What I Lost

4: salt shakers

When I finally opened my eyes there was light streaming in through the half-open blinds. I sat up and tried to stretch out my sore body. The chair had not been as comfortable as I had hoped and sleeping in it all night had made my muscles tense. As I gently twisted to the side to stretch it out, I winced slightly, causing Dean to say under his breath, "I knew the bed would be more comfortable."

"Good morning to you too." I said as I stood up, searching the room for Finn. Dean was sitting at the table looking over some news stories on Sam's laptop. His brother wasn't in the room and neither was the dog.

"Dean," I said, trying to mask the rising panic in my voice, "where is my dog?"

He looked up from the screen for the first time and pointed at the door, saying, "He was getting restless so Sammy took him for a walk. They'll be back soon."

I ran my fingers through my hair and asked, "How long was I asleep for?" Outside the motel room the sun was already high.

He checked his watched quickly before saying, "Like 14 hours."

I froze in place and stared at him. "14 hours? It's already 1?"

"Yep." He said, still staring at the computer screen. "Sam told me not to wake you so we've been waiting."

He noticed the look of frustration on my face and said, "We weren't doing anything important today. I was looking over some of Sam's research from last night while Sam was making some calls."

I was still annoyed I had wasted hours of my day, but I didn't argue because I knew I needed the sleep. I hadn't slept that well in a long time. It felt a lot safer to fall asleep in a room with hunters than it did to sleep in a car parked in shady lots. I hadn't seen a demon in a while but they always reappeared from time to time. The extra sleep also seemed to lessen the pain of my injuries. My shoulder stung but it was already a big improvement from yesterday, and I no longer felt a stabbing pain in my ankle with every step. More of a dull throb.

"So there's no case here?" I said as I slipped on my shoes I had left next to the door.

"No," He said, "this is just a stop until we figure out where we're going next."

Just then the door swung open and Finn came inside, panting heavily. Sam walked in, noticing I was awake and saying, "Good. I'm starving, let's get some lunch."

A few minutes later Sam, Dean, and I piled into the Impala, leaving Finn behind with some leftover food from the brother's breakfast they had while I was still sleeping. I had stopped to grab my backpack before we got in the car to go find a diner.

In the car the brothers explained the plan they came up with this morning.

"So basically we just need to get you to our bunker. You'll be safe there until we can figure out why you and your parents are being targeted. Once we find out why and we stop them, you can go back home." Sam was facing me as Dean focused on driving.

Sam continued. "It might take a few days to get to the bunker because it's in Kansas."

Leaning forward from the middle seat in the back to get a better view of the town from the windshield, I nodded absentmindedly. "I've followed you guys there before."

"You do realize how creepy that sounds right?" Dean asked, glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

"Well come on," I replied, "what was I supposed to do? Go up to you and say 'Demons are chasing me. Help.'?"

"Yes!" They both replied, Sam slightly less exasperated than Dean.

I crossed my arms and sat back in the seat. When I was following them around from town to town, I had considered confronting them a few times but I could never bring myself to do it. I was worried they would make me leave without helping me or write me off as crazy like everyone else. So instead of ever asking them for help I waited and watched, hoping I could learn how to stop the demons from just watching them. Once I had figured out I would need their knife to kill a demon, I wanted to steal the knife and run but I knew that would only add them to the list of people hunting me down.