Summary: One of Sam's visions leads the Winchesters back to Kansas, but nothing (and no one) is exactly what it seems.
Spoilers: Everything up to "Croatoan".
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Eric Kripke, Warner Brothers Television Productions, and their many, many well-paid lawyers. I am NOT making any money off this, nor am I trying to infringe on anyone's copyright. Believe that.
Authors' Notes: This is the first time I've written for Supernatural, so try to keep the "your characterization sucks!" comments to a minimum. I'm well aware it probably does. I always do the best I can with that aspect. This is also the first multi-chapter gen fic I've written in a coon's age. Forgive me if it's longer than usual. Also, any characters you don't recognize from the series are mine. Thanks to Amy and Bridget for giving me some initial feedback. You chicks are boss!
This story takes place between "Crossroad Blues" and "Croatoan".
Questions, Comments, Suggestions: Send to donnacsoprano76 AT yahoo DOT com. All flames are read, laughed at then deleted with extreme prejudice.
-
"Nocturne"
By Net Girl
The terrified young woman sprinted down the darkened sidewalk, her destination unclear at the moment. From what little was illuminated by a pale half-moon and the street lamps, it was safe to assume she was in a suburban area. Not exactly the kind of place one might see such things as monsters, ghosts, demons and shadows ...
Her longish brown hair fluttered behind her; her dark eyes filled with fear as she glanced over her shoulder. It was coming closer. Gaining. She couldn't see it then, but she could feel it. A hand brushed over the rip in her fitted light blue t-shirt. She'd barely escaped it once already. Just barely. She hadn't any idea what "It" was, only it wanted to hurt her. Probably even kill her.
Whimpering, she ran faster, headed for the only major building. As she neared it, she passed by a grounded marquee sign which read: 'Tonganoxie High School – Home of the Chieftans! WELCOME BACK!'. Once beyond it, she made a sharp left then a beeline for the main entrance of the school.
The metal double doors burst open with a loud clank and she skidded to a halt at the head of the main hallway, her worn sneakers squeaked against the freshly waxed linoleum tiling as she did. Frantic eyes looked down each of the halls to her sides, then straight up the main one which was lined with gray lockers. Behind her, the doors clicked shut and the only sound she could hear was her own panting.
Where could she hide? She needed help. No one was around – not a soul. New panic washed over her as, at the end of the main hall, the mysterious shadow materialized.
With a soundless scream, she bolted down the hallway to her left, her shoes squeaked loudly with each running step she took in the dead quiet halls of the building. She flew past a massive glass case filled with trophies and photos of athletic teams and other students from days gone by. Beyond that, handmade banners announced August 19th as the first day of the new year. Everything seemed so bright and optimistic despite what was happening.
"Help!" She'd yelled the word but it barely made a sound in her throat. The more she tried, the harder it was to hear herself.
At the end of the hall, she grabbed the metal handle of the next set of double doors. No matter how much she pushed and pulled, they refused to open. They sounded as though they were chained on the other side. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she finally gave up, her forehead touched the door as she leaned on it. Her shoulders shook as she softly sobbed.
"Please," she whispered as she stared at the floor. Tears splattered near her feet. "Someone ... help me."
She froze. Her eyes widened slight as she slowly lifted her head. The girl's lower lip trembled as she sense she was no longer alone in the hall. The fear, the adrenaline, the confusion welled up inside of her at the same moment. She had nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Finally, she whirled around to face the menace, head-on.
The featureless, practically formless, shadow extended a billowing tentacle towards her. She was petrified by the terror, left unable to move and made absolutely no attempt to flee as it wrapped around her throat. The pressure increased, soon it cut off her ability to breathe.
Her mouth opened but she didn't scream. She couldn't. There was only silence. Her hands clawed at the shadowy vise. To her horror, her hands only passed through it, settling on a gold chain around her own neck. Her eyes widened as she felt the life drain from her body. She could do nothing, except stare at the blackness before her. As the light went out from her eyes, her hands fell away from her throat and her arms swayed limply at her sides.
It was over.
The shadow dissolved. The girl's body, almost in slow motion, dropped to the floor. Her dead, glassy-eyed gaze stared up the hallway. The charm on the necklace she wore slipped down and dangled back and forth. The pale light in the building caught it at such an angle it appeared to glimmer, and made clear the single word it bore: "JEWEL".
-
"Sam! Hey, wake up!"
Sam Winchester's eyes opened suddenly. He blinked furiously for several seconds before he realized where he was – in the passenger's seat of his brother Dean's Impala. After another few seconds, he remembered to breathe and the rest of the world became real again. It was then he noticed his hand had the inside of his door and the bottom portion of the seat in a grip so fierce his knuckles had turned white.
"Sam."
A set of fingers snapped in front of his face. He looked over to Dean, who sat there with a half-baffled/half-concerned expression on his face. He seemed to wear it a lot lately.
"Are you all right?"
Sam blinked again and shifted in the seat. He unclenched his hands as he forced himself to relax. "Y-yeah," he uneasily replied. "I ... think so." He looked out of the window. It was late morning, maybe even afternoon. When they'd left Ellen's roadhouse it was around 8 in the morning. "I must've fallen asleep."
Dean nodded slightly, concerned with how disoriented Sam still was. "Uh-huh. Nightmares tend to happen then," he slowly said.
"Huh? Nightmares?" He looked to Dean. "What?"
"Dude, I had to pull over, you were flippin' out so bad." He waved a hand at the front windshield. "I tried to wake you up but you just ... wouldn't." He narrowed his eyes slightly. "What the hell were you dreaming about?"
This was a question Dean hated asking, especially where Sam was concerned. His weird dreams and visions always led them to something demon-related. Or someone. One of their more recent encounters brought them into contact with two brothers, both with the "power of persuasion". That didn't end well. For anybody. The only upside was they'd discovered at least one other kid like Sam, one who hadn't gone nuts after his powers manifested.
Sam used the thumb and forefinger of his casted arm hand to massage his temples. "There was a girl ... " He squeezed his eyes shut, desperate to remember anything from the dream. No, not a dream. This was a vision, in dream form. He hadn't experienced one like this in months. "It was dark outside, night time." Bits of it returned to him. "Something was chasing her. It ... killed her."
"Demon?"
His eyes opened as he dropped his hand down. "No. It was ... formless. Like a shadow."
"Like the shade that Meg chick used on us?"
Sam shook his head. "This was different. I've never seen anything like it before." He focused on the events of the vision, more of it returning as he did so. "It was strange. For some reason, she couldn't scream for help."
"You think the thing that killed her was responsible?"
He shrugged. "I don't think it was. Everything about the vision ... " He sighed as he shook his head again. "It was ... off." It was the middle of December, but the banner in the school suggested it was August. He looked to Dean. "I haven't had a vision in dream form in months. Why would one happen like that now?"
Dean sat back in the seat. Everything was weirder than usual since their father had died. Maybe not so much weirder for him than more difficult. A lot of shit happened in that hospital, almost all of it he wished he could forget. Especially one certain thing.
"There's something you should know ..."
He snapped back to the present before he could remember what his father had told him. Focus on the problem they had now.
"Any idea where we can find this girl? Or even who she is?"
Sam pressed his fingers to the right side of his head. He searched through the images of the vision for anything which might help. He settled on the glimmering charm around the girl's neck. "She had a necklace on -" He motioned to his own neck. "The kind with a person's name sort of embedded into it? Hers said 'Jewel'." He pushed the image away quickly. Her dead gaze disturbed him more than the first time he'd seen it.
Dean muttered a curse under his breath. "Jewel? That's all we have to go on?" He laughed a little, shaking his head. "You gotta be friggin' Veronica Mars to figure out these damned visions of yours, Sammy."
Sam glanced at Dean, uneasy about what he had to tell him. "That ... wasn't all of it." He'd recognized the school. As well as the name on the marquee outside of it. Tonganoxie. He wasn't sure how to drop this one on Dean. He knew exactly how his brother would react to it. "She's somewhere we've been more than once." Indirect, that was the way to go.
Dean's eyebrows lifted as he made a slight sweeping gesture with his hand. "And ... that would be ... where?"
Sam avoided eye contact with him. Instead, he opted to look out of the window at the endless expanse of nothingness which constituted central Nebraska. All of Nebraska, really. "It's not that far from here -"
"Just goddamn tell me already!" Dean impatiently snapped. He wasn't playing Twenty Questions; not when some girl was going to die and they already had so little to go on to find her.
"Tonganoxie, Dean," Sam shortly replied. He paused, he watched as Dean's expression went from surprise to something indecipherable. "Kansas. That's where she is."
Blank expression in place, Dean leaned back in the seat again. He was careful to avoid even glancing in Sam's direction. Still, he could feel Sam staring at him. "Really?" was all he could muster.
"Yeah." He knew how much Dean hated it there. Not the town itself, but the state as a whole. He'd never seen anyone go out of his way to avoid a place the way Dean did Kansas. Even moreso after their last trip home - to Lawrence - a little over a year ago.
Dean's hands kneaded the steering wheel as he continued to stare straight ahead. "Are you -sure-?" he asked after almost a full minute of complete silence. "You might just think it's Tonganoxie -"
"I saw the high school, Dean," he said. "It's Tongie." He waited for a response. Something. Anything. After a few moments, he started to speak, but was cut short.
"Well." Dean turned over the engine and looked to Sam, one of those perfected fake smiles plastered on his face. "Guess we're headed south."
"Dean -" He was surprised by Dean's cell phone smacking him in the arm. "What are you - "
"Get Ash on the phone," he said, never taking his eyes off the road ahead. "We're gonna need his help to find out if anything weird's been goin' on there lately." He glanced at Sam. "Since we don't have your laptop. Told you surfing those porn sites would get you in trouble one day, Sam."
Sam picked up the cell phone, giving Dean one of those "looks". No matter what he said, Dean would never believe the virus which crashed his laptop didn't come from some porn site. Either way, they were without it until Ash did something. Whatever it was, it was beyond Sam's skills.
"Maybe we should -"
"We don't have time," Dean cut in, waving a hand at him, indicating for him to use the phone. "These visions usually happen pretty close to the actual thing, don't they? How it's been before." He leaned forward, looking up at the sky, then he shook his head. "We might not make it there before tonight."
"With the way you drive, we don't need to worry," Sam murmured as he searched through the list of numbers until he found Ellen's.
Dean's foot pushed the pedal almost to the floor, easing the car into a cruising speed of 90 miles an hour. He side-glanced at Sam, who'd seemed to get a hold of Ellen at least. With Sam no longer bugging him, Dean's mind went back to their destination.
Kansas. Tonganoxie wasn't more than fifteen minutes up the highway from Lawrence. Too close for his comfort. He glanced up at the sky again. Someone was in danger, though, he had to shove all of that crap to the side. He had more reasons than Sam knew for avoiding the whole area. None of them good. And Sam would never know about any of it if Dean had his way.
-
By the time the Impala pulled into the vacant parking lot of the high school, the sun had long since set. The school, and the nearby junior high, were outside of the city proper, away from the residential and business areas to the south. Only open land and scattered trees. Despite being located near a two-lane highway, the town of Tonganoxie, Kansas, was like most every other in the eastern part of the state. Big enough to warrant a high school, small enough for anyone with sense to bolt from when given the chance.
Dean scanned the area after he pulled into one of the parking spaces near the building itself. They wouldn't be noticed from the highway here. He saw the sign Sam had mentioned to him, it wasn't far away. From this spot, they could keep an eye out and not miss the girl and whatever it was that was supposed to kill her.
"We haven't been here in a long time," Sam quietly said as he looked out of his own window.
"Yeah. Forget what it's like around here," Dean replied, equally quiet. He sighed and settled back in the seat. "Guess we're waiting, huh?"
It was all they could do. Ellen promised to have Ash contact them as soon as he came back (wherever he was), but that was hours ago. No call. They had so little to go on, he wasn't sure how much help Ash would be, anyway. With nothing but a name to go on and no time, they couldn't attempt their own investigation.
Sam winced slightly as his head began to throb with a dull pain. His hands pressed against his temples as he shut his eyes. This had never happened before. An identical pain, yes, but it was always accompanied by one of the visions.
"Sam?"
His eyes opened and he found Dean watching him intently. "What?"
"You okay?"
"My head hurts, that's all," he answered in a dismissive tone. He winced again, drawing in a sharp breath at the same time.
"See anything?"
He shook his head.
Dean sighed, frustrated. "The one time we could use a break and we've got nothin'." He snatched up his cell phone from the seat between them. "And where the hell is Ash? Ellen didn't say where he was? When he'd be back?"
"No. Just he'd left and said he'd be gone a few hours. She tried to get into his computer herself, but he has it password-protected. She couldn't even log onto the Internet." He rubbed his temples. The pain was becoming unbearable.
"Paranoid nutbag," Dean muttered as tossed his phone aside and looked out of his window. After a couple of minutes, he spoke again. "You know what this reminds me of?" He shifted his attention to Sam. "That thing in Basehor. The abandoned house?"
Sam nodded as he continued to massage his head. He wondered what was wrong with him. This was new, and new usually wasn't good where the demon was concerned.
Dean chuckled. "You ran outta there like you stole somethin'." He looked over to Sam again, grinning. "Never saw you move that fast before. Ever."
Sam dropped his hands down as he looked to him. "You know, I don't recall you being the epitome of cool during that, either," he shortly said. Not only did he have this damn headache to contend with, but Dean was giving him grief over something that happened seven years ago. "I remember you running straight to Dad."
"Because I had to bail your ass out, that's why!" He drummed his fingers on the inside of the driver's side door. "You never did what Dad told you, man."
"And whose bright idea was it to chase it to the second floor, after Dad told us not to?" He lifted an eyebrow when Dean looked at him. "Then you ran first, not me."
Dean scoffed. "You have your version, I have the truth."
Suddenly, the throbbing pain in Sam's head vanished. He blinked a few times. Just like that – he was fine. "It's gone," he said as he looked to Dean. "The headache. You think that's a good or bad sign?"
He didn't answer, simply focused on the school in front of them. His fingers continued to drum against the door. Something about this made him edgy. Edgier than usual. It was more than it being demon-related or even back in Kansas, so close to "home". Something was ... off. He couldn't figure out what, he just felt it.
Another twenty minutes passed by, with no sign of anything out of the ordinary. Just the sound of the occasional car driving by on the highway. In the driver's seat, Dean slumped behind the wheel, his eyes almost drifting shut before he forced them open again. His battle with his own exhaustion wasn't going well. They'd been up since four o'clock that morning. They'd wanted to get a jump on driving to another job in Pennsylvania.
Driving all of that way non-stop wasn't easy, either. Especially when he'd barely managed to ditch two separate cops two counties away who'd been after him for speeding. Didn't surprise him, though. Cops that far north didn't have anything better to do than lurk behind trees and chase speeders. They weren't gonna bust Dean Winchester. Not today. Or any day.
Sam noticed Dean struggling to stay awake. "I can keep watch," he offered. "Go to sleep."
He rubbed his eyes with the fingers of one hand and waved Sam off with the other. "I'm all right."
"You're no good if you're exhausted. When this thing shows up, I need you ready." He studied Dean closely. The weird behavior concerned him. It was almost as if Dean didn't want to fall asleep. "Is something bothering you?"
"Yeah. You are," he snapped as he forced his eyes open again. He focused straight ahead. "Stare out the window, Sam, not at me."
"Something's been eating at you since we hit Leavenworth County," Sam went on, as though Dean had said nothing to him. "You wanna tell me what it is?"
Dean slid down further in the seat, sighing. "If my choices are sleeping or having some touchy-feely, hug your buddy chat about life with you, I'm takin' sleep." He shifted in place so his back was to Sam and his head lay at an odd angle against the back of seat. "Wake me if anything actually happens, okay?" he muttered.
Sam frowned slightly as he slouched on his own side of the seat and turned his attention to the school.
He should've been used to it by now – Dean's closed-off personality. He never wanted to talk about anything important, besides the job. The rest of the time he rattled on about women or the number of dive bars on any given stretch of highway. Since their last encounter with the demon, since he'd almost died a second time, Dean was worse about it.
He barely mentioned their father, and when Sam brought it up, he found a way to change the subject. They only had each other left now. In the past few weeks, they seemed more distant than when Sam was at Stanford. Then there was the way Dean looked at him lately, too. It'd started right after their father had died. He'd considered asking why but never did. He wouldn't get an answer, why waste his breath?
He looked down as he picked up Dean's cell. 11:45. Where the hell was this girl? Were they too late? Too early? He hated waiting, but without Ash or time to investigate this was their only lead. Frustrated, he tossed the phone onto the seat, planted his elbow on the door and rested his head in his hand. He thought about starting the car, just to run the heat a while.
August 19th, the banner in the vision had read. His gaze slid over to the grounded marquee, glowing dimly in the dark. 'Tonganoxie High School – Home of the Chieftans. HAVE A NICE BREAK!'. Why were minor things like that different from what he'd seen?
Beside him, Dean shifted and his head slid forward until it rested against the driver's side window. Just watching him sleep reminded Sam of how tired he was. Even though he knew he had to stay awake, it wasn't long before his own eyes drifted shut.
-
Images of the mystery girl's murder flashed through Sam's mind in a rapid succession which culminated with his eyes flying open as he gasped. The faint echo of her quiet cry "Somebody ... help me ..." lingered even though he was wide awake.
As he relaxed, he looked outside of the car. The windows had fogged up, so he used a hand to wipe it clear. It was dark, yet the sky had taken on a different shade of black. Lighter. Morning was coming. He rubbed his eyes and turned in the seat. Dean was in the same position he'd been when Sam himself had drifted off.
"Dean ..." he whispered. He reached out to wake him but his hand froze. Nothing had really happened. Still, what were those flashes about? He pulled his hand back and got out of the car.
As he stood beside the car, he shoved his hands into his pockets. This was an unusually warm December, however, the coat he had on wasn't exactly the warmest thing. He searched the entire area. Nothing seemed different than before. Gently, he shut the door and walked towards the school. When he reached the marquee he stopped. In the dream, the girl had passed by here.
He turned left, ascended the four cement steps which led to the main entrance. A few safety lights were on inside of the building, the small rectangular windows in the doors glowed eerily because of it. He grabbed the door handles and pulled. They didn't budge. After he rattled it a few times, he let go. The doors were locked.
He flashed back to the vision. The girl had barreled through them with no problem. Puzzled, he leaned forward and peered through the left window. The school was empty, not a soul in sight. From what he could tell, it looked exactly as it did in the vision. His eyes narrowed when he noticed something which wasn't. The lockers, the ones in the main hallway, they weren't gray. They were bright red.
Sam didn't have a chance to wonder why that was, though. In the distance, he heard the distinct wail of police sirens. He turned and searched for the source. Soon, two police cruisers screamed by on the highway.
Back in the car, Dean was startled awake by the sirens. He lifted his head, his eyes still bleary with sleep, just in time to see police cruisers vanish south, into town.
"What the hell?" he murmured. He looked over his shoulder. "Hey, Sam -" He sat up straight when he didn't see Sam in the car. A second later, he jumped as the passenger's side door flew open and Sam leaned inside.
"Dean - "
"Christ, you scared ten years off of me!"
"Did you -"
Dean nodded as he wiped a hand over his face. "Yeah, I heard it. What do you think that's about?"
Sam glanced around. "It's almost 4:30 in the morning and nothing's happened." He shook his head a little. "Something's wrong, Dean."
"What do you mean, something's wrong?"
He glanced back at the school. The locked doors, the different colored paint on the lockers, the marquee, the time of year ... "It's – nevermind." Nothing everything was -perfect- in those visions. There had to be some explanation behind it.
"We should check out what's goin' on in town," Dean said. "It might be connected to why we're here."
"We can't leave. It hasn't happened."
"Maybe just not here."
Sam slammed an open palm on the top of the car, which first caused Dean to jump then it quickly turned to anger. "I saw it happen here, Dean," he firmly stated. He pointed to the ground. "Here. She ran right by this spot."
"What if your vision was wrong?"
Sam's hand, which was still on the top of the car, balled into a fist. He didn't want to even entertain the idea. It meant they sat there, while somewhere else in town a girl was murdered. "It was a vision. They happen just like I see them. You know that," he replied, his voice strained now.
"Fine. I'll go." Dean fished his keys out of his jacket pocket. "You can stay here. Just in case I'm wrong."
"So, what? You're ditching me?" Sam stood straight as Dean got out of the car. He couldn't believe it – why didn't Dean trust him? He saw it happen at the high school. The commotion in town couldn't be related.
"No," he snapped as he went to the trunk then popped it open. "I'm not." He pulled out a duffel bag and tossed to Sam. He made no move to catch it and it landed on the ground, near his feet. After grabbing something else, Dean shut the trunk and stood there, one of the shotguns in hand. "You can handle being by yourself for ten minutes." He pitched the gun at Sam, who neatly caught it in his good hand. "Can't you?"
His eyes narrowed. "Yes. I can," he tightly answered.
He watched Dean get back into the car. He barely had a chance to step back before Dean threw it into 'reverse' and pulled out of the parking space. A moment later, he raced out of the lot itself and onto the highway. Sam didn't take his eyes off the car until it disappeared in the same direction the police vehicles had.
"Goddamnit," he uncharacteristically swore, snatching the duffel from the ground at the same time. He scowled as he half-stormed back to the sidewalk. He wished he knew what in the hell was going on in Dean's head lately (as frightening as the prospect was). Whatever his problem, it was turning him into somebody Sam didn't know. And didn't want to know, either.
-
As Dean made his way to where all of the police and emergency vehicles had gathered, he wasn't surprised to see half of the residents gathered around. Most stood in the street or on the sidewalk just behind the yellow police tape which cordoned off a particular house from the others. It wasn't any different from any other on the street: a simple two story place which had a flaking paint job and two foreign compact cars no younger than the '80s parked in the driveway. His gaze shifted from the cars to the mailbox. 'MYERS'.
He scanned the crowd. Most of them were still in night clothes; a few others were dressed, most likely for an early morning at work. All of them had their eyes riveted to the three uniformed police officers speaking to a middle-aged man in a tired suit. Dean had been around enough police stations to know the look – this guy was Homicide.
"What do you think happened?" a young woman clutching her robe around her asked no one in particular.
"Who knows? 'Specially with that damned girl of Becky's," an older man replied with a snort. "Probably got herself into some trouble she can't get out of this time."
"Shut up, Bob," another woman snapped. "The coroner went inside. Obviously something bad's happened. And you're being an ass."
Dean looked back to the yard as the detective walked away from the uniforms. He wondered what the ass had meant about a girl being in trouble. His eyes narrowed as a stretcher was wheeled out of the house by two young men in black jackets, followed by an older woman. He didn't need to see the back of the coats. She was the coroner.
"Oh, my God," the second woman gasped, a hand flying to her mouth, once she saw the black bodybag strapped to the stretcher. Tears filled her eyes. "Oh, no ..."
The detective and the coroner stood near the back of the open medical examiner's van. They compared their notes as the two men loaded the stretcher into it. After a few seconds of deliberation with the man, the coroner nodded then pulled out a cell phone.
"Who is it?" someone else in the crowd breathed.
As if on cue, a distraught woman, probably in her early 40s, her open robe fluttering behind her as she ran towards the van, screamed, "NO! Please! She can't be dead!" Her legs buckled when the detective caught her before she could reach it. She wailed, the kind Dean had heard so many times before, but it never failed to curdle his blood. "No! Please ... "
"Mrs. Myers, I'm sorry," the detective said as he tried to calm her.
"She's my baby! She can't be gone!" She struggled with the man and broke down into hysterical sobs as the coroner's people slammed the van doors shut. "JEWEL! No!"
Jewel.
Dean remembered the name on the necklace Sam saw in the vision. "Shit," he whispered.
He slowly backed away from the crowd, keeping a close eye on the onlookers. A homicide, and here he was – a stranger in town. That was the last thing they needed, for one of these locals to notice him and maybe give his description to the cops. Anyone from out of town would be a suspect.
Once clear of the crowd, he was glad he was forward-thinking enough to park on the next street over. He hadn't expected this mess to be a part of the job. But, he wasn't surprised. Everything had been left of normal from the second Sam woke up from that damned dream.
Sam. He'd forgotten about Sam still at the school, so certain this Jewel girl was killed there. He couldn't blame him. The visions had never been wrong. Until now. The only thing right so far was the victim. And he was stuck dropping this on him.
"Shit," he swore again as he slammed his car door. He hesitated before sliding the key into the ignition then started the engine. "Ah, Sammy," he sighed, shaking his head.
-
Sam tapped the butt of the shotgun on the concrete step underneath his feet. He'd been sitting there for almost 20 minutes. In the east, the sky grew lighter as dawn approached. She'd never appeared. Or the shadow. And now Dean was missing. Ten minutes, he'd said.
"Frustrated" wasn't a strong enough description of how he felt then. Not even close. Never had a vision simply not happened. Sure, some events unfolded differently because of his and Dean's involvement, but never not at all. Or maybe it wasn't even that night. Prior, when he'd had the visions in dream form, it was days before the actual event.
The familiar sound of Dean's car snapped him out of his thoughts. Slowly, he rose to his feet as Dean damn near turned the corner on two wheels. The tires briefly screeched as he pulled to a stop in front of the main entrance, where Sam was.
The passenger's side door opened and Dean looked up at Sam. "Get in the car."
"But what - "
"Just get in the car, Sam!" he repeated. His tone was almost identical to the one their father used when he wasn't in the mood for questions. He beckoned with a hand. "C'mon. We have to get out of town."
Sam tossed the duffel into the backseat as he got in. He'd barely managed to close the door before Dean hit the gas. "Is there a reason you're driving like a maniac?"
"That thing in town?" Dean said as he pulled onto the highway. He quickly glanced at Sam. "It wasn't good."
"What happened?"
"You know the girl you swear you saw die at that school?" He checked the rear-view mirror. No cops, no other cars. So far, so good. "She's dead. She was murdered in her own house."
Sam stared at him, stunned. He almost couldn't comprehend what Dean had said. She was -dead-? When he found his voice, he stumbled over his words, "How ... how do you know? You never saw her, how can you - "
"Her mother was having a nervous breakdown. Came runnin' out of the house, screaming the girl's name. 'Jewel'."
The necklace flashed in Sam's mind's eye. "No. It can't be. Dean, she can't -"
"What're the odds of two girls named 'Jewel' being killed here in the same night? Zero." Dean glanced at Sam, who sat back in the seat now, staring blankly at the dashboard. "Don't blame yourself. This is not your fault."
"Those whose was it?"
"Whatever killed her, Sam. You didn't do that."
"No. I just sat six blocks away while it did," he muttered.
"Where do you think I was? Right with you. I'm not blaming myself. We only had what you saw to go on." He realized his hands gripped the steering wheel so tight his fingers were almost numb. "So it was wrong – that's not our fault." He hit Sam in the arm to get his attention. "Hey, listen to me – it's not."
He only kept staring at the dash. If only he could disconnect himself from the blame as easily as Dean. If the vision was wrong, then why? Was it -him-? He'd brought them to the school, just like he'd seen. She died anyway.
"We'll find a place outside of town, then we'll figure out what the hell is going on," Dead evenly said after a few minutes of silence. "If it's connected to the demon, we'll figure out why." He glanced at Sam again. "You hear me?"
"Yeah," he weakly replied. All he could see when he closed his eyes was Jewel's dead gaze. She'd been murdered, and he wasn't able to stop it.
I'm sorry, he apologized.
-
End Chapter One