The Runt of the Litter

Froid

Note: Not gonna lie, I did very little proof reading here but I'm running on four cups of coffee (aka not enough) and not enough sleep today and I have a ton of homework to do tonight so that's my excuse. Feel free to let me know if I made some crazy typos or grammar mistakes, or if you have more general constructive criticism. It was a last second choice to write and include the italicized bit (which is a jump back in time). It would be cool to hear some feedback. Also, this is the most case-like fic I've ever finished writing because I generally suck at actual plot-driven fics. The title means "cold" in French. Yeah, I could've just named it "Cold," but everything is prettier in French. Anyway, Anna is fifteen. Enjoy, people.

Froid

The wind blew her scarf down away from her face for the third time in the past five minutes, and Anna growled with frustration as she pulled her gloved hands, stiff with cold despite the double layers of fabric covering them, out of her pockets and rearranged the scarf to cover her mouth and nose. She had it wrapped fully around her head and neck so she could pull the ends and tighten it, but it never stayed in place. Still, she couldn't but think how much colder she would be without the damn thing. For once, she was well and truly grateful for Dean's overprotective, mother hen nature. Without his forcing the stupid scarf on her, she likely would have frozen to death.

Ok, maybe that was overdramatic. But it was damn cold outside and somehow, Anna had found herself separated from not only both her brothers, but also both the other hunters they were working with. Granted, the last part of that was a bit of a relief.

The two men they'd saddled up with for this hunt gave Anna the creeps. The younger of the two never stopped staring at her, and the older was downright cruel. He spoke like life meant nothing to him. He'd made two or three cold remarks that made it clear he had exactly zero interest in hunting with a woman, and even less interest in hunting with a teenage girl. Anna had tried hard to stifle her growing dislike for the man, but had managed to get in a few good jibes in before they began really getting into the thick of the hunt. Then she zeroed in, focused like she'd always been taught to do, and didn't think about Gallagher or his son even long enough to consider that she was about to teach them just how strong a hunter a teenage girl could be.

Then, of course, there turned out to be a few more monsters lurking these snowy Minnesota woods than any of them counted on. And, of course, when Anna and Sam branched off with the Gallagher's son whose name Anna couldn't remember for the life of her, the entire pack of off-brand black dogs-- because their behavior (traveling in packs and hiding out in the woods?) just didn't fit the average black dog-- attacked them instead of breaking apart and half chasing after Dean and Gallagher. It wasn't so much that Anna liked the thought of Dean being anywhere near the fray when the dogs went on the offense. It was more that there were about five of the damn things and only three hunters to take them on, and these damn things were smart. Besides that, the holy water they'd brought hadn't done a damn thing, and neither did the iron bullets in Anna's gun which meant they weren't like any black dogs Anna had ever been up against before.

She got chased right out of the damn clearing they were jumped in by two of the things when she ran out of bullets and was left with only one silver knife. She'd realized there was no choice left but to fight, hit her head off a tree somewhere in the process of doing so-- it was still pounding with pain and there was blood caked on her right temple-- and the rest was gone from her memory-- likely because of the head trauma. But when she'd woken up in the snow, shivering, wet, and in severe pain, her jacket had been covered in blood, and there were two dead not-black-dogs laying in the snow, one of them still with her silver knife embedded in its heart.

There hadn't exactly been a lot of time to think about how she'd managed to take them out, or even dwell in the rush of something like pride at having been capable of such a feat. She'd known there were still three of them out there somewhere-- unless Sam and that Gallagher kid had managed to take them out, which seemed unlikely considering Gallagher had brought one normal pocket knife and a gun with iron bullets which would do nothing if silver was what killed them which left one skilled hunter against three creatures he didn't yet know how to kill. If that was the case, it was likely that both Sam and Gallagher had been hurt by the stupid things, and Dean and the older guy had to have heard the gunshots and gone running toward the fray. It was possible that everyone had been hurt and likely that there was still at least one of those crazy dog-like monsters running around out.