After Jaenelle had calmed down enough to drink the whiskey Malachi had brought, Dean brought the glass up to her lips. Her own hands were shaking so badly she couldn't hold the glass steady. He kept his free hand on her back, trying to give comfort by his touch. "Can you talk?" he asked gently after a few minutes.
Jaenelle sniffled once, then took a shaky hold of the glass and gulped down the last of the whiskey. After she had swallowed, she looked up at Malachi. "I need more," she said in a shaky voice.
Malachi nodded and refilled her glass with the bottle that was in his hands. When Mal looked at Dean, Dean could clearly see fear written in the younger man's eyes.
Jaenelle downed her second glass in one go and set it down hard on the coffee table. After she had swallowed, she looked at Sam.
"Did Dean tell you everything about two years ago?" she asked.
Sam nodded. "I should hope so." He paused and glanced at his brother who nodded back at him. Taking this as a 'yes', Sam returned his attention to Jaenelle.
"When the demon possessed me, I was aware of everything it said and did. I can remember the vile things it said to your father as he was performing the exorcism, the hurtful remarks it told Dean." She paused and held her glass out to Malachi who refilled it again. "The day I woke up after being in a coma for a week is basically a blur. All I can remember of that day is that when my dad told me he'd sent John and Dean away, I freaked." She looked at Dean. "I didn't feel safe without you around. I was incredibly weak, but somehow I managed to climb out of bed. Halfway at least until Mal and a nurse held me down. I wanted to go after you, tell you my dad was being an idiot. Instead I had to lay in that hospital bed for another week while you drove further and further away from me."
Dean remembered those weeks when he had wondered how Jaenelle was doing. During those days, his mind hadn't been on the job. He had been worrying about Jaenelle, wondering if she'd come out of the coma, if she'd still been alive. It had eaten him up inside not knowing what had happened to her.
"When I got my strength back and was allowed to leave the hospital, I avoided my dad as best I could. I didn't leave Berkeley as he wanted. I stayed there, dropped drama class and took on a history course. Even though my body was back to its previous strength, I didn't feel strong enough, so I started taking self defense classes and working out at the gym. I researched demons and how to protect myself from them." She paused as she took a small sip of whiskey. "I slept with a circle of salt around my bed. A line of salt on my window sill so that nothing could get in. I did everything you can think of to protect myself." A short pause as she took a breath. "I was scared."
All three men sat quietly as she talked. Sam still sat in front of the laptop, his body turned in her direction. Malachi sat on the arm of the couch, holding the whiskey bottle with a white knuckled grip. Dean kept rubbing her back as she talked, hoping he could give her the courage she needed to tell all of it.
"Then my dad got sick last year," she continued. "The doctor's have this really awesome term for it, but I just say that he's losing his marbles. He never got over mom's death, she was everything to him, ever since then he started closing himself off to the world, bit by tiny bit. He kept up appearances when we were still growing up, but as soon as we were old enough to take care of ourselves, he came here, to this cabin. He became a hermit. The only times we saw him was when he came to drop off groceries. We had to fend for ourselves." She looked at Sam. "I'm basically telling this for your sake, because Dean already knows."
Sam nodded. "I understood that he was a recluse, but I didn't get why."
Jaenelle shrugged. "So now you know. He never got over my mom's death. And now it's so bad that the doctor's told Mal and I to take care of him because he doesn't take care of himself." She glanced at Malachi. "I came willingly."
"But I didn't," Malachi said with malice in his voice. "I'm sorry, but he's never been there for us. Why should we be here for him now?"
"Because he's our father," Jaenelle said softly. "But we've had this discussion a lot of times before."
"And it's not what any of us want to hear," Malachi added.
Jaenelle nodded and took another sip of her drink. "So we both moved back. Because my dad was trying to ignore the fact that I'd almost been killed by a demon, I had to hide the protection circle and everything else I'd accumulated. I settled back in here and made a few new friends." Dean could hear her voice crack and a feeling of dread built in the pit of his stomach. "Marsha Deveraux was a good friend of mine. Our personalities totally clashed, but we made it work. It was a challenge being her friend."
Sam and Dean glanced at each other, both dreading to hear what was coming next. The way she was speaking told them enough: something had happened to Marsha.
"Three days ago, Marsha and I met up at her place. Another one of our friends, Sondra, joined us. Marsha thought it would be fun to play around with a Ouija board." She looked from Dean to Sam to see their reaction. Apparently she saw on their faces what she had expected: apprehension. "I could've told her then that it was a bad idea to play around with that, especially this low to the ground. You never know what kind of spirit you'll summon, but it will most likely be malevolent."
Sam nodded. "The lower you are, the more evil the spirit. Good research."
Jaenelle allowed a small smile to grace her features. "Right. Except I didn't tell her because I knew she wouldn't believe me. If she wanted to do something, she'd do it no matter what. So I played along and we started asking questions. At one point, Marsha asked the board who of us three would rule the world." She snorted. "That was so typically Marsha. She was doing something she didn't believe in so she asked the stupidest questions. What none of us had counted on was that we had summoned something."
Dean's heart started beating rapidly in his chest in fear. He looked at Sam who returned the gaze. His brother had picked up on it, too.
"The board started to spell out a sentence. It started with my name. Sondra and Marsha had been freaked out by then and both had let go of the planchette. I couldn't." She took a shaky breath. "I wanted to, but my fingers were stuck to it. I couldn't move. Marsha and Sondra even tried to pull me off. It didn't help. The planchette seemed stuck to the board and my fingers to the planchette. Sondra ran from the room, freaked. I didn't blame her. She," her voice broke as she remembered a night that must have been terrifying.
"Take your time," Dean said softly, taking the glass from her hand and holding it out to Malachi. He refilled it to the brim. Dean was surprised Jaenelle's speech wasn't slurred yet.
"Marsha went into some kind of trance," she continued as she took the glass back from Dean. "While she was spacing out, something materialized in the room." She choked on a sob. "Dean, I was so scared. It… It's not an ordinary demon. It's corporeal."
Stunned, Dean let his hand drop away from her back and looked over at Sam. His brother was looking equally freaked.
"What do you mean it's corporeal?" Sam asked. "Demons aren't corporeal. They can't manifest like that."
Jaenelle's tearfilled eyes looked up at him. "This one can. It took hold of me. Kept saying that he wanted me to serve him. At one point I snapped and told him I would never do such a thing. It was as if it hadn't even noticed Marsha in the room. But then, he did." She expelled a shaky breath. "It told me that I would succumb to his will by suffering. And it would start there."
Dean didn't want to hear the rest of the story. He wanted to stop Jaenelle from saying anymore, because he already knew how this would end. It sounded like the typical demon cliché you could see in a B-horror movie.
"It threw me against the wall and left its mark on me." She shoved the right sleeve of her robe up, exposing the burn in the form of a flame. "It did that in one freaking second. But that's not the worst of it." She kept staring at the burn on her wrist, but Dean saw the tears wet her cheeks. She looked up at him suddenly and the pain he saw in her eyes made his heart hurt. "It…" Her lip trembled as she tried to form the words. "It killed Marsha. It set her on fire. I don't know how, but suddenly she was on fire. And I watched her die and there was nothing I could do to help her. Oh God, Dean. It killed her."
Dean wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He closed his eyes as the images burned themselves into his brain. He hadn't been there to witness it, but he could imagine. Expelling a shaky breath himself, he continued to hold Jaenelle close as he looked at Sam.
"Find out whatever the hell you can on this thing," he said in a low voice, "but make sure you know how to kill it." Sam nodded at him and turned to the laptop. When Dean moved his head so he could look at Malachi, he saw the younger man sitting dazedly on the couch. "Mal," he said and Malachi turned his head. "Show me Jaenelle's room."
Malachi nodded and got up. Dean could see that the younger man was numb, not really understanding yet what his sister had told them. He picked Jaenelle up in his arms and followed Malachi to her room. She kept crying onto his shoulder, seemingly not even noticing that he was taking her to her room. When Malachi opened the door, Dean locked eyes with him. "Drink some whiskey yourself," he said, "You could use it, too. And try to be as quiet as you can. She needs her rest." Malachi nodded again and turned around to walk back to the living room.
Dean carried Jaenelle over to her bed and gently laid her down on it. She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes. He gently brushed a stray strand of her dark brown hair away from her face. "I promise you, Jaenelle. We'll kill this thing."
"I don't know if you can," she said so softly he almost didn't hear her.
"We can and we will," he retorted with conviction in his voice. "Now you just rest."
Jaenelle blinked her eyes slowly. Dean almost smiled. The whiskey hadn't had enough time yet to make her drunk, but it had succeeded in making her sleepy, exactly what his intention had been. He caressed her face with his hand, looking down at her as her eyes slid slowly closed. He waited a few seconds before he removed his hand and stood up.
Before he could move away, Jaenelle's hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. He looked down on her and saw her staring up at him with fearful eyes. "Don't leave me again," she whispered.
His heart broke into a million little pieces. He sat back down again. "Honey, I won't leave you. I'm just going into the living room to help Sam."
She shook her head vigorously. "Please, Dean," she pleaded with her voice and eyes, "Don't leave me."
Tears formed at the corners of his eyes, but he blinked them away. "Okay, I won't leave you," he whispered.
"You'll stay?" she asked. It was a loaded question that he didn't know how to answer. Instead he pulled off his jacket and shoes and climbed onto the bed with her.
He wrapped her in his arms. "I'm here, sweetheart."
Not before long, he felt her relax in his arms. Her even breathing told him she was asleep, but he couldn't grasp his own tendrils of sleep. Too many thoughts were tumbling around in his head. The most important question that was on his mind wasn't how to kill the demon. Instead it was him asking himself if he could love her.
