Something was happening. There was too much noise outside my room, enough to rouse me out of my stupor and raise my head from the pillow for the first time in a long time. I squinted my eyes against the dim light pushing through the window blinds and tried to sit up, still listening.
Shouting, the sounds of flesh hitting flesh and things breaking. The wall between my room and the kitchen shook when something hit it, which was weird because that was the wall with the stove and the refrigerator. Even though this was a mobile home, how hard would something have to hit those things for it to shake that wall?
What the hell was going on?
It happened again, and the closet doors rattled. I tried to stand up but immediately fell back onto the bed whimpering when my injured leg refused to support me. It probably didn't matter anyway since the vampires had secured the flimsy door from the outside after I'd tried to escape. Even the window was a no-go now, after they'd nailed a plank of wood down the center of the jalousie window so I couldn't crank it open.
It didn't matter, though. I wasn't going anywhere. Not in the shape I was in.
I rested my aching head in my hands and just listened. Despite the thin walls, I couldn't make sense of the words. Maybe that was because I couldn't really think right now. It seemed like when there should be words, the words were just coming too fast.
And then the shouting and the fighting sounds stopped. The vampires had probably worked out whatever they'd been fighting about. Not that they'd ever fought before, not like that, but what else could it be? And I could feel heavy footsteps going back and forth in the front of the trailer, so someone was still here.
My stomach dropped when I realized that if they'd been fighting that hard, probably at least one of them would be in here in a couple minutes to soothe themselves with my blood. I put my hand on the side of my neck, feeling the holes there that still hadn't healed. They'd used the artery in my neck often enough that they'd had to switch to using the ones in the bend of my arm, and once, one of them had bitten into the artery between my legs at the top of my thigh. I'd feebly fought against that, but it hadn't helped. He'd just held me down with one arm.
I felt the footsteps coming down the tiny hallway and heard the lock on the door slide back. I wanted to get up and fight, like I used to every time they tried to feed from me, but I couldn't, so I just turned my head a little on my hands so I could see which one it was when the door opened.
It was a giant shadow with a larger shadow right behind it. I blinked, unable to make out their features, but their silhouettes didn't match any of the vampires that had been feeding on me for weeks. Plus the one in the front was holding a vicious looking machete or something in his hand. I could see the shadow of some thick liquid dripping off it onto the floor.
They didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. None of us moved. We just watched each other for a few seconds.
Finally, trying to break the tension, I raised my hand at them in a little wave. "Hey," I croaked out.
The front guy finally moved, flipping on the light to the right of the door. I winced and covered my eyes, my headache flaring.
"She's not a vampire, Dean," one of them said. "Look at her."
"We can't be sure," Dean replied. "Hey, you, what's your name?"
"Emily," I answered, still not looking at them.
"Emily, open your mouth and lift up your upper lip. Show me your gums."
"I'm not a vampire," I replied, taking my hand away from my eyes, but still keeping them closed. I followed his instructions, hearing his footsteps as he got just a little closer so he could see.
"Told you," I heard not-Dean say.
"Can you turn the lights back off," I asked in a pitiful voice. "It hurts."
"Let's get you checked out first," Dean said. "Sam?"
I tried to open my eyes a little bit then, and it didn't hurt as bad. The taller guy, who had longish hair, was crouching in front of me. He put his hand on my forehead and looked at the marks on my arms and neck, not just teeth marks but scrapes, cuts, and scratches too. Then his eyes dropped to the top of my right thigh and the scabbed over wound there—the reason I couldn't really stand.
"She's got a fever and this wound on her leg is definitely infected. She's covered in bruises and I'd be surprised if she didn't have broken bones. She's got signs of major blood loss. We gotta get her to a hospital."
My head shot up despite the pain and I grabbed Sam's head with both hands, making him look at me. "No, no hospitals!"
"Emily, you're going to die if this doesn't get treated," Sam told me, gently removing my hands from the sides of his head.
"Please," I begged, looking from Sam to Dean and back. "I can't afford a hospital." They looked at each other doubtfully and I straightened up, panic rising making my voice high and squeaky. "Please! No hospitals! You killed all the vampires, right?"
Sam nodded. Dean said, "What does that have to do…"
I shook my head, still squeaking when I said, "Look, this is my house. If you can just get rid of the vampires' bodies and the bodies of those poor people they killed, I promise you that I'll go get looked at at the free clinic. Just please, no hospitals!"
Dean shook his head. "Can't leave you here. There might be more."
"There were four. Did you kill all four?" I asked, thinking as hard as my poor addled brain could.
"Yeah," Sam answered.
"Then there's no more, just leave me here."
Sam stood up and the two of them went down the hall to talk, probably not realizing that in a trailer, you could hear almost everything. I scooted forward on the bed, trying to make sure I could hear them.
"Can't leave her here, Dean," Sam said. "She's in really bad shape. You can smell the infection just walking in the room. And you hear how slow she was talking before she got panicky?"
"Yeah, and I don't believe she's going to get herself to the free clinic. You see a car outside?"
"Nope. I don't believe her either," Sam said.
"Lemme call Dad," Dean said, walking further down the hallway. I heard a door shut, probably the bedroom at the back of the trailer, and then Sam came back into the room.
Ignoring me, he opened the closet and took a step back in surprise. "These aren't your clothes," he said, turning to me.
"Those are Tessa's clothes. My sister. She was only 13," I said. Now that they weren't talking about hospitals anymore, I'd gone back to resting my head on my hands.
Sam's face softened. "Did they kill your family too?"
"No? I don't know…" I replied.
He shook his head, abandoning that line of questioning, hopefully forever. "Where are your clothes?"
"Bedroom at the front of the trailer," I mumbled, my eyes closing with exhaustion despite how hard I was fighting it. Tears filled my eyes and poured down my cheeks despite my closed lids. "Where all those poor people are."
Sam looked at the door and back at me. "Okay, stay here and rest. I'll be right back."
I let my upper body drop back onto the mattress, my legs still dangling off the end, and promptly fell asleep.
I couldn't have been out that long when Sam gently shook me awake again. "Emily, wake up, we have to get you decent before we get out of here."
"Dude, she's fine like she is. We can take care of it when we get to the bunker."
"She's not wearing pants, Dean." Sam sounded a little outraged at Dean's suggestion.
"Easier access," I mumbled.
They both stopped talking. "What?" Dean asked, his voice harsh.
"Easier access," I said, struggling to sit up. "You know, to my thigh." I opened my legs a little then to show them the teeth marks there.
"Son of a bitch," Dean swore.
"I brought you some of your pajamas," Sam said. "You think you can put them on?"
I shook my head. "Just get me one of my nightshirts. They cover me."
Sam got one for me and helped me take off my filthy t-shirt, replacing it with the nightshirt. Then he picked me up and I groaned with pain.
"We're not coming back. You need anything else?" Dean asked me.
"You're not taking me to the hospital, right?" I asked.
"We're not taking you to the hospital," Dean reassured me.
"My purse is around somewhere, and there's a lockbox with a bunch of important papers in the back of my closet," I whispered, my head resting against Sam's chest. "And there's a stuffed cat on my bed." My sister had given it to me one year when we'd had a little money for Christmas presents. I didn't want to lose it.
"I'll get her out to the car," Sam said, shifting me a little in his arms and out we went.
Then there was a long drive where classic rock blended into the growl of the engine and the soothing swoosh of the tires on the road. I slept, covered in the comforter one of them had grabbed from my bed, my stuffed cat in my arms.
—
I woke up in a bed in a hospital gown in a spartan room with white brick and tile walls. Everything looked old fashioned from the metal nightstand with silver bendy lamps to the metal chairs next to the beds. I sat up a little, leaning on my elbows, and saw that to the left there were two other empty beds in the room with privacy curtains between them. Across from my bed was a counter with cupboards and a sink. There was a trash can next to the counter that had a hazardous waste sign on it. There was no way this was a hospital, the stuff was too old. Where the hell was I?
No one was in the room with me, but my comforter was folded up on the chair next to the nightstand on the right side of my bed. My stuffed cat, Merry, was sitting on top of it. I went to grab her and something pulled in my hand. I looked down to see an IV needle there.
I blinked, confused, then put my left hand with the IV in it on the bed and scooted as far over as I could to reach Merry and pull her to me. In the process, I managed to knock an enameled metal bowl off the nightstand, and it clanged a bunch of times before it finally settled onto the linoleum floor. I stared at it dumbly and then looked up when the door to my right opened.
An older, brown-haired man with a kind face poked his head in, met my eyes, and then came into the room. He wasn't really old, just older than me or even Sam and Dean. He was tall though, just like them.
"They put growth hormones in your water here?" I asked as he approached. Then my eyes widened. I hadn't meant to say that out loud.
Luckily, he just laughed, but then he really took in the state of things-half of me off the bed, the IV tube stretched to its limit, the cat clutched in my right elbow. He shook his head and picked up the bowl off the floor.
"You need some help getting back into that bed?" he asked me, his tone very carefully neutral, like he didn't want to scare me.
"No," I replied and tried to scoot myself backward in the bed, but with my right arm full of Merry and my butt practically hanging off the bed, my left arm didn't have enough leverage or strength to get me back on the bed.
The man watched me until I went to push myself using my legs. Then he stopped me. "Whoa, kid," he said, still calm but much firmer. "You definitely need help because I'm not letting you undo all the work I did to get your leg back together."
"Sorry," I said and let him pick me up and put me back where I started. He covered me up with the blanket but not before I saw that my right thigh was thoroughly swaddled in a bandage, all the way around. I swallowed hard and looked away, holding Merry to me like I was twelve. But I didn't care how it made me look, it made me feel better.
To distract myself while he settled the bedding around me, I asked, "So who are you?"
He raised his head and by the light of the lamp next to me, I saw that his eyes were hazel, his brown hair was peppered with gray, and the scruff on his chin was almost all gray.
"John Winchester," he said, standing up straight and towering over me. He offered me his hand, and I took it and shook it once before letting go. His hand was calloused and hard, much like I expected the rest of him was. "And you are?"
That was when I heard Dean's voice say, "Dad, is she awake?"
John rolled his eyes and looked at the doorway where Dean and Sam were tromping in. "Well if she wasn't, she sure would be now, son."
"Sorry," Dean grinned apologetically and leaned on the counter across from my bed. I couldn't help but smile. Sam settled next to him and John turned his attention back to me.
"You feel up to answering some questions?" he asked me.
"Yeah, but I have a bunch too," I said, trying to sound firm, but my voice trembled when I said it.
"Okay, we'll take turns," John said, pulling the chair from next to one of the other beds over to the left side of mine so he could sit while he talked with me. I relaxed a little now that he wasn't hulking above me. "What's your name?"
"Emily," I answered.
"Full name," John said.
I tilted my head to the side and looked at him. "Why are you asking me questions you already know the answer to?" I asked. "You have my purse and my lockbox. I'm not stupid. I know you went through them. There's no way you didn't."
"She's got you there, Dad," Sam said. He sounded amused. "I told you not to."
"Sam," John said, turning and holding up a hand at him. "You're not helping." He turned back to me. "I did look through your purse, yes, but just to find your ID. We didn't go through your lockbox or anything else in your purse. I promise."
"So you know my name is Emily Annabel Fitzgerald and that I'm 24. And you definitely know where I live," I said. "That's a lot more than I know about you."
Dean stepped forward then and spoke before John could. "I'm Dean Winchester, this is my brother Sam, and that's our dad, John. We're hunters and we hunt supernatural things like vampires. You're in our bunker. We can't tell you where because you're only here until we can get you better. This location is a secret."
I let that soak in for a moment, then asked, "How did you find me?"
Sam took that one. "We tracked some vampires to your area and that bar you work at was one of the places people had disappeared from. Your boss told us you'd gone missing a few weeks ago and gave us your address. He'd actually gone to your trailer himself once and said that there were new people there who told him you'd moved. The only problem was that he'd been there before and it looked like all the same stuff was in the living room behind the guy. The guy scared the bejeesus out of him though, so he hadn't called the cops."
"All right, now it's my turn," John said before I could ask something else. "How did they catch you and why were they using your house as a nest? Why didn't they kill you when they killed five other people after they took over your house…"
I raised my eyebrows at him and put on my best fake-friendly bar server tone, shaky as it was. "You gonna let me answer any of those, sugar, or are you just gonna keep going until we all die of old age? Betcha I live longer than you do." I heard a snicker from Sam.
John frowned. Oh, he definitely had not liked that, but I didn't like how he was talking to me either. "Enough sass," he almost growled at me. "Answer the questions."
No one had ever spoken to me like that before. My heart rate sped up as adrenaline shot through me and I swallowed hard. I didn't even know why. I shifted nervously on the bed, avoiding his eyes.
"So," I said softly. "Basically, it happened like this…"