that whole thing up off the top of my head for fun. No, I'm not lying! Get your head out of your butt. Why else would I be here? Why else would your mom be gone? She told me the only way I was ever going to see Finn awake again was to save you. So really, you best prepare for the roadtrip of a lifetime, because Imma save Finn and you and any other poor sap that needs it if it's the last thing I do." I sat back in my seat, breathing hard. Lordy, listen to me, all worked up. It wasn't like I had some fourteen year old girl's life in my hands right now or anything.
Oh wait. I had the distinct pleasure of being stuck with that reality. Mika and I would totally die terrible, gruesome deaths if my best wasn't good enough, and I'd had enough of holding a McAllister life in the palm of my hand for a lifetime, thank you very much. But here I was, fleeing across the countryside in hopes that I might be able to outrun a nest of vindictive serial killer vampires long enough to pick them off one by one.
And part of me kind of liked it.
And with that realization, the frustration that plagued me snapped into focus. That's what I was really angry about. Not the Hunt, not Finn's mom. I was mad because I liked this. I'd had something so normal, but the second I was Hunting again…
I liked the thrill. Liked the power. Liked the knowledge that I was making a tangible difference.
"You're a liar, and I hate you," Mika snapped, crossing her arms and turning to face out the window. I almost laughed, but that would have made things even worse. It was easy to forget, with her solemnity and intelligence, that she was just a young girl.
We drove in silence for a couple hours. I used the time to come up with a plan for the next round of vampire hide-and-seek. I hadn't been lying when I'd told Mika that arrogance and stupidity transferred over from human to vampire. But the same was true about cruelty and ruthlessness. I didn't know what kind of men I was going up against, and part of me wondered if that was going to get us both killed.
More than anything, though, I just wanted to talk to Finn. But today was Trixie's day off, so there would be no stolen conversations, no pouring out my heart to a guy who legitimately had to listen. But...I had the next best thing.
And she was sitting in the seat beside me, locked in a moving car, which meant she had to listen, too.
"His name is Finn," I said slowly. "He's twenty-two. Looks just like your mom, just like you, really, except for some small things. We were Hunting a wendigo, and he got hurt. I did, too. But I got better. He didn't." I paused, not knowing what I was going to say next. Then the words just started coming, and I couldn't make them stop. I told Mika everything—how Finn and I met, what we'd done together, everything.
Her gaze remained locked out the window, but I could see she was listening, and that was all that mattered to me. I needed to talk, and she needed to know about Finn. I started crying partway through my monologue, and it was pretty pathetic. But I couldn't hold it back, because the hole inside my chest was always there, and I couldn't stop myself once I'd pulled off the band-aid.
On the upside, by the time we pulled into a motel parking lot for the night, neither of us really had anything left to say. I checked us in, and then we totally crashed on the beds like a couple of awkward, socially impaired lemurs. Actually, I knew very little about lemurs—other than what I'd learned in the animated movie Madagascar—so it really could have just been the lack of sleep getting to me.
I locked the door, not that it would do much good against a vampire, and set one of the remaining three syringes of blood on the nightstand. Then I laid down, resting my head in the crook of my arm. Mika gazed over at me, half her face hidden by the pillow. "I really have a brother?" she asked in a small, small voice.
"You really do," I confirmed, taking no pleasure in her ignorance. Finn's mom was a terrible person. I wasn't in a position to judge, but boy howdy, I was judging like my name was Judy. I pinched the bridge of my nose. My references were getting sloppier, and I wasn't making much sense, even to myself. Sleep, I needed sleep.
"I'm sorry for calling you a liar," Mika whispered.
"It's okay. I'm sorry your mom is a lying bitch," I said back. Then I slapped a hand over my mouth. Oh, no. Had I really just said that? Oh my gosh. I was a terrible person. "Sorry," I said again. "I'm tired. No filter. Finn usually just puts a hand over my mouth when I get like this." Then I froze. Should I be talking about Finn with her? Was that inconsiderate of me?
She was quiet for a long time, and I wondered if she'd fallen asleep. "Do you love him?" she asked finally, letting me know she hadn't.
I stared up at the ceiling. Did I love him? "I don't know," I admitted. "I'm only twenty. I don't think I even know what love is yet. But I've never felt this way for anyone else. So...I think...maybe, yeah."
"You just...you talk about him—to him, even—like he means something to you. That's all." Holy crap. This was a fourteen year old I was talking to. She was supposed to be obsessed with Justin Beiber, not psychoanalyzing my relationships.
"Go to sleep, smarty pants," I said with a snort. And she did, leaving me to stare up into the darkness. Did I love Finn? I didn't even begin to know where to start with that one. I liked him. I liked him a lot. But where was the line between "feel strongly for" and "love?" Because from where I was standing, there was no such line in sight, and that boggled my realist, semi-logic based brain.
Yowza. I needed sleep, not philosophical ruminations.
Turning off my brain, which was a lot easier than usual due to lack of sleep, I closed my eyes and drifted off.
Of course, what felt like only minutes later, I was awakened by Mika's hysterical crying. Clawing my eyes open and brandishing my handy-dandy machete, it took me a few seconds to realize that danger was not imminent, and she was still lost in the clutches of a dream. Or a nightmare, really. Not surprising, considering what she'd been through.
I set the machete down, letting out a shuddered groan. Then I clambered off my bed onto hers. I don't really remember making the conscious decision on what to say, but I do know I said a lot of "Shhh, it's okay. You're safe now." with a couple "I'm gonna kill those sons of bananas." It wasn't my finest hour, but Mika seemed to calm down. She didn't even wake up.
I set up camp on her bed, leaning against the cheap plaster wall, while she snuggled half on me, half on the bed. I didn't mind. Still, sleep was nagging at the back of my mind, and I was just starting to give in again when the phone rang.
A few less-than-family-friendly words spewed out of my mouth, and I groped around on the nightstand, pulling my phone off it without impaling myself on the syringe. "This better be good," I snapped, eying the glowing single digit numbers on the alarm clock.
Trixie starting yelling in my ear, and I understood nothing but the word "Finn," over and over again.
"What?" I demanded for the fifth time, my brain feeling all floaty and full of cotton.
"He's awake!" screamed Trixie.
The phone slipped from my hand, falling into my lap, as I stared straight ahead. Finn, Finn, Finn, chanted my brain, fixing itself on a never-ending litany of his name.
"I don't know how, but yesterday a lady came to see him. She's his mom or whatever. I don't know all the details, because it was my day off. But now, he's awake, and he's asking for you." Never mind that the phone was sitting in my lap, I could hear her just fine. My brain was still numb, though.
"He's awake," I murmured to no one in particular.
"I'm putting him on," Trixie announced. My eyes widened, and my heart started pounding. I fumbled for the phone, cradling it against my ear like it was the most precious thing in the world. Could it be true? I wondered, not knowing if this was all some kind of horrible joke. But then...
"Hey," he said, his voice low and weak. I lost the ability to breathe, my lungs refusing to move. That voice. I knew that voice. Finn. He was awake. He was really awake. Mika stirred, and I rubbed her back a little. She settled, pillowing her head against my thigh.
"Hey, yourself," I managed to choke out. I was trying not to cry and barely succeeding.
"I heard you reading to me. I heard you the whole time." There was urgency in his words, like he needed to say them. Oh my gosh. Waterworks imminent in three, two, one. He coughed. "Pride and Prejudice was actually pretty good. I liked it when you did the different voices." Yep, I was definitely crying now. My vision blurred under a watery onslaught.
I covered my mouth with my free hand, willing my breath to come out steady instead of shaky and erratic. Finn paused for a beat, then continued on a more serious note. "You waited for me."
"Yes," I said simply. There had never been a question about it. I'd never even considered doing anything else, no matter how long it took for him to wake up. Oh. Okay, maybe now I kind of understood why my parents had been so worried.
"She's here with me right now." His voice was almost too quiet to hear, but I knew what he was talking about. His mother was with him. She had been the first person he'd seen upon waking up, and that kind of hurt. Selfishly, I had wanted it to be me. Instead, I was stuck on the other side of the country, waiting to kill whatever came to find me.
"Yes," I said, not wanting any of my bitterness to come out in my voice and taint this moment.
"You're being hunted by vampires," he said, his voice becoming a little stronger.
"Yes." I was being hunted. Why she had told him was beyond me. I hated her. Before, I had been undecided, but now I just plain hated her.
"Do you at least have a plan?" he asked, almost desperately. Did I have a plan? Heck no.
"I have a plan," I confirmed, tucking a piece of Mika's hair behind her ear. She slept on, and I liked it that way. Somehow sleeping always takes the horror out of life. The bad things are softened because sleep is an escape, even if only for a little bit. She'd had one too many bad things happen to her over the last few weeks, even an idiot could see that.
"Liar," Finn said, somehow able to tell.
"I have twelve percent of a plan," I said, revising my earlier statement. A long beat of silence followed, and I rested my hand on Mika's shoulder.
"I think…" Finn started, but trailed off, worrying me. That I was lying? That he needed to take a break and rest? That he never wanted to see me again? Woah, nelly, I scolded myself, feeling kind of sick. Where had that one come from?
"I think I really like you," he said slowly. My eyebrows shot up. Oh thank God. Something I could handle. His next words blew me out of the water, though. "Riley, will you be my girlfriend?"
"Wh...what?" I squawked, not seeing that coming at all. I stared at the wall in front of me, eyes wide. Finn liked me. Finn liked me a lot. He wanted to be my boyfriend. My very first boyfriend. Holy moley. Then I bit my lip. "You're seriously asking me out over the phone?"
"Um...yes?" His voice was soft, now, and shy. I loved it when he got all shy.
There was loud, brisk beeping in the background, and I realized it was the heart rate monitor. And boy oh boy was it beeping rather fast. Hah, cool, untouchable Finn was really nervous about asking me out apparently.
The week's compounded stress kind of smashed down on me, and I snapped. I tipped my head back and laughed.
Finally, after a few minutes, I got myself under control, and my laughter died off in the remnants of a choked giggle. Finn was still there on the other end, waiting for a response. I felt kind of bad, knowing he was probably freaking out right now. But I was just… He was just… This was…
Finn wanted to date me, and that meant everything to me, right now. But he was asking me out over the phone. So I said the first thing that came to mind. "Um, no, turd. Try again." Then I hung up, grinning like an idiot. He liiiiiked me. A slightly hysterical giggle slipped out, and I realized just how tired I was. But I didn't care. Because Finn was awake, and he was really for realsies my boyfriend now, and it wasn't even the kind of relationship middle schoolers have, and I was really excited that he thought I was, I don't know, cool enough to date or whatever.
Me, Riley Stewart, queen of bacon and sass. Me, killer of monsters and nightmares. Me, morning-hater and coffee addict.
God. How did I get so lucky?