Note: Hey, lovely people! Thank you for reading, voting, and commenting! As always, that was truly a highlight of my week ❤️

This chapter was a request from the incredibly kind 1ipod2 who wanted to see how Anna and Kate meet. I believe it's been mentioned in other chapters that they met before either of them lived in Lebanon, and I've always written Kate as a person who knows about the supernatural. I had every intention of making this into a full-on case when I started, but it just didn't turn out that way. It wound up focusing entirely on the two of them meeting, and I felt like it worked. I hope this satisfies you!

Anna and Kate are both thirteen in this one.

Tightrope Walking is an Extreme Sport

The Impala's doors creaked open, and three sets of feet crushed different piles of leaves and twigs on the forest floor at almost the same time. The air smelled clean and plenty, and the sky was barely visible above the tops of the trees. They were deep in the woods, and they still had a little bit of hiking to do to get to the campsite.

It was cool, but not cold, and they all had their flannels and canvas jackets on. The boys went around to the trunk to pull out the weapons duffel and their backpacks. Anna was already wearing hers. It wasn't heavy with just a book, some clothes, a flashlight, and a couple different silver knives in case something were to happen. And they were here for what they felt relatively confident was a werewolf case, so something could happen. But she was with her brothers, so that something probably wouldn't lead her to use either of her knives.

"I can't believe nobody shut down the campsite. Two people dead. How many bodies does it take for people to believe something's wrong?"

"It's like I keep telling you, Sammy. As long as they can keep telling themselves it's wildlife, they will. Anything so they don't have to believe there's something worse out there."

"Still. Even if they think there's some kind of killer grizzly out there-"

"Which is exactly what they think-"

"Why wouldn't they have cleared the campsite and sent some people out after it? Grizzly or werewolf, two bodies should be enough to close up for the season."

Anna heard the trunk slam shut and looked to her right, up the path they would be walking shortly. There were a couple of signs giving directions to the campsite even though it was a straight shot. She wondered how on earth it had taken so long for a monster to stake this place out and start dropping bodies. These were easy pickings for something with the speed and strength of a werewolf, and it wouldn't have been hard to find if you'd stumbled into town.

There had to be a hundred or a thousand replicas of towns and campsites like this all across the U.S., she thought, and if monsters had the capacity to plan and strategize the way that people did, they would probably set up at places like this all the time. People would pin any killings on wild animals because they were so deep in the woods, and the monsters could stay well fed. It was perfect in a really creepy way. Anna wondered how many werewolves did have setups like that, how many people were being torn apart every year because nobody knew better than to think they'd approached a grizzly. The thought made her shiver, but she didn't have any more time to dwell on it.

"Bout a mile that way," Dean said from right behind her.

Anna looked up at him and recognized that look in his eye that said he wasn't excited for this hunt. He usually liked the action-y hunts-- as if that wasn't every hunt to some extent-- and werewolves were often some of his favorites. On the contrary, though, Sam hated werewolf hunts because of some bad memories. Anna could barely remember Madison, but she could remember in vivid detail the days that had followed and the deadened look in Sam's eyes. Nobody was excited for this hunt, though. Whenever there were too many people around for a hunt of any kind, somebody always got hurt, and the more people there were, the harder it was to ensure that very thing didn't happen. This could just as easily become a deadly hunt as an exciting one.

As they walked the path, they passed more and more signs advertising the "wildlife attacks" that had been occurring in recent weeks. It didn't quite seem that the signs were supposed to warn people away from the campsite, just that they wanted everybody to know what they were walking into before they walked into it. More than likely, whoever ran the site was more worried about liability and lawsuits than about people dying.

It didn't take long to reach the campsite, which was almost eerily quiet. There were a few large tents set up and a small wooden building set up with restroom signs. No showers, but that was to be expected. They'd roughed it a lot worse considering that they usually had no semblance of an actual campsite to stay at while on a case like this one, out in the woods.

The only people who were outside of their tent and moving around were a girl who looked like she was about Anna's age and a woman who was presumably her mother. They had the same straight brown hair, and their coats were different colors but the same style, like they'd gotten them at the same time.

"Maybe the signs are working," Anna suggested and let her backpack fall so she only had one strap on.

"Maybe," Sam echoed. He dropped the weapons duffel and then his backpack. "Good a place as any," he said, looking to Dean for approval. Anna figured they were setting up on the edge of the site as more of a way to protect what few other campers there were than because it was a good spot, but she didn't say anything. That was their job, anyway.

She set her backpack down and watched curiously as the other girl and her mother talked quietly several yards away, sitting on little tree stumps. It was rare that Anna see other kids when they were working cases, and when she did they were usually much younger or older than her. As long as they were stuck at this campsite, it was pretty cool to know that there was another kid here.

"Guess we should get to know everyone," Dean spoke from behind her. "See if anyone's seen anything."

"How can we expect anyone to tell us anything if we don't have badges?" Sam challenged, busy pulling a water bottle out of the duffel bag. He held it out to Anna, but she shook her head, and he took a sip himself instead.

"Easy. We're concerned about the safety of the campsite."

Anna surveyed the little site with curious eyes. "Where's the ranger?" she asked after a moment.

The boys both looked around and came up empty. "There should be at least one," Sam said quietly. But there wasn't a soul around aside from the campers.

"Let's ask," Dean said and led the way toward the girl and her mother.

"You can't believe everything Dad says," the woman was telling her daughter. "He gets stuck in his ways sometimes, and he just won't let his mind be changed."

"I know, Mom," the girl said, but she had noticed the Winchesters walking toward them and she stopped talking to nudge her mother. "I thought they weren't letting anybody new come in."

"They aren't, but the rangers aren't out on the trails to warn anybody," the woman said.

"Hi," Dean greeted with an easy smile.

"Hi," the woman returned, then tilted her head in interest. "Are you campers?"

"Yeah, we'd already made plans, and it wasn't until we got to town we heard about what's been happening."

"And you brought your daughter here anyway." There was judgement in her tone that they all could hear.

"Actually, she's not my daughter. She's our sister." Dean held out his hand and the woman took it begrudgingly and shook it. "My name is Dean Winchester," he said. "This is my brother, Sam, and our sister, Anna. We, uh, we were assured that the situation was under control. But in case it isn't, we do have a lot of experience out in the woods."

"Our dad was a big game hunter," Sam explained. Anna thought sardonically that John sure was a big game hunter. If anything should count as big game, it would be ten foot tall wendigos and werewolves. "We figured, if something does come to camp, we can take care of it. If anyone else goes missing, we can get outta here."

"Well, I'm not so sure that's the smartest plan, coming here to begin with, but it is good to know we've got some people who know how to stay safe out here." The woman looked down at her daughter who was staring at a tent a few yards away, presumably it was theirs. "I'm Judith," she introduced and then placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. "This is my daughter, Kate. We've been out here going on two weeks now."

"No, uh- No offense," Sam started cautiously. "But, if you think it's so dangerous out here, why haven't you left yet?"

Judith's expression took on a bitter quality. "I think that's something you should ask my husband."

It was clear that they'd stepped in some family drama, so Sam backtracked quickly. "No, that's really none of my business. I'm sorry."

"No, no. I'd like to know why he'd put his pride above our lives-"

"Mom," Kate whispered incredulously from behind her. She looked a little embarrassed but more hurt.

Anna looked between them and tried to figure out what was going on. She watched Kate make eye contact with her mother and then Judith handed her daughter a flashlight. "Stay close to the tent, Sweetheart," she requested and laid a gentle hand on Kate's head. She gestured to the side with her head as if to invite the boys to talk to her away from her kid.

Anna made to follow as they moved away, but Dean nodded toward Kate, and Anna got the hint. Not only was she supposed to stay out of the way, but she was supposed to be social and talk to this Kate girl. After all, how often did she have the opportunity to make friends? On the rare occasion that she did, they always pushed her to try. Little did they know, it usually did more harm than good. Nobody wanted to talk to a girl like Anna let alone be her friend.

"Hey," she said quietly after the adults had moved off out of hearing distance and restarted their own conversation. "You said your name is Kate?"

"Yeah. Anna, right?"

"Yeah."

Things went quiet.

Anna scuffed the toe of her hunting boot into the ground. She loathed that she'd been forced to wear boots, but apparently sneakers weren't acceptable attire for hunts out in the woods. She glanced inconspicuously over at Kate to see her looking intently at the flashlight in her hands, probably to avoid making eye contact or starting conversation with Anna.

"Sorry for the prying," she said into the silence, looking earnestly at Kate. "They mean well." She stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets and watched Kate sit down on one of the tree stumps she and he mother had been on earlier. Anna sat on the other one.

"It's fine," Kate said of the Winchesters' prying questions. "You're not half as bad as the kids at school."

"People bother you?" Anna tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, curls falling to frame her face.

"Not me. They just... talk. About things they don't understand."

"Tell me about it," Anna sighed and looked around. She always got the worst feeling in her stomach when she was around people her own age. She hadn't wanted to stand here and speak to Kate because she knew that she was different from most kids. She didn't go to school, she didn't have friends, and she was hardly up on the latest trends in fashion, social media, or slang. She simply didn't know anybody else her age. She wasn't immersed in youth culture, and she was constantly terrified that it would show were she to try speaking to another kid her age. Instead she'd already found something to relate to Kate by, and it was the very experience of not blending in that they could bond over.

"People talk about you too?"

Anna shrugged. "I don't go to public school," she said. "And every time I ever try to talk to other kids, they think I'm stupid or some kind of freak. I guess part of it's the outfit. But, hey, I like thrift shopping."

Kate laughed, looked Anna's outfit up and down, and then just sort of smiled at her. "I like flannel," she said. "And some of my favorite clothes came from thrift stores."

Anna bobbed her eyebrows at that. It was very possible that this girl was just trying to be nice. After all, if Anna had the opportunity to go shopping at a mall, she would jump at the chance. But she didn't see why it mattered that much. She just didn't want people to look at her like she was dirty, and she knew wearing secondhand clothes translated to being gross in the minds of some people. Kate didn't seem to think so, though, and whether she was just a nice person or genuinely liked thrift shopping didn't matter to Anna. She was being given a chance and she would take it.

"You should see my wardrobe then," she joked. "You'd fall in love."

"People really don't like you?" Kate asked once things had gone quiet again. She sounded like she couldn't believe it, and Anna found that touching even though Kate barely knew her.

"I guess they just don't give me a chance," she answered and scuffed the toe of her boot in the dirt again. "It doesn't matter. I never stick around anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"We move a lot."

"Us too," Kate mumbled. "At first it was because Dad just couldn't stand to stay in one place. But now my mom has this new job opportunity in this little town in Kansas and my dad is the one refusing to pull up stakes."

"That doesn't make sense." Anna frowned.

"I know. But not much about him does. He keeps starting fights about it, even after my mom agreed not to take it. That's why we came out here. He wanted to do a family bonding trip. Which is ironic because he's the only reason we need to bond. Not to mention, this whole stupid trip had just made things worse."

"Worse?"

"People keep dying," Kate said nervously, turning her head just enough for Anna to catch and hold her eyes. "The first week we got here, this woman went missing right from camp. Middle of the night. And the next night, they found her. She was ripped up," Kate whispered, voice trembling.

"Ripped up," Anna repeated. "And her heart was missing?"

Kate nodded slowly. "How did you know that?"

Anna shook her head. "Um... I don't know. I think I heard in town when they were asking around."

"Oh." Kate looked at the ground.

"Where are the rangers?" Anna asked out of the blue. "Shouldn't there be somebody here? I've only been camping to a site like this once, and I was little, but... I thought there were rangers at the campground. To keep an eye on things."

Kate swallowed hard and looked at Anna with a wild brand of fear in her eyes. "There were," she said. "There were two rangers when we got here. One of them went out with a shotgun to hunt down the bear and never came back. And the other one..." Her eyes watered.

"What is it?" Anna asked, feeling an awful dread settle in her stomach. She suddenly knew where this was going.

"I- I saw something take him down. The bear," she stuttered.

"Bear," Anna repeated in confusion. "It was a bear?"

"What else could it be?" Kate challenged with a flare of tremulous anger.

"Well... you're the one who saw it. What else could it have been? What did it look like?" Maybe it was the calm in her voice or the openness in her eyes, or maybe it was just the fact that she shopped at thrift stores and got talked about by other kids. Whatever it was about Anna, something made Kate trust her enough to say what she did next.

"It was big, but I swear... It looked almost human. It just... it had these teeth and... I swear it had claws."

Anna nodded along to everything Kate said, feeling almost relieved that they could be sure they were after a werewolf. The reports had mentioned missing hearts, and that was a pretty good indicator, but having an eyewitness confirm it was always better than going in half blind. A new thought entered her mind, though, and she suddenly sat up straighter, eyes piercing Kate's as she asked, "Did it bite you?"

"No," Kate answered, voice subdued. She then lowered her eyes to the ground again. "But it ripped that man's heart right out of his chest, and... God, I was so scared. I ran away."

"It didn't follow you?"

"No."

"And did you tell anyone what you saw?"

"I told my mom, but she thinks it was just fear. Then they found the ranger's body. She's determined it was either a bear or some kind of mad man and my mind was just playing tricks on me."

"Don't let her get in your head, Kate," Anna said expressly. "You were right about what you saw. The thing that killed the rangers and that other woman... It's a monster. A werewolf. And we're here to kill it."

Kate shook her head, her face the picture of shock and confusion. "That's... impossible."

But Anna could hear the hesitation in her accusation. Kate knew what she'd seen, and they both knew Anna was telling the truth. "And what you saw... I guess you'd classify that as impossible too, huh?"

It was quiet for a second, then Kate stood up and set her flashlight down on the tree stump. "A werewolf, huh?"

Anna nodded. "They don't always hide out in the woods like this, but sometimes they do. And they eat human hearts."

"That's why they were missing from the bodies," Kate realized aloud. "That's why that thing I saw pulled the ranger's heart right out of his chest."

"Yeah," Anna said. "But it's gonna be okay. We're gonna get rid of it. We just have to find it first. And if it keeps coming back to camp like a total glutton-" Kate snorted a laugh that sounded like a release of tension. "That shouldn't be too hard," Anna finished with a soft smile.

Kate nodded, and they held each other's eyes for a minute. It felt almost comfortable. Anna glanced across the campsite to where her brothers were standing. They were talking to another camper now, standing outside the second tent. This guy was tall and heavyset, wearing a green vest and a ball cap. He reminded her of Bobby, and just the thought hit Anna like a punch to the gut. She slammed a shutter closed in her mind, cutting off all thoughts of Bobby and staring with intent at the forest floor.

"You're really... stable," Kate told her.

Anna looked over with an expression of total bewilderment that she didn't even try to hide. She started laughing. "I don't think I've ever been that called before," she said. "Literally ever. And I've been called a lot."

"I meant it in a good way," Kate said haltingly. "You're just, like, really calm. I just told you all these people are dying, and you just said a werewolf is killing them, and you're just... you're fine."

Anna had to laugh dryly at that. She'd been in the middle of being hit by a wave of grief for her surrogate uncle when Kate had made the observation that she was remarkably 'fine.' But she couldn't fault the girl. Kate didn't know her.

"You know, in a not-as-messed-up-as-it-sounds kind of way, my life is basically one crisis after another so I guess you could say that I'm good under pressure. But, you know what, Kate?" She waited for Kate to look at her before continuing. "You're a lot more stable than you give yourself credit for."

Kate snorted. "What makes you say that?"

"You watched something really, really awful happen. And you told the truth even though most people would've laughed in your face when you described a werewolf. And look at you. You're still here. Even more impressive, your family is even more messed up than mine, but you're sticking by them."

"They're my parents," Kate said tightly, but it sounded more like she was fighting back tears than anger. "But, you know, it feels weirdly good to have somebody see how freakin' hard I'm trying. I swear, thirteen, and they go back and forth between pretending I'm three and pretending I'm thirty."

Anna nodded, feeling some secondhand pain as she watched Kate's eyes water again. There was a lot of strength in being thirteen, she decided, or maybe in just being a teenager. It was hard to walk the tightrope between three and thirty. Lord only knew tightrope walking was an extreme sport under the best of circumstances. And family drama, social problems, death, or the end of the world... none of those were good circumstances. In fact, they all made it damn hard to go on being alive. Add a tightrope to that equation...

It would have been easy to fall off. And god, but Anna felt like she could use a hand to hold onto as she made her way across. She looked at Kate and could see the same need written all across the girl's features. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the smartphone she'd gotten when she was ten. She'd only ever really used it for emergencies or the occasional game of candy crush when she got super bored. Now, she passed it to Kate.

"If you put your number in," she said. "We could talk even after I leave. And I'll come back and visit."

"You want to be, like, actual friends?" Kate asked haltingly. The surprise in her voice was a little sad. But so was the nervousness Anna had felt as she made the offer, so they were even on that front. Both were a little socially impaired, but maybe that was perfect. Maybe they could be each other's cure.

La Fin