Chapter Text
Claire paced inside her dingy motel room. The same questions forming a mantra in her head: What is it? What does it what? How does she kill it? Five days on this hunt and she’s no closer to any answers.
While she sat around digging for clues and reading the lore, another person died. No more. Much as she hated asking for help, she wasn’t stupid. She knew it would be weaker to let people die because she was too proud to admit she needed back up.
So, she paced while she waits for answer to her text. Just two words, right to the point, “Call me.”
She knew she’d hear back soon but it’s the waiting, the thinking, the useless feeling winding its way up from her gut and choking her.
‘Screw this’ she thought. She grabbed the phone off her bed and slammed the motel room’s door behind her as she left.
She logically knew she could have called Jody or Donna or any of her sisters. But she also knew Jody’s help would have come with a lecture. Alex or Patience would give her a lecture only to pass her off to Jody anyway. Donna probably would have helped, but she would also tell Jody leading to yet another lecture. And Kaia…
Well, logically she knew she could have called them, but she had a few more options. Options that wouldn’t tell her to take a back seat and let another hunter take care of it. Probably.
Her phone finally rang from where she tossed it on the passenger seat. She pulled over before she answered, too much nervous energy had built up for her to sit in the driver’s seat anymore.
She hit accept while she got out of the car and started pacing on the side of the deserted road.
“Dean?”
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She could practically feel his serious glare and soured in response.
“Nothing’s wrong. Why do you assume something’s wrong?”
“’Call me.’ No other information? ‘Sides, you only ask us to call when you need help.”
“That’s not true.”
“Sure, it’s not. Well, if nothing’s wrong, what’s up? Finally finished that Caddyshack review?”
Claire kicked a rock into the road, “No. I… I need some backup.”
“You need help.”
Claire chose to ignore that and said, “I’ve been hunting something, but I can’t find anything like it in the lore. Whatever it is, it killed someone else yesterday.”
“Did you already talk to Jody and the girls?”
“Yes…”
“Great. What did they say?”
“That I should call you.”
“Hm. That’s interesting. Well, why don’t I loop Jody in and- “
“No!”
“Claire. What’s going on?”
She sighed, finally ceased her pacing, and leaned heavily against the car, “I can’t call them.”
“Why not.”
“Cause, if I do then Jody’s gonna say how I should have called them sooner, and she’ll come and bring the others and they’ll all- I just…I don’t want that. I know I can do this; I just need - “
“Alright. Look, Claire, I get it. But they just want to take care of you.”
“I know. But I don’t need them too. I can do this. I just need help figuring out what it is.”
“Sure,” he laughed slightly, “Look, I’m in the middle of something and on the other side of the country but uh… Here, give me a second.”
Claire could faintly hear Dean and Sam in the background. They mumbled back and forth for a moment before Sam took over.
“Hey Claire, long time.”
“Hi Sam.”
“So, Dean and I are working a case in Florida right now, just a vamp’s nest, we should be back on the road in a day or two. I would ask Cas to check on you but he’s off doing some angel training with Jack.”
“Ok.”
“We’ll meet up with you as soon as we can. But in the meantime, we’ve got a friend in the area who might be able to help you out. I think you’ll like her and she’s a genius. If anyone can help you track this thing down, it’s her.”
Claire pushed off the car and started pacing again, “Ok, who?”
Dean sent Claire the number right after the call and said to meet her at a Denny’s on main street tomorrow afternoon. Claire didn’t love the idea of waiting another day, but what else could she do?
She drove back to the motel. Stayed up half the night rereading random pieces of lore she was able to dig up. At some point she must have fallen asleep because she woke up at sunrise to her phone ringing.
She stretched slightly, stifling a yawn as she reached across the books and laptop balanced on her bed to find her phone. Just before she answered, she read the name. She froze.
“Kaia,” she whispered to herself. She watched the name for a few more moments until the ringing stopped and the screen went dark. She slowly lowered the phone to her lap where she watched the screen for another moment. It lit back up with a notification. One new voicemail.
Claire rolled out of bed with a groan, leaving her phone on the nightstand as she got changed.
After a few hours of pacing around the motel room and driving aimlessly around town, Claire still had two hours to kill before this hunter showed up. But the library was finally open, and Claire was desperate enough for any kind of lead that she found herself perusing the musty smelling aisle of the history section.
It being such a small town, there wasn’t much to choose from, but Claire could at least pretend she was making progress as she check out a few random books.
So, Claire found herself quietly sitting at a corner booth in Denny’s reading a book about the town’s history while waiting for this mysterious hunter friend of Sam and Dean’s. At a few minutes before noon, her phone started buzzing again. She flinched involuntarily and paused, hoping and fearing that it might be Kaia again, before flipping it over. It was the hunter. She answered.
“Hello.”
“Hi! This is this Claire, right?”
“Yeah, you’re Sam and Dean’s friend?”
“Yup. That’s me! I’m just parking. Denny’s on Main Street, right?”
“Yeah,” Claire glanced out the window and watch as a bright yellow car’s parking lights turned off, “That you in the yellow car?”
“Ha, yeah. I’ll be inside in a second, ok?”
“Sure. Back left, corner booth.”
As they hung up, Claire watched the redhead step out of her car. She was smaller than Claire expected. She had a laptop bag slung over her shoulder but was otherwise dressed in hunter’s uniform—flannel and jeans. Until she turned around and Claire saw she wore a bright pink t-shirt with Ms. Pac Man on the front.
Between the yellow car and this t-shirt, Claire liked Charlie already.
Charlie placed her bag carefully on the booth before turning to Claire.
“Hi!” She said cheerfully before going in for a quick hug.
Claire blinked slightly as Charlie sat across from her, “It’s so cool to meet you. Sam, Dean, and Cas talk about you a lot.”
“Uh, they do?” Claire asked.
“Yeah. I think they feel like you’re their little Mini-Me or something.”
“Oh.”
“So,” Charlie said as she pulled out her laptop, “Tell me about the case.”
Claire started from the beginning.
A few weeks ago, on October 3rd, Carol Jackson was founded dead by the side of Rising Road. No sign of attack, in fact the coroner was unable to identify the cause of death. But, since she has no close family and was a little over 80 years old, no one complained when they chalked it up to natural causes.
That is until another body was found two days later.
Victim number 2, Lydia Martin, was only forty-five and had died in front her wife, Ava. According to Ava, Lydia had been having nightmares for several days leading up to the night of her death. In the middle of the night, Lydia woke up from another nightmare, but this time she was inconsolable. Lydia, hysterical, ran from their home.
Ava said it was like she was running from something. She called 911 and tried to follow her wife in the meantime. When she eventually caught up to Lydia, Ava found her running along Rising Road. Just as Ava finally neared her, Lydia stopped running and collapsed, dead.
Then, yesterday, the final Victim was killed. A thirty-eight-year-old man named Tyler Stevens, who’s girlfriend had been with him, followed a similar story to Lydia’s. Nightmares leading up to the night he died on the side of Rising Road.
Just like Carol, the coroner was unable to identify a cause of death for either Lydia or Tyler. However, there was one other important similarity.
“Not only did they all die on Rising Rod, it’s near the same spot. Right near this little trail that leads into the woods. Lydia died right by the side of the road, Carol was found just a few feet further along the trail, and Tyler another 20 feet past her.”
“Huh. Definitely weird…” Charlie trailed off as she began typing in her computer. Claire leaned forward slightly to try to see over the top of the screen.
“What are you…?”
“One second.”
Claire shrugged as she leaned back in the booth. She picked at a left-over piece of bacon while the waitress returned to refill their coffee.
Claire was about to give into the childish urge to ask how much longer when she felt her phone buzz. Charlie didn’t react, clearly deeply immersed in whatever was going on over there. Hesitantly, Claire pulled out her phone.
One text from Kaia simply reading: Call me?
Claire could barely suppress a groan, as she held down the power button and shut off her phone.
“You alright?” Charlie asked suddenly.
“Yeah,” Claire said, “How about you? How’s the computer thingy going?”
“It’s going. I created a database a little while back with all the information Sam and Dean have from the Men of Letter archives. Compiled all the different monsters and stuff in one place and set up an algorithm to search through them all based on what we know so far and hopefully help us narrow down the possible monsters.”
“Cool,” Claire said taking a sip of coffee, “How long will that take?”
“Uhm," she took a long sip of her coffee, then said, "A few hours?”
Claire groaned.
“Hey, it’s a lot of information to search through, and I set it to check a few internet archives too, just in case.”
“It’s not that its… I kinda have to make a call.”
“Oh. Well, I can stay here or check in at the motel if you- “
“No. I’m good. Let’s-Why don’t we go stake out Rising Road? Make sure no unsuspecting old ladies go out for a walk tonight or something.”
Claire didn’t wait for an answer as she waved the waitress down for the check.
“I need to finish some stuff up first. Why don’t we meet at the motel and go from there?” Charlie said.
“Sure.”