Raise Hell

Chapter 2: The Best Friend

           Sensing her silent surrender, Ellen lets out a small, satisfied hum. "Good. Alright. You calm?"

          Fearing that any words she utters will betray her, Alex only lets out a small grunt.

           Ellen snorts. "OK then. Look, I've been trying to get in touch with the boys' daddy for a while now, and a few days ago they showed up at the roadhouse instead. Once they did a case for me they were about to hit the road again and go after the same ugly son of a bitch that has caused you nothing but pain and grief these past eighteen years. So, I might have mentioned to them that I know someone that has personal experience with the thing that they're hunting."

          "Yet another thing I'm pissed about," Alex can't refrain from biting out, practically sensing the pointed glare that she receives for doing so on the other end of the line. "You had no right to tell them anything about me. I told you everything in confidence- Noah and I trusted you to keep everything to yourself-"

          "Which is why I didn't spill the damn truth in the first place!" Ellen exclaims. "Or most of it, anyway. C'mon, Alex. You really think after all these years I'd go running my mouth and telling two boys that I don't even really know about business that's not my concern to share?"

          It only takes Alex a few moments to really consider Ellen's words of assurance before she feels most of the fight drain out of her. She pulls the phone down to her chest as an involuntary breath of relief bursts from her lips, and she reaches up with her free hand to pinch the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger to ward off the tears. The more reasonable side of her knows that there is no way that Ellen would betray her trust like that. The older woman and her family are people that Noah and she have been able to count on since day one, and if Ellen was asked to keep a secret then she would. She's trustworthy like that.

           But still. This hadn't been what she was expecting when thinking about what lay ahead of her upon returning to Jackson. She had been expecting a relaxing, normal three weeks filled with working at the pool and spending some time with her loved ones, taking the quiet time to catch her breath and settle into her usual routine once more. But what does she get instead? A couple of strangers digging into a past that she's been running and hiding from for as long as she can remember. She thought that she wouldn't have to deal with it ever again after Santa Rosa. Clearly, she had been wrong.

           Reopening her eyes, she brings the phone back up to her ear. The burning need to find out what the Winchesters had been told about her outweighs the anger that still lingers within her, so she asks in a much calmer tone, "So what did you tell them?"

           If Ellen is surprised by the sudden change of attitude then she doesn't voice her opinion on it. She only explains, "All I said was that I knew someone who knows a whole lot about the demon that they're hunting- maybe even more so than their father, and he tracked the bastard for almost twenty-three years."

          "Well, you lied to them then. Because I know jack squat."

           "Honey, you, Noah and the rest of your family have had enough experience with this thing to last a lifetime. That's gotta count for something."

           Enough experience to last a lifetime. Alex reaches up absentmindedly and begins to fiddle with the gold locket resting at the base of her throat. Yeah. That about sums it up.

           "And I know that you have your reasons for not working with other hunters. But these boys- what they're hunting is bigger than anything that they've come across and they don't have their daddy around to watch their backs anymore. They haven't come close to finding it and I hate to say this, but you haven't either. I just thought that you all had a better chance of figuring some way to find and kill it by working together."