Her eyes shot open, and she sat up on the bed, panting from the memory of her nightmare. She'd been having this nightmare for days. It was the same one she had the day she, Dean, and Sam had come to Harmony for Uncle Eli's funeral.
This time, though, it was different. Completely and utterly different.
It began the same as the what-if nightmares, except it followed the actual events. This time, it flashed forward to the night before. She watched helplessly as Harry Warden and someone dressed up as Red Hood killed the truck driver and Irene. Screams left her lips as Red Hood sliced and slashed at Irene with the demon knife.
The fact that Red Hood had black eyes made her realize that he was a demon.
She screamed again as she watched Harry cut Irene's chest open with his pickaxe and yank her heart out. Like she was attached to them by a string, Aline followed them to a place where there was an empty heart-shaped candy box. Harry put Irene's heart in the box and placed the lid on top. There was a sticky note on the lid, which read, 'To Axel. Be Mine 4ever.'
After the two killers made sure it was delivered, they were back at the Thunderbird. They both took off their masks, panting as they dropped them on the pavement.
That was when she woke up. Every time without fail.
Their faces had been blurred, like she needed a pair of glasses just to see them. The only things she could make out were Red Hood's black eyes and the identical wicked smirks on their faces.
Then, the next day, she, Dean, Sam, and Tom heard about the triple murders that took place right outside their motel rooms.
One of the people that was murdered was Irene. That shocked Aline to her core.
Along with the fact that Irene's injuries mirrored the ones in Aline's nightmare.
She shuddered and looked around before looking at the clock.
6 AM.
Sigh.
Aline had gone to bed around eleven, somewhat calmed down after the debacle at the bar. She knew her eyes had switched to black for just a few seconds (that always happened whenever she got angry like that), and there was a slight chance Dean had seen it, but she hoped he just mistook it as a trick of the light or something like that.
Her mind bounced between her nightmare and what happened at the bar at a rapid pace, which meant no chance of going back to sleep. There was only one option left. She stood up, changed into a gray Zeppelin t-shirt, light blue gym shorts, and a pair of black sneakers, and grabbed her iPod and headphones. She quickly put her hair up in a ponytail and wrote a note to the boys after snatching the extra room key and stuffing it in her front left pocket. She even grabbed a flask of holy water and the demon knife.
'Woke up early. Couldn't fall back to sleep, so I'm just gonna take a run. I know it's Sammy's thing, but I need it. Even got the room key on me! You two should know what I want for breakfast and how I like my coffee by now. ;) Lots of love, Ally'
She set it where she knew one or both of them would see it, put the headphones in her ears, and walked out of the room. There was no chance in hell that she'd look over at Irene's old room. If she did, her mind would just go back to her nightmare, and that was something she was planning on avoiding at all costs.
She hit shuffle and "Around The World (La La La La La)" by ATC started playing in her ears, starting her run around Harmony. Of course, she waved at the people who waved at her (usually they were younger men, some college age). It wasn't until Crush 40's "Live and Learn" that she realized she'd run all the way to Mercer's. She even saw Sarah unlocking the store for the day.
It took a little internal debating before she decided that she'd talk to her. Pausing her music, she walked up to her former friend and put her hand on her shoulder, making Sarah jump around real quick and drop the keys to the sidewalk.
"Oh god!" she gasped, clutching at her chest.
"Easy," Aline said as she smiled at her. "It's just me."
"I'm just a little jumpy these days."
"Understandable, considering what happened. I'm sorry."
"What are you doing here?"
"I was just going for a run along town. I woke up at six, and I couldn't really go back to sleep."
Sarah cocked an eyebrow in clear disbelief. "You run?"
Aline grinned and shyly rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah. I've just had a lot on my mind lately. Anyway, I saw you unlocking the store and decided I wanted to, well, you know, talk when you weren't working."
Sarah turned around and pointed to the store hours sign on the door. "Well, I'm at work, and the store opens in fifteen minutes."
Just then, Aline felt a hand on her shoulder. She didn't have to turn around to know who exactly it was, test unnecessary.
"Fifteen minutes is plenty of time for now," Tom stated. "Come on. Walk with us?"
Sarah sighed and followed them.
"You couldn't sleep either?" Aline asked Tom as they walked.
He shook his head. "Nah. After what happened yesterday? There was no freakin' way I could sleep."
"What happened yesterday?" Sarah questioned, but both cousins shrugged it off.
"Stuff. The stuffy kind," Aline replied, the three of them bursting out laughing at their inside joke.
Minutes later, they stood on the bridge, looking down at the chilly waters of the river below them. They hadn't been there for years. Aline remembered that this was their unofficial hangout spot. If any of them were in any kind of mood, they'd say, "Let's play bridge." No matter how old they were, kids or teenagers, the bridge was their spot.
How Aline missed those days.
"We shouldn't have left the way we did," Aline said, breaking the ice. Sarah turned to look at them, her eyes misty. "We know we fucked up."
Sarah looked away. Tom didn't say a word. It was a surprise to most people that she and Tom could say the gist of what the other wanted to say. Most never got used to that. Sarah wasn't one of those people.
"It was a long time ago," Sarah said, wiping at her eyes.
Both cousins touched her shoulder (Aline's touch more friend-like than Tom's, of course) and turned her back around.
"You know, the second I saw you, I regretted the last ten years of my life?" Tom said as he stared into his ex-girlfriend's eyes.
"You sell those mines and you'll regret the rest of your life too. You both will," Sarah said, changing the subject.
Tom sighed.
"We didn't come here to talk about that," Aline pointed out.
Sarah pulled her arm out of the cousins' hands and backed away from them.
"You two have no idea, do you? This town depends on that mine. From the miners to the cashiers at the grocery store."
"That's not our responsibility," Tom replied.
Sarah looked right at him. "I was your responsibility!" she yelled. "These people in this town depend on the mine like I depended on you!" Tears were falling from Sarah's eyes now. "You both ran away ten years ago! You left me here to help pick up the pieces! You just keep on running."
"It didn't follow you for ten years. It sure as hell ain't gonna follow you for the rest of your damn life, no matter how long it is," Aline said.
"No, it didn't. I faced it."
"We can't," Tom said. "We wish we could, but we can't. I lost my way, and I can never go back to the way it was before. I screwed up."
"We both did," Aline added. "There's no way either of us can go back to how it was before. It's too late for me to do that. Too damn late."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sarah asked.
The cousins glanced at each other, silently conversing about how to put the fact that Aline was going to Hell in five months.
Aline looked back at Sarah and said, "Don't worry about it."
"No! You just said it's too late for you to go back to the way things were before. You can't just act like it's nothing to worry about."
Aline sighed, running her fingers over her hair. "I just meant I'm not the same girl I was ten years ago. I've seen and done things I never dreamed of doing. I can't go back to that."
Lies. All lies.
They were half-truths, but they were still lies.
"Just...don't sell the mine. Please," Sarah begged after a few minutes of processing that information. She then stuffed her hands in her pockets and took off back towards the store.
