Fuel

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.

Aly stood there frozen. Ghosts weren't real...the same as werewolves weren't real.

"Allison, behind you!" Caleb bellowed and lunged, but he was too late.

Aly looked down at her chest, the semi coherent specter-hand billowing out of her chest. She couldn't breathe the pain was so great--almost as if it was tearing her heart...

The room shook with such force that even Caleb was sent to the floor. She blinked several times unable to move. The last thing she saw was a little girl in white standing in front of her.

Was this what dying felt like?

[size=150]Note: None of the hunters can see the girl. They just see a white blur and don't know it's a ghost.[/size]

Nick had the weird feeling that he was invisible again. And the little girl just stood the in front of Aly. Nick tried to pull out her heart, but he found himself unable to grab hold of anything solid. The little girl glared at him and a child's rhyme played in his mind. The more he tried to hurt her the more he was pushed out of her body until he was a few feet away . He tired to get to the unconscious Aly, she was in his way. Aly liked his little Elle way too much. She was on the best way to become a big sister and for that she had to suffer. The little girl didn't said anything and she didn't do anything but Nick was unable to hurt Aly.

“Screw you.”

Nick gave up on Allison and turned back to the others.

“Do you really think the bit of rock salt hurts me?”

Nick reappeared behind Georgie and pushed her against Morrigan so that both girls fell. He zapped himself next to Caleb and grabbed the gun, so that from every opening ectoplasm dripped. The next zap brought him back to Rome.

“She hates you, Romulus Remington. She doesn’t need a new big brother she has me!”

Nick looked right at Rome, he didn’t show a sign of fear even though Rome just reached for his gun.

“Oh you little sucker, you never saw her anyway. Did you really think ignoring her would help and then suddenly you wanna replace me? I changed her friggin diapers, I sung her lullabies when she had nightmares, I dried her tears when you abandoned her with random chicks along the road. She is a little girl and she need her big brother, me. You use her for your little games. She is your encyclopaedia and then you never even listen to her. How can you put all those insane ideas in her little head? She needs someone stable, some she can count on. Gee’z after she lived through her biggest nightmares, she shot herself, she shot herself do you hear me? She lost everyone and thought she would lose you too, and here you are when she needed a loving person the most you had nothing better to do as sleep with the next available girl you find. She needed someone, and you weren’t there. You are never there when someone needs to try her tears. But I was there; I am always there for her. I can’t be replaced, ever. Do you hear me douchbag? I am not replaceable; I’ll be forever in her live. We will be together, again. And nothing can put us apart. Nothing. You lost and I won!”

The light in the room flickered; just before each light bulb explode. The only light source was Nick who was glowing light blue.

"She hates you, Romulus Remington."

Rome was offended.

"She doesn’t need a new big brother she has me!"

Hurt, even.

"She needs someone stable, some she can count on."

Sure, that was a pretty fair characterization of him--womanizing, selfish, and manipulative--but he had worked hard to become so! But none of that applied to Elenna. Or any of his friends. And mentioning how Elenna was going to leave him just like Rawson had done was just low. Sure, play on his insecurities. Could ghosts read minds?

"I am not replaceable; I’ll be forever in her life!"

Something else really bugged him about this speech. He'd heard it from angry boyfriends, so he recognized the type immediately: jealous. Okay, yes, he recognized that there was something wrong about banging another man's woman, and he tried to avoid it whenever possible, but then there was the unhealthy, possessive, controlling, jealous, macho jackwagon situation. Where, okay, maybe Rome wasn't her best choice of the night, but she definitely shouldn't be sticking with this asshole.

"And nothing can put us apart. Nothing!"

It made him defensive. There were very few things that made Rome want to actually fight for a lady's honor. This was one of them.

"You lost and I won!" Nick shrieked, his blue light pulsing with power.

Rome chuckled. "Not this round," he said, and he fired the shotgun point-blank into Nick's face.

"Not this round." Rome chuckled, but he looked with cold eyes at Nick. This time it hurt being shot. But it was not the shot itself that hurts him. It was more the fact that this douchbag was the perfect big brother material.

F*ck Elle where are you. We need to leave now.

Nick vanished and returned to the room, but this time he stayed invisible. The humans found some unbroken lamps and turned them on.

“Where did he go? Is he dead?” Georgie looked from corner to corner.

“No he's still here, he's just waiting,” said Rome, reloading his shotgun.

Nick had time and he would wait. She would come back to him. She always came back to him. No matter what she did, she needed him.

It was dark outside and they all waited for just one person. But they had different reason to wait for her. He suddenly grinned, the butterfly in his stomach were back. He got pulled away from the hotel.

“Nick?”

Warm

Her chest hurt. Why did her chest hurt?

She took in a breath and opened her eyes slowly. She was in someone's arms and he was speaking to her.

"Allison...come back, Aly."

She shifted in his arms as his face came into focus.

"Cal? What happened?" Her head pounded. She looked up at him, fragile again for a moment. Then she clutched at her chest. "Oh god...Cal...it...it tried to take my heart!"

She cried into his chest, forgetting about everything that had happened in the last few days and just needing comfort. This was insane. She'd been attacked before in the line of duty--even spent an hour fearing for her life in the hands of a serial killer--but this...this was just too much. A ghost?! She'd almost been killed by a dead person. Could life get any more screwed up?

Rome took a knee at Aly's side. "It's okay, Al," he whispered. He touched her arm briefly to give comfort, but Cal bristled like a suspicious guard dog, so Rome backed off to rummage around for more rock salt shells for the shotgun.

"Okay, we need to find Lenna now, and not just for the...wolf thing," he gulped appropriately, and then continued, thinking out loud as he geared up: silver and rock salt. "Her brother was cremated, I know that for sure, so we have to figure out what else might be tying him to this world. Might be in these curse boxes, here, I know she keeps pictures and stuff in them, but I dunno. God, I hope he didn't, like, give her a kidney or something..."

He looked back at Aly. She seemed better. No one else seemed horribly injured from the fight.

"Maybe he's haunting her? And that's why she's acting weird?" Anything to get them off this werewolf kick...

Elenna being haunted by her ghost brother? Of course, that made sense. Although being haunted by a ghost was not what one could call the greatest experience in life, it was still better than the possibility of Elenna being a werewolf they had to kill. If Lenna was haunted, they wouldn't harm her...well, not physically.
She must feel awful...having her brother around like he never left...

Georgie looked at Rome. "You mentioned she keeps pictures of her brother?"

"Yeah, as far as I know."

"We'll have to burn everything related to her brother, although she would probably kill us for burning her cherished mementos."

"Most importantly, we need to find her. It doesn't matter whether that thing is her brother or not, ghosts are unpredictable."

It was later as she had expected it would be when she sneaked around the room, to collect her clothes and got dressed. When she found half falling out of Adam’s jeans pocket a silver rosary. She turned around and saw the tattoo.

“Sh*t. He’s a hunter.”

Of course the guy I hook up with is a hunter, what an irony. Next time I pay more attention to the guy who is with me in bed, to see any Anti-possession tattoos from the beginning.
Lenna picked up the last of her things and wrote a note.

It’s better when I just go. Happy hunting.

Lenna called outside a cab and went back to her motel. As soon she was sitting safe in that cab she started giggling and just couldn’t stop. This whole situation was surreal.

Nick?
“So you are back? Where have you been?”
That is none of your friggin business.
“Elle I’m not the one you are fighting against.”
I know but this guy was just a once in a lifetime so relax.

Lenna felt Nick go for a moment, but it wasn’t long enough to worry her. She leaned back in the cab and calmed down a bit.

"Ghosts are unpredictable..." Georgie said, producing an EMF reader. She peered at the instrument, and then shook it. "Well, that's odd," she said.

"Here, lemme take a look," Rome offered, taking the equipment and sitting cross-legged on the ground as the others continued talking above him. He tried resetting it, found brand-new batteries and replaced them, and checked the wiring. It all looked good. Which sucked, because it wasn't working.

"Thing's fried," Rome told Georgie. He paused in thought: a rare enough occurrence for him. "You know, the EMFs the Mustang died, too." He frowned. "And we need one." Thinking really hurt after a barfight and a ghostfight. "I wonder if there's an app for that."

A few scoffs.

"Yeah, it's part of the new Hunter line of applications for the iPhone which isn't even available to the general public yet," he sneered sarcastically, "come on, you guys, get with the times." Rome produced his phone and started fussing with it. He could get the phone to react to fluctuations in electromagnetic field, though it'd probably kill his battery life. Or, you know, his phone, but whatever. After some reprogramming, he gave the "EMF Reader" its own special ringtone. Then again, the ghost could just as easily fry his phone, too. What kind of powerful ghost could fry electronics?

She was still tipsy when she unlocked the door to her room; the door was locked wasn’t it? She whispered to herself.

“Shush Lennie, just go to bed and Romey will never know how long I have been out. Luckily it looks like he isn’t awake anymore.”

She switched the light on and saw that all her stuff was gone.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Lenna looked around her room and discovered all the stuff is gone.

“You don’t need it anyway.”

“Where is my stuff?”

Lenna stumbled over a chair. What was going on here? She looked around and saw the connection door to Rome’s room was open. She walked to it and didn’t look like the friendly girl she normally was.

“Romulus Remington, what the f*ck is going on? Where is all mu stuff? I told you not to touch my boxes. They are personal and private.”

Lenna looked around Rome’s room and was surprised to found the whole team in it, they were all there except Rome.

“What are you all doing here? Where is Rome?”