7.
Teenagers Scare The Living Shit Outta Me
Taking a deep breath, Dean reached out and knocked on the front door. It didn't take long for Candy to pull it open, her face contorting again with that same malicious smirk that she apparently only used on Dean. "Goodwill! How'd the research go?"
Dean tried to turn the flinch into a shrug and failed miserably. "Fine, I guess. Can we talk to you?"
"Sure." She stepped aside to let them into the spacious house, "what about?"
"Your daughter," Dean said, "is she around?"
"She's in the kitchen studying," Candy replied, nodding, "but you can't talk to her. Wouldn't want her to catch anything."
Dean ducked his head, the action enraging Sam more than it should have. "Poverty isn't contagious," the younger hunter pointed out, "and if it was, wouldn't you be living in a cardboard box right now? I mean, between hanging out with us and being the richest person in town…"
"Flattery will get you nowhere," she grinned, leading them to the living room and sitting down on the couch. "So, what about Mel?"
"The poltergeist," Dean explained, "isn't what we thought it was."
"It's a ghost. Even I know that."
"No," Sam said, shaking his head, "we thought it was a ghost, but there's another explanation for that kind of activity in a house."
"Well, what is it?"
The brothers looked at each other. "Telekinesis," Dean said, "the ability to move objects with psychic energy. Most of the time, if it's a poltergeist and it's not an actual spirit, it's a teenage girl."
"You think Mel is…?"
"We do. It's not her fault. Just a hormonal imbalance that'll correct itself. She probably doesn't even know she's doing it."
"She's a freak," Candy whispered, that disgusted tone sneaking back into her voice.
"It's not-" Dean attempted, but was cut off.
"Melanie!"
The girl practically tripped over herself as she ran into the room. "Yes?"
"You won't believe what these people just told me."
"Candy." Dean warned.
"Shut up. Melanie, do you know what's been going on in this house? The things flying across the room?"
Mel nodded. "Yeah. I know."
"You're never the target."
"So?"
"You're the one throwing them."
"What? No. Mom-"
"They know what they're talking about, Melanie. They told me you're some kind of freak!"
Mel turned wide, hurt eyes on the brothers. "What?" she whispered.
Candy nodded. "Some kind of psychic freak."
The girl looked between the three adults, shocked, the color draining from her face. "Mom said you were supposed to be good." She finally said, her voice soft, almost dangerous. "I'm surprised it took you so long."
A glass vase sitting on the mantle of the fireplace suddenly flew across the room to crash into the wall behind the couch, spraying the three adults with shattered glass. "You knew?" Sam asked.
"Of course I knew," Mel barked as a the framed pictures on the wall began to shake and fall to the floor, "it was an accident at first. Things would go flying in my bedroom when I got stressed or mad. So I looked into it. I found out what it was. A blessing." She turned to her mother. "I'm special. I'm different. Aren't I good enough now?"
Candy turned scared eyes on Sam and Dean. "Do something! You said you had guns!"
"We kind of make it a point not to bring those into houses with telekinetic teens anymore," Dean explained.
"Nobody can stop me," Mel said, her eyes flashing, "I'm too powerful." The floor and walls began to tremble, the couch shaking, things falling and smashing all around them. "Isn't that what you wanted? A powerful daughter? One who was good at something?"
Sam and Dean glanced at each other, both realizing that what should have been a simple explanation had quickly turned into a dangerous situation.
"If you wanted to be good enough for me, why were you trying to get rid of me?" Candy demanded.
"Because I couldn't be good enough. You always told me that. I'm too ugly, too fat, too stupid. That's why I don't have a boyfriend. I asked someone to Prom and he accepted and you made that noise of yours, that disappointed grunting sound, and told me to tell him to go screw himself because he wasn't good enough. If I'm not good enough and he's not good enough, doesn't that make us the perfect couple?"
"What are you saying?"
"I'm never gonna get what I want while you're around. I'll never feel like I'm worth anything." She smiled wickedly, again revealing her braces. "I'm gonna take care of this now," she said slowly as the shaking stopped and the sound of a drawer in the other room rolling open reached their ears, "and I'm not leaving any witnesses."
A large knife flew into the room and hovered beside Mel's head. "Say good night, mother."
"Wait," Dean shouted, just as the knife began to rear back for the attack. "This won't solve anything."
"How would you know?" The girl barked.
"Because she did the same thing to me. And getting rid of her isn't gonna make it better. You're still gonna have the memories."
"What do you mean?"
Dean sighed, glancing over at Candy. "She made fun of the way I dressed and where I lived and how much money my family had for two years. When we left town, I thought things would get better, but they didn't. I've always worried about the way I look. She made me wonder what people really think of me. She made me want to change everything about myself."
The knife wavered, dipping a bit in the air beside the psychic's head. "Did you change?"
He shook his head. "No. Not really. But I did try to help other people. I wanted to make sure nobody I knew ever felt like that."
"So, you didn't change your looks, but you changed your attitude?"
Dean nodded slowly. "Guess you could say that." The knife dipped a little lower.
"You ever want to hurt her?"
"Yeah."
"Think about killing her?"
"I did."
"You want to follow through?"
"I had a plan. I got close."
"Why didn't you?"
He sighed. "What can a dead person learn about they way she treats people?"
"Nothing. Because she can never hurt them again."
"Going after her would have hurt a lot of people." He glanced at Sam, "people I cared about."
"But she wouldn't have been able to hurt you anymore."
"So? Maybe she could have changed."
The knife dropped a bit lower, until it was floating next to the teen's heart. "What if she couldn't have changed?" she asked, blinking back the tears that were forming behind her eyes. "What if she was too messed up?"
"Never would have known until she tried."
"What if she tried?" Mel whispered, a single tear slipping down her cheek, "what if she tried to change and she couldn't?"
"Maybe she's a better person for trying," Dean suggested, glancing quickly at Candy, unable to believe that she was capable of even attempting to alter the way she acted and thought.
Melanie shook her head. "I'm not," she said sadly as the knife spun in midair and plunged itself into her heart. She let out a strangled gasp as pain flooded her eyes, the knife twisting itself deeper into her chest.
Candy screamed as her daughter fell to the floor. The woman was off the couch in and instant, scooping up the girl in her arms, screaming at the brothers to get out of her house before she called the cops. They shakily obliged.
