⌜ chapter nine ⌟

"Why are you good for Dean and not me?" Isla questions as she looks down at Minx and all of the papers that she shredded while the blonde was in the shower.

There's a knock at the door, and the blonde sighs as she walks over to answer it, finding Sam standing there. She knows that he's been back at the motel for a little while at least because he's back in his jeans and t-shirt.

"Did you buy a confetti cannon?" The younger boy asks after she lets him into the room, and she lets out a sarcastic laugh.

"Where's her favorite human? I should make him clean it up." She mutters as she bends down and starts picking up bits of paper from around the kitten. Minx is on her back and she reaches for Isla's hands as she picks up the pieces that she's still trying to play with.

"He just left — went to talk to Cassie." He tells her, and she just nods as she keeps cleaning. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Mhm."

"You don't...have a thing for Dean, do you?" Sam asks as he sits at the table a few feet away from her, and she scoffs. "Isla..."

"No." She shakes her head as she stands up and walks over to the trash to throw out what Minx shredded. "No, it's not that."

"Then what is it?"

The blonde takes a deep breath as she turns to face him. "It's stupid... I have these...insecurities about myself — whether it be looks or..." She shakes her head. "Dean and I were arguing about something a few years ago, and he mistook something that I said, which resulted in him telling me that I'm not his type. Which is fine, I don't care. I just... I thought his type was an easy, basically thoughtless, completely meaningless one-night-stand. But with Cassie — that clearly isn't his type. She's smart, beautiful...fearless... Nothing like anybody's ever described me as."

"Isla..." He sighs as he looks at her, but she's staring at the floor.

"I don't like your brother, I just... If that's his type, and that's not me... Like I said, it's stupid. It's more than that anyway. I mean, after what the shif—" She cuts herself off and clenches her teeth as she closes her eyes.

"The... The shifter?" Sam questions. "What about him?"

"Nothing. Forget I said anything." She shakes her head as she turns around.

"What? No." He quickly gets to his feet and walks over to her. "Come on, talk to me. What's the matter?" He rests his hand on her arm, and she reluctantly turns back to face him.

"The shifter was connected to Dean's mind, right?" She asks as she looks up at him. "His thoughts?"

He hesitates for a moment before nodding. "Yeah."

"He told me that Dean thinks I'm a coward, and that I'm weak and pathetic... That I need someone to come to my rescue because I can't take care of myself, and that's why John saddled you guys with babysitting me." She tells him. "And I can't exactly say that he's wrong. I mean, I couldn't fight off the shifter — Dean had to save me. All I'm good for is...babysitting Minx."

"Monsters lie, Isla." Sam shakes his head. "He wanted to kill you, and messing with your head was part of his sick game."

"You know, the shifter said that he liked me and that it made killing me harder. He said I was a nice girl." She scoffs as she looks down.

"Why does it sound that bothered you more than it should've?"

"It's what Dean said four years ago... You're nice and all, you're just not my type." She tells him, eyes still on the floor. "It was like being back in my hometown. I had some friends, but never a boyfriend. I looked different back then — not as thin, certainly not blonde. Apparently even your brother noticed that I lost some weight. According to the shifter, he thought that maybe I was his type when he saw me in Rockford. Of course, that went out the window as soon as he realized that I was me. Because that's how it's always been..." She shakes her head. "So, no, Sam, it's not about Dean. I just overthink everything, and...that's the problem."

"The shifter didn't know anything about you, Isla. Maybe if you talk to Dean—"

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen." She cuts him off. "The shifter pieced together enough about me that I know is true just based on what he saw of me in Dean's head. I don't want to know what Dean actually thinks of me. And I don't want to talk about this anymore, I just want to be alone. So..."

"Yeah, uh... Okay." Sam nods before turning and heading for the door.

—

The next night, Isla walks up to the Robinson house and knocks on the front door; it opens a minute later to reveal Dean standing there. "You summoned me?" The blonde asks as she steps into the house, getting out of the cold. "What's going on?" She asks as she looks up at him.

"Sam's told you about the truck, right? The ghost truck that keeps popping up and killing people before disappearing again?" He asks, and she nods.

"Mhm. He said it's like a, uh... A Flying Dutchman type of thing. There's a spirit manifesting as something it was attached to when it was alive." She says.

"Yeah, well, Cassie saw it an hour ago." He tells her, and she glances into the living room at the girl who called them here and her mom.

"Is she okay?" The blonde asks, and he nods.

"It disappeared again, and Sam and I are gonna go see if we can find a way to get rid of this thing."

"Okay." She nods. "And what am I doing?"

"I need you to stay here." He says, and she raises her eyebrows.

"And do what? Hurl myself between it and Cassie if it shows up again?" She questions. "Dean, it's a monster ghost truck. What the hell am I supposed to do to it?"

"Look, I'm sorry to stick you with what probably seems like another babysitting job while me and Sam take care of the—"

"What?" She cuts him off, and he stops as he looks at her. "What did you just say?"

"Uh..." His head turns the slightest bit in his brother's direction, causing Isla to look at him as well.

"What the hell, Sam?"

The younger boy sighs as he looks at the blonde. "Isla—"

"No, screw you." She shakes her head and turns for the door, heading back out to her truck.

Dean sighs as he lets his head hang, and then Sam gets to his feet. "No, I got it." The older boy says before going after the pissed off blonde. He walks across the path in the lawn, over to where she's going through a metal chest at the back of her truck bed. "What are you doing?"

"My job." Isla says as she loads the rifle that she pulled out of the chest that she keeps her weapons in — one that looks a lot like John's.

"Look, alright — yes, Sam told me about what you guys talked—"

"I am not having this conversation with you." She shakes her head as she grabs a few more shells that are packed with rock salt and stuffs them into her sweater pocket.

"Why? Because I'm the one person that you should actually be talking about it with?"

"Because it has nothing to do with you." Isla says as she turns to look at him. "My problems are my problems. Mind your own damn business."

"This is about what the shifter said to you based on what he saw—"

"It's not about the shifter, and it's not about you. It's about me." She argues. "I have had these insecurities about myself since long before I even knew what the word insecure meant. The shifter saw them — good for him. They didn't do jack for him in the end, since he's dead. And I really don't give a shit if he was speaking your thoughts, or whether or not you agree with him. It is none of my business what you think of me — it's none of my business what anyone thinks of me. And it took me a long time to learn that, so let it go. Just leave it alone, Dean."

Fifteen minutes later, Isla's sitting on the couch in the Robinsons' living room with her rifle leaning against it next to her. She has her head back and her eyes closed; she's not worried at the moment because everything seems calm.

She hears footsteps getting closer, but she doesn't look up. "I get the feeling you don't like me very much." Cassie says, but Isla still doesn't move.

"I don't even know you. Why wouldn't I like you?" The blonde questions.

"Because you and Dean are..."

"Dean and I are friends. Most days, anyway." Isla says as she sits up properly. "And even that's a relatively new development. I have a kitten that's claimed ownership over him, and I guess we've become better friends because he's been helping me with her. So, you may have to fight her for his attention, and she might win — just a heads up."

"So, that earlier..."

"Is a very complicated situation that really doesn't involve Dean in the way that the boys seem to think it does."

"Is everything okay?" Cassie asks as she sits down across from the blonde.

"Yeah, everything's fine." She nods. "We had a situation with a different monster about a month ago. I looked... Well, in Sam's words — like I was hit by a truck. I was covered in cuts and bruises, had a nasty knot in my forehead, popped a blood vessel in my eye, hurt my throat from being strangled, my knuckles were all purple from fighting back. I was a mess, to say the least."

"That's awful, but what does this have to do with what just happened?"

"The monster was a shapeshifter — skinwalkers can make themselves look like anything, and this one made itself look like Dean when it attacked me. In doing so, it had all of his memories, and it used that to its advantage. It saw his memories of me, and used them to get inside my head, mess with me." She explains. "So, now on top of Dean blaming himself for me getting attacked, he's gonna blame himself for this. He has this really bad habit of feeling guilty for things that he has no control over. Like how what the shifter said affected me."

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Cassie asks, getting the feeling that she hasn't had anyone to talk to about this sort of thing for a long time.

"It doesn't really matter anymore." Isla shakes her head. "I left behind the source of these problems a long time ago. The only thing I can do from here is keep moving forward. And it's kinda hard to do that if I keep looking back at what isn't here anymore." The blonde says, and she offers a small smile.

"But you can't really move forward if you never deal with what's been bothering you for so many years either." She reasons.

—

"No, no, no, no." Isla quickly leans down and picks up Minx from the floor of the truck, pulling her out of the plastic bag with the stuff that she got from the store. "Let's not ruin the things that I buy, thank you. I don't have much money."

Minx meows as she walks into the carrier that has the cuddle toy that she likes, and Isla chuckles as she watches the kitten drag it around. She's still smiling when she looks out her front windshield and sees Dean lean down as he kisses Cassie. The blonde clears her throat as she looks away from them, her smile disappearing from her face.

"Look, I mean— You're nice and all, you're just— You're not my type."

Isla hadn't realized just how true that was before they got to Missouri and she met his ex. There are no similarities between her and Cassie, or between her and Layla. Truthfully, she's starting to think that Dean's type is anything that isn't her — anything that could never be used to describe her.

Dean pulls away from Cassie a few seconds later, and his gaze happens to move in the direction of Isla's truck where she's waiting to leave. She's going through her CD collection, trying to find something that she wants to listen to on her long drive, but then Minx suddenly jumps up and her claws hook into the flannel of Dean's that Isla took a few days ago. The blonde laughs as she looks at the tiny, black kitten, raising her arm so she can see her better. Minx crawls to her shoulder and starts sniffing her face, making the blonde laugh as the kitten's whiskers tickle her.

Cassie sees the smile on Dean's face — brought on when he heard Isla's laughter through her open window — and she turns her head to see what caught his attention. A small smile crosses her lips as she then looks back at Dean.

"I talked to Isla a lot last night while you guys were gone." Cassie says, and he looks back down at her. "You know, she honestly believes that she'll never find love — that no one will ever love her the same way that she loves. You should tell her just how wrong she is." She says, and his eyebrows furrow.

"I don't..." He shakes his head. "Isla and I are just friends. We fight more than anything."

"Yeah, she said the same thing. And maybe that's true now, but..." The brunette offers him a small smile as she glances back toward Isla, then her gaze returns to him. "Goodbye, Dean."