Chapter 30

Aidan stood and looked back at the hotel, "It was nice chatting with you, Dean. We should do this more often." She closed her eyes.

"Wait!" He instinctively grabbed her arm, "Can you show me one more thing?" She looked at him as if trying to decide what to do. She's talking to Nadia, he realized.

"What do you want to see?" She watched him closely.

There was so much he wanted to know, but as he stared down at the ground, he knew there was one thing that might be able to help them all. He looked up and opened his mouth to answer but froze when he immediately recognized that Nadia was back. They stared at each other for awhile. She still had that slightly pleading look in her eyes and he was pretty sure that he resembled a deer in headlights. He cleared his throat and glanced away to get his bearings before looking her in the eye again. "I need to see what happened in Florida. When you felt that thing around you."

She blinked and smiled slightly. "Of course." She stepped towards him and reached for his cheek and looked him relentlessly straight in the eyes. It felt like a fish hook was in her abdomen and was pulling her toward him. The feeling was surprisingly pleasant. They simultaneously took a shaky breath before their skin touched. His cheek was warm and prickly with stubble and she moved closer until their bodies were almost touching. He winced and pulled away, hand to the cheek where her's had been. She stepped back mortified and cradling her still considerably hot hand in her other. Humiliated tears stung her eyes, "Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... I'm sorry."

He pulled his hand from his cheek and she could see it was red and irritated. At seeing her near tears, he forced a smile, "It's alright. Just feels like you slapped me."

Before she could stop it a laugh bubble through her lips. "I don't slap anyone," she smiled at him. The corners of his mouth tugged up and that little movement made her hopeful. "Guess I just got a little too worked up..."

"Happens to the best of us. Wanna try again?"

"Are you sure?"

He huffed. "I've been electrocuted, beaten more times than I can count, stabbed, and everything else; I think I can handle a little burn." Almost before he could finish, she reached out and cupped his face and that warmth immediately shot up again but she kept it tolerable. She closed her eyes and he followed suit and waited for her to send images to his head.

She was stopping at a red light when something odd came over her. The tingle on the back of her neck quickly turned into fear and panic. She felt like she was being watched and glanced around outside the car. There were people everywhere but neither of them could focus on anything but the dread and hate they felt directed toward them. The light turned green and she slammed on the gas pedal. "Wait, go back," Dean said. Just like a VCR, the picture rewound back to the beginning. Dean focused on what was around them and shoved the panic away; he could feel Nadia doing the same thing this time and it became easier for them both. The sun was obnoxiously bright and it amplified the loud colors of the clothing people we wearing. Hawaiian shirts, mini skirts, bikini tops, and swim trunks were everywhere. The scene slowed and they zeroed in on the faces of those they saw. No one looked out of place or strange. No one was overly focused on the car or Nadia inside of it, most ignored the traffic completely. "See anything strange?" Dean asked.

"Yeah." Dean's interest was peaked but Nadia sounded more amused than anything. "Some people just should not wear bikinis..."

He chuckled and went back to searching the crowds. The light was just about to turn, when the crowd on the right side of the street parted for a second, just long enough for Dean to see someone out of place. He was drawn by the odd looks and whispers people seemed to be giving someone and when he saw the guy, he immediately understood why. There, staring intently at the car, stood a man in a trench coat. It was December, but Florida was still too hot for the clothing he was wearing; or at least it was according to everyone else around him. He was pretty average looking-no black eyes or fangs-but he had a self-assurance and power that radiated off him. "Nadia. Here."

Nadia abandoned the area she was searching and paused the scene to examine the object Dean was so curious about. He was hot-and not just in the, you're wearing a trench coat in Florida kind of way. The first things she noticed, were his eyes and his hair. His eyes were a piercing dark blue and his hair was perfectly styled in that not-styled kind of way. "What is he?"

"I don't know... You have to show Sam." They both pulled back to the present.

Nadia couldn't bring herself to pull away from him just yet, so she kept her hand on his cheek. In the intensity of what they'd been watching, they'd moved, unconsciously closer and closer. They stared at each other from only inches away and Dean could feel her skin growing uncomfortably hot but he didn't move back. After weeks without her, the warmth radiating off from her drew him closer and he was just about to give in to it, when he heard, "Hey, you were right!"

Nadia and Dean jumped back and turned to see Sam coming toward them as he searched through papers in his hand. When he finally looked up, he glanced between them and stopped where he was, "Oh, crap." He groaned. "Tell you what, I'll good back inside so you two can finish whatever you were about to do and in about...five minutes I'll come back out and we'll take it from here. How bout that?"

Dean rub a hand over his face and sighed. "Don't be ridiculous, nothing was about to happen." He glanced ever so quickly at Nadia and looked at his phone. "It's almost four o'clock, whoever's next could be dead already."

Nadia shook off his, nothing was about to happen comment, and focused solely on the case they needed to finish. "Right. What did you find out?"

"Well, like I said, you were right. She did have a miscarriage shortly after Emmett died."

"A definite stressor," she nodded.

"So, boy wonder, have you figures out who's next?" Dean asked.

Sam glared at him, "Rebecca's went after the EMT's, Emmett's friends, and the cop in charge of the case so far. I'm betting the next guy on her list is the doctor. The guy's name's Mark Sheehan and he's working until 9:00 tonight."

"So she probably won't make her move until he's off," Nadia said.

"Right."

"You said she killed one guy in this apartment?" she asked.

Dean answered this time. "Yeah. Number five, Brad Arnold. One of the EMT's, why?"

"I took a few classes and have read a few books on criminology and if she went back to opportunity killing on the street, then that's probably where she feels most comfortable doing it. It seems odd that someone would prefer the open instead of the privacy of an apartment building; but serial killers aren't really known for their logic."

Dean looked confused. Sam looked like he was trying to figure out what she was getting at, "So, you think that she'll kill Sheehan outside?"

She nodded. "They all happened-with the exception of Brad Arnold-out in the open at night. He gets out at 9, when it's dark. We should check out the escape options and the amount of street lights in the parking lot; but I'm betting she'll go after him there. Lots of cars to hide behind and ambush him from."

"Okay, but what are we going to do with her once we have her?" Dean asked.

They looked at each other for awhile, unsure what to do. A ghost or a demon? That's easy, kill it. But with these killings being done by an honest-to-goodness human being, they were a bit lost. Nadia grabbed her hair and brought in over her shoulder while biting her lip. "We call the cops."

"And tell them what?" Dean huffed.

"The truth," she shrugged.

"Alright, and how do you think they'll respond to that?" He cleared his throat. "Hi, my name's Dean Winchester and this is my brother Sam. And this is Nadia, a half demon. We were checking into some recent murders you've been having because we thought it might have been a demon or vengeful spirit or something like that. But as it turns out, it's a young woman who's seeking revenge on the people she sees as having caused her husband's death. Can you take care of it for us, we don't do normal, we're strictly paranormal." He glared at her.

"If you would have let me finish you would have seen that my plan it completely logical," she glared back. She then did what she always did when Dean was being obnoxious, she turned to Sam. "You two are already known around here as the FBI, right? So you go back to the police station, tell them that you're gonna throw them a bone and give them all the evidence against Rebecca. Tell them where she'll be attempting to kill Mark Sheehan, go through all your findings and they'll do the rest."

Sam looked at Dean and shrugged. "It could work."

Sam and Dean changed into their suits and left for the station. Nadia stayed behind, replaying her and Dean's almost kiss and trying to figure out how to get back to that point again. When he was set against something, getting him to change his mind was like pulling teeth. And with him dead set against forgiving her for leaving or himself for putting her in that position, that kiss could be a long way down the road.

They'd been gone for nearly an hour, when the phone rang. It was Dean. "How'd it go?"

"Good. Until some overachiever couldn't leave it well enough alone and contacted the local feds... Needless to say, some questions sprang up and we had to take off."

"What about, Rebecca? They're not going to go after her?"

"No, they are. They have to. But since the evidence we brought them was obtained illegally," he mocked in a high pitch voice, "they're only going to be able to pin Sheehan's attempted murder on her. And that's only if they catch her in the act."

"So she's going to get away with 5 murders?"

"Looks like. Stupid warrants," he growled. "This is why I try to stay away from human-on-human murders; the system is whack. I prefer the shoot 'em and be done with it way of life."

She laughed. "So the only way to get her for all five and the attempted murder is if she confesses... Which, with Colorado having the death penalty, I doubt she's likely to do."

"Yeah, so how do we get her to bare her soul?"

Aidan flashed a memory into Nadia's head. San Quentin's cell block known as the Adjustment Center, the worst of the worst. The first time she'd, or Aidan, had ever used their abilities to extract a confession from someone. Nadia would never forget the look in his eyes as he went on-on his own accord-to tell her exactly what he'd done to his 13 victims. "I can do it. I've done it before."

Dean had parked the impala down the first off the beaten path road he could find. Sam was sitting in the passenger seat, no doubt pouting about what had happened at the station and Dean was leaning on the driver's door outside the car. He was quiet for awhile. Sometimes he could almost forget about what Nadia was and what she could do, even know. Even after all the lives she took. But then there were times like this, when he was harshly reminded of the truth. She wasn't human and she seemed to be changing more and more. He couldn't get Themi's words out of his head, "You can't stay good forever." He cleared his throat and brushed of his jeans, "You sure?"

"Dean there are a lot of things that I can do that scare the shit out of me; but helping to put away a serial killer isn't one of them. This is the only way."

He sighed heavily just to make it known that he didn't approve. "Alright, but how are you going to do it?"

"Just...leave that up to me."

"I'm starving," Nadia said for the third time.

"So we've heard," Dean said with annoyance as he parked the car at Taco Bell.

Nadia was in the backseat and impatiently waiting for either Sam or Dean to get out so that she could hurry inside. Dean was the first one out and she slid over to climb out behind him but the door slammed in her face. She pulled back before it hit her head and stared out the window at him, unbelieving. He turned around and opened the door, "Sorry. I forgot."

She climbed out and swung her hair as she turned her back on him and mumbled, "Sure you did." She was the first one of them through the door, driven by the fact that she hadn't eaten since the morning before. Filling her stomach hadn't really been on her mind after the strange and terrifying incident at the stop light in Florida. There were two people ahead of her and she toyed with the idea of making them let her ahead of them but with Dean right there, she behaved herself. Finally it was her turn and before the server could even say hello, she was placing her order. "Number 7, crunchy, chicken." She noticed the look on the server's face and smiled apologetically, "Hi. Sorry, I'm really hungry." The girl smiled back and punched in her order. When she looked behind Nadia to take Sam and Dean's order, Nadia saw her glance them over appreciatively. Normally that wouldn't have bugged her all that much but with Dean giving her the cold shoulder, she didn't feel like ignoring it. With a very gentle and slight coaxing, she gave the girl a warning that would go unseen by anyone near. The girl looked down at her screen, confused by the sudden wave of fear that flooded through her when she looked at the two customers in front of her. Nadia kept her face completely neutral as she glanced around at the menu and waited for her food, but she felt Dean glance at her suspiciously.

They were all huddled around a small table that sat furthest from the other customers scattered around the restaurant and went over their plan again. Nadia had never been worried about looking like a pig when she ate-in fact before, Dean seemed to enjoy her carefree abandon-so she shoved as much in her mouth as she could while Sam did most of the talking.

"We'll be at the hospital by eight, just to be safe. As soon as he comes out, you'll follow him," he looked at Dean," and I'll keep an eye out for Rebecca." He sipped his pop and took a giant bite from his gordito. "If the cops don't show for whatever reason, we'll have to call them ourselves before he gets off work. Once they have her into custody she's all yours," he looked pointedly at Nadia. "I wish you'd give us some idea of your plan just in case something goes wrong..."

She wanted to say that if something did go wrong, she could simply make everyone black out and walk right through the front door; but she didn't. She sighed, "Alright. But no judgey looks," she glared at Dean, who rolled his eyes and looked out the window. "I'm going to tell them I'm an FBI interrogator. Specially trained, and that I was called in by the chief. And," she raised one hand to halt the questions she could see coming to Sam's mouth, "if they don't buy it than they can call him and he'll back me up."

"How can you be so sure?" Dean asked.

She finished squeezing mild sauce onto her chicken quesadilla and dropped the packet onto her tray. "Because I'm going to pay the chief a visit beforehand, make like I'm there because he called-which he will wholeheartedly believe he did-and then, once the confession is in, no one's going to question any of it." Taco juice was running into her palm and down her wrist, so she licked it off. Dean started to argue but she stopped him, "No one is going to question it."

Dean stared at her as she wadded up her wrappers and piled on theirs before stacking the trays together to take to the trash. Before she could get up he said, "Do it to me."

Her head snapped up, "What?"

"Make me confess something." Sam turned to him and shook his head but Dean ignored him. "I want to know how it feels, if it hurts."

Her heart started to race. There were so many things she could find out if she said yes; but did she really want to know the answers? Questions flashed through her mind, ones she wanted to hear the answers to and those that she didn't. Are you still in love with me? Do you hate me? Are you scared of me? Is everything in you telling you that I shouldn't be alive? That I'm an abomination? She swallowed and stood up, "No."

He watched her walk to the trash bin, "Why not? Does it hurt?"

"Did it hurt you when I did it? Physically, I mean?" She stared hard at him and he dropped his gaze.

"No. But I did lose hours of memory."

She rolled her eyes, "That was the first time I'd ever done that. I'm better at it now, I've been practicing."

His eyes tightened. "Yeah, I've heard. It's all over the news."

It felt like she'd both had the wind knocked out of her but anger surged quickly through her afterward. She spun around and charged out of the restaurant, determined to walk back to the hotel. "Nadia!" Sam called as soon as he made it out the door.

"Leave me alone, Sam."

"Yeah, leave her alone Sam. She doesn't want to confront any of it." Dean added.

She spun on him. "I don't want to confront any of it? I confronted it when I agreed to this deal. I know what I did, Dean. And those people, as you call them, weren't people. Rebecca isn't a person anymore."

"So that's the big plan? You're gonna kill her too?" Dean and Nadia were right in each other's face as the argued. Sam tried, fruitlessly, to defuse the situation but knew that they were both too stubborn to let it go; especially after what Dean'd just implied. So he watched as they leaned toward each other as if physically held back by some invisible force.

"That's what you think I am now? Some random killing machine? Well sorry to disappoint you, Dean, but that isn't my plan at all."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. The people she killed still have families that have no idea what happened. They need to see her in a courtroom. They need to see her sentenced to whatever she'll be sentenced to; whether it's death or life in prison. They need justice."

"I thought death by your hand was justice?"

She looked away and shook her head. "Do you know how many people on death row actually die by lethal injection? Not very many. Most live out their days getting a steady three meals a day, a roof over their heads, and a bed to sleep on. They murdered thousands of innocent people and they are rewarded with more than any of the people sleeping on the streets of LA, scrounging for food and doing God knows what else to get what they need to survive. How is being treated better than all those homeless people who never took anyone's life, justice?" She paused and got herself back on track. "Rebecca will go to prison for what she did, I have no doubt about that. And the families of; Jeffery Weston, TJ Donovan, Robert Carlisle, Michael Patterson, Brad Arnold, and Jasper Morris, will know that she is where she belongs."

"What makes her more worth saving than those others at San Quentin or Florida State?"

She wasn't sure how to answer him, so she gave him the only answer she had. "Because it's not up to me. A jury of their peers determined that they weren't fit to live in this world anymore. Rebecca hasn't been given that yet."

"And if she is?"

"That's a bridge we haven't even gotten to yet." She left him and waited by the car.