What I Lost

3: leather chair

As soon as we were parked, the driver went into the trunk of the car and pulled out a bag. He carried the bag in one hand while he fished the room key out of his pocket. While he was unlocking the door, the taller man helped me out of the car. I couldn't put much weight on my ankle and my shoulder was still bleeding significantly.

Their room was one of the first rooms on the ground level of the motel. As I passed into the room I was greeted with a dusty smell and a warm blast of air. There were two small beds, a bathroom, a tiny table with a bottle of whiskey and a greasy bag of food, and a desk with a laptop and a journal. Finn ran ahead and curled up underneath the desk while the man holding the bag looked at me and nodded to the table.

I sat down on one of the hard chairs and tried to ignore the pounding in my head and the throbbing where I had been injured. He opened the bag to reveal an assortment of bandages, medicine, and sewing equipment. My stomach churned at the sight of the sewing kit.

He found an empty plastic bag among the medical supplies, and he filled it with ice from a small ice container on the table.

I pulled up the end of my pants to expose the swollen ankle. He gently grabbed the ankle and placed the ice over it. I winced as the ice initially stung my skin, but after a few minutes my whole ankle felt numb.

"Sorry. About this." He talked with his eyes focused on the wound, avoiding my eyes, "But you have some explaining to do. I've seen you before. Not just in the last town but in other towns too. I thought I was just being paranoid at first but I've seen you in at least five other towns."

"Dean," the other man says, "not now."

He didn't respond but I had the feeling that the topic would come up again.

Dean grabbed a bunch of cotton pads from the medical kit and grabbed my shoulder, wiping away the blood from the cut. He looked closely at it and without looking away said, "Sam, you take this one. She needs stitches."

I widened my eyes, "No. No way."

Sam came over and Dean stood up, letting Sam sit in front of me. "It's okay, I've done it before."

He grabbed a small tube of something and squeezed some on a cotton pad, running it over my bloody shoulder. "That should numb it."

It did numb it a bit, but when he started sewing my skin back together, I winced from the stinging. I focused on the ceiling as he did this, unable to watch him work.

After a few minutes he grabbed a bandage and wrapped the cut, "That should be feeling better soon."

He used the same roll of bandages to then wrap my ankle, keeping it stiff.

As Sam was putting away the medical supplies and wiping my blood from the table, Dean impatiently said, "Alright. You wanna explain who you are and why you keep showing up everywhere we go?"

I didn't know what to say but didn't want to reveal my struggle around the truth, "I don't know. I travel a lot and I guess you do too. I've never seen you guys before though."

Dean narrowed his eyes, "Bullshit. I know you've seen us before. This isn't a coincidence. And why did you say you were human before? Who are you?"

"Fine," I sighed exasperatedly, "I'm a hunter. Like you guys. We always seem to be at the same towns because we're always chasing the same things."

Both men relaxed, comforted by the lie. I had seen them run into other hunters before, witnessed that silent bond that allows them to trust and help strangers because they chase the same monsters. Sam sat down and leaned back in his chair, "So who are your parents? Have we met them?"