Hunter's Legacy

Camille

I couldn’t exactly say how long we’d been on the road, but I knew that darkness had fallen and rain started descending from the dark sky, as we drove along the slick road.

Alexander Sutton was quiet, from where he sat in the back. I don’t blame him for not speaking; after what he just saw, ……what sane person would speak about it and not fear being called crazy?

“Have you been able to get a hold of Piper?” I asked Natasha, who had been trying to call Piper since we left Crescent City. I looked over for a second to see Natasha closing her flip phone and shaking her head.

“I can’t get a hold of her,” Natasha responded, shaking her head.

“What are we supposed to do with him?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the road as the rain ran in rivulets down the windshield. I cranked my windshield wipers up, watching as the small streams of water were wiped away with a single swipe, “Take him back in the bunker?”

“Well, we can’t just leave him here on the side of the road,” Natasha said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“We don’t even know what he is. For all we know he could be a demon too,” I hissed.

“I can hear you,” Alexander said, glumly. His eyes never left the window as he spoke; I looked at him in my rear view mirror.

“How about you pretend you can’t,” I said, avoiding his gaze in the the mirror as he looked at me with a blank expression. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Natasha scowl at me.

“What?” I hissed at her. Taking my eyes off the road for just a second, I turned my head, to where I could still glance at her face, but see the road at the same time.

“Be nice,” she said, speaking so quietly that I could barely hear her. I rolled my eyes and turned my eyes back to face the road, head on.

Out of nowhere, it seemed, bight, yellow, headlights were barreling towards us. I cranked the wheel to the right, which sent us right into a ditch on the side of the road, which made the car sit at an angle.

My neck throbbed, from when my head had whipped back and hit my headrest. I looked over to see Natasha’s head slumped forward, and I looked back to see Alexander was rubbing the side of his face; he probably smacked it against the window, pretty hard.

“Everyone okay?” I asked, my voice sounded hoarse, as if it had been a long time since I used it.

“I’m alright,” Alexander said, his voice sounding hoarse as well.

“As am I,” Natasha answered; she had a cut on her forehead, and marks from the seat belt on her neck, but they were already beginning to heal.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, looking at Natasha.

“I don’t know,” Natasha shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.

“Wait here,” I said. I unbuckled my seatbelt and pushed the door open, putting my foot against it so that it would stay open. Once I got out, I noticed that it had stopped raining and I made sure I was loaded down with weapons, before I stepped off the side of the road and into the middle of the street.

The moon was full and it provided the light that I needed to see by. The road was straight with no twists or turns, as far as the eye could see. In the distance I saw two pinpricks of light, and they seemed to be coming my way. I could hear the roar of an engine as the vehicle got closer. The engine revved as it sped closer and the headlights blinded me a second before I jumped off to the side of the road.

The sound of the engine faded, but I heard the screeching of tires, as the vehicle turned around. It sped back past, and I pulled out my gun and turned the safety off. The sound of gunfire pierced the air, as I shot at the car, emptying a clip and shooting the windows out.

A burly man’s head stuck out of the broken window and, even from where I stood, I saw soulless black eyes. I inserted another clip into the gun and cocked it. The man pulled his arm out from the car, and I saw that he was holding a double-barreled shotgun. I heard it being cocked and before I could unload a round into him—or the car—I grunted because the one of the bullets from the shotgun pierced my thigh.

The car sped away again, and I could’ve sworn I heard some kind of maniacal laughter coming from the driver. I saw the headlights turn, as though the car was readying itself for another onslaught of bullets. I pulled a grenade off of my belt, waited until the car was a little ways away from me. Pulling the pin, I reached my arm back and then threw the grenade.

Even I the dark, I could see as it attached itself to the car, just seconds before the car erupted in a fiery explosion.

The smell of burning rubber and flesh permeated the air and I stared at it for a moment, before I limped my way back over to my car.

“Are you alright?” Natasha asked, a look of concern passing over her face as she watched me limp back to the car.

“Yeah, just peachy,” I replied, sarcastically, as I climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Why are you bleeding?” Natasha asked, looking down at my hand that was pressed against my thigh.

“Son of a bitch shot me,” I hissed in pain as I tried to move my leg, to no avail.

“Let me drive,” Natasha said, in a serious tone, as she held her hand out for the keys.

“No,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

“You can’t even move your leg,” she countered. I wasn’t in the mood to argue further so, reluctantly, I dropped my car keys in her hand. Natasha took them and slid out of the passenger side door. While she walked around the car, I used all the strength I had to scoot over to the passenger seat. I got myself situated in the seat, and Natasha got herself situated I the driver’s seat, and then she was able to carefully pull out of the ditch.

The ride was quiet, and I was soon fast asleep.

I woke up with the jolting stop of the car.

“Where are we?” I mumbled, as I wiped my eyes and looked at the red door and yellow wall of the building that we sat in front of.

“We’re at a motel,” Natasha replied, turning the engine off, “We need to get that bullet out of your leg sooner, rather than later.”

“I’ll be fine until we get to the bunker,” I said, resting my head against the cool window again.

“It could be a few days until we get there, the infection could set in by then,” Natasha responded, evenly.

“Why not just go to a hospital? Surely surgery would help her a lot better than we could,” Alexander interjected.

“What am I supposed to tell them? That I was shot by a demon wearing a hick’s meatsuit? Yeah, that’ll go over well,” I scoffed.

“What Camille means is, the hospital asks a lot of questions that we don’t have answers for yet,” Natasha said. I groaned as the pain seared through my leg, “Alright, let’s get you out of here. Alexander, I’m going to need your help.” Alexander nodded and got out through the driver’s side door, before he walked around the car, opened my door and gathered me in his arms. I squinted my eyes open and saw that Natasha was holding open a door. I was carried through it, and then placed on a soft surface.

I opened my eyes and watched Natasha as she looked through the mini fridge and seemed to be happy with what she found.

“Stay here,” she told Alexander, as she went outside, making about four trips to bring everything that we needed. Once the door closed, she dug through one of the bags and pulled out a small black case, “Camille, can you stand enough to pull down your pants?”

“If someone can support me enough to where I can put all of my weight on my good leg then yeah,” I said.

“Alexander, hold her up, please,” Natasha said. My eyes went wide, and I nearly fell back on the bed, after I gained enough balance to stand up.

“He’s going to be in here while you’re taking my bullet out?” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah, just to help out a bit, unless…”she turned to Alexander, “Do you want to take her bullet out?”

“I—I wouldn’t know what I was doing,” he stuttered, putting his arm around my back to stabilize me.

“Alright,” Natasha shrugged and pulled out a small scalpel-looking instrument, a pair of hemostat pliers, and a needle and thread. While she worked on sterilizing the instruments, I worked on pulling my pants down as far as I could get them. I sat back and moved my legs as far off of the bed as I could.

“Here, drink this,” Natasha tossed a small bottle of golden liquid to me and I unscrewed the cap. I drank down the whole bottle and started to feel the warm numbing of the alcohol flow through me, as something cold was poured on my leg, “This will probably hurt.” I felt a sting and I bit the sleeve of my jacket to keep from screaming out. The stinging continued ad then I felt a pain so bad that my stomach curled. My world spun, as I laid there and, a minute later, the pain was gone.

There was another stabbing pain, and I grit my teeth; that to, was over soon.

“Alexander, can you get me a bandage from the bag?” she asked, as pressure was applied to the top of my thigh. I heard the bag unzipping and then I felt something soft being wrapped around my leg, “Is that good?”

“Yeah, that’s a lot better,” I said, propping myself on my elbows, “Can I pull my pants back up now?”

“Are you going to be able to get them over the bandage?” Natasha asked, with a raised eyebrow, as she proceeded to clean up the mess that was made.

“Maybe,” I said, shrugging. I stood up, gingerly putting my weight on my injured leg and found out it didn’t hurt so much, yet I still kept the majority of my weight off of it. I struggled a bit, but I finally got the pants over my bandage, without pulling it up or down.

I felt drained. My muscles felt like Jell-O and I felt dizzy; maybe it was from the blood loss? I shrugged, not having enough energy to answer my own silent question.

“Get some sleep,” Natasha’s voice came from somewhere in the room. I turned my head to see her walking out of the bathroom, black case in hand.

“No,” I said, although my voice betrayed me as I let out a yawn.

“I know that you hate—no, you detest—sleeping, but it’ll be good for the healing process,” Natasha told me.

“It’ll help with the healing process,” I imitated. I laid on my back, feeling the throbbing pain in my thigh. I sighed out and closed my eyes, and, against my will, sleep overcame me.

I woke up the next morning with a dull throbbing pain in my leg, it still hurt, it just wasn’t as noticeable this morning. Alexander Sutton was sleeping in the bed across from the one I laid on, and Natasha was sitting at the table, typing away on her laptop.

The bed springs groaned, as I sat up and then scooted off of the bed. Making sure to balance myself on my good leg, I stood up and limped to the other available seat.

“You’re awake,” Natasha said, not looking my way, as she continued to look at her laptop’s screen.

“What gave you that idea?” I said, sarcastically, as I let out a breath when I sat down.I looked at her screen and saw that she had her email open, “Anything from Piper?”

“Not one thing,” she sighed.

“No phone call?”

“Nope,” Natasha said.

“So, what do we do with him?” I asked, looking back at Alexander’s sleeping form.

“I guess he can come back to the bunker with us,” Natasha shrugged.

“That might not be a good idea,” I said.

“Why not?” Natasha questioned, with a raised eyebrow, “Can you give me a good reason as to why we shouldn’t bring him back with us?”

“We don’t know who or what he is, if we bring him back to the bunker, it could be possible danger for all the hunters that are there,” I said.

“He’s coming back with us,” Natasha said, sternly. I watched as Natasha packed up her laptop and started getting her things together. I turned and looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand; the red numbers reading five-thirty in the morning.

Pushing myself up out of the chair that I sat in, I limped over to the end of the bed and sat on it. I started pushing on Alexander’s leg, trying to get him to wake up. He only woke up when I succeed in pushing his legs off of the bed.

“Whatsgoinon?” he mumbled, sitting straight up and wiping at his eyes with a fisted hand.

“He’s awake if you need his help,” I told Natasha. All she did was roll her eyes and shake her head at me.

“I need your help getting this stuff to the car,” Natasha told him. Alexander looked at the clock.

“It’s five-thirty-five in the morning! Can’t we wait three more hours?” he whined, putting the pillow over his face.

“No, we can’t,” Natasha said, pulling the pillow off his face, “I would like to be at The Bunker at a reasonable time.” Alexander sat up straight and cocked an eyebrow.

“The Bunker?” he asked, sounding almost disbelieving, “Where are you taking me?”

“Somewhere you’ll be safe,” Natasha responded, as she fought to hold the door open, “Now help me, so that we can get out of here quicker.” As if he was unsure what she was going to do to him, Alexander scrambled up and held the door open, while Natasha grabbed the rest of the bags and took them out to the car.

When the last bag was taken out, I took that as my cue to limp out to the car. I didn’t argue with Natasha, as she slid into the driver’s seat, and she took off after I had taken my place as a passenger.

We pulled into the abandoned lot that housed The Bunker, sometime in the afternoon.

“Where are we? There’s nothing here,” Alexander said, as we exited the car.

“Just wait for it,” I said, as I leaned on Natasha when she walked to the entrance, with Alexander following us. Stopping at the heavy-looking door, Natasha put the four-digit code into the keypad and then we waited until the last lock clicked into place, before I pushed the door open.

We walked in and I was able to grab onto the railing and pull myself along. When we reached the bottom, I saw Piper and Eddie standing beside the monitors.

“Alexander Sutton,” Piper said, in a warm, affectionate, tone, “This is Eddie, he will show you around and show you to your room.” Still looking confused, Alexander nodded, and then followed Eddie out of the area, “Your arrival took longer than expected,” Piper said, the affection in her tone dissipating as it turned business-like.

“We ran into a minor complication,” Natasha said.

“What kind of complication?” she asked.

“A complication that involved demons shooting at me,” I said, leaning back against the railing of the staircase.

“Demons?” Piper asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, they ran us off the road and then attempted to run me over a short time later,” I said, growling at the not-so-distant memory.

“Any idea what they were after?” Piper asked.

“Nope,” I said, situating myself so I wasn’t putting all my weight on my injured leg, “Didn’t have time, as I was trying to dodge bullets.”

“Seems like you didn’t do so well,” Piper replied, glancing at my injured leg, “Camille go get your leg looked at, and then I want both of you to get some rest, because you have another trip ahead of you.”

“Whoa, what kind of trip? We just got back,” I said.

“Well, I want you guys to take Alexander to New Orleans,” Piper answered.

“Why? What the hell is in New Orleans?” I asked.

“There’s a witch there, a powerful witch, who can cast a protection spell that will keep him protected while we try and figure out what he is, and why Demons may want him.”

“Can she be trusted?” I asked, with raised eyebrows, “You were the one who said that witches can’t be trusted.”

“I did say that,” Piper replied, “But Edie can be trusted, she’s an old friend.” With that, Piper walked away, leaving me and Natasha to look at each other in confusion.

“Okay, well, if you’re good to get to the infirmary on your own, I’m going to go and get some rest.”

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” I nodded, and started moving my hands along the wall, pulling myself along. It took me a while to get there, but, eventually, I pulled myself into the infirmary.

“My leg needs looked at, Doc,” I said, as I limped over to a bed and eased myself onto it.

“Do you have an appointment?” he asked, snarkily. Obviously, he was still mad about my attitude the last time I had been there.

“Really? You’re the doctor for the bunker. People come in with gashes, broken bones, do they need appointments too?” Doc didn’t answer me but fixed me with a look full of dislike. I moved and sat down in a nearby chair; sighing, I looked down at my legs, and began swinging my good leg, much like an impatient child, “Piper sent me down here to get my leg checked out…” I trailed off, looking up just in time to see Doc perk up just a bit, and start moving towards me. I knew it was a low blow, but I wasn’t above using his feelings for Piper to get what I needed.

“Let’s take a look at that leg,” he said, pulling a chair in front of me. With his stabilization, I was able to push my pants down enough to where the blood-soaked bandage was visible.

After undoing the bandage Doc took a look and then, after a brief examination, concluded that it wasn’t infected. After applying some balm-type stuff and re-wrapping it, I was free to go. Doc gave me a crutch to lean against, and so I could move around easier.

“Thanks Doc,” I said, standing up and leaning against the crutch for support, and I started to make my way out the door.

“Would there be any point in telling you to take it easy?” Doc asked.

“I can’t,” I said, as I hobbled to the door, “Got people to protect, monsters to kill…business as usual.” I hobbled out of the infirmary and started making my way to the archives; I was hoping to see if I could find any information on Edie, the witch from New Orleans.