No Exit
Massachusetts was a beautiful state; when Faith decreed they were having a few days off after the whole horrible debacle in upstate New York, it was the first place she suggested they go for their mini-vacation – its main draw being that it was so close.
"Massachusetts?" Toby had asked sceptically. "Why?"
"Never been," she'd shrugged. "Might be fun."
It took him all of ten seconds to discover the real answer. "You want to go to New Salem."
"They have witch tours, Toby," she'd said eagerly. "Think of it as an educational vacation. You get to rest up by a pretty lake, and I get to go to all the witch-burning sites I can find."
"Why?" he'd asked again. "I'd have thought you'd had enough witches to last a lifetime."
"I wanna learn more, is that a crime?"
So, they'd gone. Deciding to take five days in New Salem to relax and destress – or, for Faith, get in all the site-seeing she could fit in. It started out great, as much as she really loved hunting, it was nice to take a break every now and again, give herself time to breathe and just act like a normal tourist.
"Toby, take my photo in front of this monument," she begged him in the now, passing off her phone and posing in front of the statue with a grin.
"Faith, it's a statue of Abraham Lincoln on a horse," he deadpanned. "How badly do you really need to commemorate seeing it?"
She snatched her phone back and made a face. "Oh no, I like sightseeing, better clap me in irons now, fun-police," she said snidely. Toby rolled his eyes and they hurried to keep up with the tour guide, who was leading about a dozen other tourists around the town of New Salem. "You could have stayed at the hotel," she reminded him. "You're the one who wanted to come with me today."
"I thought we'd be seeing more than equestrian commemorative statues."
"You're such a wet blanket."
He muttered something scathing under his breath, but she was in too good of a mood to bother listening. She was about to ask the guide a question when her phone rang. She exchanged a frown with Toby, then paced away from the rest of the tour to answer the call.
"Ellen?" she asked, seeing the caller ID. "Is everything okay?"
"Where're you and Toby right now?"
"Massachusetts. Why, what's the matter?"
"Jo's run off," Ellen began. "We had a fight about her wantin' to hunt, and when I gave Sam and Dean the case she was working on, she disappeared. Said she was going to Vegas, but I don't believe her for a minute."
Faith frowned. "Well, if you call Dean-"
"Already did, he says she isn't there."
"Well, there you go-"
"It's bullshit, Faith," Ellen spat. "Look, they're in Philly. You're only a few hours out. Could you please do me this favour?"
Faith shut her eyes in defeat. "This favour being…"
"Just go, keep an eye on her. Please," Ellen was practically begging. Faith said nothing, and Ellen pressed, "She's my whole world, Faith. It's not that I don't trust Dean, but there's…history there, and you're family. If anything happens to her, I'll just…I won't survive it."
It was so honest, plain and desperate, that Faith had no choice but to say, "All right. Toby and I'll leave in an hour. We should get there by this afternoon."
Ellen let out a breath of relief. "I'll have Ash text you the address of the apartment block they're working the job at."
"Sure. I'll call you with an update soon."
"Faith?" Ellen stopped her. "Thank you, really. I know you don't owe me nothin-"
"I don't," she agreed. "But you're my friend. So is Jo. I don't mind helping out."
A pause on the other end of the line, then Ellen's voice said, full of emotion, "You're a good one, Faith."
Walking back to Toby, he took one look at the defeated slump of her shoulders and sighed. "Our holiday's getting cut short, isn't it?"
"Let's get back to the hotel," she muttered. "I'll explain on the way."
She was right about timing. It was four-thirty on the dot that Faith and Toby parked their car outside the haunted apartment block. Toby looked tired, and she felt bad for dragging him away from his allotted relaxation period, but the job was the job, and if Jo was in danger, she wasn't about to sit idly by.
They went directly to the superintendent's apartment, and the moment he opened his door Faith had her fake US Marshal's badge held up to his face. "Faith Gaiman, US Marshal," she said in the bland tone that Toby called her 'authority voice'. "This is my partner, Tobias King. We're looking for a federal witness and had a tip she might be in the building. She's not in any trouble, we'd just like to talk."
The superintendent hesitated. "You got a name?"
"Unfortunately not," said Faith sweetly. "But she'd have just arrived. About as tall as me with blonde hair?"
Though his eyes were still narrowed, the superintendent nodded his head. "Yeah, I know her," he admitted. "She, her boyfriend and their third paid a couple months in advance. Room 4C."
"Thank you very much for your cooperation," said Faith formally, and left.
"You're frighteningly good at this," Toby told her as they began to climb the rickety stairs up to the fourth level of the building. "You ever do drama at school?"
"As if," she scoffed. "I didn't attend often enough to do extra-curriculars. And it wasn't like I cared."
Toby nodded like he should have expected that answer all along. "Of course."
They found the right door and paused outside of it, taking a moment to listen. Faith heard the familiar, deep timbre of Dean's voice on the other side. The whole trip down to Philly, she hadn't stopped once to consider that she'd be coming face-to-face with Dean after their run-in two months ago, just after his father's death.
It had been long enough between now and then that Faith's lava-like rage had cooled to rock, but the thought of being in the same room as him was a harrowing one. She didn't want to get into a fight with him, but nobody had ever pushed her buttons quite so thoroughly as Dean. Fighting with him was as easy as breathing; as was just being with him in silence. Which, in some ways, was even scarier.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Faith threw out her fist and pounded hard on the door like she was trying to break it down. "US Marshals Service! Open up!" she bellowed through the wood in a deep voice.
All sound inside the room disappeared, and Faith imagined them gathering their weapons cautiously. Toby shot her a look as if to say, "Was that really necessary?" Her only answer was an cheeky smile.
The door flew open, and, in an instant, she was staring into Dean's forest-green eyes, wide with a panic that very swiftly melted into shock. For a moment they were silent, just staring, then Dean blurted, "What the hell are you doing here?"
Faith pushed past him, sauntering into the apartment like she owned the place. "Ellen sent us," she said as she caught sight of Jo and Sam, stood nearby with a knife and gun in hand, respectively.
"Faith?" asked Jo, lowering her knife. Surprise hardened into resolve. "I'm not going home until this is done."
Faith held her hands up in surrender. "And I'm not here to drag you back to the Roadhouse, I'm just backup. Apparently, Ellen doesn't quite trust these two chuckleheads to keep you safe, so she called in the cavalry."
Dean muttered something that Faith ignored, turning to pull a towering Sam down low enough for her to kiss his cheek in greeting. "We resent that, just a little," said Sam even through his smile.
She greeted a wary Jo with a smile. "I'm really not here to take you home, Jo," she promised. "I'm not even gonna report back to Ellen. I'm just here because I'm kind of scared of her, and I didn't want to say no when she asked."
"We were in the neighbourhood anyway," added Toby, as he shook Sam's hand in hello.
Faith took a seat at the table where various maps and files were conveniently laid out. "So, what's the job?"
The three of them exchanged a look, and Faith could practically see Dean's resolve to keep her out of the loop get strangled to death by Sam and Jo's resolve to include her. She smiled sweetly at Dean for effect. He tried to argue anyway.
"We don't need five hunters on one job," he said, scowling. "It's overkill; you'll only get in the way."
"Brilliant," said Toby without missing a beat. "I was meant to be on holiday anyway. I'll go grab a room somewhere that isn't haunted and kick back while you lot sort his hunt."
Faith was exasperated. "Tobes," she huffed.
"I was promised a holiday," he reminded her, and he was right, she had promised no jobs. And she had gone back on that word when Ellen had called. With a sigh, Faith agreed. Grinning like a cat who got the cream, Toby said, "Call if you need me. I may be down the pub, so if I don't answer, just leave a message."
"You're a lazy bastard!" she shouted after him as he left the room. His only reply was a lift of his hand and a half-smirk tossed back in their direction. Then he was gone, and Faith rolled her eyes, turning back to the others who were all in varying states of surprise. "All right," she said brightly. "Give me the details. What're we facing here?"
Jo launched into a quick backstory – women, all young and blonde-haired, going missing from this apartment block over the last few months. Not all at once, but close enough together to be considered a pattern. Faith listened silently, ignoring the way Dean seemed to glare at her while simultaneously pretending she wasn't there.
"This place was built in 1924," Jo explained next, toying with a small knife. "It was originally a warehouse, converted into apartments a few months ago."
"What was here before 1924?" Dean demanded more than asked.
Faith shot him a look that went ignored. "Nothing," shrugged Jo. "Empty field."
Sam nodded. "So, most likely scenario, someone died bloody in the building, and now he's back and raising hell."
But Jo was already shaking his head. "I already checked. In the past eighty-two years, zero violent deaths. Unless you count a janitor, who slipped on a wet floor," she said, then threw at Dean, "Would you sit down, please?"
He'd been pacing a hole in the floor, no doubt agitated by Faith's sudden appearance. Well, he could get in the goddamn boat – he agitated her all the damn time and you didn't see her throwing hissy fits over it.
He glared at them all as he took a heavy seat at the table. "So, have you checked police reports, county death records…?"
"Obituaries, mortuary reports and seven other sources," finished Jo. "I know what I'm doing."
"I think the jury's still out on that one, in more cases than one," said Dean slyly, green eyes darting between Faith and Jo, his meaning unmistakable.
"Think you could go five minutes without being a jackass?" Faith asked.
"I dunno, think you could go five minutes without inserting yourself into my business?" he countered. Faith's jaw dropped open at his nerve, and he turned to look smugly at Jo. "Could you put the knife down?" he asked sweetly. She shot him a look but still did as he asked, trying to avoid a fight.
"Okay!" said Sam with deliberate energy, trying to keep the awkward from swallowing the room whole. "So, it's something else, then. Maybe some kind of cursed object that brought a spirit with it?"
It was a good idea, and Faith nodded. "But if it's in someone's apartment…" she trailed off pointedly.
"We'll just have to scan everywhere we can get to and hope it's enough, right?" asked Jo.
"Right," said Dean flatly. "You and me, we'll take the top two floors. You and Sammy," he added, jerking his chin in Faith's direction. "You take the bottom."
"We'd move faster if we split up," Jo protested.
But Dean wasn't to be swayed. "Oh, this isn't negotiable."
Jo wanted to argue, Faith could tell. She cut her eyes to Faith, who met her stare and rolled her own eyes in Dean's direction. Jo smirked with amusement and Dean glowered at the two of them like they'd murdered his puppy.
"Fine by me," said Faith, voice layered with false cheer. "Sam's far better company anyway. Shall we go?"
Dean glared at her like he loathed her, something Faith couldn't quite understand. What was it she'd done, exactly, to make him hate her to entirely? Sure, they butted heads a lot, but she'd never done anything to hurt him or his family, had she? She knew men could be confusing, but this was a whole new level.
She grabbed Sam by the arm and yanked him out of the room before he could so much as say a word to anyone. Luckily, he had his EMF reader on him, pulling it out as they took the stairs towards the lower levels.
She and Sam took the steps in an easy quiet that slowly grew tense. In the end, it was Sam who broke the silence. "What is it with you and Dean?" he wondered as they started at the ground floor, walking slowly through the halls and scanning every single wall, grate and smoke detector in sight.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Come on, Faith," Sam chuckled. "Half the time, I don't know whether you want to kill each other or…"
She whipped around on him with a scowl. "Or what?"
Sam smirked and said, "Nothing."
Faith snatched the EMF reader from his giant hands and bent down to test the grates along the floor.
"What happened between the two of you?" Sam asked, apparently not quite as ready to drop the subject.
She glared. "Sam-"
"I mean, I send you out to talk to him, next thing I know you're running across the country and Dean's beating the Impala with a crowbar."
That took a moment to register. "He what?"
Sam's nod was grave, and the amusement had leached from his eyes. "It took three extra days to repair the damage enough just to get it back on the road."
She felt vaguely like she'd taken a hit. Faith fell silent, pretending to return her attention to the EMF, even though the readings from the device were the last thing on her mind. Sam let her think until they reached the second floor, beginning their slow scan of that level, too.
"How have you been, Faith?" he asked quietly as they worked. "Really?"
Her eyes stayed on her task. "I'm all right," she said – and it was even true. "I've been dealing. Managing my own shit. I think I'm starting to get over… I mean, I'll never get over Nate," she corrected herself quickly. "But I think the pain of it's starting to ease…a little."
"Yeah?" Sam asked quietly. "That's good to hear."
"I've been dating…sorta."
Sam hesitated. "You and Toby?"
It surprised her so thoroughly that she stopped dead in the middle of the hallway and Sam stumbled into her unexpectedly. He righted them before they could fall to the floor, and she pulled away with a glare. "Me and Toby?" she asked, offended by the assumption in more ways than one. "Sam, you're way off."
"Am I?" he asked, genuinely curious.
"It's just been…people I've met at bars," she confessed, refusing to feel embarrassed. "Perhaps dating isn't quite the right word, but I thought it sounded better than casual sex-"
Sam made a horrified noise and covered his ears. Faith snorted.
"What are you, twelve? Come on, Samuel."
Sam glared at her without heat. "Well," he said as they came to the end of the final floor, barely even a flicker on the EMF to tell them anything supernatural at all was in the apartment block. "I'm glad that you're coping…however that may be."
"Thanks," she scoffed, his approval of her poor coping skills amusing.
They met back up with Jo and Dean in the apartment on the top floor. Upon seeing her, Dean held out a clump of hair and flesh. It was slightly wet, glistening in the light, and no longer held any real form. Faith bent closer to eye it thoughtfully, trying not to inhale its odour.
"Aw, Dean, you shouldn't have," she simpered. Dean's reply was a deep scowl. "Is it a piece of scalp?"
"Something's keeping souvenirs in the walls," was his only answer before throwing the lump in the trash and going to thoroughly scrub his hands at the sink. "Anything on your end?"
It didn't escape Faith's notice that he aimed the question at Sam, rather than her. "Nothing," said Sam. "Not so much as a spike. Whatever it is, the bottom two floors were clean."
"We got a spike, down at one of the grates," said Jo. "That's where we found the hair."
"Okay, so there's definitely something here," Faith began, "we've just gotta draw it out." She paused, looking at Jo. "Hey, didn't you say this thing only goes after pretty blondes?"
"Nope, not happening," said Dean from where he was still scrubbing himself clean at the kitchen sink. "Jo and I already went over this. We're not using her as bait."
"She'd be perfectly safe-"
"No, she wouldn't," he snapped. "And it isn't happening."
"And who exactly put you in charge?"
He paused, thrown by question. "I'm – I'm the oldest-"
"Are we in kindergarten? God, Dean; grow up," Faith bit back. Jo smirked down at the table, toying with her knife again, twirling it with an easy grace. Sam looked to be smothering a smirk of his own.
Dean glowered at her with the hatred of a thousand suns. Faith stared back, undaunted. Sam was quick to break the tension that began to build. "Why don't I go get some food?" he suggested just a little too loud to be casual. "Anyone wanna come with me? Jo?"
He couldn't have been less subtle if he'd tried – trying to force her and Dean to spend time alone to 'work on their issues' or whatever. He wasn't fooling anyone, and every glare in the room proved it.
"I'll go get it," said Dean in that same, gravelly voice as always. "You stay here with the girls."
"Women," Faith corrected, but she went ignored.
"If anything happens, Sammy, you get them out."
Sam nodded solemnly. "You know I will."
Faith caught Jo's stare and dramatically rolled her eyes. Jo smothered a laugh at the guys' expense. "What do we want? Pizza? Chinese? I could really go for some Mexican…"
"Chinese sounds good," said Faith, looking to Jo for confirmation, who nodded.
"I could really go for some chow mein."
"Sounds good," Faith agreed, then glanced up at Sam. "They usually have vegetarian options that are a little healthier…"
Sam smiled. "It's fine, Faith, I can eat Chinese."
"Yeah, it's Mexican that does ugly things to his insides," snarked Dean.
"Dude, shut up," hissed Sam.
Jo and Faith rolled their eyes, their attention already turning away from the squabbling brothers. "Did my mom sound angry when you spoke to her?" Jo asked as Dean and Sam bickered a moment longer before Dean left the room and peace finally descended over their temporary apartment.
"Nah," Faith assured her, "just worried."
"She doesn't think I can do this," muttered Jo. "No one does."
"I don't think that's it," Faith argued. Sensing this was turning into a private conversation, Sam mumbled something about taking a shower and disappeared into the bathroom. "It has nothing to do with your abilities and everything to do with how much everyone loves you."
Jo glared back, sceptical.
"Jo, do you have any idea what I'd do to have a mom who would fight tooth and nail to keep me from hunting?" Faith asked, not even realising how true it was until she'd said it out loud.
"I know she loves me, but it's my life, and she's only holding me back," Jo whispered the words like she was afraid her mom would hear all the way over in Nebraska.
"Then keep pulling shit like this," Faith shrugged. "Sneaking away, going on hunts whether you have her permission or not? It's the only way to prove yourself, to prove you can handle this life. And once you've done that, she'll have no choice but to let you go."
Jo was quiet for a few minutes, toying half-heartedly with her ever-present knife. Faith used the quiet to run her eyes up and down the blueprints of the building, looking for anything that seemed unusual or out of place.
"Why do you do it?" Jo finally asked.
Faith looked up. "Why do you?"
"To be closer to my daddy," Jo shrugged. "He died when I was young, and now, this sort of feels like the only way I have left of being close to him." She paused. "Is that stupid?"
"'Course it isn't stupid," Faith scoffed. "That's a far better reason that I've got for chasing this shitty deal of a life."
"And what's that?"
She smiled, but it was a twisted, depressing thing. "I've got nothin' else. This is it. This job, then the next one, and the next. It's all that keeps me going."
Jo's eyes were haunted. "I know how that is," she whispered. "But at least I've got my mom."
"Yeah, you do," Faith agreed. "And you hold onto her tight. Because I've lived a whole life without a mom. And I would do anything – give anything – if it meant I could have her back."
"But you never even knew her."
Jo had a point, blunt as it was. "Then I guess maybe I love the idea of her, more than I love who she was," she admitted. "I just want a mom I can go to when I'm sick, or scared. But we're all dealt cards in life, and a mom wasn't in mine. That's just how it goes."
Jo considered her for a long moment, then said, "Mom spoke about you, sometimes."
Faith looked up from her blueprints in confusion. "When?"
"Before we met," Jo clarified. "I knew all about Emily – my mama's best friend since birth. I grew up hearing stories of them as kids. When I was ten, she told me I had a cousin out there somewhere – not by blood, but by choice. When I asked why we couldn't go see you, she told me you were safe where you were, and she didn't want to put you in any danger."
Faith pursed her lips, the words hitting some sensitive part of her she usually tried to ignore. Instead of succumbing to emotion, she fell back on her wit and looked up at Jo with a half-smirk. "Guess that makes us family, huh, Cuz?"
Jo rolled her eyes but still smiled, and Faith felt content.
Dean returned shortly after Sam got out of the shower. They ate in silence for a while, but then it got so stifling that Dean turned on his police scanner just for something to fill up the awkward quiet. When it was time for bed, Faith realised there were two very important details she'd forgotten about.
First things first, there was only one bed. It was decided with barely a word that she and Jo would share it while Sam slept on the couch and Dean got stuck with the recliner. Faith didn't feel particularly bad about that last part. Jo went to sleep early, knowing they could have to get up early in the morning to get back to work and solve this thing before anyone else got hurt.
Faith desperately needed a shower but didn't realise until she'd gotten out that she had no clothes to change into. Toby had taken the car to his hotel, and she'd left her bag in it. Grinding her teeth at her own forgetfulness, Faith wrapped a towel around herself and peeked her head out the bathroom door.
"Jo!" she whisper-yelled in the direction of the bedroom they would share. No answer came. "Jo!" she called louder, but apparently, Jo slept like the damn dead.
"You got a problem, Princess?" came a husky voice from the main room. Faith turned with a gasp, gripping the towel she wore tighter against her body, lest it fall off in her surprise.
Because the universe had some vendetta against her, it was Dean. He was leant in the doorway of the living room, bulging arms crossed over his chest, a smug eyebrow raised as he waited for her to speak. Faith gritted her teeth so hard, she was surprised none of them broke. "I need something to wear to bed," she admitted reluctantly.
"Forgot your overnight bag?" Dean asked with a condescending pout.
With great, great difficulty, Faith put aside her pride and asked, just her head poking out from the crack in the doorway, "Look, could you please just go wake Jo up and ask if I can borrow something?"
He hesitated a moment, then said, "Wait here," before disappearing back into the shadows of the dark apartment. Somewhere nearby she could hear Sam snoring and figured he'd gone out like a light.
When a full minute passed and Dean still didn't reappear, she was just beginning to consider sleeping in only her towel when he finally materialised, a large piece of clothing in his hands. "Took you long enough-"
"Jo's out cold and the last thing I need is a kick to the nads for going through her things without permission, so here," he said, thrusting the clothes towards her. Faith hesitated, suspicious, and Dean huffed, pushing the clothes into her face until she took them.
"Fine," she grumbled, then shut the door in his face.
"You're welcome," his muttered reply echoed through the wood. He went ignored.
All he'd given her was a Led Zeppelin tee-shirt that was at least three sizes too big, and a pair of male's boxer shorts. She stared at them for longer than she probably should have, debating whether to wear them at all, but finally the chill of the night and the damp on her skin made her decision for her. With gritted teeth, she changed into the clothes.
They smelt of worn leather, motor oil and something she could only describe as sunshine. The scent wrapped around her like an embrace, and she had to forcefully shrug off the realisation of how intimate this felt, wearing Dean's clothes and literally nothing else. And it certainly didn't make her hot in places that had no business feeling heated.
She combed out her dark, curly hair, then padded out of the bathroom in bare feet. By some stroke of luck, Dean seemed to have retired to the recliner. Faith crept past him and slid into the room she was sharing with Jo, who slumbered deep enough not to wake when Faith clumsily climbed into bed beside her.
It didn't take long for Faith to get to sleep, and that certainly had nothing at all to do with the delicious scent of Dean wrapped around her like a hug, or the knowledge he was only a room away, peaceful in his own slumber.
All her months of ridiculously early-morning training sessions with Toby meant that Faith was the first one awake that morning, rising with the sun. Jo remained asleep beside her, her arms and legs curled around a spare pillow. It made her seem younger than she was.
Tiptoeing out of the bedroom, Faith made her way into the main room of the apartment. Sam was reclined on the couch, snoring away peacefully even with his fingers wrapped around the gun resting on his sternum. Dean, however, looked hardly quite so comfortable.
His broad form folded over itself, Dean just barely managed to fit on the recliner. His arm was tucked crookedly under his body, and his mouth was open as he slept. Faith allowed herself a moment – just the span to two heartbeats – to let her eyes drift over him in the ethereal glow of the early-morning light, then turned towards the kitchen.
Jo had planned to be here for a few days, so they at least had the bare essentials in the fridge. No matter how much she might have liked to be an early riser, she wouldn't force it on someone else, so she did her best to keep quiet as she set about making herself some toast for breakfast.
Things were silent until the toast popped out of the toaster, and Dean flew upwards like someone had fired off a shot next to his ear. Whirling around with bleary eyes, it took them a moment to land on Faith, who cast him a disparaging look before returning to her task.
"Jesus, what time is it?" he asked in a husky, rocky-road voice. She didn't answer him, and he glanced down at his phone. "Six a.m.? Don't you ever sleep, Bueller?"
"Some of us aren't allergic to mornings, Winchester," she replied over her shoulder.
She heard the pleather of his recliner creak and groan as he climbed slowly to his feet. She waited for some wisecrack comment in retort while she spread jam on her toast, but from Dean there was only silence. Finished, she picked her toast and took a bite, turning to look at him expectantly as she chewed.
Dean was staring, eyes somehow both unfocused and fully attentive. His full lips were parted, and he wet them with his tongue, a teasing flash of pink. Faith arched a brow and said nothing, chewing patiently on her toast.
Dean didn't seem to know where to look – the long expanse of leg put on show by his own boxer shorts, or the shoulder exposed by the loose fit of his Led Zeppelin tee-shirt.
"You're drooling," Faith pointed out, uncaring that it came out garbled around a mouthful of toast.
Dean blinked back to himself, the heated look in his eyes disappearing, replaced by the usual simmering anger that was there whenever she was around. What exactly was it that made him hate her so much? Either somehow, she'd wronged him, or he just generally found her detestable. Which was fine because she wasn't exactly lining up to kiss his feet anytime soon.
"Would you put on some clothes?" he demanded roughly.
Faith widened her large brown eyes, trying to look as doe-like as possible. "But yours fit so much better," she said, pouting her lips the way she did when she wanted somebody to kiss her.
Dean made a face like he was in pain, then turned away before she could torture him anymore. "You're a cruel beast of a lady, you know that?" he asked in a rough voice that did awful things to her insides.
"A lady, you say?" she simpered.
"Is that really all you heard?"
"Why, were there more compliments you wanted to throw my way?"
"Only you would consider being called cruel a compliment."
Sam let out a loud, irritated groan from where he was still laid on the couch, his long legs extending out over its end. He looked like an adult man taking a nap on a child's toy couch. "Would you two stop flirting and just shut up already?" he grunted at them, pulling his pillow up over his face as though prepared to smother himself if it meant getting out of this situation.
Faith couldn't say she didn't feel the same.
Dean glowered at her like she'd been the one to make the comment, and she glowered right back in return. Shoving the last of her toast into her mouth, she disappeared into the bedroom again. Probably woken by the sound of their voices, Jo was just pulling pants back on over the underwear she'd slept in the night before.
"Everything all right?" Jo asked through a yawn.
"Dean's an asshole," was all Faith muttered.
She tugged at Dean's clothes, glad to peel them off and replace them with her own ripped jeans and spaghetti-strap top. Then she began piling her usual arsenal onto her body – a knife at each shin, one tucked into her pocket, and her gun slipped into the waistband of her jeans, hidden by the long cut of her top.
By the time she reappeared in the kitchen, both Sam and Dean were awake, muttering amongst themselves quietly. They stopped when she stepped into the room. "I'm going for coffee," Faith announced coolly.
"I'll come with you," Sam offered instantly.
Faith didn't argue, and the two of them left without another word to Dean. They took their time on the stairs, winding their way down to the bottom level of the haunted apartment building. Somewhere around the second floor, Sam chuckled to himself.
"Feel like sharing, chucklehead?" she asked, a tad grumpy.
Sam laughed again. "It's just – I've never seen anyone get under his skin like you do."
But Faith didn't find it particularly amusing. "Oh, so you're saying I'm a special case."
Sam smirked. "You're something special all right."
Before she had a chance to lay into him – a latent reaction to her run-in with Dean – they reached the bottom floor, only to find the lobby fuller than it usually was. Through the glass doors of the lobby, they could spy a police cruiser and a bunch of cops crowded around it.
Faith glanced at Sam, who glanced right back. "You have any ID on you?" he asked from the corner of his mouth.
"We were just going for coffee," she reminded him.
Sam didn't bother to respond to that. They made their way down the last of the stairs, stopping beside an older woman with greying hair and a rainbow shawl thrown over her thin shoulders.
"Excuse me?" Faith asked, pasting on her most innocent expression. "I'm Faith, this is my boyfriend Sam. We just moved in upstairs. Did something happen that we should know about?"
The old woman gave Faith a pitying look, clucking her tongue and shaking her head. "They're saying another girl went missing. So awful, isn't it? All these disappearances? I've stopped letting Baxter out at night to use the little pup's room. I just let him do his business right there on the rug; but if that's the price I have to pay to keep him safe…"
Faith genuinely didn't know how to respond to that. Luckily, Sam wasn't quite so astounded. "Honey, I think we forgot to lock our front door," he said to her, placing a large hand on her shoulder.
They disappeared back up the stairs, taking them nearly two at a time until they reached their temporary residence. Sam burst unceremoniously through the door, Faith only a step behind.
Dean looked up from the map he was eyeing beside Jo. "Where's the coffee?" he asked suspiciously.
"There are cops outside," was all Sam said. "Another girl disappeared."
Dean and Jo took that in for a moment, then Dean snapped into action. "Who?"
"We don't know," said Faith.
"Why not?"
Her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "Because we didn't have any ID on us, and cops don't tend to answer civilian questions in an ongoing case," she said sweetly, all the while her eyes promised violence. She turned her attention to Jo, as if Dean was nothing more than a mild inconvenience. "You got a jacket or something I can throw over this top?"
"Why?" Jo wondered.
"Because as impressive as my rack is, it'll be easier to believe I'm really a US Marshal if you can't see half of it popping out of my top."
Jo smirked and disappeared into the bedroom to fetch a jacket while Faith swiped her fake US Marshal's badge from where she'd dumped it on the table the night before. "What, you're taking point?" Dean demanded as she slipped it into her pocket.
"Why's that so hard to believe?"
"You've been doing this all of five minutes," he replied tightly. "Maybe let the professionals handle this one."
"Why don't you both go?" Sam interjected before she could let loose the truly scathing reply that she had sitting ready on her tongue. "Two Marshals are better than one, right?"
Jo reappeared, a simple green parka in her hands. "This do?"
Faith slid it on with a smile of thanks. "We'll be back soon," she said, the only acknowledgement of Dean's involvement she was willing to give. Dean muttered something to Sam, then stomped his way to the door. He held it open for Faith, who zipped her borrowed parka up over her tank top.
They didn't talk as they made their way down the stairs, their footsteps loud and heavier than necessary.
The lobby was still filled with overly curious tenants, but whatever energy she and Dean were exuding had them all parting like the Red Sea, allowing her and Dean a straight shot to the front door, where the cops still loitered by their cruiser.
"Let me do the talking on this one, all right?" Dean muttered from the corner of his mouth.
Faith pulled the fake badge from her pocket, holding it up and stubbornly announcing, "Howdy, fellas. I'm Faith Gaiman, this is Dean Gilmour – we're with the US Marshals Service. Can you tell us what's going on here?"
One of the cops, a younger man with the beginnings of a beard and bright look to his eyes opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by an older cop, a woman with a shrewd look about her, like she was born suspicious of the world and everything in it.
"Can I see that badge?" she demanded sharply.
Smiling innocently, Faith handed her the badge. She scanned it for a moment before seeming to deem it legit and handing it back. "As I was saying," Faith continued smoothly, "can you give us any insight into what's happening here?"
The cop narrowed her eyes. "What's the US Marshal's Service got to do with this?"
"We're in this building following up a lead on a case of our own," said Dean before Faith could speak. "We just want to make sure our purposes here don't overlap."
The woman thought about it a moment, then nodded once at her wide-eyed deputy, who seemed all too eager to spill all the details of their case. "You handle this, Connor," she said shortly. "I've got more important matters to deal with."
With that she left, already saying something into her radio. The deputy – Connor – looked at them with a friendly smile. "Elroy Connor," he introduced himself, eager eyes settled on Faith.
"Nice to meet you, Elroy," said Dean before Faith had a chance to say the same. His voice had an authoritative note to it that would have made anyone look up from their breakfast. "What can you tell us?"
"Uh, missing persons case, sir," he said, suddenly nervously, because however Dean was acting, it wasn't friendly.
"Victim?" Dean demanded, voice hard as the concrete beneath their feet.
"Teresa Ellis," Connor blurted nervously, as if he had a gun to his head. In Faith's experience, Dean tended to have that effect on people. Either his charm level was dialled up to a hundred, or he was scaring the shit out of random people in the street. She wondered whether he was ever just regular old Dean; then realised he probably was all the time, and she just hadn't been deemed worthy enough to know who that actually was.
"Who reported her missing?"
"Her boyfriend, Kyle McNulty," Connor answered as if on autopilot. "Around dawn this morning."
"Which apartment?"
"2F."
"2F," he echoed as if committing it to memory. "Mind if we take a look?"
"A look? A look at what?"
Dean's jaw clicked with frustration. "Inside the apartment."
"Why?"
Faith intervened before Dean could make them seem any more suspicious. She slid between them, smiling coyly. "We just want to be thorough in our own investigation," she told Connor sweetly. "You know how it is. Dot the i's and cross the t's."
He nodded with a smile. "Well, I've, er, I've got the key to the place, but the rules say we're not meant to let people into active crime scenes…"
"Do you want to me to flash my badge?" she asked coyly, and he blushed. "We're not just people, Elroy. We're US Marshals. And we only wanna take a quick look, just to be sure this isn't connected to our case."
"And, er, what is your case, exactly?"
Her smile was sweet as she gently laid a hand on his arm, looking up at him from under her lashes. "I'm afraid that's classified."
Needless to say, Connor let them into the apartment. He'd just unlocked the door with a nervous but hopeful smile in her direction when someone said his name over the radio, asking him to meet them downstairs. He looked helplessly at Faith, as if she could solve this problem for him. Of course, she could.
"My partner and I have been to our fair share of crime scenes," she assured him. "We won't contaminate the evidence. Scout's honour."
Charmed, the deputy smiled a nervous little smile then scurried from the room, leaving her and Dean alone in the apartment.
Neither needed to investigate very thoroughly to determine that this missing persons case was of a supernatural nature – the giant cracks in the plaster of the walls and ceiling were a dead giveaway. Still, Dean pulled out his EMF reader and Faith made her way to the vents to check for ectoplasm.
"You know, a good hunter wouldn't need to flirt their way into a crime scene," muttered Dean, sounding decidedly bitter.
She didn't bother looking up at him as she said, "A good hunter uses every tool in their arsenal to get the job done. I have a pretty face; I might as well make it useful."
Dean's sullen silence was telling enough, and she scoffed. "What?" he demanded at the sound.
"Don't pretend you're any better than me," she said, creeping closer to the grate with ectoplasm leaking from its bars. "I know for a fact you flirt your way into ninety percent of the situations you find yourself in."
"Oh yeah, and how would you know that?"
She snorted. "I've met you?"
"You don't know a thing about me."
She whirled around on him, fire in her eyes. "And you don't know a thing about me," she snapped. "Yet you still seem perfectly content to pass judgement anyway."
Dean didn't seem to know what to say in response to that. Maybe it was the venom with which it was said, or maybe he felt the truth echoing in the words themselves. Either way, he didn't respond, returning to his task with a frown. They finished their sweep of the room in frosty silence, then met back at the front door and left, continuing up to their own temporary apartment without so much as a word.
Faith's shoulders were bunched with tension, her insides of stew of discontent. The silence wasn't calming things down, but rather making her reaction stronger. But she knew she had nothing new to add to what was already a dismal argument. They were fighting over nothing. It seemed they always were.
They reached their apartment and Dean opened the door, only to step aside and wave her through first. Suspicious, she frowned at him as she slipped past into the room. Jo and Sam were leant over the kitchen table, all their research materials piled in front of them. They looked up when Faith and Dean walked in, eyebrows raised.
"Teresa Ellis, Apartment 2F," Dean told them without preamble. "Boyfriend reported her missing around dawn."
Jo cocked her head. "And her apartment?"
"Cracks everywhere, just like the others," Faith told her. "I found ectoplasm leaking from the vents, too."
"Well, between that and that tuft of hair," said Sam, "I'd say this sucker's coming from the walls."
Dean's footsteps thudded against the wooden floor. "But who is it?" he asked, bracing his hands on the table and scowling down at their materials like they were at fault for their ignorance. "Building's history is totally clean."
"I can call Toby," Faith offered.
"Isn't he enjoying his time off?" Sam asked, sounding amused.
She shrugged. "Maybe he'll have some insight, see something we missed?"
"Thanks, Princess, but we don't need your boyfriend's help," said Dean scathingly.
Eyebrows shooting up her forehead, Faith turned to him in resounding surprise. "Excuse me?"
"Shut up," said Jo suddenly, before he had the chance to truly say something that would make her punch him clean across the face. Faith turned to look at her with her mouth open to tell her – very maturely – that Dean had started it, but Jo's attention was on the printed-out photograph in her hands. "Maybe we're looking in the wrong place. Check this out."
Seeming relieved that Faith and Dean couldn't keep up their petty argument, Sam took the photograph and stared down at it critically. "An empty field?" he asked, understandably sceptical.
"It's where this building was built. Take a look at the one next door. The windows," Jo said, pointing to the part of the picture that mattered.
"We're next door to a prison?" Dean wondered, getting a good look at the bars lining the windows of the neighbouring building. "What was it called?"
Sam frowned. "There should be something in city's archives-"
"It'll be quicker just to call Ash," said Jo, already pulling out her phone.
"Aren't you trying to keep the whole 'you being here' thing on the down low?" Dean asked.
"Ash won't tell," she shrugged, shooting them all a sweet smile before holding the phone up to her ear and waltzing away. It took less than three minutes for Ash to get the information they needed. "Moyamensing prison," Jo told them, shutting her phone as she made her way back to the three of them. "Built in 1835, torn down in 1963. And get this – they used to execute people by hanging them in the empty field next door."
"Well, then, we need a list," said Sam in that eager way every hunter got excited when they were on the right track towards closing a hunt. "All the people executed there."
"Ash is already on it," Jo assured him. "He'll email it to you shortly."
"Okay, well, while we're waiting on that, I've gotta make a call," said Faith, pulling her own phone from her pocket.
"Check-in time?" Dean asked scathingly.
Faith didn't bother to respond to that, sweeping past him as she dialled Toby's number. She stepped out into the hallway, letting the door click shut behind her. Toby answered the call with a yawn.
"Are you dying?"
Bemused, Faith blinked. "What?"
"Well, if you're waking me up, I'd assume you're dying."
"Toby, it's four in the afternoon."
"And I'm on holiday."
Faith laughed, leaning back against the wall, facing their apartment's door and shaking her head at her partner even though he couldn't see. "I was just calling to check in; let you know I'm still breathing."
"What a relief," Toby deadpanned.
She rolled her eyes. "C'mon, Toby, I'm having a tough enough time here as it is. Least you could do would be to pretend to care."
"Aw, are the Winchesters being mean to you?" he asked, and she could hear the teasing pout in his voice. It nearly made her smile.
"If I murdered Dean, would you help me cover it up?" she wondered, eyes narrowed at the door Dean was stood behind as if she could burn him to ash with the ferocity of her thoughts alone.
"Of course," Toby said, voice thick with exhaustion. Faith could tell he just wanted to return to his nap.
"All right, I'll let you go. But first; which motel are you at?"
"Daffodil Inn, only a few blocks away from your haunted apartment building," he told her shortly. "Can I go back to sleep now?"
Faith's only answer was to hang up the phone, wondering if every man in her life had been specifically designed by God to piss her the fuck off.
She let herself back into the apartment, finding Dean bent over the computer while Sam and Jo leant against the tabletop. Jo was frowning, but Sam looked strangely giddy. "Any developments?" Faith asked, kicking the door shut behind her and moving deeper into the room.
"Yeah," said Sam, that giddy look never leaving his eyes. "We figured out who the spirit is."
"Potentially," said Dean, reproachful.
Sam ignored him, attention on Faith. "You ever hear of H. H. Holmes?" he asked eagerly.
"No," she shrugged. "He a friend of yours?"
"They coined the term 'multi-murderer', just to describe Holmes," Dean explained from the computer, where he was typing something in, a furrow in his brow. The animosity was gone from his voice, replaced by focus for the job. "He was America's first serial killer, before anybody knew what a serial killer was."
Sam still looked far too eager, considering the subject matter. "He confessed to twenty-seven murders, but some put the death toll at over a hundred," he said, like a kid at serial-killer Christmas.
"And his victim flavour of choice? Pretty petite blondes. He used chloroform to kill 'em – which is what I smelled in the hallway last night," said Dean, rubbing a hand across his brow. "At his place, cops found human remains, bone fragments, and long locks of bloody blonde hair. Boy, you sure know how to pick 'em," he added in Jo's direction.
Jo was unperturbed. "Well, we just find the bones, salt 'em and burn 'em, right?"
Sam shook his head. "Well, it's not that easy. His body's buried in town, but it's encased in a couple tons of concrete."
"What? Why?"
Dean's smile was grim. "The story goes that he didn't want anybody mutilating his corpse. 'Cause, you know, that's what he used to do."
Jo grimaced, and even Faith – for all the shit she'd seen – thought that was pretty much as high on the freaky scale as a spirit could get.
But Sam wasn't finished. "You know something? We might have an even bigger problem than that."
"How does this get bigger?"
"Holmes built an apartment building in Chicago. He called it the Murder Castle. The whole place was a death factory, they had trap doors, acid vats, quick line pits… He built these secret chambers inside the walls. He'd lock his victims in, keep them alive for days. Some he'd suffocate, others he'd let starve to death."
Jo sat up straight, like someone had shocked her. "So, Teresa could still be alive. She could be inside these walls."
Dean was already up on his feet. "We need sledgehammers, crowbars. We've got to smash these walls, anywhere thick enough to hide a girl. We'll split up again. Sam, Faith – you take the first two floors. Jo and I'll cover floors three and four."
Nobody argued, and a quick trip to the Impala later, they were armed with what they needed to break into the walls of the building. Jo and Dean headed up the stairs without another word, while Faith and Sam hovered in the lobby to find an entry-point into the first wall.
Once they found a hollow section, Sam took a sledgehammer to it, breaking a hole into the drywall big enough for them to slip through. Faith was immediately there, bending her way into the inside of the building. Sam began to follow, but she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "What do you think you're doing?"
He looked confused. "We're checking the walls for the missing girls?"
"Sam, you're six-foot-fifty. This is going to go a hell of a lot quicker if you just let me do it." Sam opened his mouth to argue, so Faith barrelled on before he had a chance. "If you're going to say the spirit will get me, don't bother. I don't fit the profile. I'm not particularly petite, and I'm certainly not blonde."
Sam huffed. "Okay, fine," he said, handing over his EMF reader. Faith held that in one hand, then with the other thumbed on a flashlight, holding it up to peer into the dark depths of the walls. The last thing she needed was to go tripping on a nail or something – Dean would never let her live it down. "Be careful," Sam ordered her.
Her only answer was a sarcastic snort before she disappeared into the dark. She'd barely gone ten steps before her phone began to buzz in her pocket. Pulling it free, she frowned down at the name on the screen.
"What?" she asked Sam, struggling to juggle the phone, EMF reader and flashlight all at once.
"Stay on the line, just to be safe."
Faith sighed. "Sam, listen, I'm a big girl-"
"I know," he insisted, "but would you humour me? Just this once?"
She sighed again but didn't argue, tucking the phone into the cradle of her shoulder and resigning herself to an ache later on.
She went as far into the walls as she could fit, covering the entire first floor within an hour. It occurred to her during all that time, deep within the darkness of the haunted walls, that maybe she should have felt more nervous to be crawling her way through spider webs and dust, on the hunt for a potentially dead body. But somehow, over the last few months, she'd gone from that girl who screamed bloody murder at a stabbing right in front of her, to a woman utterly unafraid of the dark.
There was nothing on that first floor, so they did a sweep of the second one, too.
"Anything?" Sam's tinny voice asked in her ear.
"No," she replied. "Nothing. Just like the first eight-hundred times you asked."
Sam sighed. "Sorry, it's just – if we don't find them in time… I mean, it could already be too late-"
"I know," she said grimly. "Trust me. I know."
But there was nothing in the second floor's walls – not even so much as a lock of bloody hair. Climbing back out through the large hole they'd smashed in the western wall, Faith shook her head once at Sam, who sighed and dialled Dean's cell.
He didn't pick up, and without a word they changed directions, heading straight up the narrow flight of stairs leading to the floor above.
"Dean?!" Faith called into the dim, empty hall.
"Faith?!" Dean's voice replied. He appeared, pulling a Breakfast Club as he all but skidded across the floor in an effort to stop. He looked haggard, and with Jo missing from his side, it didn't take a genius to figure out what happened. "He's got Jo," Dean said anyway, green eyes flickering up and down Faith's body, as if checking for an injury.
"He what?!" she bleated, an octave too shrill, panic lancing through her bones.
Sam came up behind her, his footsteps heavy on the floor. Dean's eyes flew to him, sparking with anger directed at himself. "How'd that happen?"
"I wasn't with her," Dean ground out the words like they caused him pain. Maybe they did. "I left her alone. Dammit!" he shouted, kicking the closest wall. It was surprising his foot didn't go through the plaster.
"Hey, look, we'll find her, all right?" said Sam calmly. He led the way back to their own apartment, their long legs making quick work of the distance. Faith had to jog a little to keep up, her heart thundering with the knowledge that Jo was with the spirit.
Their theory was that the girls were all kept alive for a time; but at the end of the day that was all it was: just a theory.
"Where?!" Dean demanded.
"Inside the walls."
"We've been inside the walls all goddamn night," Dean growled. Faith wasn't sure she'd ever seen him so furious – for once, all that anger was directed inwards, rather than at her. "None of the other girls were there," he snapped. "She won't be either."
Their door seemed to come out of nowhere, Faith so distracted by her own concern. Sam opened it and pushed his way inside, Dean close on his heels. Faith brought up the rear, shutting the door with her hip and going straight to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water.
"Look, we've just gotta take a beat and think about this," Sam said logically, taking a seat at the desk and opening his computer. "Maybe we got Holmes' MO wrong."
Dean's footsteps were heavier than usual on the floorboards. "Yeah, well, we'd better fuckin' think fast," he snapped, shoulders hunched in. Faith threw back her cup of water like it was whiskey, hoping to clear the lump that had appeared in her throat.
"What even happened?" she asked, trying to get it straight.
Dean whirled around on her with a glare. "The wall was too small, and I couldn't fit. Jo went through alone," he said through gritted teeth.
Faith's hackles raised. "So, you just let her go off alone? The only one of us with this spirit's actual victim type?"
"I know," Dean snapped, green eyes glowing like embers. "All right? I already feel like shit. The last thing I need is you adding to the pile."
Faith opened her mouth, unsure what horrible thing was going to come out – but surely, it was something – only for a tinny guitar solo to pierce the air.
With a sharp exhale, Dean yanked his phone from his pocket, slapping it against his ear and answering the person on the other end with an impatient, "Yeah?"
Faith couldn't hear whoever was on the other end, but she watched as Dean went from hunched in on himself to standing ramrod straight. He looked back at them, eyes alight with panic.
"Ellen," he said, jaw clenched tight. A pause. "She's gonna have to call you back, she's taking care of, uh, feminine business." A beat that was full of tension. "Look, we'll get her back," Dean sighed. "The spirit we're hunting, it took her. She'll be okay, I promise."
Faith set down her glass with enough force that it was a miracle it didn't shatter. She marched up to Dean, snatching the phone from his hand before he could do a thing to stop her.
"We're not going to let anything happen to her," Faith said to Ellen, ignoring her own thundering heart. "Ellen, I'm sorry this happened. I should have stayed with her. I thought-"
"It doesn't matter what you thought, Faith," snapped Ellen, voice trembling. "Jo could be dead for all you know."
"She isn't," Faith insisted.
"Yeah? How do you know? You got any proof?"
Faith didn't, so she said nothing.
Ellen's answering scoff was laced with bitterness. "That's what I thought," she said sourly. "I'm taking the next flight out."
"Ellen, you don't have to-"
"You don't tell me what I have to do, Faith Jett," Ellen snapped back. "I'll be there in a few hours."
The line went dead. It took a great deal of restraint for Faith not to hurl the cell phone at the closest wall. Instead, she slammed it down hard on the table and turned away from the two brothers before her in an effort to hide her expression.
"She'll be here in a few hours," she said, glaring hard at the nearby couch to siphon off some of her own blistering rage. "We have until then to get Jo back, or I can promise you we're all better off dead."
A bang, then the squeal of chair legs against the polished floor. "Damnit!" roared Dean. Faith's eyes burned, so she shut them tight to soothe the sting.
"Don't beat yourself up, Dean," said Sam quietly. "There's nothing you could have done."
"Oh really?" asked Faith, spinning around to pin Dean with an uncompromising glare. "Nothing he could have done? I can think of a dozen or so things right off the top of my head, Sam."
Dean turned on her with a glower of his own. "You weren't there!"
"Yeah? Well apparently, neither were you!"
Dean reeled back like she'd slapped him. For a long moment, there was no sound in the apartment but their own heavy breathing. Faith stared at Dean, and he stared right back, their mouths tight with frustration. Finally, just when Faith thought she couldn't possibly stand it anymore, Dean turned back to Sam with a huff.
"Tell me you've got something," he said gruffly.
For a moment Sam only looked between the two of them, wary, like they were a bomb he half expected to explode, but then with a sigh, he turned his attention back to his laptop. "Uh, maybe," he said. "Check it out – you look at the layout of the Holmes murder castle, there's all the torture chambers inside the walls, right? But there's one we haven't considered yet. The one in his basement."
"This building doesn't have a basement," said Dean immediately.
"You're right, it doesn't," Sam agreed. Faith shuffled closer, hands balled into fists. "But I just noticed this. Beneath the foundation, it looks like part of an old sewer system that hasn't been used for-"
"Let's go."
Before she or Sam could even move, Dean had gathered his things and was charging from the room. They had no choice but to follow. Dean was a man on a mission, and nothing was going to stand between him and getting Jo back. For all their bickering, Faith could admit Dean was a good guy – he cared about people, and he spent his whole life trying to help them.
She knew that if anything happened to Jo today, he'd consider it his fault for the rest of his life.
A nearby pawnshop had a metal detector for sale – for a truly criminal price, but Sam only bought it with his phoney credit card anyway – and they got to searching for the hatch that would lead down into the abandoned sewer network.
As they walked – Sam with the metal detector, Dean and Faith with a shovel each – Faith tried not to imagine what was happening to Jo in that moment. Was she being tortured? Suffocated? Was she conscious? Hell, was she even alive?
The weight of the unknowns were crushing, but Faith didn't let either of the brothers see how she felt. She clenched her jaw tight, gripped her shovel until her knuckles went white, and focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
Jo was one of the very, very few friends Faith had. If anything happened to her, not only will she have lost Jo, but Ellen would never be able to forgive her. She'd lose so much, the knowledge of that sat like sludge in her stomach.
They found the hatch in a field beside the apartment block. Thankfully there were no city workers around to shout at them for digging an unauthorised hole in the middle of the field, right over where the metal detector screamed the hatch's existence.
The sewer was rank, dirty, and full of bugs. Faith didn't care. Dean went down first, and she followed close behind, a shotgun of her own strapped to her back as she climbed down the rungs leading into the darkness of the sewer. Not one of them said a word. Not as they reached the bottom of the shaft, not as they crawled through at least half a mile of pipe, and not even as the sewer opened up to a space large enough for them to stand.
They didn't want the spirit to know they were coming. They needed every advantage they could get, including the element of surprise.
Sam and Dean seemed to have their own sign language invented for situations just like this one, but luckily, it was easy enough for Faith to understand – and ignore. She was the first to hear the sounds of someone struggling for their life through a grate in the wall. Faith didn't stop to get permission from Dean – she just charged through the grate and fired a round of rock salt at the bastard ghost, which dissipated like smoke.
"Jo?!" Faith shouted now that the ghost was temporarily taken care of.
"I'm here!" shouted her friend, coughing for air.
Sam and Dean's footsteps splashed through the water behind her, but Faith paid them no attention, going straight for the source of Jo's voice. She was locked in some sort of metal, coffin-like contraption, a large metal padlock hanging from the latch.
"Teresa!" Jo shouted hoarsely.
"Sam! Dean!" Faith shouted back to the brothers.
They didn't answer, but Faith could hear them go to the other coffin in the room. Faith splashed towards Jo. "Are you okay?" Faith asked as she grabbed the lock. It wouldn't budge.
"I've been better," Jo rasped. She sounded like she'd been crying. "Get me out of here!"
The unfiltered desperation in Jo's voice sent a lightning-bolt of strength through Faith. Like fuel, it empowered her, and she felt a surge of energy unlike any she'd felt before. Without a second thought, Faith grabbed the solid steel lock hanging from the latch and yanked.
The metal warped and snapped, the lock breaking in an instant, falling into her hand. Its weight was heavy in her palm, and for a moment Faith could only stare down at the thing, her own pulse so loud in her ears that she nearly missed Dean's voice.
"You got the lock?" he asked, appearing at her shoulder.
Some part of her – the part that had kept her alive all those years on the street – told her to lie. So that was exactly what she did.
"It was faulty," she said robotically, surreptitiously slipping the broken lock into the back pocket of her jeans.
To her relief, Dean didn't so much as question it. He wrenched open Jo's coffin, pulling the youngest of them out.
Jo's hair was a mess, matted with dirt and blood, her skin smeared with what looked like oily fingerprints and sewerage, face sticky with tears. Despite all of that, Faith gathered Jo in a hug before she could say a word. It said a lot about the kind of day Jo was having that she didn't even try to wriggle her way out of the embrace.
"You alright?" Dean asked worriedly.
"Been better," Jo replied. "Let's get the hell out of here before he comes back."
But Dean hesitated, and Faith pulled back from Jo to frown at him. "Actually, I don't think you're leaving here just yet," he said thickly. One arm wrapped around Jo, Faith waited to hear what she knew she wasn't going to like. "Remember when I said you being bait was a bad plan? Now it's kind of the only one we got."
"Dean," said Faith reproachfully.
He scowled at her. "You got a better idea?"
She didn't, and he knew it. He didn't seem smug about it, though, and Faith thought that maybe today had taken more out of him than he'd be willing to admit.
"Take Teresa back up to the surface. Explain the basics and get her cleaned up. Sam and I will stay down here to get rid of this thing for good."
"What, you get all the action while I'm given babysitting duty?" she snapped angrily.
Dean didn't so much as flinch. "Teresa's been held hostage and tortured by a man for over two days," he reminded her quietly. "Don't you think she'd rather your company, over ours, after all that?"
It was surprisingly insightful, kind in a way she hadn't come to expect from Dean. She looked over at Teresa, who was huddled in Sam's arms, trembling like a leaf. She looked dirty, tired and utterly terrified. Faith knew then that Dean wasn't just being an asshole or trying to get her out of the way. He genuinely thought she was what Teresa needed in that moment.
Faith turned back to Jo. "Will you be okay?"
"Yeah," said Jo, and despite the way her voice shook, Faith believed her. "I'll be fine. Go help Teresa." Indecisive, Faith wavered. "Go," Jo pushed her in Teresa's direction.
Faith didn't so much as glance at Dean as she walked over to Sam and gently took Teresa out of his arms. "Hi Teresa. My name's Faith. I'm going to get you out of here," she said in her softest voice. The girl trembled and sobbed in Faith's arms. "Come on," she said, guiding her back towards the pipe.
Teresa sobbed the whole half-mile crawl through the pipe, and each sound was like a rip at Faith's heart. She'd been through her own fair share of shit, but something like this? What this innocent woman had suffered? Faith could barely even imagine.
By the time they were finally climbing up out into the sunshine, Teresa had run out of tears, though she still shook all over, squinting in pain against the light.
"I know you probably have questions," Faith told her as she led her to the back door of the building beside them, where hopefully they wouldn't be spotted by law enforcement. "But do you want me to take you to the hospital first? Those bruises look bad."
Sniffling once, Teresa shook her head. "I just want a shower," she whispered.
Faith guided her very slowly up the four flights of stairs leading to their temporary apartment. She got Teresa set up in the bathroom, then went about using what little supplies they had to make hot tea and a sandwich for her to eat.
Teresa took her time in the shower, and when Faith went to go check on her at the twenty-minute mark, she heard the poor woman sobbing over the sound of the water. Giving her all the time she needed, Faith went back out into the living room and made her way to the window. Ironically enough, the view looked over the empty lot the sewer entrance was in. Faith could see it from the window, the rusted metal of the entrance hatch shining in the light.
The weight of the lock in her back pocket seemed to scream at her, and Faith knew she couldn't avoid it forever. Slowly, half afraid it would grow teeth and bite her, Faith slid the offending piece of steel from her pocket and stared down at it in the light.
On the walk up the stairs, she'd told herself so many lies. That the metal had been rusted, or the lock was simply thin and worn. That it had already been unlocked, and the sound she'd heard had been Teresa's lock breaking, rather than Jo's.
But staring down at the lock in the light of day, there was no way to deny the truth. The metal was sturdy and strong; there was no rust to be seen. The metal of the lock was twisted and bent like it was made from nothing more than a piece of children's playdough. She'd done that – no matter that it wasn't possible.
How could she have ripped the lock from its place like that? As if it were nothing? It was solid steel – snapping it with her bare hands should have been impossible.
Desperate, she searched her mind for some explanation, some factoid that could explain the evidence before her. Was it possible she'd had an adrenaline rush? She'd read about them before – panicked mothers lifting cars off their babies – but she found it hard to believe that was what had happened today.
She remembered feeling a sort of humming in her bones, a connection to her body – or maybe to something else – that she'd never before had. Faith remembered that thrum of energy, like her muscles themselves had been supercharged, and the way she'd known without a shadow of a doubt that if she yanked on that lock, it would snap.
Faith wasn't sure how long she stood at the window, staring down at the warped hunk of metal in her palm, lost deep in thought – but eventually a throat cleared behind her. Faith whipped around, reaching instinctively for the gun at her waist.
But it was only Teresa, dressed in the clean clothes Faith had laid out for her, looking the worse for wear. Faith shoved the evidence of her impossible feat of strength back into her pocket and let go of her gun. She attempted a smile that fell flat, but Teresa didn't seem to notice.
"I set out some food," Faith told her gently.
Teresa glanced to the cooling tea and dry toast on the counter, her thin arms wrapped protectively around herself. "Thanks, but I'm not hungry."
Faith doubted that – she'd been held hostage by a ghost for over two days by this point – but she didn't argue the point. "Well, if you have questions-"
"I just want to go home," said Teresa quietly.
"Right. Er…you're in apartment 2F, right? I can walk you down if you'd like."
But Teresa shook her head. "My parents live a few hours out of the city. I know there's a bus that leaves every other hour."
"Okay," said Faith. "Why don't I help you pack a bag, then I'll take you there?"
Teresa agreed and together they went down the two flights of stairs to her floor. The door to her apartment was locked, and just when Teresa looked like she was about to cry, Faith pulled the lock-pick from her pocket and crouched down to work the lock.
Teresa said nothing as Faith unlocked her door and waved her inside. Faith thought it strange that she had no questions – were their positions reversed, Faith was certain she'd be overflowing with demands for information – but Teresa just silently went about packing the essentials into a large suitcase. Faith stood in the doorway and watched her, waiting for the questions to come. But they never did.
It wasn't until Teresa was done packing her bag, standing ready at the door to leave, that Faith broke the tense silence.
"I know you'll probably want to talk to the police…" Faith began carefully.
But Teresa shook her head. "I won't pretend to know who…or what…that guy was – but I know he wasn't…normal; wasn't human," she said evenly. The tears were all dried up, the terror gone from her. Now she was just a woman filled with resolve. Faith couldn't help but respect her for it. "I know the police will do no good, and from what I heard…down there…" she said the words with only a tiny tremble in her voice, "you and those two guys are taking care of…whatever it was. So, I'm just going to go to my parent's house, eat takeout for a week straight, and look for a new apartment, far away from this hell hole."
Faith had to smile. "Sounds like a good plan." She dug in her pocket, pulling out a small wad of cash. "This should get you a taxi to the bus station, and a ticket once you arrive."
Teresa took it with a quiet thank you.
"You're going to be okay, Teresa," Faith promised her.
"Yeah," she agreed flatly. "Now I just have to live the rest of my life knowing nightmares like that actually exist…"
"You're strong," Faith said, and meant it. They left the apartment and Faith locked the door behind them, leading the way down the stairs to the lobby. "By the way – you should line your doorways and windows with salt. It repels spirits and a whole lot of other nasty things that go bump in the night."
"Thanks," said Teresa distantly. They paused in the taxi bay outside the apartment building. Teresa turned to her with flat eyes. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again."
"Yeah," Faith exhaled heavily. "I get that a lot."
She left Teresa to wait for a taxi, walking around the back of the building. She half expected to have to climb back down into the sewer to find the others, but to her surprise Sam and Jo were stood in the knee-high grass, staring down into the manhole with grim expressions.
"Hey," called Faith. They looked up from the dark, dank hole leading to that sewer of horrors, and to Faith's surprise, smiled. "We all made it out in one piece, then?" she asked, strolling up to them and glancing down into the hole, half expecting to see Dean climbing up to the surface. But the hole was empty.
"Dean's just gone to pick something up," said Sam with a wry smile. "He should be back any minute."
"How's Teresa?" Jo asked quietly, a furrow in her delicate brow.
"Surprisingly well adjusted," Faith told her. "She packed a bag, and I gave her enough cash to get to the bus station, where she'll hop on a Greyhound to her parent's place somewhere far out of the city."
"What'd you tell her?" Sam wondered.
Faith shrugged. "Nothing. She didn't ask any questions. She'd figured enough out on her own, or at least, decided she didn't need to know. I think she's gonna be okay." Jo looked down at her feet, smiling, and Faith asked, "What?"
"She's gonna live a life because of us," Jo said, meeting Faith's gaze with pride in her own. "It's worth it, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it is," said Sam quietly.
"Absolutely," agreed Faith. She'd never heard anything truer. The cool press of the broken lock in her back pocket was suddenly impossible to ignore, and she tapped her fingertips against it, trying not to think about what, exactly, her impossible feat of strength meant.
"Hey, what if somebody finds that sewer down there?" Jo asked suddenly. "Or a storm washes the salt away?"
Sam grinned, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. "Both very fine points. Which is why we're waiting here," he said, just a hint of mischief in the curl of his mouth.
"For what?"
There came a loud beeping, and the three of them looked up to see a giant cement mixer backing its way up to them. Sam's small smile bloomed into a flat-out grin. "For that."
The truck stopped just before reaching the manhole and the door cracked open, Dean hopping out from behind the wheel.
"You ripped off a cement truck?" asked Jo. Her voice was incredulous, but her smiling eyes told another story.
Dean shrugged. "I'll give it back."
His eyes flicked over Faith, but they were gone before she could register their weight. He and Sam adjusted the chute until it was hovering over the hole, then Dean slapped his hand to the button, wet cement sliding smoothly down the chute and pouring soundly into the sewer.
"Well," said Dean proudly, "that oughta keep him down there till Hell freezes over."
And things were fine.
There was a certain satisfaction – a high, almost – that came with finishing a hunt. Faith was only just getting used to it, that thrum of pride when the demon was dead, and the bones were salted and burned. Sometimes she wondered whether that high would ever become so commonplace that it disappeared entirely.
But an hour later, looking over her beer bottle at Dean and Sam, sat on the couch in what was still technically Jo's apartment for another four months – Faith thought that maybe that high never did go away. Sam was laughing at something Dean had said, and Jo was shaking her head, sipping her own beer with a grin. Dean himself was smirking into the lip of his celebratory beer, and impossibly, when their eyes met over the top of the bottles, the animosity in their gazes was non-existent.
Things were happy, easy, and the world felt just a little bit brighter than it had before; one less angry spirit to go around causing havoc. And it was all because of them.
But all good things must eventually end, and this time it was by a hard, unforgiving smack on the front door. The room instantly fell silent, everyone knowing who it was and nobody willing to be the one to answer that door.
In the end, Jo had no choice but to face the music, so with a sigh she set down her beer and greeted her mother, who looked angry enough to smite them where they stood, had she the power.
"Well," said Faith once Ellen was stood in the middle of the room, glowering at anything that moved, "I'd better get back to Toby before he puts himself in a sugar coma."
"You're leaving?" asked Sam, looking uncharacteristically nervous as he glanced warily over at Ellen.
"No rest for the wicked," she shrugged, as if she wasn't running like a coward. She glanced at Dean, who looked just as nervous as his brother. Faith admitted that, given the choice between facing down the murderous ghost of H. H. Holmes or a furious Ellen Harvelle, Faith would choose the ghost every damn time. "Good huntin', boys," she said, tossing a half-grin at Sam and a slightly warier one at Dean.
To her surprise, he lifted his bottle in acknowledgement, a hint of playful warmth in his eyes. Faith smiled back, pulling on her leather jacket and walking over to Jo, who stood uncomfortably beside a ramrod Ellen. Faith pulled Jo into a brief hug.
"You did good," she whispered in Jo's ear so Ellen wouldn't hear and go nuclear. "See you soon?"
Jo's only reply was a nod, but given the hard edge to her mother's glare, it wasn't too surprising.
"Nice to see you, Ellen. How's the Roadhouse?" Faith asked sweetly, shooting Ellen her sunniest smile. Ellen's glower didn't so much as twitch, and she made no move to reply. Awkward as could be, Faith's smile wavered as she grabbed her cell from the table. "Well," she said to the room, the tension so thick it was like wading through swamp water, "I guess I'll see you round."
And with that Faith left the apartment, leaving them to their unpleasant discussion. She walked down the stairs, dialling Toby's number to get the directions to his motel – the whole time, the broken lock burning a hole in her back pocket.
A reminder that something was very, very wrong. And that she had no idea where to even begin searching for answers.
A/N: Up next: Faith and Toby encounter a Wendigo, where strange and unexplainable things continue to happen around Faith. Also, Dean makes a drunk phone call.