Author's Note: I am actual trash. I am so sorry it took three weeks for me to upload this, and I don't know how long it will take until the next chapter. :/ Thanks for being so patient!

By the time we get to the town in the southern US, the death toll's risen to seven. All the same: chest torn open, heart missing.

Death number eight is called into the police line just as we're getting settled into our motel room.

Dean and Sam try to get me to stay back at the motel room and rest, but despite how tired I am, I refuse. I'm not going to let them go and investigate without me.

The body is of a nineteen-year-old boy, found by his roommate in their apartment, and its a gory sight. Chest ripped open, ribs cracked apart, heart gone. One of the police officers gags and rushes to the bathroom when he sees it and I hear the sounds of him emptying his stomach soon after. Sam, Dean, and I have seen worse. Hell, we've done worse. I mean, decapitating a vampire doesn't leave very pretty results.

Sam and Dean are kneeling next to the body, wearing latex gloves to examine it for any evidence of the supernatural, as I stand staring glumly out the window. There's a few passerby, but all of them have at least one or two other people with them. I guess the thought of a serial killer on the loose is keeping people cautious.

A wave of fatigue washes over me. I wish I could've just slept one last night peacefully, uninterrupted by nightmares. Couldn't I just have been given that?

I turn around and walk over to Sam and Dean. "Agent Stark, Agent Banner," I say, interrupting them from their work. They glance up. "I'm gonna head out."

"How come?" Sam says.

"I need some coffee or I'm not gonna be able to make it another five minutes."

Sam straightens up. "Want me to come with you?"

"No, I'll be good. I'm just going across the street," I say, nodding in the direction of the coffee shop below.

"All right. If you're sure."

I roll my eyes. "Yes, Sam. I'm sure. Just text me, 'kay? Let me know where to meet you."

Sam looks like he wants to argue, but Dean interjects, "Sounds good."

I nod. "See you in a few."

I step into the hall and trot down the stairs and out into the street. I pause just before I'm about to cross the street because something catches my eye: there's a woman, by herself. Weird, considering how everyone is walking in pairs. I watch her walk down the street casually, not as worried-looking as the other people around her.

When she reaches a space between two buildings, she glances around furtively before ducking into the alley, and in the half-second that she's facing me, I take a sharp intake of breath. I know without a doubt she's a demon, her true form revealed underneath her vessel, and she's terrifying.

I should call Sam and Dean and wait for them, but I'll lose her if I don't act quickly enough. So I send them a quick text - There's a demon. I'm going after her. Use GPS on my phone to find me.

I cross the street. Go down the alley. It's a dead end, just garbage bins back here, with no one in sight. I walk tentatively down towards the end, taking my knife from my inside pocket and unsheathing it. I hold it tightly, warily…

Suddenly there's a hand covering my nose and mouth and a knife held to my throat, and I let out a muffled shout. I hadn't even heard anyone approach, even with the keen senses of a hunter.

"Glad you could make it," a voice purrs in my ear, unmistakably British, as I struggle for air. I claw at the hand preventing me from breathing and try stomping on the foot of the person behind me, but nothing I do seems to even bother her.

My lungs are burning, running out of oxygen too quickly. My struggling slows as the edges of my vision start to darken and then everything goes black.

When I wake up, I'm sitting in a chair, ankles tied to its legs and arms tied behind its back.

"Fuck," I say out loud, looking around. I'm somewhere dark and dank and probably underground. A basement, maybe. It's mostly empty, except for a few crates in the corner. My phone, cracked and broken, is sitting on one of them. I have no clue how Sam and Dean are going to find me now.

And, of course, the woman standing in front of me with a dark smile on her face. She looks normal, mostly. Trench coat over a skirt suit. Black high heels. Brown hair tied up in a high ponytail. The big difference is the face under that of her meatsuit's, flickering in and out of visibility. A demon's face, I know without a doubt. Yeah, I fucked up big time.

"Good morning, sunshine," she says. I glare at her in response. "Hey, no need to be so grumpy."

"What time is it?" is the first question out of my mouth. I can't stop it. I only have hours left, and who knows how long I spent unconscious.

"Around noon, I think," she says. She smiles sadistically, and I know she knows about my deal. Twelve hours. It could be worse. I was only out for maybe half an hour.

"Why am I here?" I growl as threateningly as I can. It's tough to do when I'm hours away from death and tied up in somebody's basement. Doesn't stop me from trying, though.

The woman tsks. "You work with the Winchesters. I saw you and them, pulling into town in that unmistakable ugly car of theirs."

"And? You didn't answer my question," I say forcefully.

She rolls her eyes. "Information. I assume you're more to them than just a whore?"

I scowl. "Shut the fuck up. You don't know anything."

She grins and continues, "I do know they're looking into my actions here. Which isn't going to work."

"Why? What are you doing?" I ask.

She laughs. "As if I'd tell you." There's a moment of silence as she watches me contemplatively. "But I need to ask you about some things."

"As if I'd tell you," I say hostilely, repeating her words.

"Cheeky, aren't you? I don't think you have a choice," she says, voice eerily calm. She picks up a blade—my blade, I notice with a flash of anger—from the top of a pile of boxes, and saunters towards me.

"Would you like to talk now, while you have the chance?"

"Never," I spit.

"You have nothing to gain, you know. I know about your deal. What's the point of squandering your last few hours in pain just to protect two boys who barely care about you?"

"You. Don't. Know. Anything." I spit the words from behind clenched teeth.

"I'm sure."

"They're going to find me and kill you. No." I pause, a new idea coming to my mind. "They're going to let me go, and then I'm going to kill you."

The woman is standing close now, too close. She flips the knife in her hand so the blade is out and makes a quick slash down my face. I scream as my cheek is torn open, warm blood already running down. I've had worse, but it still stings like hell.

"How much do you and your boys know about my plans?" she asks, coldly as I try to calm my erratic breathing.

I swallow. "Everything. We know everything."

"Oh, really. I suppose you know what the entire endeavor is here with collecting hearts, then."

"Of course," I say calmly.

She watches me with a slight smile, crossing her arms. "I'm waiting," she says after a moment.

"The spell," I say, hoping I'm somewhere in the right area.

Her smile widens. "You have no idea. Good. Next order of business. The Winchesters. Tell me, did they get back the Colt? Do they have any other weapons like it?"

I grit my teeth and stay silent.

"Come on," she says, dragging the knife slowly but forcefully across my collarbone. I clench my teeth, trying not to scream. "You can tell me."

I say nothing.

"This doesn't have to be as difficult as you're making it," the demon says with a sigh.

But of course it does. She spends ten minutes, fifteen, twenty asking questions that get only snide comments in response. I'm pretty sure she's at the point where she's planning to kill me, the cool anger permeating off her in waves, when there's a bang upstairs and the woman swears. Evidently something's gone wrong. I can only hope it's who I think it is.

"Sam! Dean! D—" The demon backhands me before I can finish, shutting me up and eliciting a gasp of pain, but they've already heard. There's the quick clunking of feet on the stairs as someone runs down. Sam and Dean rush into the room, guns held up. Their aims immediately fly to the woman's head, but in the same second, there's the cold metal of my knife pressed to my throat.

"Hello, boys," she says from behind me. "Haven't seen you in a while." At the confused looks on their faces, she lets out a sound of exasperation. "You don't remember? All the fun times we had as the two of us"—she nods at Dean—"lived out the last year of our deals?"

There's a moment of silence. "Bela?" Dean says incredulously.

"You know her?" I exclaim, but gasp as the knife is held closer. It nicks my skin and I feel a drop of blood swell up.

"I wasn't expecting you to drop in quite so quickly," the woman—Bela—says.

"Yeah, well," Dean says, swapping his gun for the demon knife. I feel Bela tense up behind me as she notices it. "You know us. Can't stay away from trouble."

"Put down the knife and we might be able to work something out that doesn't result in the death of your friend," she says.

I shake my head subtly. Don't put it down, Dean. Kill her, even if I die too.

He flips it over in his hand but doesn't set it down, though he and Sam are both wary.

"I'll give you five seconds," Bela says coldly.

"You wouldn't," Dean says.

"Four."

"Think about this first, Bela."

"Three."

I swallow nervously. Dean clenches his jaw.

"Two."

Kill her, I mouth at Dean.

Bela never reaches one. Dean sends the knife spinning through the air towards her head but in the same instant, the knife at my throat presses down and slices and there's a flash of pain and suddenly I'm drowning in my own blood and completely unable to take a breath that I need so badly and the presence behind me is gone—she got away—and everything is going so slow and so fast and I'm going to hell I'm going to hell I'm going to hell and Sam is yelling something and Dean is already rushing towards me but the world is already fading away and