SEASON 1, EPISODE 18

Only a few hours had passed since Mara last spoke with the Winchesters and, once again, she found herself caught between a rock and a hard place. She now understood why many of her cadaverously angelic kin refused to converse with humans any longer than they were required to. After just one conversation with a few humans, Mara found that her immense feelings of guilt had grown to an unimaginable portion, and she didn't know how to fix it.

Returning John's journal had originally been her attempt to wash the crimson stains off her hands. She had no 'Plan B', as the Winchesters often called it. She'd never had to worry about cleansing herself of inner turmoil before, and now that both Kat and Dean had broadcasted their reluctance to forgive her, she was beginning to feel yet another emotion that she'd had no knowledge of prior to her conversation with the Winchesters. If she had to guess what it was, she'd classify the unusual emotion as 'hurt'. But she'd never known that a feeling as simple as hurt could bear so much agony.

The burning wound their conversation left on Mara's heart was only torn open again and again as she was forced to watch every move the Winchesters made. If it was up to her, she would have left and ran as far away from the hunters as she could. Fleeing would free her from the uneasy and unexplainable chills she got every time she looked at Dean, at least. And yet, her vigilance seemed to be a necessity, if only a necessity dictated by the ruby red ring that was enclosed around a demon's finger.

Mara's train of dismal thoughts were abruptly interrupted when Sam, his eyes glued to the laptop in front of him, said, "It wasn't easy to find but you were right."

Dean, in response to Sam's words, simply brought a ceramic mug to his lips as Kat spoke in his place, "About the sh...whatever that thing is?"

Sam nodded, and his sister took his nod as an invitation to sit next to him. She plopped down onto the mattress of the bed Sam was seated on, nudging him with her shoulder in a gesture to slide over. Sam did so, and waited for Dean to look up from the motel room's coffee maker to continue speaking.

"Shtriga is a kind of witch," he began, shooting Kat an irritated look as she turned his laptop to face her own slight figurine. She simply shrugged in response to his half-hearted glare as he continued, explaining, "They're Albanian, but legends about them trace back to Ancient Rome. They feed off spiritus vitae."

It didn't take much for Mara to decipher what it was that the trio of hunters were talking about. She'd been drifting in the background of their repetitive and often violent lives for weeks, and for the last few days, their sole interest had been tracking down a monster that appeared to be sucking the lives out of young children. Of course, Mara had known what species the monster was from the start. It was often deemed obligatory that reapers be aware of the other supernatural creatures that existed around them.

Refraining from aiding the Winchesters in their search for information on the shtriga only added to Mara's guilt, but there was nothing that could be done about it. Katarina, if not Dean as well, already had suspicions that Mara was following them, and even that minuscule speck of information was more than Azazel would want them to know. In fact, Mara had no doubt that Azazel would plague her with torturous punishments if he found out she'd revealed herself to the Winchesters in the first place.

"Spiri-what?" Dean sputtered, his question acting as a sardonic request for clarification about the Latin words Sam had spoken.

"Vitae," Sam answered. "It's Latin, translates to 'breath of life'. Kinda like your life force or essence."

The corners of Dean's eyebrows turned inward, a sign that he was thinking deeply about something. "Didn't the doctor say the kids' bodies were wearing out?"

Sam tugged at the corner of his laptop, earning a glare from Kat when he yanked it out of her grasp. As Sam began to elaborate on the nature of the vampiric nature of a shtriga, Mara couldn't help but laugh. The trio was in the center of one of their most dangerous cases yet, without the help of their father, nonetheless, and somehow in the midst of all the chaos and peril they found it in themselves to try their siblings' patience. It was laughable at best, and Mara would never understand the peculiar serenity of their behavior, but she reckoned that was one of the reasons it was so amusing to her.

"And get this," Sam spoke up, eyes locked on the luminous screen of his laptop. "Shtrigas are '...invulnerable to all weapons devised by God and man.'"

'No,' Mara thought. 'No, that's not right. Sam's source is wrong; hunters kill shtrigas all the time.'

"Well that's wonderful. How are we supposed to kill it, then?" Kat asserted. The look in the young girl's eyes was a fervent reminder to Mara that it would be dangerous to cross the youngest Winchester. She had a silent, constantly sizzling fire about her, and just a single strike of a match would ignite it to unimaginable heights. The imminent danger of the shtriga's victims, it seemed, were one of the few things that could test the heat of Katarina Winchester's flame.

Moments passed, and the blank expression on each of the hunter's faces told Mara that not a single one of them knew how to kill a shtriga. As far as Sam knew, a shtriga was an immortal being that couldn't be killed, not even by a weapon created by God himself.

Mara's skin began to crawl. The Winchesters' ignorance wasn't their own fault and yet, if they listened to Sam's source of information on the shtriga, their ignorance would be the miserable ruin of dozens of innocent children. And there Mara stood, a silent ghost in the corner of an assembly of warriors, with the priceless knowledge in her head that would tell the Winchesters how to kill the creature they were facing.

She had to reveal herself to them. There was no other way. Even if it did confirm Kat's suspicions that she was following their every move, even if her appearance led her to the hellfire and torture a certain yellow-eyed demon had to offer, it was worth the salvation of many benign children. She would have to face the demons that controlled her like a dog on a leash when the time came.

It only took one trifle of a thought for Mara's allusive cloak of invisibility to dissolve into nothingness, but it was that one thought that bred the many that wormed their way inside the minds of Sam, Dean, and Kat. Sam jumped to his feet, leaving his laptop abandoned, and Dean wasted no time in acquiring the nearest pistol he could find.

"Not you again," he muttered, cocking the gun in his hand and aiming it at Mara, a familiar sight to the reaper when she remembered their last encounter.

Mara glanced at each of the tense humans, a smile crawling onto her face when she caught sight of Kat reaching for a leather-wrought flask of water. Mara's smile seemed to add even more rigidity to the air that surrounded the quartet than what was already present.

"Holy water won't work on me, Katarina," Mara mused, her lips curved upwards in a rare, effervescent sort of smile. Her grin fell at the sight of Kat scrunching up her nose, presumably in disgust at the use of her full name. "I'm not a demon."

"You sure about that?" Dean erupted.

Mara's eyes met with Dean's, and it wasn't the first time she'd felt her heart beat faster due to eye contact with him. Mara frowned as she did her best to ignore her heart's shouts and yelps, almost grateful for the distraction Sam gave when he spoke up, snapping, "Yes, Dean."

The younger man turned his head to face Mara before he added, in a much gentler tone than the one he used with his brother, Mara was careful to note, "Sorry, he's just a little on edge about the fact that you keep appearing out of nowhere."

"It is a little suspicious," Kat stepped forward as she boldly gave her piece of input. It would be difficult for Mara to miss the fire that was illuminating her eyes in time with the growing fierceness her shoulders carried. Katarina's spunk was something that never ceased to make Mara wonder why her brothers treated her like a child. Her age deemed her a juvenile, yes, but she'd stood up to a reaper more times than one, and that was a feat that not many adults could even dream of accomplishing.

"I just came to give you information regarding the creature you're hunting," Mara said, careful not to reveal anything that would compromise her position. "The shtriga is not invulnerable, as your internet source says. It's vulnerable when it feeds."

A corner of one of Kat's eyebrows rose, deepening the curve that her fine hairs created. She slipped her hands inside the front pockets of her jeans, something Mara had grown to realize was a nervous antic of hers.

"How do we know we can trust you?" she queried, doubt ringing in her voice like a church bell at noon.

Mara opened her mouth to defend herself. She wanted to help the Winchesters with their hunt; she had no malicious intentions. But how was she supposed to communicate that with the trio that stood before her? A simple "I'm here to help" was not likely to suffice when dealing with people who'd been hunting their entire lives. There was no doubt in Mara's mind that they would want to know more - about where she came from, why she appeared every time they needed help, why she would even want to help them - and she could not give them the answers they desired without revealing her servitude to their archenemy.

Dean's eyes, shimmering in a mirroring of a pristine emerald, watched Mara carefully as he took a step towards her. His boots thudded against the floor, one after the other, until he was close enough to the reaper that she could see the wrinkles in his brown, leather jacket. The normally plump lips that decorated his skin were stretched thin as he proclaimed, "We can trust her. About this, at least."

The rough, gravelly tone in his voice diminished as he continued, saying, "If you catch her when she's eating, you can blast her with consecrated wrought iron. Buckshots or rounds, I think."

"How do you know that?" Sam asked, his head tilting and eyebrows shooting upward.

Dean shrugged nonchalantly, as if his knowledge wasn't a big deal, and turned away from Mara to search through a duffel bag that was lying on his bed. "Dad told me. I remember."

Mara nodded. John told him. Of course he had. Dean had crossed paths with a shtriga before, hadn't he? He'd talked about it with Sam and Kat not even an hour ago in their car. He hadn't said much, other than the fact that the shtriga had escaped the tight grasp of John and Dean Winchester, but judging by the cloudy look in his eyes...there was more to the story than he's revealed to his siblings. After all, it was rather unbelievable that anything could escape when John wanted it dead.

Mara took a heedful step in Dean's direction and placed a hand on his shoulder. His gaze jerked upwards and landed on Mara's gentle features, and his eyes were flicking back and forth at a violent speed, but he didn't tear his shoulder away from her touch. Mara was flooded with pleasant surprise.

Though he didn't act revolted at coming into direct contact with a reaper, Mara didn't want to push her luck with the spirited man, and made sure her words were soft and tender as she spoke, "The shtriga...you have bad memories about it. It haunts you. Why?"

At this, Dean did pull his shoulder away from Mara's touch. Mara felt her heart sink, but she tried to ignore the feeling that was tearing at her chest as Dean breathed, "How did you know that?"

"Your eyes," Mara answered. "There's something sad about them. Something deep and hidden from the rest of us, and they only look sad when someone starts talking about the shtriga."

"Dean?"

Sam's facial features morphed into an expression that suggested concern, and it wasn't but a moment after he called his brother's name that he added, "What is she talking about?"

Mara's line of sight shifted from Dean to Sam and back again, and then to Kat, who had a look on her face that proved she was as confused as Sam was. Suddenly, it dawned upon the pale reaper that there was a possibility she might have revealed too much by asking her question. The humans that stood in front of her could not read emotions as plainly as she could. For them, the emotions of their peers were a more ambiguous matter, and they probably had no idea what Dean was hiding, either. In fact, she wasn't sure they'd even had suspicions that he was hiding something about the shtriga until Mara had suggested it.

Just as Mara opened her mouth to explain herself, her gaze locked on Dean's clenched jaw and trouble eyes, a wave of ice exploded in her chest. She despised the chilling wave of ice. She should've grown accustomed to it by now - the persistent tug she felt in the core of her body when she was being summoned - but it was as forgettable a feeling as drinking water on a hot day. When every part of your body was boiling in the sweltering heat of the yellow sun, and at the exact moment that a drop of water trickles from your tongue to the pit of your stomach, the iciness of the water sends a tremor through your abdomen.

Mara had just enough time to register the fact that she was being summoned by Meg's red ring, and the next thing she knew, she was staring into the inky black eyes of a demon.