A/N: Hello! I'm one day late on this chapter, and I feel really guilty about that, so , sorry. And without further ado, here is chapter number 4! :)
The hotel the boys gave me is a small, cheap, run down motel, but the people don't ask questions. It's perfect for hunters like me and the Winchesters.
I expertly pull my navy blue Toyota in next to the Impala, turn off the ignition, and sit back in my seat, overwhelmed by just how much my life has changed in the last month alone. Just three weeks ago, I was a straight-A junior in high school with a full ride scholarship to any in-state college that I chose to go to. No I'm a homeless orphan destined to hunt evil until the day I die. But the life isn't that bad, I suppose. No rules to follow besides your own, no essays to write, and my favorite part, nobody looking over your shoulder watching your every move.
I sigh; sitting in the truck moping isn't going to solve anything, so I decide to just get out in the world and live in it.
I grab my .40 caliber Glock out of the center console of the truck and climb out. I jump down and immediately pull my flannel tighter around my torso. There's an unnatural chill to the air, even for the middle of December at 7:30 at night.
I quickly lock my truck and briskly walk to the door to the Winchesters' room. I knock loudly on the door and wait for it to open.
Less than a minute passes before I hear the deadbolt unlock and Dean opens the door.
"Come on in," he says, and opens the door a little wider to let me in. Once I am safely in the room, he closes it behind me, but doesn't lock it, which I'm thankful for; it gives me an out just in case these two end up not being as friendly as I thought. It takes a lot to earn my trust.
The room has two beds, a nightstand, a table off to the side and a few armchairs. Sam is sitting in one of the chairs in front of the table, eagerly typing and scrolling through the Internet on his laptop. I plop down in the chair across the table from Sam, trying to make myself as comfortable as possible in the company of two people I only met a few hours ago. Dean takes a seat on the bed closer to the door and starts cleaning his guns.
"So what do you got?" I ask Sam.
"Not much so far, only that the early settlers here called it a caro comedenti after it attacked several residents. I would know more if I could get into this website," Sam responds, his eyes never leaving the computer screen.
"Wait a second," I say, my brain sifting through all of its useless information that I can't forget. "Caro comedenti is just flesh eater in Latin."
The boys look impressed, their faces practically begging for an explanation.
I shrug, "I took Latin in high school and taught myself the rest when I started researching for the Arizona hunter community."
"Huh," Sam says. They still look impressed, almost more so than when I translated the name of the monster in seconds. Sam resumes speaking, "Well, if I could access the whole website, we could learn more about it."
"Why don't you let me try, I'm pretty good with computers," I say. It's true, I've done more than my fair share of hacking looking for lore.
Sam just chuckles, "You think you can get into this when I can't?"
I respond in kind, "I don't think, I know." I smile and sit back in my chair, crossing my arms.
"Okay," Sam says, and slides his laptop across the table to me. I take it and quickly skim through the website, looking for what I need to get into. It should be easy enough for a hunter of Sam's reputation to hack, that is, if he can live up to his reputation. I glance up over the screen at Sam and see him smiling proudly, sitting back in his chair.
I realize that he's testing me. They probably called some of the local hunters to do some research on me, to do a little hunter background check. I do them all the time whenever a new hunter asks me for some help. They want to see if I can live up to my reputation, which I surprisingly have, at least within this state.
Rather than calling them out on their little game, I go against every fiber of my being and decide to hack the website and play along. I need to gain their trust if I want them to help me hunt the comedenti. Also it's really fun to hack things. I get pass the security in less than five minutes, a new record for me, and slide the laptop back to Sam.
"Good enough for you?" I ask, tilting my head innocently. I can see Dean silently chuckle out of the corner of my eye, which only serves to broaden my victorious smile.
"Well done," Sam says, "Okay, so it says here that the comedenti lives in dry, mountainous caves, almost exclusively found in the Southwest of the United States and some parts of Mexico. It is nocturnal, and hunts large animals like cattle, horses, mules, and people if it can find them."
"Great," Dean says, still cleaning the guns. "How do we kill it?" I guess Dean just wants to get right down to killing things.
"Give me a second,' Sam says, scrolling down the screen, "It says that bright light is painful to it, and that steel is the only thing that the settlers could injure and kill it with."
"That explains why the machete hurt it, but nothing else did," I say.
"Awesome," Dean interrupts. He holds up the pistol he just finished putting back together, "Well, I guess these are useless."
But I'm more concerned about how it can hurt us, not how we can hurt it. Call me crazy, but I want to walk away in one piece. "Is there anything else that can hurt us besides the thing's claws and teeth?" I ask Sam.
"Hold on," Sam says, eagerly leaning forwards into the computer screen, "Here we go, its claws are extremely sharp and serrated, as are its teeth, but its bite is venomous."
"What kind of venom?" I ask. If it's dangerous, as most monstrous venoms are, we should be prepared.
"All the site says is that the venom is extremely deadly, and anyone who survived the bite gained strange abilities that they refused to divulge."
"Great," I say, exasperated, "So, basically we just have to avoid being bitten."
"Awesome," Dean says for the second time in less than ten minutes.
"Well," I continue after Dean's interruption, "Since guns are useless and I really don't want to get within range of this thing's teeth, I have some steel broadheads for my bow in my truck, I just need to sharpen them. If it's alright with you guys, can I just sharpen them in here?" I ask. I really don't want to go to my room until I absolutely have to.
"Sure," Sam says, "We'll leave the door unlocked so you can get back in."
"Thanks," I say. I rise from my chair and walk out to my truck. I do need to sharpen my broadheads, but I also need to think.
Once the hotel door closes behind me, I walk to the bed of my truck and lean against the left taillight. The fact that Dean only said four sentences throughout the duration of my stay, five or six if you count his facial expressions, definitely set me on edge. Dean seems reserved, and extremely antisocial, but I'm reserved and antisocial, and even I talked more than Dean did.
I've been standing out here for too long, and I don't want the brothers to get more suspicious than they already are. Honestly, it doesn't take long to grab broadhead tips from a truck. I open the bed of my truck and grab my box of broadheads, gloves so I don't cut myself, and the blade sharpener. After gathering the small box, the sharpener, and my gloves, I close and lock my truck and walk back the the boys' hotel room
Once inside the room, I notice that Dean has packed the guns away in a duffel bag and is now sharpening an old, worn, cracked, chipped machete that is long overdue for replacement. Sam is still relentlessly typing and scrolling on his laptop.
I opt to sit on the floor instead of in a chair or on the bed; ever since I was a small, stupid kid, I always felt safer and more comfortable on the floor, so I sit on the floor in the corner of the room. Dean looks up from his machete and looks at me kind of strangely, but otherwise doesn't comment on my strange ways.
I put on my gloves, open the broadhead box, and get to work. I take my time with the tips, not wanting to damage them, but I also find this somewhat monotonous task rather calming, and meditative. It allows me to enter what my karate sensei called no-mind, a state where you don't think about anything, and just let your body work. It's a calming state, and I try to enter it whenever I can.
I finish the process of sharpening in about forty-five minutes, an average amount of time for me to sharpen all of the tips, and luckily don't cut myself at all, which is a first for me, even if I have gloves. I put the last tip back in the box and close it, placing the sharpening tool and my gloves on top of it. I look towards the Winchesters. Sam has abandoned his laptop for sharpening his own worn machete that is also long overdue for replacement, and Dean is polishing his own, but no amount of oil is going to help that poor thing.
I don't trust these two. Not that I think that they're evil or anything, but I just have a hard time trusting people, something I probably got from my dad.
I sit back in the armchair I had occupied earlier, "So what should we do about killing this thing?" I ask.
My voice seems to startle them after my long silence, and they take a moment to collect themselves before responding.
"Well, we know it lives in dry, mountainous caves, but I don't know where any caves are around here," Sam says. Wow, it seems like Sam has done pretty much all of the talking tonight, but I don't comment, since I don't need an argument on my hands.
"There are some caves in the mountains near my house that my friends and I used to explore for fun several years back. I also used to go up there sometimes alone just to clear my head. I can lead us to them, but they're kind of hard to find." The caves are actually really obvious if you know anything about the desert at all, but I don't need to give them an excuse to leave me behind. "We also know the thing is nocturnal, so we should go during the day."
"No," Dean says, " If we go closer to dusk, it'll be waking up and out in the open where it'll be vulnerable."
"But then we're playing on its terms, not ours, and I'm personally not fond of being toyed with. If we find its cave during the day, we can kill it with more ease, and we're less likely to become comedenti food." Are these two that stupid?
"But if it screams or makes any kind of loud noise, any nearby people might call the cops," Sam defends.
I don't have a good response to that one, so I relent, "Fine," I say, angry and defeated, "But don't think for one second that I like this."
"You wouldn't be hunter if you did," Dean says. He smiles apologetically at me, and I regretfully return the smile. Okay, maybe these two do have some common sense, and I can kind of see the logic in their words, but I still don't like the thought of playing on the comedenti's home turf, let alone by its rules as well.
"We should meet up at my old house tomorrow around 5:30 in the afternoon. That will give us enough time to reach the caves by sunset, but we'll still have enough light to see by," I say, hoping that they'll agree with me.
"Sounds good to me," Dean says, looking at Sam expectantly, no doubt waiting for him to agree as well.
"Alright, then. Tomorrow at 5:30 at your old house," Sam says. Both of them make eye contact with me and I nod affirmatively.
"Well, I'm pretty tired, guys. I'm going to go get some shut-eye," I say while yawning. Dean just chuckles and they both bid me goodnight as I leave the room.
I'm extremely happy that I had the common sense to book a room before I went to talk to the Winchesters. I grab my backpack full of clothes and other items that I need for the night from my truck, including my handgun, and head to the other side of the building where my room is located, open the door, and take in my room. It's a simple, one bedroom hotel room, yet quite cozy. I lock the door behind mean and quickly get changed into some more comfortable clothes to sleep in. I brush my teeth and set my hair free from its ponytail, finally relaxing. I turn to my bed and gratefully fall into it, not bothering with the covers before I fall into a deep sleep.
A/N: Hope you all liked it! Please review! *uses Sam's puppy eyes* And as always, Happy Reading! :)