"Charlie?" Bobby lowered his gun and blinked.
Shoving her hair out of her face, she said, "Hi, Dad."
Bobby's shock at finding his daughter in his home - and in the middle of the damned night no less - was short lived.
"What the fuck are you doing here, girl?!" he bellowed, grabbing her by her shoulders and giving her a hard shake. "Damn it, Charlie, I told you to stay away."
Charlie's eyes narrowed and she wrenched herself free of his grasp. "Well excuse me all to hell," she drawled sarcastically. "You didn't call me back for two whole days, Dad! That's just so not like you. Forgive me for being worried about my father. I mean seriously, what the hell was I thinking?"
"Watch your tone, young lady," Bobby warned.
"What are you gonna do, Dad? Ground me?"
Wagging a finger at his daughter, he replied, "You might be grown, but you'll never be too old for me to put you over my knee when you deserve it. I thought I made it clear that everything was fine. I told you not to come here, Charlene."
With a frustrated sigh, Charlie unzipped her sweatshirt and shrugged out of it before tying it around her hips. She really, really didn't want to tell him the real reason she was in Durham but she didn't doubt he'd make good on his threat. Hell, he still might.
"Guys, it's four in the morning. What's going on?" Sam said sleepily from the doorway, rubbing his eyes.
"Now you wake up?" Dean asked, shaking his head. "Why not five minutes ago when she had a gun in my face?"
Noticing the other person in the room, the younger Winchester knotted his brow in confusion. "Who's she?"
"She," Dean said as he tossed his brother a lopsided grin, "Is apparently the old man's daughter. Nice work, by the way, Bobby. She's a looker."
"Would you two shut your yaps," Bobby ground out. "You, young lady," he said to Charlie, "you're gonna march your butt back to Texas where you belong. I don't want you here. It's too damned dangerous."
It's now or never, Charlie thought. Here goes. "I've got nowhere else to go," she confessed softly.
"What do you mean you haven't got anywhere else to go? Where's your mother?" Bobby demanded.
"Cabo, I think. Or maybe it was Cannes. I don't know and frankly I don't care. She certainly doesn't."
"Well that answers half of my question. Wanna get to the reason why you're here instead of Houston?"
Charlie blew a lock of hair out of her eyes before answering, "I had another fight with Aaron."
She watched as understanding dawned over her father's features and his faced turned purple with rage. Five years earlier Charlie's mother had remarried for the fourth time, this time to a wealthy divorcee with a teenage son who had wandering hands and absolutely no concept of personal space. At sixteen he'd been a nuisance, at twenty-one he was a nightmare.
For the better part of the last year, he'd been consistently upping the ante. He'd graduated from leering to lewd innuendo and from there to full-on groping. While she and Bobby had never been close - she only saw him a couple of times a year when he passed through town - she'd trusted him three years ago when he'd told her she needed to learn to protect herself. Since then, Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu and Jujitsu classes had been a weekly constant. She wasn't her instructors' best student by any stretch of the imagination, but she'd learned enough to keep Aaron at bay. Or so she'd thought.
The moment her mother had left on her extended vacation, Aaron had conveniently shown up at the house, claiming to have wanted to say goodbye. Charlie wasn't stupid. It had been obvious why he'd come. He didn't beat around the bush either, just came at her, all lips, hands, tongue and teeth. She'd soundly kicked his ass then sent him packing. She'd naively believed that would be the end of it.
"Did you kill him?" Bobby asked, not at all certain he wanted to know the answer. He didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved when she shook her head.
"I wanted to," he heard her say. "God knows the fucker deserves it. Son of a bitch tried to rape me. Me!" She pounded her chest once in emphasis. She bit her lip and watched her father's face drain of color before filling again as the anger coursed through him. "I cut him though, cut him pretty bad," she admitted. "I left him bleeding on the bathroom floor. Aaron won't call the cops. He's not that stupid. But I can't go back there."
"I'll kill him," Bobby vowed, his voice thick with emotion.
"We'll help you," Dean and Sam said in unison, wearing matching expressions of fury. The Winchester brothers both shared a deep appreciation for the fairer sex though they each had their own method of showing it. The thought of some jerk off trying to force himself on a woman, especially one who was 'family', had them mentally ticking off all they ways they could make the dude beg for mercy.
"I don't want that on my conscience. I just need a place to stay for a little while," Charlie said tiredly.
The three men looked at one another. "No time like the present, fellas," Bobby announced, breaking the silence that had settled over the small group. With a quick, jerky nod of his head, Bobby sent them from the room.
The muffled sounds coming from the library said it all. They were leaving. The question of whether her father was going with them didn't have to be asked. She could see the answer in his eyes. In all these long years, Charlie had never once asked him what it was that he did. She hadn't wanted to know. Now, she wasn't so sure.
She'd had his address tucked away in case of an emergency and this certainly had qualified. But being in Bobby's house for the first time and getting a good look at the odd collection of religious and occult paraphernalia, she was suddenly very, very curious about the man who'd sired her. Too bad she wouldn't have the time. He was leaving to do whatever it was he did.
"Look, Charlie," he said, clasping her shoulder. "There's nothing I'd love more than to race down to Houston and carve that bastard up into little bits, but right now just ain't the time. Dean, Sam and me, we have a job to do. A pretty big one. I won't send you back to Texas, but you can't stay here."
Deflated, Charlie's shoulders sagged and she stared at her feet as she fought back the tears of frustration that burned her eyes. "I understand."
Bobby gave her shoulder a small squeeze. "I wasn't finished, Charlene. Like I said, you can't stay here. It's just too damned dangerous right now. Since I'm gonna worry about you every second you're out of my sight, you might as well just come with us."
"Really?" Hope caused her heart to leap in her chest.
"Really. But look, you're gonna have to do exactly what I say. No arguments. This is dangerous business, girl."
Raising an eyebrow she asked, "And exactly what business is that, Dad? Where are we going?"
Bobby swallowed hard and answered honestly, "We're going to hunt a demon."