Chapter 19: Broken Up
Yeah, you come to raise me up / When I'm beaten and broken up / And I'm back in the arms I love – Avicii
The rest of the trip to the meeting was uneventful.
They met up with Claire and Patience in Casper, Wyoming, and obtained the ancient wood – redwood.
The group got a lot of stares as both girls were scratched up and looked positively exhausted when the group converged at a diner to do the handoff. Plus, a group of six strangers in a small-town diner was unexpected.
Riley puzzled at the complex look Dean got when his eyes looked over the group settled at a table in the back of the diner. She tilted her head in silent question at him, but all she got in response was a shrug.
Maybe it was the size of the group. Riley knew that Dean and Sam had been alone for a long time. And even if they'd always had an extended group to turn to, the fact was that their day to day companions had grown recently. But who knew with Dean.
Riley tuned back into the conversation just in time to hear Sam ask, "What happened?" He sounded concerned, eyeing the two younger girls.
Claire had shrugged, as moody as ever. "NBD."
"What?" Jack murmured to himself.
"Not a big deal." Riley replied quietly.
"Ah."
No one commented on the fact it was a possibly big deal, instead Sam asked, "What kind of trouble did you run into?"
"No trouble." Claire muttered. "We're fine. Moving on. What's next?"
"Claire…" Sam frowned, "We need to know if we're going to hit resistance?"
"Ugh."
"Let's just tell them." Patience implored. At Claire's drawn out sigh and nod, Patience explained they hadn't run into any supernatural resistance. Just some park rangers who had not taken kindly to the girls defacing a tree.
"They caught us armed and carving up a tree." Claire added, "And it wasn't like we could fight them."
"Even if someone wanted to try that method." Patience mock whispered.
Claire just shrugged. "So we had to run through a forest at night."
"Okay, authorities. That's not a big deal." Dean said around a mouthful of fries.
"Exactly." Claire smirked.
Dean nodded, "Back on point, Cas was sure redwood will work? Wouldn't it have been better to get a piece of the supposed oldest tree in the world. That pine long something or other."
"Pinus longaeva." Sam supplied. "He said he believe the redwood will be acceptable. The ingredients specify an ancient tree, not the most ancient tree."
"Hope so." Claire muttered, "I don't want to deal with more trees."
After lunch, the group separated again. The girls then headed back toward South Dakota to return to Jody's for a while. Jack had ended up going with the girls. Sam and Dean were nervous, but Riley was all for the boy getting some teen time. Even though the girls were not strictly normal humans, they were more so than the Winchesters.
So it was Riley and the Winchesters who piled back into the Impala. But instead of going straight back to the bunker, they ended up making a pit stop. Sam had found a report of a possible demon possession in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Riley was nervous at the possibility of facing demons again, but Dean assured her she could hang back and "watch the pros." Though he had every confidence she could take them on at this point, since she'd now done it once before.
She was still unsure, but she went along anyway. Her other option was flying back to the bunker alone. And after her last experience by herself, she decided sticking with the brothers was her best bet.
When they got to Fort Collins, Riley got a front row seat to the Dean and Sam hunter show. She'd seen them do the hunting thing before, but most of the time on the hunt was spent holed up in a diner or interviewing people. This time they impersonated FBI agents. This of course made Riley, as a lawyer, cringe. But there wasn't much she could do about it. They introduced her as a proby agent. Riley forced a smile during these situations and pretended to take notes.
If she were honest with herself, she spent more time than she should have thinking about Gabriel. No matter what, he always seemed to intrude on her thoughts.
Plus she had a lot of questions still.
She had a lot of time to think, until she suddenly didn't. The boys had tracked down the supposed demon to a vet clinic in town.
And it wasn't a demon, but a skinwalker. Sam said you could tell because demons didn't generally eat human hearts. Riley wanted to gag.
But they killed the thing and then headed out of town.
Except it wasn't that easy.
Was it ever that easy?
They'd pulled up to the clinic in the dark, and the boys had disembarked and headed inside. True to their word, Riley got to stay in the Impala. Dean had given her an angel blade, just in case.
Which was a really good thing.
No one expected the thing to sneak out a doggy door. Then it climbed through the window into the front seat of the car and tried to carjack the Impala. With Riley still inside.
She'd been lying low, literally. By lying across the back seat, blade clutched to her chest.
When the skinwalker had shimmied into the front seat, Riley's eyes had widened, and she gripped the blade tight enough for her knuckles to turn white. She swore internally but made no sound. Lucky for her the years of fast-food, man sweat, and blood covered her scent in the car.
Holding her breath, Riley really wished she had stayed at the motel.
Why had she come again?
The skinwalker had leaned over to fiddle with the wires, trying to start the car. It hadn't noticed her at all. She lay stock still for a moment, internally panicking. She knew she couldn't wait long. Either it would get the car started, or it would notice her. Neither was a great option.