Courage
11

On the way into town, Tasha told Dean what she'd gleaned from her conversation with Mr. Lockhart which wasn't much. He'd just told her how much the teens liked Courage, that they were going to leave again some time tomorrow afternoon, oh, and that everybody in town was so nice. Dean kept from commenting, but thought that Tasha was maybe underestimating the danger her own kind posed to those teenagers.

They parked their car behind Tasha's cruiser, but she didn't make any attempt at getting out. Instead she seemed to think about something. “You should go talk to Cord about all this. Make sure, neither Colton or any of his friends are in the bar. Cord will know. I'll join you later. We usually eat together on full moon nights, though you might wanna leave for that. It's not pretty.”

Dean nodded. “I was wondering,” they then started, but stopped. They felt Tasha's eyes on them as they looked through the windshield.

“Were wondering?”

“Are you and Cord, like, together?” Dean felt heat rushing up their collar.

Tasha's voice sounded amused when she asked: “Why, are you interested...in Cord?”

“What? No, I...no.” Dean looked up at Tasha, they felt pitiful, but shyness had somehow overcome them. It wasn't often that they felt attraction, but Tasha was certainly one of a kind. A different kind, of course. A kind Dean shouldn't mess with.

Tasha smiled knowingly at Dean, then opened the door and got out. “I'll see you later, Sutter,” she said, before she closed the door.

“Yeah, later,” Dean grumbled. They were about to restart their car when their phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Hey, boss. You all right?” It was Terri.

“Yeah, sure. Why wouldn't I be?”

An exasperated sound came from the other end of the line. “Well, you haven't called yet today. Since you're on a mission it would be helpful for your employees to know that you haven't been eaten by werewolves.”

Dean couldn't help but smile. It seemed Terri worried about them. That was certainly new. “The first night of the full moon is tonight. I haven't even seen a werewolf here yet.”

“They could have hung you up somewhere to eat you later,” Terri reasoned.

“Actually, it seems that the werewolves aren't the problem, at least not most of them. There's a bunch of kids, though, who are set to get turned.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, don't ask me. Could you look into them? Get some information?” Dean pulled out his notebook where they'd put down the names.

“That's what I'm here for.”

“Okay, there's a Luke, a Greer, and a Corinne, first names I assume, though I'm not sure about Greer. And then there's a girl with the last name of Desmond. She's the most important.”

“Wait, I have a list of names. The school's secretary was quite helpful. Desmond...” Dean could hear the rustling of paper over the line. “Yes, Norma Desmond.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, why?”

“It's the name of a character from a movie, old movie with Gloria Swanson. No wonder the kid goes by her last name only,” Dean explained.

“Never heard of her, but Chase probably has. I'll ask him later.”

Dean smiled, knowing full well that Terri had a crush on Chase.

“Oh, she's the daughter of Neil Desmond, the big construction guy,” Terri said.

Dean now could hear the tapping of keys in the background. “Keep digging, but keep a low profile. I think there might be some abuse happening.”

“The poor girl.”

“Yeah, well, she's not precisely an innocent bystander. Her middle name might just be Trouble,” Dean said.

“Well, I'll look into the kids and come back to you. Take care.”

“Later.” Dean disconnected the call.