Chapter 8

"You sure you're ready to be gettin' back in the saddle?" Bobby asked warily as Gabby and I packed up the car. I didn't say anything. I just gave him a look and hoped it conveyed everything he already knew I would say.

"Trust me, Bobby, you don't want to deal with the consequences if she has to sit around the house for another day. It won't be pretty," Gabby laughed as she tossed the last bag of ammo into the trunk. I chose to gracefully ignore her jibes.

"Fair enough," Bobby grunted. "Be careful, and call me if you get into any trouble."

"We will. Thanks again for letting us stay for a while," Gabby said as he clapped us both on the shoulders.

"Don't mention it," he grumbled before returning to the house. We both got into the car and headed out not long after. Gabby had even conceded to let me drive for a while. It's not like she claims ownership of the car or anything. My driving just 'scares' her. She takes backseat driving to a whole new level anyway so I just let her drive.

Driver choices aside, we were headed to our first case in weeks. A couple of people in this town in Iowa have all died violent and strange deaths within the last few weeks, and of course the police just think it's an increase in weird fatal activity. We were thinking something more along the lines of vengeful spirit. Bobby wasn't totally sure what it was when he told us about it, so we'll just have to find out when we get there.

At this point, I would have taken any lead that came our way. Sitting around Bobby's all day every day was getting to be excruciatingly painful. Sam and Dean stopped by sometimes to catch up, and they always tried to entertain Gabby and me a bit. Of course, it's always hard to tell if Dean is trying to be good company or if he was trying to flirt with Gabby and me. A part of me wanted to ask Sam, but I'm sure his guess is as good as mine. Either way, they didn't help that much. Especially when there are cases we could be working. They also make me a little nervous. I can't really explain why or how, they just do.

"Speed limit is sixty…" Gabby warned. I ignored her for the most part. I only really slowed down when passing possible speed traps. I needed to be working right now.

After a six hour car ride with a lot of complaining from Gabrielle's end, we finally arrived in Grinnel, Iowa. I'll be the first to admit that it was a bit of a letdown. I was hoping that the Iowa stereotype was just a stereotype, but boy was I wrong. There was nothing around this small town for miles except farmland and highways.

"How cozy," Gabby remarked sarcastically as we set our bags down in the motel we had just checked into. It was basically just a closet-sized room with one bed, one chair, and a really pitiful looking television set. The only plus was that we got our own bathroom in the room with us. There's nothing worse than a communal shower.

"Let's just go to sleep early. Then we can wake up early and tackle this thing in the morning," Gabby suggested once we got settled in.

"Fair enough," I agreed.

It was hard for me to get to sleep. Gabby has always been a blanket hog, and I was also pretty antsy to officially be done with our little 'vacation'. Gabby called it that while we were chilling at Bobby's, but it felt more like punishment. All we did was read all of his books and watch Star Trek reruns.

It felt like I had just shut my eyes when Gabby rudely awakened me. "Rise and shine!" she exclaimed loudly. I groaned and rolled over. Now was not the time.

"When you said early I didn't think you meant the ass crack of dawn, Gabrielle," I groaned.

"It's just past six, Abby. Quit being such a drama queen and get ready," she replied simply and unceremoniously pushed me off of the bed. I didn't really feel like getting up so I just laid there.

"I'm choosing not to react to your acts of terrorism."

"Fine, but you better be awake when I get out of the shower." She huffed and padded off to the bathroom. I drifted out of sleep for the first thirty minutes of Gabby's shower before I finally got up off the floor. By the time she was done I was on my second cup of coffee.

"There's no hot water left, is there?"

"You snooze, you lose. This time I mean it literally." She smirked and started getting dressed. I decided to take the world's coldest, and probably shortest, shower anyway. She was still picking out her top by the time I shivered and shook my way out of the bathroom.

"Which do you like better, the purple or the blue?" She held them both up to her chest.

"Blue," I replied as I finished drying off and started putting on my own clothes. Gabby held it up to her chest again and surveyed herself in the mirror for a few seconds before nodding.

"So, let's go over the facts again. All of them." Gabby suggested once we had finished getting ready and gotten something to eat.

"Well, the thing is, there aren't a lot of facts to work with. Eleven people have died in the past two weeks, but there's no obvious connection in victim choice. They were different ages, different genders, different races, and different jobs. The only connection is that they all lived here in this town, and they all visited Brannigan's bar at least once the week before they died."

"Is it a new bar? Were there any violent deaths on the property?"

"No. I don't even know if that's a connection because there are only two bars in this town to begin with. It could just be coincidence, but it's all we have to go on," I sighed.

"We'll start there. If the bar checks out we'll start interviewing the families I guess," Gabby decided.` "The answer is probably staring us right in the face."

We found ourselves two hours later with no more of a clue than we had before. The town had one library, and it had detailed records about all of the buildings in town. No violent deaths or disappearances are associated with Brannigan's or the land itself. There was a small skirmish between some Native Americans and the American government, but that couldn't be it.

There was no E.M.F., there was no ectoplasm, and no strange markings or symbols in, on, or underneath the building. None of the patrons or the owners knew anything about the deaths either. We searched the bar top to bottom, and we had no leads. Gabby left her number with one of the skittish-looking waitresses. It made sense. It was always the jumpy ones who snitched.

"That was a bust." Gabby thought. Even in her head she was aggravated.

"Tell me about it. I guess we have to start talking to the families then?"

"We better split up."

"Are you serious? Why can't we just go together?" I groaned.

"Almost every day for the past two weeks someone has been murdered. We don't have the luxury of going as a team."

"Fine." It felt like defeat to even think it.

"Don't be overdramatic," Gabby grunted as we climbed into the car.

After we donned our journalist get-ups and spent fifteen minutes fighting over who got to drive the car, we both set out on foot with our respective halves of the list. The first family was the hardest to talk to. They were related to the latest victim, so the pain was still fresh. I've never been good with comforting people or dealing with crying so the interview went less than stellar.

Fortunately, the rest of the families and friends I talked to were a little more settled. Unfortunately, they weren't helpful at all. None of the victims had anything in common. Two of them worked at the same place, but this is a small town so that isn't exactly something to go on.

The only thing they all seemed to have in common was that they were all really well off. Their lives were great, and their families were great. It was like they hadn't done an unsavory deed in their whole lives. It was a bit unnerving, but mostly depressing.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, Mr. Gardner. I know this must be hard for you, but it's my job to make sure my paper has its facts straight." I tried to sound soothing and understanding. This was the last name on my list, and I was dead tired.

"I know. I understand," Mr. Gardner sighed and shook his head, "I still can't believe it happened, you know? I'm still waiting for her to pop up and tell me it's all a joke."

I decided to give him a moment to collect himself. His head was a tempest of sorrow and denial and regret. I could feel the distant, tangled thoughts of his three eldest children too. If I wasn't psychic, I wouldn't have known that they were even there. The house had an eerie silence to it, like no one lived here at all.

"Mr. Gardner," I said hesitantly after a minute or two.

"Yes, I'm sorry. You wanted to know about how it happened to Linda."

"Yes sir,"

"Well, it was her first day back at work after maternity leave. She didn't want to leave. She actually took an extra month off to spend with Luke, but she decided it was time to go back." He explained slowly. I knew that he was trying to stay composed.

"Take as much time as you need," I reminded him. As much as I wanted to get out of here, this guy had just lost his wife.

"It's fine, it's fine," Mr. Gardner sighed, "I'm sorry. Anyway, Linda left for work that morning, and she never came back. The hospital called me at about three o'clock to identify her body. She was-uh…she was dead on arrival." His voice cracked a little, and he tried to cover it up with a cough. I could see her inside his head, and I wished that I couldn't.

There was a sheet covering her from the breast bone down, but it looked like it had been steeped in blood. The lower half of her body looked more like a pile of mangled flesh than legs, and the upper half of her body was disgustingly flatter than it should have been. Her hair had completely burned off. Most of the skin on her face and neck had bubbled up or burned away.

I can't believe they would ever show someone a corpse like that.

"There was a police officer who had witnessed the whole thing, Will. He's an old friend of mine from high school. He said that…that Linda's car had caught fire out of nowhere. She was just driving down the street, and then it was on fire. She veered off the side of the road…hit a tree. She was going pretty fast, so they're almost certain that she died on impact. The car exploded before they could get to it. It took them almost twenty minutes to get her out. Linda was almost unrecognizable."

"That's terrible," I whispered. I felt like I needed to say something, anything.

"I just can't believe it. I just can't…Luke isn't even a year old yet, and he'll never know his mommy. He was number four. She loved those kids more than anything. Her doctor told her after we got married that she couldn't have any kids. It really tore her up."

"Did you adopt?"

"No, we were going to, but we had a little miracle. It came out of nowhere. I've never seen her as happy as she was in that delivery room for the first time. We thought that Rosie was a fluke, an exception, but we got three more," He laughed a little, but his eyes were wet.

"After Rosie there was Lily, then Chloe, and finally Luke."

"Those are all beautiful names," and in his head I could see that they were beautiful children too.

"Yeah," He sighed, wiping the tears from his eyes.

"Mr. Gardner I have to ask: was there anything weird about Linda's death? Did anything strange happen in the weeks leading up to her death?" I asked a little too fast.

He stared at me for a moment, trying to search his brain. But all he said was, "No, nothing. Everything was completely normal. Everything was wonderful."

I quickly thanked him for his time and left. There was nothing there to investigate, just a sad widower with four too many kids.

"Please tell me you found something," Gabby said as soon as I walked back into our hotel room.

"Nothing," I replied. "Just a whole lot of sad."

"Are you serious? I couldn't find anything either. I mean, what the hell is going on around here?"

"I honestly don't know," I sighed. All this drama and emotion had drained the life right out of me.

"It's that bar. I know it is. I have this feeling in my gut."

"We checked the whole bar top to bottom. There was nothing there, Gabby."

"Well, I say we pay a little visit after hours," she suggested, hardly suppressing her smirk.

"You want us to break in to the bar after hours? It's open until two A.M."

"Exactly, we'll go there while it's still open and wait it out."

"That's a terrible idea," I protested, but it was futile.

"It's the only one we've got, so put on something that doesn't scream I'm-a-prude-with-mad-fighting-skills-so-don't-touc h-me."

"But I am a prude with mad fighting skills, and I don't want anyone to touch me," I muttered as she started digging through our bags. It didn't take a psychic to figure out she was trying to find the most uncomfortable thing we owned for me to wear.

"Quit fidgeting," Gabby's voice interrupted my inner musings. I was sitting at the bar trying to look like a convincing twenty-one year old while Gabby worked the room. She obviously wasn't planning on going anywhere with the flirting, but she said we had to 'blend in'.

Flirting was an art, and Gabby was a master. She had tried to teach me a few things, but my heart wasn't really in it. In high school I always got her to feed me lines when I really liked a guy, but I don't see that being an issue in this line of work. It isn't really a skill I see myself needing in the future.

"I'm not fidgeting."

"Yes, you are. You look like this is your first time in a bar."

"Whatever. How about you focus on yourself?" I dismissed her and focused on not doing anything stupid like falling asleep. It's like the entire town was crowded into this stupidly small building, and all they could talk about was gossip. The only thing on everyone's mind was money or sex or politics. It's boring.

I had already paced the whole place earlier trying to get some sort of clue as to what might have happened to the victims, but I didn't have any luck. Too many people passed through here. I only caught glimpses of drunken fights, drunken discussions, and drunken propositions. I've been trying again after having a drink or two, sometimes alcohol helps loosen up the psyche. That's probably not scientifically accurate but whatever.

Gabby had gone off somewhere, and now I was stuck here with this weird guy who sat down next to me. Saying he's weird is probably unfair, but he's thinking about how to approach this girl for like the fifth time. He seemed harmless, but she was clearly a little out of his league. She was 5'9" maybe, with blonde hair, and legs for days. On the other hand, he was a little too dressed up for a bar, probably because he doesn't own anything other than khakis and dress shirts. He had short, neat hair and glasses. Everything about him screamed accountant or IRS auditor or something. I don't see her giving love a chance here.

He ordered whiskey straight and drank it in one large gulp before heading over to talk to her. A part of me wanted to call out to him and convince him not to, but instead I just focused my psychic attention anywhere but at that train wreck.

I didn't need a distraction for long. I felt Gabby's hand grip my elbow like a vice before I heard her.

"We're leaving," she was thinking. Well, it was a bit more complicated and frantic than just those two simple words, but that was the gist of it. I didn't question it. I just got up and followed her out of the bar and into the car.

She didn't say anything until we were safely locked in the car.

"I don't know what happened back there. I panicked a little," Gabby fumbled over her words.

"Yeah, I gathered. Did you see something? Did you feel something? What happened?"

"I don't know if this is a ghost, Abigail. It was-well, it was inside my head. It was like it knew me. I could hear it, but I couldn't see it."

"What did it say?" I demanded. I could tell that she was avoiding the subject.

"It was a lot of nonsense, honestly. It said it could see into my heart. It said it knew what I really wanted and that she could give it to me," Gabby mumbled. Her face rumpled in a familiar look of concentration.

"So it was a she?" I asked. Gabby nodded.

"Yeah, whatever it was sounded female."

We sat in silence for a while. I was trying to reevaluate all of the facts for this case, and Gabby was trying to get herself together again. It didn't make sense for it to be anything other than ghost, but it was pushing two in the morning so it was possible that I was wrong. I knew that Gabby wasn't telling me the whole truth either. Whatever it was, it said something that touched a nerve.

"We can leave if you want, but I think we should stay and see this through," I said slowly after a few minutes.

"I don't know. What if it's not a ghost? What if we don't have the right equipment?"

"There's tons of people in there, I don't think it's going to attack us," I tried to reassure her, "WWBD."

"What the hell does WWBD mean?"

"What would Bobby do?" I tried but failed to respond with a straight face, and Gabby busted out laughing too.

So, 45 minutes and a couple of shots of whiskey later, we snuck out of the bathrooms and into an eerily silent Brannigan's. There wasn't any kind of alarm or cameras, so we didn't have to worry about getting caught.

We did another walk through, but we still didn't find anything. No EMF, no ectoplasm, no temperature spikes, and no creepy voices offering us our heart's one true desire.

"Please tell me you're going to let that go," Gabby pleaded after that flitted through my inner monologue a few times. I just smirked at her.

"Maybe we should split up. It only approached me when I was by myself," Gabby suggested after the combination of whiskey and mind-numbing boredom started to make my eyes droop.

I nodded, and she took off in the opposite direction. I padded around the dark halls as quickly and quietly as I could, but nothing seemed out of place. The building did take on a very creepy feeling when you're by yourself though. I felt like someone was watching me, waiting for something.

"Abigail…" Okay, that voice did not belong to Gabby. It wasn't raspy or frail like I expected. It just sounded like a whisper.

"Show yourself," I demanded.

"You're a tired, lonely girl, but you don't have to be…"

"I'm not interested," I responded, trying to figure out how to draw this thing out into the open.

"I can give you what you want…anything…everything…" This was getting a little too rape-y for my tastes. I started to walk back down the hallway to the stairwell.

"I'm not going to talk to you if you won't tell me who you are. I'm leaving."

"Wait," a voice commanded from the end of the hallway. I turned around to face whatever it was, calling out to Gabby telepathically. Hopefully I wasn't out of range. What I saw wasn't what I was expecting. It just looked like a woman. She was a real, tangible woman standing in front of me.

"What do you want?" I asked her.

"I could ask you the same question," she responded. I rolled my eyes dramatically. Was it the best move when confronted with the supernatural? No, but this was a little too much for me.

"So you're not a fan of theatrics? I get that, but it doesn't change my offer."

"What offer is that? "

"I can make you forget all of this. It'll be like it never happened. You can be with a new, different family and go to college. I'll even make sure you meet a boy and fall in love and have kids, I don't care. It'll be the perfect life. All you have to do is sign on the dotted line."

"What am I signing for?"

"Your soul," she replied, her eyes flicking to a shiny black. Great, it's a fucking demon.

"You have got to be kidding me." I nearly laughed.

"It's a small price to pay for what I'm offering."

"An eternity of torment for what? Ten years of happiness I could have gone and gotten myself anyway. That's not a very good deal, sorry."

"It's the only chance you have at it. If you follow this path you'll only find death and blood and destruction." Her voice dropped quite a bit near the end. The room got a little colder.

Before I could get properly scared Gabby came busting up the stairs with her gun already cocked and ready to go. As soon as she spotted the demon, she raised her gun to shoot. I followed suit, and we both loaded her full of rock salt. It knocked her off balance, sending her back into a door. Her chest smoked a little, but she seemed unperturbed.

"That stung a little."

"We meant for it to do more than sting," Gabby spat.

"I'll take that as a no, then?"

"What do you think?" Gabby said scathingly as she deftly reloaded her gun.

"You're going to regret that."

Neither of us could think of a witty reply before our guns were unceremoniously yanked from our hands and our backs were against the wall. I can take a hit, but the breath got knocked right out of me. Gabby and I ended up gasping on the floor, and the demon was on us in seconds.

She aimed a sharp kick at my gut, sending me a few feet to the left. She kicked me again in my solar plexus for good measure and again in my face. It hurt so bad I thought I was going to throw up. I swear if she kicked me any harder my neck would have snapped. She turned to Gabby and put a foot on her throat. Gabby flailed, clawing at her leg and trying to get away. I struggled and launched myself towards my gun. Before I could get a shot in, some stranger beat me to the punch.

A tall girl with unusually long, brown hair dumped the biggest bucket of holy water I've ever seen on the demon. It was so big that she ended up soaking the demon and Gabby completely, but the demon was the only one smoking and crying out in pain. The stranger started reciting an exorcism rite from memory, and I unloaded the rounds left in my gun when the demon tried to make an advance on her.

A cloud of black smoke came pouring out of the young woman's mouth, followed by the same eerie feeling that came along with Meg's exorcism. I was expecting more of a fight considering how damn persistent those things are rumored to be. We all stared at the poor girl's body as it twitched for the last few times and died.

"Who the fuck are you?" Gabby croaked.

"The person who just saved your life," the stranger replied, offering her a hand. She had a strange accent that I couldn't quite place. Gabby took her help reluctantly. The world spun a little as I heaved myself to my feet.

"Are you okay? It hit you pretty hard. You're bleeding, do you think you have a concussion?" Gabby interrogated me as she fretted over my wounds. Her voice was all hoarse and gravely.

"I'm fine," I grumbled. I went a little red from all the unnecessary attention in front of a complete stranger.

"You guys should probably clear out. I'm going to clean this up and deal with all the legal stuff."

"I still don't know who you are," Gabby said expectantly.

"My name is Natalia Hughes, if that's what you mean. I'm a hunter, but I imagine you already guessed that part."

"Well…thanks," Gabby said lamely as she rubbed her throat gingerly. There was a large purple bruise blooming on her skin.

"No problem. It's technically my job," Natalia waved it off. "Now get out of here before the cops show up."

Gabby and I both shrugged at each other before we hurried back out of the bar. We got back to hotel room in less than fifteen minutes, and we barely talked the entire time. My head was throbbing so badly that my eyes were starting to water. Why the hell was I the one who ended up with the brunt of the injuries anyway?

"Because you're clumsy and an easy target." Gabby offered. I didn't even grace that with a response, I just glared at her.

I took some Tylenol when we finally shut and locked the door of the hotel room behind us. Gabby was in the bathroom surveying her neck in the mirror. It was pretty obvious that someone had tried to strangle her. I can't say that I looked that much better. Most of the right side of my face was occupied with a large welt. There was a little gash in the middle where her foot made contact, but I didn't need stitches. I wouldn't be surprised if my cheek bone was fractured though. I hoped to God it wasn't

We were too hyped up on adrenaline to sleep, but too tired to really do much. We took turns taking showers then turned on the television for a little mindless entertainment. There wasn't much on except for infomercials and raunchy cartoons.

"Hey, Gabby, are you awake?" I whispered in the direction of her bed. She rolled over to face me.

"Yeah, why?"

"What did she say to you?" I asked after a pause.

"What did who say?"

"The demon-girl. She offered me a normal life, a new family. What did she say to you?"

"Don't worry about it. Just go to sleep, Abby." She dismissed me and rolled over onto her other side again. I tried to take her suggestion, but I couldn't.

Gabby and I were both half-asleep when we heard a knock on the door.

It was half past five in the morning, so it couldn't be house-keeping. Gabby grabbed her gun while I looked cautiously out of the peep-hole. It was Natalia. Gabby quickly tucked her gun into the back of her pants before I opened the door.

"It's almost six in the morning," I stated. I probably should have said something like 'what do you want?' or 'why are you here?' or even 'can I help you?' Hindsight is 20/20 I guess.

"Yeah, I just wanted to give you my information before you guys disappeared on me. You look like you could use a little back up now and again." She smiled as she handed me a slip of paper with her number and P.O. Box on it.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Gabby frowned.

I looked up Natalia's face and tried to search her mind. She seemed to have pretty pure intentions, all things considered. She wanted to make more contacts, there weren't a lot of female hunters to befriend, and she thought Gabby was attractive. She wasn't a bad person at all, just seasoned and a little lonely.

Gabby eyed Natalia warily as I wrote down our phone numbers to give to her. I considered giving her Bobby's number too, but that I don't think he would appreciate me giving it out so nonchalantly.

"I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm too tired to be good company," Natalia admitted.

"Same here," I replied. "I guess we'll see you around."

"Yeah, try not to get into any more trouble," she smirked before leaving just as quickly as she had come.

"I don't know about her," Gabby said once Natalia was already on her way down the street.

"I trust her," I thought back. We were both too tired to fight about it anymore, so we just climbed back into bed to get some sleep.

I don't remember having dreams or anything. It was kind of a nice reprieve from the treatment I usually get from my subconscious. It felt like Gabby woke me up ten seconds after I had fallen asleep.

"What time is it?" I thought irritably. My head was throbbing uncomfortably. It was like a really acute hangover. My stomach was tight and sore from where she had kicked me.

"Time for you to wake up," she responded, throwing some of my jeans at me. I moaned and groaned the entire time I got ready, and my mood didn't really improve once we got in the car.

"Where are we going?"

"We're going back to Bobby's. We can't really go anywhere else with your face like that," Gabby explained. We were about thirty minutes down the road from Iowa. I was starting to regret not eating anything before we left. I didn't really bother to do anything besides pull on some clothes.

"What's wrong with my face? Your neck is worse." I started to get snippy. Gabby snorted.

"Check again," she suggested. I pulled the visor down and grimaced at my reflection. The side of my face was just one big bruise. It seemed awfully melodramatic for the tiny cut on my cheekbone.

"If you were to ask me, I'd say it was an improvement. At least it doesn't look like Satan tried to give me a hickey," I tried to lighten the mood. Gabby just frowned at me. This was going to be a long ride.

We didn't talk much, just listened to the radio and eventually ate in relative silence. It wasn't like it was uncomfortable. We were both just running off of four hours sleep. Also, I don't care what anybody says, when you live with someone twenty four-seven you run out of stuff to talk about sometimes.

Of course, Bobby rolled his eyes when he opened the door for us later on that night. He beckoned for us to come in anyway.

"I guess this is some kind of boarding house now," he grumbled as we trudged after him into the kitchen. Sam and Dean were already sitting at the table eating some kind of Chinese take-out. It was amazing that either of them could keep their figures when all they ate was greasy, processed crap.

"We don't have to stay here if you don't want," Gabby offered. "I just figured it would be hard to work around all the questions about Abby's face for a while."

"Yeah, because you could've just thrown a turtleneck on and been completely inconspicuous," I snorted, and she just sighed disapprovingly. We sat opposite of Sam and Dean who just kind of nodded in an acknowledging kind of way over their take-out boxes.

"If either of you want ice or anything you know where to find it," Bobby told us, and that was that. We were all really quiet for a few minutes before I started to get antsy. I needed something to do with my hands, anything other than staring at a knot in the wood table until something happened.

"You two want to explain how you got owned by a vengeful spirit like a bunch of freshmen, or do you just want me to assume?" Bobby finally asked. Gabby rolled her eyes from behind the newspaper but said nothing.

"Oh, it wasn't a ghost, it was a demon," I pitched in when I realized I had to answer now.

"Those deaths seemed awfully subtle for a demon." Bobby said skeptically.

"Well, I don't think it was killing for fun, just…collecting."

"I don't like this at all. Those suckers are poppin' up everywhere. It feels like every hunter I know has run across at least one in the past two months. It's always the same: terrorizing some locals, strange deaths, cows dropping dead, and such. You two are lucky to be alive, if you ask me. Will, a hunter I used to know, he got wasted not three weeks ago by a demon."

"Well, we were probably about to bite the dust before someone else showed up," I admitted.

"Yeah, her name was Natalia. You ever heard of a Natalia, Bobby?" Gabby cut in.

"No, 'fraid not. I reckon there's a lot of hunters I haven't heard about though," Bobby replied. Gabby frowned down at her newspaper but said nothing.

"You should ask Ellen," Dean suggested after swallowing a hefty mouthful of Lo Mein.

"Pardon?" Gabby looked up at him.

"We met this lady, Ellen, and she has a lot of hunter connections. Imagine like a female Bobby but with a bar instead of a library and a nasty attitude," he elaborated. Sam huffed out a laugh at the description.

"Okay, thanks." Gabby said.

"So, what happened to you two anyway?" Dean asked, making a rather vague motion around his face.

"Well, she kicked the shit of Abby first and then tried to choke me out with her foot."

Dean whistled and surveyed us again. "I guess that's why you sound like a chain smoker." He laughed. Gabby didn't think it was all that funny. He was lucky he was so pretty or I think she would have at least said something by now.

"I don't think he's pretty," she projected rudely into my train of thought.

"Sure, he's literally exactly your type." I gave her a look.

"He is not. My type isn't affronting douche-bag."

"No, your type is a beautiful bad boy with a past," I pointed out silently. There was nothing she could say in her defense, and she had the sense not to bother.

"You don't have a concussion or anything do you?" Sam asked, frowning at the black and blue. I'm guessing my prolonged blank expression was also cause for concern. I shook my head. I know what a concussion feels like, and this wasn't it.

"What about you, Gabby?" Dean asked.

"No, I don't have a concussion," she replied slowly, narrowing her eyes.

"I meant your throat, wise-ass."

"I'm fine, thanks," she replied with a tight smile. Dean just shook his head and got up to get a beer probably. This is going to be a long weekend.