Bloody Mary advanced on them, crazed and vengeful, jerky and stuttering in her movements. Dean was angry and terrified, equally: terrified for Sam and his stupid, stupid secret about Jess, angry that smashing "her" mirror hadn't ended her. Now she was bearing down on them and what the fuck were they going to do? How the hell was he going to save Sammy?
Then his eyes started bleeding. Son of a bitch!
Oh, God, it hurt. It hurt like hell. He half-leaned on, half-supported his brother as they both sank to the ground.
Bloody Mary looked right at him, stared into his eyes. She whispered, in her cracked voice, "I know."
An icy shiver ran up and down his body. It wasn't possible. No-one knew! But…she was a ghost. Ghosts did strange things. Not so surprising that they might also know things. Who the hell knew what it was like, being a ghost? Maybe they were telepathic or something. He certainly didn't know.
He remembered.
Twenty-two. One of his earlier solo hunts while Dad was off doing whatever it was he did on his own. A monster possessing people, or just operating them from a distance. Not in the stuff Dad had already taught him. He had been one step behind for an entire week. The locals in the town were freaking out about the mystery killer. He was getting desperate. And then, a lead. He followed it. Found a man standing over a body with a knife in his hand. Chased him. Broke into his home. A fight. He killed him. Then a noise from behind him in the other room made him realize that the real monster, the one controlling the man, was still alive. So he did what he had to do, ganked the monster–to this day, he still had no idea what it had been.
A kid, 11 or 12, in character PJs, had stumbled down the stairs, calling out, "Dad? Dad?!"
A kid. That was the part that had haunted him the most.
He had never told anyone. He couldn't face Dad with what a fucking mess it had been. Then, hunt after hunt, monster after monster, experience grew and the guilt and shame faded. Honestly, he hadn't thought about it in years. Then damned Bloody Mary crawled out of her mirror–how the fuck did she do that?!–came digging in his melon, prying up old stuff.
He was damned if he was going to die for a young Hunter's honest mistake.
Mirrors. She was so busy judging everyone, killing them…what if she had to judge herself? There were mirrors everywhere in the store. He reached out blindly, scrabbled around, caught the frame of one of the smaller ones, dragged it forward. He levered it up, squinting through the blood to make sure he had the right side facing her. It would suck so bad if he ended up showing her the wrong side of the mirror!
He let her see herself for what she truly was, a monster. And she did what she had set herself up to do: judged. And killed.
He and Sam were alone in the store again. Safe. Alive.