Hey, apologies, I meant to have this chapter up on Monday but I've been away and then just plain busy (yes, not a very good excuse) unfotunately not much happens in this chapter, anyways let me know what you think of it and thank you for the reviews =]
I don't own Supernatural.
Chapter 11
The following morning, tired and grumpy, I headed out to get a bottle of water from the vending machine. Turning away, ice cold bottle of water in hand, I headed back to my room. At six am it was still slightly too early to meet the Winchester's and besides Sam hadn't called yet. Not that I was looking forward to hearing from him. I was still baffled as to my sudden change in feeling despite knowing it deep down all along but it wasn't entirely Sam who was occupying my mind. It was the case as well. I was seriously rethinking my whole existence. My one and only reason for hunting was revenge, in my grief I had become so single minded but slowly I was starting to think differently. It was being with the Winchester's, it had to be, nothing else had changed in my life.
They say that time is the best healer something I'd shunned for so long but now I was starting to believe it. This one way revenge trip was it really all that important? Without a shadow of a doubt I was saving a few lives along the way but was it what my family wanted me to do, not that they could say otherwise. For some reason or other I was starting to think that maybe I should stop and think more about staying alive rather than picking fights with death. My parent's would want that for me, for me to carry on and be safe and happy and since they died I've been neither of those.
With time to kill I returned to my room still pondering over the thoughts floating about in my jumbled mind. Three large posters over near the reception caught my eye. They weren't that hard to miss. There staring me in the face was well, my face along with those belonging to my Winchester friends. This wasn't good.
Immediately I ripped down the three posters and ran across the parking lot praying that no one had seen them yet, not that it would make a difference I'm sure they were spread all over the place. The parking lot was deserted, sensible people were still in bed something I was more than grateful for.
I was actually glad that I had been up so early and should probably thank Sam for it because I was still trying to get my head around my change of attitude towards him. It probably was pretty simple but I had a habit of complicating matters then again who doesn't.
Arriving at the room Sam and Dean were sharing I knocked on their door trying to be quiet but as I began to understand just how bad the situation was I banged on the door with my fist, repeatedly until one of the damn Winchester's answered the door. "Sam? Dean?" I whisper-shouted still banging on the flimsy motel door, it might be easier just to kick it in.
A very groggy, half asleep Sam answered the door, his hair sticking up on ends. He was wearing grey sweat pants and a dark green shirt. I was staring at Sam Winchester, completely forgetting what I was doing there. "Alice?" he said clearly perplexed over my being there.
"I think we need to cancel breakfast, take a look at this," I said with urgency shoving the torn down pieces of poster in Sam's face. After a quick glance at them, which seemed to wake him up he stepped aside for me to enter their room and then switched the light on. Dean was still in bed; he groaned and pulled the covers over himself. "Wakey wakey, rise and shine sleepy head," I chimed brightly in an attempt at sounding not bothered about being wanted.
"Dean seriously, you need to see this," Sam sat down, laying the posters across the table. None of our pictures were flattering they were from cacti cameras. Reluctantly Dean crawled from his bed and stared down at the posters.
"Son of a bitch," he muttered angrily slamming his fist down on the table.
I sat on Sam's bed, letting it all sink in. This certainly caused a bit of a problem. Upon reading the posters further we discovered that we were wanted for all the murders that the Shapeshifter had committed, fabulous. I was with Dean on this one, son of a bitch indeed. We were well and truly screwed and that was putting it politely.
Never in my entire, all be it relatively short, hunting career had I been on the really bad side of the law. I usually managed to scrape out of the situation by the skin of my teeth at the very most I usually only pissed a couple of people off.
"First things first we need to stay out of the eye of the general public," Sam clearly had his thinking head on and he was right.
"Easier said than done, I'm hungry," Dean replied not seeming overly phased by the latest development as if it was a rather annoying every day occurrence. It probably was for him.
It didn't take long before we had some idea on what to do. The safest thing was to get out of the motel before the police showed up once we were spotted by some resident or other. My truck was packed with my belongings and I followed the Winchester's a few miles out of town where, a bit off the beaten track, they had seen an abandoned house.
When we arrived I could see that abandoned was an understatement. The faded paint on the wooden panels was peeling away and they were warped by sun and damp. An overgrown garden, missing roof tiles and smashed window only added to its charm. At least we wouldn't have to pay to stay here. "Can we just get one thing straight," I stated once we had the door open, "I'm having the nicest room." With that I took off up the rickety staircase to lay claim on my room as if I was five years old again. If we treated our Shapeshifter friend to some silver I probably wouldn't have to sleep here at all.
The room I ended up with was at the back, painted in hideous shade of green with a rusty iron bed complete with moth eaten mattress. Like I said, charming. At the thought of the bed I shuddered, I think the floor was going to be my nice comfy bed. I had a sleeping bag in the truck which would be some sort of comfort when I got around to sleeping.
Almost completely shaded by trees and away from built up areas the quaintly dilapidated home would give us a better chance of staying away from the cops, with a bit of luck at least. I returned back downstairs where Dean was still cursing 'it's just another one to add to the list, I mean it Sammy I'm out for blood." I wanted to turn around and go back upstairs or outside and let Dean cool down but unfortunately we had business to get down to.
"I still don't see why we can't just walk into the Police station and stab it," I ranted, "honestly, we are wanted anyway so what does it matter?"
"Because it's loaded with cops who'll probably shoot first ask questions later," Sam replied spoiling my fun.
"What can we do then?" I replied. Frustrated I threw myself down onto the couch sending up a cloud of dust.
For most of the morning we plotted and re-plotted, apparently that's all we were capable off for the time being. By lunch time we were too hungry to continue, I bought in a handful of cereal bars from my glove box in attempt to tide us over until we could locate something more nutritional. I was hoping for Thai food but I would more than likely have to settle for pizza or something else smothered in calories and fat. Dean went out to get food leaving Sam and I in dingy living room we were currently squatting in with papers sprawled out across the infested carpet. Between the three of us we had decided to either call the station and declare a shooting at which point we could then kill the Sheriff away from large amounts of people but the problem was there was no guarantee that the Sheriff would come he might just sent one of his minions. The other plan we were considering was to go to his home at night under cover of darkness and surprise it with a knife through its heart. As with any plan it had at least one fault. The Shapeshifter knew we were onto it so he'd or rather it'd be expecting that we needed to be one step ahead of it.
"This is going to sound crazy," I said to Sam, breaking the thoughtful silence we'd fallen into each of us had been racking our brains for some form of feasible plan.
"Crazy is probably what we need," he replied exasperated with the whole thing. He set down what he was reading to listen to me, I felt my face colour slightly as he gave me his full attention. In the past that wouldn't have bothered me but with Sam now part of the thoughts on a constant loop in my mind things were becoming a different story. I just had to figure out what to do.
"Okay then, one of us should hand themselves in as a way to get close the Sheriff Shapeshifter thing and then with its attention diverted the other two can sneak in and bam!" I got a bit too carried away in my excitement; I thought it was a really good but stupid plan, "it wouldn't expect us to waltz right in and own up to it."
"You're right that does sound crazy," Sam laughed.
"A little too crazy right?" I realised how ridiculous my idea was.
"Just a bit," so it was back to the drawing board again. Every time we tried to think up something no matter how preposterous we still ended up with the same ideas we started with and out of those I favoured the safer ambush in the Sheriff's home idea. Sam seemed to agree, we were just waiting for Dean to get back in the hope of a unanimous vote.
Abandoning our scheming for now, Sam and I wondered outside for some fresh air, "this case has certainly made me rethink a lot of things," I told Sam as we leant against a rotten fence surrounding the property. He looked at me quizzically, I would never in a million years mention my change of feelings but I was willing to or rather I needed to share the other thoughts I was beginning to pay close attention to spurned on by now being a wanted felon. "I've never had a case like this before, nothing so complicated and now that we are wanted I don't even have an old life to go back to not unless I want to spend it in jail." I wasn't a quitter I just felt my parents would prefer it if I did go back to my old life safe and sound.
"Who's going to thing bad of you for going back to college?" Sam said.
"It isn't that simple? After everything we've seen we're supposed to just drop back into our old lives and pretend that Shapeshifters, ghosts whatever it is doesn't exist. I'm sorry but I can't do that," I huffed, fed up with my annoying mind.
"It wouldn't be easy, I tried it and ended up hunting again," Sam told me about his childhood so I knew it was different for him. He was born into it whereas I had a choice. This quest I was on for vengeance was it really worth it? I had been so blinded by grief over my family's death that hunting seemed the right thing to do at the time but my parents wouldn't have wanted me in danger yet I seemed to go out looking for it. The only thing I was doing was running from my problems. Sam spoke up providing me with the perfect excuse to run from my thoughts, "hey, cheer up, this time tomorrow it'll all be over and done with" Sam said trying to sound more positive about the whole thing, not that there was a lot to be positive about.
"Yeah, hopefully," I muttered to myself as Sam wandered back inside. I stayed alone for a while longer; the only sound to be heard was the occasional crow and odd car out on the road in the distance.
The now familiar growl of the Impala racing up the dirt track leading to the house bought me to attention. It was time to return to the case and stop moping about in my own self pity sadly no matter how many times I said that I still did it. I wandered back into the house and sat down amongst the scattered scraps of paper and picked up my pad of paper. The paper was covered in scribbles and doodles and not much in the way of ideas.
"So, what have you got?" Dean said as he walked through the front door.
"Nothing new," Sam replied as he organised some of the paper to give Dean some room to set down the pizza boxes he'd bought back. I opened the lid of the first box and already two slices were gone, I guess Dean really was starving.
With the pizza finished with we tossed the boxes aside and resumed work on the case, it really was becoming tedious and it was only afternoon. I thought by now we would have finished it if only it wasn't for the set back of being wanted. That really chucked a spanner in the works. "I give up," I slammed my almost empty pad of paper down and stood up, stretching my legs, "we're going with our original idea and ambush it in the Sheriff's house."
"But we-" Dean began.
"No buts or arguments, that's what we are doing and that's final," that shut Dean up and made me feel better. I saw Sam grinning out of the corner of my eye, in the week that I'd spent with the Winchester's I'd gone from pretty much hating them and their help to well, the complete opposite. It was the only good bit about the case. I really was changing.
"Tonight then," Dean clapped his hands together, almost too eager.
As dusk approached we sat around, Dean was cleaning a shotgun whilst Sam trawled through a book. Meanwhile, I'd only just awoken after an afternoon nap; apparently my sleepless night had been more sleepless than I thought. The nap only served to make me more tired, explain how that works then.
We were all going in one car, it made sense. Once again I offered to drive but Dean didn't think that my truck would go fast enough if we had to make a quick getaway, the cheeky son of a bitch. I'd like to prove him otherwise but unfortunately he was right. Speed was not a friend of my rust bucket truck.
A strange silence fell upon us as we packed up our things; it was like the calm before a storm. The tense atmosphere didn't improve as we headed back to town under cover of night, praying not to be recognised.
"Which one's the Sheriff's?" I asked as we drove along a long tree lines street.
"Number 783," Sam answered without looking at the paper he'd jotted it down onto.
"783," I repeated to myself over and over again as we slowly made our way down the street. "There!" I pointed at the single story white house. We continued to the end of street and the turned around parking just down from the Sheriff's house on the opposite side of the street with all the lights on the car switched off. For what seemed like an eternity we sat and watched the house for activity. There was a car on the drive so he had to be in, we just wanted to be sure and as of yet no lights on the front of the house had been switched on but there was still time yet.
All three of us were getting bored; maybe the Sheriff was out tonight, which had to be about right. How wrong I was no sooner had I thought that then a light appeared downstairs despite what looked like a very thick pair of curtains in the window. Wow, coincidence. "Look at that, the mandroid is in, Ronald would have loved this" Dean said. I looked at him oddly not even bothering to ask; actually I wasn't sure I wanted know.
"This is it," Sam said, pocketing his silver knife. We quietly exited the car and with a quick look around crossed the street, trying to avoid the light cast from a street light. With ease we scrambled over a low fence and disappeared behind an overgrown bush in the garden. Sam was right, this was it, we were finally going to introduce our Shapeshifter friend to Mr Silver.