Disclaimer: See Chapter One
Chapter Four: You Wreck Me
"A monster?"
Dean thought back to the clearing. The werewolf hovering over him, evil fermenting from its breath. And then the bright, white light.
It hadn't felt like a monster. It had felt like a security blanket, protecting, not harming. It had saved him.
I'm trying to save you.
Dean's eyes focused on the young woman. He'd met all kinds of monsters. Even ones who were really good at disguising themselves.
"What kind of a monster is it?"
She released a long breath and her cheek reflexively crept up. "You're never going to believe me…"
A sharp cry from behind the trio sounded surprisingly close. A child's yelp for her mother and the sound of a door opening.
"Mama?"
Both sets of Winchester shoulders jumped at the unfamiliar, young sound. Their heads whipped at the same time to see sweet Eliza standing in her white nightgown, golden locks messed from sleep, rubbing at her five-year-old eyes. She looked like a stereotypical cherub. She dropped her small, chubby fists, blinked a few times and gaped at the men taking over the small living room. Her pale blues widened and she found her mother quickly, her orbs huge with wonderment.
"Mama?"
Carly was on her feet before either man could take a breath. She opened her arms and greeted her child with a hug. "It's okay, Eliza. This is Dean and Sam. They're hunters and they got lost in the woods and needed a place to sleep tonight."
Eliza buried her head, inching her cheeks to the side and letting her eyes take a peek at the strangers.
"These are the boys who were making all the noise out here earlier," Carly went on.
Eliza glanced up at her mother and she seemed to relax. Her blues flashed back to the living room, darting from one brother to the other. They fixed and settled on Sam, her pupils constricting. Her nose inhaled quickly as she sucked in her top lip. She tugged on her mother's yellow band shirt, not breaking her stare with the younger brother. Her voice was throaty and wet as she growled out, "Wolf."
Sam's brows furrowed as Carly's hands gently touched the child's shoulders. "Come on, Eliza. Let's get you back to bed. Mama will lay down with you."
The young woman directed the girl back down the short hallway and through the open door on the left. It clicked softly shut.
Sam glanced over at his brother and let out a small huff.
Dean's eyes bounced over. "What?"
"She's growled at me and called me a wolf." He flicked his fingers up in the air, to stress each point.
Dean looked back to the empty hallway. "Something feel off with you?"
Sam nodded his response as Dean set his attention back to his brother. Sam looked rugged, scruffy, just plain worn out. The kid needed to sleep.
Dean got up and walked to the duffel grabbing at a bottle of Tylenol. He shook three tablets out and offered them up to Sam. They younger man accepted, washing them down with his water.
"What's up with the Carly and the door?" Sam asked. "And the cleaning?"
Dean shrugged. "OCD?" He extended his hand down to his brother. "Get up. I gotta pull the bed out."
Sam stood modestly, accepting the help. He turned to remove one of the sofa cushions, but Dean abruptly slapped his hand away.
"Got it."
He heard Sam interject something snide under his breath, but he took a step back. Dean grabbed at the black ribbon handle and yanked the folded mattress out.
"What're they sleeping on?" Sam suddenly perked up, recalling the layout of the other bedroom.
Dean pushed the mattress down, there was a fitted sheet already attached and from the looks and smell of it, it was clean. As were the extra linens in the closet they had stored the duffel in yesterday. Dean sighed. Carly had been expecting friends to arrive. Extra blankets, clean sheets, lots of food and water. Her imperfect perfectionism would have her being more than prepared.
"Dunno. It's part of the mystery," Dean replied. "How'd she get the place so clean?" He brought over two pillows and threw them towards the top of the makeshift bed, stopping only to shut the iPod off. When he couldn't figure it out, he turned the volume down so Tom could continue to play his loop in silence. "She's Mary Poppins?"
Sam shimmied out of his jeans as Dean tossed him over a pair of sweat pants. Sam ping-pong ideas back to his bother. "How'd she get all that food and water here? There isn't a road that comes down to the cabin." He threw his jeans back to Dean and settled down on his side of the bed.
Dean had dressed into his own sleeping clothes and crawled in on the other side. He pulled the covers up over he and Sam. "What was the light?"
Sam's head searched for a comfortable spot on the soft downy that was stuffed inside the pillow. "Tinkerbell?"
Dean snickered. "Nah, she's a pixie. This wasn't a fairy." He threw his hand over his head as he laid on his back. Laying down felt unbelievable. He was ready to relinquish his body to the night. He glanced over once at Sam, his sibling's eyes were half-mast, staring blankly into the kitchen.
"Need anything?" Dean had forgotten to ask before he got into bed.
Sam's head moved left to right.
Dean waited. "What is it?"
Sam turned his neck. His brother was within reaching distance. His brother was asking how he was. His brother was wanting to figure out this hunt. His brother was wanting to walk through the next few months like nothing was wrong. Nothing was changed. Only, Sam could feel the forces pull them. Especially in the night. One being pulled towards the gates of hell, the other being pulled to the darkness beyond. One being pulled because of choice the other being pulled because he was chosen.
"It's quiet here." Sam's voice was flat.
Dean looked back up at the ceiling. It was quiet. He could hear his heartbeat, though. It was pounding in his ears. He couldn't believe Sam couldn't hear it, too. "It's kind of nice."
Sam shifted his body next to him. "I don't want to get use to it. It's too loud."
"What is?"
"The quiet." Pretty soon, everything was going to be quiet. Lonely. And there's nothing else that screams louder than that.
Dean swallowed. Yeah, he had went through a few hours of quiet. He couldn't handle the cry of his own voice, either.
What am I suppose to do?
Sam took a few deep breaths and closed his eyes, his hands finding their spot next to his sides and his body sinking into the thin mattress. "Wonder Woman?" he slurred to Dean.
Sam's older brother was turning to his side, feeling the intoxicating sensation of sleep warm over him. He was so grateful for the break.
"Dude, she was hot."
WWW
Dean was sitting in the brown leather chair, whittling at the candlestick. The silver from his blade meeting the oblong sides as they splintered to the floor.
Sam sat up on his elbows and watched. His brother didn't acknowledge him. He just kept whittling. He'd stop from time to time and pad the end with his fingertip but he didn't look up. So Sam waited for the bare feet to slap on the hardwood. For Carly to come waltzing in and take the brunt of the instrument as she had done before.
Or maybe he could just wake up.
But it was too quiet. Save for the blade scraping against the wood. And his brother's heartbeat, pulsing in his chest. That was something the younger man could hear.
Sam cleared his throat. "You think you're sharpening a pencil there? I don't think it has any lead," he tried to joke.
Dean's eyes drifted up. They seemed to look right through Sam. "No, I'm making a weapon."
Sam gulped. "You're making a stake?"
Dean stood up and took a couple of steps towards him. "Yep."
Sam looked to his right. There was Carly standing off to the side. She was under a large tree with a hollowed out trunk. But she didn't look over. She was already looking up.
He frowned back to Dean. The hunter was hovering over Sam's immobile form. "Are we going hunting?"
His brother's smile was small this time and he ticked his head to the right. "Not tonight."
"Who'd you make the stake for, Dean?"
Dean released the air inside his lungs. "Me."
And he forged the wooden candlestick into his gut.
Sam woke up pouring sweat. His eyes were scared and searching. His body shot pain through his ribs as it instinctively folded into a sitting position. His brother's name was on the tip of his tongue.
God, this was getting old.
Dean was already awake and was sitting in the brown leather chair, just as in his dreams, staring at him. "Sam?" Concern with a hint of so much more underlying.
Sam's throat worked. He slowly nodded to the opposite chair. "Could you sit over there?" Nothing else to give at the moment, just the request without reasons why.
Dean didn't ask, either. He simply got up and switched chairs. His arms rested on his knees and he leaned forward. "Better?"
A small shudder waved through Sam's body but he nodded. In all honestly, it was better.
"Nightmare?"
Sam threw the covers off himself. It felt so hot in the cabin. He hadn't remembered that from last night.
"Yeah." His back was to Dean, but he could feel the eyes. Feel the waiting.
"Wanta talk 'bout it?"
Yes. He wanted to yell about it. He wanted to shake his brother, knock him out, beg him to reverse the deal. He wanted to tell him he was the one that needed to die. That Dean was wrong. It was the wrong decision. He chose the wrong brother to live.
"No."
Sam's eyes focused on a picture hanging on the wall, opposite of him. It was a reprint of Matteo di Giovanni's, The Massacre of the Innocents. His forehead wrinkled as he stared at the inhumane illustration. He hadn't even noticed it before as he went to bed last night. It was a grotesque scene with crying children, slaughtered by men with swords. The mothers weeping, pulling their babies away from the murderers. It made him shiver. He stared at it, seeing his face on all the hunters' bodies and the children fearing him.
"That painting creeps me out." Dean was always watching.
Couldn't argue with him there. "Yeah." The younger brother stood and turned to look at the fold-out bed. He reached down to help return it back to the confinements of the sofa.
"Go get cleaned up," Dean spoke up. He watched as Sam still stared at the rumpled sheets, lost somewhere. "I'll get the room put back together before Carly wakes up." He waited with still no response from his little brother. "It was a long night, dude. You reek."
Smell did it as the quiet man lifted his head and started a slow shuffle around the bed. Dean already had his clothes pulled out, ready for Sam to take. "Right bedroom and keep it down. We want to be respectful."
Sam looked at him, a bit perplexed, but he took the clean clothes and nodded. He started towards the hallway and then turned around. Dean was removing the blankets off the thin mattress and smoothing the fitted sheet out.
"You woulda… done the same thing?" He echoed the older man's words back to him. He knew what the answer would be, but he desperately needed to hear it. Needed for Dean to say it: He would have taken the shot.
Dean's hands stilled over the sheets. He looked up and met Sam with confidence, unwavering and, without hesitation, "I would."
Sam seemed to take a few seconds to let that sink in, to let himself believe his brother.
Dean never moved, just held the connection. To save Sam, Dean would have taken the shot. He stared, silently driving it home: I would have done the same thing.
In a heartbeat.
Sam turned without speaking and walked back through the door on the right. He left his brother to clean up his mess and try to pick up the pieces. Once again.
Carefully, Sam unwrapped the gauze from his body and gently pulled off the 4X4's. His torso was red, swollen in some areas, heat radiating throughout. He took off his sweat pants and looked at the scratches on his thighs. The larger wolf had literally laid his paws into him.
He discarded his boxers, relieved his bladder and reached up to turn on the nozzle. The water pressure was not impressive, but beggars couldn't be choosers. Sam stepped into the light spray and let it try to heal him. He watched the water running down the drain turn from clear to gray to pink. Dirt and blood made their way down his legs. Tears made their way down his face. Easier this way with the small spout of water to cover them up.
His face cracked from the pressure in his head, his face distorting from the force of keeping sound inside. The fact remained the same - no matter what Dean would have done, it was Sam that had done it.
He had killed a boy.
There was no God that would forgive that.
The water washed his body until it ran clear again. But his soul… for that, that water just wasn't enough.
WWW
Dean had easily found some bread and had toasted up a light breakfast for the two of them. He cleaned his work area off and hoped Carly wouldn't mind him using her things without asking permission first. She probably counts the slices of bread, too, he thought.
Sam had emerged from the shower looking clean and smelling better but he was off synch and Dean recognized the slumped shoulders and the slow gait wasn't just from the attack.
No, his brother was hurting.
They sat together in silence, eating toast with jam and drinking bottled water from their own stash. Dean gnawed on a jerky stick while Sam peeled back a banana. They had heard the shower turn on right after Sam had finished and had listened to the occasional whisper that vented into the room. The giggles were what got them, though. Young Eliza had an infectious laugh. It sounded like it started in her belly and worked its way up her throat, trilling her sing-song vocal chords until it released. It was a sweet melody that ended on an upturned note chased by sugary inhalations as she started the laughter again.
Not the usual noise they were use to when they woke up. It was genuinely infantry music, but it made their lips turn up in smiles.
They heard the click of the door from the back bedrooms and the delicate pitter-pat of bare feet on the hardwood.
Dean took a drink of his water as Carly and Eliza came into view of the hunters. The child clung closely to her mother's legs, her blonde curls mimicking the softness of the woman she inherited them from.
Sam and Dean smiled to her at the same time. Both men purposely greeted the girl first with high-pitched "Hi, there's" and "How are you's" tumbling out of their mouths at nearly the same time.
Eliza eventually smiled, one tooth in the front missing, her own sweet dimples gracing her rounded face. She shook her head when Carly offered her something to eat, choosing just a glass of chocolate milk instead. She pulled back a chair and sat with the men while they finished their toast, her eyes glistening from one to the other, watching with a childlike fascination at the foreigners in her presence. She finished the milk and walked by Dean to put her glass in the sink. Her face sparkled as she grinned at Sam, looking at him with delight this time, not oddly accusing like the short hours before.
Carly pushed her gently into the other room, giving her plain typing paper and crayons, asking for her to draw her a picture.
"I want to play outside."
Carly shook her head. "Not yet." She patted the blonde curls. "Soon." She settled her daughter on the leather sofa and turned up the volume of the iPod, the Heartbreakers accompanying Mr. Petty's off-tune voice in the background.
Every time it seems like there ain't nothin' left no more
I find myself having to reach out and grab hold of something…
The young woman walked back into the dinette, her dark jeans hanging loosely on her skinny legs. She stared at the men, her arms crossed over her tight, red t-shirt sporting the Kinks logo in white.
"Hey, Carly," Sam started, trying not to sound like he was being intrusive, "is there another road around here that leads to the cabin that we missed? I mean, we had to walk almost two miles and… how'd you get all this water and food here?" Sam turned his body around in the chair so he could see her.
"Secretly? I'm Lara Croft."
Here comes my girl. Here comes my girl.
Yeah, and she looks so right, she is all I need tonight.
Sam's face dimpled and Dean let out a laugh. They looked at one another and Sam watched Dean's eyebrows raise. "Yeah, she's got Wonder Woman beat."
Carly was smiling, too. "No, I keep supplies in the cellar, under the cabin. I have a four wheeler to get through the brush to carry everything else. And Eliza, of course. But I parked next to your car up on the road's end. Black '67 Impala?"
Dean's entire aura lit up and he sat more alert. "That's her."
"Well, I saw the car and thought I might have some other guests joining me. People hunt these woods all the time and every so often, they can't find their way back."
"So, you kind of figured out we were hunters?" Sam pushed for more.
Carly nodded. "Bad-ass car like that? I figured it belonged to someone compensating for something."
Dean's face fell, thinking about the comment. Sounded like an insult…
"Did you figure out how we know each other?" She directed to Sam.
He hadn't even thought about it since they had last talked. "No."
She pointed her finger in his direction. "I'm going to remember. You were there. There was… a tree?"
"Where?"
She thought about it a minute. "Maybe it was a dream." Then her eyes caught the empty plates in front of them. "Had enough to eat or should I make you more?"
Four large hands came out in protest. The brothers were shaking their heads and answering her with firm "No's."
Carly huffed a small laugh at them, causing the right side of her bangs to wisp up from her breath. Her lips pierced together and she gently blew on the left side as well.
The boys didn't miss the peculiarity and their faces didn't hide the fact.
She simply shrugged. "Has to… balance." She almost sounded embarrassed. Her fingers traced the soft edges of her neck ever so subtly as she twisted and twirled the chain of her necklace. She stopped over the glossy cross, her fingertips gliding over the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Sam had been watching her intently. The way she moved, her hands, her body. She was enticing.
"Do you believe?" He asked. "Or is that just a fashion statement?"
Carly glanced down at the ornament hanging between her breast bone. "What? No, I mean, of course I believe."
Sam nodded at her. She said it with such certainty, such safety that this he believed.
Carly continued, "He always has a plan. When everything else is spinning out of control, God is there. You have to have faith or else… why is life worth it?" She tilted her head, her sight soaking up both brothers again. "You know?" She waited, watching them exchange opposite looks and she read the conversation. Both were believers. Just, only one had the faith to believe in the possibility of a God. The other believed in what he saw, what he touched, what he lived. His faith had been taken from him long ago.
Carly changed the subject.
"What's the plan today?"
Dean lifted his eyebrows. "If it's okay with you, I'd thought I'd try to hunt the wolf one more time. If I could leave Sam here…"
"What?" Sam's head snapped up.
Dean glared, his hand raising. "Not like I can bring you along."
"I can walk."
"Barely."
"I can shoot a gun."
"Steady?"
Sam narrowed his eyes. He was NOT going to be left behind. Left here to play Barbie dolls with a couple of girls.
Dean shook his head. "I don't know if you can hit your mark, Sam. Damn thing moves fast. I don't want you shooting me."
Sam's face dropped. He sucked in a shallow breath and held it, his cheeks flushing from the burn behind his eyes. He watched his big brother as he drew silent, his air leaving his lips trying to form words to say he was sorry. He didn't mean it. He wanted to take it all back.
"Here." The sweet sound caught them off guard again as Eliza walked back into the room, colored paper in hand. She grazed by her mother, brushed by Sam and over to Dean. Her small hand waving the picture in front of him.
"What?" Dean asked, genuinely surprised. "For me?"
She nodded as he took it from her chunky fingers.
"Wow." Dean's eyebrows lifted, his mouth turning up. He was impressed. "Is this me?"
"Yeah." She pointed at the paper. "And that's your brother."
"Well, yeah," Dean commented, "looks just like him." He turned the drawing over so Sam could see. Eliza had drawn Dean with a hunter's cap and jacket on, standing next to a stick-like figure with an enormous, disproportioned head.
Carly giggled. "Go draw another one," she urged the girl out. Funny how a child could walk into a room and make things better for a while.
"Can I play with my toys?"
Carly winked at her. "Of course, baby."
Sam took the picture from his brother. "I look like a candy apple."
Dean stood from the small table. "If I can find where the wolf sleeps, I can get to it a lot easier."
"Maybe it doesn't sleep," the young woman quietly suggested.
Dean and Sam looked over to her. There was a depth in her eyes, a wisdom she held they hadn't noticed before.
"All wolves sleep," Dean casually ventured, testing murky waters.
She smirked, her lips departing from one another in a crooked raise. "Maybe this is a special kind of wolf."
"Mama!" Eliza called again from the other room.
"What is it?"
"I found little hats! And they're shiny!"
The three adults all frowned at one another. Carly turned her body to the side so that everyone in the dinette was witness to little Eliza's show. Before anyone could jump or shout, the child pulled apart the custom made box where John Winchester had stored fifty silver bullets, each with their own velvety spot. The girl opened it with such a thrust of excitement that the slugs dislodged from their upholstery and flew into the air, all finding a brief second to hold on to the atmosphere before gravity pulled them to the floor.
Eliza's eyes tinkled as she watched the shiny objects hit the air, floating frozen. Her pupils dilated and her blue eyes dazzled as she squealed with jubilation, "Forty-eight, Mama!"
The bullets hit the hardwood, bouncing and rolling with clinks and clanks against one another on the boards underneath. Eliza rushed in and started picking them up, followed closely by the adults.
Dean and Sam bent over, gathering up the shiny bullets and placing them back in the black leather box. Eliza pulled her shirt out and scooped up silver pellets one by one.
"Put them in here, darlin'," Dean requested to the young child, showing her how to push the cartridges into their cushioned homes.
Sam glanced up at Carly. "Did she count the bullets in the air?"
The young woman gazed over to him, but her thoughts were far away.
"Is that another one of her things she can do?"
Carly's blues slid over to Eliza. She was gleefully picking up the shiny objects and placing them back into the box, Dean not far from her. They seemed to find the last two.
"Forty-eight." She smiled at Dean, her eyes catching the glimmer of the last pellet as her fingers lingered on the smoothness.
Dean nodded at her. "You like to count?"
Her head bobbed up and down excitedly as Dean's arm lifted in her direction, to give her a gentle pat on the shoulder but the child shied away, shrinking from his hand. She ran around the hunter and back to her mother, hiding her face in the woman's abdomen.
Carly let her body take the hit from her daughter, the child's arms wrapping around her, the silver cross swinging from her neck from the force of the impact. Her face looked down at the young girl and paled. No emotion, no shushing, no comforting. The woman was still with the exception of her head. It was bobbing to the sounds from the iPod.
Eddie waited til he finished high school
He went to Hollywood to get a tattoo…
"Carly?" Sam tried as he stood upright with help from his brother. Bending down to pick up ammo wasn't exactly what his stitches needed this early in the morning.
Her voice was faint. "Why were there only forty-eight?" Her eyes traveled to the custom box. Two spaces were open, empty areas causing the remaining bullets to be uneven in their symmetrical lines. "You didn't kill the wolf." Her face paled, looking to the older brother. "You missed."
He met a girl out there with a tattoo, too
The future was wide open…
Dean canted his head. "How do you know that?"
"What happened to the other bullet?"
Dean unconsciously looked to Sam and Carly followed. Sam looked guilt-ridden. The pain was back assaulting his chest. His knees felt like jelly, all soft and mushy. The weight from the shot he chose to take was smothering. He couldn't help it. He wore his heart on his sleeve.
And Carly? Carly read it all.
"What happened?"
They moved into a place they both could afford
He found a night club, he could work at the door…
Sam swallowed. "There was another wolf…"
"The small one?"
His eyes skimmed over to his brother who was carefully running checklists in his mind of which weapons were on him and where the rest were stashed so he could easily access them.
"Yeah," Sam answered, "it was smaller."
"Mama?" Eliza's precious voice wickedly broke the tension.
Her mother swayed out of her child's grasp, not realizing she was using it for balance. Carly's body started to teeter and her hand came out to catch herself on the wall.
Sam took a step.
She had a guitar and she taught him some chords
The sky was the limit…
"Did he… have brown eyes?"
Sam stopped.
Into the great wide open
Under them skies of blue…
"And blonde hair? Almost white?" She twisted her fingers in her own curls.
Sam nodded.
Out in the great wide open
A rebel without a clue…
Carly's lips broke apart, uneven from one another. She attempted a small smile for the brothers, but failed as two tears slipped out of her pale blue eyes, gliding down her slender cheeks and disappearing down her neck. Her mouth moved in the shape of a name, but it was only for her; she didn't speak it.
Dean looked over to his little brother, his ring tapping the hard plastic of the hilt of his gun. Sam's face, however, was tense and engaged as he followed Carly, watching her heart break and snap. Feeling secrets she carried with her, aching to know the truth of what she wouldn't say.
His leather jacket had chains that would jingle
They both met movie stars, partied and mingled…
"Mama?" Eliza's arms were wrapping around Carly's legs again and she was squeezing tight.
Her mother wiped at the tears, brushing them lightly away. She blinked down and handed Carly her a book. "Go to the bedroom and look at the pictures. I'll be in soon to read to you."
"I want to go outside."
"Go!" Carly shouted, the sharpness in her voice ringing in the small area.
The brothers automatically jumped at the mother's shrill, but Eliza was unphased. She shook her head in defiance.
Carly closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her voice was calm and steady when she spoke again. "It's okay, cupcake. I'm just going to talk to our friends for a little bit."
They A&R man said, "I don't hear a single."
The future was wide open…
The child hesitated but did as she was told. Carly walked her back into the bedroom on the left and the boys listened as she asked for a hug and then to the dozens of kisses she unleashed on her head until a small giggled filtered out.
The door clicked and the woman entered back to the room. The temperature had dropped a few degrees but Sam still felt like he was suffocating.
Into the great wide open
Under them skies of blue…
Carly walked to the center of the sitting area and took the brothers in again, past seeing them, soaking them into her vision.
Dean was preparing, ready to take her down if he had to. Sam would never have the chance to make a move. His emotions were guiding him now. He was wrecked.
Out in the great wide open
A rebel without a clue.
Carly turned her body to Sam. She looked beyond him again, seeing something deep inside, something he hadn't seen yet. "You are not alone," she whispered.
Sam swallowed, trying to keep his voice even-keeled. "What?"
"That's what you said to me. In my dream." She blinked. "You are not alone."
Sam's hazels landed on Dean's and they exchanged a careful conversation. Carly interrupted them.
"You're hunters." She gestured to both, her voice lifeless. "Your bags are full of an arsenal of weapons. The unconventional kind for unconventional prey."
She watched Dean shift, his fingers tense. "Yeah."
She picked up one of the mahogany chairs from the dining area and turned it around, sitting quietly. "What did those old men at the barbershop tell you about old Jed Ward?"
Sam and Dean swapped glances, not sure where this was going.
"Uh," Dean answered, "that he was some sort of a legend."
She was humored. "A legend? Not a myth or a fable? I, personally, like to think of him as insane. Brilliant, yes, but maddening."
Sam felt his body weakening. He lowered himself to one of the brown leather chairs.
"Jed inherited this land from his ancestors. The story goes it was cursed soil. Blood spilt here many years before he came along. An apparent Romeo and Juliet of the 1800's took place between his family and another. The guy would have been Jed's uncle, son of a governor, who fell in love with a woman born from a witch. Neither family approved and the lovers hid out here in the woods. Until the boy's father found him and he and the witch came back to convince them to return to their families. They, of course, refused. They were in love. The witch was so infuriated she cast a dark spell over them. It's said she changed the man into a werewolf and the woman into a vampire. Mortal enemies, you see."
Dean let out a gruff, short chuckle. "You don't believe that." He looked at Carly with a hardness in his eyes, an edge to his voice. "A witch? Casting a spell that would turn people into werewolves and vampires?"
"It's just a story. Just like Peter Parker turning into Spiderman from a bite of a hybrid-spider. Who was the first werewolf? And how did it get that way? How was the first vampire born?"
Dean turned away. Everything supernatural was a mystery. All had their own lore, their own stories. And they all seemed to have exceptions. Mutants. Freaks. He looked over to Sam. His brother was staring back. Lots of them had families. Some of them could love.
"I don't know the past, but what I do know what happened here later." Carly stopped talking and waited as the boys set their attention back to her. "Supposedly, the witch had set a loophole in the spell. Every twenty-five years the couple could come back to the woods and see one another for one night in their true form. But they had to spill the blood of eight people, one month per person for the time they lied about their love. If they could force themselves into the role of monsters, they could have one night of being normal." She stopped for a moment, listening to Eliza playing down the hall. Her voice lowered slightly. "So when Jed was a young man, he had the idea that he could build a house and have it blessed to offer to the wolf and the vampire. He carved his own prayer into the door. It would be a peace offering to hopefully undo the deed that his Grandfather had done when he turned the lovers' fate over to the witch. And then Jed waited. But they never showed. Jed grew older, he married and had two children of his own, a son named Sam and a daughter named Carla. Then they grew up. And, still, the curse never rained down. It was a lark. How stupid was he to believe such fabrications?" She settled back in her chair, her fingers fumbling over the cross. The boys waiting for her to get to the number in her head. She reached it and dropped the silver. "Then one summer day, Jed and his wife had the kids home for a weekend getaway. They had a picnic. Their son was twenty-three, their daughter was twenty-eight. She was married and had her own little boy and girl. That night while they slept, the howls started. First from the werewolf. Then from the vampire. Then from the people within the cabin. The wolf came into the bedroom on the right and devoured Sam. The vampire took the other bedroom and slaughtered Jed's wife. But Carla and her family?" Her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, they were cruel to them. The wolf turned the husband and the son into his likeness. The vampire, she changed the mother and her daughter. Once a wonderful family, you see, forced from humans to creatures of the night."
Sam reached up and rubbed his eyes with his fingers, pushing deeply until he saw spots on the back of his lids. He thought about his brother, knowing he was readying himself for a possible attack. Sam glanced towards the sofa. The duffel behind the leather should contain the machete…
"Right after the massacre, Jed took his hunting knife and decapitated both the werewolf and the vampire, bringing the silver blade into their hearts. But his daughter and her family had already began the transformations and they took over the curse set by the old witch. Jed kept the house for them as a sanctuary. It's said they come back every twenty-five years, whether they want to or not, to see one another again." She raised heavy lids to Sam. "You killed Lucas George. He was eight-years-old when he was turned into a werewolf back in 1932." The tears released and glistened her cheeks. She stood up out of the chair, her body pitching for the younger brother. "And he was my son."
Playlist: Here Comes My Girl and Into the Great Wide Open performed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
A/N: Thanks for all the reviews. I'm working on the last chapter. I believe it will be six chapters, maybe seven, but I'm thinking six. Thanks again for reading!
