Dean watched for her reaction, but again, she did not seem surprised. What was with this chick? Did she know all about hunters and demons and it was all no big deal?
"Do you remember it?" Max asked, fumbling with the hem of her hoodie. She'd heard one story before – about the abduction and the tests and the attempts to make them forget. The account the woman had given implied that she was one of many who had undergone the testing and extraction, but she was gone long before Max had the opportunity to corroborate her story (which she eventually did posthumously), and now she wished she had been able to speak with the woman before Manticore killed her.
But what would she do with that information anyway? Even if she could acquire any more details about how it all happened, what was she going to do with it? Visit the last known addresses of all the unwilling participants and apologize on Manticore's behalf? As if an apology would suffice? Say she knew how it felt because she was the result of one of those DNA sessions? No, that would only patronize an already-stressed person, who may not even remember being abducted at all.
But maybe she could understand some of it, and maybe it would shed some light on how Alec came to exist. And maybe he and Dean shared some characteristics, and uncovering some of what made Dean who he is could uncover the paradox of Alec. Or maybe that was too much to ask of a total stranger – to bare his soul and heart and scars just so she could feel better about what happened to Alec.
Dean had found himself swimming around in her eyes somewhere, but she was already digging deep into her own past; she was not really present either. He broke eye contact and stared past her, through the window and into the distance, as if the further out he could see, the more miles into his childhood he could trek.
What a distracted pair they might have seemed to anyone watching – unable to realize how much they had in common, thinking about their separate tribulations sitting in a car together, but virtually alone.
Max snapped out of her reverie and watched the way his eyebrows barely moved. There was despondency in his eyes, an all-too-familiar far-off look, which on Alec meant he was reliving things that were way out of his control, but for which he could not help but blame himself. Did that stare mean the same on Dean?
Max seemed to need something, and he could almost feel how badly she thought it was Dean who could provide it for her. He took a deep breath, not really sure if he was about to do this, but before he could utter a word, he caught something in his line of sight that made him sit up straighter and open his door. "We got company," he warned.
Max snapped her head toward the direction he seemed to be looking and saw a small mob of Croats approaching. She quickly pulled the lever on her door, slipped out of the passenger's side, slipped on the backpack, and looked for Dean.
He was quickly opening the trunk and rifling through it. As Max approached the back, she saw the extent of his arsenal. Dean looked to be trying to decide which weapon to use.
"Ladies' choice," he offered.
Max motioned toward her blade. "Trust," she said simply.
God help him, he found it hot that she preferred her blade. He did, too, but he figured why not have a backup weapon? and selected his machete. He watched Max for her response.
"Big blade," she said, smiling, eyeing the metal. "Know how to use it?"
Dean grinned and closed his trunk. Yeah, she knew how to play the game.
"I got a plan," she said, and hustled into the hospital. Dean jogged in behind her.
"Won't be long until they're in here, too," Dean said.
"This way." She led him through the scattered, pulled-apart bodies in the hospital and to the stairs. It shouldn't have surprised her that he didn't make any faces at the mutilation and bloody terror that had obviously occurred here, but it did.
They heard the first couple of Croats entering the hospital as they made it to the second floor. "Just need a few things. Think you can stall for a minute?"
"Of course," Dean said. He almost never declined a challenge.
Max disappeared through the stairwell door and Dean sat perched at the stairs, listening for the strange snarls and growls of the infected. His heart was pounding with the adrenaline and he couldn't help but wish they hadn't run into a closed building, and instead wished they'd stayed in the car and mowed the fuckers down. Sure, he'd machete those flesh-happy monsters ruthlessly, but he kind of wanted not to get scratched or bitten or dead in the process. Or have them chip the paint on the Impala.
He prepared himself for the Croats as the door one flight down opened. Max swung the stairwell door and held it open. "This way!" she shouted, waving him in.
She had only been gone for under a minute, and yet the backpack seemed full. She should have been out of breath, considering the only way she could have picked up a backpack full of supplies would be if she had run, and if they were all in roughly the same location. But she wasn't out of breath.
Another item for the weird column, he thought, and followed her through the door. She hustled toward the other end of the hospital, checking for him behind her a couple of times along the way.
As they ran down the stairs and out the back exit, Dean wasted no time planning the route back to his car.
"Leave it for now!" Max had shouted from behind him.
"You're kidding, right?" he asked, turning to watch her.
Max gave him an incredulous look. "What do you think, they're gonna steal it?"
Well, yeah, that's what he thought. He hadn't seen a Croat move anything else but on foot, but that didn't mean they couldn't drive. His speechlessness tickled her, apparently, because she started laughing, turned and began running in the opposite direction.
"It's not a ridiculous thought," he said, jogging to catch up to her.
"It kind of is," she said, continuing to laugh.
In the split second between when Max had turned the corner and when Dean had, a trio of nasty-looking Croats had appeared, and one of them had lunged herself at Max. She had Max in a chokehold and Max looked to be squirming as the infected woman pulled her closer. And it was at this very moment that Dean had wished he'd selected a gun instead of a machete.
The other two, who were males, advanced toward Dean in what appeared to be a strategically planned attack. They must have recently turned, he realized, because they moved with a little more thought and a little less need for his death.
"What the fuck?" he muttered, clutching the machete and raising it. He backed up a few steps, trying to ready himself for the fight at hand.
Both Croats came at him full speed, one ready to punch him. Dean ducked, and while he was down, he slid the knife out of his boot, clutching it in his left hand nondescriptly. It was a split second choice, and once he had stood, he sent one assailant over his back and onto the ground. He spun, moving so that he was facing both Croats again.
In an amazing move he expected looked nothing like what he had seen in action movies, he flashed the machete in front of the left Croat, missing his neck, and spun around in some kind of football maneuver to sink the short blade into the right Croat's collarbone. He slid the metal left and severed the Croat's left carotid, hit the vertebrae, and turned the knife upward. With some adrenaline-infused muscle, he jerked the blade into the Croat's chin, crossed the machete over both their heads, and sliced the head off scissor-fashion, as if he was cutting a smaller piece of meat for a child.
The body fell to the ground, its head rolling toward Max, who had somehow managed to get free of the woman Croat's grasp and seemed to be making quick work of her un-life. The woman had been forced onto her stomach, and Max was pulling up on the woman's head, her knees holding the woman's arms down by their elbows. He thought he could see something on the Croat's neck. A tattoo, maybe.
Meanwhile, Dean's second opponent, having seen the skill with which he disarmed, or more appropriately decapitated, the other threat, checked Dean's murderous stare and looked as if he was going to run away. Which he then, promptly, did.
"What the fuck?" Dean asked again.
Max pulled the woman's head as if pulling the cord on the lawnmower. Satisfied the Croat was dead, Max stood up, looking a little pale and holding her own collarbone.
"You hurt?" he asked. He hoped she wasn't, because if she was, there might be something he had to do about it. Unfortunately, it looked like the woman Croat had sunk her teeth in and got a piece of Max.
Max's eyes lit up with some surprise. "Haul ass!"
Dean looked behind him, as the other Croats previously inside the hospital seemed to figure out exactly where they were, and were making their way toward the fighting duo.
They ran as fast as humanly possible back toward the front of the hospital. Fuck if she thought it was ridiculous, Dean internalized, Max was hurt now and he was damn sure they needed to get the hell out of this town.
They reached the Impala and Dean threw his machete in the back seat. Max had jumped into the passenger's seat and began rifling through the backpack.
As he slid into the cold front seat, he pulled the door shut and started the engine. He burned rubber and headed back toward the field.
"Max, what the hell? How did these Croats get the drop on us?"
Max immediately pulled off her hoodie and held it to her collarbone. She sandwiched it there between shoulder and ear, and groaned lightly as she dug into the backpack.
"And did you not see they were thinking? Thinking! How is that possible?" Dean was driving furiously, this time without regard to the rules of the road, and checking her face frequently, expectantly.
She took a breath and turned the hoodie over, revealing a sopped-up, soon-to-be bloodstain on the swatch that had just spent mere seconds on her wound.
"Max! You clearly know more than you're letting on!"
Finally, she faced him, the loose hairs of her braid now bloodied and sticking to her neck. "That's not normal," she said.
"No shit! Tell me something I don't know. Croats don't act like that. They're not capable of forethought."
Max turned the hoodie again. "They're not normal," she added.
Dean huffed and floored the accelerator. "Cut the bullshit, Max! I know there's something you're not telling-"
"They were supposed to be immune," she interrupted, staring at him with some unknown hurt in her eyes. "But instead the virus mutated and I wasn't able to save them. They were my friends and I couldn't save them."