Vivian struggles against the ropes binding her hands behind her back, wrists already raw after two hours of working. "Enough with that," Flynn scolds, kicking lightly at her thigh. "I don't like my property damaged." She glares over at him, mumbling a few choice words into the gag over her mouth as she slumps back against the side of the wagon she'd woken up in. "There's a good girl."
"Burn in hell," she snarls into the dirty cloth.
"Don't be like that, Viv. After all, I love you." He says love in a mocking tone, laughing when she tries to kick out at him. Flynn catches her ankle easily, swiping his thumb over the delicate arch. When she just continues to glare at him, he snorts and cuts his gaze towards one of the whores his men have brought with them. She's a pretty blonde with a cheeky grin, her bust emphasized by the low neckline of her dress. Vivian blushes and ducks her head, shivering when a strong gust of wind rolls over her.
Her thin nightgown doesn't offer much protection from the constantly dropping temperature and she's really starting to wish Flynn would at least let cover her up with one of the stolen blankets. One of the men in the wagon notices and drapes an oversized coat over her, the leather of it worn and holding a spicy scent that tickles her nose. Winchester, she thinks, not the biggest man in the group yet the only one to offer up a small kindness. He's handsome with dark, shaggy hair and a pair of green eyes that don't seem to miss anything.
"Perhaps we should make camp for the night," Winchester suggests, shifting slightly as he moves to get comfortable.
"We have about an hour of daylight left, so why the hell would we stop," Flynn asks, glaring daggers at the other man.
"The lady will freeze to death if we don't." Winchester shrugs, voice calm and disinterested. Flynn scoffs, but signals for the others to stop nonetheless. This Winchester has power in the group, one of the few that Flynn actually listens to and comes to for advice. That could be valuable later on when Vivian finds a way to escape.
The wagon comes to a halt and Flynn jumps out, the whore going with him, and he orders a couple of his men to set up camp. Winchester shakes his head as he gets out, turning to grab Vivian's waist and place her on the ground.
"Stay out of the other men's sights. With Flynn gone they may get bold."
Elizabeth sighs contentedly as she wakes up, stretching her arms above her head. She hasn't felt this good in a while, not since she and Dean tried out that new position nearly a month ago now. She pushes aside the covers and stands up, deciding to take a shower before she goes to meet the boys for breakfast. The sight that welcomes her in the small bathroom is a welcome one, Clarke with only a towel around his waist and bending over to turn on the shower.
"I could get used to a sight like this, but I would prefer the towel to be on the floor," she quips. He jumps, spinning on his heel to face her. "Sorry, didn't mean to give you a heart attack." Clarke smiles at her, pulling her flush against his chest.
"Hmm, I could get used to this sight too. How about a quick shower before we both have to rejoin society?" She wraps her arms loosely around his neck, letting her nails scratch lightly through his hair. "Or maybe not so quick," he murmurs before his soft lips meet hers. Just as Elizabeth has him pinned against the wall, a loud banging at the front door makes them jump apart.
"There's only one person dumb enough to interrupt morning sex." Dean fucking Winchester.
"C'mon, Liza, get your ass in gear," said annoyance shouts. "Me and Sammy are starvin'!" With an irritated hiss, she marches to the door and flings it wide open, not caring that she has nothing on or that there is a half-naked man peeking out of the bathroom. "Damn, maybe I should wake you up more often." Dean's eyes move up and down her body, a grin beginning to stretch across his lips. Elizabeth punches his shoulder in response, making it hard enough to hurt. "What the hell was that for?"
"What do you think, asshole?"
"Is there a problem," Clarke asks, coming up behind Elizabeth and wrapping his arms around her waist. Dean's eyes narrow slightly as he looks at the cop, shaking his head. "Then, if you don't mind, the lady and I were about to take a shower." He shuts the door in Dean's face with a smile, pinning Elizabeth against it just seconds afterwards. "Now, where were we?" She smiles up at him, wriggling away and walking into the bathroom with her hips swaying.
After a truly satisfying shower, Elizabeth texts the guys and meets them at a local coffee shop with a box of donuts. Of course, it doesn't stop her from glaring at Dean over the rim of her cup, making the older Winchester shift uncomfortably from foot to foot.
"I told you not to mess with her this morning," Sam shrugs when Dean looks at him for help.
"Did you guys find anything while I was out last night," Elizabeth asks, turning a pleasant smile on Sam.
"Well, we haven't found a creepy critter that's ever caused deaths like these before, but we have found similar murders going all the way back to Vivian Mayson. If she's your ancestor, then it explains why all the victims share more than a passing resemblance to you."
"Seriously?"
"Yep, her family was murdered the day before Christmas Eve and then she was found cut to pieces by her husband a year or so later."
"Well, I'll be a son of a bitch." She sets her cup down on the table and digs through her purse until she can pull out her phone, already flipping through her contacts as she speaks. "I'll call Uncle Bobby and see if he can dig up anything on what happened to Vivian."
The Tulsa public library smells like all the other libraries that Sam has spent hours in as a child; old paper and B.O. wafting off of jocks that have just come in from practice to study for some exam that they'll probably fail because they don't have enough time to actually absorb what they're reading. Piles upon piles of books are stacked on the table in front of him; some about lore, some over the history of Tulsa in general, and even some about crimes that had taken place here dating back to the 1700's.
"Are you sure it was smart to leave Liza by herself back at the motel," Sam asks, looking up at Dean over the large book he's forcing himself to read. Dean shrugs with bored look as he goes through records, chewing on a pen cap. "Maybe I should've stayed with her just so we know for sure that nothing would happen." Sam's head is beginning to ache and the words on the page are starting to mix together in a black blur.
"She'll be fine. The only people she'd let in her room is us and that stupid cop. Besides, she's got her pistol in case she really needs it and those four inch heels. Those things could make any man run for cover." Sam winces, recalling vividly when he'd been on Elizabeth's bad side back in middle school and she'd used her two inch heels to step on his foot. Just thinking about it makes his foot begin to hurt all over again.
"Yeah, those heels will do some massive damage." Dean nods, looking down at old articles, ones that dust clings to like a second skin and makes anyone with allergies sneeze their heads off. Elizabeth had decided to stay behind and try and find something helpful on Sam's laptop while she waits for Bobby to call her back. "You got anything yet?"
"Some old coupons for that burger joint down the street from the motel. Too bad they're expired." Of course you're thinking about food. Sam rolls his eyes, setting the book down to take a small break and give his eyes a chance to stop burning. Just then Dean's cell begins to ring and the other man leaps for it, grateful for the interruption. "Hey, Bobby…. Uh-huh…. Yeah, reception's a bitch at the motel." Dean nods at something Bobby tells him, his face paling and eyes hardening. "We're leaving now." He snaps the phone shut and shoves it into his pants pocket.
"What is it?"
"The cop's our guy," he calls over his shoulder, sprinting towards the library exit with Sam bringing up the rear. "Bobby found an old picture of Vivian and her family after she was married. The guy she was married to looks exactly like Clarke right down to the dimple in his chin and those creepy eyes. Apparently not long after Vivian's husband found her dead, the townspeople lynched him. They found a Freddy Krueger glove in his home and they put two and two together."
Elizabeth closes the laptop with a defeated sigh. Sam had been right earlier, there's absolutely nothing supernatural that even remotely matches these crimes unless Freddy Krueger is a real guy. If he is, she's calling it quits and becoming a hermit somewhere in Antarctica.
Stretching, she unfolds her legs from the chair and flops backwards onto one of the beds, a migraine building behind her eyes. At this point, she just wishes her uncle would call with the answer, so they can kill whatever's killing people and she can get drunk in peace. Nothing's worse than having a hangover while spilling monster guts.
"Elizabeth?" She looks away from the popcorn ceiling at her name, finding Clarke standing in the doorway of the room and giving her a sweet smile. "I just thought I'd drop by, so we could compare facts. You know, see if we can't get any clues on who did this."
"Come on in. I'll get you a beer." He kicks the door shut behind him and takes a seat on the edge of the bed, eyes focused solely on Elizabeth as she pulls open the mini-fridge to grab one of the beers Dean hoards like gold. "You must have a lot of one night stands," she remarks with a smile, handing him the bottle. Clarke cocks his head to the side in confusion. "You called me Elizabeth earlier, my name is Lorraine."
"Actually, I've only had sex once in the past month. I guess I've hit a kind of dry spell." He shrugs, standing up and turning the bottle around in his hands. "You see, I've been doing a lot of research lately, a genealogy project that's become something of an obsession." Blue eyes flick up, peering at Elizabeth through a dark fringe of lashes that curve gently upwards.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. I know your name is Elizabeth Michelle Mayson, descendant of Vivian Mayson, you're twenty-three years old. I know that you have a nice little apartment in Chandler, you have a niece that lives in Stillwater with her adoptive parents, and I also know you'll be leaving this room in a body bag." Elizabeth never gets the chance to react before he brings the bottle down hard against her head and sends her into blessed darkness.
When she wakes up again she's lying on the bed and is seriously weighting the pros and cons of dismembering Clarke in the motel bathtub. Her eyes flicker open slowly, squinting through a splitting headache up at Clarke as he sets the bottle of beer on the nightstand.
"Hello again," he smirks. "Sorry I had to do that, but it was the only way to get you where I needed you." Head spinning, Elizabeth sits up and leans against the headboard with a soft groan. "God, you look so much like Vivian.
"You look like a dick," she remarks, fighting another groan when he delivers a sharp slap and the right side of her cheek stings. "Is that how you got all those other girls, Clarke? You beat 'em senseless? I gotta say, those southern charm manners we all went through must not have stuck with your dumb ass."
"I only knew the other women through patrolling neighborhoods. There was no reason for me to wine and dine them before I punished them for Vivian's transgressions." His eyes glaze over as he speaks, like he's in some kind of trance. Elizabeth watches as his hands move to his belt, unbuckling it with clumsy fingers. "You were different than them, the others only had Vivian's looks, but you have her looks and her personality. It was like she'd come back from the dead to torment me all over again. I was her husband and she disrespected me on a daily basis in front of everyone!"
"What's your name?" Elizabeth is curious now, the psychosis more pronounced as hard lines replace the smiles and charm that Clarke had oozed. Multiple personalities, maybe? Some kind of illness because fully balanced people don't just fall into fantasies like this.
"Flynn Taylor. My Vivian was a good little actress, she had me fooled until she gave birth to a child with green eyes." He shakes his head with a bitter smile, sliding his belt free and pulling it taunt with a snap. "You won't cheat on me again, I'll make sure of that."
Elizabeth's eyes stray to the bottle and quickly back to his face, but Clarke doesn't miss anything. He lunges forward onto the bed just as she goes backwards and rolls off onto the floor, ignoring the flare of pain as her ankle knocks against the metal frame. She manages to get onto her hands and knees and makes it halfway around the bed when he rolls on top of her, forcing the air out of her lungs as his full weight pins her down.
"Get off! Help!"
"She was a fighter too," he grunts, wrapping the belt around Elizabeth's throat, cutting off what little air she has left. She brings an elbow up, nailing Clarke in the stomach a couple of times and forcing him to loosen his grip so she can get her breath back and move forward a few more feet before he tightens the looped belt again.
The edges of her vision are beginning to go black as her struggles grow sluggish, arms like lead weights in front of her on the carpet. Her gaze flicks back up at the nightstand, the brown glass of the bottle glittering in the sunlight as her mind slowly works to form an escape plan.
In a last ditch effort, she grabs the edge of the comforter and yanks it sideways towards her, the top of the heavy blanket knocking the bottle to the floor with the sound of breaking glass. She grabs one of the larger pieces and swings her arm behind her, the shard entering Clarke's neck and sending the man to the ground with a choked gurgle. He wiggles a few times, a pool of red pooling under him even as he goes still.
Elizabeth pulls the belt off and sucks in a deep breath, her world slowly righting itself as she pulls herself up and leans heavily against the table. She has to make a conscious effort to keep her breaths even, not wanting to hyperventilate on top of all her other problems. Dean and Sam decide to pick that moment to burst inside with their pistols out, expressions changing from determination to shock when they see Clarke sprawled out on the floor.
"Next time I'll go to the library and y'all can be attacked."
I'm goin' home, gonna load my shotgun/Wait by the door, and light a cigarette/If he wants a fight, well, now he's got one/And he ain't seen me crazy yet/He slapped my face, and he shook me like a rag doll/Don't that sound like a real man?/I'm going to show him what little girls are made of/Gunpowder and lead