Chapter Two
Day 9
It's nearly an hour later when Dean hunts Sam down. He finally spots the tall mop of dark hair in a deserted corner of the hospital, near the service elevators. At first, Sam doesn't even seem to notice his older brother approaching, and Dean realizes that it's because his attention is focused on the EMF meter nestled in his large paws.
"I thought I left that thing in the car," Dean says in a way of greeting, checking over his shoulders to ensure that no one else is around.
Sam's head jerks up, but his shoulders relax once his eyes settle on the familiar face. "You did. I went back to get it once I finished mingling with the simple folk." He turns off the device with a sigh. "I'm not getting any sort of reading in this place."
Dean ignores his negativity. "So what did you learn?" he asks instead.
"Besides how to insert an IV?" replies Sam, his face deadpan.
Shaking his head, Dean narrows his eyes. "You're such a geek," he says, and seriously hopes that Sam didn't really treat the entire experience as some sort of learning annex.
Sighing, Sam shrugs his shoulders. "I'm sorry, man, but I think I was right about this one." Funnily enough, he doesn't really look all that sorry. "Everyone I talked to either thought I needed to be committed or denied everything as simple ghost stories. Nothing more. We can come back tonight, if you want, but I think this one is a bust, too."
"No. There's definitely something here, Sam," Dean insists, ignoring the look his little brother is giving him. "I talked to Bill, and he swears he's seen this ghost. In fact, he says almost everyone in the oncology wing has seen it. And I believe him." He stares Sam down, and waits for some sort of negative reaction, or taunting for running with a hunch.
But Sam looks undecided. "So you're thinking that maybe this spirit is appearing only to the sick?" he asks, his interest finally perked.
Okay, so maybe Dean had only been working towards that, but it sounds like a pretty good theory, so he clamps down onto it. "Exactly. I mean, it would be way too big of a coincidence, especially given just how many damn cancer patients there are," he says with a shake of his head.
A line of concentration appears between Sam's eyes. "Huh," he says quietly.
Dean looks at him. "What?"
"Nothing, just…" Sam gives his shoulders a slight shrug, and Dean can practically see the wheels turning in his head. "One of the nurses I was talking to mentioned how oncology has made some sort of breakthrough. She said that their cure rate is one of the highest in the state." He turns to Dean, as if awaiting some sort of verification.
"Well she's on crack," Dean snorts. "I've never seen so many sick people in my life, Sam, and none of them really seemed to be on the mend."
Sam appears to mull it over some more. "But…" he starts, and looks confused. "They told me that they've been seeing miracles. Just last week, a kid who was at death's door went into complete remission within a day of treatment. And it wasn't the first time, apparently."
That causes Dean to pause. "A kid?" At Sam's nod, another piece of the puzzle falls into place. "Any chance all of these medical marvels were kids?" he pries further.
Sam's eyebrows knit together. "Uh, the ones they mentioned, anyway." He stares at his older brother quizzically. "Why? Where are you going with this?"
Dean squares his shoulders and turns away from the dead-end, looking out into the empty hospital corridor. "'S funny, 'cause I didn't really notice any children while I was there." He nods for his little brother to follow him as he starts down the hall, weaving through a maze of shelves filled with procedure kits and tools, carts covered with scary-looking medical equipment.
"That's probably because they separate them to pediatrics, Dean," Sam says from behind him, hurrying to catch up to Dean's purposeful pace.
"Yep, that's where we're headed."
A few flights down the stairwell later, Dean puts on his inconspicuous persona again as he and Sam return to the mix of hospital personnel, following arrows and signs until they stand in front of a glass window. Looking into a cheerfully painted room of yellow suns decorated on sky-blue walls, Dean takes in the empty beds – all but one.
"One kid," Dean says, tearing his eyes away from the small, pale figure sleeping inside the room. "One kid with cancer out of, what, a hundred? Maybe more? You can't tell me there isn't something off about that." He turns back to peer through the glass.
Beside him, Sam sighs. "Okay, yeah," he admits quietly, peering around nervously even though they're in a remote area. "But Dean, I don't see what any of this has to do with us."
An unfamiliar voice replies before Dean has a chance to, and it nearly makes him jump out of his skin. "Absolutely nothing." It's gravelly, and it's female, and Dean allows himself one guess as to who it belongs to.
He and Sam whirl around to reveal a woman standing a few feet behind them – the 'ghost', in all her glory. Except once Dean gets a good look at her, that theory is just about dashed all to hell. Because sure, she looks a bit creepy (anyone who appears behind you soundlessly like that is a little off their rocker), staring at them with hard, cold, shadowy eyes, shrouded in long dark clothes, but she's definitely corporal, as Sam would say, and she's not floating or transparent or any of the usual clichés.
Hesitantly, Dean takes a step toward her, and she eyes him like an insect that needs to be squashed. "You're not dead," he says stupidly, but still must refrain from reaching out to yank on one of her long grey braids, just to be sure.
"No," says the woman, as if this is just a run of the mill question for her.
Sam seems to recover from his initial shock, stepping up beside his brother. "So you just let everyone around here think you're a ghost?"
She makes a motion somewhere between shrugging and bristling. "People believe what they want to believe." Her voice is heavy with some unknown accent, and it dawns on Dean that that doesn't actually fit the profile he'd had going.
"You speak English."
The woman stares at him coolly. "So do you, boy."
Sam shoots him a look that says 'shut up', to which Dean shrugs helplessly. "Do you work here?" Sam asks, and okay, maybe asking questions is a better route than stating the obvious, but Dean hadn't really gotten past the 'not dead' part yet.
"No," she says, and her eyes flit between the two brothers silently, as if she's reading them like open books. "But neither do you."
Dean decides to side-step that issue for the time being. "If you don't work here, then why freak people out for kicks?" he asks, but Sam elbows him in the side as a warning to tone it down a notch. Dean relents. "Are you visiting someone? A patient, maybe?"
Something brief flickers across her lined face. "Yes." Her hands reach for the corners of her shawl, drawing it tightly around her shoulders. "I'm a medicine woman. I'm here to help everyone."
"So is that what you were doing in Bill Truss's hospital room? Helping him?" Dean asks doubtfully. "That's what your little spells and owls and junk do?"
Sam looks at him nervously. "Dean," he warns, inching towards him.
The woman's eyes move between them some more, slowly, and rest for a moment on Sam, just long enough for the hairs on the back of Dean's neck to stand on end. Then her steely gaze settles back on Dean. "Ambitious accusations for two men who do what you do," she says quietly.
"How do you…?" Dean starts, surprised.
"I can smell death on both of you." She takes a step towards Sam, and automatically Dean's arm reaches out, pressing a hand to his little brother's chest, pushing him back a step behind him. "But you," she stares at Sam, "on you it is fresh."
Dean moves to stand directly in front of her, forcing the woman to tear her gaze from Sam and face him, instead. "Okay, step off, lady."
Something resembling anger flickers across her inky eyes, and a mask falls in place as she stops short, squaring her shoulders. "You should leave." She says brusquely, and steps to the side, staring through the glass at the sick little girl in the hospital room
Dean pastes on his widest smile. "Leave? But we just got here!" he leers, and watches as the woman ignores him, instead staring blankly at the figure in the bed. Something about that does not sit too well with Dean. "Tell you what, Dr. Quinn. We'll leave if you leave."
"My name is Shimi," says the woman, "and you've made a mistake in coming here. You need to leave." She repeats it, and it's just as eerie the second go-round.
Sam's hand appears at Dean's arm. "Come on, Dean," Sam is saying, but his eyes are still fixed on Shimi. "Let's just go."
Dean wants to protest, because no way in hell is some freaky old broad gonna tell him what to do, but Sam's pulling is insistent, and it's not like his brother to just stand down for no reason, so Dean lets himself be lead away. Shimi watches them go with a mild expression, and Dean doesn't really give a crap if she's a ghost or not – something about her scares the crap out of him.
It's not until they're outside the hospital lobby, almost at the sidewalk where they've parked the car, that Dean whirls around to level Sam with a sharp look. "What's the matter with you?" he demands.
He doesn't need to repeat himself, or explain, because Sam glares at him defiantly. "She's right, Dean, we had no business being there." He turns his back to and starts walking towards the Impala.
Dean grabs his arm to stop him. "What?" he demands, squinting into the sunlight.
Sam turns back to face him, arms spread wide in a discouraged gesture. "She's a medicine woman. A shaman. They heal people," he says seriously. "And she's right, we have no reason to be here."
"So you just take her word for it? If I told you I was really a fire hydrant, you'd buy that?" Dean ignores his brother's expression of blatant annoyance, nudging his shoulder to keep his attention. "If she's there to heal them, why do so many people have cancer, Sam?" he asks, lifting his eyebrows in scrutiny.
Looking around at the passersby, some of whom shoot them curious looks, Sam wordlessly spins them in the direction of the car. Once they're safely inside, he turns back with a frustrated glare. "Why are you pushing this so hard?" he demands.
"Because something isn't right." Dean brings his hands down heavily on the steering wheel, staring out the windshield into the busy street. After a moment or two, he begins to realize what a Thanksgiving turkey must feel like, and rolls down the window, all the while ignoring Sam's intense stare. "It's too weird, dude. I don't trust her as far as I can throw her. And she can't be too heavy, so that's probably a fair distance."
Sam sighs, and closes his eyes for a brief moment of relent. "Okay. But tell me what any of this has to do with us. I mean, if she's not a ghost, man, we can't exactly salt and burn this one. She hasn't really done anything wrong," he protests cynically.
"That we know of," Dean persists.
The look Sam is giving him resembles one that would require Dean to grow a second head. "Let me guess. You think she has something to do with the cancer outbreak?" he suggests hesitantly.
"Witches…"
"She's a shaman," Sam interrupts insolently.
Dean rolls his eyes. "Potato, potahto. Look, they use magic, right? Chant, cast spells, whatever." He looks to Sam for confirmation, who nods his head reluctantly. "So then she's just as capable of using black magic. If she can heal people, she can probably cause them harm, too. Maybe what we're dealing with isn't an outbreak at all. I mean, you admitted it yourself, that it was weird how all the kids were getting better faster than they could treat them but everyone else is just getting worse."
Towards the end of his speech, Sam's eyes have grown wide. "So what you're saying is that you think she's curing the kids' cancer to use it on the adults?" Dean detects the hint of amusement in his voice a second before Sam's mouth quirks up in a peevish grin.
"No – I mean transferring it," Dean explains hurriedly, but Sam still gives a huff of disbelief. "Think about it, Sam. What if she can't cure the cancer, she can only give it to someone else? I mean it makes sense, doesn't it? The whole, 'matter cannot be created or destroyed' thing…maybe she can't get rid of it, so she just…relocates it."
Sam has gone quiet, but at least he's not looking at him like he's crazy anymore. When he does finally say something, it's not what Dean expected. "I can't believe you know the properties of matter." He mutters teasingly.
"Sam," Dean warns.
"Okay, okay. I guess it makes sense." Sam relents, throwing up his hands in defeat.
Dean nods, relieved. "Okay. So what are we going to do?" He asks next, shifting in his seat to give his brother his full attention.
Sam squints at him. "Do?" he parrots.
Astonishment coils tightly in his stomach. "The woman is killing innocent people, here," he shouts, the sound reverberating in the small, cramped space of the front seat. "Are you suggesting we just let her keep doing it?"
"What do you propose we do, Dean? Tell a doctor that we're suspicious of a woman formerly known as the hospital poltergeist stealing cancer from children and giving it to grown-ups?" Sam demands sarcastically. Then he quiets. "And she isn't killing people." He mutters petulantly.
Dean isn't really sure he heard him correctly. "She's taking healthy people and giving them a fatal disease," he reiterates heatedly. "Sounds like killing to me." He finds his key and jams it into the ignition.
"She's saving children, Dean." Sam says quietly beside him. "Maybe…maybe we should just let it be."
His hands stop dead as he turns to stare at the younger man disbelievingly. "Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?" Dean demands, only half-joking, but Sam just looks back at him tiredly for a moment before turning his attention away to stare despondently out the window. Dean shakes off the feeling of unease and agitation, letting it roll off his shoulders for the time being, and starts the car, pulling it out onto the dusty road.
When Dean returns to the hotel room, arms laden with bags of diner food, it feels a little bit like déjà vu. Except once he unlocks the door with their rental key and steps inside, Sam isn't in the shower, but hunched in front of the screen of his laptop, just as Dean had left him.
As soon as Sam sees him, his fingers fly to the mouse, minimizing one of the windows and looking up at his older brother furtively. "Hey," he says, leaning back in his chair.
Dean pauses in the doorway, looking between the computer and his brother's guilty face before grinning easily. "Such a hypocrite, Sammy." He mumbles under his breath, shutting the door and ambling to his bed.
"What?" Sam questions, forehead crinkled in confusion.
"And you say I watch too much porn," Dean smirks, opening a Styrofoam box of chicken, inhaling the heavenly aroma appreciatively.
Sam stares at him for a moment longer before realization dawns on his face almost comically, and he blushes. "What? No, I wasn't…" he trails off and grimaces in embarrassment. "Never mind." He reaches past his brother for plastic utensils.
Not even trying to smother a few chuckles at the younger man's expense, Dean focuses on loading his own plate with food. "So in between being a pervert, did you find anything out on ol' Pocahontas?" he asks, and shovels a forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.
Sam's response to both the insulting comment and the racial slur is a prudent glare. "Shimi didn't show up in any of the usual databases. But that could be because she gave us her tribal name instead of her legal one," he says, and leans back towards the computer to pull up a screen of text. "I did some searches on Navajo medicine elders, though. Apparently they call themselves Hatalii. They believe the source of their magic comes from animal spirits, and nature."
Dean nods along. "Which would explain the owl. Go on," he urges.
"When performing a healing ritual, they usually use things from the environment," Sam recites while he eats, as if all of this information is already committed to memory. Which, freakishly enough, it probably is. "Like a crystal rock, or herbs. Then they go into a sort of trance, typically with hand-trembling and some sort of a therapeutic chant."
Dean pauses. "Bill mentioned that he speaks some Navajo, but that he didn't understand any of what she was saying," he relays helpfully.
With a shrug, Sam closes the computer for the time being. "Well, maybe the origins of these spells are really ancient…we have no idea what kind of dialect she's using," he rationalizes.
"I guess," Dean concedes. "Anything else?" he asks, expression hopeful.
Sam raises and lowers one shoulder. "Just that the name Shimi means 'mother' in Navajo," he says, and then exhales loudly. "But nothing on how or why she'd be doing any of this…historically, Hatalii were extremely peaceful people."
"So then she's got her own agenda." Dean wipes his mouth with a napkin, balling it up and tossing it onto the bed. "We'll just have to talk some sense into her, then. And if she won't take her voodoo elsewhere, we've got plenty of means to convince her." He waggles his eyebrows, and nods to their weapons bag by the door.
Sam looks at him for a moment, and he's got that same look on his face he had in the Impala – conflict and resistance – before he glances away, ducking his head and hiding under long bangs.
Groaning, Dean sets down his food and faces his little brother irritably. "Okay, Sam, I'll bite," he says tersely. "What's wrong?"
Pushing his own plate aside, Sam sighs again. "I just don't know if this is really a job for us, man," he says simply, but seems uncomfortable meeting Dean's eyes.
"So you think it would be handled better by someone else, then? Maybe the local authorities – or hell, how about all those oncologists over at the hospital that think they've struck gold with a cancer cure that doesn't actually work?" Dean asks mockingly, and then shakes his head. "Witches are our kind of thing, Sam. Nothing's changed."
Sam glowers at him. "Except she's not a witch!" he exclaims pointedly.
Dean rises from the bed, snatching up his keys and jacket on the way. "She casts spells and curses people. She's a witch." He turns his back and heads for the door. "And I'm not having this conversation with you anymore."
Sam stares after him. "Where are you going?" he questions, a note of anxiety in his voice, and yet he makes no move to rise from his seat.
"You're obviously not going to help me with this one," Dean says, turning back around to give his little brother a weak, humorless grin. "May as well get it over with now so we can get back on the road. Find some people we can save that are actually worthwhile to you." He knows that was cold, but really, he doesn't care all that much at the moment.
At least it brings Sam to his feet. "It's like you said, Dean. Nothing is being created or destroyed. Shimi isn't healing, but it's not like she's putting a pox on anyone, either." He stares Dean down, a solemn look in his eyes. "She's saving those little kids' lives."
Dean pauses in the doorway, letting a stream of hazy evening sunlight flow across the dingy brown carpet of the motel room. "And the cost to the people she's hurting is, what, insignificant?" He asks softly, unwilling to believe that this is really where Sam stands. "Bill and Nancy, you don't think anything is being destroyed there? While she watches her brother die from disease that isn't even his?"
Sam's eyes fall and his shoulders slump dejectedly. "That's not what I mean." His voice is a near-whisper. "I just think that…I don't know, we should let nature run its course," he says, sounding embarrassed.
"That," Dean scoffs, pointing sightlessly out the door, "is not natural."
Sam's head snaps up at lightning speed, eyes flashing angrily. "And what you did for me was?" he shouts in reply, back heaving.
It only takes a split second for Dean to realize exactly what his little brother means, and when he does, his face slackens as he stares back into the dark, accusatory eyes. "I'm not doing this right now," he says quietly, fingers sliding restlessly over the keys in his pocket. Eventually, he has to avert his gaze from Sam's to preserve any sense of calm whatsoever. "I'll be back in a little while."
With the door shut, Dean takes a couple deep breaths of warm, dry desert air before walking quickly to the car. In the familiar comfort of the black leather seats, he lets his head fall forward to rest on the wheel, willing his composure to remain intact. After awhile he starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot, but not before glancing through the window of their motel room, where he can just make out Sam's slumped figure sitting on the bed, his head in his hands.
Thankfully, the halls of the hospital were a lot quieter in the evening, and Dean found that he could slip around relatively unnoticed even without the aid of their nurse disguise. But once he'd made it back to the pediatrics wing, to the spot where they'd seen Shimi earlier that day, Dean really wished he'd thought this through more carefully.
He really had no idea when and where Shimi would show up again, if he were even that lucky. If he was being honest with himself, he knew the only reason he was here was to escape the overwhelming tension back at the motel, and Sam with his penetrating gaze.
But as he found himself standing once again in front of the viewing window, looking in on the same sick little girl from that morning, Dean had to blink a few times to make sure he wasn't seeing things. But sure enough, the girl wasn't the only one in the room. Even in the dim light inside, Dean could make out Shimi's hunched shape over the bed, her bony fingers stroking the child's cheek.
Dean had the door to the room open before he even knew what he was doing, closing it quietly behind him, but it was enough to alert the woman to his presence, as she looked up, slightly startled. "I told you to leave," she says quietly, and its then that Dean realizes that the little girl is fast asleep.
"Right back at you, sister." Dean sneers in a near-whisper, cautiously approaching the bed. With the overhead lights turned off, the only illumination comes from the hallway window, but Dean can see the young patient is resting peacefully, her small, pale features softened in slumber.
Shimi stares at him across the short distance. "I don't understand." Her hands wring twitchily in front of her. "You've already come to the conclusion that I'm not here to hurt her," she says, nodding to the child.
"Quit with the whole mind-whammy thing," Dean snarls impatiently. "My brother and I know what you've been doing. How you've made all those other people sick."
Her face goes eerily still. "Your brother…" she pauses, and her head tilts quizzically to the side, like a bird. "He disagrees with you on this matter? He does not follow you in your quest to destroy the work I've done, saving these children?" Now she's stepping away from the bed, closer to Dean.
Demons, vengeful spirits, shapeshifters…all of that he can handle, but as this woman advances towards him, Dean has to fight the urge to take a step back. "Trading innocent people's lives for theirs isn't saving anyone," he gulps, struggling to remain composed as she peers at him in the darkness.
"No," Shimi says, her hands continuing to fidget. "Innocence? True innocence? That is what these children are. A blessing. Their spirits are too new to be taken. That is why they must be preserved."
Dean blinks at her. "Preserved? They aren't pickles, lady." he clenches his hands into fists, the cold metal of the gun at his back settling some of his frayed nerves. Old woman or not, if she makes one sly move, she's going down.
"Youth takes precedence over all else, boy," she says gravely, eyes shifting to settle on the little girl, longingly. "The cure is…unfortunate, but necessary. A blessing must be protected, even if nature fails to do so on its own." As a wave of something mysterious and poignant crosses over her lined face, Shimi's eyes move to rest on Dean once more.
"Necessary?" Dean repeats, shaking his head. "Who are you to decide who lives and who dies? What gives you the right to save one person just to strike down another?" he demands, struggling to lower his voice before that little girl wakes up and reacts badly to the two shady strangers having an ethical debate at the foot of her bed.
Shimi falls unsettlingly silent, and Dean gulps as her eyes flit across his face. Just as a chill creeps up his spine, she finally speaks again. "And who are you, then?" she says, her voice dropping to a jagged whisper.
Dean's breath catches in his chest. "What?" he asks apprehensively.
"I know things, boy, and I know what you did," she says, and this time, when she takes a step towards him, Dean does take a step back. "You may have brought your brother back, but at what cost? You think the sacrifice you've made is selfless? That what you did to save him was any better than what I've done for these children?"
A cold sweat breaks out between Dean's shoulder blades, but he refuses to let the shock and alarm register on his face. "You don't know what you're talking about," he stammers.
Shimi shakes her head. "No, boy. I do." Her eyes become wide and sad, and up close, Dean realizes that the wrinkles on her face are deep lines of pain and hurt, and the woman underneath is younger than she looks. "I know that what you've done to your brother is a fate far more painful than his own passing."
Dean stares at her in bewilderment. "What do you mean?" he asks, even though deep down he knows that this is a question he does not want the answer to.
"You don't understand. You may have seen your brother die," she says darkly, eyes scanning his face. "But it happened quickly, didn't it? No, not like he'll have to watch yours, slowly, knowing that there's nothing in his power he can do to stop it. And he will, boy. Just because you were too selfish to let him go when it was his time. Now, he'll suffer." She shakes her head and her braids sway, mournfully.
"No he won't!" Dean replies gutturally, the voice wrenched painfully from somewhere deep inside. Realizing how close he is to totally losing his cool, Dean takes a deep breath. "No. Sam won't," he repeats, and recognizes too late that he's spoken his brother's name, and why did he do that, exactly? The last thing he wants is to feed into this woman's psychosis.
And for whatever the reason, Shimi looks pleased. "Sam," she repeats, as if testing it on her own tongue. "You know nothing about the agony of watching a loved one die in that way. Because of you, Sam will." She says, and even though she says nothing after that, Dean can sense an unspoken 'as I did' hanging in the air after it.
Dean shakes his head vehemently. "No." He's got no farther to go, literally having backed himself up into a wall, but the depths of Shimi's eyes give him the urge to escape this room as soon as possible. "Sam is…Sam is strong. He's stronger than me," he falters, the words tumbling from his mouth faster than he can hold them in. And he doesn't know where any of this is coming from, really, but it doesn't matter, because he'll say just about anything at this point to make her shut the hell up.
And then, something silent and wicked passes over her face in the shadows, and Dean swears he sees a ghost of a smile tough her lips for the briefest moment. "I hope so. For your sake, I hope so." And just as Dean is struggling to figure out what the hell that was supposed to mean, Shimi is backing away from him, floating over to the bed in a silent rustle of her long skirts.
Dean peels himself away from the mockingly cheerful wallpaper and regains his voice. "What are you doing?" he asks edgily.
Shimi glances at him once, and then lifts her arms parallel to the floor, her palms open in the air over the little girls head and torso. As Shimi's eyes fall closed, the room becomes deathly silent, but slowly Dean comes to realize that her lips aren't moving wordlessly, that a stream of steady syllables are escaping like a breath of air, slowly gaining strength. "Haiya naija yana, yo, yowa lana ya, na'eye lana heya 'eye."
Dean clenches his jaw tightly, taking a step away from the wall. "Stop." He demands, his voice forceful but shaking.
"Neya 'iya wo, ye Sa'ah naaghei wo, ye Bik'eh hozhoo, neya 'eye, lana heya 'eye, holaghei." Shimi continues on, as if she never even heard him.
Stepping closer to the bed, Dean swears he feels a strange fizzle of energy in the air, like just before a lightening storm. "Stop it," he repeats, daring to raise his voice as he moves to stand on the other side of the bed, staring down at the little girl whose brow has become furrowed in discomfort.
Shimi ignores him, the words coming from her mouth ceaselessly. Her left hand is clenched into a fist, her fingers moving relentlessly over something held inside, and it's then that Dean notices the large hunk of quartz she's been holding, probably this entire time. As he reaches for it, intent on wrenching it from her grip and smashing it on the floor, or flinging it out a window, anything to get her to stop, an unseen spark crackles from the contact with her skin, like an electric shock, and Dean pulls his hand away as if burned.
Okay, he's just about had enough of this bullshit. Dean draws his gun from the back of his pants and points it directly at Shimi's head. "Shut the hell up!" Dean shouts, and that was just about loud enough to rouse the dead, so surely, the kid is going to wake up at that.
As suddenly as the whole thing started, Shimi's eyes pop open and her arms fall to her sides, staring fearlessly into the barrel of Dean's weapon. "As you wish, boy," she says, her voice dropped back to its grating whisper
Dean swallows uneasily, but keeps the gun steady and studies her placid, content expression. "What did you do?" he growls.
Shimi takes a step back from the bed, her hands folding calmly in front of her, a strange smile appearing in her eyes. "Nothing that won't help you," she tells him ominously.
Dean doesn't decide to spend another second trying to figure out what the hell that's supposed to mean. Instead, he jerks the gun in the direction of the door, his eyes never leaving her face. "Get out of here," he tells her finally, even though every fiber of his being is screaming at him to shoot this woman between the eyes right now and be done with it. But he doesn't, for reasons he'll wonder about later, and holds firm to his order, the venom in his voice leaving very little room for negotiation.
She gathers herself slowly, dropping the rock into one of the deep pockets of her outfit and pulling her shawl more firmly around her body. "Fine," she says quietly, and moves lithely to the door. Her hand on the knob, she turns back and looks at Dean. "Tell Sam I'm sorry."
A chunk of ice settles into the pit of Dean's gut at her words, and his finger twitches on the trigger. "What the hell for?" his voice cracks just slightly over the words he forces past his dry throat.
Her mouth twitches in a smile. "For all the pain you've created."
Dean feels his eyes burn and his bottom lip tremble, so he presses them into a firm line, and nods determinedly to the door. "Leave," he spits, and lowers his gaze finally to the little girl in the bed, the little girl whose eyes are no longer closed, but are peering up at him fearfully through heavy lids.
"Hi," Dean mumbles tentatively, and looks up to where he's had his weapon leveled, but Shimi isn't standing at the door anymore. Without so much of a creak of the handle or a squeak of the hinges, the woman has disappeared from the room, and damn it, Dean wishes she's stop doing that.
"What's going on?" the shrill, tremulous child voice asks.
Dean drops his arm to his side instantly, the gun disappearing behind his back and under the hem of his jacket. "Uh, nothing," he stumbles over words, thinking fast. "I'm just here to, um, check under all the beds for monsters. But fortunately, there are none. So you can go back to sleep."
Even though that had to be one of the stupidest things to ever come out of his mouth, the little girl, who can't be much older than six or seven, yawns and seems to accept this as a decent answer. "Oh," she says quietly, her eyes already drooping to half mast as she settles down into her pillows.
As fatigue seems to envelop her little body at an alarming rate, Dean inches closer to the bed, hovering overtop and scanning the child for injuries. "Are you okay?" he asks anxiously, because he has absolutely no idea what that old crone could have done to her.
The little girl's eyes don't open again when she answers. "Yes," she replies simply, and drifts closer to sleep. "I feel much better now."
Dean feels like an idiot, driving back to the motel with his foot gunning the accelerator. He can't really explain his sudden complete disregard for speed limits or red lights, but he's grateful that the town of Roswell seems to be a little bit lax on whole 'breaking the laws of the road' thing.
The churning feeling of unease in his stomach doesn't go away until the sign of the Cozy Cowboy Inn has appeared through the windshield, and the Impala is turning back into its original parking spot just outside their room door. And once he's outside, he can take a deep breath of both relief and apprehension. Because while he can't really explain the release of tension he feels at being back, safe and sound, he knows that he'll now have to face the same moody, pissed-off Sam he left behind.
Stretching his shoulders, Dean kicks at the red dirt with the toe of his boot as he climbs the two stairs up to the wooden boardwalk. Through the sheer blinds of their window, he can see the lights are still on inside, and feels a wash of guilt and warmth knowing that even if it were far later than nine o'clock at night, Sam would have waited up for him.
He turns the key in the decrepit lock, and it takes some jiggling to get the damn thing to open, but once inside Dean prepares himself for a barrage of questions. He's both pleasantly surprised and instantly concerned when he's met with nothing but an alarming quiet.
"Sam?" Dean calls, but Jesus Christ, there are only so many places a giant like his brother could hide in such a small room. The laptop sitting on the table is open but the chair is vacant, and a quick scan of the beds comes up empty as well.
Light from the TV screen spills across the floor, and Dean takes a hesitant step further into the room, the feeling of dread creeping back into his gut. When he turns the corner around the last mattress, the one furthest from the door, he feels his blood run cold.
Sam is lying splayed on his back just outside the bathroom, eyes closed, long legs tangled underneath him, and it's just about enough to stop Dean's heart for the third time in his life.