The Hunter

The sound of a set of pool balls breaking cracked the air as a group of rowdy, half-drunk men corralled around the table. The sound of some old honky-tonk song played from an old jukebox against the side of the wall and the neon lights around it read off a few popular beer brands. The entire population of the bar was crowded around the table, which wasn’t saying much since there weren’t that many people in the small town that wanted to go to a bar at the ungodly hour they were gathered there. On one end of the table, stood a burly looking man who looked like he never lost anything; not a game of pool, poker, an arm wrestling match, or a fight. He looked like he would deck anyone who could beat him and not break a sweat. On the other end stood a slender, yet tall woman who didn’t look a day over twenty.

Noora was playing—more like illegally gambling—to try and patch together a solid grand to get a new transmission or fix the clutch. She figured a grand would be a decent amount and if she got to keep some change afterwards, she didn’t have a problem with that either. Dean was seemingly no use to her anymore and seemingly had zero interest in helping her repair her car, so she let the Winchester brothers be for the moment and decided to worry about herself for a change. They were nowhere to be found in the bar or at the hotel when she started her walk to the bar and she preferred it that way. Of course, she knew they’d be in for a tongue lashing from Bobby if he found out they left her and that thought gave her a bit of satisfaction. She could only imagine the man growling insults at the brothers.

The girl lined up a shot, calling it before she easily sunk it into the back pocket of the pool table, amidst a roaring crowd of men. They had all gathered around the table to see the poor girl lose, and now it seemed they were surprised that she could even make a shot. She strolled around the table, eyeing the striped balls before lining up her next shot; the men giving her a generous berth to do so. She called the shot once more and sunk it again, the crowd cheering once more. The man she was playing against was turning a bit red, jaw clenching angrily, as he felt like he was being duped. When he had agreed to the little round of pool for a hundred, he’d thought it to be easy cash. He had been terribly mistaken, but that’s what Noora counted on. Who would expect a girl like her to be able to rule a game of pool like she could?

Within a matter of minutes, the girl had sunk all but the eight ball and it was apparent that she was going to win the game. By this time, the population of rowdy, now fully drunk, men were watching with bated breath as the girl poised the pool stick for the final shot of the game. The brute at the other end of the table was gripping the pool stick, white-knuckled and eyes bulging angrily. With on more quick thrust of the pool stick, Noora put the eight ball in the corner pocket of choice, her expression impassive as she righted herself and looked over at the man. He merely stared back, as if he were contemplating whether or not he wanted to pay up. Noora lifted her beer to her lips and took a sip, not once taking her eyes off of the man.

The brute heaved a sigh and strolled over to her, hand digging into his pocket and pulling out the single bill the two had shaken on before they played. Noora took in from him without so much as a single gloat and stuffed the bill into her back pocket. She turned and strolled over to the wall, put up her pool stick, finished off her beer, and started out of the bar. As she shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and started back toward the hotel, she thought to herself ‘one down, just nine more to go’. Now all she had to do would be to find a bar where she could trick some pompous asshole into playing her in a game of pool.

When she got back from the not-so-long trip back to the hotel, she noticed the Impala was parked a few parking spots down from her currently useless Mustang. At least it looked pretty taking up a spot in the parking lot, which the same couldn’t be said of the rust-bucket, 80’s model Toyota that had parked dangerously close to her car. The woman paused for a moment in front of the two cars, raising a brow as she glanced between the two of them. A short hum left her before she turned and threw open the door to her hotel room. She all-but stomped her way over to the closet, wrenching one of the wire coat hangers from its interior. As she stepped back out of the room, she straightened out the hanger and stopped beside the passenger side of the truck.

Her eyes darted slowly around the parking lot, making sure no one was watching and that there were no cameras going to record what she was about to do. Once she verified that she was in the clear, she jammed the crooked end of the wire between the window and the door, sliding it down until she felt the locking mechanism of the door hit the end of the hanger. Gently, she wiggled it a bit until she heard the lock slide out of place. She quickly pulled the hanger from its place and pulled open the door.

“Going for a joyride in that old thing?” A voice asked from the sidewalk and Noora jumped, drew in a sharp gasp of air, and instinctively chucked the hanger in the direction of the voice. Dean easily sidestepped the bent piece of metal, watching Noora with an amused expression. Noora took a step back from the car and watched him with a perturbed look in her eye and pursed lips. They merely stared at each other for the longest time before Noora let out a heavy sigh through her nose.

“Do you see how close this jackass parked to my car?” She asked him, slipping into the driver’s seat and jamming her foot down on the break.

“So you break into his car?” Dean asked, slowly rounding the car and watching her with a raised brow.

“I’m moving his car for him. That way I don’t have to kill anyone if they ram into my car,” she said, disengaging the parking break. She slipped out of the rust bucket and glanced over to him. “See my point now?” She asked as she passed him, moving to the front of the truck and beginning to push it back. Thankfully the car easily rolled back with a bit of muscle work and Dean decided to jump in and help her. The two of them managed to push the car a few paces back from the parking spots.

“You know,” Dean said, slightly out of breath as they stopped, “this is bordering on ridiculous…and obsessive.”

“No, ridiculous is this person’s inability to park,” she murmured as she reached over to the steering wheel and turned it so that the truck, with a little push, would slide into a parking spot one away from Noora’s car. “Just because my car can’t run doesn’t mean I want some dick to scratch it with his shitty truck.” She pushed away from the car and stepped around to the rear bumper. She positioned her hands on it and the rolling tetanus shot slid right into the parking lot she wanted it to be in, with a few stops and adjustments of the steering wheel, of course.

Noora punched the lock on the door down and closed it, grinning triumphantly at her handiwork before starting back to her hotel room without another glance back at Dean. The male hunter watched her for a few moments before clearing his throat. She paused in the doorframe and spun slowly, looking up at him with raised brows.

“I take it you don’t have the money offhand to pay for a clutch or transmission,” he murmured, eyes watching the woman in the doorway closely. She merely rolled her eyes and let out a heavy sigh through her nose, looking away for a moment. “What’re you doing to get the money?” He asked. Noora let out a soft laugh and looked back at him, leaning back against the doorjamb.

“Prostitution; what’s it to you anyways?” She shot at him in a nonchalant manner, crossing her arms over her chest. It was Dean’s turn to roll his eyes then and he gave Noora a less-than amused look.

“Look, Bobby’s not going to be very grateful if we just ditch you here with a useless car. So, I need to know if I can foot the bill any to help get you out of here,” he said, letting out a soft sigh afterwards. Noora cut her eyes slightly at him, eyeing him for a moment before pulling her bottom lip between her teeth.

“I’m hustling pool. I’ve already got a hundred for it,” she said in a low voice, as if she didn’t exactly approve of it.

“You play pool?” Dean questioned, looking a bit shocked. Noora’s eyes widened a bit and she nodded.

“I play a damn good game of pool. It makes swindling bulky guys who think they can beat me out of money so easy when you’re a girl,” she murmured, no sense of joy on her features at all. “I’ve got to find another bar in town and hope I can find someone else to play. If not, I’ve got to hit the same bar and pray to everything that’s holy there’s a different crowd.”

“And you don’t like winning money that way?” Dean questioned.

“Hell no,” Noora said, face curling slightly, “I feel bad for the poor guys, but that doesn’t stop me from getting what I need. I don’t look old enough to swindle credit cards so all I have are sad fucks who think they’re good at pool.” Dean studied her for a moment, mouth twisted to the side before he let out a soft hum. “It’s late. I’m turning in and you should probably do the same,” she said, stepping into her room and going to shut the door. Then, as if she gave his presence a second thought, she popped her head through the door. “Oh, and just a helpful hint—don’t startle me again. I tend to throw shit,” she said with a sarcastic smile before shutting the door, locking it, and sliding the chain into place.



Early the next morning, just as the sunlight was beginning to stream beneath the thick curtain, there came an insistent knocking on Noora’s hotel room door. Thankfully, the woman was already awake and ingesting her second cup of coffee or she would be seriously peeved at whoever decided knocking on doors was polite. She stood, steaming Styrofoam cup of coffee in hand, and peeked through the peephole before sighing heavily. The female hunter slid the chain from the lock and flipped open the lock with the flip of her wrist. Pulling open the door, she gave the two hunters on the other side a less-than interested look, bright eyes slipping between the two of them.

“Bobby called us early this morning with a case up in Montana,” Sam started, pushing his hair back and out of his face. “We were wondering if you wanted to come with us.” The apprehension was clear on Noora’s features the moment Sam got the sentence out and she sighed again.

“He said that this case is pretty dangerous as we’re probably going to have to go down into some mines. We figured that it’d be safer if there were three of us than just two,” Dean explained, watching her closely. Noora still looked a bit apprehensive before she took a sip of her coffee. “Bobby also said that he’d get one of his friends to tow your car and bring it back to his place until we got done with the case. He also said that if you could get the money, he’d get a transmission lined up for you.” The woman looked like she was seriously thinking about it for a moment before she looked up at the two of them and gave a conceding nod.

“Alright, I’ll go,” she murmured, pursing her lips together, “just give me some time to pack up and that’ll give you time to call Bobby and get that tow truck on the way here.” She turned and closed the door to her room, setting her coffee down to pack the few things she had brought with her into the room.

About thirty minutes later, Noora was leaving her room, her portable devil’s trap safely locked away in the back of her Mustang. She quickly went to the front office of the hotel and paid for her room before stepping back outside and looking for Sam and Dean. She didn’t really want to go on a case with them, but she figured it’d be better than sitting around a hotel room and trying to earn the money she needed. Besides, she did a little research and the town near where she had broken down in had nothing out of the ordinary. She knew she was forgoing the case she had in Oklahoma, but she didn’t necessarily have a way to get there at the moment. Actually solving a case was better than sitting on her haunches and not doing anything, right?

Her eyes slipped over the parking lot, lingering for a moment on her car, before she glanced over to the rumbling Impala. A heavy sigh left her as she rounded the car and slipped into the back seat, putting her large, heavy duffle in the seat beside her. The long black car rolled backwards before Dean pulled out of the parking lot, turning up the old rock he had playing on the cassette player.

“So, where in Montana are we going?” She asked softly after they’d been on the road for a while and she’d been secluded in the backseat for long enough.

“We’re going to Basin. It’s a small place, very few residents, but two pretty damn haunted mines,” Dean said and Noora let out a heavy sigh, staring at the back of his head.

“Any leads onto what exactly is going on there?” She questioned, lifting a brow as her eyes slowly drifted between him and his brother.

“Vengeful spirit? Poltergeist? We know it’s a destructive ghost, but it could be just about anything at this moment,” Sam said, turning and looking at her over the back of the chair. Noora nodded slowly and scratched the back of her head, staring out of the window for a moment.

“A ghost in a mine,” she murmured, twisting her lips to the side as she leaned back into the chair with a heavy sigh. “Good thing none of us are claustrophobic, huh,” she added softly, eyes slipping between the brothers in the front seat with lifted brows.

“We’ve been in worse,” Dean murmured with a shrug. Noora merely let out a soft hum and continued to look out the window, bottom lip pulled between her teeth. Her eyes slipped back over to the eldest Winchester brother and she grinned crookedly.

“Worse than a rickety old mine that probably has seen more death than the three of us combined?” She questioned rhetorically. “Yeah, I’m not exactly looking forward to being trapped in a place that has one way in and one way out with a pissed off ghost,” she continued, eyeing the brothers. “Granted, I’ll be a hell of a lot happier there than in a stinky hotel room in a town with one bar, but…mines aren’t exactly ideal when dealing with anything, let alone ghosts. We’ll have a lot more to worry about than a ghost in those places,” she finished.

“What do you mean?” Dean asked, brow furrowed slightly as he glanced in the rearview mirror at Noora. The girl let out a heavy sigh and slowly shook her head.

“Did you not listen in American history?” She asked, lifted a brow. Sam let out a soft laugh and that caused Dean to frown a bit at his brother.

“No. No, he didn’t,” Sam replied, to which Dean let out a loud huff of air and got an extremely affronted expression on his features.

“I listened,” he defended and both Sam and Noora gave him a look before the girl drew in a deep breath of air and continued on.

“Obviously not, if you don’t know that mines are horrible places,” she told him. “We’re going to have to worry about getting lost. We’re going to have to worry about the lights cutting off and plunging us into pitch black and then there’s the Tommy Knockers and cave-ins. Not to mention fighting off a ghost? This case is going to be a right doozy, “she finished, rubbing her eye a bit before crossing her arms over her chest and watching the brothers.

“Good thing we asked you to come along then,” Dean murmured grimly. His brow then furrowed a bit and he glanced back at Noora for a moment before returning his eyes back to the road. “Tommy Knockers? Sounds dirty.”

“Tommy Knockers are an older timer term for ghosts, but now they’re mainly known to miners. Rumor has it, Tommy Knockers will either warn you when the mines about to fold in on itself or they’ll just give you hell for screwing around in their mines,” she said, shrugging a bit. “A Tommy Knocker can be a miner’s saving grace or the reason that they end up dead.”

“Are you sure we’re not dealing with a Tommy Knocker to begin with?” Sam questioned and Noora shrugged again.

“It’s definitely a possibility. I haven’t had time to research it, but it very well could be a very angry Tommy Knocker,” she murmured, returning her eyes back out the window and watching the scenery.

What was supposed to be a prospective fourteen hour drive turned into a prospected sixteen hour drive when Dean and Noora couldn’t pick a place they wanted to stop at and eat some lunch. Dean wanted to eat at a roadside burger place and Noora wanted Chinese takeout. The two argued it out for a solid thirty minutes in the parked car at the diner parking lot before Noora decided she was going to walk the two blocks to the Chinese place. Poor Sam had to deal with listening to the two squabble, then eat his lunch while Dean glowered on about the stubborn girl that would soon reoccupy the backseat of his car.

“I don’t even know why we decided to invite her,” Dean grumbled as he strode back to the car, brow pulled low over his eyes.

“Because it’ll be safer down the road for the two of us, I mean, you heard what she was saying about the mine,” Sam rebutted, glancing over to his brother with raised brows. “Maybe if you learned how to compromise-”

“I need to learn how to compromise?” Dean asked, looking absolutely affronted with what his brother was suggesting. “How about she learns to compromise? She’s the one tagging along with us and riding in the backseat of my car,” he told Sam as he pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked his car. Just as he did that, he spotted Noora stepping down the sidewalk towards the Impala, bag of take-out in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

She paid no attention to either of the brothers, her expression stoic and the dark aviator glasses she wore hiding her eyes from the two of them. Sam sent a poignant look to Dean as the woman lowered herself into the back seat as the brothers followed suit. Soon enough, they were on the road back to Montana and silence had settled amongst the three hunters. With a heavy sigh, Noora lifted the plastic bag of food and lowered it between the two brothers in the front seat.

“I got you two some eggrolls,” she murmured, turning her head to look back out the window as the scenery passed by. Dean turned and looked over the seat and Noora for a brief moment before returning his eyes to the road, shaking his head a bit as they barreled down the highway.