First things first, I wanna say THANK YOU! to everyone who reviewed on the last chapter! It really puts a smile on my face to know that people are actually reading and enjoying what I'm writing!
If I haven't told all you readers and followers before, I LOVE YOU!
By the way, this chapter is unedited. Not just grammatically and spelling, normally I'll write a chapter and mull over it for a few days before I post it. I literally wrote this 45 minutes ago, ran spell check and posted it. So, be kind to me!
Enjoy the chapter!
~Christianne
Nikki POV
Just as I finished my second beer, I heard and felt someone sit on the stool next to me.
Expecting to see Sam, I turned eagerly. I froze when I saw some guy sitting next to me. "Hi." He said simply, a crooked grin on his face.
"Hello." I said weakly, gluing my eyes to my beer.
"I'm Owen." He said, the grin still in place. He had this sort of twang in his voice, Southern-ish, like from Texas or somewhere over there.
"Hello Owen." I mumbled sarcastically, scraping my nails against the label of my beer again, praying for Sam and Dean to come back out, or for Jo to come out from the kitchen.
"Aren't you going to tell me your name?" He asked teasingly, taking a lazy swig of his own beer. Owen wasn't exactly bad looking, just not the level of puppy-dog manly hotness my standards had been raised to. He had dark brown hair that looked half grown out from a buzz-cut under a red baseball cap, and a few days' worth of stubble over his jaw.
I shook my head, trying to will him away.
"Well, I ain't gonna stop botherin' you 'til I know your name." He said, unaware how threateningly I took his words.
"Nikki." I said simply.
"Haven't seen you here before…" Owen said, his eyes shamelessly looking me up and down the same way Dean had a few times. When Dean gave me elevator eyes it was annoying, almost cute; like a middle school kid making eyes at a pretty waitress. When this hick eyed me up, it made me squirm uncomfortably.
"You new to the gig?" He asked, leaning on the bar the same way guys in the few bars I went to in collage did. It was basically saying 'Pretty girl! Pretty girl! Look at my arm muscles!'
"Sorta-kinda." I sighed, not looking at him.
"Not alone, I hope," Owen said, still oblivious and coy. "Lil' thing like you, you'll get torn apart out there alone."
"I'm not alone." I snapped, glaring at him. "And I can take care of myself." I added at more of a mumble. I kept thinking about what Jo said a few minutes ago. I was a pretty powerful witch; finished with my training or not, I was. Why shouldn't I hold my head up high in a bar full of hunters?
"Well, whoever they are, they better keep an eye on you-Shit!" Owen cut himself off when his beer bottle shattered in his hands. He chuckled, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Must'a had a tighter grip on that then I thought."
I ignored it, knowing that I'd shattered that bottle. I'd been glaring at it, so I wouldn't glare at Owen; he'd know something was up if I glared that hard at him. That glare was as close to a 'if looks could kill' stare as I could. It was nowhere as good as Dean's, but not bad. I moved my hands under the bar, tightening them into fists on my knees.
"Just got off a job myself." I nodded dumbly, still looking at me beer bottle and not paying attention to Owen. "Yeah, a coven of witches upstate."
"Whole damn coven of'em. I mean, there was at least a dozen of the bitches, and I took them out by myself." Owen continued, thinking he was bragging. I had to close my eyes, and I took a slow breath in and held it. "It was easy really."
As I let the breath out fast, needing oxygen, and every bottle at the bar shattered simultaneously. My eyes snapped open and I tried to keep my gaze on the wood grain of the bar in front of me.
The entire bar fell silent. All the hunters froze.
I slowly peeked up through my bangs, keeping my shaking fists under the table as I tried to meet eyes with Jo. She had a hard expression on her face, but her eyes were questioning as she looked at me.
'Help.' I mouthed, trying to calm myself down, which was surprisingly hard to do when all my instinct told me to just render all the hunters unconscious and bolt.
"What the hell…" I heard Owen say, looking around the bar, meeting eyes with all the other hunters.
"Last call!" I heard a woman say. I snapped my head over to where the voice came from, and saw a middle-aged woman with light brown hair wearing a plaid shirt and a 'Don't mess with me' look on her face.
"Ellen, something's-" a man started.
"I said, last call." She said, taking his un-shattered beer bottle from him and tossing it in the trash.
Slowly, the hunters filed out, looking around suspiciously and mumbling to each other. When the last flannel shirt was out the door, I let out a breath and brought my shaking hands out from under the bar. I rested my elbows on the table and pressed my palms to my temples, my fingers curling in my hair tightly as I closed my eyes in concentration. This, shouldn't be happening. Jane's soul binding was supposed to stop this kind of accidental magic from happening.
"You, must be Nikki." The woman said, walking towards me behind the bar and leaning on it from her side towards me.
"Y-Yeah." I breathed, taking a shaky breath, peeking up at her. "You-Your Ellen, right?" I asked, receiving a nod. "Just-Just gimmie a second." I forced out.
"Sure thing." Ellen said, leaving me to take deep breaths and try to calm myself.
I heard Sam and Dean come back into the bar.
"What happened in here?" Sam asked.
"Hey, what's wrong with Glinda?" Dean asked.
"Nikki." It was Sam this time. I heard him walk closer and I looked up at his concerned and worried face.
"I'm fine." I said, my hands still a little shaky as I removed them from my hair.
"Thought you were catatonic for a second there." I heard Jo say, sounding like she was masking worry.
"I'm fine." I said again, pushing my hair back, and frowning a little. It was sweaty, and when my hair got sweaty, it got bigger. "I'm fine." I said one last time, getting up and sitting at a table, getting out of the way for Jo and Ellen to clean up the glass.
"I gotta match." I heard someone say. I looked up and saw a guy in a flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off and a mullet sit down next to Sam, dropping a homemade looking computer onto the table top. He just noticed me, and seemed to eye me up. I gave an uncomfortable smile.
"This her?" Mullet-guy asked, turning to Sam; who rolled his eyes and nodded. Mullet-guy nodded, almost approvingly, and looked back at me. "Ash." He said, introducing himself.
I nodded a little. "Nikki." I said in the same manner.
"Oh, I know." Ash said, typing on his computer. "Sam wouldn't shut up 'bout you." He muttered. I kept my gaze on my hands as I blushed, peeking at Sam as he cleared his throat uncomfortably and looked intently at the label on his beer.
"Like I said, I gotta match." Ash said, typing on his computer with one hand, tossing a napkin at Sam with the other. It had a pen-drawing of what I assumed was a logo; a road and 'BLUE RIDGE' under it. "It's the logo for the Blue Ridge bus lines. Guthrie, Oklahoma."
"Ok." Sam said, nodding once. "Do me a favor; check Guthrie for any demonic signs or omens or anything like that."
"You think the demon's there?" Ash asked, typing away.
"Yeah. Maybe." Sam said flatly.
"Why would'ya think that?" Ash asked, not looking at Sam or me as he kept typing.
"Just check it, all right?" Dean practically snapped.
"Nope. No sir, nothing, no demon." Ash concluded a few minutes later.
Sam frowned a little, itching the skin around his cast. "All right. Try something else for me. Search Guthrie for a house fire. It would be in 1983, the fire's origin would be a baby's nursery, night of the kid's six-month birthday."
Ash gave Sam a blatantly confused look. "Ok, now, that if just weird, man." Ash said, his face screwing up, more confused. "Why the hell would I be looking for that?"
Sam picked up Ash's nearly empty beer bottle and slammed it closer to him. "'Cause there's a PRB in it for you."
"Gimmie 15 minutes." Ash said automatically.