The sun soaked into me, warming me from the outside in. I felt like I'd never been so relaxed than I was right now, lying on my stomach on the hood of the Impala. Granted, I was fully-dressed and I had my black hoodie laying over my head so that I didn't burn, damn my fair skin and red hair. My abilities may protect me some from getting lit on fire, but the protection from UV rays was pretty much nil. Didn't matter though; the sun heated my clothes and heated me, and that all I needed right now. It was luxurious.
Sam and Dean were off questioning Channing as FBI agents or some such. Since the authorities don't generally go around with sixteen-year-olds tagging along, I'd been told to stay with the Impala, which actually pleased Dean quite a bit because now he didn't have to worry so much about his precious baby, and I do mean the car. I probably wasn't supposed to be lying on her, but I figured that if they can put this poor car through so many accidents and crashes in the line of duty, if the button on my jeans put a scratch in the paint, it wasn't the end of the world.
"Hey," I heard. I didn't bother looking up, figuring that it wasn't directed at me, but then I heard it again, this time closer. "Hey."
I lifted the hoodie off my eyes and peered out, my eyes having to adjust to the light a bit. There was a guy coming towards me, brown hair, hoodie, tall, thin, and lanky. I tensed a bit, immediately wary. I sat up slowly and put my hoodie in my lap, digging into the pocket for my knife. "Yes?" I asked him. I swung my feet off the side of the car.
"Is this your car?" he asked, clearly in awe. His gaze swept from one end of the car to the other, eyes wide and mouth agape.
"Sort of," I said. I relaxed a little. This guy was drawn to the car. That didn't mean he wasn't dangerous in some way, just that it was less likely.
"Impala, right?" he asked. He started circling the car. I hopped off the hood, worried about what he was going to do.
"Yes," I answered reluctantly, following him as he completed his circuit.
"And you say it's yours?"
I made a non-committal noise, not sure which was the better answer to get rid of him.
"Can you take me for a ride?" he asked, looking up at me for the first time. Suddenly, his eyes are all up and down and all over me like they'd been on the car. I took a step back.
"I don't think so," I said. "I'm waiting for someone."
He eagerly took a step forward, towards me. "Come on, it'll only take a minute. I'm dying to ride in her."
There was no chance of me getting into the car with this guy. I thought that I was probably reading him right, that he was just overeager and excited about the car, but you can never be sure when it comes to someone you don't know. I'd had experience in that area before. I made a quick decision to take a more aggressive stance.
"Dude," I said, stuffing my knife in my back pocket and crossing my arms in front of my chest. "I don't even know you and you want me to take you for a ride in my car? I seriously do not think so. Forget it."
The guy looked crestfallen, and I briefly wondered what planet he lived on where he thought that his approach would actually work. I don't know, maybe college girls are less cautious than I am, but I doubted it. I watched a bunch of thoughts cross his face and then he grinned really widely as if he'd figured out a way to get exactly what he wanted.
"Hey, there's a party tonight at my frat house. Wanna come? You'd have a great time and they'd all love to meet you."
I stared at him in complete disbelief. "No," I finally said, flatly. I looked at him with as much disinterest as I could, just shy of hostility. He finally seemed to get the hint.
"Oh, ok. Well, thanks then," he said. He turned around and started walking away.
"Who was that?" Sam asked. I turned. He'd approached from the side of us as we'd been talking. I hugged him tight.
"Some guy," I answered. I turned to look in the direction that the guy was walking, and he'd picked up his step and kept glancing back over his shoulder. I giggled. "I guess that he didn't want to get a closer look at the car after all, after he saw you."
Sam looked at him and looked at me, thoughtful. Apparently deciding that he didn't need to do anything about that, he went around to the trunk. "Channing said that she hasn't seen Kevin, so Dean and I are researching some more. He's doing legwork and I'm going digital. Wanna come sit with me at the café while I'll work on this?"
I smiled. "Sure!"
"Ok, get your laptop and your Biology book. I've got your lesson plans done, and you can get started on them.
I slouched and rolled my eyes. "Ugh, Saaaam…"
He grinned at me and ruffled my hair. "Come on, squirt. Let's go. It's better than hanging around the car getting hit on by strange guys."
"I'm pretty sure that he was hitting on the car, not on me," I grumbled as I opened the car door and retrieved my backpack and book. "What college kid is going to look twice at a fifteen-year-old?"
"You'd be surprised," Sam said. He shut the trunk, and I grabbed my hoodie off the hood. "You forget your age? You're sixteen, not fifteen."
"You don't age in Purgatory," I said, grumpily.
"You'll appreciate that later on," he said. He slung his arm across my shoulders and hugged me to him. "Besides, I don't want you to grow up that fast anyway."
I hugged him back and then shrugged his arm off my shoulders.
8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8
A couple of hours later, I was most of the way through my first Biology assignment and Sam was looking smugly at his computer. He glanced at me again, the fifth time in the last minute. "You ok?" he asked me. "You're fidgeting a lot."
I stopped scratching at my arms. "Yeah," I said softly, "I'm ok."
Dean pulled the chair out next to me. "Don't judge me," he said. "I got bupkis."
The next couple of minutes were spent with Dean enjoying a hamburger and Sam outlining how he tracked down Kevin through his IP address. "Any chance I can get that in English?" Dean quipped.
"He's at a coffee shop in Iowa," Sam replied.
"Aw, damn it!" I swore. "More driving?" I ran my fingers through my hair again, fiercely, scratching at my scalp. Dean put his hand on my forearm.
"Stop it," he said. "Don't worry. We're going to stop somewhere and let you practice a bit."
"Really?" I squealed.
"Yes, really. Just let me finish this burger."
8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8
That night, Dean and I stood on the edge of Lake Michigan. Off the shoreline was one of those swimming platforms. There was no one around. Sam had swum out to the platform with a bunch of wood. He'd taken the split logs and set them out one by one on the swimming platform.
Dean crouched down next to me, which actually put him lower than me. He gestured me to crouch down, too. "All right," he said. He pointed out to the platform. "The goal is for you to set each one of those pieces of wood on fire and burn it completely to ash before moving to the next one, without scorching the swimming platform."
Sam walked out of the lake, water pouring off of him, and picked up a towel that he'd left on the shore next to most of his clothes. "I don't see why I was the one who had to swim out there," he complained mildly as he dried himself off.
"Sorry," I said. Then I stood up and turned my attention to the platform. My insides were jittery. I was so excited to finally be doing this. I narrowed my eyes at the first split log, barely visible from where I was standing. I opened up to the flame inside me and extended a tendril reaching it out to the swimming platform. I touched the log and burned it.
The flame roared through me. I was alight in ecstasy. It was only me and the fire. I had to fight not to just set the entire platform alight. Dean had said each log burned to ash before moving to the next one. I concentrated. I held the flame. I controlled it. The first one was gone, and I lit the second by hopping the tendril over, then again, again, again. Eleven of the twelve were gone and the last one was burning up. I increased the intensity of the flame, pushing more into it, burning it faster, and then it was gone and there was no fuel and I had nowhere to douse the flame.
I closed my eyes. I imagined the flame as water and imagined swallowing it. It burned as it went down, down, down into the central part of me, back into the furnace and I shut the door hard, cranking the imaginary furnace handle to prevent the door from swinging back open. I opened my eyes to the pleased looks on Dean and Sam's faces, while the flame screamed out from inside me for more.
Dean grabbed me and hugged me close, kissing the top of my head. "Good girl," he said. "Perfect."
Then Sam hugged me hard. I craned my head up to look at him and he was looking at Dean, meaningfully. I wished I knew what he was thinking and what Dean was thinking.
My brain whispered to me that he was thinking that I was a menace, a monster, not supposed to exist. I hugged him tighter, burying my head in his chest.
Dean gently tugged on my arm. "Jessie, you did so well, we have a reward for you."
I let go of Sam, fighting back the tears that were threatening to choke me. "You do?" I held my breath.
"The park rangers have a huge pile of brush they've gathered. Do you want to light it up?"
I let out my breath and nodded.
We got back into the car and drove further into the park to the place where the rangers stored their dead brush. We had to drive down roads marked 'park rangers only' to get to it. The brush was next to a mulching machine, but they had only just begun to mulch the summer's collection leaving a quite large brush collection for me to set on fire.
I got out of the car and started toward the pile.
"Jessie," Dean said sharply. "Hold up."
I rolled my eyes and danced from one foot to the other while I waited for the two of them to fetch the newly-bought fire extinguishers from the trunk. When they caught up with me, I turned back towards the brush.
"Wait," Sam said. "Tell us the rules."
I rolled my eyes again, stopped and turned around, sighing. "Come on, just let me do it."
"Hey," Dean said. "Repeat the rules or we get back in the car and you don't get to do this. You do this our way, little girl, or not at all."
I turned back to the brush. The fire was already calling me. "Uh, only the brush. Don't burn the stuff under or around it. If you say stop, stop pushing flame into the brush. If you said contain it, then I'm going over the boundaries of the brush and I need to pull it back to just the brush. I have to obey what you tell me, no matter what. If you say put it out, then put it out. Don't just let go."
"Ok, go ahead," Dean said from behind me.
I started walking forwards.
"Jessie," Sam said impatiently. "That's far enough."
But I wanted to be in the flame. I sighed and stopped. The last thing I needed right now was a spanking and this gift taken away.
I closed my eyes and imagined a huge fist of flame emanating from me, grabbing the brush and squeezing. Flame wooshed and heat pounded me. I gloried in the fire. I opened my eyes to just the brush pile burning brightly, high into the sky, quickly. I played with the fire, quenching the top of the brush pile, then the bottom, then lighting them back on fire. I pushed more power into the flame, more, more. It burned higher and higher, to the same height as the top of the nearest pine trees. I tensed and pushed harder. I gasped at the crescendo of power that poured out of me and into the brush. Then the brush fire was out, no more fuel, but the flame inside me was sated, and closing my eyes again, I led it tamely back into the furnace rather than having to fight it down.
When I opened my eyes, I was sitting on the ground. I put my head on my knees. This satiation was what purgatory had been like, drained and happy and no more need.
Sam came up behind me and scooped me up. "All right, come on," he said. "It's time to get back on the road." I leaned my head against his shoulder and let him put me in the car, where I promptly fell asleep.
I woke up awhile later to Sam and Dean's voices.
"Did you see how brightly she was glowing?" Sam asked. "Did you see what she did with the brush fire, putting some bits out and then relighting it?"
"Yeah," Dean said gruffly.
"Was she like that in purgatory, Dean?"
"No," Dean said. "It could have been because it had been so long since she'd let it out like that."
"Could she be getting stronger?"
Dean grunted.
"Dean, you've got to tell me what you know about this."
"I know the same thing you do, Sam. She lights fires. She can lose control if she doesn't do it enough, if she does it too often, or if she doesn't get a chance to control a big flame for a while. She also can lose control when she loses her temper, but she's got way more control than she used to. She was doing things I'd never seen her do before."
They were quiet for a moment, then Sam said, "Do you think she's been practicing in secret?"
"I've seen signs," Dean said. "But nothing conclusive. I think she's getting better at hiding it from us. She knows how to hide the signs now that she's older." He sighed.
"All right," Sam said. "We're going to have to start being harder on her if she's sneaking. There's got to be a consequence, because I've got news for you, Dean. I saw her face. She enjoys letting it out, and the only thing holding her back is her conscience and the fact that she's answerable to the two of us. I think we can get her past this, but…"
"All right," Dean said. "Let me think about it."
Then they started talking about Kevin, but I didn't go back to sleep. I stared at the sky through the back window and thought about what I'd heard, tears dripping out of my eyes.
