Chapter 38 : Bleed Out

by

     I sat in the diner's corner booth with nothing more than a hot cup of burnt coffee and Elkin's letter I had tracked down at the post office. His place had been torn apart, much like he had been, but I was beyond thankful that the man had the sense to leave some sort of clue. Even if it hadn't been for me, I knew what I had to do.

      John was the first one that came to mind. Even after the way we had left things, I knew it was only a matter of time before he found his way up here himself. He spoke of Elkin often. He was the only reason he believed the colt existed, but to see it on paper, an admission of ownership addressed to the one man I had been trying to get away from, had my head spinning. 

     This was exactly what we needed, but it only made me question how we got it. 

     It could have easily been a trick. 

     A clever ploy to pull me out of hiding. Any vampire left alive knew who I was and what Jonas and I had spent years doing. They were his favorite target, and if it hadn't been for him, I never would have believed they had existed. I had no doubt that there was a bounty on my head, but regardless, I held my phone tightly, staring at John's number. Why I continued to put it in the contact list of every new phone I got was a question I couldn't answer, but my heart thumped heavily as I hit call. 

     "This is John," he said, sounding irritated. 

      I clenched my eyes and sat back in the booth, gritting my teeth before speaking. "It's Andi." 

      There was no pause. "What the hell do you want?" 

     In truth, I didn't anything from him, but the sad reality was that I needed him. "Elkins is dead."

     "I heard," he grumbled into the phone. "What happened?" 

     I glanced around the room quickly, making sure no one was within earshot before I told him. He didn't seem surprised or even upset, for that matter. Despite their falling out, I thought I would at least detect even a slight sadness in his voice, but I had come to accept long ago that the only emotion John Winchester was capable of showing was anger - and it wasn't until I mentioned the colt that the tone in his voice turned, curiosity getting the best of him. 

    "Please tell me you have it." 

     "No, not yet," I told him. "But that's why I'm calling. I can get it, but I need your help." 

     "I thought you didn't want my help?" 

     "I don't," I said harshly. "But I want the colt. If it was just one or two, I'd go it alone, but I'm not that stupid. I'm pretty sure it's a full nest, and now that that yellow-eyed bastard has every reason to let me rot in the ground - I have to make sure there are no mistakes." 

      John sighed heavily. "Yeah, that's quite a trail of bodies you've left behind." 

      "Can't build an army without soldiers," I told him. 

      "What you're doing is stupid," he said. "You're just pissing him off." 

     "If he wanted to stop me, he could have." My gaze fell towards the counter as the waitress called out my alias - my stomach, grumbling as she set my to-go order on the counter. "Clearly, he has more important things to worry about, which means we need the colt now more than ever." 

     John was silent on the other end as I paid for my dinner and made my way out into the cool air. I lingered by the door for a moment as I retrieved my keys from my pocket. "Are you going to help me or not?" 

      "Are you sure they have it?" 

      "Do you really think I'd be calling you if I wasn't?" 

       Another stretch of silence followed me to the car, but eventually, he let out a heavy sigh and agreed to meet me. "And John, just you. I don't want the boys a part of this." 

     "I'm not with them anymore." 

     "Of course you're not," I chuckled, more sarcastically than intended. "What'd ya do? Send them on another mindless ghost hunt?" 

     "They caught your trail two weeks back." 

     "You let them come after me?" 

     "There was no stopping them," he said, anger ringing his voice.

     I shook my head in annoyance and gripped the steering wheel tightly. The last thing I needed was a distraction or a reason to play it safe and look over my shoulder. If they had been following me, there is no telling where they could be now. I hadn't dropped one of the bastard's little experiments in days, and it was a few hundred miles away, but the boys were nothing if not clever and unwilling to give up. 

     The chance of them finding me way out here in the middle of nowhere was slim, but it was only a matter of a time if I wasn't more careful. 

      "I told you what would happen if you -"

      "Don't fucking start with me, John," I snapped at him. "Just get your ass to Manning." 

      "Already on the road." I could just imagine him smirking at my anger on the other end of the phone and slammed the phone closed before throwing it across the car. It fell down between the passenger seat and the door, and even though it started ringing again, I let it go and turned the ignition over. "Fuck!" 

     I clenched my fists, but just as I was about to shake it off and pull out of the parking lot, a hand snaked up from behind the driver seat and gripped me by the throat. I clawed at the cold fingers that pinched at my jugular, but from the silver flash in the rearview mirror, I knew I was no match for the strength of the creature that had a hold of me. 

     "Where's Bo?" The fucker demanded, squeezing harder as if I could speak through the pain. 

      I held tightly onto his wrist, even though it did no good, and stopped struggling as he leaned forward through the front seats, his eyes no longer shimmering in the street lamps above us. They were dark, filled with the lust of blood and anger. "I asked you a question," he growled in my ear as he pulled me closer to his face. 

       I switched my hold on his wrist and pretended to continue struggling as I slowly grabbed the poisoned blade I had slid between the seat and the center console. His eyes narrowed, the skin surrounding his bloody orbs darkening. He was ready to kill me, but much to his surprise, I was just as ready, and without hesitation, I dug the blade deep into the side of his throat, a smirk falling across my face as he threw himself into the backseat. 

      My lungs twitched as I inhaled sharply, my hands going to the thin skin of my neck. It was surely already bruised, but the pain was worth watching him squirm in the backseat of my stolen car, holding onto his neck as if he was terrified of actually bleeding to death. I knew it wasn't enough to kill him, so I watched carefully as he pulled his fingers away from his neck and rubbed the slickness in front of his face. 

     "Hurt's, doesn't it?" I shouted at him in annoyance. "You stupid fuck." 

     "You're dead," he growled at me. "I'm gonna kill you." 

      My lips pulled up only slightly as I watched his body begin to betray him. "No," I told him, watching as he started fading in and out. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to be the one to kill you." 

       "You bitch." 

       I pouted as if he had hurt my feelings. "If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that." 

       Slowly and surely, he lost all ability to move.  The blood sickness began taking over quickly as I sat there, inspecting the knife, making sure it was fully visible as his breathing became ragged. I knew I should have just killed him then and there, but there was already enough of a mess in the car, and I couldn't just roll him out of the backseat into the diner parking lot when I was done with him. 

     So I waited until he was in too much pain to move before I pulled out of the parking lot and made my way back to the cabin. Despite the overwhelming adrenaline of another near miss, I couldn't help but smile at how well it had worked out. Bo was dead, so was any lead I had on the nest. But now I had him, and if he was sent to find Bo, he must have something worth keeping him alive for. 

     It was perfect. 

     I slammed the driver seat closed and kicked through the snow as I rounded the car. It was a struggle getting his deadweight up the porch steps to my cabin, but as I dropped his feet to unlock the door, my heart stopped as I watched the dingy curtains move in my peripheral. 

     My fingers slipped around my gun, and I took a deep breath as I listened carefully through the door. I glanced down at the lump of flesh at my feet, and my eyes fell to the woodline and to the pathway. I was an idiot. I don't know how I hadn't noticed the extra set of footsteps, but there was no doubt that whoever - or whatever - was in my cabin was someone who wasn't afraid of the headless body I had left sitting in the middle of the room. 

       I just hadn't expected it to be Dean, with a mop in one hand and a bottle of bleach in the other.