Sammy was seeing red.
He'd always though that was a cliché, and he never used clichés, but he was having trouble seeing through the red mist in front of his eyes. Or it could be the tears that, despite his best efforts, kept filling them.
Sammy was a geek. Dean loved activity; Sammy could sit curled up with his nose in a book for hours. For Dean's sake, though, he tried not to reveal his geekdom. Geeks got bullied, and anyone who bullied Sammy found themselves facing the wrath of Dean. The trouble was, Dean would face off against anyone who bullied Sammy. If the bullies were smaller than him, Dean, trying not to be a bully himself, would usually just throw them over his shoulder and deposit them somewhere embarrassing, like the girls' locker room or under the boys' showers fully clothed. If the bullies were bigger than him, though, or there were lots of them, Dean waded in, fists firing. He always made it painful enough that no one attacked Sammy again, but he often ended up bruised and battered himself.
So, for Dean's sake, Sammy tried to make himself a small target. At a new school he would manage to fly below the radar for a week or so, but then he'd feel sorry for a teacher and answer a question in class, or his curiosity would get the better of him and he'd ask one. Even if he managed to stay quiet, handing in his first paper or sitting his first test would get him discovered. Then there was the fact that he was always a year or so younger than his classmates, having skipped a couple of years early on. To the teachers, he was Sammy, Boy Genius. To his classmates, he was Geek Boy, ripe to be picked on.
This time it had been worse. At his last school his English teacher had introduced him to poetry, beginning with Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, and then, when Sammy had lapped them up and looked for more, moving back to Shakespeare and the English Romantics. No matter how quiet Sammy had kept in class, nothing was going to save him once he'd been caught at lunchtime reading Shelley. His fate in this school was sealed.
Not that life as a geek was uniformly bleak. His fellow geeks, nerds and outcasts included sweet, red-headed Willow; Owen, who loved Emily Dickinson as much as Sammy did; lanky, kindly Jesse, who reminded Sammy of a friendly puppy; and Xander, whose obvious use of humour to deflect pain was giving Sammy whole new insights into his big brother. None of them seemed to mind that Sammy was a couple of years younger than them, or that he hadn't shared their years of back story. He was accepted. But even having companions at the bottom of the pecking order still left Sammy at the bottom of the pecking order - right next to Jonathan Levenson. Ignored at best. Taunted at worst.
At least, so it had seemed, until one amazing day. Walking over a playing field, reciting Wordsworth's 'Surprised by joy' to himself (Sammy's taste in poetry was for the melancholy) he had found a miskicked soccer ball at his feet. Without thinking, he had kicked it back, sending it soaring over the head of the astonished goalie to nestle sweetly in the corner of the net.
"Do that again."
Sammy looked up, surprised. The boy yelling to him was Tor Hauer, in his class but a couple of years older than him, a lot bigger, and someone who had hitherto treated Sammy as though he was invisible.
"What?"
"Do it again. See if you can do it when Mashad's ready for you."
"Okay," said Sammy, putting his bag down and jogging forward to receive the ball. He looked at the goal, lined his kick up – and did it again, this time sending the ball into the opposite corner.
"Whoa, Geek Boy can score," Tor sounded astonished, which wasn't a real surprise. Sammy had astonished himself. Maybe all that training his Dad made him and Dean do was worth it. His body did seem to be happy to do whatever he wanted it to; even with all five boys against him Sammy was able to steer the ball around them and score. He'd played with them for an hour or so, until Dean, grumbling because Sammy had said he'd be at the library, had come to find him and escort him home.
Suddenly, life at school had got better. He was still Geek Boy, but his geekdom was forgiven. The Razorbacks sucked at almost every sport played - though the cheerleaders were good. Anyone who could add strength to any team was welcomed with open arms – as Coach Spacey wanted to welcome Sammy.
Until he'd raised the issue with his Dad. Playing soccer wasn't just about lunchtimes at school; there were after school practices and weekend games. And his Dad wanted him and Dean to learn bow hunting. He didn't care that Sammy was finally finding his own place at school, that people had stopped picking on him, that all his classmates were actually willing to talk to him, rather than just his fellow nerds. As far as Sammy could tell, John just didn't care about Sammy, full stop.
Now he stomped along the backstreets, not noticing that it was getting dark, kicking a stray can that he'd found in a gutter, blinking back tears of anger. It was probably because of those tears, that red mist, that he lost himself, suddenly looking up to find himself in a alley he didn't recognise in the so-called 'bad part' of town. (Not that there was a lot of town; not that bad things didn't happen all over it.) And there, in front of him, was what had jerked him back to reality, a woman, screaming, crying, being held by a thing that was dragging her back down the alley towards where Sammy was standing frozen.
The thing had its back to Sammy, so he couldn't tell what it was. It was corporeal, obviously, because it had the woman round the neck. And it was strong. But maybe it was just a mugger, a person who could be scared off by the mere presence of a witness, even if the witness was only a thirteen-year old boy. Sammy had to hope so; because he didn't have any weapons with him and his father and brother were nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly he was wishing desperately that either or both the other members of his screwed-up family were in the alley with him. But they weren't, and he'd have to do his best without them. He was a Winchester, after all, even if an under-sized one, and he wasn't going to ignore someone in trouble.
The thing had stopped moving, although the woman was still struggling and crying. It was lowering its head towards the woman' neck, almost as if it wanted to kiss her, which Sammy would have found gross even if the action had appeared consensual. The thing seemed to be so focussed on its prey that it didn't notice Sammy run up behind it and kick it, hard, in the back of one knee.
It wasn't the most carefully-thought-out move, but it seemed to work. The thing stumbled to one knee, dropping the woman, who fell forward onto all fours.
"Run!" Sammy screamed. "Get help!" As the thing turned to face its attacker, the woman gathered herself up and sprinted down the alley. So far, so good. Sammy had saved the girl. The only question was: who was going to save him?
