The Soul Collector

Ch. Thirty-Six

"The only safe thing is to take a chance."

- Mike Nichols

                                                                                   ***

A hysterical little laugh bubbled up her throat and she clamped a hand over her mouth to try and stifle it. When the urge had passed, she slid her fingers up to the bridge of her nose and pinched it. Her eyes squeezed shut for a second before she could actually make herself answer him.

"What in the hell do you mean by we?" she asked, her voice very low. "We are not doing anything. Ever."

"I can't just let you go."

Now she did laugh, her fingers rubbing across her closed eyelids. "And what are you going to do to stop me?"

He scoffed—making her glare at him—as he took in her bloody, disheveled state. "You've got the strength of a sick kitten," he said with a cruel smirk. "So I think the real question is how are you gonna get through me?"

She closed her eyes again and her chest heaved a little with the despair she was fighting. But she couldn't be weak. Not yet. Leveling her iciest glare on the Hunter, she said, "The way I see it, you got two choices here, cowboy. Either you let me go, or one of us dies bloody here in the middle of freaking nowhere, Minnesota."

He shook his head. A stubborn light shone in his eyes and she wanted nothing more than to be alone with her misery. "You don't understand," Caleb said. "I can't just let you walk."

"In about three hours, give or take, you're not gonna have much of a choice. You won't be able to stop me." She threw out a desperate card. "You might have even less time. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a demon headed this way now to make sure I'm doing what I'm supposed to."

"And what's that?"

She bit her tongue but couldn't stop the thoughts: Pretending like Sirius never meant anything to me. Pretending like I couldn't care less about where he is or what they're doing. Like I can just carry on like nothing ever happened.

"Don't you worry that pretty head about it." Shrugging, she continued, "That's it. That's all there is. Those three choices. You let me go, you tangle with a demon or you put me down."

Caleb tilted his head, his eyes narrowing and forehead creasing. He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. Reluctantly, he tucked his gun back into the jacket he was wearing and sat down on the empty bed. He ran a hand through his hair, then down over his mouth. 

Looking away from her, he explained, "You kill people. You know about what Hell's planning."

"Caleb, dammit, I'm not arguing with you about whether or not you should kill me. I'm arguing about if you're going to." She bit the inside of her cheek, then said, "If you decide you gotta, fine. If you can live with that better than you can stomach letting me go, fine. I won't even be mad. But you need to pick. And then you need to do it. And then you need to go."

He stared at her for a long time, his eyes very dark. "How does a Hunter like you become a Collector?"

A disbelieving laugh gusted out of her, and she had to rein it in quickly before it could morph into an uglier emotion. She'd told Sirius because he'd earned the story. All Caleb had earned so far was her contempt. But the look on his face made her think that her answer might be important. 

That didn't mean she intended to cave so easily though.

Smiling a little, she said, "That's a pretty personal question there, Cay. You should at least buy a girl dinner first."