The Road So Far…

"Our dad's gone out on a hunting trip and he hasn't called in a few days."

"Is your dad in an occult or something? Salt and cats-eye shells."

"I know it seems hard to believe. I really understand that. But you've seen the proof that the supernatural exists now. I'm sorry you've been shoved into it. But yes, that was the murderous ghost of a woman long dead."

"Something's wrong, someone else is in the house, they were waiting for Sam to get home."

"Dad disappearing and this thing showing up again after twenty years, it's no coincidence."

"This book – this is Dad's single most valuable possession. Everything he knows about every evil thing is in here, and he's passed it on to us."

"I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know – saving people, hunting things. The family business."

"It threw me over and tried to attack me, but it was repelled by some sort of shield or something. It seemed to hurt the wendigo, but it felt to me like I was getting a nice hug."

"The holes that Constance Welch burned into my chest… They're gone. There's no pain, no soreness, nothing. It's like they were never even there."


I held out the big newspaper in front of me and past my plate, taking another forkful of scrambled eggs into my mouth in a diner just outside of Grand Junction, Colorado. I had been correct in assuming that the boys would want to move on quickly; the night after we killed the wendigo, we threw our bags into the back of the Impala and got in to drive twenty minutes to Grand Junction before finding another hotel and paying in cash. The horrifying endeavor into the woods had been three days ago.

Dean sat across from me, the two of us sitting in chairs by the glass wall stretching along the front of the diner. On our sides and towards the main aisle were the seats that our siblings had taken, but currently they were out making sure they had everything in the Impala, and so now they were just occupied by the air and pulled out a bit. Dean had already eaten a plate of bacon and was now thumbing through the obituary sections in Journal Star. He offered me to eat, since he was planning on using one of those fake cards again, but at the offense to the law that I was slowly getting accustomed to, I sent him a withering look and put my name on the tab instead before ordering one of the biggest meals they offered.

"Do you do this often?" I asked after taking a long drink of water and turning the page to - oh, look, more obituaries. Surprise, surprise, I thought to myself sarcastically. "Because reading about strangers' deaths seems a bit depressing."

Dean flashed me the charm smile over his newspaper. "It's lighter than your check is going to be." If Serenity were inside, she'd have applauded him on his sass. Instead, I scowled at him and kicked him lightly under the table.

I looked back to my newspaper, still discontented, and went back to my breakfast.

Garofalo, Steph. Fifty-four. Stage four stomach cancer.

Kolquehoun, Christina. Thirty-one. Freak accident.

Natale, Dominic. Forty-three. Heart attack. That one gave me pause for a minute. Supernatural? Heart attacks don't generally happen to people in healthy condition when they're only in their early forties, but then again, it did happen and it never said anything about "Natale, Dominic" being healthy. Probably not anything to worry about, then.

Bouvier, Tobias. Twenty-seven. Suspected foul play; police investigation pending.

Carlton, Sophie. Eighteen. Alleged drowning. The "alleged" part made me pause and go back to read it more carefully instead of just skimming. The Carlton family is sad to announce the death of their beloved daughter in a tragic swimming accident. I skipped over the emotional stuff (yes, I know, I'm a heartless bitch), and found that the body had yet to be found, despite that her brother last saw her in the lake and that the lake had since been dredged.

Well, that's weird. Bodies don't just disappear.

I looked up to Dean again. "Hey, I might have something."

Dean lowered his newspaper and looked to me but before I could say anything, we were interrupted by our waitress coming by again. She leaned over the table at the same time as the bell above the door rang and Serenity stepped through as Sam held it open for her.

Her nametag said her name was Wendy. She had long blonde hair except for at her roots, where her hair was dark brown. Other than that, she was fairly pretty, with nice complexion, a slight tan, deep brown eyes, and a wide smile showing off white teeth with the barest accent of lip gloss. She wore a white bead bracelet around her right wrist and a long golden chain with the charm of a key around her neck.

"Can I get you anything else?" She asked, bending her hands back and pressing on the table overly friendlily.

I looked away from her and to Dean in question but stopped when I saw where his eyes were straying. Instead of looking at her face, he was looking at her chest. She wore an off-white tank top with an admittedly low neckline and a soft floral design. I scowled again at him disapprovingly and kicked him under the table again.

Sam and Serenity came to the rescue before she realized that Dean was eye-groping her. Serenity walked around her and pulled her chair next to me back out with a loud grinding noise that interrupted the mood, while Sam threw himself into the chair lazily and gave her a polite smile. "Just the check, please."

She nodded and bit at her lower lip, trying to resist smiling at the second handsome man. "Okay." She turned, walking back towards the cashier station, her hips swaying.

Dean sighed in disappointment and closed his eyes, letting his head drop towards the table in frustration. Plans effectively ruined by your own brother.

It would have been comical if I wasn't irritated. I sent him another patented look that my friends often said reminded them of an angry teacher. "Stop objectifying women, you moron."

"I'm not objectifying them!" Dean denied, raising one hand up to his shoulder in a sort of helpless, don't-shoot-me motion. "I'm… appreciating them."

Serenity snorted next to me. It was easy to tell that she was not impressed, nor was she buying it. "Yeah, I'm sure that's what it is."

I rolled my eyes at the exchange. Why is it that we haven't argued once while in stress, but when we're all relaxed, Dean keeps pissing off Serenity and I? "Anyway," I very pointedly brought the conversation back to the actual point. "Sam, look at this. I think I found something." I passed the newspaper that I held over to Sam. He and Dean would know the signs better than Serenity or I. "Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin. Last week, eighteen-year-old Sophie Carlton allegedly drowns. The lake was dredged but there was no body found." I pushed my plate away from me and got my wallet out of my pocket, thumbing through my cards for one of my VISAs. "I'd say it's nothing, but it's the third time this year, and still no bodies to account for the missing persons. The funeral was two days ago."

"Funeral?" Serenity raised her eyebrows at me. "I thought you just said the bodies weren't found."

"Yeah, it's a weird thing people do." I shrugged, as clueless as she was. "Apparently burying an empty box gives people 'closure.'" I made air quotes around the word.

Serenity shook her head, frowning at the opposite side of the newspaper while Sam skimmed the obituary. "Makes no sense. If they're gone, they're gone. If they can't figure that out then it's not closure they need, it's help." With that, she reached over to my glass of water and dragged it over to her. A ring of condensation at the bottom made a long, wet streak across the top of the table. Serenity took the straw from her empty glass, plopped it into my water, and helped herself.

"People don't just disappear," Sam scoffed. "People just stop looking for them."

Even with what little I knew of their father's disappearance, I could tell that was a shot.

"Whoa." Dean threw the newspaper onto the table with more force than was necessary and I tensed slightly, waiting for the inevitable argument to follow. He raised his eyebrows at Sam, unimpressed and unamused. "Something you want to say to me?"

Sam only waited a moment before he threw caution to the wind. "The trail for Dad. It's getting colder every day."

"Exactly." Dean's voice was like a low growl in his frustration. "What are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know. Something. Anything." Sam's voice broke slightly and if Dean had actually listened, he'd be able to tell that Sam wasn't pissed at Dean; he was afraid and worried about their father.

However, Dean didn't pick up on this and instead he lashed out in turn, like a cornered animal. "You know what, I'm sick of this attitude! You don't think I wanna find Dad as much as you do?"

Sam looked like a wounded puppy when he realized that Dean was aggravated with him now and he tried to backtrack and explain better. "Yeah, I know you do, it's just-"

"Damn it, Sam, I'm the one that's been with him every single day for the past two years!" Dean slammed his closed fist on the edge of the table and Serenity and I shared a look. Both of us wanted to interrupt but both of us also valued their company enough to let it play out and let them resolve it. They were keeping their voices from being too loud anyway - it was just uncomfortable as hell for us. "Meanwhile, you've been off to college going to pep rallies! We will find Dad, but until then, we're gonna kill everything bad between here and there, okay?"

His tone made it quite clear that if Sam didn't say 'okay' then he would not be 'okay,' either.

Sam stared at the table, not answering back with 'okay' out of passive defiance. After several seconds passed and it became clear that Sam wasn't going to be a man about it, Dean looked away and picked up the newspaper again, busying his hands and brain. Sam waited another moment while Serenity and I used our respective long straws to slowly drain the water from my glass before he spoke again, with forced cheer.

"Alright. Lake Manitoc, hey!"

Dean looked over to Sam, his shoulders still raised defensively. "Huh?"

"How far?" Sam asked with a halfhearted smile.

Serenity looked to the clock up on the wall and then looked back to Sam and said with a completely straight face, "If we head out right now and go straight there with no breaks and no sleep, we can make it by five tomorrow morning."

The ridiculousness of the statement made me smile slightly, because no way were we going to go roughly twenty hours with no breaks. But Sam hadn't specified so technically Serenity had been correct. Besides, I knew she was smartassing the conversation into less dangerous territory and I appreciated it, because she can do that about as easily as she can breathe. And now is one of the times when we really needed it.


Round and round

The music died out at the end of the song on the radio while Dean pulled the keys out of the ignition and I surveyed the house in front of us. Absently, my hand snaked to my side and I unbuckled my seatbelt, letting it pull back across my abdomen while I tipped my head to one side and looked at the house. "This is the Carlton residence," I stated boredly. "Home of father Bill and his two adult children, Sophie and Will."

It was fairly isolated, down a long driveway and shaded by big pine trees. The car barely made any noise driving up, the driveway cushioned with pine needles that had fallen. It was an aging one-story house with an attic, red roofing, and poor shingles that needed to be redone. I could see the glimmer of sunlight on water through the trees from here. Supposedly they lived near the lake. There was probably a dock down the pathway that continued past the Carltons' house.

"I'm pretty sure Sophie no longer resides here," Serenity threw in, casting me an amused glance at my slip.

I rolled my eyes. "I dunno. Zombie party, maybe." Then a thought occurred to me and I glanced over at Dean in the driver's seat, my hand hovering over the door latch, about to open the door but stopping in the process. "Zombies aren't real, are they?"

Dean grimaced.

"No way!" I gasped before he could verbalize. It wasn't like he was saying no, so it was possible that zombies actually did exist… wow.

"Now that is one hunt I would love to be in!" Serenity laughed.


A young man pulled open the door when I called my name after knocking. He was short, stocky, and very haphazard. When I twisted to look at Dean and then back to him, it was clear that Dean would loom over the younger man if placed side by side. Sam would practically dwarf him. He was several inches shorter than Serenity and I. With jean shorts that went to his calves and a brown tee thrown on, I guessed he'd been planning on having a lazy day. His black hair was kept short, only a couple inches long, but ruffled in back like he'd been lying back against a chair or bed.

"Not over twenty," I decided quickly. "And that makes you William Carlton, yes?"

Will blinked owlishly before he got over the surprise. "Yeah, that's right," he answered, glancing for a second further down the path towards the lake dock. Most people glance inside to check on their family. His dad's probably at the dock.

I offered a polite smile. It's not worth spooking him into having a hard time answering questions. "I'm SSA Holly Kasakabe, this is my sister Serenity Kasakabe, and-" I recalled the names on the false IDs that Dean had scooped up from a big lime-colored box in his glove compartment. "These are agents Ford and Hamill from the U.S. Wildlife Service." I motioned to Dean and Sam respectively. Behind me, both boys held up their IDs but put them away quickly before Will got the chance to look at them too closely. "May we see your father?"


As Will walked in front of us on the way to the dock, we followed in a little blob of jeans and jackets. We didn't talk much, other than the Winchesters trying to make casual conversation. Serenity and I just shared looks whenever they accidentally said something tactless.

I was thankful for the end of it when we found the end of the route and the pine and rock gave way to softer sand and smooth pebbles as the trees thinned out, the woodsy land giving way to a small beach surrounding the lake. My breath was immediately taken away. The lake was calm and peaceful, the sunlight catching it so reflections bounced up and I had to look away from those particular spots. The soft blue-green water reflected the opposite shoreline, making mirror images of beautiful, healthy green pine trees across the surface. Looking up made it seem even better, because the colors of the vegetation were so much more vivid. Brown trunks were covered with big, soft, deep green needles that looked as well as leaves would have. A few puffy cumulous clouds in the sky made it scenic, like something out of a movie. On our side, the lake gently lapped at a sandy shore that sloped gently upwards and turned to surprisingly level pebbles and sprigs of grass.

About ten yards away from the end of the trail was a dock, made entirely of wood that went out at least twenty feet over the wide water, and at the end it opened up from a rectangular walkway into a sort of square. On one edge of the square a metal bench was nailed down. On the bench, an older man sat staring over the lake water. I assumed it was Bill Carlton.

Will stopped before going to the dock, though, so I figured he had something to say. A soft tug pulled his lips down into a frown as he watched the water, waving one hand out towards the center of the lake. "She was about a hundred yards out." He pointed more specifically to a spot further out than the dock, like she'd jumped off the end and swum forwards. "That's where she got dragged down."

I caught onto the specific words he used. "Dragged?" I raised my eyebrows at him and he turned to look at me and then looked down when he met my eyes. "You're sure she didn't just drown? Yes, it's sad, but… an unusual death doesn't immediately mean foul play was involved."

"She didn't drown," Sophie's older brother insisted vehemently. "She was a varsity swimmer. She practically grew up in that lake." I could believe it. It was a beautiful lake. "She was as safe out there as in her own bathtub."

"And… no splashing?" Sam suggested gently. "No signs of distress while she was out?"

"No, that's what I'm telling you." Will's frown intensified.

"Any shadows in the water?" Serenity supplied, frowning over at the lake and probably wondering if there was some sort of American Nessie hiding out in there. "Did anything breach the surface?"

"No." Will's voice broke slightly. "Look, again, she was really far out there. I couldn't - I couldn't see everything very well."

"Have you ever seen strange tracks by the shoreline?" Dean's hands were in his pockets but I saw his biceps tense slightly as he glanced at Sam. He's thinking something and he doesn't like it.

"No, never." Will narrowed his eyes at us. "Why? What do you think's out there?"

I took over before it became an issue and offered Will a consoling, charismatic smile. "We'll let you know the moment we do," I promised. I wasn't sure whether I'd live up to it or not. "Now, can we talk to your father?" I don't mean to seem ungrateful, because even though his sister just died, he's keeping it together and not crying and that's awesome. But walking all the way out here wasn't for the view, no matter how spectacular.

Will turned his neck to look after his father sadly before looking back reluctantly. "Look, if you don't mind - I mean, he didn't see anything, and he's kind of been through a lot."

I tightened my jaw slightly, trying not to seem too irritated, but damn it, bad things happen all the time to me and you don't see me not talking!

"We understand," Sam said peacefully in my place, seeming to realize that I was too irked to say it myself.


The police station was pitifully small. I suppose it worked for a town this size as opposed to the spacious luxuries I was used to having, but it was lacking in lighting and tactile colors and was furnished with browns, mahoganies, and tans, making it look like the ranger's station in Colorado more than the type of station I was used to.

The Sheriff - a Jake Devins - acted as his own receptionist once the four of us walked in. There weren't many people coming and going and most of them held Styrofoam coffee cups. Behind the long counter that served as a barrier between reception and the waiting area, about five feet of space was polished wood before it was obstructed by a wall with a large glass window in the side and a wide doorway with the door propped open, and this space served as the sheriff's office, with a desk that was disproportionately large to the room and a grey spinning chair on one side, along with a big, bulky computer monitor and an old, chipping mug with a child's writing proclaiming him the "number one Dad." and several miscellaneous files to the other side of the desk. The mug was no longer used for beverages and instead worked as a holder for a plethora of pencils and pens.

"Now, I'm sorry, but why does the F.B.I. care about an accidental drowning?" Jake didn't sound suspicious of me, just honestly curious and surprised, which I didn't mind, because truly, if it weren't for the supernatural component in my life now, then I wouldn't have thought twice about a drowning ruled accidental.

"Are you sure it's accidental?" I countered softly, keeping my attitude light, the way I would if I were just having a friendly debate with someone on one of my teams. "Will Carlton says he saw something pull his sister underwater. I was in town with my sister, heard the story, talked to the witness, and then decided that it might be better to look into it rather than be sorry later. We grabbed the first Service workers we found." I jerked my thumb over my shoulder at the Winchesters, who stood slightly behind Serenity and I in the office.

"Sit, please," Jake murmured, interrupting himself briefly to make a sweeping motion towards the chairs. Decked out in grey with badges and patches stuck to his uniform along with a radio and firearm, and the trademark sheriff's star, he looked very chivalrous in the action. Somehow the rugged, tussled blond hair didn't detract from the traditional sort of look. Serenity and I pulled out the two cushion-backed chairs in front of the desk and sat down while Sam awkwardly sat down on a chair pressed against the opposite wall while Dean decided to remain standing just behind Serenity and I. "There are no indigenous carnivores in that lake. There's nothing even big enough to pull down a person - unless it was the Loch Ness monster."

Serenity and I both looked up at Dean for a moment and he smirked down at us for a split second before it was gone, replaced by a fake grin as he pretended he was amused. Jake chuckled as Serenity and I laughed slightly, following Dean's lead on this one.

Jake got back to business, ever the efficient sheriff, and he leaned over the desk yet didn't take his own seat. "Will Carlton was traumatized, and sometimes the mind plays tricks. Still," he sighed and fell back into his chair. "We dragged that entire lake. We even ran a sonar sweep, just to be sure, and there was nothing down there."

"So I heard," Serenity sighed. "But isn't this, what, the third missing person this year alone?"

"I wouldn't have thought anything of it, except none of the bodies were found then, too," I improvised, crossing my arms and leaning back, crossing one leg over the other.

"I know." A look of serious, intense pain passed over Jake's face for a split second that made me almost regret dragging up these memories of the other casualties. He looked like he was physically hurting because of their loss. "These are people from my town. These are people I care about."

How could I respond to that when I knew that that expression of heartbreak could easily be on my face if something ever happened to someone I loved? Someone I cared about? "I know," I answered softly, the most truthful thing I'd said so far.

Jake leaned back in his chair, the back of the furniture nearly hitting a blue filing cabinet with the paint peeling off. "Anyway…" he sighed and deliberately changed the topic. "All this… it won't be a problem much longer."

"Why not?" Serenity asked, raising her eyebrows skeptically. "Is the lake just going to disappear or are you putting up lifeguards or what?"

Jake offered her a weary, tired smile. "The dam has an issue. We won't have a lake for too much longer."

At the matter-of-fact way that he spoke, I supposed it was common knowledge, and I shot Dean and Sam both a look. They had to act like they knew because they were supposedly local wildlife officers.

Dean, thankfully, did do something about it, leaning back slightly and nodding. "Of course… the dam." He nodded and sent Sam an openly sentimental look. "It's sprung a leak."

"It's falling apart!" Jake corrected with a snort, not seeming to notice anything off or staged about the exchange. "The feds won't give us the grant to repair it, so they've opened the spillway. In another six months, there won't be much of a lake." He scoffed. "There won't be much of a town, either." He stopped himself before he started sounding too bitter. "But… as Federal Wildlife, you already knew that," he finished.

Sam nodded in agreement. "Exactly."

A short but solid knock made me turn around in my chair. A beautiful young woman with a tan and dark hair stood just outside the doorway, one hand extended towards the door, eyes bright and friendly. "Sorry, am I interrupting?" I glanced back to Jake and saw him already standing up, a smile spreading on his face. I looked back to her. He was pleased to see her, so he probably had some connection with her; but she was too young to be his wife or lover. Daughter, maybe? "I can come back later," she offered.

Sam stood up from the side and Serenity and I shared a look, reached an agreement, and spun around out of our chairs in about five seconds flat. "Gentlemen, ladies, this is my daughter," Jake introduced, motioning to the woman courteously and respectfully but with love in his eyes. I could barely resist a little smirk. I was right.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Dean gave a version of his charm smile that made him seem humble at the same time while he held out one hand. "I'm Dean."

Her eyes sparkled like she knew he was flirting, but she didn't seem to mind too much because she reached out to shake his hand, too. "Andrea Barr. Hi."

"Hi," Dean echoed a little stupidly.

I offered her a polite smile anyway and Serenity gave a slight wave.

"Holly Kasakabe."

"Serenity Kasakabe."

"They're from the Wildlife Service," Jake explained to Andrea, motioning to Sam and Dean both at once.

"Oh…" As Andrea murmured, the light dying slightly from her eyes, I got the feeling that maybe she was more connected to the incidents at the lake than it appeared at first. A second later, a little blonde boy walked in from around Andrea's legs, one arm touching Andrea's calf and staring up at Serenity for a long moment.

"Hey there," I called with a soft smile, dropping down onto my knees. "What's your name?"

His big, hazel-green eyes drifted to me and he watched me for a moment. It was hard to keep my smile friendly and unwavering and he lost interest, dropping his eyes to the ground anyway and shying away behind Andrea's legs, even as one of her hands landed gently in his golden hair. He pulled lightly at her sleeve and Andrea looked up, smiled at me apologetically, and then let the boy lead her away.

I was left kneeling on the ground awkwardly. I cleared my throat while Serenity smirked in amusement and I got up to my feet again.

"His name is Lucas." Jake answered my question for me once both boy and woman were out of earshot in the reception area, where Lucas was lifted up onto a stool by Andrea. She produced a twenty-four pack of Crayola crayons from her purse and held them out for him until the boy - who wore a green shirt with squares on it like Steve from Blue's Clues - reached out and took them, opening it carefully and appearing to be doing an inventory.

He made no other signs that he was aware someone else was with him.

"Is he alright?" I asked softly, already sympathetic. Not talking was a sign of several issues with children; some physiological, some psychological.

"My grandson's been through a lot." Jake's response was fairly guarded, although at the revelation that he, Andrea, and Lucas were all family, it was understandable. It wasn't rude, just vague. He sighed deeply, watching his family closely. "We all have." Jake pulled at his jacket, adjusting it so the star-shaped badge accidentally sent the reflective glare of the overhead lighting into my face. I cringed away from it but heard him say, "Well, if there's anything else I can do for you, please let me know."

I got over myself and held out one hand respectfully for a handshake of farewell, however temporarily I suspected it would be. "Thank you, Sheriff Devins. We'll be sure to take what you've said into consideration." The ease with which the words rolled off my tongue was almost disturbing, especially since I knew that most of it we'd blatantly disregard in the long run.

I paused as we started filing out of the door and through the reception, towards the heavy door marking the difference between indoors and fresh air. I cast a sidelong glance at Lucas. There was some sort of gut feeling that made me just want to hear him talk, which, while probably wouldn't happen if he was traumatized or impeded, bothered the hell out of me since the awkward rejection in the office.

I didn't get questioned on my motives, though, because Dean stepped out of our blob of assembled in cognito hunters to shove his hands in his pockets and smile modestly at Andrea, being the flirt he seems to be underneath the layers of machismo and deep-seated psychological issues.

"You know, now that I think of it, could you point us in the direction of a reasonably-priced motel?" Dean asked Andrea hopefully, leaning slightly forward into her personal space. It wouldn't have been enough to have even mattered if he didn't lick his lips as he did so, pretending it wasn't a deliberate act.

Andrea raised her eyebrows. She definitely noticed. Her lips tugged up in a smile nonetheless and she pointed with one hand through the wall and down the street. "Lakefront Motel," she answered warmly. She seemed to have that natural, friendly, inviting countenance that people in small towns were stereotyped with. "Go around the corner and it's about two blocks south."

"Two-" Dean started to repeat, but then scrunched up his nose in mock confusion. "Would you mind showing us?" He reached up to rub the back of his neck in embarrassment.

Serenity and I exchanged a look before rolling our eyes.

Andrea laughed in his face, which is probably the only reason why Serenity didn't grab Dean by the ear and start dragging. "You want me to walk you two blocks?" Mirth shone in her eyes, sparkling with the life that had left previously with the mention of Lake Manitoc.

Dean tried to appear humble and nonchalant. "Not if it's any trouble," he hastily added.

Andrea watched him for a long moment like she was trying to decide if it was worth humoring him. What she saw must have been deemed okay because a smile tugged at the corners of her lips and she had to look to her father's office to keep from grinning. "I'm headed that way anyway," she said to him before raising her voice. "I'll be back to pick up Lucas at three!" She reached to her son's hair and stroked it back, but the long blonde strands fell forward again. It was a futile battle. "We'll go to the park, okay, sweetie?" She promised, before planting a soft, loving kiss on the top of his head.

Getting out of the station was no big deal although I really wanted to go back in, scoop up Lucas, and move him out of plain view from the windows. Children don't belong in police stations. Despite stereotypes, they're not always safe. It was walking up the road and hill leading back to the majority of the tourist area that became awkward.

I sped up to catch up to and walk side by side with Andrea, leaving Serenity and Sam to make whispering bets on how long it would take Dean to give up on Andrea. She glanced to her side to see who had fallen into step beside her and she offered me a smile. I smiled right back.

"The town is beautiful," I commented. "Especially with the leaves turning."

It was true. The town was bigger than a village, smaller than a city - large enough not to be crowded, but small enough so that if you were fit, you could walk place to place. Most people seemed to know each other and everyone seemed generally friendly. It was peaceful and a place to feel at home. The temperature was nice - not too humid, and a bit warm, but the heat was tempered by a cool wind that seemed to constantly blow. Everything was close together but spacey in the buildings and through the glass doors and windows and muted pastel colors of the shops in the tourist district. It was close-knit and everything seemed done with care around the tourist hotspots.

That's not even bringing into consideration the big, leafy trees, providing shade and beauty with the light and dark shadows as well as the gorgeous colors of the leaves as autumn came in full-swing, going from green to brown with a variety of colors in between, or the breathtaking views available from the lake.

"Thanks." Andrea gave me a big smile in approval of the observation. "We take a lot of pride in our community. It's nothing like Cali or New York, but we love it and it's our home."

"It must be nice," I murmured softly. "To have a home that you love so much."

Serenity and I haven't really been in one place for very long… ever. Not since our father died in a sabotaged plane crash. For a few years we were taken care of by our mother, but we had to move around a lot even then, hence why we're so well-versed in languages. We've never really had a place to be proud of as a home. I imagine, growing up as hunters, the Winchesters were much the same.

"So…" Dean coughed as he jogged up on Andrea's other side. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and flashed her a charming grin. "Cute kid."

Andrea didn't look at him but her eyes sparkled merrily. "Thanks." I got the feeling that I could like her, if I spent time enough to actually get to know her.

She looked back and forth but didn't break her pace to cross the street from the post office to the little motel called Lakefront Motel. A few cars were in the parking lot out front, but not many, and it was only two stories. Lake Manitoc is scenic, but it's not like San Francisco or New York. It was painted a light pastel green color with white trims, and double doors made the entrance into the lobby.

Dean didn't give up, trying one more time. "Kids are the best, huh?" He said sportingly, giving her a bright grin. I slowed down so I was more even with Dean than with Andrea as we jumped onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel to give him a dude, what the hell?! expression. He gave me a helpless little shrug in response.

"There it is." Andrea stopped rather abruptly and I nearly plowed into her. She motioned to the motel in front of us before turning to face Dean and I while Serenity and Sam finished their quiet conversation about Wisconsin (I'm pretty sure Sam was telling Serenity about the last time they were here) got up onto the sidewalk and off of the street. "Like I said - two blocks."

Sam gave her a sincere smile. "Thanks."

Andrea nodded once to Sam in acknowledgment before crossing her arms and sighing at Dean sympathetically. "It must be hard, with your sense of direction." Dean looked up hopefully and started to smile again, only to be crushed as the woman finished. "Never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line." Dean's bright expression fell into a sulk and Andrea grinned at him, proud of herself, and turned to walk down the street towards whatever errands she'd been planning on completing today. "Enjoy your stay!" She called over her shoulder.

Dean turned back to the three of us from Andrea's retreating form, looking crestfallen. Serenity and I shared a smirk and fist bumped, singing to Dean, "You just got burned!" going a note lower for every word.

"Kids are the best?" Sam repeated Dean's attempt at flirting with a scoff of derision. "You don't even like kids!"

Dean frowned like he was affronted. "I love kids!" He argued.

Sam was unamused and didn't buy it. "Name three children that you even know." He challenged.

Dean held up one hand with one finger off about to tick them off, but when he opened his mouth, no sound came out and he waited a second, eyebrows knitting together as he tried to remember even one kid. Seeming to realize he was coming up empty, he dropped his hands and scowled at the cement sidewalk, kicking his toes lightly and still trying to figure out an answer.

Sam just stared at him before slowly shaking his head and turning to cross the parking lot to the motel.

"Hey, I'm thinking!" Dean snapped.

"Yeah, yeah." I brushed my hair out of my face, rolling my eyes at him. "Don't hurt yourself, Einstein."


Serenity and I rented out a hotel room across the hall from Sam and Dean's and we went right to work getting settled in. I knew that Serenity was just as unfamiliar to the hunting shebang as I was, but one thing we were used to was being on the road. We don't generally have a lot of things with us at once - we have a couple of apartments that we keep most of our stuff at, aside from storage centers - so adapting to the Winchesters' habit of long drives and motels wasn't too difficult thus far.

Serenity pulled out her laptop and sat cross-legged at the end of her twin-sized mattress. I zipped up her leather brown bomber jacket over a hangar and stepped over the long charging cord trailing from her computer to the wall in order to hang it in the closet before going back to my bed, where my duffel had been tossed onto the edge and opened to my miscellaneous road trip belongings.

I looked through my things, humming while I did so and putting everything in its temporary place. When I wasn't working, my outfit generally consisted of jeans and tees. I had an extra pair of high boots in case sneakers weren't dressy enough. I had some books, some that I wanted to read and some that Serenity was forcing me to read, and a bag of toiletries with some cosmetics. Other than that, most of what I carried with me was electronic with the exception of notebooks and pencils. I had a Smartphone Galaxy, an iPod, .Mp3 player, laptop, and Omni Tablet. Serenity and I always carry two or three pairs of headphones at any given time because we're prone to breaking them on accident.

I stared at my collection of science fiction books, crime novels, and sketchbooks with lazy drawings of whatever struck my fancy at the time. No wonder I didn't strike the Winchesters as the hunting type. I sighed wearily before gathering a couple of books in my arms, carrying them to the bedside table, before stuffing the rest back in my duffel. I left out a pencil and a notebook for dreaming.

It's not my idea, really, although it's not really a bad one. With my job, I've seen a lot of bad things, and with that comes a therapist. My therapist told me to try to keep a journal for after I had nightmares or odd dreams. Not long after, Serenity read about lucid dreaming and decided that since, in theory, you can be a God and do anything in your dreamscape, it sounded pretty awesome. She has a journal, too, and the theory is that if you write down your dreams and/or draw what you see, then you can become better at distinguishing between dream and reality. With that understanding comes the ability to realize that you're dreaming while you're still asleep.

A knock sounded at the door and Serenity called, "Come in," without looking up from her laptop. As the door was pushed open, I looked away from shuffling my books and notebook all to fit on the table in time to see Dean kick the door closed behind Sam with the back of his heel.

Dean threw himself down on one side of my bed and then made a show of sighing in exhaustion. With effort, he rolled over onto his back. Sam remained more civil and sat down in a chair by the window.

"Good to see you're comfy," I told Dean sarcastically, rolling my eyes and tossing one of my shirts at him in retribution. "You can hang my clothes if you're so at home."

Dean lifted the shirt off of his face and unfolded it to see what it was. It was grey, with the front cover of the Daughtry album Leave This Town. He made a face. "Daughtry? Who're they?"

I rolled my eyes. "That's it. Next time we go by any place that sells music, I'm getting you Daughtry, Leave This Town, Break the Spell, and Baptized. And you are going to listen to every song, on every album." I punctuated my point by dropping my duffel onto the floor by the side of the bed and then by throwing myself on the other side of the mattress from him.

Serenity leaned away from her computer and towards Sam. In an awful mimicry of a stage whisper, she confided, "I can't tell if she's irritated or trying to flirt."

I raised one hand towards her in a rude gesture.

"Ah. Never mind, I think I figured it out." I received a mirror image of the gesture and smiled slightly at the familiarity of the argument.

"So, there's three drowning victims this year," Sam started, and the atmosphere grew more serious. I was a bit disappointed, to be honest. I knew that if it weren't for hunting, Sam and Dean probably wouldn't want anything to do with Serenity and I, and the only reason they're really letting us tag along is because I can keep them out of too much trouble and if we tried hunting on our own we'd probably end up killed. But still, I liked to think by the way we interacted that we were friends, so it was nice to have some fun playing around without talking about women in white and formerly-human monsters.

But hunting isn't meant to be fun; it's meant to be a job. Hunt down the monsters and save civilians. Which is pretty much my job with the FBI, except "monsters" used to be figurative instead of literal.

"You can't figure this town is mysteriously free of actual drowning accidents. Not everyone is a fish in water," I considered, turning my head to one side so my right cheek was pressed to the pillow as I looked over at Serenity. "If you go back further to last year, were any of the bodies on the death list found?"

I waited as patiently as possible for her to look it up and briefly I wondered why Sam had forsaken his laptop in his room before figuring that they had probably meant to get us for food and gotten sidetracked.

"There were two alleged drowning victims last year within a six-month period, raising the count to five within the last two years, including Sophie Carlton, but none of the bodies were found."

"And when was the lake dredged?" I asked, thinking that maybe it was possible that Sophie's body had been missed by the sweep somehow.

"After the second victim, and again after Sophie." Serenity had a scanned manuscript lighting up her computer screen from an old newspaper. "First there was an adult male, then a twelve year old girl last year."

"Six more were spread out over the past thirty-five years," Sam added with a wince at the number going higher and higher. "Those bodies were never recovered, either."

"It goes from six in four decades to five in eighteen months?" My frown became more pronounced and I looked back up to the ceiling, crossing my arms over my stomach. "What's the stressor?" I murmured, more to myself than anything.

"Well, if it's a spirit, I'm guessing that death was the original stressor," Dean threw in with a roll of his eyes.

I looked over at him as he laid next to me and stuck my tongue out at him. "No, I'm thinking about it like a profiler, not a hunter. Something's causing people's deaths. It killed a few over thirty-five years? Not good, but it's not exactly making a buffet out of things. But in the last eighteen months alone it's killed as many as it did in nearly four decades. There has to be a reason it's picking up the pace, and that reason is what's referred to as a stressor; something that intervenes and either stresses the antagonist's psyche or interferes with its rituals."

"What about the lake?" Serenity suggested. I rolled onto my side to face her again, lifting one arm up under my pillow to further cushion my head, silently urging her to continue. "Well, sheriff boy down at the station said the lake was going to get drained. If it's tethered to the lake, then they're taking away it's home."

"What makes you think it's tethered to the lake?"

"Why else would every single death happen via drowning in the lake in question?"

"Point."

"So, what, we've got a lake monster on a binge?" Dean scoffed but I wasn't entirely sure whether he was derisive because it was ridiculous or because he didn't like it.

"... Is that possible?" I ventured.

He groaned softly. "Unfortunately, something like it is."

"Oh, wonderful."

Sam shook his head, sighing and closing his eyes against the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the blinds. "This whole "lake monster" theory, it… it just bugs me."

"Why?" Serenity asked curiously, probably wondering how he can be down with ghosts and wendigos but not with aquatic monsters.

"Loch Ness, uh, Lake Champlain." I wasn't entirely sure what Sam's point was at first, but I recognized the names of both locations easily. Both were bodies of water supposedly inhabited by a marine life form unknown to humans as of yet; some theorists that are really into these things believe that Nessie might actually be a plesiosaur that mysteriously avoided extinction millions and millions of years ago. "There are literally hundreds of eyewitness accounts, but here, there's almost nothing."

"Whatever is in Lake Manitoc has no reports." I shrugged as best as I could while lying down on the hotel bed, comforter soft and smooth under me. I turned my cheek against the quilt and for a moment I wanted to forsake hunting and take a long nap under the covers. What were the chances of convincing them that after driving for so long and jumping right in, we deserved to take some time off? Don't get me wrong, I understand the severity of the circumstances, but I also know that working on low energy isn't a good idea. I can do it for a long time but eventually reflexes slow and you miss important things. "Doesn't mean it's not there - it just means no one's still alive to tell about it."

"Well, it sure chooses inopportune times to strike," Serenity noted. "This guy, Christopher Barr, was drowned last year during an annual festival."

I whistled. "I hope for the civilians' sake that the punch was spiked." I recognized the surname; Barr, like Lucas and Andrea. The victim of the lake was probably Andrea's late husband.

"So Devins was right; this is close to home, striking people he cares about." I cast a wary glance at the hunter lying next to me. "Guys, you have to be careful with this one. No being callous and making rude comments about the quality of the police work. They get pissed, they look into your identities, and if they find that you're faking then I can't do much to prove them wrong. Best case scenario, they threaten you into leaving and refuse to cooperate. In a town like this, the sheriff's going to have the locals under his thumb. Everyone trusts and loves him."

"You think this is our first time doing this?" Dean complained about my warnings but he didn't seem genuinely agitated.

"Well, that is kind of what you get out of us teaming up; law advisement and advantage."

Serenity coughed to get our attention. She knew she'd have it so she went ahead and started talking again. "Christopher Barr was Lucas's biological father and Andrea's husband. Apparently, he took Lucas out for a swim. The kid was on a floating platform when his dad drowned and it was estimated two hours before he was rescued by authorities."

"Maybe we have an eyewitness after all," Sam murmured in surprise.

I sighed, stretching at the same time and straightening my legs, feeling the delightful loosening of tension as I unwound. "A trauma like that would explain his mutism," I remarked.

"Well, no wonder that kid was so freaked out." Dean spoke softly but with a touch of his rough demeanor. "Watching one of your parents die isn't something you just get over." But I knew he was serious and sincere, too. I wouldn't be surprised from his tone if he had seen his mother's death, like Serenity and I. Our mother had been caught in a gas leak-induced house fire while we were at daycare when we were little children, and our father had died in a plane crash. After each event, young as we were when our parents died, I could recall the period of weeks afterwards when I never felt safe and constantly wanted to know my sister was okay, too.

I cleared my throat. I didn't need to be thinking about this; not now, especially, when I still need to adjust to living with the supernatural and hunting down the things that go bump in the night. Rolling over onto my stomach, I drew closer to Dean and yanked a pillow down under my chin, letting my head roll to one side as I let my eyes fall shut. "Well, I'm taking a nap while Serenity checks her emails. We wanna talk to our witness? Andrea said she'd take Lucas to the park at three. Wake me up when it's time to go."

I didn't particularly care that the guys were with us. Serenity and I are used to having each other's backs; it's so instinctive we don't even have to wonder about it anymore. If I'd been asleep when they came in, then she wouldn't have let either of them near me if she thought they were a threat, but as it was I highly doubt they're untrustworthy. Both of them have proved to me that not only do they have morals that fit the same basic principles as mine, but that they take care of themselves and value the lives of others. Their law-breaking is unethical but from what I've seen they do it for information, shelter, and food - which are all necessities for a job. What's a fake credit report in comparison to saving lives and preventing future deaths?

As a federal, I should probably be weary of prodding at either one of those guys with a ten-foot pole, but I'm nineteen and escalated quickly up the ranks of the FBI in an almost too-easy way while my sister became the leader of the organized crime society. I suppose that for me, logic just doesn't always apply.