Louder Than Words

Gerard stepped out of the storage unit, nose leading the way. Dean smirked bitterly to himself as the though crossed his mind. Gerard, in turn, sneered at him. The experience hadn't been pleasant for any of them. Gerard had stormed into Reagan's bar, announced it closed so the civvy patrons would leave, then turned to Dean, Reagan, and Fozzy, demanding to know where they were keeping the two vampires. Reagan had stayed behind to tend bar and Dean, at this point, was violently jealous of anyone not in the immediate proximity of this cheeky Scottish asshat. He wondered how anyone had the patience to work with him and had a new-found respect for Garth.

"He won't talk to me," Gerard announced, glaring at them. No one replied. Dean felt that it was partly because when the three had tried to make a group effort to tell him what the other vamp had told Hayden, but they had been ignored. He'd just talked over them, persistently demanding to talk to the vampires.

"Maybe you should try the next one," Dean suggested hostilely. They were all so annoyed with this whole situation that even Fozzy had lost all humor in it.

Gerard made a face that had all the hunters twitching to slap it off, before turning and going into the room with Emma. Hayden sucked in his breath; based on the sounds coming from the other vampire still, he bet that Emma wasn't going to have a great time with Gerard.

He had to leave when the screaming started.

<><><><><>

Hayden visited her later that night. He had become in charge of rationing animal blood to their captives and, despite his every instinct, he'd grown to enjoy it. He would drop some to the male vampire and then go see Emma. The highlight of his nights. Now he was dreading it. He looked at the hunched pitiful male vampire, Patrick, and handed him the bottle of blood instead of rolling it across the floor. He left the room silently as usual and made his way across the hall to the other unit. And there she was and his heart sunk for reasons he couldn't understand. Her face was red with blood, her hair starkly yellow against the dried blood. She was propped against the wall, her knee bent at an odd angle. Her eyes opened slowly as he opened the big metal door. He stooped and handed her the bottle.

"How's that death wish comin'?" he asked humorlessly.

"It hurts like a bitch," she rasped.

Hayden frowned. He retrieved the duffel bag from the hall and brought it inside. Emma copied his frown as he pulled out a bottle of water and a dishrag.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I don't even fucking know." He poured some water over the cloth and started cleaning the blood off her face. He rinsed the rag off and picked up her hands one at a time, cleaning them carefully, holding them gingerly as if they might break. "I warned you about him," he muttered grimly, working his way up her arm with the wet towel. She didn't reply. When he was finally done, he wrung out the towel and carefully folded it back up before placing it in the duffel bag with the water. Then he looked at his hands for a minute.

"Why did you do that?" Emma asked.

He looked at her levelly. "Do you think if I knew I would have done it?" She cocked her head to the side and then shook it.

"No."

His slim body hit the wall and slid to the ground next to her. "I just don't know any more."

"Don't know what?"

"What it all means. Why? Why do I have to do this? You know?" She nodded. "I hate that... it's okay to do this" he gestured at her wounds "to anything living. I hate that I used to be okay with it. I hate that I'm not any more. And I hate that I don't know why."

Emma wanted to say something. But nothing came out. He left soon after, with a murmured 'goodbye' and a copy of condensed Grimm Fairy tales dropped in her lap.

<><><><><>

Dean's brows were furrowed and his perfect lips were pouted slightly; even Reagan could tell there was something heavy on his mind, and she'd only been around him a few weeks now.

"What's up?" she asked, wet towel in hand, wiping down the bar. Fozzy also turned a curious eye on Dean.

"I'm kinda worried about what we're gonna do with the vampires," he admitted. "We told Gerard everything. Now we're stuck with two half-dead vampires in storage units that may or may not have more information about the ring. Do we just kill 'em?"

Reagan shrugged and looked to Fozzy. "Well, gee, guys," he said. "That's awfully depressing talk for such a happy place." The other two didn't say anything, so he sighed and said the first thing that popped into his head. "Well the information she gave us, it's pretty good stuff, right? I mean, now we know that this isn't quite the apocalyptic-Armageddon-vampires turning humans into cow-type things we first thought it was. Now we know that they're just experimenting. Which, now that I say it, doesn't sound so great on their behalf. I mean, the logical thing to do would be to kill them, and I don't know about you guys but I would feel super shitty if we did that." Reagan nodded her agreement, and though he agreed, Dean didn't want to admit it. Instead, he silently chided himself for becoming a softy, even calling himself Sammy.

"Guys, this is a tiny bit... uhm, cheesy movie-worthy thinking here," Reagan said, "but what do you think about, like, sending one of them back in as a spy?"

Both Dean and Foster looked at her, heads tilted at different angles. Deans lips were pouted again and she took a moment to appreciate them. Fozzy and Dean looked at each other and then back at her. Fozzy cracked a smile. "Why the fuck not?"

<><><><><>

After that night, all Bayleigh had left of Evvie was the last candy bar from the bags of bribery he had bought. Despite her feelings, she had sent him away the moment she saw Sam. She wasn't going to take the chance of them- of anyone- finding him. She knew they wouldn't kill her, and Sam had a chance of survival, if only for a snack. But Evagoras was a traitor. There were most likely orders all around to kill first ask questions later.

Reflecting after her phone call with Sam, she regretted sending him off so soon; she really needed a hug. An Evvie hug.

She stared up the Dodge again, driving through town just over the speed limit. Her mood sagged as she passed the sign announcing that she was exiting town. The terrible gut feeling she got whenever her and Sam parted ways kicked in. She reached around and put a hand on her stomach, pressing into it. Her palms started sweating and her face felt clammy two towns later, and by the next town, her stomach felt like it was preparing for a gymnastics meet. She was forced to pull over and take deep breaths. Almost as soon as she started driving again, she pulled over and hurled into a sketchy gas station bathroom toilet. She sat back against the dirty bathroom wall and sighed.

It was going to be a long ride.

A few days later, Bayleigh was making her way North, hopefully in a different direction than Sam and her sister.

Speaking of, how the hell did they find each other? There was no way that they just let her out just cause. Not someone like her. Evvie had only been able to get Bayleigh out by pure chance and a stroke of luck. So, to Bayleigh, the only other obvious answer was that they had let her out to find her, and somehow her and Sam and crossed paths. She wanted to call Dean, to warn him about his brother, but when ever she picked up the phone, her fingers couldn't find the hunter's phone number. Now she was passing through Illinois going 20 over the speed limit on a deserted highway. Her heart was racing and her cheeks were flushed for no reason. She felt her heartbeat pound up into her throat as the sky darkened into night and she pulled into town.

She stopped at a mini mart to buy something for dinner, heart still racing like she'd run a marathon. What she really wanted for dinner was a steak, rare with a baked potato and a salad with balsamic dressing. Her mouth watered at the thought. But she ended up just buying a bag of cheddar and caramel Bugles and a Snapple. Somehow her fingers also landed on a king-sized Three Musketeers bar. She paid for her dinner and exited the store, making a b-line for her car. Before she could reach for her keys, she was stopped in her tracks by one word:

"Amare?"

She turned ever so slightly and she thought her heart was going to thrust itself through her chest and onto the asphalt. Perenna was standing several feet away, her face earnest. Sam stood behind her, over-sized in comparison to Perenna's tiny and feminine figure. Bayleigh had moments to wonder if that's what she looked like with him before something else caught her eye.

She opened her mouth- "Sam, run!"

It was already too late.