Eight months earlier...
My family had always been a complexity of dysfunction. Being adopted I suspect was only partly to blame. Actually the only family member I was still on speaking terms with was my brother. No matter our own irreconcilable differences I wasn't going to allow that to keep Kat, my daughter, from knowing her extended family. So long as they didn't corrupt her and kept their own not so pleasant opinions of me from being repeated in front of her. Kat was only five and I hoped I was doing the right thing by her.
There had been many a time I wondered if my so called family was just plain evil, or possibly even possessed. I mean they had set about to destroy me bit by bit, leaving Kat as the only good thing I had left in my life. But I chided myself knowing possession was just a thing of myths and could be no more real than the boogeyman I once thought hid under my bed as a child.
Pulling into my parents driveway my thoughts came back to the present.
*beep beeeeep*
I tapped on the horn impatiently, silently cursing my ex for being a coward and forcing me to have to deal with them at all. This was his job after all, being the go-between with our daughter and the family inside this house. After all I wasn't allowed to enter.
Shaking my head I laughed coldly remembering just why that was.
I'd been on the operating table fighting for my life while my sister had taken her second walk down the aisle. I'd missed it.. hence me being exiled from the herd. Never mind the fact the odds were stacked against me and my own family hadn't even been there.
I flipped through the radio stations for what seemed like forever not finding anything resembling something I could stand listening to. Punching the radio off I looked up fully expecting to see her blonde curls bouncing as she skipped towards the car. No such luck.
Lovely. Just fucking lovely.
The thought of having to retrieve my daughter and face them dimmed the happiness I'd felt just moments before. They never failed to bring out the worst in me and my mood. Seeing them, thinking about them, talking about them... I was instantly transformed into this person, this cranky bitch, even I didn't recognize.
As I braced myself for the encounter to come I recited the weekend chant I'd come up with since this duty now fell to me. Eleven months ago Todd had just vanished into thin air and I despised him for abandoning his daughter.
"Damn you Todd." I muttered opening the car door.
Get in.
Get out.
Don't let them get to you...
Repeating this mantra I neared the two story Victorian and raised my fist to knock. The door stood slightly ajar and I let myself in.
"Kat?"
Peering around the empty kitchen I noticed the silence that fell through the house. No noises from the television in the front room, no voices mumbled from any of the distant rooms.
"Kitkat c'mon its time to go home kiddo..."
Crossing to the threshold that separated the kitchen from the dining room there was a feeling of wrongness about the silence that settled in my stomach like a load of bricks. Old hardwood flooring creaked beneath my feet as I peered into my parents bedroom. A sigh of relief passed my lips as I saw her curled up on the bed, hair fanned out behind her glistening in the sunlight that passed through the window. Gently squeezing her shoulder her limp body rolled onto its back and just as a scream began pouring from the depths of my soul one hand clasped over my mouth. Another wrapped tightly around my waist pulling me back into a chest that felt like it was made of granite.
"I'm not going to hurt you." a strangers voice whispered, his breath warm against my cheek.
"I'm going to remove my hand, but you must be quiet or they'll get you next. Understand?"
I nodded. My eyes glued to my daughters body. Green eyes that had once sparkled with such energy now dimmed. And her body... well it looked as though it would turn to dust and blow away at the slightest breeze. The hands around me loosened and I collapsed at the side of the bed unable to speak.
I didn't care who THEY were or if they got me or not.
"We don't have much time to explain," the mans voice continued behind me in a hushed tone.
We?
Tearing my gaze from the bed I turned to find out who WE was. Three men I'd never seen before in my life now stood in my parents bedroom. One wore a tan colored trench coat with what looked to be a suit underneath. Another stood to the left of the doorway slightly taller than the first, leather jacket, jeans and boots were all I could make out from the shadows. The last man, the tallest, glanced back at me from the opposite side of the doorway as leatherjacket.
Who the hell are these guys?
What are they doing here?
How do I know they didn't kill my daughter?
Questions flew through my head at the speed of lightening.
Leatherjacket turned around his eyes locked on mine. "No time for the whole truth is out there speech, sorry Miss." I knew from his voice he wasn't the one who had grabbed me.
So which one was?
Rage consumed me.
I had questions and whether they liked it or not I would get answers!
"Its Bree," my mouth dry but I'd found my voice again. "And I don't give a shit what you do or don't have time for!" I spewed at him before I started the firing squad of questions I had at him.
"Whoooa! Easy there tiger," leatherjacket said with a smirk in tall guys direction. "Gotta love that spirit eh Sam?"
"I apologize for my brother. Dean..." Sam glared at his brother.
Tall guys name is Sam...
Leatherjacket is Dean, and he's Sam's brother... Check.
Still not the voice though. That only leaves trench coat 'n suit guy.
"Enough you two." said trench coat.
Aha! My logical deduction is still in working order. I'm thinking about logic? Whatthehell is wrong with me? Can't be a dream... wish it was, but its not.
Focus Bree!
Lost in my inner dialogue for a moment I didn't see the brothers head off to search the house.
"Care to catch me up to speed there trench coat?"
The shortest guy of the trio stared at me dumbfounded a moment. "Oh," he said as though suddenly realizing what he was wearing.
Great, all hell had broken loose in here and I got stuck with the three stooges.
"Your daughter was a casualty in the Apocalyptic war. And its Castiel. Not trench coat."
I wanted to laugh at such a preposterous idea. Instead I continued to listen mesmerized as he went on about some Lillith chick, seals being broken, the four horsemen...
"Dude what are you, some whacked out escapee from an asylum?"
His eyebrows scrunched his face flat of emotion. "I'm an angel."
Riiiight. And I'm the Queen of England.
Slowly I inched my way back to the doorway. It was obvious this man was suffering from some sort of mental instability. Or maybe my own grip on sanity had finally snapped. I ran from the room toppling over a recliner and reached for the phone. A cackling laugh erupted in the room sending chills through my entire body. I turned and there was my sister, lounged across the leather sofa. A look of pure ecstasy radiated from her face.
"Now you have nothing!" she shrieked, reaching a decibel that would have sent a pack of dogs running. Her smile turned into a sneer in the blink of an eye. That was when her words finally sunk in and a raging inferno of hatred coursed through my veins.
"I want my mommy! Mommy help me.. please mommy!" My daughters terrified voice came from the mouth of this thing! Before I realized what I was doing I pounced, my fingers clawing at her throat.
"You bitch!" I spat out angrily my hands clenching tighter around her throat. Just as the tears overtook my strength a jolt from her body sent me reeling backwards. I looked up just in time to see this huge black snake of smoke come whirling out of her mouth and then it was gone. Numbly I got back on my feet and stared blinking in bewilderment.
No doubt about it I'd finally lost my mind and I was crumbling in ways that outdid even Humpty-Dumpty. There would be no putting me back together.
This was what it was like being delusional. Huh...
Even in my wildest imagination I'd never dreamt up something this outlandish. Even crazier was how vivid and real it all seemed.
Just as I was coming to grips with my sinking mental state Castiel pushed me to the floor as my father charged and in a move so quick threw Cas across the house. I could hear the crack of his skull against something in the kitchen as Sam and Dean hurried to his aid. I hobbled in their direction just in time to see another black gust of smoke exit the house. Sam hunched over Cas shaking his head as the pool of blood seeping from the gash in his head oozed its way around Sam's shoe.
That should have been me...
My father... make that my possessed father had been coming after me. Crazy or not that man had saved me and in turn his life was ebbing away in front of our eyes. I wish it had been me. With Kat gone I had no reason to go on.
Despair and grief hitting like a ton of bricks I wished he hadn't done that. That was the last thought I had before darkness enveloped me. I embraced it gladly, hoping for sweet release and the end.
