Chapter Text
Why the hell am I even here? I'm not going to find anything on this damn thing by sitting on my ass and reading some random textbook. I felt a headache sneaking its way to my skull. I sighed, closed the book, and propped my elbow on the desk, rubbing my eyes.
I heard the library door creak open, and upon looking up, I saw two men. They had to have been new around town because I had never seen them before. One of them was freakishly tall with soft eyes, the other was shorter, but he was sharp and strong-looking. They looked around, then headed towards the front desk. I looked back down at all of my stuff, it was sprawled all about in a disorganized manner.
Sighing, I stood up and walked over to another shelf, scanning the various books about demons and spirits with a finger. Suddenly, a hand tapped on my shoulder. I turned around and was greeted by the face of a middle-aged woman, the dingy overhead library lights shining down on her silky raven hair.
"Excuse me miss, what are you doing here?" as she spoke, a rotten stench wafted from her breath. She smiled at me, almost as if she was trying to sell me cookies.
"Studying. What are you doing here?" I retorted back.
"Oh, I'm just looking around."
"For what?" she cocked her head at me, her hair falling with it.
"You." her eyes flickered a pitch black, she blinked and they were back to their original piercing green state. I squinted at her, slowly backing away. In response, she cornered me.
"What do you want from me?" I hadn't realized, but I was pressed against a wall, she stared up at me.
"I think you know the answer to that Vic," she smirked at me and grabbed the side of my face. I shuddered at her touch, it was familiar, a look in her eyes reminded me of something I just couldn't put my finger on.
"Tell me. What do you want ‘cause quite frankly, I don't know what the hell you do."
"You, of all people, should know. After all, you saw your parents-" I slapped her face, her head slouched to the side and her hand fell with the impact. Her mouth curled up into a devilish grin.
"Don't you dare talk about them you whore." she looked back up at me.
"Whew, big words for such little courage. Anyways, I would leave you alone, but, we all agreed that we uh, can't do that. So, let's take this outside Victoria, I'm sure it'll be much easier that way." she took a deathly grip on my hand. Pulling on my hand, she led me to the back way out of the library. When we got outside, she threw me onto the ground and forcefully pinned me there, pain swirled around my skull and chest from the impact.
"Aww, don't look so worried now Vic, you'll get to see your parents again. I'm sure they will just love to see you-” The back door to the library swung open, and the two men from earlier stepped out. The sharper-looking one ripped the demon off me, slammed her against the dirty brick-walled library, and held a knife with carved symbols on it to her throat. The taller one glanced at me, helping me off of the ground. I stood up, backing away from the woman, my breath hitching.
"Tell me what in the hell you're doing right now." the strong-looking one croaked. The woman grinned, breaking out into a fit of laughter.
"So you must be Dean," she weakly pointed at the man next to me, "and you must be Sam. I gotta say, it's quite a pleasure gettin' to meet the Winchester boys. It is just too bad that we had to meet right now though, I was a tad busy with that little lady over there." her voice was sultry with a bitter aftertaste. Sam cleared his throat and shifted nervously, glancing at me. Dean pressed the knife closer to her throat, the woman panicked and tried to back away from it.
"Listen, you don't have to do all that, boys. That girl isn't even worth saving. Trust me, I know." she begged.
"And why should we believe a demon?" Sam chimed in. I looked at him. How could he possibly know about that? Who were these "Winchester brothers" anyway? Why were they saving my sorry ass?
"Maybe 'cause I'm the reason you're here. You know, the whole suspicious family death. And that little pretty girl right there? Huge part of it, the only witness in fact, and I’m not too sure you want to trust her." I shifted nervously, gulping down air. Sam curiously glanced at me, once again. Dean swiftly jabbed the knife into the stomach of the demon, a storm rumbled underneath her skin as she fell to the ground. I backed up further, not wanting to be a part of any more deaths, demon or not.
Pulling the blade out of her stomach, Dean wiped the blood off of the blade and turned around to look at me, stepping near me and Sam.
"What was she talking about?" Dean demanded. My eyes fluttered between the two men.
“Dean, calm down-” Sam chimed in.
"It’s fine… I-I lost my parents the other week. I saw it happen. I tried to stop it, I did but I just- I couldn't,” there was a brief pause as I tried to collect myself, “So, I've been here at the library, looking for any explanation I could possibly find." I explained while looking at the ground and playing with the sleeve of my hoodie.
"What did you see?" Sam asked. I looked up at him, his eyes glittered with concern and curiosity. I glanced back at Dean, he squinted his eyes at me with wonder. I remembered that night, laying in my bed reading, the screams my parents let out, begging for help, running downstairs, and all that to see that thing slice my bloodied and bruised parent's throats. Tears threatened my eyes, but I gulped them down.
"I heard their screams. I-I froze up, and when I finally snapped out of it, I ran downstairs." I paused, it was almost as if I was staring at their cold dead bodies again, "I got there in time to see- demons slit their throats." I stared down at the cold wet cement. My words lingered in the air, the memory of them stinging my senses. Sam put his hand on my shoulder.
"Listen, we will figure out what happened and then, we will leave you to live your life." I looked up.
"How could I possibly move on from this? Why would I move on?" I blinked.
"Trust me, kid, this life, our life isn't worth choosing," Dean interjected.
"Are you saying I chose for my parents to die? Because I sure as hell would never ‘choose’ to listen to their screams, I sure as hell wouldn't choose to watch them have their throats slit. So fuck you." my nose twitched with anger.
"He just means that outside of this, you don't want to keep doing this hunting stuff." I looked at Sam, my bitterness fading away into his eyes.
"And listen, for somebody whose ass we just saved, you should be grateful." Sam stepped on Dean's shoe, glaring at him.
"So... what did she mean when she said you came here for my family? How did you know she was a demon? Who are you guys?" I rambled. The brothers glared at each other, Dean sighed and Sam gave a nod of acknowledgement.
"Well, I'm Sam, and this is Dean." he sighed, "We uh, hunt monsters. Like werewolves, demons, vampires, spirits, stuff like that." my brain rattled. It was fairly easy to accept, I just didn't understand how they had even found out about the case, it was never in the news or anything.
"Yeah, but, how did you even find out about them? It never went to the news from what I was aware of."
"We… have our ways," Sam smirked.
"Anyways, you said demons, plural?" Dean pondered.
"Yeah, there had to have been at least three of them. Maybe more, I'm not sure."
"Have you ever seen the one who just tried to kill you?" I stared at Sam, thinking about his question.
"No, I don't think so at least. But she felt oddly familiar to me like I've met her before." I squinted, attempting to remember where I'd seen her silky black hair and piercing green eyes before. When I was young? Maybe, I've forgotten many things from my childhood so it's likely.
A thought thundered down on me, I marched over to her lifeless demon body. I reached into her pockets, pulling out an etched golden key and what appeared to be a wallet.
"What the hell is that?" Dean grimaced. Sam walked up to me, grabbing the key from my hands, and squinting at the details engraved into its metal. I filed through the wallet, bunches of cash, and a singular credit card. Alicia Wayne. I held up the card, showing it to the boys. Sam squinted, grabbing the card from my hands.
"We should look into her, find out if she's in any missing persons database," Sam stated.
"Well, we should get a move on to your house Victoria, see if we can find something there." Dean nodded, I sighed, pain shooting through my chest. I walked back into the library, Sam and Dean following me. I walked back to my disarrayed table space, books open and sprawled all over.
"Sorry, I was looking into everything and anything. I can get this cleaned up and we can go." I started to close the books, stacking them on top of each other. Suddenly, Dean pointed to a photo of an ugly-looking Wendigo.
"Oh look, Sammy, that one kinda looks like you!" I looked at them, Dean was smirking and Sam was giving Dean an annoyed look. The interaction gave me a little chuckle, Sam cleared his throat in reply.
"Anyways, you wanna tell us about yourself?” Sam questioned. I shrugged, stacking the books on top of each other, Sam coming to my side and helping with the process.
“Well, uh, my name is Victoria, I’m 23, and I just graduated from uni.” Sam perked up, raising his eyebrows.
“Where’d you go?” He asked, squinting. I started to shove my notebooks into my bag, sighing.
“Duke. Studied Psychology and Neuroscience, and got a Ph.D. in it.” I looked up at Sam, he seemed impressed.
“Wow, Sam, you’ve finally got a girl nerdier than you.” Dean scoffed. Sam looked back at his brother, clenching his jaw. I picked up the stack of books, turned around, and put them in Dean’s hands.
“Here, take these up to the front desk. It’ll give you something to do,” I smiled, patting his shoulder. Suddenly, I became aware of the pain in my chest and used my left hand to brace myself on the table. Sam looked at me, his face twisted with worry.
“You okay?” He asked.
“Yeah, I guess she just pushed me on the ground hard. I’m gonna go to the bathroom to check it out.” Sam nodded, patting me on the back. I grimaced at the pain.
“Sorry,” Sam mumbled, his eyebrows twisting in a worried mess.
I walked over to the bathroom, opening the door, and locking it behind me. I wandered over to the mirror, looking at myself. My eyebags were deeper than ever, and a scratch sat on my forehead. I lifted my hoodie, looking at my chest. What the fuck? There were two hand marks on my chest, they appeared to be bruising pretty badly. Pain shot through my skull, making me remember how it hit the ground. I grabbed the back of my skull, trying to limit the pain. I felt something wet, pulled my hands away from my head, and looked at them, now with fresh blood on them. A knock on the bathroom door scared me, I turned my body towards the door.
“Yes?” I asked hesitantly.
“It’s me, Sam, are you alright in there?” He worryingly asked.
“Besides the fact that I have bruising hand marks and blood coming off of my skull, yeah.” I scoffed, there was a beat of silence followed by shuffling.
“Your head’s bleeding?”
“Yeah, must’ve happened when I was slammed onto the concrete.”
“Okay, hurry up your talking guys, we’ve got to go before they find the body” Dean impatiently interjected. I unlocked the door, seeing Sam leaning against the wall next to the door holding my bag, Dean stood beside him with his keys in his hand.
“Let’s go,” I stated.