Wanted Dead or Alive | 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑

16 - DEVIL'S TRAP

SEASON 1, EPISODE 22

Wherever the Winchesters were, they weren't in any motel Mara knew. Every time Meg had sent her to them in the past, they'd been in a hotel or on a case, but now...Mara had no idea where they were.

Mara was standing outside of a two-story house. It was old-looking, its windows shuttered and its pipes falling apart, and as the harsh wind blew against the edges of Mara's face, the hubcaps that decorated the outside of the house began to wiggle. It was amusing, in its own distorted sort of way. The way the hubcaps were blowing in submission to the wind's force - it was almost as if they were waving at her.

Mara scoffed. What a warm welcome.

She walked up to the front door, her footsteps light as they ventured across the leaf-stridden yard beneath her feet. She passed a rusted, blue pick-up truck, a big dog lounging atop its hood, and she patted its head when it whined at her. As she drew closer to the house's porch, she could hear faint fragments of the words the Winchesters were speaking.

"I'll tell you something else, too," an unfamiliar, but not unkind, voice grunted. "This is some serious crap you boys stepped in."

"Oh yeah? How's that?" another, gentler voice answered. An uneasy feeling wormed through the bottom of Mara's stomach. She recognized that voice - it belonged to Sam.

She raised her hand to knock on the front door, and when she brought her knuckles down on the peeling paint, the Winchesters' mumbling quieted. She heard a click like the cocking of a shotgun, and suddenly a crack of space appeared between the door and the doorframe.

The door swung wide open. Dean, Sam, Kat, and a man Mara didn't know were standing side by side, Kat with her hand still on the doorknob. Her eyes lit up and, without a moment's hesitation, she leapt forward and wrapped her arms around Mara.

"Mara!" she gasped.

Mara smiled, relishing in the hug she was receiving. Alas, nothing good lasted too long, and Dean's brusque words broke the two's embrace as he grumbled, "Where have you been?"

The reaper's lips remained shut. She simply stared back at Dean, unsure what to say. She stared at the stray pieces of hair on his head that refused to obey the gel he wore. Her eyes were locked on the plump lips that decorated his face, the sort of lips that no man should be allowed to have. His emerald irises were unmoving as they stared back at her, eyebrows knitted together at the tips and wavering between his fondness for Mara and the suspicions he had about her.

"You disappear out of nowhere all the time. You pop up randomly, and you always refuse to tell us why," Dean ranted with an obstinate shake of his head. "And for some reason, despite claiming to be a reaper, you never seem to have to actually reap anyone. So are you gonna tell us what's going on?"

Sam whipped his hand out to nudge his brother's shoulder, his voice tight and strained as he snapped, "Right now? Really?"

Dean threw his hands in the air just to let them fall back down to his sides. "Yes, really. How do we know she's not a demon?"