It was early, way too early, and Jenny sat up in bed, pulling her knees up to her chest. She hadn't slept yet - hadn't really needed to - but it seemed every time she closed her eyes, they were there. They'd been in her house, with their strange black eyes and their sick laughter, as they wrestled her mother to the ground. She saw them, in her mind, before she even hit the hallway that night. Three of them, taking turns kicking her mom to the ground as she struggled to get away, to reach her before they could. By the time she had her hand on her door, two more appeared in front of her, reaching for her with disgusting grins and clammy, grasping hands. One of them, a redheaded boy not much older than she, looked her up and down before he took her roughly by the arm.
"Your daddy wants to see you," he'd said. She'd never met her real father and her stepfather Peter was long since dead, having perished in the fire that took her brother and baby sister and setting her and her mother on the run.
Jenny jerked her arm back, slipping out of his hold for only a second, forcing herself past the two creatures and closer to her mom. She saw her mother pick herself up once more, fending off the blows from her tormentors. Olivia managed to grab one of them by the hair. She pressed her hand into his face, forcing his essence out of his body, and he dropped to the floor. The other two redoubled their efforts to restrain Olivia. Jenny saw her mother's face for only a second before she fell again. That's when it happened. She'd done this before, back in Missouri, she'd saved her mom, and knew she could do it again.
She reached out, shrieking for her mother, pointing all that rage and fear at the men surrounding her. They didn't even see her coming - only a flash of light and then silence. A mist of blood hung in the air where they'd stood, and Jenny whirled on her assailants in the hallway before she'd seen what became of them. The two behind her had seen - they saw the wave that rippled forth from the tiny bird of a girl, saw their friends detonate. They backed away from her, frantically pawing at doors, looking for an exit - away from the tiny ball of rage bearing down on them. She grinned, the same sick, dark grin they'd given her only moments before. Her voice came from a different place this time, someplace she'd only seen in her dreams.
"Oh, I know who my daddy is," she had said to them, sure only in that second that she was right.
Olivia twisted and moaned in her sleep, bringing Jenny back from her memory with a start. She leaned over her for a moment, watching her eyes twitch restlessly behind her lids, watching her struggle to catch another breath. She didn't like seeing her mama like that. She smoothed her mother's hair back with a single slow sweep and brushed away the nightmare like so much dust. Mama needed her sleep. Something big was coming and Jenny needed her. She slipped silently out of bed and padded over to her knapsack, withdrawing a half-filled sketchbook and pencil. She took up a spot on the foot of the bed, folding her legs beneath her, and watched her mama sleep until the images began to filter into her head. She flipped open the cover and began to draw ...
The sun was coming up and she needed to remember.
Olivia stretched out, gingerly at first, testing her still-bruised ribs and attempting to locate her daughter before she fully opened her eyes. The battered flesh sang with the effort of her movements and she pulled her arms back down quickly. Her foot met resistance near the end of the bed and she flicked one eye open. Jenny sat on the blanket, having already showered and dressed. She was facing her mother, but her head was bowed under drippy blonde hair and all of her focus was on the sketchpad in her lap. She nudged Jenny again and the girl looked up, her light blue eyes still cloudy with concentration for a second.
"Good morning, muffin." Olivia smiled at her daughter, and began to carefully pull herself to sitting, lest she upset her angry bones again. A shadow of a smile slipped across the girl's face and her head dropped back to the book. The pencil in her hand alternated between tiny, precise movements and large sweeps. Occasionally, Jenny closed her eyes and changed her grip on the pencil, looking as if she was trying to grasp the last tendrils of a dream. She had an air about her that made Olivia reconsider taking a peek at her work, so she swung her legs out of bed, leaving the child to her restless recollections. She crossed the room with some effort and crouched in front of one of the two bags they were able to snag as they fled their home the week before. At least she'd slept last night. The dreams came more often in the days before the attack, but she'd had a reprieve the past two nights, even having difficulty recalling just what had happened the night they left. She'd slept easily once she felt they'd reached safety, checked into an out of the way motel a couple of towns over with the little cash they had and sufficiently nondescript names. She'd figure out their next move after they'd had a few more days to rest.
She snatched a clean shirt out of the bag and scooped her pants up from the chair where she'd left them the night before, heading into the bathroom for a shower herself. Under the hot water, she tried again to move her arm, twisting with a bit more ease this time. She tipped her head back under the water, keeping her eyes closed, letting the water run over her face. They'd have to get moving again soon, but to where? And how soon would it be before her former landlord and the police pieced together the scene she and Jenny had left behind and came looking for them? They'd cleaned up what they could, dragged the intact bodies and the larger remains of the not-so-intact out back and set them ablaze. The house was set far from the main road and neighbors were scarce, but the two slipped away as quickly and quietly as they could, hoping the fire wouldn't catch the house.
She spotted the soap that Jenny had left in the shower and quickly smoothed it over herself, with a quick pass through her short hair, as the water passed from hot to tepid long before she was ready. She was wrestling her shirt down over her head as she walked back into the room, and so was unprepared for the knock that came at the door.
Jenny jerked her head up from her work at the noise. She looked at her mother and froze, eyes wide and silent. Olivia held up a hand and Jenny slipped from her spot, folding the book closed and sliding it under the bed. She crossed behind her mother, aimed at the slice of blank wall just behind the door, where she couldn't be seen. She closed her eyes and formed the cold feeling creeping through her gut into a tight ball in her mind, ready if Mama needed her.
Olivia stopped at the edge of the window, twitching the curtain aside for only a second. She sucked in a breath, expecting the oddly unwavering gaze of the creatures they encountered before, and wondering if she'd be able to call upon whatever it was that sent them away. She flicked a glance at Jenny, flattened against the wall behind the door, eyes closed and trembling slightly. Before she saw their visitor, he began to speak in a hurried whisper, clearly aimed at the wrong door.
"Guys? Hey - hey, I lost my key somewhere out here, let me in." The doorknob jiggled as he tried it again, but it remained locked. "Come on, I gotta whiz." Olivia let out the breath she'd been holding and twisted the lock. Jenny remained in her spot, but a smile had cracked across her face as well. Olivia opened the door and the guy practically fell into their room before he had a chance to see them. She glared at him, but still offered a hand to help him to his feet. He grinned, sheepishly, flashing what were decidedly human green eyes at her. He'd be pretty if he shaved, Olivia thought briefly, not quite moving to let him see any of the room past her. "Wrong room?"
She nodded slowly, keeping one arm across the doorway for a moment longer. He motioned past her and shrugged a bit - "Um, can I?" She rolled her eyes and dropped her arm, letting him dash past her with an urgency she hadn't seen since her own son was alive. She relaxed a bit more as the bathroom door slammed shut. Their visitor let out a long groan, apparently relieved. Jenny moved away from the wall and closer to her mother as they both traded incredulous glances and began to giggle. "holy CRAP, I have been in that car too LONG!" the guy exclaimed from inside the other room. That was it for Jenny. She clapped her hands over her mouth and fell back onto the bed, lost in what was probably the first good laugh she'd had in forever. Olivia remained standing, shaking her head and laughing. What the hell, she thought to herself. Jenny was just beginning to catch her breath again when the stranger emerged again.
"Afternoon, ladies," he nodded at the girls, grinned with a smoothness all its own, and strode back to the door. Jenny was about to lose it again when he turned back to them, raking his hand back through spiky, almost-blond hair. "You all wouldn't know where to get some decent pie around here, wouldja? I'm - kinda new in town." She let go all over again, shoving a pillow over her face.
Olivia chuckled again, wiping her eyes quickly. "No, sorry. We're pretty new here, too," she gestured toward Jenny, "Ignore her. We've, ah, had a hard week, and - "
The stranger shrugged and waved her away, "No problem. I've been on road a bit too long myself. Apparently I can't read anymore. Name's Dean." He stuck out a hand to her and she gave it a quick squeeze.
"Olivia," she said. "Giggles over there is my daughter." she smiled a little more easily now. "Glad we could be helpful."
Dean looked around the room, noticed the two jumbled knapsacks on the floor and not much else. "Just you two?" he asked. She nodded. There was something about the pair that wouldn't let him just walk out, and it wasn't the girl losing her damn mind into the pillow. She struck him as a kid who hadn't laughed in a long time. Both of them looked like they could use a good meal and a long nap. Olivia couldn't have been much older than him, but wide streaks of grey had already broken her dark hair. Her pale grey eyes were set deep into her face, the eyes of someone who'd spent too many nights afraid to close them. The girl was spindly and pale, hair the same shade as her skin tumbled down her back, still damp and sticking to her face as she regained her composure and took the pillow off her face, folding herself up on the edge of the bed. She met his eyes only briefly, then shifted her gaze to Olivia. She had her mother's haunted eyes, tinged blue. He knew what people on the run looked like and these were them. But running from what?
"Hey, listen - I'm in room - um, 21," he jerked a thumb at their door, numbered 12. "If you two need something, come on down. Especially if you find pie." Olivia smiled back at him, nodding curtly. Whatever it was, she wasn't talking. He turned for the door, calling over his shoulder, "Bye, Giggles." The door clicked shut again behind him. Strolling back to the right room this time, he wondered something. This time when he knocked, his brother opened up, dangling a key on an orange plastic tag in front of his face.
"Forget something?" Dean snatched the key out of his hand and popped him quickly in the chest. "Shut it."
Sam rolled his eyes at him and slid back into his chair in front of an open laptop, multiple screens open as he pored over their latest case. "Did you check out the house?"
"Yup," Dean kicked back on the bed, toeing off his boots and stretching out. He rubbed his face and yawned. The drive had been longer than he'd wanted on less than no sleep, and he was tired. "Somebody torched a pile of demons out back - reeked of sulfur."
"I couldn't find much on the house itself. Rental property, land is clear - no gravesites, nothing weird associated with the area at all." He could hear Sam clicking through more sites, double checking his information.
"So, who invited those guys to the backyard barbecue?"
"No idea," Sam paused, reading more, "last tenant was a short-term, cash-up-front, landlord says it was a mom and kid - they were gone before the fire department got there and no one's seen them since."
Dean's eyes shot open. Well, that would be something to run from. But how the hell did those two take on five demons? He'd seen what little remained of the charred corpses and they were dead long before they got flame-broiled. He got up, pulled up a chair next to Sam and leaned in.
"Did they leave a name?"
"Um .. yeah," Sam sorted through the tabs for a moment more, looking for the landlord's interview in the police report he'd been looking at. "Clarke. Olivia and Jenny, it says."
Shit. "Sammy, you need to come with me. But first, we need pie," he swiped the room key off the table and headed out, Sam following, more than just a little confused. "I'll explain on the way."