The Supernatural Adventures of Ellie Singer

Sam turned in his seat to look back at me. I was in the middle, again, leaning forward to perch my head between theirs. I didn’t know what Sam’s face meant. He slightly raised one eyebrow. But maybe he was looking at my expression for some reason, rather than trying to communicate anything.

“Did she tell you why?” he asked, turning back to his brother.

“Didn’t ask. We’re talking millions, Sam. Why else?”

Maybe that’s what Sam had been trying to ask me, without words. Something about this story seemed… odd. It takes a special kind of ruthlessness to murder your parents for money before you’re even out of high school. Bela was definitely cold and hard, but she didn’t seem greedy. She was incredibly shady and she sold stolen goods. She didn’t care what was done with the dangerous occult stuff she hocked. Yes, she’d shot Sam, which I’d never forgive. But she also paid us for rescuing her from that ghost ship curse. Paid us a lot.

She liked being rich, but I wasn’t quite sure how to reconcile a teenager so greedy she’d murder her parents in cold blood with a woman who casually threw twenty grand at us like it was nothing.

“Mighta been some other reason too,” I said. “I hate her, but I dunno… something just doesn’t seem right about that.”

“Okay, Shortcake,” said Dean, his tone like like a gentle, patronising pat on the head. “Bela’s just misunderstood and there’s a soft squishy marshmallow inside everyone.”

“Except you, asshole,” I said, throwing a heavy kick to the back of his seat.

“You said she didn’t have the Colt,” Sam cut in, carefully scooching the subject back on track before I tried to strangle Dean while he was driving. “So what happened?”

“Didn’t find the Colt, so I left. But she stole the motel receipt from my pocket.”

“Huh,” mumbled Sam. “So… she’s looking for us?”

“Or someone else is,” said Dean. “Either way, I’m thinking decoys in our beds tonight.”

Sam and I agreed with that, no question. Whether Bela bumped her parents off for money or not was irrelevant to our own situation. When someone pickpockets you to find out where you’re sleeping, best thing to do is not sleep there.

It was on the way back to the motel that Sam spotted a sex shop. Dean was all ready to joke about his little brother growing up or imply Sam had some weird fetish. But Sam pointed out that the place sold sex dolls, forcing Dean to agree that actually, that was a really great idea.

Two guys and a girl go into a shop and buy three sex dolls. I don’t know how that joke ends, but it sounds like a good start. At least, the man working the counter was amused.

It was dark by the time we got back to the motel. Dean had been in Canaan, so it was only Sam and I that needed to gather all our shit together. It was hard to make my decoy doll look right, lying on the floor, but we managed it. Without knowing whether it’d be Bela coming or someone else, and what they intended to do, we just had to take our best guess.

Dean was pretty convinced Bela was intending to kill us. She was trying to hold Hellhounds at bay, but rather than ask for help, she’d stolen the receipt to get our location. Sam and I agreed that it sure seemed like she was trying to cut some sort of deal. I wasn’t sure about killing us, though. Maybe her intention was just to give us up.

In any case, she probably wasn’t interested in killing me. I was merely a sidekick. A badass, super competent (and totally hilarious) sidekick. But not likely to be included in any plot against the Winchesters. Although, she hated my guts, so maybe she’d just see killing me as a bonus. Either way, I wasn’t waiting around to find out.

So we skipped, leaving the key in the room, and without telling reception. We didn’t need Bela inquiring at the desk and finding we’d checked out. With any luck, she wouldn’t turn up until very late, long after we were gone.

“Where are we going, though?” I asked, hauling my duffle into the back seat.

“As far as possible,” Dean said. “Pick a direction.”

I hesitated. Dean had three weeks left and he actually seemed willing, at this point, to talk about it. It seemed to me that this was an opportunity to go where the best resources were. We still had time to save him.

“Why don’t we go home?” I suggested. “I still think Dad’s got books I could…” I stopped, not wanting to tell Dean about my plan to ty and bring him back after death. I didn’t want him to get his hopes up. What if I couldn’t? Much better to keep looking for a better idea.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. You miss your Dad, right? I guess we can take a little trip, make you less homesick, whatta you say, Sammy?”

Sam smiled as he shut the back door on me. It wasn’t a cheerful smile, but it was genuine. Just the slightest hint of his dimples formed.

“If that’s… if it’s what Ellie needs, sure.”

And so, we were able to agree on going home to Sioux Falls, with all of us pretending it wasn’t to make a last ditch effort to save Dean before the hounds came to take him down to Hell.

We made several attempts to call our abandoned motel room from the road. Dean wanted to gloat at Bela. I was still sure there was something we didn’t know about her, but I kept my mouth shut. At least until I knew whether or not she was planning to murder us.

But it’d be nice to know whether she was the one planning to come into our room, or someone else. Maybe, if someone answered the phone, we could get some idea of what was happening.

Nearing midnight, we were somewhere in Ohio. Dean decided to have another try, and this time, he didn’t put the phone down in frustration.

“Hiya, Bela. Here’s a fun fact you may not know. I felt your hand in my pocket when you swiped that motel receipt.”

There was only the very briefest of pauses, obviously while she said something.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I understand perfectly. See, I noticed something interesting in your hotel room. Something tucked above the door. A herb. Devil’s shoestring? There’s only one use for that: holding hellhounds at bay. So you know what I did? I went back and took another look at your folks’ obit. Turns out they died ten years ago today. You didn’t kill them. A demon did your dirty work. You made a deal, didn’t you Bela? And it’s come due. Is that why you stole the Colt, huh? Try to wiggle out of your deal, our gun for your soul?”

His sentences had mostly rolled into one another, so I guessed he’d either been interrupting her attempts to respond, or she hadn’t tried and he was just delivering a monologue. After he was done, he did leave a brief pause, during which she presumably answered.

“But stealing the Colt wasn’t quite enough, I’m guessing,” he said.

Sam looked back at me while Dean listened to Bela’s reply. It was hard to see him that well in the dark car, but I was guessing his eyes were that deep concerned brown that looked bottomless.

“Really!” Dean said. “Wow, demons untrustworthy? Shocker! That’s uh… kind of a tight deadline too. What time is it? Well, look at that, almost midnight.” Another pause. “Sweetheart, we are weeks past help.” And then again.

Was she begging him for help? After what she’d done?

“You know what, you’re right, you don’t,” said Dean. “But you know what the bitch of the bunch is? If you would have just come to us sooner and asked for help we probably could have taken the Colt and saved you.”

We would have tried, at the very least. And a promise to try from the Winchesters had to be worth more than any demon’s offer to renegotiate a contract.

Even though she’d taken the Colt, and even though she’d lied and deceived us… Even though she shot Sam, I still didn’t think Bela deserved to die. And especially not so horribly, being doomed to eternity in Hell itself.

Yeah, so she supposedly did a deal to kill her parents, but that still didn’t quite tally up to me. Stealing and lying and being ruthless were definitely connected with Bela being capable of wishing her family dead. But why? Their deaths made her incredibly rich, yet she’d still started dealing in stolen occult items. She continued to make vast sums, despite not needing it. And then she paid us a fortune when we hadn’t asked her for anything.

Greedy people don’t throw money around. So why give away her soul just to off her parents and get the cash?

I wished Dean would put her on speaker, or let me talk to her. It was too late to do anything, but I wanted to know why. It was too late to help her. But I thought she should at least get the chance to explain her motives before the hounds came.

“And who told you that?” Dean asked her. Then he questioned her further. “She? Lilith? Why should I believe you? This can’t help you, Bela, not now. Why you telling me this?”

Whatever reason she gave, Dean was done with her. “I’ll see you in Hell,” he said, hanging up, putting the phone down and getting his right hand back on the wheel.

See you in Hell, he said. And I was one hundred percent sure he meant it literally.

We drove all night, and into the next day. We took turns, one driving, one keeping them awake and one sleeping in the back. With a couple of meal stops, we made it back home to Sioux Falls in just over fourteen hours. Dean was someone who believed that speed limits are just a suggestion.

It was a little after nine o’clock when we pulled into the yard. Still early enough for some breakfast.

The super subtle roar of the Impala’s engine alerted Dad before we’d even stopped, and he was waiting on the porch for us. I was in the front, taking my turn and keeping Dean company for the last leg. As soon as the car rolled to a stop, I was out before Dean had time to put it in park.

Shut up. I loved my Dad, okay.

He retained his grumpy demeanour as I ran up the steps and launched myself at him. But his grip on me when I hugged him betrayed his real feelings.

After a couple of seconds, he let go and put his hands on my shoulders, holding me a little apart from him, so he could examine my face. He peered at me, taking in the huge bruise on my forehead.

“Are you alright?” he asked. “Your head…”

I knew he was worried about my previous head wound, and I couldn’t blame him for that. I was smart enough to be cautious about bumps to the head. It was well over a year, but a cracked skull isn’t something you should be casual about. Both Sam and Dean were agreed, and always made sure to check very carefully for a concussion or other signs of damage.

Hunters tend to be reckless and live dangerously, but we’re not freakin’ stupid.

“I’m okay,” I told Dad. “I got knocked out, but it feels mostly fine now. Just a bit sore.”

“Follow my finger,” he said, and I did, as he moved it left, right, up and down in front of my eyes. Quicker and easier to just do it than argue about how I wasn’t concussed and knew what I was doing.

Sam was sitting with the back door open, yawning. He’d only woken up just as we arrived. Dean came up the stairs to stand beside Dad and me.

“She got hit with a shovel,” he said. “You wanna tell him why, Princess?”

“I was being a diversion,” I said defensively. “So Sam could get the victim out the window.”

“Uh huh,” Dean said. “Bobby, you ever seen your daughter’s diversions?”

“Dean…” I moaned.

“I usually got her on backup,” Dad said, and with what looked almost like a smile. Maybe Dean’s dobbing wouldn’t lead to an argument…

“She’s freakin’ insane,” Dean said, and I could see the proud little smile he tried to hide. “Dunno what we’d do without her, right Sammy?”

“Right,” Sam said, coming up behind me. “No one in the world as distracting as Ellie.”

I wasn’t sure if he meant it as a compliment or not, but Sam wasn’t usually inclined to insult me. “It’s a gift,” I said.

We all got straight to work. I headed to the library, with some books already in mind. Some stuff I hadn’t scanned yet, but I knew from my database that there might be something in them.

Dad had found something he wanted to show us, so he and Sam talked through that. Dean left the house again pretty much right away. There wasn’t enough beer, and going to get more was definitely a top priority.

We worked all day, stopping briefly for lunch. Then there was an afternoon of frantically rifling through books. While the others were still focusing on ways to break the contract, I focused on my own idea. Bela had revealed this demon, Lilith, was the one who held Dean’s contract, but Dad had read something different. Either way, I was still sure my back-up plan was worth pursuing.

Even if we figured out whether it was Lilith who had the contract (and why would Bela bother to lie at that point?), we still had to find her. And figure out how to get Dean free from the deal. Without triggering the clause that would end in Sam dying too.

I flipped through page after page, speed reading and searching for keywords. By the time it got dark out, it was hard to tell when my eyes were watering from strain, and when I was just crying from frustration. They’d sort of merged into one.

I gave up for the night and got up to make dinner. I decided to roast some actual vegetables, which always made Sam’s day. And Dean didn’t mind a good roast dinner either. It appealed to his secret domestic desires.

Sam thought something Dad had found might have some real potential. It was a reference to someone called the “King of the Crossroads”. After dinner, Dad sat Dean down to show him, while Sam and I did the dishes.

“Thanks,” he said, as I rolled up my sleeves to get washing.

“Thank you,” I replied. “Usually I do this on my own.”

“No, for yesterday,” he said. “With Benton. You were right.”

The whole Doc Benton scenario seemed weeks away. Had it really only been twenty-four hours since we threw him into a fridge and buried him deep as we could dig?

“Well, your heart was in the right place,” I said. “We’re all getting desperate.”

Sam took a heavy tray from me. His huge hands made it seem so much smaller and with his strength it seemed to weigh nothing at all.

“It’s my fault,” he said. “And the closer we get, the clearer that is to me. I’ve gotta…”

“Uh uh!” I scolded him, scrubbing at a plate with added vigour. “This is not your fault, Sam. Not yours, or mine, or Dad’s!”

It didn’t seem like the appropriate time to mention it. It never seemed appropriate, even quietly to myself, in the dark. But the truth was, Dean had made a choice. He was grieving and desperate and not thinking properly when he did it, but the dark, terrible circumstances behind it didn’t make it any less true. In fact, he’d made more than one choice.

He’d driven Dad and I away so we couldn’t stop him. He’d put together what he needed to make a deal. He’d driven to the crossroads. He’d summoned a demon, made a deal with her and accepted her unusually harsh terms. He’d been offered only one year and he took it.

There was a whole lot of backstory to who Dean was and why he’d made his choices. His feelings of intense protectiveness towards Sam were far more complex than my single college psychology elective could ever qualify me to comment on. Was Dean to blame for his decisions? Was he in a fit mental state to make that kind of deal? Would a desperate crossroads deal hold up in a human court of law? Surely diminished responsibility is a thing.

No. I don’t think we can ever say if Dean is to blame for what he did that terrible night. But one thing I did know.

No one else made that decision for him.

“There’s a way out of this, Ellie,” Sam said. “I know there is. And if I haven’t found it…”

“It’s not because you haven’t tried,” I reminded him. “Not knowing the solution to a problem isn’t the same as being the cause of the problem.”

He sighed, gently taking a plate from me. There was some danger of me agitatedly slamming it down in front of him. Maybe it wasn’t fair for me to get mad, but I couldn’t bear that he was putting the blame on himself.

“I know, but…”

“But nothing,” I scolded. “If a werewolf kills a man in Texas tonight, is it my fault?”

“Of course not…”

“No. Because I’m fucking miles away. You were dead Sam. And that’s a shitload further than Texas. You weren’t there when Dean made his deal, so it’s not your fault.”

“Okay,” he said.

But I could tell from his tone that I hadn’t convinced him of a damn thing. I’d just bullied him into agreeing with me to my face. I’d done nothing to heal his breaking heart, nothing to ease the suffering within.

My stupid temper. Rather than helping Sam, I’d just made him feel like I didn’t understand and that he couldn’t confide in me. And by the time we’d finished washing up, I still hadn’t figured out how to apologise for it. Then he was gone, to talk to Dad and Dean about this Crossroad King guy.

I joined them, but it was all business, and I couldn’t get Sam alone again before he went to bed.

In my defence, there is not a lot you can do when a guy smacks you in the head with a shovel. I was in a confined space, without much opportunity to duck and weave. And he caught me by surprise.

So… I was lying somewhere hard and flat. I could feel the cold, solid surface under my back. Metal, probably. That made sense, because my captor used those old fashioned gurneys. I’d seen them.

I tried to move each arm and leg, as well as arch my back. As predicted, everything was strapped down good and tight. Escape was not going to be easy. A pair of handcuffs and I’m as good as gone, but there’s not a lot to be done with leather straps. My best bet was to keep pulling with my strong left arm and try to weaken the strap at each end. If I put enough strain on it, it was possible I could pull free.

Next thing was to listen. Ignoring the pain, I focused my mind on audio. There were no footsteps in the room, as far as I could tell. No signs of anyone moving. There was definitely something above me. There were high-pitched creaks and deep-sharp sounds, gone faster than a finger click. I was probably in the cellar, which meant I was hearing someone walking in the cabin above. That must have been why I couldn’t hear the organ-harvesting freak moving in the room with me.

Then there was a groan. It was a distinct, clear, human-made sound. Male, probably. Someone was in pain, and very close by.

“Hello?” I whispered, hoping they were so close they’d hear me. I still wasn’t game to open my eyes to the light around me.

“Ellie?”

Seriously? It was Sam. What the hell, Sam, this is not how you rescue.

“Sam? He caught you too?”

“Yeah.”

He and I had been tied up and held captive by monsters at least three times in three months. We volunteered to be vampire bait, to get into a nest in Michigan. Then again, when we were caught by that crocotta in Ohio. And all three of us were tied to chairs, as a temporary setback, while dealing with a shifter in Nebraska.

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” I whispered. “People will start to talk.”

Well, I found myself amusing, even if Sam didn’t.

“I can’t see you from here. Are you okay?” he asked, all serious voice.

“My head hurts like a bitch, but far as I can tell, I’ve got all organs accounted for. What are you doing here?”

“I was coming back for you,” he said.

Nice one, dude. Now we’re both organ donors.

“And you got caught?”

“Yeah,” he said, with rather a forceful grunt behind it.

“Like… five minutes after me, or what?”

“An hour, maybe,” he said. “I got Megan to the hospital, then went back to the motel for supplies. Called Dean on my way out to the car and then… he was in the carpark. Hit me with a shovel…”

At least I wasn’t alone in the excruciating headache thing. “Hurts like hell, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said, with a sigh. “Do you think you can get free?”

I had been trying throughout our conversation. I was pulling upward with my left arm and forcing movement side to side as much as I could. Leather doesn’t break easy, but the strap would have a weakness somewhere.

“Maybe. Depends how old this strap is. It’s pretty strong. You?”

“No,” he said. “Um… my eyes are taped open.”

“Huh?” I asked, wrenching my arm upward again. It felt like it gave a little.

“My eyes,” Sam said. “I can’t close them. There’s something holding them open.”

Hadn’t I thought to myself that Sam’s beautiful eyes were well worth stealing? I’m not a superstitious person, but I wondered if I’d somehow made it happen, by thinking about it.

“We gotta get out of here,” I said, pulling up to weaken the strap again.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s going to happen, little lady.”

In between listening to Sam, frantically pulling at my straps and trying to do it all through the fog of a potential concussion, I had obviously not heard Doc Benton coming back downstairs into the basement.

I gave one last attempt to break free by kicking and flailing with all four limbs, before I felt his gross cold hand on my left wrist. He pulled to tighten the strap and it was worse than before I had started. It felt like my circulation was being cut. I could feel him leaning over me to tighten the right strap as well.

“It’s not personal, miss. You’re just wriggly and I can’t have you interrupting me.”

“I’ll interrupt your face!” I shouted.

Interrupt his face? What the fuck, Ellie?

He did not respond to my bizarre threat, moving down to tighten the binds on my ankles as well.

“Leave her alone,” Sam said. “Don’t touch her!”

“Shhh…” said the Doc, as the leather suddenly began to dig into the skin on my right ankle. “I’m not gonna take anything she didn’t take from me. Just a little skin. And maybe I’m gonna need her stomach. We’ll see. You’ve got a powerful kick on you, little miss.”

“Ellie!” Sam called out.

“Sa…” I couldn’t reply more than that, as the Doc pulled to tighten the strap around my chest. All the wind was squeezed out of me and I couldn’t make any sound come out of my mouth.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” the Doc said. I could tell by his steps that he was moving away from me towards Sam. “Shrill voice your girlfriend has.”

Even if my binds hadn’t been so tight, I still wouldn’t have been able to move anymore. My shallow breaths were painful, and I didn’t know if any oxygen was getting to my body. I tried to listen as the Doc spoke to Sam.

“You can relax. It’s all gonna be okay. Ain’t nothing gonna happen here that you got to worry about, Sammy. Your chances of coming out of this procedure alive? Very, very high.”

“What about Ellie?” asked Sam, before he called for me again. “If you hurt her, I’ll…”

“You think I’m some kind of monster, don’t you?” said the Doc. “Well, I got to tell you…”

But I didn’t get to find out what he wanted to tell Sam. Concentrating on his voice, thinking through my pain and getting breath into my chest was too much for my body to handle. There was fire in me, moving out from my lungs in little tendrils that burned all over.

All I could think was “Hey… at least I’ll be unconscious when he cuts my stomach out!”

I was eased awake slowly. There were hands holding me. One on my arm, one on my back, one in my hair. I instinctively gulped down as much air as I could, still feeling like I was suffocating.

“Hey, hey, Ellie! Ellie, it’s okay. Breathe slow.”

I knew that voice and even though I couldn’t actually piece things together properly, I definitely trusted the voice and whoever it belonged to. So I tried my best to stay calm and take a long, deliberate breath.

“That’s good,” said the voice. “In… out… in… out. Just like you taught me, remember? In…”

Out.

It was Sam talking to me. I followed along with him, breathing like he told me. In… out… The hand on my back rubbed up and down, while the one on my arm stayed steady. The one in my hair felt nice, slowly and softly petting the hair away from my face and out of my way.

Slowly, the pain eased and I was able to breathe properly without concentrating. I opened my eyes.

I was sitting up on the gurney, with a Winchester on either side. Sam was supporting my back and my arm, while Dean kept his hand in my hair.

“Hey, there she is,” said Sam.

Dean grinned. “I’ll interrupt your face?”

I smiled. Not my finest comeback.

But how was Dean there? Hadn’t he gone to find Uncle Rufus and deal with Bela?

“What happened?” I asked, as Sam looked closely at my open eyes, presumably checking for concussion.

“Got here just in time to save you crazy kids,” Dean said. He pointed across to the other gurney. “Turns out immortality can’t save you from a knife dipped in chloroform.”

Crafty. A lot of people thought Dean was the brawny brother, but he was actually a real smart, creative thinker. Plus Sam also is super built, so let’s not be putting people in boxes okay?

Doc Benton was lying prone, strapped down where Sam had been. I peered over at the bindings holding him there.

“I feel like those straps could be tighter,” I said. “Guy’s immortal, right? He’s not gonna sweat a little lung crushing.”

Dean smirked again. “Ah, Princess, I love it when you get vengeful.” Now I was breathing properly, he made sure Sam had me steady and got up off the bed. “You go from Strawberry Shortcake to Kill Bill in half a second.”

“I think he’s waking up,” Sam said, letting go of me, his hands still hovering nearby in case I fell.

I was fine. I was no longer dizzy, and the pains in my head and chest had both eased. I was about to jump down from the gurney, but Sam saw me and immediately moved to stop me.

“Whoa, slow down,” he said.

He was right to stop me. There was a moment where I teetered on the edge of the gurney and I knew I’d have fallen. He grabbed either side of my waist before the worst happened.

With my hands on his shoulders and his on my waist, he was able to lift me down and make sure my feet got on the floor neatly and safely. Then he walked beside me to the other gurney. Dean was on the other side, and the three of us looked down on the monster.

He looked so frail and human, lying there. His face was made up of at least four pieces of skin, but the stitching seemed more natural than the two hastily patched up cuts I’d inflicted on his cheek and neck. His hair was silvery-grey, like any old man’s. When he opened his eyes, I saw that one was clouded from a cataract. It was clear why he needed a new one. Because of the frequent skin transplants, he was almost free of wrinkles, but somehow he still looked ancient. Perhaps it was the sad pallor. He obviously didn’t get a lot of sun. He couldn’t, what with his very identifiable face.

But he didn’t look like a monster. He just looked like an old man who’d been through some violence, his face patched up and stitched together. It wasn’t scary or inhuman. It was more sad. And I absolutely understood why Dean didn’t want to go that route, desperate though we were.

“Oh hiya, Doc,” Dean greeted him. “Wakey wakey eggs and bac-ey.”

“Please,” he said, low and weak, locking gaze with Dean.

“Please what? You’ve been killing poor bastards for over a hundred and fifty years and now you got a request? Shut up!”

Fuck yeah! Apparently Dean was not in the mood to play games. I wondered what had happened with Bela. Nothing good, judging by Dean’s expression and irritation level.

“No you don’t understand,” the Doc said, still appealing directly to Dean. “I can help you. I know what you need.”

“We might have to cut him up into little bits,” Dean said to me and Sam, ignoring Benton completely. “You know, this immortality thing is a bitch.”

“Can I keep his nose?” I asked. “If it even is his nose? Doesn’t matter, I just want a nose.”

Benton’s eyes flickered from Dean to me, and I just smiled all polite, like I was meeting my date’s parents or something. His eyes immediately went back to Dean again.

“I can read the formula for you. You know, immortality… Forever young, never die.”

“Dean,” said Sam.

“Sam,” he replied.

But when Sam gestured towards the other side of the curtain, his brother began to follow him. Before they left, he caught my eye and motioned to the chloroform bottle. It was still on the low workbench alongside all the gross organ stealing instruments. There was a rag beside it. I nodded and as the boys went through the curtain and around the corner, I went to get them.

I carefully skirted around the Doc, not willing to take a chance that he’d manage to break free and grab me somehow, though it seemed unlikely. I’d been hit with a shovel and had my chest crushed til I couldn’t breathe. I was not taking any chances with this asshole.

I heard frustrated mutterings from the other side of the curtain, getting louder. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, though I tried. I opened the bottle of chloroform and poured some out onto the rag.

“To me it is, okay?” I heard Dean say. He was coming back. “Black or white. Human, not human.” He came through the curtain and neither of us even needed to speak to each other. I threw the soaked rag at him and he caught it as he came back around to Benton’s side.

Sam followed after him as Dean went on. “See, what the Doc is is a freakin’ monster. I can’t do it. I would rather go to hell.”

“You don’t understand,” Benton called out as Dean gripped the rag, leaning over him. “I can help you!”

Dean placed the rag over that lying, monstrous mouth. One of the Doc’s legs thrashed against the binding, but that was it. He was out like a candle, immune to death maybe, but not to chloroform.

“Now, I’m gonna take care of him,” Dean said. “You can either help me or not. It’s up to you.”

Sam looked at his brother, then down at the Doc’s unconscious form. Then he looked over at me. I didn’t know what he was expecting to see, so I just nodded, hoping he would understand me. This was Dean’s choice, and if he didn’t want to take that option, it wasn’t for Sam or me to object.

“Okay,” Sam said, turning back to Dean. “What are we gonna do with him?”

I was so happy, I forgot my shaky balance as I rushed over to join my two favourite brothers. I didn’t like it when they fought, and I really didn’t like seeing Sam so desperate that he forgot about that strong moral code that I so admired.

We didn’t agree with Dean. It wasn’t black and white. Sam and I had agreed that monsters weren’t all monsters. But a person who chooses to be a monster? They don’t deserve our pity.

My enthusiasm made me stumble and trip, but Sam caught me, his strong hands grabbing hold of my arms, and pulling me close to him.

“I’m sorry,” I said, straightening myself up. “Sorry this wasn’t the answer, I mean. But we’ve still got time.” I was speaking to Dean too, now. “There’s gotta be a way.”

Dean smiled, before turning away to look at the Doc again. “And Strawberry Shortcake’s back. Come on, Princess, we need Revenge Ellie on this.”

I looked down at what was appeared to be a helpless old man, lying unconscious before us. Like Dean had said, we could chop him up and leave him in different places. Would that kill him, or just stop him reassembling? Didn’t that amount to the same thing? And if he was immortal, where would his consciousness be while he was lying in pieces buried up and down the country? Would he be able to reflect on his crimes?

Dismemberment seemed like the easy way out, and this guy didn’t deserve it. Killing others to prolong his own worthless life? Not okay.

“We could bury him,” I suggested. “Alive, I mean. Find a box, chain him up real tight and put him six feet under.”

“What if someone digs him up?” Dean asked.

“Twelve feet?” I asked.

“We could use that shovel he hit us with,” Sam suggested.

There was a crappy old broken fridge in the cabin. We didn’t want to bury him right next to the road, so once we had him in the fridge, the boys hauled him as far as they could. We had our own shovels, of course, so we were all able to dig. We didn’t go down twelve feet, but when Sam decided to climb out of the hole, it was over his head height. It took both Dean and I to help pull him up.

There was room for him to move a little in the fridge. Because Dean’s a nice guy, he had thrown in a matchbook. It was important that the Doc be able to see his new home properly. I put a piece of bread in his pocket. Didn’t want him going hungry during eternity. Feeling like we’d adequately equipped him for his future, we got several thick chains around the fridge and padlocked them. They were so tight, there wasn’t any way to open the door.

We rolled the fridge into the hole and gazed down upon it. That oughta keep him pretty well gone, right? He wouldn’t be dug up in a hurry, and maybe if some tectonic plate movement someday brought him to the surface, he’d still be chained into a fridge. Someone on the outside would need the tools, and inclination, to break him out. And maybe by then, he’d have rethought his morals and found Jesus or whatever.

Sam grabbed the diary with the formula from his pocket and looked at it. I was hoping we could burn it or something, but watching Sam drop it into the hole brought me so much joy, I leapt towards him, holding him round the middle in an aggressive hug.

His own right arm went around my shoulder. “Thanks, Pea.”

“What for?” I asked.

“For believing I’d do the right thing eventually.”

I just squeezed him harder, my ear smooshed up against his chest so I could hear his rapid heart beat. He was obviously still recovering from the digging. And we still had to fill the damn thing in again.

“No! No! Don’t!”

Benton had woken up. His screams were muffled, but we could still understand him.

“Stop it! I can help you! No!”

“Enjoy forever in there, Doc!” Dean called back.

I let go of Sam and grabbed both of our shovels. Dean had already started to throw the earth back into the hole. Taking advantage of that elevated heart beat, Sam got straight into it as well. It took me a few seconds to get my brain organised enough to hold the shovel right.

But by the time I was scooping up the fresh dug dirt, the Doc’s screams were already drowned out. I couldn’t hear his pleading, and didn’t want to.

Sam and I knew that not all monsters are monsters.

Wow. That’s some serious bribery. I hoped I didn’t have to drink it with him, cos whiskey and I are not buddies. I hadn’t had any whiskey since that time I tried to kiss Sam. I’d banned myself for life.

“Alright! Thanks Dad. Bye.”

“Bye. I’ll text you.”

I hung up and went back over to the guys, who were still leaning over the maps we’d laid out on the bed.

“Bobby got something for us?” asked Sam.

“Yeah. He’s got a guy might know where Bela is. An old friend of his, Rufus. They’re not pals anymore, but apparently he thinks it’s me asking, so he’ll help us out.”

“Rufus?” asked Sam. “Isn’t that the guy who found you when…”

When I was being sacrificed to some weird demonic ritual. Yes.

“Yeah,” I said, quick and dismissive. “Apparently Bela wants to buy something from him.”

“Great!” Dean said, heading straight for his duffle, and ready to start packing. “Where is he?”

“Canaan. In Vermont.”

“Sweet, we can make that by morning. Come on Sam.”

Sam looked up from the maps at last. “What? Whoa, whoa whoa hold on a second.”

“We gotta go,” I told him. “Who knows how long Bela will wait for whatever she’s buying?”

I was moving past Sam to get into the bathroom for my toothbrush and stuff. He grabbed hold of my arm, as I went, not hard enough to hurt, but stopping me.

“Look, I think we should stay here and finish the case.” Sam’s tone and agitated movements suggested he thought that was obvious and was stunned that we did not agree.

Dean looked up. “You insane?”

Sam’s hand tensed, tightening around my forearm, but he didn’t intend it. He was just reacting reflexively, and I knew it the next moment.

“Dean, there is no way she still has the Colt! That was months ago! She probably sold it the second she got it.”

“Well, then I’ll kill her,” his brother replied, casually. “Win-win.”

I hoped he was not serious. Whatever Bela had done, and however awful she was, killing humans was not a thing we did. Well… maybe if they were a creepy immortal doctor who stole organs. But not people who were guilty only of robbing us and pissing us off. Not even people who shot Sam.

I’d happily have kicked her in the face, though.

I kept my mouth shut. This was not a moment to give my opinion. They probably wouldn’t hear me anyway.

“Dean…” Sam began, but he was cut off before he could get any further.

“Sam. We’re going!”

“No!” He let go of my arm, leaving me to take a step back and stand in the middle of the room and look from brother to brother and pray they didn’t ask for my opinion.

“Why the hell not?” Dean demanded.

“Dean!” Sam was incredulous, like Dean was deranged and maybe me too. “This, this here. Now. This is what’s gonna save you!”

“What? Chasing some Frankenstein?”

“Chasing immortality!”

No! Oh no Sam, no! Don’t go down that road. I prayed to whatever might listen that Sam was not going where I thought he was.

“Look, Benton can’t die,” he went on. And the hope and passion in his beautiful eyes horrified me. He looked that way when he was talking about his faith in God. Or his faith in his brother. “We find out how he did it, we can do it to you.”

I was about to open my mouth and remind Sam that this guy’s secret involved stealing innocent people’s organs. But I didn’t, cos I’m a pathetic coward. Not that he’d have listened anyhow.

“What are you talking about?” asked Dean.

“You have to die before you go to hell, right?” Sam asked. “So, if you can never die, then…”

“Wait wait wait.” Dean had lowered his voice, but it was even more urgent, as he stepped towards Sam, coming face to face with him. “Wait a second, did… did you know that this was Doc Benton from the jump?”

“No,” Sam said. And I imagined the look Dean was giving him was pretty close to my own face. Because really? “Look, I was hoping…” he clarified.

“So the whole zombie thing, it was lying to me?” Dean asked.

Lying wasn’t the issue here. Dean didn’t have a leg to stand on, there. He lied to Sam plenty. Like the time he pretended Sam had never died and been resurrected. No… lying was not the issue. The issue was the idea that Dean’s life should be preserved indefinitely, and potentially at the expense of others.

“I didn’t wanna say anything until I was sure, Dean. All I’m trying to do is find an answer here.”

I sat down on Sam’s bed, too afraid to get involved. On the one hand, I thought Dean was right. This was not an option we ought to be exploring. No good would come of it. Not for Dean and not for Sam.

On the other hand, I didn’t think yelling at Sam was going to solve anything. Dean’s approach was too confrontational. This was so out of character for Sam, who would normally be totally repelled by Doc Benton’s whole organ stealing MO. He was desperate and clutching at straws - clearly not entirely in his right mind. He needed compassion, not shouting.

So, not knowing what to say to either side, I just sat there, with a sick feeling lying heavy in my stomach.

“No,” Dean said. “What you’re trying to do is chase Slicey McHackey here. And to kill him? No. You wanna buy him a freakin’ beer. You wanna study him.”

“I was just trying to help,” Sam insisted.

“You’re not helping! You forget that if I welch on this deal, you die. Guess what! Living forever is welching.”

“Fine! Then, whatever the magic pill is, I’ll take it too!”

“No,” I gasped, and they both turned to look, maybe remembering for the first time that I was there. “Oh no...”

“What is this? Sid and Nancy?” Dean asked. Then he pointed at me. “What about Ellie, huh? You just gonna leave her? And Bobby?”

That was enough to make Sam pause. He was still looking at me, his eyes that dark brown of his deepest sorrows. I tried to speak, but found I couldn’t even open my mouth, I was so upset. I tried to communicate with my face that I loved him and would be there for him, but who knew if he understood? There were tears in his eyes.

“It’s like Bobby’s been saying,” Dean continued, as Sam continued to stare at me. “We kill the demon who owns the contract and this whole damn thing wipes clean. That’s our best shot.”

That I did not agree with. Killing the demon holding the contract seemed like welching to me, even more than finding immortality. How did we know there wasn’t someone else around to ensure both died, in accordance with the contract? Maybe if the contract-holding demon died, the whole thing shifted to someone else. We didn’t know enough to risk that.

Unfortunately, I was still unable to make my voice work, though I could at least open my mouth.

But Sam could speak, and he turned away from me, crossing the room, closer to his brother, and turning his back towards me for some reason.

“Even if you had the Colt, Dean, who are you gonna shoot? We have no idea who holds the ticket.”

“Well, I’ll shoot the hellhounds before they slash me up!” Dean said, all gruff and bluster. “Now are you coming or not?”

I couldn’t see his face anymore, but I could see from behind that Sam was raising his head and looking his brother in the face. “I’m staying here,” he said, comparatively softly.

Dean’s voice was still at his agitated pitch. Just below a yell. “No you’re not. Cause I’m not gonna let you wander out in the woods alone to track some organ stealing freak!”

“You’re not gonna let me?” Sam asked, his own volume going up again.

“No I’m not gonna let you,” his brother repeated.

“How are you gonna stop me?”

Dean was facing me, so I could see his face and his body language. He wasn’t intimidated or afraid, but it was like he was noticing, for the very first time, that Sam was bigger than him. He’d always had a little brother, and they’d had their differences, fought physically even, apparently. But Dean looked up at his brother, four inches taller, and broad shouldered, muscular torso. And he realised that he actually couldn’t stop him doing shit. He couldn’t physically restrain Sam, or at least, not without potentially causing injury to one or both of them.

“Look man,” Sam said. “We’re trying to do the same thing here.”

There was a long pause, as Dean looked at his brother, keeping his eyes fixed on him even as he walked sideways towards his packed duffle. “I know. But I’m going. So if you wanna stay… stay.”

Sam had turned away, but not all the way. He still wouldn’t look at me. He was just looking at the wall. He stayed that way as Dean walked past, towards the door, and then stopping beside me.

“You coming or staying, Ellie?”

Oh God. I didn’t know. Both. Neither. I didn’t want Sam to follow through on this whole Doc Benton plan. But I was in even less of a position to stop him than Dean was. So, maybe I shouldn’t let him do it alone. But what about Dean? Rufus had only agreed to help because he thought the request was coming from me. He’d known me as a little girl and he wanted to help me out. If I wasn’t there, what would happen?

Sam was a well-built, strong, fit man, and this Doc Benton was a very unpleasant character. Supposing he decided he wanted some of Sam’s organs? Safety in numbers. But still there was Dean, and his potentially more helpful plan. If Rufus wouldn’t talk to him and tell him about Bela, then we were just as stuck as before.

“I… I don’t… wait!” I said, hitting upon an idea. I stood up and hurried over to the little desk. There was one of those motel notepads and a pen there. I grabbed the pen and quickly wrote.

Dear Uncle Rufus,

I’m so sorry I can’t come to meet you. It’s been so long and it means so much to me that you’re offering your help after all this time. This hunt is a bitch and I’m needed. This guy is my dear friend Dean Winchester. He’s the one who needs to find Bela. It could save his life. Please help him. If you’re in doubt, you can call me. I can vouch for him, he’s a good guy. And he might even match you drink for drink. ;)

Thankyou and love,

Ellie S.

I folded it up and handed it to Dean. “I’ll forward you the text with the address. Get a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, and give it to him as a gift from me. Tell him now I know where he is, I’ll come see him some time. Do NOT try to outdrink him. Pace yourself.”

Dean smiled. “Thanks, Princess.”

And I knew. He wasn’t thanking me for the note and the address. He was thanking me because as much as he could use my help breaking the ice with Rufus, he knew Sam needed me more. He had a tendency to be overprotective, of course… hence us being in this mess.

Dean wasn’t one to sit with his brother and talk him through his feelings. But he could tell when there were feelings that needed to be talked through. And he knew I was the gal for the job.

He got his hand on the doorknob, but then turned back to us. “Sammy… be careful.”

And that was what made Sam finally turn and look at his brother. “You too.”

Then Dean turned the knob, opened the door, and stepped out of the room. He looked back in at us for a brief moment, before shutting the door behind him.

And it was just Sam and me. I watched the closed door for a moment, but it wasn’t going to make a difference. I couldn’t go with him, however much I wanted to. Maybe I should have gone, and left him to stay with Sam?

No. Dean was made for drinking whiskey with a crotchety old hunter. I was made for holding Sam and talking him down from… from whatever the hell this was.

I watched him drop down onto his bed, sitting suddenly and with enough force to make him bounce back up slightly. He exhaled so loudly as he did, I thought the neighbours might hear it. But when I came over to sit beside him, he got right up again.

“Sam…” I started.

Without even looking at me, he walked away, towards the bathroom. “I can’t… I just can’t right now, okay,” he said, grabbing the door to the bathroom and starting to close it behind him. “I can’t.” I just overheard his next bizarre sentence, though I’m sure I wasn’t meant to. “Not with you.”

What the hell did that mean?

After forwarding the address from Dad to Dean, I looked over the maps again. Sam was still shut away with his (doubtless agonised) thoughts. Listening to the sound of water running, I started figuring out a route we could take, in order to get around to all the different cabins and shacks that were potential hideaways for our creepy quarry.

It made sense to check the places closest to the water first, although that was problematic, because the roads and tracks didn’t line up along the river. So to check every location down beside the river meant driving past the turnoffs and trails that led to other possible candidates. Then we’d have to go back around and get those too.

I did my best to put together a route that combined prioritising the most likely sites and minimising the need to backtrack or repeat ourselves. Still with one ear out, I got a blue marker to draw out the path. I was halfway done when I heard the water switch off inside the bathroom.

Hesitating, I tried to decide what demeanour I should adopt when Sam came out. He didn’t want to talk to me about what had just happened. He’d made that very clear to me, though I didn’t at all understand why.

Maybe because Dad and I hadn’t looked after Dean properly? He’d been aggressive in his grief, and told us to leave so we did. We should have refused, stuck around with him to make sure he was okay, whether he wanted us or not. Then he couldn’t have done that stupid deal. Sam did get kinda testy with me one time, but then he’d apologised and said he knew it wasn’t my fault. But maybe, with things getting so dire, his mind had been going down that way again?

Perhaps Sam needed someone to blame, and I was easier than Dean?

Deciding to go with the professional, all business approach, I was just finishing off my route. When the door opened, I glanced up at Sam and then down at my map again.

“Okay, so you marked thirteen potential hideouts. I’ve figured out a route that lets us check the first eleven as efficiently as possible. The other two are more isolated, so we can either take a chance and check them first, or leave them for last.”

Obviously picking up on the mood I was putting down, Sam came straight over to look at the map, spread out on the table in front of me.

“Well, that one,” he pointed to one of the two remote huts, “looks like a hell of a climb. Doesn’t seem likely he’s dragging unconscious victims up that kind of incline.”

“And bringing them back down after,” I agreed. “It’d be more efficient to go somewhere off road, so no one would stumble on him, but still easy enough for him to access.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed.

“And the other one is so far out, it’s technically over the county line. There’s two other towns closer than here, see? So I don’t think that’s likely, either.”

He nodded. “Good point. So, what are you thinking, start up here?” I nodded, as he pointed to the big X I’d drawn over the first stop. “And then around, along the ridge and back up?”

“Yep. What do you think, though? If we leave now, we won’t get them all before dark. So, do you think we should swing over just this half, and then start again in the morning? Or keep searching all night?”

“How about we start now and make a decision when it starts getting dark?”

I agreed, and grabbed my water bottle, as he started to shrug his jacket on. There was a rental car place two blocks over, so we could easily walk there. We’d have to use one of my fake credit cards, though. Unlike Sam, I could actually use my real name without showing up in police databases. But I always kept fake cards, because you don’t want to be paying for stuff in your own name if shit’s gonna go down. Fake cards are dishonest but they’re untraceable.

Our first five stops were no-go. Except for a family camping at the fourth one. They were nice people, but like… super nice. Like a horror movie robot family who almost have the hang of impersonating humans. It was getting dark, and they said we could stay the night in their cabin. There would even be smores and ghost stories.

Personally, I didn’t think I’d invite two shady-looking strangers to stay overnight in my cabin, but maybe I’m just a cynic with trust issues…

But anyway, by the time we got to the sixth stop, it was fully dark. The trek from the road to the cabin was comparatively short compared to the others. It was less than twenty minutes before my torch light shone onto the beams of the roof.

“This doesn’t look remote enough,” Sam said.

“Yeah, but the stream runs right beside,” I replied, moving my torch to show him. “Besides… the guy’s what, like two hundred years old? I’m guessing he doesn’t do that much cardio. Maybe this is all the walking he can handle.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re… what was that?”

“What?” I whispered.

Sam had stopped walking, eliminating the crunch of twigs under his heavy frame. I stopped too, and listened with him.

“I thought I heard… Never mind let’s just… be careful, okay?”

We were getting close to the little cabin. Maybe Sam had just heard the rustle of some animal in the undergrowth. But also, maybe Doc Benton was up the hill, about to head out and hunt him some new body parts. I thought Sam would be a pretty tantalising prospect. Guy as big and athletic as him would probably have a good strong heart. And who wouldn’t want his beautiful eyes?

What part of me would someone want to harvest for their personal use? One time, I had found some extremely risque jean shorts and tried them out to get one up on Dean. He told me to put some damn pants on, because my thighs were “obscene” and equivalent to nuclear warfare.

How often did the Doc get hold of a good pair of thighs? How often did he need new thighs? Was it just organs he needed to replace? Skin should just regenerate, right? What about muscle? Did it last forever, or would it eventually just die and need replacing?

This guy was super sick, and I needed to get Sam the hell away from him and his gross dream of immortality. Dean was right. It wasn’t worth saving him - not this way.

It was your classic creepy cabin in the woods sorta scenario. If we weren’t being stealthy I would have bet Sam fifty bucks that we’d found the right place. The other places had been rustic and simple, but they looked nice. They were mostly in good repair, they were clean, and the areas around them were maintained. They were owned and rented. This cabin was for sure abandoned. There were large gaps between the slats, the wood was rotting in places, and everything was overgrown. Another twenty years and the whole building would have been reclaimed by the woods.

It made me think of Sleeping Beauty, sleeping in her castle, as the forest grew up around her. And of awful horror movies, I guess.

I stopped, looking at the overgrowth. There were bushes and brown twigs and rocks all over the place, but someone had made a path. Not on purpose, I didn’t think, but like somebody had walked the same route repeatedly, kicking up the roots and crumbling the leaves. Or… maybe dragged someone?

Sam was behind me, so when I stopped, so did he. I pointed to the track and mimed myself dragging a body along it. He understood me immediately, and nodded.

When we were alone, Sam and I had our own system. I would be in front, because I’m quick, while he would walk behind. That way, he could see over my head. If Doc Benton (or anything else) jumped out at us, my reflexes would deliver a brutal kick to the chest before my brain even registered his presence. Then Sam had an extra second to get his gun.

I went up to the door and tried to see through the almost-disintegrated mesh window. The room inside was dark, but with Sam’s torchlight shining over my shoulder, I could just about see inside. There was definitely a couch shape and what looked like a solid surface or two. Our light didn’t appear to rouse anyone inside. At least, I couldn’t see or hear anyone moving.

With Sam’s warm bulk directly behind me, I pushed the door open and stepped inside. We did a quick torch sweep, me low, him high, to make sure the room was empty.

My initial view had been right. There was some furniture, all of it in disrepair, and only slightly more together than the dangerously unsound building. It looked like someone was for sure living there. I stepped away from Sam to look at a little bureau thing. The drawers were collapsing, but the dust along the top was disturbed. Someone had been putting things on top of it, and then moving them, sweeping dust away as they did.

Sam, meanwhile, was looking at the contents of a desk. I watched him grab something and put it in the pocket on the inside of his jacket.

I didn’t want him to keep any of this organ harvesting lunatic’s belongings. But it wasn’t a good time to argue or confront him about it. Especially not since the next thing caught in my torchlight was the clear outline of a door flap built into the floor. Surely that led to a cellar. And that’s where I’d do my sick non-consensual surgeries. In a creepy cellar.

I shone my torch towards Sam’s face, to get his attention. It worked, and when he turned to face me, his own light fell on the door, just as mine had. He came over to join me immediately.

We lifted the door together, and I had to crouch down to see past the floorboards in front of me. There were steps leading downward, but no headroom. I had to get onto the ground and take each step while in a squat. Thank god for my offensive thighs! They were good for more than just frustrating Dean.

It was so squished I wasn’t sure I’d make it down, let alone Sam. But then I saw what was down there.

The ceiling eventually levelled out into a low room. There were weird chains and broken shelves. There were so many vials, and those big round glass bottles that look like they should hold magic potions. Also, I thought I saw tools of some kind, but I was too distracted to take them in properly.

There was a bed. With wheels. It looked like an old fashioned kind of hospital gurney. Someone was lying on it, their head and shoulders visible under the blood soaked white sheet draped over them.

I straightened up and crept closer, able to hear Sam’s breath as he made his way down the cramped steps too. The man on the table wasn’t moving, and my hopes weren’t high that I’d feel a pulse. There was so much blood.

When I reached out to his neck, there was no movement. He was cold and still. Dead. I looked over at Sam, as he finished the stairs and straightened himself back out. I shook my head.

His brow crinkled, and his tongue moved inside his mouth as he took in the gory, macabre scene. It was sickening, even for me. I’d seen plenty of monsters, but there was something about the place. The old fashioned bottles, the man with the white sheet - so clinical. And the anatomic sketches I was only just noticing pinned to the walls. I could see by subtle movements of his face that Sam found it just as unnerving.

I was happy about that, even as I was scared and grossed out. That poor dead man, lying abandoned in a creepy makeshift surgery… that was what trying to live forever would cost.

There was a noise. Just the lightest exhalation of breath that had me gripping tighter to my torch and reconsidering my decision not to carry a gun. The Doctor was in.

But as I whirled around to look back at the stairs, leg muscles twitching, Sam nudged me. He had his torch beam directed across more bloodsoaked white sheets. They were hanging down, like curtains. We could see through a gap that another figure was within, lying down. That was the source of the quiet moaning.

I moved back into formation, holding back the sheet to go through first.

This victim was a woman, lying prone just like the poor dead man. She was alive, and she wasn’t the only thing in the room that was. Maggots were crawling over her arm. Beneath them, a large patch of skin had been removed. Skillfully, and with surgical precision, the poor woman had been robbed of her own skin. What Sam had told us earlier made some sense of it. Doc Benton obviously kept using maggots as a way of getting rid of dead tissue, but keeping the good stuff intact. Sam had even told me that apparently this was being revived as a treatment for the twenty-first century. In sterile, clinical conditions, of course. Not in a disgusting old cabin in the middle of nowhere.

She was tied down - arms, legs and even a thick strap across her forehead. The moans were definitely hers, but she was unconscious. Probably better off that way, let’s be real. I put down my torch and reached out to check her pulse, so I could get some idea of her condition. She was much less injured than the man on the other side of the curtain.

As soon as I touched her, she opened her eyes and started to whimper, struggling at her binds as she did. It sounded like she was trying to scream, but didn’t have the breath for it.

“Hey, it’s alright,” I told her, petting her hair with one hand, while I used my other to put a finger to my lips. If the Doc was still around, she needed to stay quiet. He didn’t seem to be in the cabin, but he might well have been nearby. “Shh… shh. It’s okay. We’re here to help. It’s alright.”

It wasn’t alright. I mean, a creepy mad scientist had started to flay her alive, but that’s just what you gotta say in these situations.

I kept stroking her hair and miming quiet, while Sam had the quick thinking to grab a towel from the bench beside us. It was probably dirty and germ-ridden, but we needed something to protect her arm. It was open down to the muscle. She started to scream louder as he used it to brush off the maggots. Just the contact with her open flesh must have been agony for her. He started to wrap it around her arm, while I tried to keep her quiet and undo the strap holding her head down.

But no amount of miming and reassuring noises was going to make it hurt her any less.

The floorboards above us creaked, and she wailed. She was even trying to be quiet. I could see it in her eyes, and hear her straining herself, desperate not to make a noise, but she just couldn’t help it.

The creaking was louder. I looked up through the boards above my head, and saw a light.

So I did the only thing I could think of and put my hand over her mouth. I kept my eyes on hers, hoping she’d be able to see my intention through them, and understand that I wasn’t trying to suffocate her. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she thought I was. Not after what she’d been through.

The light moved the other way, and Sam reached across us both to get at the straps holding her arms down. The floorboards were still creaking and unless Dean had suddenly changed his mind and decided to rescue us, it had to be Doc Benton.

Looking up to check Sam’s progress, I saw it. There was a window. It was boarded over, but I could see the moonlight through the cracks. It wasn’t a huge opening, but it was big enough for Sam. If he could get through, I could help the victim up after him and then climb up. But quickly.

I nudged Sam and pointed. He looked up too, and stood beside the boarded hole in the wall. At least the low ceiling meant the window was easy to access. He reached up, and as a very loud creak screeched above us, he used it to cover the sound of his elbow cracking the wood.

It took him two more carefully timed hits before he had the boards broken and the hole accessible.

I gestured at him to go through, while I helped our poor victim onto her feet. Now that no one was putting any pressure on her arm, she had gotten used to the pain level enough to stop screaming, but with every step it was obvious she was in agony.

Sam was already up there and reaching his hands back through the window, as we made it to him. She’d have to go through head first. I boosted her up so that Sam could get his hands up under her armpits and hoist her through. With me to hold her up on my end, he managed it easily.

And just as her legs were disappearing, I heard the door to the cellar.

“Run,” I hissed.

“Ellie…” Sam tried to object, but he was cut off by the woman’s moan of pain.

“Go,” I insisted. Wasn’t any point in me climbing up now. There were footsteps on the stairs and I was caught either way. No sense in everyone getting caught. Sam would be able to come back for me.

It’s not heroism. It’s just common sense.

I could hear him hesitating, as a soft light fell on the white sheets surrounding me.

Sam’s arm came through the window, like he was ready to boost me up.

Fine then.

I ran out from behind the curtain, heavy torch in hand.

And that’s when I saw his face. Patches of skin sewn together like leather. All slightly different skin tones, so he looked like he was wearing part of a mask like the phantom of the opera. His silver hair was back behind his ears, and so I could see where they’d been stitched on. The eyes were the worst. Dark and cold.

It was all about saving Dean, finding out who this demon was that held his contract, so we could break the deal. We had only three weeks left. I was working on my plan to bring Dean back from Hell after the event, but without any luck so far. I couldn’t do anything while I was wandering around a forest to escape the screams of the next demon.

So I just had to sit there, with trashy books I’d buy at gas stations, and wait for my less squeamish friends to finish torturing someone. I’d feel guilty the whole time, every time. But Dean didn’t seem to be hurt or angry about it. He even offered to let me take his Baby and go somewhere else, get supplies or something. But I wanted to stay close, just in case things turned bad and they needed me.

I was reading an entertainingly ridiculous romance novel. It was one of those books written for the conservative middle-aged woman who liked to think she was being a bit racy. No sex scenes, but sometimes the heroine dared to admire the hero’s glistening pecs. It was always some exciting but ludicrous scenario: he was protecting her from pygmy bandits deep in the jungle, or he was an arrogant and surprisingly ripped multibillionaire single father and she was the young and naive virginal nanny.

This one was about a young and naive virginal college student (they were always young, naive and virginal). While working her summer job at a fancy hotel, she falls in love with a bellboy, but doesn’t know he’s really the hotel’s owner, a handsome Prince from a fictional tiny European nation.

I had just finished a scene where he had to jump into the hotel pool to rescue a small boy from drowning. And surprise surprise… glistening pecs. I folded down the page corner, so I could read it to the boys later. They both enjoyed the absurdity.

“Don’t think I can’t see you drooling, Princess! What is he, a sexy pirate?”

I laughed, looking up to see Dean a short distance away. I was sitting on a ridge, where I was able to look down at the cabin. Dean had obviously seen me from below and come up.

“Secret Prince!” I called down. “Is it…”

“You can come back,” he called. “Buried the poor guy.”

I didn’t need telling twice. I put the book in my little backpack and threw it down for him to catch, with expert hunter reflexes. Then I scooched forward to where the slope began and let gravity do the rest. On my feet and butt, I slid down to the next flat. Then it was a small but sheer drop, another slide and a jump.

Dean got out of the way as I picked up pace on the final slide. I managed to rise as I hit the bottom, so I was standing upright.

“Show off,” Dean smirked, giving me my bag.

There was a water bottle in there, so I got it out and took a big gulp, before offering it to him.

“He talk?” I asked, as he drank.

Dean gave me my bottle back, with a shake of his head. “Nah. Apparently whoever has my contract is scarier than we are.”

I sighed and shouldered my bag, letting him lead the way down to the cabin.

When we got back, Sam was pacing the dingy “living room”, on the phone. He was probably pacing to avoid sitting on the couch, which looked like it had been slathered in dog food and then exposed to a hoard of ravenous wolves. It was about 90% tears and holes.

But it was somewhere to sit, and softer than the ground I’d spent all day on. I flopped onto it as he finished his call.

“Okay. Yeah, I’ll tell the Lieutenant.”

He hung up, looking immediately to Dean. “Bury the body?”

“Yeah,” said Dean. “Looks like these demons ride’em hard, just for…” He suddenly hesitated, his eyes flickering over to me as he realised what he was saying. “For kicks,” he finished, grabbing two bottles of beer from the six pack on the table.

He passed one to me, while opening the other for himself.

“So what are you telling the Lieutenant?” I asked “Can I be the Lieutenant?”

Dean scoffed, falling down onto the couch beside me, heavily, but not so roughly as to risk spilling his beer. He was exhausted.

“I’m clearly the Lieutenant,” he said.

As if!

“I think you’re more of an underling. You’re that detective who refuses to go by the book, and I’m always hauling your ass in and threatening to take your badge.”

He smirked. “You’re always mad, cos you’re hiding that you’re secretly into me.”

Sam was still standing in the middle of the room, waiting to answer my question. Apparently he’d waited long enough, as the moment there was a gap while Dean and I were both downing beer, he dived right in.

“So remember that thing in the paper yesterday?”

“Stripper suffocates dude between thighs?” asked Dean.

“Get the vice squad on that shit,” I said, holding up my right hand.

Dean obligingly raised his own palm and gave me the high five I didn’t deserve for such lame punnery.

Sam was just watching us, pretending impatience, but I was sure I saw the little hint of a smile, though he tried to hide it. “The other thing.”

It was pretty difficult to forget. “That guy who walks into the ER with his stomach missing?”

“His liver, actually,” Sam said. “Anyways, I just found out something pretty damn interesting.”

Dean and I just drank our beers, faces expectant. Clearly Sam was stalling for dramatic effect.

“The dead body was covered in bloody fingerprints. Not the victim’s.”

“Okay, great,” Dean said. “My man Dave Caruso will be stoked to hear it.”

His nonchalance was fair enough. Somebody had to take the guy’s liver out. It wasn’t likely he did it himself, so the prints would belong to someone else. That was a given.

“Those fingerprints match a guy who died in 1981.”

Dean and I both stopped, bottles halfway to our mouths, leaning forward. Okay. Colour me intrigued.

“Ooh!” I squeaked, but Dean himself was interested enough to let it pass.

“So what are we talking? Uh, walking dead? Walking, killing dead?”

“Maybe,” Sam said, with a shrug.

He pulled the crappy little wooden chair away from the table and dragged it out. Then he straddled it, leaning forward against the back of the chair.

“Zombies do like the other white meat,” Dean said, giving attention to his beer again. “Speaking of. What do you care about zombies?”

“What do you mean?” asked Sam.

“Well you’ve been on soul-saving detail for months now,” Dean pointed out. “And we’re three weeks out, and all of a sudden, you’re interested in some hot zombie action?”

Sam’s eyes flickered to me, and then back to Dean again in mere milliseconds. “Hey man, you’re the one who’s been all gung-ho to hunt. I just thought I’d be doing you a favour.”

Dean got to his feet, his beer forgotten in his hand again. “Hey, no no no no, I didn’t say I didn’t want to do it, okay. I mean, obviously I want to hunt some zombies!”

“Okay, fine, whatever,” said Sam.

Dean had a point. Sam wasn’t sleeping. He was worrying about Dean’s contract being up in less than a month. He had nightmares, and maybe his heavy-sleeping brother didn’t know that, because he kept it quiet and low key. But I knew.

So, why was he suddenly steering us in a totally different direction? Maybe he just wanted Dean to fulfill his zombie-killing dreams. But he also sounded kinda defensive to me. Like maybe there was an agenda and I was missing it.

But with the packing up and getting back into the car almost right away, I didn’t have any chance to ask. Dean drove. I read the boys some of my hilariously self-conscious romance novel. We stopped for fries. And by the time we got to Vermont, I’d forgotten about it.

While the Winchesters got their FBI on, speaking to the coroner and looking at the body, I waited outside. While I loved most aspects of the hunting gig, nothing would ever make me regret not having to put on a damn suit and look respectable. Respectable is for people with hair that doesn’t have its own zipcode.

I was leaning against the car, reading an email from Jo, when they came out.

“Well?” I asked, looking up. “Zombies?”

“Nope,” said Sam, sounding pretty cheerful about it. He didn’t want to fight zombies? Who doesn’t want to fight zombies?

“Could be,” said Dean. “Zombies with skills. Dr Quinn, Medicine Zombie.”

“What?” I asked, the three of us piling into the car.

“So, this guy’s liver wasn’t eaten or torn out,” Sam explained. “It was removed. Surgically.”

I settled into the middle of the back seat, poking my head between the two Winchesters. “Wow. So… What?”

Surgically removed livers? What the hell kind of monster did that? And why? Maybe witches? They’d definitely take a guy’s liver for some gross ritual shit.

“Maybe we’re on the wrong track,” Sam said. “I don’t think we should be looking for hacked up corpses.”

“What should we be looking for?” asked Dean.

“Survivors. This isn’t zombie lunch. This is organ theft.”

Despite Dean’s disappointment at a lack of ravenous zombies, he still agreed there was a case to work. We ate dinner at a diner, and he checked the local paper for potential survivors. He found one.

This guy had been abducted and had one of his kidneys removed. He was going to recover. Or at least, physically. God knows how fucked up he was going to be mentally. Imagine waking up in an icy bathtub with an organ missing. It sounded horrific, and it made me really hope that whatever had attacked was supernatural. Otherwise, we’d have to leave things to the cops, and I wouldn’t get to slaughter the damn thing myself.

We checked into a super shitty motel and got a good night’s sleep before Sam and Dean headed out to question the victim. I stayed behind. Zombies or not, I was still looking into my plan to help Dean. I was sure I was onto something. I didn’t want him to go through the horror of being dragged to Hell by invisible hounds. But we had three weeks left, and I was convinced it would be much easier to get him out of Hell than to stop him going.

My research had led me to a website about ancient pre-Christian concepts of Hell and punishment. They described rituals that were supposed to rescue a soul that had been cursed to suffer torment in the afterlife. It was some super complex stuff, but it sounded legit. Just because they didn’t call it Hell, didn’t mean it couldn’t theoretically be the same place. Cursed to suffer torment was pretty much what a Crossroads Deal meant.

I was still reading when the boys got back. Kidney guy had not been much help. He was too traumatised, and pretty fixated on the pain. Whatever this thing was, it had cut into him while he was awake and he’d felt every moment of it before he finally passed out. He was reluctant to talk about it and angry at them for asking. I didn’t blame him.

“Poor guy,” I said. “Is he gonna be okay? Without his kidney, I mean. Doesn’t he need it?”

Sam shook his head, sitting down on the other side of the table and opening up his laptop. “Not really. You can have a normal life with only one. That’s why people donate them. You need one, but most people can get by without the second. It’s kind of like a spare tyre. He’ll just need to have a check up a bit more often.”

I didn’t know that. I figured you just had as many organs as you needed to have. “Well, I guess that’s something. It’s more than the liver guy got.”

Dean was trying to read over my shoulder, so I closed my laptop up. He wouldn’t have seen much, but I didn’t want him to guess at what I was doing. Besides which. It’s rude.

“Okay,” he said, walking away and pretending like he hadn’t been looking. “So, whatever this guy is, he’s not just after one organ. Werewolves take the heart. Kitsunes eat some gland, don’t they? What do we got that’s not choosy?”

“I was thinking maybe a witch,” I said. “Guy could be a doctor, taking organs for some creepy witch business.”

Dean gave an exaggerated shudder. “Freakin’ witches,” we said, in unison.

Sam shook his head. “I dunno. Maybe. I think I might be onto something.” He looked at his watch. “Just give me half an hour to check some stuff…”

“Maybe we should go get lunch,” I said. “I saw a burger place a couple streets over.”

With a nod, Dean reached for his keys right away. Maybe I was imagining it, but it seemed like he’d been increasingly less willing to do the reading and research. I figured maybe he was feeling more and more like time was running out. He didn’t seem to sit still at all anymore. I could totally understand why he felt so fidgety. He was always a guy inclined to enjoy life. With an actual countdown over his head, he must have been counting every wasted moment.

“Sam seem kinda weird to you?” Dean asked, as we drove out of the motel lot.

I shook my head. “Not really.” Then I remembered the previous day. How he’d suddenly decided to go from hunting down Dean’s contract to catching zombies. That must have been what Dean was referring to. “I guess… I was a little surprised by his sudden change of focus. But he still seems like Sam to me.”

Dean was hesitant, like he was trying to make himself believe me. “Yeah. Yeah. Okay.”

Sometimes it was okay to bring it up and sometimes it wasn’t. I was wary, because I could never quite tell.

“I think maybe… he’s kinda twitchy, you know. He’s getting desperate and he doesn’t know what to do.”

It must have been okay because he didn’t snap or snarl at me. He just sighed. “He’s gotta be okay. You gotta make sure he’s okay, Ellie.”

“I’ll take care of him,” I said, for what was maybe the fifteenth time. “I will, I promise.”

We brought Sam back a salad, but he was super focused when we got in, so I shoved it into the crummy little motel fridge for him. But Dean and I were good to go. As he took another five minutes to finish whatever he was reading, we started unwrapping our food.

“Okay. So I got a theory,” he said at last.

“Yeah?” I said. We knew that. Get to the point, Sam!

“Yeah. I talked to Mr. Giggle’s doctor,” he said, referring to the (justifiably) grumpy kidney guy from the morning. “Turns out his incisions were sewn up with silk.”

“That’s weird,” Dean said, stating the obvious through a mouthful of burger.

“Yeah, nowadays it is,” Sam agreed. “But silk used to be the suture of choice back in the early 19th century. It was really problematic. Patients would get massive infections. The death rate was insane.”

“Good times,” I said, in between mouthfuls, because I am not an animal and who talks while they’re chewing, Dean, gross!

“Right,” Sam went on. “So doctors, they had to do whatever they could to keep infections from spreading. One way was maggots.”

Dean was not chewing anymore. “Dude. We’re eating.”

“It actually kind of worked because maggots, they eat bad tissue, and they leave good tissue. And get this: when they found our guy, his body cavity was stuffed full of maggots!”

“Dude! I’m eating!” Dean reiterated, and Sam gave just the hint of a smile.

“Okay,” I said, cutting in before Dean was violently ill on the table right beside me. “So, you’re saying someone did surgery on this guy, but it was like, 1800s style?”

“Yeah,” Sam said.

Dean was still holding his burger, but he’d stopped eating. “Hang on. A little Antiques Roadshow surgery, some organ theft. Why is this all sounding familiar?”

It didn’t sound familiar to me. This was some Frankenstein shit, except he used a whole corpse for his monster, and didn’t steal organs from random guys who were just trying to feed the parking meter.

“Because you heard it before,” Sam explained. “When you were a kid. From Dad. Doc Benton, real life doctor, lived in New Hampshire. Brilliant, and obsessed with alchemy, especially how to live forever. So, in 1816, Doc abandons his practice and…”

I saw the light go on in Dean’s head. “Right, yeah! Nobody hears from him for like twenty years, and all of a sudden, people start showing up dead.”

“Dead or… or missing an organ or the hand or some other kind of part.”

I was just listening in fascination. This was not a story I had ever heard, but it was creepy as hell.

“Cause whatever he was doing was actually working,” Dean said. “He just kept on ticking. Parts would wear out, he’d replace them.”

Would it be inappropriate to say “cool”? Cos it was pretty cool. Super gross, but still cool.

“But I thought Dad had hunted him down and took his heart out?” Dean went on.

Sam nodded. He’d obviously already thought about that. “Yeah. I guess the Doc must have plugged in a new one.”

“All right,” I said, as Dean began tucking into his burger again, the colour back in his cheeks. I’d all but finished mine. “So, where’s this creeper doing his surgeries?”

Sam nodded towards the computer. “According to this, Benton’s picky about where he sets up his lab. He likes dense forest with access to a river or stream or some kind of fresh water.”

“Why?” asked Dean.

Sam didn’t even tried to hide is little smile this time. “Because that’s were he likes to dump the bile. And intestines.” Dean gagged as he lowered his burger. “And fecal matter. Lost your appetite yet?”

Dean finished his burger, with somewhat less joy in his soul than he started with. And at my insistence, Sam even ate his lunch. I all but had to force him, though. Maybe Bela had a point that time. I was a little bit of a mom type.

There was no map of the area in reception, so we went out. Dean went to an internet cafe, where he could get some maps online and print them off. I went to the town’s visitors centre, and grabbed all the road maps, and some hiking ones, which even had cabins and stuff marked on them. That would help.

Meanwhile, Sam stayed at the motel, furiously reading his Dad’s journal, and trying to figure out if there was some way to find this organ-thieving sicko. It was cool, but only like zombies or ghost ships are cool: interesting and exciting to hunt.

I’d walked, while Dean had driven, so he was back well before me. My big fold out maps of the local forests shat all over his printouts, though. I set them out, and Sam grabbed the thick red pen so we could circle potential locations. We’d got it pretty much sorted when my phone rang. It was my Dad.

“Hey Daddy,” I said, moving away from the guys so they could keep talking while I was on the phone. “What’s up?”