Introduction
The last thing she remembered was that damn butter. Kayla was supposed to bring cupcakes to Oral Com tomorrow, but someone in the apartment had used all the butter. Even worse, the only store in Lawrence that carried the organic brand was already closed for the evening.
So her she was, walking the extra few blocks off campus to the all-night convenience store. Damn butter. Then everything went dark.
Her back ached. It was dark, and the air felt cold and damp. Kayla jerked her arms, but she couldn't move. She tried her legs next, but no luck there either. "Hello?" she called out, and her voice echoed against empty walls.
Somewhere nearby a door opened. A thin crack of light appeared, then widened. She closed her eyes against the sudden brightness. "Well, are you ready to talk now? Or should we let you stew a while longer?" It was a man's voice, and cocky at that.
"Please don't hurt me," she begged. Now she could see foreign symbols painted on the floor, and the chair she was tied to seemed to be in the center of a large circle. "I just want to go home," she said weakly.
There was a long pause. "It could be a trick," another man said.
Kayla squinted, trying to see her captors. "I won't tell anyone. Just let me go, please."
"What's your name?" the second man asked.
She hesitated, but there was no point in lying. Didn't the experts say to make the bad guys see you as a person? "My name is Kayla. I'm 19 years old. I'm studying at the University of Kansas. Don't hurt me."
One of the men approached, only stopping a few feet away at the edge of the circle. "Alright Kayla." It was the cocky one. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"Butter." She could see the men's faces now, and they both gave her an odd look. "I was going to the store for butter," she explained.
"Anything else?" the second man pressed. He was taller, but spoke more gently to her. "Did you smell anything strange, or see someone?"
Weird questions for kidnappers, but Kayla went along with it. She thought hard. "Actually, yes, there was kind of a burning smell."
"Sulfur," the tall one nodded. "Do you remember when that was?"
"Wednesday evening," she answered, a bit confused.
The men shared a look, then turned back to her. "Do you remember the date?"
"November 6th. Why?" Panic was growing in her stomach. "What day is it now?"
The tall one gave her a sympathetic look. "Today is January 11th."
Kayla shook her head slowly. The men were talking in hushed voices, and seemed to be arguing. She was too shocked to pay attention. How was it even possible that two months had passed?
The cocky one turned back to her, annoyed. "Well Kayla, it's been nice talking to you, but I have some questions for the thing inside you." He reached into his pocket.
"No, please," she cried out. "Please don't!" He pulled out a vial of liquid and splashed some across her body. It burned like acid. Kayla threw her head back and screamed in pain, then everything went dark again.
Chapter One
When her thoughts eventually came back into focus, her first reaction was surprise that she felt no pain. The ropes holding her to the chair no longer chafed at her ribs. Her neck did not ache. Her head was not throbbing. Everything felt… alright. With eyes still closed, Kayla rolled her shoulders, trying to remember the last time she felt this way. It was like waking up the day after a bad flu and not daring to believe the worst was really over.
She cautiously opened her eyes, and found herself standing in a dimly lit room. It felt vaguely familiar. Kayla looked around and saw two men hunched over something on the floor. She was curious, but not urgently so. Sho were they, where was she, and why did everything feel so distant?
"Excuse me," Kayla called to them, but neither answered or even acknowledged her. "I said, excuse me," she tried again, more forcefully. Still no response.
Shaking her head in frustration, she marched over to where they were still crouched with their backs to her. "God damn it," one of the men spat out, his voice quiet but filled with rage. Kayla could only see the side of his face, but he was familiar to her. Dean Winchester, her memory offered up. She was more interested in what they were both looking at.
"We tried," said the other man, Sam Winchester. Kayla was puzzled at how she knew their names, but there were more pressing questions. Sam looked at his brother. "She's gone, Dean. There's nothing else we could have done."
Dean stood and took a few steps away. Kayla could practically feel the anger coming off him in waves, but now she could see what he had been crouched over. A young woman was lying on the floor in a growing pool of blood. Kayla moved closer, but Sam did not seem to notice her. The girl looked like she'd had a bad time. Her hair looked filthy, she had a black eye, and her bottom lip was split and caked with dry blood. The red splotch over her stomach surrounding a small tear in her shirt gave Kayla a pretty good idea of what had happened.
Kayla's stomach gave a lurch when she recognized the logo on the girl's shirt. Jayhawks. This girl went to her college! She wondered if they had ever met, if they had shared any classes. On second glance, Kayla realized she owned that exact same shirt. She'd won it at a volleyball game raffle last semester. In fact...
"Might as well take care of this," Dean said, turning back to face them. Sam nodded, and moved to pick the girl up by her legs. Dean scooped his hands under her arms. They lifted together. The girl's head lolled and one hand dropped lifelessly as they hoisted her off the ground.
"NO!" Kayla shrieked. The girl was wearing her rings. Kayla looked at her own hand, identical. Her own shirt with the Jayhawk across the chest. She had the same pants, the same shoes. The same hair. The same face.
Dean and Sam had stopped. "Did you..?" Sam hesitated.
"Yeah, I heard it," Dean said, his eyes wide.
In silent agreement, they put the body down and turned back to the empty room. "Hello?" Sam called. "Is someone trying to contact us?" He glanced sideways at his brother and gave an embarrassed shrug.
Kayla moved in front of him, inches from his chest, and shouted at him. "Yes! I'm here! Please! Can you hear me?"
Sam squinted around at the walls. "Anything?" Dean shook his head.
Kayla moved to Dean and screamed in his face. "Hello! I'm still alive! Listen to me!" The brothers frowned at each other and turned again to leave. She stared after them in shock. Her emotions boiled to the surface. Confusion, fear, betrayal, but most of all, desperation. She took a deep breath, pulling on all those feelings for strength. "Stop!"
The men both spun around. "I definitely heard that," Dean said.
Sam nodded, then looked at the girl. "You think it's her?"
"I don't know, man. She did just die in here. Maybe the bunker has her trapped?"
Kayla waved her hands in front of his face. "I'm not dead!"
"Maybe we shouldn't salt and burn her just yet," offered Sam. "If something went wrong, maybe we should hold off until we know for sure."
"No burning!" Kayla shouted. "Fix me!"
Dean glanced around, then leaned closer to Sam and spoke in a low voice. "Maybe we shouldn't talk about that, in case she can hear us."
Sam raised his eyebrows, and stood up a bit straighter. "Hello, if you can hear us, we want to help you." His voice was loud and stiff. "If you understand, could you let us know somehow?" He looked to Dean.
Dean gave an approving nod. Then he ducked his head and covered his mouth. "What was her name?" he whispered loudly. Sam shrugged.
"My name is Kayla! I'm not dead! I just need help getting back!" The men kept staring blankly around the room, sometimes looking right through her.
She remembered the raw emotion that fueled her last attempt to communicate. Not sure if she was even doing it right, she closed her eyes and let all the fear and confusion build, filling her chest. Her message needed to be short and sweet. "Help me," she said.
The brothers snapped their heads in her direction, and their eyes grew wide. "How is that even possible?" Sam asked to no one in particular. "I've never seen a ghost manifest this quickly. What's it been, ten minutes?"
"I'm not a ghost," Kayla insisted. "I think I'm having an out-of-body experience or something. Please help me get back."
Dean cautiously moved closer to her. "Can you tell us your name?"
She was getting irritated. "Kayla, my name is Kayla. Will you help me?"
Now Sam approached her. "What do you want us to do? Do you have unfinished business?"
"Of course I do! I want to go home and bake my cupcakes. I want to finish the semester and see my friends and do my laundry and water my stupid fern."
The brothers looked at each other, exchanging a silent conversation with their eyes. Sam finally turned to her. "Kayla? There's no easy way to tell you this, but there's no way for you to do those things any more."
She was beyond frustrated now. "Not like this, I can't! Just show me how to get back in my body."
Dean sighed. "Sweetheart, you're dead. There's no getting back in."
Kayla shook her head. "No, that's not… I'm just in a coma." She motioned at her body still lying on the floor where they had dropped it. "My pulse is probably too faint for you to pick up. I just need to…" She stood looking down at herself. Her skin had an unhealthy gray look, and her eyes stared vacantly up toward the ceiling. It did not look good.
Sam came up behind her. "I'm sorry, Kayla. Is there anything else we can do? Family we could call?"
"Don't burn me," she heard herself saying. She took a deep breath, then wondered what that point of breathing was if she really was a ghost. She turned to look at them. "I'm not supposed to be dead; you two had something to do with it. The least you could do is give me a chance. Don't burn me."
Dean opened his mouth to protest, but Sam stopped him. He gave his brother a pleading look. She has a point, Dean. We could just give her some time, to get closure, say her goodbyes, whatever."
"Son of a bitch," Dean muttered. "Fine, whatever. But if she goes all vengeful spirit on us, you get to deal with it!"