"You guys got room for three more?" Dean asks as the three climb out of the car.
"Wait, you wanna come with us?" Haley asks.
"Who are these guys?" The man, who Nevaeh hasn't met before, says. And girl, but ok.
"Apparently, this is all the Park Service could muster up for the search," the girl says, and Nevaeh grins. Sassy. She likes this girl.
"You're rangers?"
"That's right," Nevaeh answers the man.
"And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?" Haley asks Dean. Nevaeh turns to him with a raised eyebrow. Then she turns to Haley. "They make him feel less masculine." She ridicules which earns a chuckle from Haley.
Dean glares at Nevaeh, who takes off walking following after Sam, and then looks down at his pants. "Well, sweetheart, I don't do shorts," he says and starts walking past Haley, following after Nevaeh.
"Hey, Sam-ster," she says, finally catching up with his long strides, and he smiles, slowing down a bit. He offers her water. She shakes her head and pats her bag. "Already got some."
She looks down at her shoes. "Man, I need hiking boots."
She hears Dean's faint voice grow as everyone else begins to gain up on them.
"Excuse me," the man says, grabbing on to Nevaeh's backpack and stopping her in her tracks.
"You're excused," Nevaeh frowns as he steps in front of her. She looks up at Sam, whose jaw muscle is ticking from being clamped shut. His eyes are still trained on the man, glaring.
"Who's he supposed to be?" Nevaeh asks, and starts walking. She hadn't even did him anything. What the hell is his problem?
"He's supposed to be a helper. Isn't doing much helping, though," Sam scoffs.
"Hey, mister," Nevaeh calls after him.
"Roy," he corrects.
"Well, Roy," she jeers, "you said you did a little hunting."
"Yeah, more than a little."
"Uh-huh. What kind of furry critters do you hunt?"
"Mostly bucks, sometimes bear."
The corner of her lip curls, taunting. "Tell me, Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?" She steps over a log, and the man grips her bag aggressively, pulling her back again. Even as the man stares her down, her taunting grin doesn't waver. Her head tilts, her eyes squinted. If anything, the grin becomes even more taunting, almost challenging. Sam and Dean, on the other hand, aren't grinning. Their expressions are mirrored, clenched jaws, eyes narrowed, and bodies tense and rigid.
"What'cha doing, Roy?" She asks, not breaking eye contact.
He finally lets her bag go, and bends down, her eyes following him as he jams a stick into the bear trap where, in an alternate universe, her left leg would be trapped between.
"Helping you out, little girl," he snarls and at that moment, her expression contorts into something bile. Little girl. She hates those words. "You should watch where you're steppin'."
"Sure thing," she spits, and he walks away. "Bear trap," she turns to Sam and looks back at Dean, shrugging and continues walking. When she glances over her shoulders, she sees Dean and Haley conversing.
As she strides next to Sam, following after that dickhead and deep in thought, she realizes something. "Hey, Sam," she asks, "do you ever have, like, weird dreams?"
He looks over at her, as if she'd just said the most ridiculous thing. "All the time, you have to be a bit more specific though."
She looks all around them, over her shoulder, and licks her lips. She knows that it's a stretch, but she also think it's weird that this blond girl was in her—vision? Halicinatinon? She isn't sure what to call it— about Sam's burning apartment, just as it was happening, and now she's dreaming of her, as well as funerals, graves, and death."Like, for example, reoccurring dreams of this one blonde girl?"
That gets Sam attention. His head swings in her direction. "What kind of dreams are you talking about?"
"I don't know how to explain it. But, like, death. And she was in that... vision, or whatever, that I had about your burning apartment. And now I'm having dreams about her, and they're unclear, but all I feel is grief when I wake up. As if I've lost someone I deeply cared about."
Sam frowns. "Describe her."
Nevaeh pauses for a moment, trying to grasp the girl's face. "She's beautiful. Wavy hair, uh... and a beauty mark," she touches the spot right in between her eyebrows, "right here."
When Sam doesn't say anything after a while, she looks up at him to see him frowning, deep in thought. "Sam?"
He looks at her, as if snapping back into reality. "Uh, she was my girlfriend. Jess. She was there."
Nevaeh looks down. "I'm sorry," she says.
He shakes his head. "S'not your fault."
"This is it. Blackwater Ridge," Roy says.
Nevaeh looks up at Sam. "No really," she mouths, mockingly and he chuckles.
"What coordinates are we at?" Sam asks the know-it-all.
"Thirty-five at minus 111."
Dean comes up to Sam and Nevaeh. "You hear that?"
"Yeah," Nevaeh and Sam reply in unison.
"Nothing," she says.
"Not even crickets," Sam says.
"I'm gonna go take a look around," Roy says, drawing the trio's attention.
Nevaeh turns back around, not even bothering to comment on his idiotic suggestion.
"You shouldn't go off by yourself," Sam says.
"Yes he should," Nevaeh murmurs and Dean agrees, but still plucks her arm. She elbows him.
"That's sweet. Don't worry about me," the man mocks and Nevaeh rolls her eyes. "He's the type of person to make you bitch slap him, and then look at you like you're the jackass with no home training." Sam and Dean both nod in agreement.
"All right, everybody stays together. Let's go," Dean says.
"Haley! Over here!" The group hear's Roy call from a distance and they all take off running towards the voice. Nevaeh's the first to find Roy, followed by the rest of the group.
"Oh my god," Hayley breathes.
"Looks like a grizzly," Nevaeh says, examining the ruins of Tommy's tent. She doesn't think it is, but it's best not to worry Haley after seeing all of the blood, claw marks, and torn up tent.
"Tommy?" Hayley calls for her brother. "Tommy!" The girl calls again, louder this time and Nevaeh shushes her. "Why?" She asks.
"It might still be out there," she says.
"Nevaeh!" She hears Dean call. She looks up, and she hears it again. She looks behind her, and she walks towards his voice. She finds him along with Sam crouching down. She crouches down next to them.
"The bodies were dragged from the campsite. But here, the tracks just vanish."
"Weird," she says, her eyes following the tracks. They all stand up.
"I'll tell you what. It's no Skinwaller or Black Dog," Dean says. Nevaeh nods and walks off.
She finds Haley crouched down with a broken satellite phone in her hand. She crouches down next to him. "Hey," she coos, "he could still be alive." Haley's eyes meets hers, and Nevaeh couldn't help but think of her own brother. He could still be alive.
"Help!"
That grabs everyone's attention. The group takes off into the direction of the sound and Nevaeh sighs, feeling as if she'd lost a few pounds already with all the running she's been doing. I deserve a burger, she thinks.
As Nevaeh's running, she realizes that the closer she runs to the voice screaming for help, the farther it sounds. She stops, and so does everyone else.
"It seemed like it was coming from around here, didn't it?" Haley says.
Nevaeh doesn't answer the girl, trying to listen for anything. She hears nothing. Strange.
"Everybody back to the camp," she turns to the group, giving Dean and Sam a look.
They all run back to camp, only to find all of their bags missing. "Our packs," Haley says.
"So much for my GPS and my satellite phone," Roy says, crouching.
"What the hell's going on?" Haley asks and Nevaeh turns to her. "It's smart. It wants to cut is off so we can't call for help."
"You mean someone, some... nut job out there just stole all our gear."
Nevaeh ignores Roy, and grabs Dean and Sam by their arms, "I need to speak with you two... in private." She walks them to an area where she's sure the rest of the group won't hear. "Wendigo," she breathes, and Sam frowns.
"Let me see Dad's journal," he tells Dean and begins flipping through the pages when Dean hands it to him. He nods. "Could be possible," he angles the journal in Dean's direction when he's found the page he was looking for. "all right. Check that out."
"Oh, come on," Dean says, unsure, "Wendigos are in the Minnesota woods or northern Michigan. I've never even heard of one this far west."
"Think about it, Dean," Nevaeh says, "the claws... the way it could mimic a human voice," she points to the journal.
"Great. Well, then this is useless," Dean gestures to his gun.
"You weren't using it anyways," she says and walks back towards the group.
"All right, listen up. It's time to go. Things have gotten...more complicated," Nevaeh tells the group.
"What?" Haley asks, and Nevaeh turns to her, prepared to deliver an explanation before she's interrupted by Roy.
"Kid," he says, and Nevaeh eyes snap to him, "don't worry. Whatever's out there, I think I can handle it."
Nevaeh takes a deep breath. "It's not me I'm worried about. If you shoot this thing, you're just gonna make it mad. We have to leave, now."
"One, you're talking nonsense, two you're in no position to give anybody orders, girl," the man spits, and Nevaeh's eyes narrow.
"Relax," Dean warns and Roy glances at Dean before turning back to Nevaeh.
"Look, man, we never should have let you come out here in the first place. I'm doing your ass a favor, trying to protect you."
"You, protect me?" The man moves closer to Nevaeh. She doesn't move, doesn't even flinch. She stands her ground. "I was hunting these woods when your mommy was still kissing you good night."
"Yeah?" Nevaeh moves closer, "it's a damn near perfect hunter. It's smarter than you. And it's gonna hunt you down and eat you alive unless we get you stupid, sorry ass out of here."
The man laughs in Nevaeh's face, which really ticks her off. "Girl, you know you're crazy, right?"
She's really tired of this man's shit. "Yeah? You ever hunt a Wen—" just then she's yanked back by her belt loop, unable to finish her sentence.
"Whoa, hey, easy there hothead." Dean grips her shoulders and spins her around to face him. "Cool it down, alright? What, you saw red or something?" He jokes, and she rolls her eyes.
"Stop. Stop it. Everybody just stop," Nevaeh heard and she turns to Haley to find her eyes already trained on her. "Look, Tommy might still be alive. And I'm not leaving here without him."
"It's getting late," Dean says, after a brief moment. "This thing is a good hunter in the day, but an unbelievable hunter at night. We'll never beat it, not in the dark."
Haley looks convinced, fearful even, but Roy, of course Roy, is back there mocking Dean. So childish. Nevaeh shakes her head.
"We need to settle in and protect ourselves," Dean finishes.
"How?" Haley asks.
••••••••••••••••••
"One more time, that's...?"
Nevaeh glances over her shoulder at Haley, almost finished with the symbol. "Anasazi symbols. Uh," she moves over to draw another one, Haley following after her, "it's for our protection. The Wendigo can't cross over them," she explains.
Roy laughs. She ignores him. Why the hell is he listening in on their conversation anyway?
"Nobody likes a skeptic, Roy," Dean calls, drawing symbols on the other side of the camp.
"If it makes you feel any better," Haley whispers next to her ear, "I don't like him either," she says and Nevaeh chuckles. She glances behind her and sees Dean and Sam perched on a log, talking.
"Help me!" Nevaeh hears in the same voice as earlier, but this time, she doesn't take off running. She looks back at the group to make sure that they do the same. Nevaeh grabs her gun from her side and cocks it.
"It's trying to draw us out," Dean tells the group. "Just stay cool. Stay put."
"Inside the magic circle," Roy says.
"Step out of it then," she dares him.
They continue to hear pleas coming from different directions. And then a growl. "Okay, that's no grizzly," Roy says.
"No, really?" Nevaeh says, "thanks for the clarification we've been trying to provide you this whole time." She wonders just how mad the group would be with her if she accidentally knocked Roy out of the magic circle and fed him to the hungry Wendigo.
Nevaeh hears a growl a little closer to her ear, but she doesn't move, knowing it's just the Wendigo trying to lure her out of the camp. "Don't shoot," she tells the group. And not even a minute after she instructs the group not to shoot, the asshole shoots.
"I hit it," Roy yells, running out into the woods and the creature shrieks.
"Roy, no!" Dean yells, trying to stop him but of course, he doesn't listen. Dean takes off after Roy and Sam follows. Nevaeh pauses, and she doesn't take off running until Dean and Sam do. She isn't about to risk her life for that asshole. "Please don't move," she tells Haley and her brother.