#the cop in my head who was killed. its corpse has been twitching in the corner of my eyes

[schizodesires]

listen . yes i am a 24 year old who has a part time job as a manager at a shitty retail chain. i pay rent and run errands. however maybe im just actually 16 or smth

[thewhumperinwhite]

And Then You Kill Me, Part 1

hey, it’s been a hot minute, huh?

been sorta Going Through It, so uh... Vampire Time, featuring Art and Karim from FBI AU. (Though, for the record: this is their original incarnation, hence why fbi au is Called That.)

I’m gonna tag @whumpitywhumpwhump and also @sweetheartblue bc Karim is... her oc once removed, basically, so if you like this, Thank Sweetheart

Blanket Warning For This Story: this story heavily features suicide, including multiple suicide attempts.

TW for: attempted suicide; mentioned/”threatened” murder; slight foot whump; implied vampirism; referenced parental abuse; referenced captivity; prescription drug abuse; drowning mention.

----

Art doesn’t know how far he runs, or for how long, but by the time he stops the air smells like salt water, and also his feet feel like they’re filled with glass.

He hasn’t been out of his room for a full month. Or his father’s house for longer than that. There’s a sharp ache in the center of each of his calves, and muscles jumping in his thighs; he hasn’t used his legs for much of anything in weeks. He hasn’t even paced back and forth within the confines of his room like he did at first. Didn’t even stay on his feet for the entirety of his last few too-long showers.

The maid who let him out is new, at least to his wing of the house. She’s been bringing his meals for three weeks at the most, and collecting the trays after he refuses to eat it with increasingly visible discomfort.

She’s the only member of staff who broke his father’s injunction that no one should speak to him; said “You must eat something” in a soft, accented voice, looking around furtively.

He wasn’t been sure his father had actually given specific orders—thought maybe they all just hated him, or had decided among themselves that he was too much trouble to bother with—but this new girl was so clearly afraid of being caught, just speaking one sentence to him, that he knew his father must have said their jobs were on the line. For a little while he wondered why his father would bother. And then he felt stupid, for still wanting the old man to need a reason for things.

The new maid’s name is Noa. It took her a week to talk to him, and two more after before she felt brave or sympathetic enough to sneak him out.

Which means she probably didn’t know that this was always what he was going to do, the second he was out. Last time he didn’t do it fast enough, and the cops found him before he had the chance; this time he isn’t taking any chances.

Noa might feel guilty when they find his body. He thought about leaving a note—to tell her thanks, and that it wasn’t her fault—but he didn’t want to risk getting her in trouble, if she somehow managed to help him without getting caught.

Anyway, she hasn’t known him very long at all. She’ll get over it before too long.

He hasn’t been to this part of the city before. In fact he’s not sure what part of the city this is; he’s been running through a thick mental fog since he first left his father’s manicured lawn. He makes himself really look, now, blinking in the dim yellow light of the streetlamps.

He’s made it to the edge of the city, near where the river that runs through the center meets the ocean. It’s hard to believe this is the same river where his mother sips martinis and watches races between indistinguishable blinding-white boats (largely captained by indistinguishable blinding-white men, though Art doesn’t have much room to talk on that score, obviously).

Art steps out onto the dock. The wood is damp and rough, ice-cold on his bare feet, but it’s solid, and not very slippery. There’s an old railing along the edge, and he leans against it, wrapping already-numb fingers around the rough metal. The river’s wider here, the city lights on the other side further away than he’s used to. This must be where it starts to open out, stops being the river and starts being the bay.

The railing’s sturdy, but only as high as his waist. It’d be easy to climb over. The water must be freezing, maybe even cold enough to kill him on its own, before he has time to drown.

But he doesn’t know what the tides are like, here. His corpse might wash right out to sea, and then what will have been the point of any of this?

Art pries one hand off the railing—it’s already stiff with cold, and it takes more effort than it should—and puts it in his pocket, wraps his stinging pins-and-needles fingers around the reassuring shape of the pill bottle.

Art closes his eyes, and breathes in. The water smells worse, here—like industrial waste, mainly, with a hint of rotting seaweed. But it doesn’t smell like too-fancy cologne, or any of his mother’s preferred cocktails.

Art figures there are worse places to die.

He’s turning his head, looking around to see if there’s any place to sit or if he should just sit on the ground and lean against the railing—and then he spins wildly on his heel, stumbling back against the railing, his heart stuttering in his chest.

There’s a man standing at the edge of the dock, under the nearest streetlight, watching him.

The man is wearing a full suit, and Art can tell immediately that it’s been professionally tailored and that it’s at least partly silk and for a moment that’s all he can see—neatly pressed trousers and shiny black shoes, with patterns on the soles that leave bruises anyone could recognize if they wanted to, if they looked at Art’s face and throat and hands for even a second—

“—to startle you,” the man is saying, in a blessedly unfamiliar voice, and Art shakes his head, hard, to force his eyes back into focus.

The man is holding his hands up in surrender and looking slightly alarmed, presumably worried that Art is about to swoon at his feet. There’s a red silk ribbon hanging untied around the collar of the man’s shirt, and Art’s father only wears plain black ties.

The adrenaline runs out of Art’s veins in a rush, and this time his knees actually do give out on him, and he slithers down against the railing until he’s sitting on the damp wood, which is very cold through the thin fabric of his jeans.

The man blinks at him. He has big, long-lashed eyes, over-bright against his light-brown skin. His hair is bleach-blonde, glowing white-gold under the streetlamp; it’s mostly slicked back, with a few curls flopping loose over sculpted black eyebrows.

He isn’t standing on the docks themselves, but his suit—now that Art can really see, it’s pretty ostentatious, satin-shiny in the yellow glow, not something his father would wear at all—looks very out of place above the dirty concrete sidewalk, between two dingy, abandoned-looking buildings.

“You’re wearing a suit,” Art says, before he knows he’s going to say anything.

The man blinks his glow-in-the-dark eyes at him. His lashes are so long they cast visible shadows on his cheeks. He looks at Art, and then down at the suit; touches his own lapel gently with black-gloved fingers, like he’s just remembering that it’s there.

Then the man looks back up at Art, and says, “It’s Boglioli,” in a surprised sort of voice, like it’s a conditioned response.

“Ugh,” Art says, with perfect sincerity.

The man laughs, his full lips parting in a startled grin, and—

There’s something wrong with his teeth.

Art is still on the ground. There’s no sound except the river, behind him, water lapping quietly against wood. Art hasn’t slept properly in days. He’s prepared to believe he imagined it, except.

Except that the smile immediately drops off the man’s face, and his gloved hand twitches up as though in an aborted attempt to reach up and cover his mouth.

Art stares.

It was only for a second. But the man’s eyeteeth were too long, surely, poked down over his bottom lip, like they barely fit in his pretty red mouth.

Art’s ears are ringing. He feels cold, and then too warm.

The man takes a half-step back, his eyes not leaving Art’s face.

Art doesn’t move. He’s been out here in the cold for—an hour. Most of him is freezing, is almost painfully cold, but suddenly there’s heat in his cheeks and his ribcage and the palm of his hands.

He’s feeling something too big to identify. It doesn’t feel like fear.

The man is watching his face very closely.

“What’s your name?” he asks, finally. His voice is low and velvet-soft.

That does sent fear up into Art’s stomach like a knife. He shakes his head once, sharply, reaching up for the railing, ready to haul himself to his feet.

The man holds his gloved hands up again, in surrender. This time when he smiles he keeps his lips firmly together.

“No, alright, my mistake,” he says, smirking. It’s much worse than the grin; more controlled, less real. Art liked the grin better.

He liked the man’s smile better with teeth.

“I just, uh,” the man says, and he gestures toward Art’s feet, folded awkwardly underneath him. “That wood’s so dirty. Your cuts’ll get infected.”

Art’s feet do hurt. He’s run half the city with no shoes, they must be cut to shit. But he hasn’t left a trail of bloody footprints, or anything. Maybe the man can see that his feet are bare, but surely not more than that, not from where he’s standing.

When he leans over, a little, to see if his foot is a horrible bloody mess and he’s just missed it somehow, Art wobbles, and takes his hand out of his pocket to steady himself.

The bottle of pills clatters out of his pocket.

Art’s heart clenches painfully in his chest, and his head swims, and the bottle rolls easily across the wooden planks in front of him. The man takes one step forward, and it taps casually into the toe of his shiny black shoe.

The man picks the bottle up, frowning down at the label.

Art stumbles forward, onto his knees. “Give that back.”

“What is it?” the man says, voice nothing but curious. He’s reading the label. Art wants to tackle him and rip it out of his hands.

“It’s mine,” he says, and now he’s almost yelling. “Give it back!”

The man takes a step back, startled. “Huh,” he says, blinking down at Art, who is now kneeling practically at his feet. Art has no idea what kind of face he’s making.

“Really,” the man says slowly, and makes a show of squinting back down at the label. “This says… Honoria Lange, is what it says.” He raises a perfectly-sculpted brow at Art. “That’s you, is it?”

Art wants to rip this guy���s head off. “Maybe it is,” he says savagely, and reaches for the man’s hand; the man laughs and dances easily out of the way. “Give me my fucking pills back—"

“Oh, relax,” the man says, smirking again. “Seriously, what are you so desperate to—” He trails off, frowning down at the bottle. “…Huh.”

The man looks down at Art, thoughtfully.

“These are—what, sleeping pills,” he says slowly, and tips his head, like a curious dog.

Art’s stomach clenches painfully.

“Hey,” the man says. “Are you—”

Art throws himself to his feet.

This isn’t as good, Art thinks, while he swings his foot onto the lowest bar of the metal railing; they might not find his body for weeks, might not find it at all, he might die for nothing, but he won’t go back, he won’t go back to his father’s—

“Hey—Don’t!” the man yells, and he grabs Art by the hood of his sweatshirt, and yanks him backwards, off the railing.

Art gasps in a painful panicked breath and kicks out at the man with his bare, bleeding feet, aiming straight for the testicles; the man moves easily out of the way, not letting go of Art’s hoodie; Art overbalances and falls backward, just catching himself my scraping his hand bloody on the concrete at the bottom of the railing.

“Shit,” the man says, reaching for Art, and Art flails at him, wants to push him away, or to scratch out his shiny glass-marble eyes, or—

The man catches Art’s wrist easily. He’s leaning over Art, now, with one arm braced beside him, and holding Art’s arm; Art’s hand, his wrist in the man’s glove fist, is very close to the man’s face.

The heel of Art’s hand is cut open; a drop of blood trails down over his pulse point, and disappears into the fabric of the man’s glove.

The man’s pupils visibly dilate. When his lips part, his fangs are even more visible than before, like they barely fit inside his mouth.

Art feels his own lips part in response. Feels his fear—he’ll stop me he’ll call the police he’ll drag me back please no please please I’ll do anything—shift, pool lower in his belly.

The man is watching Art’s face—their faces are very close together now. He looks Art in the eye and—parts his lips slightly, so there can be no mistaking what they both know Art sees. Then he wets his lips, delicately, with an almost obscenely red tongue.

“Hey,” the man says, and his voice has gone slightly hoarse.

“No,” Art says—and his voice is hoarse, too, an embarrassing croak. His face is hot; he knows it must be red, now. “I don’t want it. Whatever you’re offering, I don’t—uh—”

Art tries to pull his arm back, as hard as he can. The man’s grip doesn’t budge a single inch. Like he could—like he could snap Art’s wrist, just by tightening his fist. Art swallows, his heart fluttering in his chest. His ribcage feels too tight. And now his pants are starting to feel that way, too.

The man studies Art’s face, very seriously. “I think,” he says, and his voice is softer, almost hesitant.

“I think,” the man says, watching closely for Art’s reaction, “that I am offering to kill you.”

[winchesterbrotherstan]

SPN- The Usual Suspects (2.07)

Pairing: Olive Winchester (OC)

Summary: A case goes side-ways, Dean is left cornered, and it’s up to Sam and Olive to get him out of the mess. Olive falls fatally ill, and Sam must team up with a law enforcement officer.

Warnings: lots of coughing, blood, mentions of drug use, gun threats, uh ghosts and like... the usual??

Word Count: 8547

Baltimore, Maryland

Outside a motel room, a SWAT team gears up. It’s dark, and the few people outside have scattered. Someone stays closeby, but only their face is hidden. They’ve got their hood pulled up, one hand is in their pocket, and their other arm is in a makeshift sling. They’ve got a dog on a leash, and they do their best to stay in the shadows.

In a police station across the city, a sheriff enters an interrogation room and sits down.

“Well, first I thought you were just stepping up your game. Credit card fraud, breaking and entering, and this one…” he looks over the file with a sigh, “puzzled me. Grave desecration. But still, these are a long way from murder. Then we get a fax from St. Louis. Where you’re suspected of torturing and murdering a young woman. However, no one could prove anything, of course, because you died there. But I gotta tell you something. You look pretty healthy to me.”

The detective moves, sits on the table. “Now we know. Karen Giles isn’t the first person you’ve killed. But I guarantee you she’s the last.”

At the motel, the SWAT team stands outside a second floor room, ready. They knock the door down with a battering ram, and the person inside immediately puts their hands up. One of the detectives steps forward, keeping her gun on the person.

“Going somewhere, Sam?” She asks.

There’s a rifle ready to shoot the middle Winchester through the heart, and he swallows hard, eyes set in disgust as he looks at the woman.

In the police station, the detective shoots the prisoner a dirty look before getting up and walking out. The prisoner is Dean.

The person standing in the motel parking lot pulls their hood back, watching as Sam is dragged from the room. It’s Olive. She pulls the hood back up, turns on her heel, and walks off.

                                                               ***

The detective that cornered Sam enters his interrogation room. She places a coffee cup on the table, and Sam glances over, but continues to pace by the window.

“Thought you might be thirsty.”

“Okay, so you’re the good cop.” Sam assesses. “Where’s the bad cop?”

“Oh, he’s with your brother.”

“Okay. And you’re holding us why?”

“Well he’s being held on suspicion of murder.” The woman adjusts her sleeves and a look of shock washes over Sam’s face. “And you? Well, we’ll see.”

“Murder?” Sam repeats, leaning onto the table.

“You sound genuinely surprised. Or are you that good of an actor?” The woman smiles.

“Who is he supposed to have murdered?” Sam squints.

“We’ll get around to that.”

“Well, you can’t just hold us here without formal charges!” Sam is growing more and more upset.

“Well, actually, we can. For forty eight hours, but you, being a pre-law student, would know that. You see, I know all about you, Sam.” She picks up a file folder and opens it. “You’re twenty three years old. No job, no home address. Your mother died when you were a baby, your father’s whereabouts are unknown. And then there’s the case of your brother, Dean. Whose demise was, well, just a bit exaggerated. Feel free to jump in whenever you like.”

Sam leans against the wall and folds his arms over his chest.

“Shy?” She teases. “No problem. I’ll keep going. Your family moved around a lot when you were a kid. Despite that, you were a straight-A student. Got into Stanford with a full ride.”

Sam says nothing. They haven’t mentioned Olive, and he’s not sure whether he should be relieved or worried. His mind spins. There’s got to be a record of her somewhere out there. Sure, she wasn’t born in a hospital, and she almost never went to the doctor, and she went to school under fake names, but there’s gotta be something.

The woman closes the file. “Then about a year ago, there was a fire in your apartment. One fatality. Jessica Moore, your girlfriend. After she died, you fell off the grid. Left behind everything.”

Sam says nothing, but he looks up through his eyelashes. “I needed some time off. To deal. So I’m taking a road trip with my brother.”

“And your little sister.”

Sam’s blood runs cold.

“Don’t think we forgot about little old Olive.” She smiles. “Such a strange name.”

His nose twitches in anger. He picked that name. She smiles again, wider this time.

“Where is she? We didn’t find her in the motel room. The bathroom window was open, but she couldn’t have jumped. Two stories is too high, don’t you agree?”

Sam says nothing.

“Where is she, Sam?”

He leans further into the wall.

“How’s that road trip going for you guys?”

“Great.” Sam shrugs softly, then takes the chance to derail her. “I mean…” A smile grows on his face. “We saw the second largest ball of twine in the continental US. It was awesome.” He pulls up a chair and straddles it.

“We ran Dean’s fingerprints through AFIS.” The detective comes to the end of the table.

“Okay.”

“Got over a dozen possible hits.”

“Possible hits.” Sam repeats. “Which makes them worthless.”

“But it makes you wonder. What are we gonna find when we run your prints?”

“Well.” Sam smiles and pounds his fist on the table, every movement dripping with sarcasm. “You be sure to let me know.” He points at the cup. “May I?”

She nods. “Please.”

“Great.” He takes the cup, smells it, and then takes a sip.

She leans over him, eyes intent.

“Sam. You seem like a good kid. It’s not your fault Dean’s your brother. We can’t pick our family. Right now, detectives in St. Louis are exhuming a corpse. They’re trying to figure out how your brother faked his own death.”

There’s a scream from outside, and against all common sense, on instinct, Sam’s head snaps up. It’s Olive’s scream.

“Get off of me!” She screams, squirming.

She’s dropped Jinx off at a safe place. The Richmonds will pick her up and take care of her until this is over. Olive is being dragged through the police station, kicking and screaming. She’s managed to nail two men in the crotch, and has sent a mug full of pens to the floor.

Back in the interrogation room, Sam’s face is pale. The detective turns back to him with a smile.

“Is that baby sister Olive?”

He glares.

“She’s sixteen, isn’t she? Has been for a little less than a month now. She can be tried as an adult. Look, Dean’s a bad guy. His life is over. Yours doesn’t have to be, and neither does Olive’s.”

Sam turns with a glare. “You want us to turn against our own brother?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “We’ve already caught him cold. Red-handed at the Karen Giles murder scene. We just need you to fill in some missing pieces.”

“Why would I do that?” Olive spits from her seat in a third interrogation room.

They’ve cuffed her down, and she knows she could break them, but that would lead to another issue they couldn’t solve without making an even bigger mess.

“Because we can talk to the DA for you, kid.” The detective who had talked to Dean sits across from her. “Dean’s gone. You don’t have to be.”

She grits her teeth, composes herself, and then spits in his face.

“Go to hell.”

The man wipes the spit from his face angrily and stands.

“Fine. Just remember, I tried to help you.”

Sam begins to talk, voice quiet. “My dad and Tony Giles were old friends. They were in the service together. We’ve known him since we were kids, you know? So we came as soon as we heard about his death.”

Cafe, Before

“Here.” Sam placed three coffee cups down and slid into his chair.

Dean handed him the newspaper he had been reading. “Anthony Giles.”

“Who’s Anthony Giles?” Sam squinted.

“Baltimore lawyer. Working late in his office, check it out.” Olive pointed at the article she and Dean found.

Sam scanned over it, mumbling out loud. “Throat slit, room was clean. Huh. No DNA, no prints.”

“Keep reading.” Olive grinned. “It gets better.”

“Security cameras failed to capture footage of the assailant.” He scoffed.

“So we’re thinking either somebody messed with the tapes-”

“Or we’ve got an invisible killer on our hands.”

“My favorite kind.” Dean smiles. “What do you think, Scully? You wanna check it out?”

Sam scoffed, and Olive snorted.

“I’m not Scully, you’re Scully.”

“No, I’m Mulder.” Dean fought back. “You’re a red-headed woman.”

“Hey!” Olive whined. “Can I be Scully? I’m a girl.”

Dean and Sam shared a look, and each broke out into a smile. Dean patted her head and Sam gave her hand a squeeze.

“You’re too little to be either, bug.”

She rolled her eyes with a huff. “Fine, fine. Let’s go check this out.”

Second Interrogation Room, Present Day

“Would’ve been kind of hard for Dean to kill Tony, considering we weren’t in town at the time.” Sam is still straddling the chair, hands in his lap.

“So tell me what happened next.”

“Okay, uh, that when we went to see Karen.” Sam sighs. “She was barely holding it together. We just wanted to be there for her. You know?”

Giles House, Before

Karen sat on the couch, on the verge of tears. She flipped through the forms the siblings had handed her and sighed shakily.

“Insurance. I totally forgot about the insurance.”

“We’ve very sorry to bother you right now, but the company is required to conduct its own investigation. You understand.” Sam smiled sympathetically.

“Sure.” Karen nodded, pushing her glasses back up.

“Okay. Um, if you could just tell us anything you remember about the night your husband died.”

“Um… Tony and I were just supposed to have dinner. He called and said he was having computer troubles, and that… that he had to work late.” She sniffled again. “That was it.”

“Do you have any idea who could’ve done this to him?” Olive’s voice was sympathetic.

“No.” Karen shook her head. “No, it’s like I told the police, I… I have no idea.”

“Did Tony mention anything, you know, unusual to you? In the days before his death?” Dean asked.

“Unusual…” Karen trailed off.

“Yeah, like strange.”

“Strange?” She repeated.

“You know, weird. Weird noises, uh, visions, anything like that?”

Sam cleared his throat and glared at Dean, and Olive sent him a similar look.

Could you be any less subtle?

Karen turned to glance at Sam and Olive, who immediately switched back to the looks of concern and pity. She looked down again, and the two younger siblings shot him a look again.

“He had a nightmare the day before he died.” Karen shrugged.

“What kind of nightmare?”

“Uh, he said that he woke up in the middle of the night and there was a woman standing at the foot of the bed. He blinked and she was gone, I mean… it was just a nightmare.”

“Did he say what she looked like?”

“What the hell difference does it make what she looked like?” Karen spat.

Dean squirmed, and Olive leaned forward, voice gentle.

“Our company is just very thorough. I understand this is an upsetting process, but we just need to ask a few more questions, and we’ll be on our way.”

Karen nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry. He said she was pale, and that she… she had dark red eyes.”

The siblings nodded as they each made a note.

Second Interrogation Room, Present Day

“So I gave Karen a hug, told her to call me if she needed anything, and that was it… end of story.” Sam shrugs.

“Sam, I am trying to help you here.” The detective hisses. “But you have got to be honest with me. Now, we have an eyewitness. Someone who saw two men and a young woman fitting you and your siblings’s descriptions breaking into Gile’s office.”

“Okay.” Sam sighs. “Look, Karen called us later, said that there was some stuff that she wanted from Tony’s office. But the police weren’t letting her in. Like, a picture of the two of them in Paris, and some other stuff. Look, it was wrong to enter a crime scene, but she gave us the key!” Sam puts his hands up in protest.

Giles’ Office, Before

Dean picked the lock, and he ducked in first. Olive followed, and Sam went last, shutting the door behind themselves. Each ducked under the police tape with ease. Sam shone his flashlight on a pool of blood on the floor.

“Hey. Giles’ body was found right about here.”

He rummaged through his jacket pockets and pulled out the newspaper from earlier. “Throat slit so deep part of his spinal cord was visible.”

Dean let out a low whistle. “What do you guys think? Vengeful spirit? Underlining vengeful?” He emphasized.

“Yeah, maybe. I mean, he did see that woman at the foot of his bed.”

Dean picked a paper off the desk. “Look at this.”

Olive took the paper and held it where Sam could see it too. danashulps was written all over it, in small print.

“Dana Shulps. Name?” Sam suggested.

Dean picked another paper off the desk. “I dunno, but it’s all over the place.” A grin broke out on his face. “Well, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Sam shone his flashlight over the glass table and paused. Olive looked up at him.

“What is it, Sams?”

“Do me a favor, breathe onto the table.”

She eyed him, but did as he asked, pulling away when she realized that danashulps was written all over it.

“What the fuck?”

“Well, I’d say we’ve officially crossed over into weird.

“Maybe Giles knew her.” Dean suggested.

“Or!” Olive perked up. “Maybe it’s the name of our pale, red-eyed mystery girl.”

“Alright, let’s just see what we can find.”

                                                              ***

Dean let out a loud groan, and Olive sighed from her spot on the couch. Sam was at the desktop computer, typing away.

“There’s not a single mention of a Dana Shulps anywhere. There’s not a D. Shulps. Or any other kind of fucking Shulps.” Dean complained.

“Great.” Olive huffed. “I can’t find anything either. Sams, what about you?”

“Nothing. No Dana Shulps has ever lived or died in Baltimore in the last fifty years at least.”

“So what now?”

“Well, I think I’m pretty close to cracking Giles’ password. Maybe there’s something in his personal files, you know?”

“By close, you mean?”

Sam shrugged. “Thirty minutes, maybe?”

Dean glanced down at his watch and sighed. “Awesome, so I guess I just get to uh… hang out.” He sighed, then grumbled something under his breath.

Olive got up from the couch and sat in the other red chair, watching as Sam worked. Dean began to click his tongue, and both younger siblings turned with similar looks of annoyance.

He paused, and once they both looked away, he started to make fart noises with his mouth. Olive stifled a giggle, and Sam sighed.

“Dude, seriously!”

“Alright, I’m gonna go talk to Karen again, see if she knows anything about this Dana Shulps, huh?”

“Great.” Sam huffed.

“Be careful.” Olive smiled at Dean as he stood.

He leaned down and kissed the top of her forehead, then shone his flashlight at Sam. “Keep going, Sparky.”

Third Interrogation Room, Present Day

“Then Dean went back to Karen’s place to check up on her. I mean, you know, she had obviously been upset earlier.” Olive huffs.

“So why didn’t you and Sam go with him?” The one from before, who Olive’s figured out is named Sheridan, asks.

Olive half shrugs. “I had to take care of some lady things. Sam came with me to the motel.” She pauses. “How did you know he was there, by the way?”

“We found the motel matchbook on Dean when he arrested him. Now-”

“How’d you know where to find me?” She questions.

“Let’s quit dicking around. Now you two were with Dean the whole time you were in Baltimore. Why separate now? Because your brother left you. To go kill Karen.”

“He didn’t kill anyone!” Olive shouts.

The anxiety is ramping, and it’s making her fractured arm hurt.

“I heard the 911 call!” Sheridan slams his fist on the table. “Karen was terrified! She said someone was in the house!”

Giles House, Before

Karen was on the couch in her pajamas, crying. The TV was on, but low. She wasn’t watching. She blew her nose, and heard something as she did. She took her glasses off to rub her eyes before quickly putting them back on. She noticed a figure in the mirror across the room.

She let out a frightened yelp and stood, turning the lights on. There was nobody there, but she turned into the bedroom and shut the door. She dialed 911 and put the phone to her ear.

“Hello, emergency services.”

“Hello? I think I saw someone in my house.”

“What’s your address?”

“It’s 421 Clinton Avenue. Please, can you-”

A click, and the call was disconnected.

“Hello?”

The printer on her desk flicked on and began to rapid-print sheets with the same thing from Tony’s office.

danashulpsdanashulpsdanashulpsdanashulps

Karen fumbled around for a flashlight, and finally turned. She turned to be face-to-face with the ghost. She screamed.

                                                              ***

Giles House, Before

Dean knocked on the door. “Karen, you in there?”

He got no answer. He looked around before bending to pick the lock. He opened the door and tried the light in the entryway. It didn’t work. He shut the door behind himself and ventured further into the house. He went up the stairs and turned into the bedroom. He pushed the door open to see Karen lying on the floor in a pool of blood. He turned and noticed the printer pages.

“Seriously, what the hell?” He grumbled.

He knelt by Karen’s body, noticing bruises on her wrists. He slowly picked up one of her hands.

“Freeze.”

Dean cursed to himself. Behind him, two cops had their guns trained on his head.

“Stay on your knees. Hands where I can see them. Now!”

He complied.

First Interrogation Room, Present Day

Sheridan sits in an observation room, where he can see Dean, who is handcuffed to a table. The detective that had been with Sam, Ballard, enters.

“You getting anywhere with him?”

“No. Just a lot of wise-ass remarks.” He grumbles.

“What about the girl?”

Sheridan rolls his eyes. “Nothing. Her story matches his down to the last detail. You?”

“Same with Sam’s.”

“Hmm. Yeah, well, these guys are good. I’ll give them that.” Sheridan crosses his arms over his chest.

Ballard sighs. “If we don’t get Sam or Olive to flip, we have nothing but a lot of circumstantial evidence.”

“Hey. We’ve got Dean at the crime scene with blood on his hands. And we caught Olive trying to steal a car. Juries have convicted for less.”

“Yeah, but…” Ballard sighs. “I mean, where’s the murder weapon? What’s the motive? You talk about reasonable doubt.”

“Diana.” Sheridan leans in and touches her face. “Do you have reasonable doubt? We keep leaning on these three, one of them will tumble. And don’t forget about St. Louis. I’m telling you. This Dean guy is our guy.”

Ballard sighs. “I know Tony Giles was a friend of yours.”

“Yeah.” Sheridan nods. “He was, he was a good friend.”

“Look, and I know you just want to clean this mess up quick, but some on. Tony knew a lot of criminal types, I mean… maybe we’re just-”

“Criminal types?” Sheridan cuts her off with a snarl. “He was a defense lawyer, for fuck’s sake. Of course he knew criminal types.”

“Alright.” Ballard sighs. “Let’s get back at them.”

“No, you know what? Let em stew in their juices for a bit.” Sheridan glances around to make sure nobody is nearby. “Come here.”

He pulls her into a kiss.

In the interrogation room, Dean huffs.

“Dana Shulps, Dana Shulps, Dana Shulps. Dana- Dana Shulps.” He mumbles to himself, eyes closed.

He’s stiff cuffed to the table, and he’s got his hands laced together as he thinks.

Sam, hands free, pulls a pad of paper and a pen to himself. He writes Dana Shulps in print, frowning as he thinks.

Olive is still cuffed to the table in her interrogation room. Her wrists are beginning to hurt, and her leg is bouncing up and down, shaking the entire table. She mutters curses as she looks around, in thought.

“It’s not a name, it’s not a name, it’s not a name.” She squeezes her eyes shut.

Sam huffed as he got to work. “Anagram, maybe?”

Dean continues to mumble to himself, looking up when there’s a knock on the door.

“Mr. Winchester?” A middle aged man pokes his head in.

“Yeah.” Dean grumbles.

“Hi, I’m Jeffrey Kraus.” The man walks in. “I’m with the public defender’s office. I’m your lawyer.”

Dean deadpans. “Oh. Thank god. I’m saved.”

Kraus sits, and Dean leans forward. “Hey, could I uh, steal a pen from you? Maybe some paper?”

“Sure.” Kraus hands the items over to Dean, who goes to town. “Uh, well, the police haven’t found a weapon yet. So that’s good. But uh, they got your prints. And well,” the man chuckles, “literally blood on your hands. And with your police record, uh…” he trails off when he notices that Dean isn’t paying attention.

“Mr. Winchester?”

Nothing.

“What are you doing?”

“I think it’s an anagram.” Dean grunts.

“A what?”

“Same letters, different words.” Dean explains as he continues to scribble.

The paper now reads:

dna shulps

dan shulpas

land pushas

supash land

push landas

plush danas

He pushes it over to Kraus. “Uh, do me a favor? See if you recognize any of these words. You know, local names, places, anything like that?”

“Do you understand how serious these charges are?”

“I’m handcuffed to a table.” Dean scoffs. “Yeah, I get it. Humor me. Take a quick look.”

Kraus sighs and pulls the pad of paper over to him. “Well, I don’t know about s-u-p, but Ashland is a street name. Not far from here.”

“A street.” Dean repeats.

He takes the pad back, tears the paper off, and begins to scribble again.

“Let’s start with where you were the night Anthony Giles died.”

“Can you get in to see my brother and sister?” Dean looks up quickly.

“Mr. Winchester, you could be facing the death penalty here.”

“Hey, thanks for the law review, Matlock. But, if you wanna help me.” Dean holds up the two scraps of paper he’s written on. “I need you to see my brother and sister.”

Third Interrogation Room, Present Day

Olive unfurls the note and snorts.

Lil,

Ashland Street

Call richies if you’re alone

-Phil

“I hope that means something. He was adamant I get that to you.” Kraus sits across from her.

Olive rolls her neck. “Yeah, thanks. How far exactly is Ashland Street from here?” She crumbles up the note and looks up, expectantly.

“Uh, maybe a ten minute drive. Miss Winchester, if you don’t mind, I’d really like to-”

“No.” Olive shakes her head. “I don’t need a lawyer to talk me through this. They think Dean’s a killer, they found me stealing a car, and they’re gonna pin Sam and I as accessories. They’re gonna bring up everything we’ve ever done, gonna bring up the fact that our dad is gone, gonna say Dean had blood on his hands, and that’s gonna be the end of it.”

Kraus sighs. “You’re sixteen-”

“They’re gonna try me as an adult, I know.” She nods again. “Look, Matlock, why don’t you go talk to Sam? He’s prelaw, full ride to Stanford. I’m sure he can help you work out a strategy for us.” She smiles a sickly sweet smile, but it’s full of anger and poison.

Krau sighs a third time before getting up and exiting the room.

Second Interrogation Room, Present Day

Sam reads over the note Dean sent.

Hilts-

It’s a street

Ashland

-McQueen

Kraus sighs. “I hope that’s meaningful. But I’d like to discuss your case now.”

Sam gestures to the chair in front of him. “Sure thing, Matlock.”

Kraus sighs again. “You three really are siblings, aren’t you?” He sits. “Now, as you know, the DA might be interested in-”

A knock on the door, and then Ballard barges in.

“We need you.” She looks at Kraus. “With the other one.”

Sam stares at the door after they close it. He huffs. Several people have crowded outside Dean’s interrogation room, watching as the digital camera is set up across from him.

“Counselor?” Sheridan grins. “Your boy decided to confess.”

“Mr. Winchester?” Kraus warns. “I’d strongly advise against that.”

“Talk directly into the camera, first stating your name for the record.”

Dean clears his throat and sits up. He leans forward and looks into the camera. “My name is Dean Michael Winchester. I’m an Aquarius.” A smile begins to creep onto his face. He knows that if Sam and Olive were to see this, they would roll their eyes and break into a cackle, respectively. “I enjoy sunsets, long walks on the beach, and frisky women. And I did not kill anyone.” His smile drops. “But I know who did. Or rather, what, did. Of course, it can’t be for sure because our investigation was interrupted. But our working theory was that we’re looking for some kind of vengeful spirit.”

“Excuse me?” Ballard spits.

“You know,” Dean shrugs. “Casper the bloodthirsty ghost?”

People in the observation room begin to laugh.

“Tony Giles saw it. I’ll bet you cash money Karen did too. But see, the interesting thing is the word it leaves behind. For some reason, it’s trying to tell us something. But communicating across the veil, it ain’t easy.” Dean shakes his head. “You know, sometimes the spirits, they, they get things jumbled. You remember redrum. Same concept. You know, it’s uh, word fragments, sometimes it’s anagrams. See, at first we thought it was a name. Dana Shulps. But now we think it’s a street. Ashland. Whatever’s going on, I’ll bet you it started there.”

Dean spreads his hands and smiles. His part is done.

“You arrogant bastard!” Sheridan shouts. “Tony and Karen were good people, and you’re making jokes!”

“I’m not joking, Ponch.” Dean’s lip curls up.

“You murdered them in cold blood! Just like that girl in St. Louis!”

“Oh, yeah…” Dean sucks in air through his teeth. “That wasn’t me either. That was a shape-shifter creature that only looked like me.”

He smiles at the camera again, and Sheridan snaps. He picks Dean up by the collar, which is no easy task, as he’s 6’ 2” and about 170 pounds. He slams him against the wall, and although Dean is uncomfortable, he doesn’t flinch. He keeps his cold front.

“Pete, that is enough!” Ballard pulls him off.

“You asked for the truth.” Dean speaks calmly.

“Lock his ass up.” Sheridan spits, dropping Dean to his feet.

Another cop takes over and shoves Dean face-first against the wall, cuffing him. Dean grunts, but a sense of calm washes over him. He did what needed to be done. Sam and Olive would fix it from here.

Sheridan storms into Olive’s interrogation room, only to find her gone. He lets out a frustrated scream and throws a chair across the room. A breeze blows through the window, and he sticks his head out. It’s a five story drop, and the fire escape is at least six feet away. There’s no way she could’ve reached it.

“Where is she!” He shouts.

Ballard comes running. “Sam’s gone!”

She blinks, noticing that Sheridan is the only one in the room. “What?”

“What did they do? The fire escapes way over there! For both of them!”

“These fuckers.” Ballard hisses, showing Sheridan the note left on Sam’s table.

“Hilts and McQueen? Lil and Phil?” Sheridan spits.

“Hilts is Steve McQueen’s character in the Great Escape.” Ballard sighs. “And Lil and Phil are from the Rugrats.”

Sheridan lets out another scream.

                                                              ***

Dean is cuffed once more, in a smaller room. Ballard enters, looking around, nervous. Dean huffs.

“Can we make this quick? I’m a little tired, it’s been a long day, you know, with your partner assaulting me and all.”

“I want to know more about that stuff you were talking about earlier.”

Dean hums. “Time Life. Mysteries of the Unknown. Look it up.”

She circles around to stand in front of him. “Let’s pretend, for the moment, you’re not entirely insane.”

Dean hums again. “What would one of these things be doing here?”

“A vengeful spirit?”

Ballard nods, and Dean pouts as he thinks.

“Well, they’re created by violet deaths. And then they come back for a reason, usually a nasty one. Like revenge on the people that hurt em.”

“And, uh, these things… they’re capable of killing people?” She asks, rubbing her neck.

Dean smiles, lining up his next smart-ass response, when he notices deep, dark bruises on her wrists, the same he had seen on Karen’s.

“Where’d you get those?”

Ballard sighs and pulls up her sleeves, seeing the bruises for the first time.

“I don’t know. It… it wasn’t there before.”

“You’ve seen it before, haven’t you? The spirit?”

“How’d you know?”

“Cause Karen had the same bruises on her wrists. And I’m willing to bet that if you look at Giles’ autopsy photos, he’s got em too. It’s got something to do with this spirit, I… I just don’t know what.”

Ballard turns away, looking into the mirror.

“I know. You think you’re going crazy. But let’s skip that part, shall we? Because the last two people who saw this thing? Died, pretty soon after. You hear me?”

She turns back to him, face drained of color. “You think I’m going to die.”

Dean sighs. “You need to go to Sam and Olive. They’ll help.”

Ballard’s shoulders fall. “You’re giving them up.”

Dean sighs again, looking away. “Go to the first motel listed in the yellow pages. Look for Jim Rockford and Angel Martin. It’s how we find each other when we’re all separated. Now, you can arrest them if you want.” He looks up at her. “Or you can let them save your life.”

Motel Room, Present Day

Sam sits at a desk, rifling through files. Somebody knows on the door, and his head perks up. The person knocks again, and this time Sam gets up. He tucks a handgun into the back of his jeans and looks through the peephole.

He throws the door open with a sigh of relief. Olive tumbles into his arms, shaking. He holds her, then realizes that her legs have given out, and she’s relying entirely on him. He picks her up by the waist and puts her down on the bed, kicking the door shut.

“Bug, what happened?”

She coughs, and a few specks of blood fly out. “I had to jump. I wasn’t gonna make it to the fire escape, so I just went straight down.” She groans. “I landed in a dumpster, my leg broke, and my lungs hurt. I’m mostly healed now, but… it still hurts.” She leans back onto the wall with a heavy sigh.

“Fuck.” Sam mumbles under his breath.

He sees the fear in Olive’s eyes and sits next to her, pulling her to rest in his lap. “Okay. Once we get all of this fixed, I promise we’ll go straight to Bobby. Okay?” He runs a hand through her hair.

She coughs again. “We’ve gotta get Dean.”

The door opens, and Sam whips the gun out, his other hand holding Olive protectively. It’s Ballard. She eyes the gun, and Sam hesitates. She gives a soft smile, and Sam puts the gun down. Olive doesn’t move. She’s scared she’ll cough up a lung, and she’s barely breathing as is. Sam notices Ballard’s eyes on her.

“You’ll have to sit here.” He gestures to the bed.

She does so. “I saw it.”

“What?” Olive speaks, then coughs again, ending with a groan.

Ballard eyes Olive again, then shows Sam her wrists. He takes her hands in his and winces as he looks over the pink skin.

“These showed up after you saw it?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Ballard sighs.

“Alright. You’re gonna have to tell me exactly what you saw.”

Ballard hesitates. “You know, I must be losing my mind. You’re both fugitives. I should be arresting you.”

“You can arrest us later.” Olive rasps. “After we get through this.”

“She’s right.” Sam sighs. “Right now you’ve gotta talk to me.”

Ballard nods.

“Okay. The spirit, what did it look like?”

“She was… um, really pale. Her throat was cut, and her eyes… they were like, this deep dark red. It appeared like she was trying to talk to me, but she couldn’t. It was just… a lot of blood.”

“Okay. There.” Sam points to the desk, and she rises, going to it. “I’ve been researching every girl that’s ever died or gone missing from Ashland street.”

“How’d you get these?” Ballard flips through the photos. “These are from crime scenes, and booking photos.”

“You have your job, we have ours. Look through them, tell me if you recognize anyone.”

She sits down and begins to look through papers. Sam turns back to Olive and presses a soft kiss to her forehead.

“I’m gonna get you some water. Okay, bug?”

Olive mumbles an agreement and lets Sam move her out of his lap. He goes to the bathroom, wets a towel, and brings it back, placing it on her forehead. He’s seen her sick like this before, but it’s never been this bad. Panic begins to grow in his chest as he fills a glass with water. He doesn’t know what to do. He needs Dean.

“This is her. I’m sure of it.”

Sam places the cup of water down on the nightstand and goes to stand at the desk with Ballard.

“Claire Becker. Twenty eight years old, disappeared about nine months ago.”

“But I don’t even know her. I mean, why would she come after me?” Ballard’s growing exasperated.

“Well, before her death, she was arrested twice. For dealing heroin. You ever work narcotics?” Sam suggests.

“Yeah, Pete and I did. Before homicide.”

“You ever bust her?”

Ballard shakes her head. “Not that I remember.”

“It says that she was last seen entering 2911 Ashland Street. Police searched the place, didn’t find anything. Guess we gotta check it out ourselves. See if we can find her body.”

“What?” Ballard squints.

“Salt and burn em. It’s the only way to put her spirit to rest.” Olive speaks, eyes closed and voice thin and scratchy.

The panic flares in Sam’s chest once more. He needs Dean. She needs Dean.

Ballard sighs. “Of course it is.”

“Sammy, I wanna come with you. I wanna help.” She starts to sit up.

“No, no, no, Ollie. I can’t let you.” Sam rushes to her side, pushing her back down. “No, baby girl. You’re too weak, you’ve gotta stay here.”

“But I wanna help save Dean.” She whines.

“I know, babes, I know. But I need you safe, and that means you have to stay here.”

“She should be in a hospital right now.” Ballard states.

“No!” Olive jumps, then proceeds to cough, spitting blood into the crook of her elbow.

Sam rubs her back and shakes his head. “No hospitals. She can’t do hospitals.”

“Why not?”

He sighs. “Family issue.”

Olive groans, then rolls onto her side, looking up at Sam with puppy eyes. He sighs again, pushing her hair behind her ear.

“I don’t wanna be alone.” She whispers.

Healing large injuries drains her more than turning itself does. A broken leg is no small feat, and she’s definitely injured her lungs. But she had to get out of there, so she forced herself to begin to heal. Once she’s started, she can’t turn the healing process back off. It’s killing her.

She doesn’t want to be alone when she dies.

They both know it.

He helps her sit up, and they both ignore the grunt of pain that escapes her lips. He holds her tightly, but gently.

“Okay.”

2911 Ashland Street, Present Day

Sam leads them down into a creepy warehouse. Olive has her finger hooked in his belt loop, and her feet are dragging. She’s getting worse by the minute, but she refuses to let her mind slip away, not until she sees Dean.

“So what exactly are we looking for?”

“I’ll let you know when we find it.” Sam whispers.

They split up. Sam and Olive start up a flight of stairs as Ballard continues on the lower level. She turns around a corner, and sees Claire, standing by a window. She gasps, and Claire moves towards her, trying to speak.

“Sam? Sam!”

Sam and Olive share a look. Olive lets go of his belt loop and nods, and he runs back down the stairs, toward Ballard. Claire disappears.

“Hey! Hey, I’m here. What is it, what happened?” Sam looks her up and down, noticing that she’s unscatched.

“Claire…”

“Where?” Olive croaks, making her way down the stairs.

“Here. She was here.”

“Did she attack you?” Sam asks.

Ballard shakes her head. “No,” she hesitates, “No, she was just like… reaching out to me. She was over there by the window.” She points.

Sam and Olive share a look before Sam moves the shelves away from the window. Olive squints as the words printed on the glass become clear.

Ashland Supplies

She snorts. “That’s the word.”

“Well, yeah, now the extra letters make sense.” Sam fishes an EMF reader from his pocket and slowly makes his way to the wall, where the words are perfectly shadowed.

“What is that?”

Olive stumbles to follow her brother as she clears her throat. “Spirits and certain remains give off electromagnetic frequencies.”

“So, if Clarie’s body were here, it would tell you?”

“Yeah, that’s the theory.” Sam mumbles.

The EMF meter begins to purr, and Sam turns back around to a brick wall. He sighs and looks around. Olive spots a rusted crowbar and drags it behind her as she follows Sam. He plucks it from her hand and begins to break through the wall. Olive coughs as dust and debris fly through the air. She slumps down against the staircase, coughing every so often. Her head falls back when she’s not struggling to breathe, and her eyes are beginning to roll into the back of her head.

“There’s definitely something in there.” Sam grunts as he continues to break through the wall. “You know? This is bothering me.”

“Well, you are digging up a corpse.” Ballard shrugs.

“No, no, uh…” Sam chuckles. “That’s pretty par for the course, actually.”

“Then what?”

“I mean, it’s just… no vengeful spirit we’ve ever dealt with wanted to be wasted… so why the hell would Claire lead us to her own remains?”

Olive lets out another cough, this one sounding loud and wet. Sam pauses and stares at her. Her head is back against the wall, her mouth is open and bloody, and her eyes are closed. She’s pale, sweaty, and barely breathing.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Ballard shakes her head, snapping Sam back into reality.

He shakes his head, again glancing over his shoulder at the teenager sprawled on the ground.

“Here, gimme a hand.”

Together, they pull out a body that is wrapped in shrouds of cloth, and place it on the ground. Sam fishes out a pocket knife and cuts the ropes off, revealing the body. He sighs, looking back at Olive. Her eyes are shut, and her head is falling off to the side. Her chest heaves with each breath, and Sam can hear her wheezing. Ballard puts her wrists out, above Claire’s.

“Her wrists, yeah.” Sam turns back. “They’d be bruised just like yours.”

Ballard reaches out with a shaky hand, cautiously touching a necklace on the body. Sam perks up.

“That necklace mean anything to you?”

“I’ve seen it before. It’s rare. It was custom made over on Carson street.” Ballard’s hand goes back to her own neck. “I have one just like it.” She looks up at Sam. “Pete gave it to me.”

He huffs. “Now this makes sense.”

“I’m sorry?”

“She’s a death omen, not a vengeful spirit.”

“Excuse me?”

“Claire’s not killing people.” Sam sighs. “She’s trying to warn them. You see, sometimes, spirits, they don't want revenge. They want justice.” He nods to himself. “Which is why she led us here in the first place. She wants us to know who her killer is.” He pauses, and it clicks in his head. “Detective, how much do you know about your partner?”

“Oh my god.” Ballards face falls.

“About a year ago, some heroin went missing from lockup. Obviously, it was a cop. We never found out who did it, but whoever it was would need someone to fence their product.”

Sam snorts. “Someone like a heroin dealer. Somebody like Claire.”

Olive stumbles to her feet. Her lips are dry and her skin is devoid of color. Her fangs are peeking out of her mouth, and her eyes are watery.

“Dean’s in danger.”

Armored Van on a Highway, Present Day

“So I’m being extradited to St. Louis, huh?”

Dean gets no answer, so he tries again.

“And you just decided to transfer me yourself, eight hundred miles at two in the morning?”

Again, nothing. The hairs on the back of Dean’s neck begin to rise.

“This can’t be good.”

Baltimore, Present Day

“Okay. Thanks.” Ballard snaps her phone shut.

“What is it?” Sam asks, leaning forward.

He’s in the backseat with Olive. She’s in and out of it, and she looks worse every time they pass under a street light.

“Pete just left the precinct. With Dean.”

“What?” Olive forces her eyes open as she sits up, grunting.

“He said the prisoner had to be transfered, and he just took him. Dispatch has been calling but he won’t answer the radio.”

“Radio?” Sam repeats. “He took a county vehicle?”

“Yeah.”

“Well then they should have a lo-jack. We’ve just gotta get it turned on.”

Empty stretch of road, Present Day

The van pulls off onto the side of the road. Dean pushes the rising anxiety and leans forward.

“Pee break? So soon?” He taunts. “Might wanna get your prostate checked.”

Sheridan says nothing before he gets out. Dean listens as the footsteps circle around to the back of the van.

“Son of a bitch.” He groans to himself.

Sheridan yanks the backdoors open, and Dean inches away.

“Hey, man. I’m cool in the van. You go do what you gotta do.”

Sheridan grabs him by the jacket and hauls him out of the van, throwing him onto the wet ground. Dean lands with a grunt, squirming to sit up.

“You’re a cocky son of a bitch.” Sheridan spits. “You think those people in St. Louis are gonna buy that shit you’re peddling?”

Dean makes it to his knees and pants, staring at Sheridan.

“Here’s the thing. You’re not gonna make it to St. Louis. You’re gonna die trying to escape.”

Dean blinks, and Sheridan’s gun is out, pointed between his eyes.

“Wait!” Dean pleads. “Wait, let’s talk about this. I mean, you don’t wanna do something that you’re gonna regret later.”

Sheridan only cocks the gun.

“Or maybe you do.”

Olive growls from low in her throat, holding back a cough and the load of blood in her mouth. Sheridan turns at the noise, and Ballard puts her gun up. Sam tucks Olive into his side, shielding her from the gun. She’s shaking, and Dean’s eyes are glued to her.

His stomach drops. She’s dying. He knows it.

“Pete! Put the gun down.”

“Diana? How’d you find me?” The gun goes back to Dean’s head, and Olive feels bile rise in her throat.

Sam hugs her tighter.

“I know about Claire.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sheridan shakes his head, gun still up.

“Put the gun down!” She shouts.

Sheridan drops the act, and a smirk grows on his face. “Oh, I don’t think so. You’re fast. I’m pretty sure I’m faster.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I didn’t do anything, Diana.” Sheridan shakes his head.

“It’s a little late for that.”

“It wasn’t my fault.” Sheridan scoots closer to Dean, and another growl rips through Olive’s throat.

She swallows what she can and spits blood onto the grass.

“Claire was trying to turn me in! I had no choice.”

“And Tony? Karen?”

Sheridan shakes his head again. “Same thing! Tony scrubbed the money, he got skittish, and then he wanted to come clean. I’m sure he told Karen everything.”

Dean’s eyes go back to his younger siblings. Sam’s holding the entirety of Olive’s weight, and he’s looking at Dean with big eyes. Dean shakes his head, and Sam looks about ready to cry. Olive lets out a weak cough.

“It was a mess. I had to clean it up. I just panicked.” Sheridan shook his head.

“How many more people are gonna die over this, Pete?”

“There’s a way out.” Sheridan looks back at Dean. “This Dean kid’s a freaking gift. We could pin the whole thing on him. Right? No trial, nothing. Just… just one more dead scumbag.”

“Hey.” Dean fronts.

Sheridan puts the gun closer, and Dean backs off, shoulders falling.

“No one will question it. Diana, please.” Sheridan begs. “I still love you.”

Ballard puts the gun down with a sigh. Dean’s eyes fill with tears as Sheridan’s gun connects with his head. A loud growl tears through the trees, and Sheridan is tackled to the ground. Dean rolls out of the way, and Sam pulls him up. Ballard tries to get a shot, but she can’t.

There’s another loud growl, and the tangle of limbs stops moving. Sheridan is down, and Olive falls to her knees, coughing loudly and violently. Blood sprays everywhere, and the second she stops coughing she begins to throw up. Sam rushes over, holding her hair back. Diana unlocks Dean’s handcuffs, and he joins his brother, watching as Olive fights to breathe.

Blood continues to drip from her mouth as she wheezes, chest heaving. Dean pulls her into his chest, and she begins to shake.

“So now what, officer?” Dean asks, cradling Olive like a baby.

“Pete did confess to me. He screwed up all your cases. Royally. I’d say there’s a good chance that we could get them dismissed.”

“You’d take care of that for us?” Sam looks up.

“Yeah. But the St. Louis murder charges? That’s another story. I can’t help you. Unless…” Ballard sighs. “I just happened to turn my back, and you walked away. I could just tell them that the suspects escaped.”

“Wait, are you sure?” Sam’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Yeah, she’s sure, Sam.” Dean hissed.

“No, it’s just… I mean, you could lose your job over something like that.”

She shakes her head. “Look, I just want you guys out there doing what you do best. Trust me, I’ll sleep better at night.”

Olive lets out another strangled cough, and Dean pushes her hair from her face.

“Is she gonna be okay?” Ballard asks.

“I don’t know.” Sam whispers, in shock.

“Where’s my car?” Dean calls.

“It’s at the impound yard down on Robertson.”

Dean groans, shooting Sam a look. “We need Dad’s journal, it could have answers.”

Ballard shakes her head. “Don’t even think about taking the car. You guys have to get out of here. I have to radio this in.”

The boys nod and Dean hoists Olive up. Coughs continue to rack her body, and she’s spitting blood everywhere. Sam takes her from him and they start down the muddy road.

“Dean, what do we do?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen her like this before.” Dean hisses back.

“We’re miles away from Dad’s journal. We’ll never make it in time.”

Olive wheezes, then coughs again, choking on her blood and spit. Dean stops, panting. He shakes his head at Sam, who is staring back with wide eyes.

“Sam, we can’t do anything.”

Olive’s stomach heaves again, and blood is the only thing to come out. Sam sighs as he stops. The brothers kneel down, and Sam places Olive between them.

She stares between the two with tears in her eyes.

I’m sorry.

Dean pushes her hair out of her face with a soft smile. “We love you.”

Sam is trembling, enraged. He picks her back up and shakes his head. Dean follows, shouting Sam’s name.

“We have to be able to do something, Dean. I’m not gonna watch her die.”

“We don’t have Dad’s journal!”

“Then we call Bobby!”

“Sam, we don’t even know if Bobby knows.”

“We have to try!”

Dean swallows the bad taste in his mouth as he yanks out his phone and dial’s Bobby’s number. Olive coughs.

He puts it on speaker. “Hello.”

“Bobby!” Sam shouts.

“What’s wrong, kids?”

“Olive’s dying, we don’t know what to do!”

“What?”

“Bobby, we’ve gotta tell you something important.”

“You sister’s part Okami. I know. What happened?”

The boys blink at each other, but a groan from Olive snaps them back into reality.

“The healing process is killing her. What do we do?”

There’s a long sigh, and Dean watches the little color left in Olive’s face drain. Her chest heaves once more, and then she stops breathing. He drops the phone, snatching Olive from Sam’s hold.

“Olive!”

“Bobby!” Sam grabs the phone, in tears.

“Blood.”

“What?”

“She needs blood. Once a day, every day. It’ll make her stronger, she won’t get sick again.”

“Bobby, we’re not-”

“Gimme your knife.” Dean interrupts.

“What?” Sam’s eyes go wide.

“Give me your fucking knife!”

Sam doesn’t move, and Dean forces Olive’s mouth open. He slices his palm against her fang and groans as blood trickles out.

It falls in droplets, staining her teeth and her tongue. The phone call is long forgotten, and Sam is on his knees by their side. Olive’s eyes begin to twitch behind her eyelids, and Dean gasps. He squeezes his hand, bleeding harder.

A second passes, and Sam stares at Dean. Dean doesn’t look up from Olive.

Her fangs begin to recede, and Dean watches, shaking. A small cough moves her body, and then she begins to wheeze. Sam drops his head to her chest. He hears her heart and he lets out a loud sigh, resting his head against her.

“Boys?”

Her voice is soft and unharmed. She sounds like she just woke up from a nap. Dean pulls her up and hugs her. She sniffs, reaching up to rub her eyes.

“How?”

Sam lets out a weak laugh and brushes her hair back. “Dean saved you.”

She leans into her oldest brother and looks up with a soft smile.

“Thanks, De.”

He laughs and kisses the top of her head before pulling her back into a second hug. “Anything for you, baby girl. Anything for you.”

Previous Ep: No Exit (2.06)

Next Ep: Crossroad Blues (2.08)

taglist:

@i67​

[whatdoyouexpectthistime]

Blood Spatter - Part 9

Part 1 : Part 2 : Part 3 : Part 4: Part 5 : Part 6 : Part 7 : Part 8

________________________________

Angrily, Miho growled at her aggressor as she was shoved into the next room. Her confusion, fear and ire suddenly paused, however, when her eyes fell upon two figures also present. They were on their knees, their hands bound behind their backs, one with bruises all over his face – left eye swollen – the other’s face torn by bloody tears.

Sebastian.

Selina.

“What the hell is this?” Miho barked as her abductor closed the door behind him.

For a moment there was a weighty silence, with Miho seeking answers from her friends, though in their beleaguered state they were the least likely to provide them.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t do this in a gentler manner,” the man behind her declared, looking over Miho’s shoulder at his two compatriots.

“Do what?” Miho spat. “Because kidnapping and assault aren’t exactly synonymous with gentleness.”

“Whatever they say…” Sebastian began, but his sentence was broken when he was thumped on the back of the head with the grip of a gun.

Both Miho and Selina let out cries of protest, the former starting forward, but her arm was seized once more.

“Whatever we say, ultimately you’ll have a choice,” the man told her, his gravelly voice rough against her ear. “You have a purpose far and beyond the paltry existence you’re floating aimlessly through, and we’re going to make you face it.”

“My life is mine,” Miho grated, “and it has nothing to do with them. You need to let them go, let us all go.”

The response to this statement, was the barrel of a gun pressed to the back of Sebastian’s head.

Miho’s trembling increased, and Selina let out a thick sob.

“Please,” she begged, blood dripping from the tip of her chin.

“Why?” Miho gasped. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because Vérrún’s legacy vanished hundreds of years ago in a line of impotent male children,” the woman holding the gun to Sebastian’s head answered.

Sebastian’s eyes grew wide.

“Vérrún?” he blurted, his good eye flickering to Miho. “It’s not possible. That line was cursed.”

“Freya is incapable of forgiveness?” the man sneered. “She has no sense of irony giving his gifts to the child he murdered?”

A bitter, incredulous chuckle, crackled out from between his broken lips.

“You think she’s a reincarnation?”

“Reincarnation, curse broken, it matters not,” the man asserted.  “She’s going to awaken and take up her ancestor’s mantle.”

It was clear Sebastian knew what it all meant now, as with a grimace, his focus turned to his sister.

“You can’t,” he snarled, and despite the threat of a bullet to his brain, he lunged sideways.

The force with which he was restrained should have fractured his cheekbone, his face slammed into the concrete floor and held there.

“Stop, stop it!” Miho barked, her face a snarl of viciousness. “You’re going to get nothing from me acting like savages.”

“We require your awakening regardless,” the man told her frankly, picking up a large knife from a tray behind him - a knife, perhaps closer to a machete. “Vérrún’s line has remained dormant since the beginning, but now the curse is lifted, you have the potential to be all that he was and more.”

“Still a shitty sale’s pitch,” Miho grated, teeth bared as the blade was offered to her.

“The choice before you is simple,” he told her, disregarding her commentary. “Kill the vampire and awaken, or decline, and we kill them both.”

Miho’s lungs seized up.

“Vampire?” she repeated, a cold sweat finally breaking out.

It couldn’t be Sebastian, he couldn’t have been turned or his wounds would have healed… which meant…

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Miho’s eyes fell upon Selina.

“Oh God,” she murmured, her head snapping back as the man put the knife hilt against her palm. “I will not be killing anyone.”

“Even if you do not apply the killing blow, you will still be responsible,” he pointed out. “Two, instead of one, and a fellow hunter - that would be tragic.”

“You fucking bastards!” she roared, gripping the blade, white-knuckled.

She could swing at them, but bullets moved faster.

It was impossible.

Impossible.

“I can’t kill Selina, I can’t, I can’t…”

Sebastian pleaded with her silently to do something, Selina too, but it was…

Impossible.

“You… you want me to kill a vampire? Where is the one who turned her?” she rushed desperately.

“We…”

“I’ll gladly kill that creature!” Miho declared vehemently.

How long had she been at the hospital? Selina was not a vampire when she left the club with Jazz; she could not have been turned that long ago, and it boggled Miho’s mind how quickly the world had yet again been turned on its head.

“That is not the choice before you,” the man said sternly.

“Why? Why them? You don’t need them to awaken me!” she protested, heart galloping a thunderous cadence.

The sound of gun hammers clicking caused the stampede to stumble.

“You’ll let him go?” she forced out, but the first reaction came from Sebastian, despite the cold streel against his head.

“No!” he shrieked, and on reflex Miho snapped back.

“The hell do you want me to do?” she fired, eyes burning, throat burning. "What can I do?”

“This one cannot be saved now,” the man pointed out, gesturing to Selina. “The question is only one of lesser evils.”

“The only evils here are you!” Sebastian snarled, and copped a heavy knee in the spine for his trouble. “You’re not hunters, you’re monsters!”

“Is this the moment I become a killer?” Miho wondered, as Sebastian’s shouting and Selina’s crying faded out, drowned, suffocated by gravity drawing the blade toward Selina’s neck.

“No… please…” she begs, held down by two, the man taking a handful of hair and forcing her head down. “Miho, please!”

“No matter what I do, I lose. No matter what, any innocence I have remaining will be demolished.”

“Miho, please!”

“And I’m selfish for thinking about how this will affect me. A murderer.”

Sebastian sounds like an angry bear as I ready my blade. They’ve ceased holding him at gunpoint, focusing instead on just keeping him prone, preventing him from intervening.

“I’m sorry,” Miho muttered, but it has to sound hollow to the condemned. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Again Selina howled.

Then stopped.

The blade was impossibly sharp.

The thud of a head hitting concrete, grotesque.

It rolled to the side.

Looked up at Miho in horror.

Selina’s flesh did not burst into flame or crumble to ash like she thought a dead vampire’s might; it was like any other corpse.

A corpse because Miho made her one.

There’s blood on my hands – I can’t see it, but it is most definitely there.

Why they let me go, I don’t know; maybe they wanted to see what I’d do, where I’d go, who I’d call.

My feet are moving but they have no sense of direction or destination: invisible footprints in the asphalt as deep and dark as my sin.

They released Sebastian too, but on the dark roadside before dawn, he wouldn’t meet my eyes, couldn’t.

I can’t blame him.

I killed his sister.

He told me to leave, to walk, but never said where; and I know he’s angry, and in pain, and I shouldn’t feel angry at him for responding that way - but now what?

“Do you feel different now?”

All that talk about a cursed bloodline I’m supposed to be descended from, but the only curse I know now is my reality. 

I cannot seek refuge with my best friend, a vampire who like Selina was turned. The shame alone is heavier than anything I’ve ever experienced.

I cannot run to Kiril, who made it clear the only thing that bound us was the witch’s spell now broken, regardless of whatever lingering emotions may still dwell within me.

And I cannot pretend I’m still me, or rather, I’m a different me who was - how could I not be with a conscience as stained as this?

Some part of me hopes Narumi finds me, so I can tell her everything and have it done with. Perhaps she would drag me before Kiril’s father and that would be the end of that. But I’m too stubborn to hand up my head on a silver platter, my drive to survive too strong to just roll over.

“Fuck,” I whimper, flopping down onto a park bench.

That word, however, just doesn’t cover it.

At least my head doesn’t hurt anymore.

“Ha!” I laugh aloud, alone with morning approaching.

“Caw!” a nearby crow echoes, hopping comically along the path toward him.

“Yeah?” I huff, watching as it tilts its head, observing. “If you’ve any advice… I’m…”

Thinking is one thing, but the moment I attempt to vocalise a proper sentence the words get caught up in my abject distress.

“What… SOB... do I do?”

“CAW!” the crow responds, much as I expect.

The voice that follows, I do not.

“Why might you be out here all by yourself?” Narumi asks from behind.

I might have flinched, but I’m too deep in my misery.

The bird hops up beside me, then onto Narumi’s shoulder, burrowing its beak into her hair while she moves around to face me.

“Has something happened, Miss Fujiwara?” she probes, leaning a little to study my face.

Even through the watery glaze across my eyes, I see her as different, different than the last time.

There is a bright glow in her eyes, like a cat caught in torchlight, and her hair is shiny: fine threads of polished metal.

“Are you… are you asking as a cop?” I managed, quiet and thick. “Or as Kiril’s cousin?”

Scrubbing my eyes makes room for more tears, but the lethargy of my body, the heaviness of a falling blade, has for some reason lightened. I’m on edge, furtive, noticing everything around me, and Narumi is at the centre of it all.

“For now, Kiril’s cousin,” she responds, sitting down beside me. “What has the idiot done now?”

My trembling lips betray a most inelegant splutter, a wet chortle.

“Not him,” I tell her, but I dare not reveal too  much.

So I ask a question instead.

“Have you ever killed someone?”

“Yes,” she answers, no hesitation at all. “Sometimes, criminals give you no choice.”

Maybe she knows I’m not talking about her career, maybe not.

“No choice,” I repeat, face twitching to hold back another torrent. “Sometimes, there is no right, just evil and evil and the one who perpetrates it.”

“Have you killed someone, Miho?” she inquires more gently, and I close my eyes.

“I am lost, so, so, so lost,” I weep, shaking my head. “Can’t change what I’ve done, who I’ve hurt. I’ve nowhere to go now.”

“Against my better judgement, I’m going to call Kiril,” she tells me, then flinches when I suddenly get up.

“No, no, it’s broken now and he doesn’t want me.”

“What’s broken?”

“No! I can’t tell you that, none of it,” I bark, and she rises carefully with her hands before her.

“You have Kiril’s protection,” she assures me.

“Not anymore.”

The urge to run is overwhelming, and I haven’t the will to defy it.

My dart to the left gives me several second’s head-start, but Narumi nearly dislocates my shoulder snatching my wrist.

It’s a reflex, the way I round on her and shove with my free hand, but this instinct not only breaks Narumi’s hold, but throws her violently back, cartwheeling across the park until she tumbles into a manky pond.

And I blink at how easy that was.

Sopping wet and stunned, Narumi drags herself from the shallow water and sizes me up.

“That should not have been possible,” she points out, and even through my own surprise I hear the new edge to her voice.

This time, it’s my hands that go up.

“I know,” I admit shakily. “But it is, and it’s not my fault, it’s not - I had no choice!”

“No choice in what?” she very nearly growls.

She must have been going gently, gently, for Kiril’s sake, and vaguely it reminds me of when Kiril said he’d hate to have to kill Narumi because she was a threat to me.

“But that was when we were bound by magic.”

In my moment’s reverie, Narumi has swept in behind me, but she keeps her hands to herself - her tone, however, is full of warning and restraint.

“I… think you should call Kiril now,” I exhale weakly, despite my show of physical strength.

“After that, I know I shouldn’t,” she contradicts, and several small black shapes drift from the sky and perch nearby.

A murder.

Liana, Kai and Kiril all arrived at the same time, in a cab, not the Jag. As they entered, slivers of glass sparkled in Liana’s hair, and there was a little blood on Kevin’s yellow body.  Miho might have commented on the state of Liana and Kai’s slight dishevelment, but she was trembling, twitching, preoccupied by the incessant bouncing of her right foot - up down up down up down.

Anything but look over at where Kiril stood on the other side of the room where Narumi had moved to greet him.

“Looking ravishing as always,” he noted, looking his muddy cousin up and down.

“You can thank your little pet for that,” Narumi grunted irritably. “Threw me good on twenty metres.”

“Is she hurt?” he asked, and Narumi put her hands on her hips, glaring.

“She bloody well should be sprawled at Konrad’s feet right now, Kiril!” she exclaimed, pointing over her shoulder. “And you too. Protecting a hunter? Are you fucking insane?”

“No doubt,” he agreed calmly, stepping around Narumi and approaching Miho with significant caution.

He too had felt the spell break, a searing slash across his consciousness distracting enough to not hear the ring of his phone until Jazz had called for the third time; Miho was missing from the hospital and no one had seen where she went.

“Miho,” he said cautiously, and her head lifted: neck muscles taut and jaw clenched.

“Here to kill me I suppose,” she said plainly, and Kiril’s brows twitched.

“If had wanted that, Narumi would have done it for me,” he pointed out, then paused.

She did not fill the silence.

“Tell me what happened,” he prompted, sitting down beside her, not crowding, but not lifting his attentive gaze.

Immediately, Miho’s eyes began to burn. With flushed face and dribbling nose, she jumped up and  began to pace.

“I left the hospital, then… I passed out, and when I woke up I was inside, somewhere, and there were hunters…”

Kiril nodded, but made no comment.

“They said they’d been looking for me, and insisted I…”

That is as far as she got before crouching on the carpet, wrapping her arms around her knees and burying her face against them.

“I killed her!” she sobbed into her kneecaps.

“Who, Sparrow?” Kiril urged, with a gentleness that surprised Narumi who was definitely eavesdropping.

“Selina,” Miho gasped, choking on her shame.

“The stoned girl from Pale,” he nodded, moving over to her once more. “Ross’ sister?”

She couldn’t answer, could barely breathe.

“This may not work at all, but if you allow it in,” he said, finally placing his hand against hers. “Let me ease your panic and pain.”

Blearily, she looked up, but did not recoil.

Kiril could feel the natural resistance of her hunter blood now, blocking his influence of power over her emotions.

“Come on, Sparrow,” he urged softly. “Let me in.”

Lips quivering, Miho managed a slight nod, and the fortifications dissolved.

After a few long sighs, her sobbing began to subside, and Kiril was able to ease her to her feet and shuffle her back  to the sofa.

“Better?”

Weakly, she inclined her head.

“They turned her, forced a vampire to turn her,” she expounded. “Then they said if I didn’t kill Selina, they would kill her and Sebastian.”

Kiril took this in, thought it over before voicing a response.

“I can understand why the hunters would want to awaken you - their numbers have dwindled in the last half century -  but it makes no sense to make you their enemy in the process. Why Ross’ sister and not the one who turned her?”

“What am I supposed to do now?” she asked meekly, staring across the room at the wall. “Two vampires dead, a hunter woken and… Sebastian… must hate me now.”’

“If you were forced to do this or else see him killed also,” Kiril reasoned, “he will see as much, when the dust settles.”

A tap at the window drew the attention of Narumi only, and she opened it to allow a raven entry.

“We now know who they took to turn the Ross girl,” she announced, petting the bird’s glossy black feathers. “He was young, but his mother is Lady Elzebethe Archdall.”

Reflexively, Kiril cringed.

A noble.

“Konrad is going to learn of this,” Narumi warned.

Scowling, it was Kiril’s turn to pace.

“Liana,” his voice snapped. “Find me Sebastian Ross.”

With a curt nod, Liana assented and exited with Kai in tow.

“I do not like this,” Kiril  muttered, stroking his chin.

“What’s to like?” Narumi laughed. “You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t order me to stake you, then myself for what we’ve already hidden.”

“No,” Kiril snapped. “This is politics, this is contrivance; hunters do not awaken their own like this, and I have doubts our involvement in this is a coincidence.”

“Your involvement,” Narumi corrected.

“Oh no,” he sniffed. “You made your choice, so you might as well help.”

“Help a hunter?” she chortled. “Why wait for Konrad to order it, I may as well stake myself now.”

“Use your legion to find the hunters that did this,” Kiril growled, glaring at his cousin until his head snapped to where Miho had begun moving toward the door. “And where are you going?”

“Away,” she dropped. “From her and you and this.”

“Like hell you are,” Narumi retorted, in a blink barring the exit.

“There is nowhere far enough you can run that Konrad won’t hunt you down,” Kiril affirmed.

“So far he doesn’t even know, and if he did what? I should just wait here for him to find me?” she frowned, spreading her hands, then pointed at Narumi. “For her to lose her nerve and turn me in?”

“That’s my job,” Narumi countered irritably. “One I will no doubt lose, along with my head, thanks to you.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” Miho barked, cutting the air with her fingertips. “You! You and yours in my club messing with people’s hearts and minds.”

“I’m about to mess with more than that,” Narumi warned, already stepping in Miho’s direction again, before Kiril’s arm dropped between them.

“Enough! The both of you,” he shouted. “I forbid you from harming her.”

Narumi balked, eyes wide and mouth agape.

“You forbid me?” she repeated slowly, threat creeping into her voice. “Oh, I called you out of familial courtesy, but that is obviously not, nor has it ever been,  high on your agenda.”

She tried to dodge around him, reached for Miho who did not move, but swiftly found herself slammed against the wall a foot off the ground, with Kiril’s grip tightly around her throat.

“I will  end you,” he hissed up at her, eyes blazing.

“You’ve lost it!” Narumi croaked, digging her fingernails into his wrists, through the flesh, against the bone.

He was older than her, stronger than her, and her inherited powers would not help her against him.

“Maybe so,” he snarled. “But this is the way things will be, and if you double-cross me - Konrad or no - I. Will. End. You.”

There was no time for her to respond before he pitched her across the chamber, and though she turned in the air to make a more graceful landing than Miho might have managed, it still ended with the crash of splintering wood and torn upholstery.

“Time to leave,” Kiril prompted, reaching for Miho’s hand, but she was swift to recoil.

Still, when he narrowed his eyes at her, she inhaled deeply, set her jaw, then headed out the door.

With Kiril’s resources at her disposal, Liana made her way to the registered address of Sebastian Ross. Even though she thought it unlikely the traumatised hunter would return to his primary abode, it was a place to begin.

“What are we going to do when we find him?” Kai asked, carrying Kevin from the car with him. “He’s a hunter, so…”

“We shall be careful,” Liana responded. “I imagine he will be much like a wounded animal - he may snap.”

“You’re stronger than him though, right?”

At the front door, Liana paused to consider this. In her travels with Kiril she had encountered hunters not bound by the treaty in effect across the U.K., but she had always been apart from the fray.

“I would sooner we didn’t have to test this,” Liana replied. “Master Kiril wishes him unharmed.”

”If he attacks you, I won’t hold back,” Kai stated, puffing up. “Neither shall Kevin.”

“And you’re both very brave,” she smiled fondly. “But let’s first aim for diplomacy.”

“I don’t care who you are,” a gravelly voice snarled through a nearby intercom. “Fuck off.”

“Well, that is a surprise,” Liana mused, allowing herself a small smile. “It would seem he’s home.”

“And rude.”

“Well,” Liana chided, “a close friend did just murder his sister in front of him, so we might give him a pass on foul language for now.”

She then lifted her voice and pressed down on the intercom.

“Mr. Ross,” she began, and Kai recognised this as the tone of voice she used when she was attempting to convince him of something he most adamantly did not want to do. “My name is Liana Starling and my companion is Kai. We have come on a matter of great importance and to offer assistance.”

Silence followed as she paused, and Liana gave him some time to process what she said and respond.

But he did not, so she forged on.

“I understand you have suffered terribly this evening. You have been caught up in dealings beyond your control, and largely beyond the control of Miss Fujiwara.”

That got a reaction.

The inner door opened violently, and a rather intimidating looking firearm preceded the apartment’s resident, though both remained behind the security door.

Kai, though a child in appearance and quite short even for his apparent age, slid instantly in front of Liana with his arms outstretched. Liana, however, remained perfectly composed.

“Your emotions are raw,” she said gently, nodding her head a little. “But there is unfortunately more to this tragedy than what you witnessed this evening, and now you are a part of it.”

“Why are you here, vampire?” he spat, his aim not wavering.

Though several feet away, Liana could smell the alcohol on his breath; he’d imbibed so much, in fact, she was sure she could smell it in his blood.

“Miho Fujiwara was the victim of a spell cast by as yet unknown parties,” she answered. “This led to her involvement with Kiril Lambert who…”

“Bullshit!” Sebastian spat, the muzzle of his weapon slamming loudly into the taut lattice weave that separated them. “She went chasing Konstantin Lambert…”

“Yes,” Liana agreed, and continued before he could. “In order to locate your mutual friend, Miss Mann, and while you may not have agreed with or appreciated Mr. Lambert’s help, surely you hoped for Miss Mann’s safe return.”

“I’m only going to ask this one more time,” Sebastian grated through clenched teeth, “then I’m going to destroy you both, treaty be damned. Why are you here?”

“I was told by Mr. Lambert to locate you,” Liana answered calmly, even as Kai shifted his meager weight nervously from foot to foot. “Implicit in his instruction was the directive to inform you of details you could not yet be privy to, and accompany you to his estate.”

Exhausted by distress and fury, the laugh that shook from Sebastian’s chest was at best sardonic.

“You have ten seconds to get off my doorstep,” he chuckled, waving his gun around, “before I kill you, oh, and send whatever’s left behind back to Mr. Lambert.”

“You will not,” Kai growled. “Magic forced Miss Fujiwara and Kiril together, and those hunters kidnapped her and made her choose - she didn’t want to kill you,  it’s not her fault!”

“Six seconds,” Sebastian sneered.

“The vampire used to turn your sister was the son of a powerful noble, so that in and of itself will come to haunt the hunters of this city, you included, whether you’re independent or not,” Liana picked up, though she still remained unruffled. “The ones who forced Miss Fujiwara’s hand have an agenda here far and beyond the awakening of another hunter, and it may very well cause blood to run in the streets of London as it once did.”

“You want to talk about blood?” Sebastian snarled.

“I want to talk about all the other innocent lives that may be lost if the vampire nobility decide what befell their kin was an act of war,” Liana clarified. “It will reach far and beyond your fledgling friend Jazz, whose position is already  precarious; people who have nothing to do with any of this, and certainly have no knowledge of it, will be caught helplessly in the crossfire.”

When Sebastian slammed his bare fist into the wire door, it punched all the way through, causing Kai to flinch against Liana, who placed her hands lightly on his shoulders.

“I just lost the only family I have left!” Sebastian roared, following his punch with a kick that launched the door outward at speed.

Had Liana not sidestepped, dragging Kai with her, it would have collected them both.

“You want me to give a fuck about anyone else right now?”

“What I want is irrelevant,” she pointed out, fingers tightening on  a little as she felt him tensing to move. “What is necessary to avert a major catastrophe, however, is your co-operation. You do not have to like it, me, or anyone else involved, but it is what it is. Beneath your pain, you know this to be true.”

“Fucking, manipulative vampires!” he cursed, enraged but somehow his eye reflected at least some acceptance of what she had said.

“I don’t care if you hate me!” Kai muttered under his breath, then glared up at Sebastian. “But Liana is trying to help you and your friends, so you should stop being so mean.”

“Keep your minion out of my way,” Sebastian growled, eyes flashing before he stalked past them down the path.

PART 10 - Coming EVENTUALLY!

[captainlordauditor]

300x3, Year 2, 1:01

Alright, so I’ve spent the past month meticulously worldbuilding and timeline mapping, so now I’m ready to write again and get back into @klaineharmony‘s writing challenge: 300 words, 3 times a week.

This is from my Batman universe Earth 988 (title(s) of actual fic pending, but possibly “Optical Illusions”), from right smack in the middle of my timeline, because I am, as always, incapable of writing linearly. I had the first part of this chapter written for a couple weeks and then last night I just blahhed out around 3000 words, of which I’m posting 869. 

Finally, something set post 1980, so no language notes, but triggers as per usual: This is a scene about hiding a corpse. This chapter file is saved on my google drive as “JASON &AMYS BODY DUMPING EMOTIONAL BONDING IDENTITY REVEALING FIELDTRIP”. There are corpses and guns here. There’s also hitting corpses with sledgehammers, a faked car crash, and very brief mentions of domestic violence, police brutality, and gang violence.

It’s 90s Batman you guys idk what to tell you

They stop in what seems like the middle of nowhere, which is hard for Gotham. Arkham is less built up than the other islands though, and it feels like they’re standing on the edge of the world. In front of them, the road curves sharply down the cliff towards the river that separates Arkham from the Narrows, and, just west, the bridge at the tip of Arkham Island. There’s a narrow line of trees to their right, and then the river.

Amy feels uneasy, and she’s not sure if it’s the cliff or the fact that she’s driven out here with a murderer who apparently came up with a way to get rid of a corpse in an hour flat, no way to call for backup and no way to get away. 

Jason points at the trees and guard rail by where the road curves. “Plan is, we rig it up to make it look like she was driving, and crash her there. First glance, it’ll look like a car accident.”

“Won’t work,” Amy tells him, then hates herself for it. “You shot her in the back of the head. Crash like that’ll put all the trauma on the front, they’ll be able to tell she was shot.”

“I said first glance, not that it would hold up,” Jason says. “What did you think that sledgehammer I picked up was for? We can smash her up a bit from the back first.”

“So she’ll have unexplained head trauma. That’ll still look suspicious. Our best bet is to find an unfenced cliff and send her over - she’d float up if we tossed her alone, but the car will take weeks to get found.” That still leaves them with no way to get back, but, well, if Jason thinks they can get rid of the car….

“I know it’ll look suspicious.” Jason roots around in his backpack and pulls something out - a Halloween mask. One of those weird stretched ones that isn’t sure if it wants to be a skull or a ghost. “I’m counting on it.”

He’s insane. She’s thrown in with a fucking psychopath because he’s her partner’s son. Is this what living in Gotham feels like?

Amy must be showing her shock on her face, because Jason puts it down and throws up his hands. “Look, I’m just trying to throw off the scent, and the False Facers are convenient. They’ve been trying to expand, anyway, you know that, it’ll look like they killed her because she was trying to stop them from getting territory in ‘Haven.”

And Tarantula’s death will turn from a girl shot by her (carnie, foreign) lover in his apartment to one more note in a gang war. He’s prepared for this. He’s not just running on instinct, sloppily covering up his mess. Amy hopes she never gets on Jason’s bad side. 

Okay. Time to stay on his good side.

“The bullet? Maryland keeps good records.” They have to, with Gotham and Baltimore as their largest cities.

“Way ahead of you.” Jason pulls a tiny baggy out of his pocket and waves it. The smashed and bloody bullet inside bounces. “Gun’s one I picked up in Argentina, not registered, and I banged a nail around in it. But I pulled it out anyways.”

Amy really doesn’t want to get on his bad side. “Alright. Let’s smash a spider.”

They pull all of their stuff out of Catalina’s car and shove her - it - into the front seat. Normally thinking about corpses as hes and shes helps, makes it easier to remember them as people, but normally Amy’s not the one responsible for hiding them. 

God, what fucking choice in her life got her here?

Amy ties a string to the key in the ignition, rolls the drivers window down and buckles the corpse in, then leans its head against the wheel. Jason puts on the mask while he goes at the skull with the sledgehammer, so his face doesn’t get bloody. Amy watches him from several feet away. He’s calm. Collected. He hasn’t so much as twitched since he opened the apartment door. 

It reminds her of some of the cops in Bludhaven.

It makes her blood run cold.

After five or so hits, Jason drops the hammer and pulls the mask off. 

Amy pulls the string, and the car starts.

The slope helps as the car roars to life. Between the engine and gravity, the thing careens into the steel barrier, completely wrecking the front of the car. The corpse’s head is thrown against the wheel, and the hood folds in on itself.

Jason lets out a breath. “I’m really glad that worked.”

“Me too.” Amy feels giddy from relief, but she still has to deal with Jason and get back to Bludhaven. And make sure Ric’s okay.

Jason pulls out a lighter and holds it to the Halloween mask, then throws it at the wreckage, and they stand there for a few minutes, watching as the car and grass slowly catch fire.

Eventually, Amy has to say something. “How the hell are we gonna get out of here?”

Jason tears his eyes away from the wreck. “Feel up to a hike to Coventry?”

[entergamingxp]

The Diamond Casino Heist is GTA Online’s most exhilarating score and an exercise in self-parody • Eurogamer.net

In one of the opening missions of GTA Online’s latest update, heist aficionado and lovable oaf Lester talks about how he was a good kid before he played Street Crimes Gang Wars, the in-universe version of Grand Theft Auto. As the bassline hums in the background, he starts to ramble about the gun-toting opportunists trying to lift your cargo, a set of arcade cabinets necessary to kickstart a run-down arcade business, a front for the game’s latest (and greatest) heist. “They must be gamers,” he says.

A walking parody of all things but especially itself, minutes later GTA Online treats me to a radio advert for Shark Cards, the game’s infamous microtransaction system that has made it the most profitable entertainment product of all time. Shutting my car door after a successful delivery, I get my usual daily text from Agent 14 about purchasing a million-dollar Mobile Operations Center to help with the efficiency of my Gunrunning business, one of many plates that need spinning if I’m to stay afloat in this demanding second life. I don’t even want the unnecessary vehicle but my brain, falling prey to the marketing machine, wonders whether completing this latest big score will afford me the currency necessary to get him to stop nagging me.

A packed-out patch for a six-year-old live service, The Diamond Casino Heist is designed to turn heads, all the way down to the balance tweaks that players have been begging for. The greatest issue addressed concerns the most hated (and loved) vehicle introduced in Online’s history, the Oppressor Mk 2.

Here I am posing with my very own Oppressor, which I definitely don’t use to blow up mortals when I’m navel-gazing.

For the uninitiated, the Oppressor is GTA Online’s forbidden fruit, a piece of powerful technology introduced to this virtual society without proper consideration, one that Rockstar can’t take back now that players have adopted it. A gateway to sin and loss of naivety, this flying motorbike can cross the map in minutes and has homing rockets bolted to the front, making it a virtual nihilist’s wet dream. It’s a four million dollar chrome-wrapped beacon of wealth and power that makes most of Online’s most difficult missions laughable.

Rockstar has stuck a five-minute timer on summoning this griefing machine, as well as supposedly reducing phone notifications (I haven’t really noticed) and limiting the ‘Kill Yourself’ command, making it harder to leave this late-capitalist dystopia on your own terms. This is for your own good though – it’s to address a common phenomenon where griefers would kill you and then shoot themselves to balance out their K/D and avoid punishment from Rockstar’s all-seeing eye of Sauron. At this point, it’s impossible for Rockstar to cut out the bad behavior at its root, but a few slaps on the wrist might refocus players into less trivial pursuits.

Speaking of which, now that the Arcade is set up I’m able to start preparing the heist, an innovative, multiple-phase ordeal that is nearly 20 missions long if you fulfill every optional detail. Crews will have to first scope the casino to see what information they can glean on a time limit. You can take photos of entry and exit points, security details and suspicious items, sending them to Lester who will respond with new methods of approach and optional side missions to make the final heist more creative.

This isn’t just the illusion of choice either – the number of security shipments you damage in one mission will directly affect the number of guards in the casino underbelly. Similarly, if you scope out the secret sewer exit you’ll be able to dart away from the cops through a series of subsurface tubes, Italian Job style.

You can choose, spray and upgrade which cars to use in the getaway, with low-brow vehicles equalling a smaller cut from your take.

As you may be able to tell, this latest heist is designed to be completely adaptable. One of the most infuriating aspects of previous heist missions is that if you fail a single objective you’ll have to start again, even if in reality it wouldn’t result in the end of the road. With The Diamond Casino Heist, you can switch tact on the fly and dip into three separate styles of approach if somebody drops the ball – disguised, sneaky or aggressive. This means all is not lost on a single missed headshot or dodgy pathing, you can just brandish a machine-gun and go guns blazing. It feels more reactive, the gameplay reflecting the tense, dynamic approach to heisting seen in Overkill’s Payday 2.

This adaptive style doesn’t transfer to the setup missions, however. What I liked was the space Rockstar allows for you to experiment and come up with your own canon, where I’d have my friends try and cut enemies off at certain map landmarks – one example involved heading to the airfield to steal a dodo to crash into an unruly helicopter that was leaving the mission area. Yet despite probing your imagination, almost all of the prep missions devolve into ‘Lose the Cops’, a crescendo that Rockstar loves to lean on.

There’s an economic angle to the bloat here in that Online enables those with more means to have far superior efficiency. If you’re lucky enough to own an Oppressor, some missions are a joke, asking you to simply race around the map, lock on to a set of targets and tap a button to win, whilst the mere mortals on terra firma have to suffer. The free arcade property you receive for having a Twitch Prime subscription is a welcome gift, especially given that it’s essential for starting the heist proceedings – but it’s also only available as a rebate, which means if you don’t have the million and change upfront you’re going to have to grind or buy a shark card. It’s also in Paleto Bay, a good six and a half miles from the casino…

It’s the litany of long drives to and from the property to the casino that takes the absolute Michael De Santa – even if they inevitably lead to moments of unpredictable candor. There are precious few games where a crew can cruise in a rental sedan and wail their way through the frisson bridge of “I Want It That Way” by The Backstreet Boys. Not even the rotting corpse in the trunk can dampen that kind of team spirit.

Danny Brown’s manic, likable character links with steroid-peddling Brucie from GTA 4 to chaotic effect

We were on assignment to burn a rental car in exchange for disguised casino access from Yung Ancestor, a successful walking satire of a new-wave Soundcloud rapper played by living rap legend Danny Brown. Brown (as himself) also hosts iFruit Radio, a new radio station lampooning Apple Music’s Beats 1. This follows Frank Ocean’s very own Blonded Radio which launched in-game in 2017 – itself a designated radio show on Apple Music. Ain’t it funny how it happens?

Brown waxes about the healing power of Psilocybin with UK grime hero Skepta as a rogue’s gallery of modern musical talent call in to introduce their tracks. Kenny Beats, AJ Tracey, hell even Slowthai makes the cut, the fired-up Northampton rapper who brandished a decapitated bust of Boris Johnson’s head on-stage at this year’s Mercury Prize. By carefully tapping chart-storming artists like DaBaby, Shoreline Mafia and Headie One, the curation team has managed to cram an absurd amount of pop culture catharsis into a two-hour show – the cherry on top of this iFruit salad being a set of exclusive tracks from Denzel Curry and Bauuer that are only available in-game.

Earlier in the week, I wrote about how by completing a quest in GTA Online you could conduct some cross-game archaeology and excavate a revolver in Red Dead Online’s Moonshining update. Further study has revealed that there is even more bleed between the Old West and the new – you can purchase a fortune-telling game for the arcade property that bears Madam Nazar’s likeness and name, the mysterious herald of the Collector role in Red Dead Online.

A lot of her predictions are tongue-in-cheek allusions to community in-jokes, duplication glitches and unsolved Red Dead Redemption 2 mysteries (namely “Where’s Gavin” and the mysterious time-traveler Francis Sinclair) but it turns out there’s actually some feasible bait for the Chiliad Mystery masterminds hiding behind the riddles. If you keep filling it with coins, you’ll eventually hear Nazar make mention of three sets of numbers, which when combined give you a number to call her through time and space in GTA Online, where she responds in even more cryptic terms.

Once you pull on the Emoji masks and embark upon your custom caper, The Diamond Casino Heist quickly proves itself to be the most exciting experience available in GTA Online. Whether you’re using stolen trash to infest the casino with cockroaches or tranquilizing guards with drones, you’ll make it to the vault with your heart in your throat. I’ve always thought that half the magic of a good Rockstar mission is the pulsing score, and this is no different, elevating the tension to almost feverish nausea, where all you care about is getting your cut.

Once in the vault you’ll have to scramble to shove cash in your duffel before the room fills with nerve gas. Paying for a better skeleton crew increases this timer.

Once I finally overcame the heist I felt a mix of relief and pride. I spent my hard-earned money like a true mark – on retail therapy. I’m the proud owner of one of Rockstar’s ripoff A Bathing Ape hoodies and a fancy new livery for my death bike. Come to think of it, Agent 14’s Mobile Operations Center never even crossed my mind. Maybe I’m the problem.

GTA Online is a game that demands more of its players than most, with layers of loading screens, nagging notifications and Daedalian business management systems refusing to let your attention wander. This noise can act as a smokescreen for new players, obscuring the satisfying content available to those who are yet to fight through the game’s service jank. But if you’re on the fence and you have some friends on-call, I honestly urge you to jump back in. Whether you’re a veteran who took an extended vacation from Los Santos or a rookie with a set of Twitch Prime rewards it’s still the most dynamic and limitless multiplayer open-world on the market.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2019/12/the-diamond-casino-heist-is-gta-onlines-most-exhilarating-score-and-an-exercise-in-self-parody-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-diamond-casino-heist-is-gta-onlines-most-exhilarating-score-and-an-exercise-in-self-parody-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net