Fuel

The victim had like the other no heart, but this time it was a real mess. Not just the heart was missing; the whole body was ripped into pieces. The once handsome man, who starred with terrified, dead blue eyes into space and his black hair was sticky from the blood in it.
A police officers standing next to Aly and Caleb shook his head and mumbled.

“It looks as if the wild animal gets angrier with each victim. Maybe it has a grudge against people of the town?”

Aly took a look at the body getting a feeling of deja vu. Then her phone buzzed. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted him pointing behind the police line like an annoying child wanting a toy at the mall.

She checked the phone as the young detective mentioned a grudge.

Then the commotion started. She tapped his shoulder and pointed to Rome, getting a low growl from him.

"I saw him with Lenna!" Rome shouted while officers held him back.

Aly closed her eyes and sighed before pulling Caleb aside. The officers were doing well enough with Rome for now.

"Caleb, is it possible for a werewolf to hide in a band of hunters?"

Caleb sniffed, hiding the sudden shake in his composure by stepping towards the mangled body to take a closer look before returning to Allison.

"In theory at least, but that's not something that's easy to hide. You'd need to be scars all over to hide a bite," Caleb answered, andling both Allison and himself so the police and the gathering local news teams couldn't read their lips, "I know I wouldn't try it in their situation."

She pulled him aside.

"We need to talk to Rome about Lenna--leave the work to the cowboys." She murmured.

Caleb turned back to the cops, looking around the scene and at the body.

"This ... the MO ... the victim. This doesn't match the profile for either killer. But it's too brutal for a simple copy cat," Caleb said, as if thinking out loud before turning back to Allison, "He's starting to slip. We need to go back to the drawing board."

He led her away from the scene with a cold air of authority that cleared a path through the crowd well ahead of him. He jammed his hands into his pockets to hide his cut knuckles. His eyes locked on Rome, promising an ass-kicking.

Rome got through the first line of cops by shouting "Hey, I know that guy, he was with Lenna! I can ID the body!"

Aly and Claeb glared at him. He grinned internally and surveyed the body. "Yeah, that's definitely Steve. The guy who ran off with my sister!"

"Actually, his ID says 'Adam'..." the cop said.

"Uh. Oh. Really?" Rome considered the body again. It sorta looked like the guy Elenna left with, but without a face it was hard to tell.

"Come on, kid, let's go," a cop said, pulling his shoulder, "you shouldn't be here."

"No! Wait! Uh..."

Caleb grinned evilly. "Yeah, kid, you better go on back where you belong."

Something in Rome snapped. And anyway, this was probably as good a way as any to leave together: "And who the hell asked you, old man?"

"Come on kid. You've just had one too many. We'll drop you off at the drunk tank on the way back to the motel," Caleb answered, grabbing Rome and pushing him against a car as he cuffed him and dragged him off.

Caleb shoved Rome into the back seat and engaged the child lock on the doors before heading for the driver's seat and turning over the ignition. The truck roared into life, the radio blaring, the lights flashing and the fans blasting hot air down his throat. Caleb fumbled to turn everything off as Rome laughed hysterically in the back seats. Until Caleb slammed the truck into first, let the clutch jump and then slammed on the brakes, throwing Rome forwards into the driver's seat.

"Don't screw with my truck again Rome," Caleb ordered before dragging him from the rear footwell and putting on his seatbelt for him.

"Holy sh*t!" Rome cried as he pitched forward, unable to protect himself while handcuffed, accepting yet another significant bruise. "What the hell, Daly?" Rome demanded as the older man righted him and strapped a seatbelt on. "You trying to kill me?!"

"Rome, I'm large and you're brittle and handcuffed. Rethink your options. Don't tempt me."

Rome paused. Now that the spike of pain had passed, this was kinda funny. He tried to remain serious and angry, but a definite grin showed through as he laughed, "Frack you, Daly."

Aly turned around in her seat to face him, and the smile died on his lips. Aly's down-to-business look was more of a buzz-kill than Caleb's general douchiness.

Aly grinned as Caleb further fattened Rome's lip with the back of his seat.

"Don't whine, you deserved that." She sat up and turned around with her serious face glaring at him.

"Alright, everything you know about Elenna Fee now."

"What? Why?"

"Rome--just tell me."

"I, ah..."

Yeah, okay, funny moment gone. Rome furrowed his brow, trying to remember that night. A night he usually tried to forget.

"Uh. Okay. Um. She was last here, she--she met a hunter, don't know his name. He was tracking a werewolf, and Elenna was curious and he let her help, I, ah, I think he lied to her, saying it was for a book or something. The guy eventually bagged his wolf, but I guess too late. It got her brother."

Aly just about fell out of her chair, seatbelt or no, and Caleb veered wildly.

"What? Her brother was a werewolf?"

Rome nodded. He felt dirty betraying Elenna's trust like this, but there was nothing for it. He would literally do anything to help her right now.

"Yeah, didn't you--" Rome trailed off. "You mean you didn't know? Oh, of course you didn't know, she didn't tell you!"

"How the hell do you know?" Caleb asked.

Rome began to feel trapped. "She told me! Like, back when we met, when we--when I was--when we met. Her brother was the last werewolf, and he killed someone, and, and Elenna had to shoot him."

They were both looking at him strangely.

"She was, like, 14 or something. Poor kid, I mean, no wonder she's freaking out being back. Now you see why we have to find her? Why I have to help her?"

"Is that everything, Rome? This is important."

"Uh, yeah. That's why she doesn't like guns. That's why she talks to her car, it used to be his car.... Why the hell are you guys looking at each other like that?"

Aly swallowed hard.

"I'm sorry Rome. Is there any non-fatal test for a werewolf--or any other way of freeing a person from the wolf without killing them?"

"What're you..." Rome trailed off as the horrible realization caught up with him.

Okay, these handcuffs totally weren't funny anymore. "No. No! What the hell are you even thinking? Get me out of these fracking cuffs and let me out of this car!"

"Rome, we're not suggesting--" Caleb began.

"The hell you're not! She's not a werewolf! Are you guys crazy? Sure as hell not from five years ago! I would've picked up on this!"

Aly used her FBI voice. She felt horrible, but this was business now. People were dying.

"Rome, just calm down and think rationally! When did these murders stop--when she left--and when did they start again? The night we arrived. Was Lenna with anyone that night? No, she slept in the car in the same parking lot as the murder. She has completely lost it, Rome. She sold out the team and left with a man who is now dead."

She got him to look at her. His face was all puffy and swollen. She linked her hand around the back of his neck and brought his forehead to her lips. The truck swerved again.

"I'm sorry, Rome. I promise you we aren't jumping to conclusions. We won't go in there guns blazing"

"Speak for yourself."

She actually hit Caleb.

"I promise, we'll think about this. Rome, you need to trust me."

Rome frowned at Aly, wanting to trust her, but scared to. He was suddenly struck by how tired he felt, how crappy, how achey, and how generally terrible he felt.

And Caleb had stopped being funny. He kicked the back of his seat for emphasis.

"Please, please, let me go." He turned practiced doe-eyes on Aly. But instead of faking the fear and the loss, he just let it show through: a rare occurence. They looked the same, really, so it wasn't like it mattered, but he was serious. "Let me try to help her, please. I-I'll do better, I'll watch her, I'll stay the night with her and make sure she's not a wolf just please..." He struggled futilely against the cuffs, becoming frustrated.

"Rome." Aly's FBI-voice. "Give me your hands."

Rome bent around awkwardly so Aly could uncuff him. He rubbed his wrists. "Thanks," he said quietly. He still wasn't sure he wasn't going to bolt first chance he got, but he'd give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

They were pulling up to the hotel. Rome grabbed onto the back of the seat in front of him like it was the bar to a cage.

Aly and Caleb escorted Rome out of the truck and into the hotel where the girls were already waiting. There was no sign of Lenna. Aly didn't expect there to be anyway.

She sat down on the bed pulling Rome down next to her. They had a few minutes alone while everyone arrived. Her hand entwined in his as she pulled him to her for a hug. He rested his forehead on her collarbone breathing down onto her chest.

"Hey, could you take that somewhere else?" Caleb barked.

Aly ignored him for now, though it made her uncomfortable.

"It'll be okay, Rome." She brushed her lips against his in a comforting but chaste kiss. Then she pulled back but still held his hand as the others settled down.

Aly spoke first.

"Alright, I want everyone to think before reacting to what we've come up with. No one is going off half-cocked. We all do this together and we leave killing as a last resort--am I understood?"

Hesitant nods all around.

"We know we're dealing with a werewolf. According to our findings we think the wolf might be Elenna."

Restless whispers.

"I'm not done. At first I thought we had a reckless hunter to deal with, but when we found out that Lenna's brother was indeed a werewolf, and that she was present for his death, things began to make sense. I know I'm the new hunter and I don't know everything there is about werewolves--but you're going to listen to me. We want to make sure she's a werewolf before taking any extreme measures. If she is one, we're going to capture and sedate--not kill. The first person to draw a loaded gun gets a round from mine in their kneecap--got it?"

Rome relaxed resting his head on her breasts for a moment. He seemed to trust her now, but kept glaring at Caleb.

Just the thought of Elenna being a werewolf made Georgina sick to her stomach. Elenna's smiling face appeared in front of her. There is no way that girl is...
But sadly there was. Although Georgie had never fought against a werewolf before, she knew enough about them to realize how damn dangerous this situation was. And Aly mentioned that her brother was a werewolf too.
Poor Lenna. No wonder why she kept everything concerning her family to herself and didn't want to talk about it...
Georgina sighed and stared at the wall. Elenna's weird behavior, her outburst of temper, the coldness in her eyes...it all made sense now.

"So..." Georgie looked at Aly while struggling to find words. "There really is a possibility to...you know, turn her back, right?"

Aly quickly exchanged glances with the boys. "We'll do everything in our power..."

The thought that Lenna might be the werewolf sent shivers down Morrigan's spine. Had her brother's murderer been with her all this time and she hadn't even known it? She hadn't gotten any of those vibes from the seemingly crazed girl.

She looked over at everyone in the room- many of them were already bruised and battered, both emotionally and physically from the last few days. It was a horrible twist of fate that they had to go up against someone they'd called their friend, even if she somehow had been a terrible monster this whole time.

"I know I haven't know you guys long at all, but I hope you know that I'm with you on this. If there's any chance at all we can save her, we've got to try."

Rome was shaking his head, his shoulders bowed, fiddling with the bracelet on his wrist. He wished it would just glow already, call Rawson back, like the weird bat-signal-thing it was.

"No, no, there's nothing, there's no way to change someone back. And if there was, the only person who could figure it out would be Lenna," he said forlornly. Aly laid her hand on his knee, attempting to offer comfort, but it felt only stifling, like she was holding him there.

He fiddled with his bracelet. "Wait!" He almost leaped upright. "She can't be a werewolf, I mean, it's impossible! She has a silver bracelet that she always wears. Remember the skinwalker? She burned it with it when it grabbed her!" Rome felt better already, like, Ha!, almost good enough for a joke: "And as much as I'd like to forget this, I saw her practically naked, and I would have noticed any scars." He looked to Georgie eagerly, "You saw her, too, come on, G, help me out, chica. No scars, right? I mean, like, bite scars."

His face fell again. He couldn't excuse away that something was definitely wrong, though, and that werewolves only seemed to inhabit this town when she was in it. "And I checked her with holy water, nothing, and did you see the amount of salt on those fries she was chowing down on?" He grew bolder, his jokes more callous: "I mean, we could try fire," he said, with dark sarcasm, "but she is a witch, so that might actually work." He barked out a laugh that had nothing to do with anything being remotely funny about this.

"Rome. I'm almost certain Werewolves can touch silver when in human form," Caleb answered - more than almost certain, for short periods anyway, "And any Wolf I've seen would tear it right off once they change. One or two of the less stable ones might've gnawed their hand off instead though."

Casting his eyes around the room, Caleb admitted to himself that this situation sucked, but he put on the brave face and cast aside any trigger-happy bravado he'd used before to mess with Rome. He approached Rome slowly, his face hiding the pain of what he was about to say quite well. He kept his shoulders loose in case Rome tried to deliver a well-deserved sock to the jaw.

"Rome ... seeing her practically naked is not the same as stripping her down and searching for scars. If ... if she can't be sedated quickly enough, someone has to stop her before she can kill or turn anyone else," Caleb spoke softly, "I think she'd want it to be you. But if you're not up to it, I understand that."

Rome bristled, staring hard at Caleb, trying to figure out what he was saying.

Caleb wanted him to kill her? Because, what, he was her best friend? Because wasn't that so freaking poetic?

That was insane. Caleb was insane. He wasn't going to agree to that!

But if he didn't...someone else would.

He had to go with it.

Rome frowned at Caleb, searching his face for a weak spot as he let his eyes well with tears. "But...but we don't even know for sure if..."

"I'm saying if we know for sure, Romulus. Only if we know."

Rome looked at his shoes, and then he nodded. "Yeah," he gasped, and when he looked up he'd managed actual tears this time. "Let me do it." He drew his sleeve across his nose, looking vulnerable, small, but very determined. "I'll do it."

Like hell I will! Rome screamed inside his head, but not a shred of this showed on his face. Rome wasn't a fighter. He wasn't even very smart, except with computers and mechanical things. But he did talking, he did people like no one's business, and when Rome set his tongue to forked mode, he could tell God that he'd never committed the sin of fornication in his life.

Allison noted the sadness in Caleb's eyes as he spoke to Rome. This was cutting very close to home for him, though she couldn't imagine why.

She stood and brought Rome with her.

"There will be no killing." Her eyes leveled on Caleb. He looked as if he had heard that before. She followed his eyes around the room and first the first time noticed how agitated he was--like he was scared. The gruff exterior was only for show.

She tugged on Rome's sleeve and took him into Elenna's adjoining suite sitting him down on the bed before making sure they were alone.

"Alright--honestly, I don't even believe in werewolves so I don't know how dangerous this is. I do know Elenna as a human being and every human life is precious. She is human for 28 days out of the month that makes her worth saving in my book. Look around the room, see if there's anything we can use for her."

They started to move around the room. Rome went straight for a big case. She had left everything hunter-related behind. When he had collected things he thought could be useful they were ready to join the others again.

Caleb glowered from the corner loading a shotgun with silver bullets.

Aly left Rome's side and stalked over to her "partner".

"Let's get this straight. I don't care what your past is or what the rules of the game are. Elenna is human at least 28 days out of the month--that makes her human in my book and every human life is precious. I will protect her with my life--no matter what you or her do to me. She is a victim here. I will kill for her like I would kill for you, or anyone else in this situation. You shoot to disable only or I put a silver bullet through your heart--got it, partner?"

As Georgie heard Aly giving Caleb a speech about how she would protect Elenna, she could finally manage to put a brief smile on her face. It was good to know that there were reliable people who would give their lives to protect a friend. On the other hand she could understand Caleb for being so critical. After all, regardless of whether the werewolf came in form of a huge, grumpy evil guy or their good friend Elenna, people were in danger.

"The same counts for me", Georgina said with a determined look in Aly's direction. "I'll protect that crazy little girl with my life."

Nick felt that his plan didn’t work. They weren’t about to leave her behind, or tell her to leave. This new werewolf idea moved them closer together.

“Fine you think you can stop my plan? You’ll be surprised. What if you find out that Elle is not the beast, but she controls a beast?”

Nick wasn’t sure what he would do while he waited for Elle to come back, but maybe he could play with her friends a little. Nick stepped closer to Caleb.

“You look familiar, have we met? You also smell familiar.”

Nick poked Caleb in the rips and went on to the next person, which was Morrigan.

“Aww you poor thing you are protecting Elle? You don’t know her, and are worried she could have killed your brother but you still don’t do what a hunter should do? Shoot her, and your revenge is complete.”

Nick poked her in the back. He looked over to Rome, her one and only super Rome. He stepped really close to him and whispered in his ear.

“She hates you. She hates you. She hates you. She really hates you and, buddy after you search her body for scars she won’t stay a second longer with you. She is leaving you just like your brother did. You mean nothing to her, she felt sorry for you and it was handy to have you around. But not anymore she will leave the moment you ask if she is a werewolf. You will break her little heart, by even considering she could be one. And you wonder why she hates you? You are nothing; you are worthless for Elle...”

((OOC: Ghost fight!!))

Rome nearly jumped out of his skin as the cold spot hit him, and a creepy voice whispered in his ear:

“She hates you.... She is leaving you just like your brother did. You mean nothing to her, she felt sorry for you and it was handy to have you around. But not anymore she will leave the moment you ask if she is a werewolf. You will break her little heart, by even considering she could be one. And you wonder why she hates you? You are nothing; you are worthless for Elle....”

"Elle?" Rome said out loud. "Who the hell is--" but of course he knew who the voice was talking about. But the only person she ever told him who called her that was of course--

Rome wheeled around. And he saw the ghost clearly this time. And damn he looked familiar.

"Holy sh*t, Cal, look out!" Rome cried, pointing.

"What?" he asked. No one in the room moved.

"Can't you see him, he's there! The ghost!"

"Rome, is this another one of your visions?" Aly asked patiently.

Before Rome could answer, the ghost--this, like, 18-year-old infant--rushed him and shoved him against the wall. He felt the plaster behind him (and possibly some of his bones, but he tried not to think about that) giving way with a sickening crack.

And that got everyone to move, as everyone shouted at once:

"Get the shotgun!"

"Rock salt! Where's the rock salt?"

"Where is he? I can't see him! Rome, where is it?"

But then the ghost flickered where he stood, and a feral grin played on his lips as he held Rome against the wall with superhuman strength.

"It's Nick!" Rome gasped, trying to pull the ghost's hand away from his throat. "It's the ghost of her brother!"

Morrigan felt Nick and Rome rush past her, the ghost driving Rome's body into the wall with a sickening thud. She jumped for the gun and aimed.

Caleb had found his own weapon too and they fired at the same time.

"Guys!" Morrigan screamed as the ghost of Nick turned around with fury in his eyes. A couple of shots weren't taking this guy down.

Rome gurgled for air, driving his hands like a swimmer trying to clear his throat.

Morrigan fired again and again, and Nick looked down at his chest as he burst into a cloud of smoke.