The Home Under the Hill
Gwen could still feel their arms wrapped around her, huge and strong and warm. The feeling lingered as they continued down the highway, again. A road sign said fifty more miles to Lebanon. Another hour in this rumbly, smelly, ancient car. But it was ok. She could deal with the car, and the drive. She had her father, and that was all that mattered.
Finally.
He knows. He likes me. He wants me. The look he had given her was better than any hug. Eating her up with his eyes, swallowing her whole so that they would never be parted again. He might not want you. He might not care. He might be a serial killer or something. All of the warnings from her friends, her grandmother, they were all proven wrong. Sam was good, she could tell.
So was Dean. Too good. Nana would love him. And not just because he wanted Gwen to call her.
Nana.
Gwen crinkled her nose and glared at her phone. He wasn't wrong. Nana would be worried. As much as she didn't want to go back, Gwen could feel the little nips of guilt pinching at her stomach. She had left in the dead of night, crawling out the window and leaving nothing but a three-word note behind.
At the time, she had thought it was a better plan than getting into a screaming match and slamming a door in the old woman's face. Mom wouldn't have wanted her to do that. But the look in Dean's eyes told her he knew. Knew something Gwen didn't about being left behind by someone you love. It wasn't ok, not at all, and she was going to make it right again.
Which meant someone had to call. Or else he would.
Did Dean realize that if he called Nana, she'd probably have a heart attack then and there? She hated Sam. If she knew where Gwen was, who she was with-she'd call out the FBI, CIA, NSA and maybe NASA, too.
A text lit up her screen. Roxy. Right on time. Her safety plan, just in case her dad was, you know, a serial killer or something.
You still alive? She sent the same text every day at the same time. If Gwen didn't answer, Roxy would give the police the GPS passcode for her phone, and they would come running.
Gwen's fingers twitched across the screen. Yeah. Any news?
Our soccer team lost. Again.
She didn't have to add, Miss you. Gwen had left a lot more than her grandmother behind in Jackson. But she couldn't stay, and Roxy was the only one who seemed to get that. The girls on the soccer team, her friends at school, they tried to be nice. Tried to be sympathetic. But they couldn't help, not really.
She didn't want help. She wanted something different. She wanted something new.
No. She wanted everything she had lost. Everything she couldn't have.
It hurt too much to be in Jackson right now. She couldn't go back, even if it meant missing her senior soccer season.
Would there be a yard at her new home? A patch of grass to kick her ball around on? That was one thing Nana had never complained about. She had even let Gwen set up goal between her hydrangeas. Gwen tapped the screen.
How's Nana?
I thought you didn't want to know.
No. She had given clear instructions that she wanted to know nothing about her grandmother. Because of the hard lumps rolling through her guts right now. She could picture Nana sitting at the window, phone clutched in her hand. Or terrorizing the police station on a daily basis, waiting for news.
It's bad. She had the police search the school with dogs. Checked every locker. Gwen felt her heart lurch. She hadn't been wrong.
Roxy texted again, She's working the judge to get an order to have my house searched, and my parents know I know something. I'm going to get grounded soon. Can't I just tell her you're ok? It's not like I'd give her this phone number. She hasn't got a clue that you've even left town.
Gwen closed her eyes, pressed the phone to her forehead, and let the screen go dark. The last words of the last fight swirled through her head.
I'm doing what is best for you.
I didn't ask you to.
You will obey the rules of this house, young lady, for as long as you live here.
I didn't want to live here! I hate you!
The look on Nana's face when she said those words had done it. The fights, the rules, the black maelstrom of emotion swirling inside her, they had all played their part. But the pale, stricken look on her grandmother's face, that look had crushed Gwen's heart and pushed her out the door. If she stayed, things would just get worse. She would do something worse, and she didn't want to hurt Nana.
But she had. Dean was right. He was being nice about it, but he was mad at her and he was right to be. Gwen curled up and let her head lean against the window. She ran her fingers across the keyboard again. You can tell her I'm ok.
Gwen closed her eyes, but there was no darkness there. Only images of her home, her friends, her grandmother. Behind it all lurked a black shadow, a headstone with her mother's name, piled high with flowers and tears.
I wish you could have met your dad. Gina had given Gwen everything possible, but that dearest wish had always been beyond her reach. A smile tickled Gwen's mouth even as she wiped away a tear. Don't worry Mom, I found him.
"We're almost there." Dean tapped a knuckle against the window as they drove past the Welcome to Lebanon sign. Gwen uncurled and lifted her head to read the fine print on the sign. Population, 218.
What?
Her soccer league was bigger than that.
Gwen was from a small town. Gwen knew what a small town looked like. She liked small towns just fine. But this was-Gwen whipped hear head over her shoulder to stare behind her. They had passed it that fast. A collection of houses, most covered in peeling paint, huddled next to the road. There was one bar, one gas station, and-she couldn't see it anymore. Lebanon was gone.
"You don't live in town?" Her life was shrinking before her very eyes.
"It's just a little ways out." Dean pulled onto a gravel road and drove through a cluster of scraggly trees and around a hill. A huge brick and cement building rose out of the side of the hill, like a hobbit-hole on steroids. They pulled past a small doorway set into the hill. The car bumped and rattled as they left the gravel behind for a dirt path overgrown by weeds. Gwen squinted out the window. Was this even a road anymore?
The track ran into another aide of the hill, and ended at a pair of large iron doors set into the ground. They were huge and thick, like stable doors on a barn with an iron bar across the front. It looked like a dungeon.
In two long days in the car, Dean and Sam had never said much about their home. Or their jobs. Gwen swallowed hard and gripped her phone tight.
Dean stopped the car and Sam got out. He lifted the iron bar as if it were made of straw, and pushed the doors open. Lights flickered on inside, revealing a long tunnel. Sam returned to the car and they drove into the hill.
"This is where you live?" Gwen's voice sounded small in the tunnel. A row of cars came into view, all of them old, all of them shinning and polished. Not a dungeon. What, then? "What is this place?"
Dean put the car into park and turned to her with the widest smile she'd seen on his face yet. "This is home."
NOTE: What do you think so far? Does Gwen remind you of anyone? ;) Do you want to meet her grandmother?
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