His voice was accented, like hers. It was also eerie, especially since he spoke in a whisper, and even in the relative darkness of the room, Bela could see his eyes.
They were black, actually black, and the one on the side of his face that she couldn't see back at the diner had a thin scar running directly through it at a slight angle.
He was still wearing the same suit that he had on earlier, meaning that he must have been following them ever since they had left the diner. How come Dean didn't notice that they had a tail? How come she didn't notice that they had a tail?
"Who—are—you?" she managed to strangle out between his long, pale fingers.
"The employee of a client that you failed to please," he whispered back, thin white lips brushing dangerously close to the tip of her nose.
She stared into his eyes. There was only one person that would be able to hire a man like this—a professional like this. She never thought that he'd have the stones to send an actual hit man after her, though. She always fingered him to be a man that hid behind his words and money. He never scared her, not like this man that he had sent after her.
"Luke Howell," she growled out.
"Yes, and you left him out a very rare item," he growled back.
Bela furrowed her eyebrows together in determination. "What's he paying you? I'll double it."
"I'm afraid I'm too loyal for that, Ms. Talbot."
Bela scanned her brain for any back-up plans before darting her eyes to the door. This maneuver didn't go by her attacker unnoticed because his hand tightened around her mouth and he waved a finger in front of her eyes.
"Ms. Talbot, don't even think about screaming, because then I'll be forced to kill him, too." His voice crept out between his lips and crawled into her ears and it was all she could do not to shiver.
And then one thing occurred to her: he may have been a professional, but he was also surprisingly light. It was probably one of the reasons why she didn't hear him sneak in and why Dean hadn't stopped him, but that also meant that it gave Bela the chance to shove him off of her.
And run.
In a flash, Bela tumbled out of the bedroom and into the living area, the slim man calmly and closely pursuing her. She prayed that Dean had stolen the drum and made off like a bandit, because part of her—no, all of her—did not want him to die. Despite that it was he and Sam who foiled her plans of selling Luke the rabbit's foot in the first place, she did not want Dean getting caught up in this mess.
She burst through the cabin's front door and made a break for the nearby woods. As she ran, a sharp pinch on the sole of her left foot suddenly became slick with something wet and what she presumed to be her blood, but she did not stop. She did not stop when the leg of her silk trousers caught on a tree branch and tore cleanly down the hem. She did not stop when she heard something hiss and run in the opposite direction. She did not stop when she tripped over a rock embedded in the ground and tumbled over; no, she got up and kept running.
She did stop, however, when she failed to hear the sounds of someone following her.
And it was the single most foolish thing that Bela Talbot had ever done in her lifetime.
As fast as light, the slim man came up on her side and used his body to pin her to a nearby tree. The bark carved into the parts of her back that her tank top did not cover, but she didn't make a move to try and get comfortable because there was no point. This was it. She knew that now. She was going to die.
"Don't struggle, Ms. Talbot, and this will go by at least slightly better. I'll even promise not to kill your friend." A sinister smile crossed his face and he wrapped both of his freezing hands around Bela's neck, pinning her to the tree while also pushing his hands down at an angle into her neck.
Stars clouded her vision and then it started to grow increasingly dark. The moonlight, no matter how bright it was, was no help. Anything and everything was almost entirely black, and she figured that there really was no point in struggling. She was going to give up.
Goodbye, Dean. Save Sam, would you?
And then, out of nowhere:
Bang.
A burst of rain came down on her. No, not rain—blood.
The hit man's blood.
Bela blinked twice. She held a hand to her cheek and when she pulled it back, her fingers were tipped with crimson. She could still feel his hands around her neck and now—all this blood. She felt light-headed, but at least her vision was slowly coming back.
And then it occurred to her that she was shivering. Trembling. It also occurred to her that she had slid down the trunk of the tree and was now more or less sitting on her bottom, her legs bent to the side. She brought her arms up to her eyes. They were covered in red. No, they weren't, were they?
Was she just imagining it?
She didn't know. She frantically tried to get the blood off of her. She swiped her palms across her forearms and smeared the blood off of her cheeks and away from her eyes and mouth and nose. All she could smell was blood. All she could see was blood.
No, she could see something else. Someone else.
She couldn't hear what he said, but she saw his mouth form into something harsh, like a yell. Perhaps he was saying her name. She didn't know.
Dean ran up to her and braced his hands on either side of her head and used his thumbs to wipe some more blood away. She could tell he was repeating her name, even though she couldn't hear him. He asked a question, something she couldn't quite read, and instead stared blankly at his lips. They moved and moved and moved and she could not comprehend what he was saying for the life of her.
All she could think about was the blood.
And the man's hands around her neck.
And the blood.
Dean looked back at the hit man's body, said something that was probably a curse, and then turned his eyes back on to Bela. He leaned forward and then suddenly she was being lifted, her face pressed into Dean's neck and his hand curved around her hips, holding her close to his body. He was walking fast but not running. No, he couldn't bring any attention to himself.
Blood.
Being a thief didn't require much killing. She never had to see much blood. Never did she have to be covered in another man's blood, either.
Dean kept to the shadows and crept inside their cabin. The warmth engulfed her but she never stopped trembling, not even when Dean shut the door with his foot and carried her to the bathroom. Not even when he turned the shower on hot. Not even when he stripped her down to her bra and underwear, the pads of his intensely warm fingers gently pressing into the skin on her arms and stomach and hips.
He carried her into the shower. She couldn't move; didn't even try to move. She just stared blankly at her toes, watching the scarlet water disappear down the drain. She let him rinse her down, making sure to be gentle and not act too forcefully. He smoothed a hand down her hair, rubbed circles on her arms and calves, gently spun her around and cleansed her backside.
She had stopped trembling, much to his relief, but now she wouldn't stop looking at the water. He imagined that all she could see was the blood swishing down the drain, staining her skin.
He finished washing her and fetched a towel, wrapping it around her shoulders and helping her out of the bathroom. He walked her into the living area and sat her down on the couch before lifting up her left leg and placing it on the coffee table so that he could clean and wrap up her foot.
She didn't even flinch as he dabbed it with rubbing alcohol and wrapped it up in gauze. She didn't say a word when he briefly left, disappearing somewhere behind her before coming back with a thick white robe that he secured around her frame shortly after. She didn't protest when he sat down next to her and laid her on her side, resting her head against his thigh and smoothing a hand down the length of her arm, stopping to cup her elbow.
She did, however, murmur a quiet "thank you", right before she fell asleep.