⌜ chapter thirteen ⌟

The brunette takes a deep breath as she shuts the front door to the apartment behind her. It amazes her how quickly everything can change — maybe amaze isn't the right word... She was fine, truly and completely happy for the first time in her life. And now she has this sinking feeling that it's all about to come crumbling down around her.

"Letty, what is this?" Eric questions as he holds up the journal.

Hesitantly — reluctantly — she turns to face him. All she wants is to rewind time. Find a moment where they were laying in bed, talking and laughing, all smiles because nothing could go wrong and they were perfect. She wants to go there and stay forever.

"It belonged to my father." She finally says. "It was his journal."

"No." He shakes his head. "Because people write journals about the things that actually happen to them. This... These things can't be real."

"I wish they weren't." Letty says, her gaze moving from his freaked out expression to the journal in his hand. "But they are. Everything in there is."

"He wrote about...monsters. Werewolves, ghouls, things that I can't even pronounce... He wrote about demons, Letty. And based on everything else, I don't think he was speaking metaphorically." He says, and she shakes her head. "You're telling me that these things exist."

She nods, unable to speak.

"This has...instructions for melting silver into bullets... And that's not even the craziest thing I read." His voice is getting more shaky the longer he talks, and now she won't meet his gaze. "He says he killed these things. How— I mean..." He scoffs as he looks back at the journal.

Letty takes a deep breath before clearing her throat, fighting back tears. "My father was a hunter — he hunted and killed supernatural creatures. That's why I spent so much of my childhood moving from motel room to motel room, and why he ran credit card scams. He couldn't get a regular nine-to-five with his main occupation; it's why we hustle pool...among other things."

"We?" He questions, and she looks back at him. "You... You're a hun— Oh my..." His eyes widen as he looks at her. "That man from the coffee shop — he said he'd never seen so many young hunters... All of you?!"

"Eric—"

"How many of you are...hunters?"

She shakes her head. "We don't hunt anymore — none of us do."

"How many?"

"Tyler, Reggie, Alec, Lina...Hope, Melissa, Miller, Dean...J-Jason, and me." She tells him, and he nods as he looks down, tears filling his eyes. "Jack knows, but he's never hunted anything."

"But you have?" He asks, and she hesitates for a moment before nodding. "All this time, you've all been lying to me. All of my friends have been keeping this from me."

"We were protecting you." She shakes her head. "You have no idea the hell it is to know these things. I hate it, I wish to God I didn't know. I can't stand always being alert for what could be lurking around the corner, and constantly checking over my shoulder... I was protecting you."

He's quiet for a moment as he thinks about everything that she's said so far. "So, the guy in the coffee shop was a hunter?" He asks, and she nods. "And when you said that you had no idea who he was?"

"I had never seen him before that night. Alec told me that he was on a hunt with Julian's father and John Winchester, and his dad was killed by whatever they were hunting. Alec wasn't with them the night that it happened, but Julian won't listen to reason. He's looking for someone to blame, and he has enough brain cells to know that going after John wouldn't do him any good."

"Have you run into other hunters before?" He asks, and she nods.

"The guys who jumped me the night that Eddie brought me to your parents' house. They were pissed because I hustled them the Summer that we were on the road, and they tracked me back to Philly." She tells him, and he nods.

"So, you run into all these hunters...and you lie to me about who they are, or you give me piss-poor half-truths." He shakes his head.

"I didn't know what I was supposed to say." She argues. "I hate other hunters, and I hate that lifestyle. We all do, it's why we left that life. I mean, what has it ever gotten us? Mothers who leave or are killed, and fathers who are so broken and empty that they don't know how to be fathers. We all want better for our own kids. It's why Hope and Jason stopped hunting — for the twins. And Alec and his friends — he stopped so that he could be a father, now he can't even see his son because his girlfriend refuses to let him anywhere near them. Alec told her about all of this, and now she's afraid of him. What was I supposed to do?"

"Lie to me about who you are. Naturally."

"No." She shakes her head, tears filling her eyes. "That is not who I am. The person that I am here, with you — this is who I am. This is the person that I want to be. I have worked so hard for so long to get past all of that so that I could get to this point. I've always known that that wasn't the life that I wanted, this is the life that I told you I was terrified of. This is why I clung to those gifts from Jack, because he promised me that he'd come back...

"All of this crap that I had to work through is why I was so convinced that I could never give you the relationship that you wanted and deserved. But you made me see that I could be better than where I came from...because you love me, and you never gave up on me. You made me believe that my family didn't define me, and that I could do better for my own. I was always too terrified to hope for the life that we talk about — getting married and having kids...but now that's exactly what I want. I want us... I want to be with you, and nothing else matters."

He slowly walks over to the couch, his mind racing as he drops the journal onto the coffee table beside him before he sits on the edge of the couch. "So... All of those rumors during high school, they weren't entirely wrong. You weren't using me to get out of the trailer park...you needed a way out of the life that your father raised you into."

"What?" Her eyebrows furrow as she looks over at him. "No. God, no." She walks over to him, and he moves back as she places her knees on either side of his legs so she can straddle his lap.

"Letty—"

"No, listen to me." She rests her hands on either side of his face as she looks at him. "None of them knew anything about anything. I pushed you away because I was afraid of you getting roped into my crap, but you fought for us. I am where I am now because you loved me enough to fight for what you knew we could be. I never used you, Eric."

She looks into his eyes, and where she used to see nothing but love and happiness, she now sees fear and doubt. And it hasn't gone unnoticed by her the way that he won't touch her. Before tonight, his hands would've been on her waist if she sat with him like this. But now his arms are resting awkwardly at his sides as his hands stay on the couch.

"I need you to move." He tells her as the front door starts to open.

"Oh, seriously?" Shawn complains when he sees them.

Letty shakes her head, not taking her eyes off of him. "N— Eric, please—"

"Move, Scarlett!" Eric snaps, and she jumps as she stumbles back, ending up with her butt on the coffee table as he pushes himself up and shoves past Jack to get out of the apartment.

A sob escapes her lips as the door slams shut, and both of the Hunter boys stand there completely shocked. Letty's fingers curl around the journal beside her and then she gets up and rushes out of the living room, heading toward hers and Eric's bedroom.

"What the hell just happened?" Jack questions as he looks between where Letty just disappeared to and the front door.

"You know... I don't think I've ever heard him call her Scarlett before. He's called her Letty since we were little." Shawn says. "And even when they've fought in the past, he's never yelled at her like that."

—

It's close to three in the morning when Eric finally walks back into the apartment, and he sees the brunette sitting on the couch. Her feet are on the cushions, with her knees pulled up to her chest, and she's staring at the coffee table in front of her as her chin rests on her knee.

"You're up."

"Couldn't stay in our room without you." She tells him, her voice hoarse. "Where were you?"

"Wandering around." He takes a deep breath as he shuts the door behind him. "You said that...you stopped hunting. Meaning you have before?"

"Yes."

"When?"

Letty sighs as she lets her feet rest on the floor, and she leans forward to let her elbows settle on her knees. "The Summer that I spent with Hope, Melissa, Miller, and Dean...before my Junior year."

"So... You'd spend your days hunting...and then you'd call me at night, and talk and laugh like you hadn't been out there killing something?" He questions, and her eyebrows furrow as she looks up at him.

"They were monsters, Eric. We—"

"I really don't wanna hear...any details." He shakes his head, and she gets to her feet as she starts over toward him. "I feel like I don't even know who you are."

"I'm the same person that I have always been." She says as she rests her hands on either side of his face, silently pleading with him to really look at her and see that. "I'm the girl you fell in love with."

He reaches up and his fingers curl around her wrists, pulling her hands away from his face as he shakes his head. "The girl that I fell in love with...that I thought I fell in love with... She wasn't this violent hunter who killed things." He tells her as she crosses her arms over her chest, trying not to cry from the humility of him refusing to let her touch him like she's always done. "I could handle the way you were when you threatened to take a bat to Harley Keiner's car, but this goes so far beyond that. I feel like I have no idea who you are...and I can't do this."

Tears fill her eyes as she realizes what exactly he's saying. "This meaning...us?" She asks. "Y-You don't want to be with me anymore?"

His jaw tightens as he looks away from her, and she nods as she takes a step back. She then turns so that she can't see his face...and he can't see her fight back her tears. Letty places her hands over her face as she takes deep breaths, trying not to break down here and now. She sniffs as she wipes away the tears that fell down her cheeks, and then she turns back to him.

"Okay." Her voice cracks, and he looks at her dark eyes that are now ringed in red. "I'll go and stay at Hope and Jason's tonight, and...and I'll come back for my stuff later." She nods as she takes a deep breath, trying to keep her composure. "Just...please don't say anything to Shawn about what you read in my dad's journal. I've worked my entire life to make sure that he never has to deal with everything that I do, and... I don't want him to have to have this same conversation with someone in the future. It's better that he doesn't know."

"I won't tell him." Eric says, and she nods.

Letty clears her throat as she looks down. "'Kay." She then quickly moves past him, wanting to get out of the apartment before she breaks.