Supernatural - Whatever You Do, Don't Look Behind You (4/4) - Gen, Sam/Ava
Title: Whatever You Do, Don’t Look Behind You (4/4)
Author: Tonya (_fullofgrace)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen with Sam/Ava background
Disclaimer: The usuals. No own, no sue.
Timeline: obviously AU considering the finale; takes place in the universe created in my fic “Headlights on Dark Roads” but reading that beforehand is not a necessity
Chapter word count: 4731
Summary: A deadly urban legend leads Dean, Sam, and Ava on a new case.
A/N: Special thanks to xphoenixrising, connery_is_bond, and lint138 for all their prodding cause quite honestly, this may not have been finished if it hadn't been for them. *hugs*
******
Sam stood at the bathroom sink, hands braced against the sides, as he stared at his own frowning reflection in the mirror. He ventured a glance down at his watch and sighed. He’d barely wasted ten minutes by brushing his teeth and washing his face, which probably hadn’t been long enough for Dean to hopefully be passed out in his bed, trying to catch a couple of minutes of sleep before they hit the ground running with their case. Sam had come to the unfortunate conclusion, during his attempts at stalling, that no matter how old he and Dean became, his brother would still have the power to make him feel like some lanky, awkward teenager after a first date when it came to women.
Sam sighed again, preparing for his brother’s questions and teasing, as he stepped out of the bathroom. He couldn’t hide his disappointment when a wide awake Dean smirked over at him before taking a drink from his coffee.
“So all the effort I put into getting you some action and nothing happens?” Dean asked from his spot on his bed.
Sam rolled his eyes as he rummaged through his duffel bag for clean clothes. “Dude, no, nothing happened, and for the record, you officially suck for that move.”
He grinned. “Please, man, I was just trying to help you out.”
“Next time?” he said, pulling on a pair of jeans. “Don’t.” He ran a hand through his hair before retrieving the last remaining cup of coffee and sitting down at the head of his own bed. “So what’d you find out?”
“Well, I drove that strip of road, and man, is it an empty stretch of land. The only real sign of life is a gas station.” He added with a shrug, “Which makes sense really if you think about the original murders.”
Sam nodded. “The girl stops for gas, maybe gets something inside…”
“And our backseat killer climbs on in when she’s inside paying for her gas. She never knows until she hits the road.” Dean tossed his empty Styrofoam cup at the trashcan in the corner of the room. He grinned a bit as it bounced off the rim of the can before falling inside as he continued, “There’s a single mile marker on that stretch. Most of the accidents occurred after that point.”
“Guess it gave him plenty of distance from the gas station so that no one could see him force the women over,” Sam frowned. “But what does that have to do with our missing dead body?”
Ava walked into the room at that moment, fully dressed with a complimentary copy of the day’s paper tucked under her arm and her coffee drink still in hand. Dean’s devilish grin from earlier returned, and Sam rolled his eyes, giving Ava a small nod of acknowledgement before she took a seat at the foot of his bed.
“Morning, Ava,” Dean continued to grin as she situated herself, opening her paper to the front page. “How’d you sleep?”
She looked over at him with a smirk. “Good. How about you? You sneak out again before the poor girl woke up?” she teased.
“Hey, someone had to get you two lazy asses coffee,” he shrugged.
Ava glanced at Sam. “He’s been fishing for details, hasn’t he?”
“Relentlessly,” he laughed, taking a drink from his coffee.
“You’re as bad as a gossipy teenage girl,” she grinned at Dean.
Sam could only smirk at how offended his brother looked. “Hey!” Dean protested.
Ava ignored the dirty look she received for her remark. “So what’d you find out last night while we were eating pizza?”
Dean scowled at her before turning his attention back to their case. “Well, like I was saying before you walked in without knocking, after I drove that strip of highway, I hit up one of the local bars to mingle for a bit.”
“And hustle a bit of money,” Sam said.
“And harass some poor unsuspecting woman,” Ava added with a smirk and a raise of an eyebrow.
“And learn a couple of things relevant to our case,” Dean replied, “Like how the owners of that lone gas station I was telling you about? Parents of our friendly serial killer. And it seems that the same family still owns and runs the gas station now.”
“Good place to start asking questions then,” Sam nodded.
Dean stood, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “Well, if you two are done slacking off, I say we get this show back on the road.”
*******
The Impala pulled into the empty gas station, Dean circling around to a gas pump as they studied the shop. Through the glass windows and doors, they could see a lone worker at the counter, engrossed in a magazine as he waited for customers to arrive.
“What will it be today?” Dean asked as he reached over Sam’s legs and opened the glove compartment, reaching for the box of fake IDs.
Ava spoke up from the backseat. “I think I got this one,” she said, sitting forward in the seat.
Dean balanced the box in his lap as he turned and glanced at her, skeptical. “You think you got this one?” he nearly chuckled.
“Yes,” she snapped back, her nose scrunching up in offense. “You just shut up and look pretty while you pump gas,” she ordered him before tapping Sam’s shoulder. “And you come with me.”
Dean snorted and looked over at Sam. “Did she just order us around?”
He nodded, lips curled in amusement. “And I think she even told you to shut up.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “Keep it up, both of you.” She smacked the back of Dean’s head before stepping out of the car, Sam following her lead.
They walked into the gas station, the bell above the door announcing their presence. The lone man behind the counter looked up for a second as they entered before returning his gaze to the car magazine in his hands. Ava shooed Sam off towards the drinks while she loitered at the front of the store in front of a chips display. She grabbed three snack bags before approaching the counter with a smile.
“Hi,” she said, sitting the items on the counter.
The young man, Kyle by his nametag, finally looked up to greet her. He offered back a small, careful smile as he nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “This it for you?”
“Um, no, we’re still getting some drinks,” she said, nodding over towards the line of fridges where Sam was, in fact, gathering drinks for the road. “And we’re also gonna need twenty on pump three. Gotta love road-trips,” she added with a small chuckle.
“Yeah, I guess,” Kyle agreed with a quiet laugh.
“We were kinda just passing through,” she nodded again. She picked up a pack of gum from the counter, placing it with the chips before she leaned forward a bit and dropped her voice. “Is this really that strip of highway where that weird dude carved up girls in their own backseats?”
Sam stepped up to them at that moment, placing the bottled drinks on the counter. “You’ll have to excuse her. She unfortunately has a morbid curiosity most normal people don’t.”
Kyle shrugged off the apology. “It’s alright. Lots of folks come through asking the same thing.” He shrugged again, “You get used to being an odd tourist spot.”
“So it’s true?” Ava asked, with an eagerness only Sam knew was staged.
Kyle nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
“Must give you the wiggins working here, huh?”
“Not really. I mean, my grandparents owned this place, and my folks took over when they died.“ He nudged his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Never felt weird really.”
“Feel free to ignore her,” Sam offered.
Ava looked offended. “I was just asking!”
“About stuff that’s none of your business,” he said with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s really okay,” Kyle chuckled. “You know how many people I get coming in here asking questions about this place and my uncle? You really do get used to it. I mean, hell, you got drunk teens trying to dig up his grave every couple of months as some prank.”
Sam and Ava shared a small glance. “Cause grave desecration is an awesome way to spend a Friday night,” she joked weakly.
“Not like they’ll find anything,” he shrugged. “The random diggings got so bad that my Grandma just pulled him up out of the dirt and had him cremated.”
Sam’s grip on one of the bottles tightened, but he said nothing as Ava continued on her quest for information. “Wow, that’s horrible,” she frowned.
“I think my Grandma preferred it in the end of things anyway. She ended up asking them if she could have his ponytail before they cremated him. Even made us promise to bury her with it when she died.”
“You know, I’m sorry,” Sam offered again with a small frown, “we didn’t mean to pry. My friend’s a little low on tact sometimes. We‘ll just pay and be on our way.”
Kyle nodded and finished ringing up their purchases. He bagged them and handed the paper bags to Ava as Sam paid. “Y’all have a safe trip,” he said with a nod.
“Thanks,” Sam smiled as he pushed Ava out of the shop, a hand at the small of her back.
Outside, Dean waited patiently in the Impala while the others joined him. “So?”
Ava grinned from the backseat, reaching into one of the bags and pulling out a cola. “Told you I had this one,” she said as Dean pulled back onto the road.
“The reason our grave was empty?” Sam said as Ava handed him a bottled water. “He was exhumed and cremated after several desecration attempts.”
Dean shook his head with a frown. “But that makes no sense. If he was cremated, it should be the end of the story. There’s nothing left to burn.”
“His ponytail,” Ava spoke up, leaning forward and crossing her arms across the back of the bench seat.
“What?”
“Apparently his mother is buried with his ponytail. It was taken before he was cremated.” She added with a shrug, “Hair’s still technically part of him.”
Sam nodded. “And technically still living tissue.”
“So we technically still have a salt and burn on our hands,” Dean sighed. “Now we just have to find where Mommy Dearest is buried and put an end to this mess.” He glanced over at Sam before turning his eyes back to the road ahead. “What‘s our timeline now?”
“About 36 hours give or take,” Sam shrugged. “We should be fine.”
Ava flicked the back of his head. “Except now by saying that you’ve completely jinxed us so we’re screwed.”
Sam smirked. “Shouldn’t you have your seatbelt on?” he teased, glancing over his shoulder at her.
“Shouldn’t you?” she shot back with a raised eyebrow before sitting back in her seat and fastening the lap belt across herself.
*******
The grave of Roselyn Densford, mother of the town’s most infamous serial killer, was located in a cemetery on the opposite end of town from that of her dead son.
Dean, Sam, and Ava traveled quietly through the rows of graves, flashlights bouncing off of engraved names in stone. Everyone had shovels on hand, all three needed to make this dig go faster than the others, but Dean also brought along his loaded sawed off shotgun in the off chance they had an encounter with the pissed off spirit of Maxwell Densford.
Sam sighed down at the layout of the cemetery clutched in his hand. “The Densford family plot should be right--” He stopped, looking up as his flashlight bounced off a marble angel. Under the angel, the marker read Roselyn Densford. “--here.”
Ava tossed down her bag full of supplies for the salt and burn, and Dean carefully placed his shotgun to the side. “Sammy,” he smirked, “try not to dig like a girl this time, huh?”
Sam rolled his eyes, offering up a dry laugh in response.
Ava raised her hand. “As the girl of this group, remind me to beat you with my shovel after we’re done.”
Dean grinned and patted her on the head, to which she punched him hard in the shoulder, before all three of them turned serious and started digging.
******
An hour into the dig, Sam’s shovel finally hit something solid under the dirt. He exhaled in relief, his arms beginning to burn from the labor. “Knife?” he called up to the edge of the grave.
Dean pulled a switchblade from the back pocket of his jeans, tossing it down to Sam as Ava readied the salt, lighter fluid, and matches. Sam caught the knife and wedged it between the lid and the body of the casket., but he barely had a chance to maneuver the blade before his body was tossed up and out of the grave. He felt nothing but the rush of air and saw nothing but darkness, and he hit the hard dirt with such a force that it knocked the wind out of him.
“Dammit,” he wheezed, trying to catch his breath and roll into a sitting position. As his eyes focused in the darkness, he realized he had been tossed nearly twenty feet from the grave, and from the looks of it, the others had been thrown as well.
Dean was just off to his right, a few feet behind him, rubbing his shoulder which had collided with a marble angel on his way to the ground. Ava was even further off to his right, beyond Dean, kneeling beside a large oak tree, a hand held to the side of her head.
“Everyone okay?” Dean asked with a groan, finally getting to his feet as he rubbed his shoulder. He made his way to Ava, helping her to her feet, as Sam joined them.
“I think our spirit is on to us,” Sam grimaced.
“You think?” Ava groaned, pulling her fingers away from the temple of her head where her collision from the tree had left a nasty gash.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean growled, still rubbing his shoulder. “Okay, we need to regroup. This dude is a lot more powerful than expected, especially if he can dispatch of all three of us at once.”
“Give me your keys,” Ava said, holding out her hand expectantly to Dean.
He raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her. “Exactly how hard did you hit your head, Ava?”
She rolled her eyes. "Think about it. Angry serial killer guy can't be in two places at once, right? We need a distraction.”
“Like you making yourself bait,” Sam replied with a deep frown.
“I kinda prefer the word distraction,” she shrugged. “Sounds less like I’m walking into a suicide mission.”
Sam‘s frown only deepened. It was one thing when he was the bait, but something about Ava willingly dangling herself on the hook did not sit well in the pit of his stomach. “Ava, I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he said.
She returned the frown. “Well, unless you two have a way for us not to get the crap beat out of us in this scenario, I’m all ears.”
Dean and Sam exchanged a look, and Sam exhaled deeply, admitting defeat. He really did wish there was another way to go about this without the risky option of Ava being bait, but unfortunately, her plan was the best plan.
Ava nodded at the boys’ silence, wiggling her outstretched fingers at Dean. “So I’m gonna need the car.”
Dean looked pained as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. He hesitated, the keys hovering over her open palm. “Look, don’t go driving like Sam, alright? You gotta know how to talk to her.”
“I think she and I will get along just fine,” she smirked, snatching the keys from his grasp.
“Okay, if we’re gonna do this, we need to do it right,” Sam said as Dean continued to look longingly after his keys now in Ava’s hand. “There’s a mile marker, right?” He nudged Dean with his elbow, bringing his brother’s full attention to him. “You said all the accidents happen after the gas station at a specific mile marker.”
“Hell, it’s the only mile marker. Marker 23.”
“As soon as you hit that marker, you call me,” Sam ordered Ava.
“And then we’ll do our magic here while you have our friendly serial killer Casper occupied,” Dean added.
Ava nodded, nervously chewing on her lower lip. “Okay. Wish me luck, boys.” She started away, but only got a few feet before she turned back to them. She tried to make her expression seem carefree and teasing, but Sam could tell from the way she fidgeted with Dean‘s keys in her hand that she was anything but. “Hey guys, move fast, alright?”
She took off at a jog before Sam could even offer her up any words of encouragement.
“She’ll be fine.” Dean smacked Sam’s chest with the back of his hand when Sam continued to look after where Ava had just stood. He finally acknowledged Dean, the same frown from earlier still on his lips. “She will,” he said again with a determined nod.
Sam nodded, believing his brother only because the other option wasn’t something he really wanted to think about.
*******
Ava turned onto the strip of highway, the wheels squealing in protest against the pavement as she turned sharply and stopped. She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, mentally preparing herself.
In the past six months on the road with the Winchesters, she’d never willingly made herself the bait. In all honesty, she’d never been bait period, willingly or not. Dean and Sam had a tendency to keep her out of the line of fire, but tonight, if they really wanted to stop more murders from occurring, they had no other option.
She grabbed her cell phone from the passenger seat, flipping it open and dialing Sam’s phone. “You guys ready?” she asked as soon as he picked up.
“We are if you are.”
Ava nodded unconsciously, and pressed the gas pedal to the floorboards. Her heart pounding against her ribcage, she sped down the strip of highway. The gas station passed by on her left, a blur in her periphery, and the beams of the Impala caught the gleam of a green mile marker up ahead.
“Ava?”
Sam’s voice snapped her out of her concentration on the black pavement ahead of her.
She counted backwards as the mile marker got closer and closer, and as soon as the front end of the car passed by, the mile marker a reminder in the passenger side mirror, she spoke. “Sam? Go.” She hung up and tossed the cell phone into the passenger seat, both hands tensely holding onto the steering wheel.
The rumble of the Impala seemed abnormally loud in the silence of the car, and Ava tried to convince herself not to venture a glance in the rearview mirror. But she ignored her own inner warning and looked up.
She recognized him instantly from the newspaper articles Sam had found on the internet. Hair slicked back into an unruly ponytail, cold eyes stared at her from behind a pair of glasses. She swallowed hard and put on a shaky smile, trying her best to imitate Dean‘s cocksure smile she‘d seen many times in the moment of danger. “You don’t scare me,” she said to the flickering reflection in her mirror.
The figure said nothing in response, not that Ava expected him to have some song and dance number, but when the man disappeared from her mirror, her nerves went on edge. She glanced into her driver’s side mirror and then her passenger before returning her gaze to the rearview mirror, but again, the backseat was empty. She almost preferred when the ghostly figure was staring back at her with unblinking eyes.
But before she could even think on it any longer, her head snapped back against the headrest, an unseen force holding her head in its spot even as she struggled to raise it. She gripped even tighter to the steering wheel, trying to keep the Impala on a straight course even as her panic started to rise.
“Come on, guys,” she muttered in a repetitive mantra as she kept the Impala on the road.
She inhaled sharply as pressure, followed quickly by burning pain, started just under her right earlobe. She almost yelled out “stop!” as if she could rationalize with a dead serial killer, but instead, she bit down on her lower lip, trying to shift her focus from one pain to another.
The boys wouldn’t let her down….
She could feel the warmth of blood trickling down her neck, and as her panic reached a new level, her head was released. She quickly slammed on the brakes, the tires of the Impala screeching against the asphalt. Ava’s ragged breathing bounced off the windows of the Impala, and she rested her head against the steering wheel with a loud thump as she placed a shaky hand to her bleeding neck.
Somewhere on the floorboards at the passenger side, her cell phone rang. Shifting the car into park, she leaned over and patted down the dark floorboard until her hand found her phone. Her other hand still held gingerly to her neck, she flipped the phone open and sighed, resting her head back on the steering wheel.
“Ava?” came Sam’s anxious voice. “You okay?”
“Sam,” she said, shifting back in her seat to rest her head back against the headrest. She raised her bloody fingers to her face with a small frown, “No offense, but I kinda prefer when you’re the bait and I get to set stuff on fire.”
He chuckled, unable to hide his relief. “Glad you’re okay.”
She shifted the car into drive, doing a u-turn in the middle of the strip. “Be back before you know it,” she said, hanging up and pressing down on the accelerator, smiling as the Impala rumbled under her.
*******
Dean stepped into the motel room, flopping down at the foot of his bed. Sam and Ava trailed behind, Ava closing--and securely locking--the door after she crossed over the threshold. Sam sat on the edge of his bed as Ava perched herself at the foot.
“Well, crew,” Dean said with a wide grin, “case solved with twenty-four hours to spare.”
“Thank God,” Ava sighed, falling back onto the mattress, the springs squeaking in protest. Sam smirked over his shoulder at her as he watched her close her eyes and toss an arm over her face.
“And I gotta commend you on not crashing my girl, Ava,” Dean said.
She sat up on her elbows, smirking. “Why, yes, Dean, I’m doing good after my close encounter of the creepy kind. Thank you for your concern,” she replied.
Dean grabbed the remote from the nightstand, kicking off his shoes and settling back against the headboard of his bed. He waved off Ava’s sarcasm with a smirk of his own. “Keep up your bitchin’ and I’ll start calling you Sammy.”
“Hey!” Sam protested as Ava snorted behind him.
“On that note,” Ava said, pushing herself back into a seated position, “I think I need a good shower and a nice long coma.”
Sam glanced at her neck as she pushed her hair back from her face. A trail of dried blood traced a line down the side of her neck, just under her earlobe, and stained the collar of her t-shirt. He frowned a bit and, without even thinking, reached over and cupped her face in his hand, tilting her head upwards slightly.
“How’s the neck?” he asked.
“Sore, but I’ll live,” she shrugged off with a smile.
He raised an eyebrow at her as his hand dropped from her face. “Says the girl who always nags at us about brushing off injuries.”
“I do not nag.”
“Yeah,” Dean spoke up, remote still in hand, “nag is just a nice way of putting it.”
“That whole beating you with a shovel thing? Still thinking about it,” she threatened.
Sam stood, taking a gentle hold of Ava’s wrist and pulling her to her feet before she grabbed his pillow to hurl at Dean. He nudged her towards the bathroom even as she protested and threatened Dean.
With a small huff, she lowered the toilet lid and took a seat, gingerly poking at the sore spot at her temple from her earlier encounter with the side of a tree. Sam tried not to smirk at her as he watched her grimace a bit before poking the sore spot again.
“It hurts less if you stop poking it,” he teased. He pulled a washcloth from the rack by the sink, drenching it in warm water from the faucet.
“For the record,” she said, finally dropping her hands into her lap, “this whole being the bait thing is highly overrated.”
“Preaching to the choir,” Sam said, wringing out his rag. He kneeled beside her, tending to the wound at her temple first. Her nose scrunched up as the rag made soft contact with her tender skin. “Sorry,” he said as he tried to dab even lighter than before. “It’s a wonder you didn’t black out when you hit the tree.”
She hitched a shoulder. “Less full contact and more like my head grazed the tree on my way to the ground.”
“You could still have a concussion,” he said seriously.
She offered him a small smile of reassurance. “I promise I’ll be fine, Sam.” She paused, her gaze wandering around the bathroom before landing back on him. “This is a little bizarre. Being the one nursed back to health.”
He grinned, placing his fingers under her chin to tilt her head up in order to give him better access to the wound on her neck. “Kind of annoying, isn’t it?”
“I was gonna go with refreshing actually,” she smirked in response.
He tossed the rag into the sink as he smiled at her. “I’ll need to get the bandages out of the car, but it looks better now that you’re cleaned up,” he said, slowly getting to his feet. “Promise me one thing though.”
“What’s that?”
“No more being bait for a while, alright?”
She laughed quietly. “I don’t think you have to worry about that for some time.”
He grinned. “Good. Leave being bait to me for a bit.” He patted her shoulder. “Hang tight for a second while I get the bandages.”
He made a move to turn and leave the bathroom, but Ava called his name, stopping him in his tracks. He turned back to her, and before he could even register what was happening, she already had her arms tightly wrapped around his waist, her head flat against his chest. Once he recovered from the shock, he brought his arms up and around her just as firmly.
He knew that she would never admit to being freaked out by her experience tonight, and he would never admit to being scared that her plan--their plan-- would go wrong, but the hug said everything neither of them were brave enough to voice at the moment.
“Thanks,” she mumbled into his shirt.
He smiled, stroking her hair. “Welcome,” he muttered down into the top of her head.
They settled in silence again until a clearing of a throat echoed in the small room. They pulled apart just enough to see Dean smirking at them from the bathroom doorway. He leaned against the frame, arms folded across his chest. “You two almost done with this Hallmark moment cause I gotta take a leak.”
Sam rolled his eyes as Ava pulled fully from their embrace, patting down the pockets of her jeans. She finally retrieved a single key from her back pocket and tossed it at Dean, who caught it with a raised eyebrow. “Use mine,” she smirked and then shut the bathroom door in his face.
Sam couldn’t help but laugh as Ava grinned up at him. “What?” she asked, trying to feign innocence.
“I knew there was a reason we brought you along,” he chuckled, taking her face gently in his hands and kissing her.
Author: Tonya (_fullofgrace)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen with Sam/Ava background
Disclaimer: The usuals. No own, no sue.
Timeline: obviously AU considering the finale; takes place in the universe created in my fic “Headlights on Dark Roads” but reading that beforehand is not a necessity
Chapter word count: 4731
Summary: A deadly urban legend leads Dean, Sam, and Ava on a new case.
A/N: Special thanks to xphoenixrising, connery_is_bond, and lint138 for all their prodding cause quite honestly, this may not have been finished if it hadn't been for them. *hugs*
******
Sam stood at the bathroom sink, hands braced against the sides, as he stared at his own frowning reflection in the mirror. He ventured a glance down at his watch and sighed. He’d barely wasted ten minutes by brushing his teeth and washing his face, which probably hadn’t been long enough for Dean to hopefully be passed out in his bed, trying to catch a couple of minutes of sleep before they hit the ground running with their case. Sam had come to the unfortunate conclusion, during his attempts at stalling, that no matter how old he and Dean became, his brother would still have the power to make him feel like some lanky, awkward teenager after a first date when it came to women.
Sam sighed again, preparing for his brother’s questions and teasing, as he stepped out of the bathroom. He couldn’t hide his disappointment when a wide awake Dean smirked over at him before taking a drink from his coffee.
“So all the effort I put into getting you some action and nothing happens?” Dean asked from his spot on his bed.
Sam rolled his eyes as he rummaged through his duffel bag for clean clothes. “Dude, no, nothing happened, and for the record, you officially suck for that move.”
He grinned. “Please, man, I was just trying to help you out.”
“Next time?” he said, pulling on a pair of jeans. “Don’t.” He ran a hand through his hair before retrieving the last remaining cup of coffee and sitting down at the head of his own bed. “So what’d you find out?”
“Well, I drove that strip of road, and man, is it an empty stretch of land. The only real sign of life is a gas station.” He added with a shrug, “Which makes sense really if you think about the original murders.”
Sam nodded. “The girl stops for gas, maybe gets something inside…”
“And our backseat killer climbs on in when she’s inside paying for her gas. She never knows until she hits the road.” Dean tossed his empty Styrofoam cup at the trashcan in the corner of the room. He grinned a bit as it bounced off the rim of the can before falling inside as he continued, “There’s a single mile marker on that stretch. Most of the accidents occurred after that point.”
“Guess it gave him plenty of distance from the gas station so that no one could see him force the women over,” Sam frowned. “But what does that have to do with our missing dead body?”
Ava walked into the room at that moment, fully dressed with a complimentary copy of the day’s paper tucked under her arm and her coffee drink still in hand. Dean’s devilish grin from earlier returned, and Sam rolled his eyes, giving Ava a small nod of acknowledgement before she took a seat at the foot of his bed.
“Morning, Ava,” Dean continued to grin as she situated herself, opening her paper to the front page. “How’d you sleep?”
She looked over at him with a smirk. “Good. How about you? You sneak out again before the poor girl woke up?” she teased.
“Hey, someone had to get you two lazy asses coffee,” he shrugged.
Ava glanced at Sam. “He’s been fishing for details, hasn’t he?”
“Relentlessly,” he laughed, taking a drink from his coffee.
“You’re as bad as a gossipy teenage girl,” she grinned at Dean.
Sam could only smirk at how offended his brother looked. “Hey!” Dean protested.
Ava ignored the dirty look she received for her remark. “So what’d you find out last night while we were eating pizza?”
Dean scowled at her before turning his attention back to their case. “Well, like I was saying before you walked in without knocking, after I drove that strip of highway, I hit up one of the local bars to mingle for a bit.”
“And hustle a bit of money,” Sam said.
“And harass some poor unsuspecting woman,” Ava added with a smirk and a raise of an eyebrow.
“And learn a couple of things relevant to our case,” Dean replied, “Like how the owners of that lone gas station I was telling you about? Parents of our friendly serial killer. And it seems that the same family still owns and runs the gas station now.”
“Good place to start asking questions then,” Sam nodded.
Dean stood, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “Well, if you two are done slacking off, I say we get this show back on the road.”
*******
The Impala pulled into the empty gas station, Dean circling around to a gas pump as they studied the shop. Through the glass windows and doors, they could see a lone worker at the counter, engrossed in a magazine as he waited for customers to arrive.
“What will it be today?” Dean asked as he reached over Sam’s legs and opened the glove compartment, reaching for the box of fake IDs.
Ava spoke up from the backseat. “I think I got this one,” she said, sitting forward in the seat.
Dean balanced the box in his lap as he turned and glanced at her, skeptical. “You think you got this one?” he nearly chuckled.
“Yes,” she snapped back, her nose scrunching up in offense. “You just shut up and look pretty while you pump gas,” she ordered him before tapping Sam’s shoulder. “And you come with me.”
Dean snorted and looked over at Sam. “Did she just order us around?”
He nodded, lips curled in amusement. “And I think she even told you to shut up.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “Keep it up, both of you.” She smacked the back of Dean’s head before stepping out of the car, Sam following her lead.
They walked into the gas station, the bell above the door announcing their presence. The lone man behind the counter looked up for a second as they entered before returning his gaze to the car magazine in his hands. Ava shooed Sam off towards the drinks while she loitered at the front of the store in front of a chips display. She grabbed three snack bags before approaching the counter with a smile.
“Hi,” she said, sitting the items on the counter.
The young man, Kyle by his nametag, finally looked up to greet her. He offered back a small, careful smile as he nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “This it for you?”
“Um, no, we’re still getting some drinks,” she said, nodding over towards the line of fridges where Sam was, in fact, gathering drinks for the road. “And we’re also gonna need twenty on pump three. Gotta love road-trips,” she added with a small chuckle.
“Yeah, I guess,” Kyle agreed with a quiet laugh.
“We were kinda just passing through,” she nodded again. She picked up a pack of gum from the counter, placing it with the chips before she leaned forward a bit and dropped her voice. “Is this really that strip of highway where that weird dude carved up girls in their own backseats?”
Sam stepped up to them at that moment, placing the bottled drinks on the counter. “You’ll have to excuse her. She unfortunately has a morbid curiosity most normal people don’t.”
Kyle shrugged off the apology. “It’s alright. Lots of folks come through asking the same thing.” He shrugged again, “You get used to being an odd tourist spot.”
“So it’s true?” Ava asked, with an eagerness only Sam knew was staged.
Kyle nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
“Must give you the wiggins working here, huh?”
“Not really. I mean, my grandparents owned this place, and my folks took over when they died.“ He nudged his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Never felt weird really.”
“Feel free to ignore her,” Sam offered.
Ava looked offended. “I was just asking!”
“About stuff that’s none of your business,” he said with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s really okay,” Kyle chuckled. “You know how many people I get coming in here asking questions about this place and my uncle? You really do get used to it. I mean, hell, you got drunk teens trying to dig up his grave every couple of months as some prank.”
Sam and Ava shared a small glance. “Cause grave desecration is an awesome way to spend a Friday night,” she joked weakly.
“Not like they’ll find anything,” he shrugged. “The random diggings got so bad that my Grandma just pulled him up out of the dirt and had him cremated.”
Sam’s grip on one of the bottles tightened, but he said nothing as Ava continued on her quest for information. “Wow, that’s horrible,” she frowned.
“I think my Grandma preferred it in the end of things anyway. She ended up asking them if she could have his ponytail before they cremated him. Even made us promise to bury her with it when she died.”
“You know, I’m sorry,” Sam offered again with a small frown, “we didn’t mean to pry. My friend’s a little low on tact sometimes. We‘ll just pay and be on our way.”
Kyle nodded and finished ringing up their purchases. He bagged them and handed the paper bags to Ava as Sam paid. “Y’all have a safe trip,” he said with a nod.
“Thanks,” Sam smiled as he pushed Ava out of the shop, a hand at the small of her back.
Outside, Dean waited patiently in the Impala while the others joined him. “So?”
Ava grinned from the backseat, reaching into one of the bags and pulling out a cola. “Told you I had this one,” she said as Dean pulled back onto the road.
“The reason our grave was empty?” Sam said as Ava handed him a bottled water. “He was exhumed and cremated after several desecration attempts.”
Dean shook his head with a frown. “But that makes no sense. If he was cremated, it should be the end of the story. There’s nothing left to burn.”
“His ponytail,” Ava spoke up, leaning forward and crossing her arms across the back of the bench seat.
“What?”
“Apparently his mother is buried with his ponytail. It was taken before he was cremated.” She added with a shrug, “Hair’s still technically part of him.”
Sam nodded. “And technically still living tissue.”
“So we technically still have a salt and burn on our hands,” Dean sighed. “Now we just have to find where Mommy Dearest is buried and put an end to this mess.” He glanced over at Sam before turning his eyes back to the road ahead. “What‘s our timeline now?”
“About 36 hours give or take,” Sam shrugged. “We should be fine.”
Ava flicked the back of his head. “Except now by saying that you’ve completely jinxed us so we’re screwed.”
Sam smirked. “Shouldn’t you have your seatbelt on?” he teased, glancing over his shoulder at her.
“Shouldn’t you?” she shot back with a raised eyebrow before sitting back in her seat and fastening the lap belt across herself.
*******
The grave of Roselyn Densford, mother of the town’s most infamous serial killer, was located in a cemetery on the opposite end of town from that of her dead son.
Dean, Sam, and Ava traveled quietly through the rows of graves, flashlights bouncing off of engraved names in stone. Everyone had shovels on hand, all three needed to make this dig go faster than the others, but Dean also brought along his loaded sawed off shotgun in the off chance they had an encounter with the pissed off spirit of Maxwell Densford.
Sam sighed down at the layout of the cemetery clutched in his hand. “The Densford family plot should be right--” He stopped, looking up as his flashlight bounced off a marble angel. Under the angel, the marker read Roselyn Densford. “--here.”
Ava tossed down her bag full of supplies for the salt and burn, and Dean carefully placed his shotgun to the side. “Sammy,” he smirked, “try not to dig like a girl this time, huh?”
Sam rolled his eyes, offering up a dry laugh in response.
Ava raised her hand. “As the girl of this group, remind me to beat you with my shovel after we’re done.”
Dean grinned and patted her on the head, to which she punched him hard in the shoulder, before all three of them turned serious and started digging.
******
An hour into the dig, Sam’s shovel finally hit something solid under the dirt. He exhaled in relief, his arms beginning to burn from the labor. “Knife?” he called up to the edge of the grave.
Dean pulled a switchblade from the back pocket of his jeans, tossing it down to Sam as Ava readied the salt, lighter fluid, and matches. Sam caught the knife and wedged it between the lid and the body of the casket., but he barely had a chance to maneuver the blade before his body was tossed up and out of the grave. He felt nothing but the rush of air and saw nothing but darkness, and he hit the hard dirt with such a force that it knocked the wind out of him.
“Dammit,” he wheezed, trying to catch his breath and roll into a sitting position. As his eyes focused in the darkness, he realized he had been tossed nearly twenty feet from the grave, and from the looks of it, the others had been thrown as well.
Dean was just off to his right, a few feet behind him, rubbing his shoulder which had collided with a marble angel on his way to the ground. Ava was even further off to his right, beyond Dean, kneeling beside a large oak tree, a hand held to the side of her head.
“Everyone okay?” Dean asked with a groan, finally getting to his feet as he rubbed his shoulder. He made his way to Ava, helping her to her feet, as Sam joined them.
“I think our spirit is on to us,” Sam grimaced.
“You think?” Ava groaned, pulling her fingers away from the temple of her head where her collision from the tree had left a nasty gash.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean growled, still rubbing his shoulder. “Okay, we need to regroup. This dude is a lot more powerful than expected, especially if he can dispatch of all three of us at once.”
“Give me your keys,” Ava said, holding out her hand expectantly to Dean.
He raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her. “Exactly how hard did you hit your head, Ava?”
She rolled her eyes. "Think about it. Angry serial killer guy can't be in two places at once, right? We need a distraction.”
“Like you making yourself bait,” Sam replied with a deep frown.
“I kinda prefer the word distraction,” she shrugged. “Sounds less like I’m walking into a suicide mission.”
Sam‘s frown only deepened. It was one thing when he was the bait, but something about Ava willingly dangling herself on the hook did not sit well in the pit of his stomach. “Ava, I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he said.
She returned the frown. “Well, unless you two have a way for us not to get the crap beat out of us in this scenario, I’m all ears.”
Dean and Sam exchanged a look, and Sam exhaled deeply, admitting defeat. He really did wish there was another way to go about this without the risky option of Ava being bait, but unfortunately, her plan was the best plan.
Ava nodded at the boys’ silence, wiggling her outstretched fingers at Dean. “So I’m gonna need the car.”
Dean looked pained as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. He hesitated, the keys hovering over her open palm. “Look, don’t go driving like Sam, alright? You gotta know how to talk to her.”
“I think she and I will get along just fine,” she smirked, snatching the keys from his grasp.
“Okay, if we’re gonna do this, we need to do it right,” Sam said as Dean continued to look longingly after his keys now in Ava’s hand. “There’s a mile marker, right?” He nudged Dean with his elbow, bringing his brother’s full attention to him. “You said all the accidents happen after the gas station at a specific mile marker.”
“Hell, it’s the only mile marker. Marker 23.”
“As soon as you hit that marker, you call me,” Sam ordered Ava.
“And then we’ll do our magic here while you have our friendly serial killer Casper occupied,” Dean added.
Ava nodded, nervously chewing on her lower lip. “Okay. Wish me luck, boys.” She started away, but only got a few feet before she turned back to them. She tried to make her expression seem carefree and teasing, but Sam could tell from the way she fidgeted with Dean‘s keys in her hand that she was anything but. “Hey guys, move fast, alright?”
She took off at a jog before Sam could even offer her up any words of encouragement.
“She’ll be fine.” Dean smacked Sam’s chest with the back of his hand when Sam continued to look after where Ava had just stood. He finally acknowledged Dean, the same frown from earlier still on his lips. “She will,” he said again with a determined nod.
Sam nodded, believing his brother only because the other option wasn’t something he really wanted to think about.
*******
Ava turned onto the strip of highway, the wheels squealing in protest against the pavement as she turned sharply and stopped. She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, mentally preparing herself.
In the past six months on the road with the Winchesters, she’d never willingly made herself the bait. In all honesty, she’d never been bait period, willingly or not. Dean and Sam had a tendency to keep her out of the line of fire, but tonight, if they really wanted to stop more murders from occurring, they had no other option.
She grabbed her cell phone from the passenger seat, flipping it open and dialing Sam’s phone. “You guys ready?” she asked as soon as he picked up.
“We are if you are.”
Ava nodded unconsciously, and pressed the gas pedal to the floorboards. Her heart pounding against her ribcage, she sped down the strip of highway. The gas station passed by on her left, a blur in her periphery, and the beams of the Impala caught the gleam of a green mile marker up ahead.
“Ava?”
Sam’s voice snapped her out of her concentration on the black pavement ahead of her.
She counted backwards as the mile marker got closer and closer, and as soon as the front end of the car passed by, the mile marker a reminder in the passenger side mirror, she spoke. “Sam? Go.” She hung up and tossed the cell phone into the passenger seat, both hands tensely holding onto the steering wheel.
The rumble of the Impala seemed abnormally loud in the silence of the car, and Ava tried to convince herself not to venture a glance in the rearview mirror. But she ignored her own inner warning and looked up.
She recognized him instantly from the newspaper articles Sam had found on the internet. Hair slicked back into an unruly ponytail, cold eyes stared at her from behind a pair of glasses. She swallowed hard and put on a shaky smile, trying her best to imitate Dean‘s cocksure smile she‘d seen many times in the moment of danger. “You don’t scare me,” she said to the flickering reflection in her mirror.
The figure said nothing in response, not that Ava expected him to have some song and dance number, but when the man disappeared from her mirror, her nerves went on edge. She glanced into her driver’s side mirror and then her passenger before returning her gaze to the rearview mirror, but again, the backseat was empty. She almost preferred when the ghostly figure was staring back at her with unblinking eyes.
But before she could even think on it any longer, her head snapped back against the headrest, an unseen force holding her head in its spot even as she struggled to raise it. She gripped even tighter to the steering wheel, trying to keep the Impala on a straight course even as her panic started to rise.
“Come on, guys,” she muttered in a repetitive mantra as she kept the Impala on the road.
She inhaled sharply as pressure, followed quickly by burning pain, started just under her right earlobe. She almost yelled out “stop!” as if she could rationalize with a dead serial killer, but instead, she bit down on her lower lip, trying to shift her focus from one pain to another.
The boys wouldn’t let her down….
She could feel the warmth of blood trickling down her neck, and as her panic reached a new level, her head was released. She quickly slammed on the brakes, the tires of the Impala screeching against the asphalt. Ava’s ragged breathing bounced off the windows of the Impala, and she rested her head against the steering wheel with a loud thump as she placed a shaky hand to her bleeding neck.
Somewhere on the floorboards at the passenger side, her cell phone rang. Shifting the car into park, she leaned over and patted down the dark floorboard until her hand found her phone. Her other hand still held gingerly to her neck, she flipped the phone open and sighed, resting her head back on the steering wheel.
“Ava?” came Sam’s anxious voice. “You okay?”
“Sam,” she said, shifting back in her seat to rest her head back against the headrest. She raised her bloody fingers to her face with a small frown, “No offense, but I kinda prefer when you’re the bait and I get to set stuff on fire.”
He chuckled, unable to hide his relief. “Glad you’re okay.”
She shifted the car into drive, doing a u-turn in the middle of the strip. “Be back before you know it,” she said, hanging up and pressing down on the accelerator, smiling as the Impala rumbled under her.
*******
Dean stepped into the motel room, flopping down at the foot of his bed. Sam and Ava trailed behind, Ava closing--and securely locking--the door after she crossed over the threshold. Sam sat on the edge of his bed as Ava perched herself at the foot.
“Well, crew,” Dean said with a wide grin, “case solved with twenty-four hours to spare.”
“Thank God,” Ava sighed, falling back onto the mattress, the springs squeaking in protest. Sam smirked over his shoulder at her as he watched her close her eyes and toss an arm over her face.
“And I gotta commend you on not crashing my girl, Ava,” Dean said.
She sat up on her elbows, smirking. “Why, yes, Dean, I’m doing good after my close encounter of the creepy kind. Thank you for your concern,” she replied.
Dean grabbed the remote from the nightstand, kicking off his shoes and settling back against the headboard of his bed. He waved off Ava’s sarcasm with a smirk of his own. “Keep up your bitchin’ and I’ll start calling you Sammy.”
“Hey!” Sam protested as Ava snorted behind him.
“On that note,” Ava said, pushing herself back into a seated position, “I think I need a good shower and a nice long coma.”
Sam glanced at her neck as she pushed her hair back from her face. A trail of dried blood traced a line down the side of her neck, just under her earlobe, and stained the collar of her t-shirt. He frowned a bit and, without even thinking, reached over and cupped her face in his hand, tilting her head upwards slightly.
“How’s the neck?” he asked.
“Sore, but I’ll live,” she shrugged off with a smile.
He raised an eyebrow at her as his hand dropped from her face. “Says the girl who always nags at us about brushing off injuries.”
“I do not nag.”
“Yeah,” Dean spoke up, remote still in hand, “nag is just a nice way of putting it.”
“That whole beating you with a shovel thing? Still thinking about it,” she threatened.
Sam stood, taking a gentle hold of Ava’s wrist and pulling her to her feet before she grabbed his pillow to hurl at Dean. He nudged her towards the bathroom even as she protested and threatened Dean.
With a small huff, she lowered the toilet lid and took a seat, gingerly poking at the sore spot at her temple from her earlier encounter with the side of a tree. Sam tried not to smirk at her as he watched her grimace a bit before poking the sore spot again.
“It hurts less if you stop poking it,” he teased. He pulled a washcloth from the rack by the sink, drenching it in warm water from the faucet.
“For the record,” she said, finally dropping her hands into her lap, “this whole being the bait thing is highly overrated.”
“Preaching to the choir,” Sam said, wringing out his rag. He kneeled beside her, tending to the wound at her temple first. Her nose scrunched up as the rag made soft contact with her tender skin. “Sorry,” he said as he tried to dab even lighter than before. “It’s a wonder you didn’t black out when you hit the tree.”
She hitched a shoulder. “Less full contact and more like my head grazed the tree on my way to the ground.”
“You could still have a concussion,” he said seriously.
She offered him a small smile of reassurance. “I promise I’ll be fine, Sam.” She paused, her gaze wandering around the bathroom before landing back on him. “This is a little bizarre. Being the one nursed back to health.”
He grinned, placing his fingers under her chin to tilt her head up in order to give him better access to the wound on her neck. “Kind of annoying, isn’t it?”
“I was gonna go with refreshing actually,” she smirked in response.
He tossed the rag into the sink as he smiled at her. “I’ll need to get the bandages out of the car, but it looks better now that you’re cleaned up,” he said, slowly getting to his feet. “Promise me one thing though.”
“What’s that?”
“No more being bait for a while, alright?”
She laughed quietly. “I don’t think you have to worry about that for some time.”
He grinned. “Good. Leave being bait to me for a bit.” He patted her shoulder. “Hang tight for a second while I get the bandages.”
He made a move to turn and leave the bathroom, but Ava called his name, stopping him in his tracks. He turned back to her, and before he could even register what was happening, she already had her arms tightly wrapped around his waist, her head flat against his chest. Once he recovered from the shock, he brought his arms up and around her just as firmly.
He knew that she would never admit to being freaked out by her experience tonight, and he would never admit to being scared that her plan--their plan-- would go wrong, but the hug said everything neither of them were brave enough to voice at the moment.
“Thanks,” she mumbled into his shirt.
He smiled, stroking her hair. “Welcome,” he muttered down into the top of her head.
They settled in silence again until a clearing of a throat echoed in the small room. They pulled apart just enough to see Dean smirking at them from the bathroom doorway. He leaned against the frame, arms folded across his chest. “You two almost done with this Hallmark moment cause I gotta take a leak.”
Sam rolled his eyes as Ava pulled fully from their embrace, patting down the pockets of her jeans. She finally retrieved a single key from her back pocket and tossed it at Dean, who caught it with a raised eyebrow. “Use mine,” she smirked and then shut the bathroom door in his face.
Sam couldn’t help but laugh as Ava grinned up at him. “What?” she asked, trying to feign innocence.
“I knew there was a reason we brought you along,” he chuckled, taking her face gently in his hands and kissing her.