I messed up the treatment for hypothermia in the last chapter, but it should be fixed now. Thanks again for reading.
I woke up several hours later. Dean was watching television and Sam was on his laptop. My head was pounding worse than it had when I'd gone to sleep and my ankle throbbed. All the bruises that I'd seen in the tub seemed to be screaming in pain. I groaned and Dean was by my side. "What's wrong?"
"Everything hurts," I whined. "My head, my ankle, my body."
"I'll get you another pain reliever," he said. I sat up in bed and watched him get me a glass of water while Sam got some pills from his duffel. I took the pills with the water and closed my eyes again and waited for the pain to fade. Eventually, the headache and body aches eased back, but my ankle was a constant pain that I was pretty sure wasn't going to fade for a while.
I pulled back the covers and started to get out of bed, but Sam stopped me and handed me a pair of crutches. He showed me how to use them, and I clumsily made my way to the bathroom. When I got out, Dean had me sit at the table to eat a sandwich and some soup that they had picked up for me while I'd been sleeping.
When I finished eating, Dean turned off the television like that was what he'd been waiting for. "Want to tell me what happened yesterday?"
I really didn't. I knew that I was going to be in trouble, even if they weren't sure yet, and copping to my offenses was not high on my list. When I didn't answer, Dean set my phone down on the table in front of me. "Why don't you start with this?"
"It's broken," I whispered, not meeting his eyes. Sam shut his laptop. My stomach lurched as I realized that I had the disapproving attention of both of them.
"I can see it's broken," Dean said, his voice hard. He picked it up and flipped it open, showing me the cracked screen. "I want to know how long it's been broken and if it was broken when you walked into the woods yesterday."
Was it only yesterday? It seemed like a week ago, now. I ran my fingers through my hair and stared at the table, trying to delay the inevitable.
"You'd better start talking, little girl," Dean said, "or I'll put you over my knee right now."
"Before," I whispered.
Dean narrowed his eyes, "Excuse me?"
"Before," I said, louder this time. "It was broken before I went into the woods."
Neither of them said anything for a minute, and then Dean got up and walked away. Sam said, "Why don't you start from the beginning?"
"When is that?" I asked quietly.
"When you broke your damned phone," Dean snapped, turning away from the window.
I jumped, and then my temper flared and I couldn't help myself. I blurted, "I don't know why you're so upset. I'm the one who almost died! Why can't you cut me a little slack?" I glared at Dean.
He grabbed my chair and whirled it away from the table. He put a hand on either side of my head on the back of the chair and leaned over me. In a quietly controlled voice, he said, "You don't know why I'm so upset? Maybe it's because my little girl wandered into the woods yesterday and disappeared for hours, fell into a river, almost drowned, and then almost died of hypothermia. Maybe it's because she could have avoided all of that if she had listened and not gone so far into the woods that she couldn't find her way back, or better yet, if she hadn't taken a broken phone into the woods with her so I could reach her. You think that might be why I'm so upset?"
I turned bright red and tried to look away from him, but he wouldn't let me. "You could have died," he said, holding my chin and meeting my eyes. "And if you'd followed the rules, the entirety of yesterday could have been avoided."
Guilt overwhelmed me. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I didn't mean to worry you." Dean pushed away from the chair and stalked back over to the window.
"What the hell were you thinking, Jessie?" Sam asked.
I looked at my lap. "That you'd be mad that I broke my phone."
"Well, that's just a genius move," Dean snapped.
"Tell us what happened," Sam said.
I sighed. I told them about breaking the phone, deciding not to tell them what happened, and then what had happened once I was in the woods. I didn't tell them about the woman hiker, figuring she was just a figment of my imagination. My memory of her wasn't all that clear anyway. Dean was pacing by the time I was done. Sam looked grim.
Dean stood in front of my chair and raised his eyebrows. "What did I tell you would happen the next time I couldn't reach you on your phone?"
I went white. "You can't! I sprained my ankle!"
"I'm not going to be spanking your ankle," he said. "What did I say?"
My heart was in my throat. "You said that you'd use the hairbrush," I said. "But I'm sorry, Dean. I didn't mean to scare you guys. I didn't mean to get lost!"
Sam said, "You wouldn't be in trouble at all if you'd just told us when you'd broken it. But instead, you hid it from us so you wouldn't get in trouble. You went into the woods knowing you had a broken phone but let us think that we'd be able to reach you. That's why you're in trouble, young lady."
Dean went over to my backpack and started digging through it. After a minute, he dumped the contents on the bed. Then he turned to me. "Where's your hairbrush?"
Oh, fuck. "Uh…" I said. My heart plummeted. They were both looking at me. I was so completely and utterly screwed. I considered lying, but only for a minute. I was already in enough trouble.
Dean tilted his head down and raised his eyebrows again. "Where is it, Jessie?"
"In the crib back in that old house in Massachusetts," I whispered.
"What?!" Dean exploded.
"I decided I didn't want it any more. It was mine! I figured I would use a comb from now on," I said in a rush, defensively. "You never told me I couldn't throw it away!"
Sam made a choking noise, but Dean just looked mad. He descended upon me, scooped me up, chair and all, and put me in the corner. Then he grabbed his jacket and left.
"I am so fucked," I muttered.
"Not another word," Sam said. "Sit there and think about why you are so fucked."
After a while, I asked, "Where'd Dean go?"
"I don't know, but I can start without him," Sam threatened. "Be quiet."
I stared at the corner and waited and waited and waited. I felt bad, guilty for getting lost, guilty that they had been worried, guilty that they had had to tromp through hours of woods to find me, guilty that I'd hurt my ankle. More than anything, that was what I was sorry for. They were right; if I'd listened, if I'd told them… I was such an idiot.
I should've told them about the phone. I shouldn't have wandered so far. I should've paid more attention. I sighed. I probably shouldn't have ditched the hairbrush. I heard the Impala pull up and Dean's door close, and my stomach started hurting again.
Dean came into the room and turned me around so I was facing him. He was holding a new hairbrush, this one larger than the previous one and the wood looked thicker. I swallowed. "You will not throw this one away," he said. "You ditch this one or you lose it, I'll take off my belt. You got me, little girl?"
"Yes, Dean," I whispered, scared and just a tiny bit relieved.
"Tell me why you're in trouble," he said.
"I didn't tell you I broke my phone and then I went off into the woods without any way for you to reach me."
"Why else?" he asked.
"I ditched the hairbrush?" I asked.
"And?"
"I don't know," I said, confused.
"Your inability to obey the rules got you hurt, little girl," Dean said. "You need to obey the rules we've given you. They are there for a reason." He lifted me out of the chair, sat down on the bed, and put me over his lap, gently setting my hurt ankle down.
"Dean, please?" I asked, scared. "I'm sorry. I won't do it again."
He didn't say anything, just brought his hand down on my panty-covered butt over and over until I was crying. I kicked my non-sore foot against the mattress as he spanked, trying to get off of his lap, but he held me there. When I brought up my sore ankle and brought it down, he caught my shin.
"If you hurt your bad ankle trying to get away from me, I swear to god, I will take off my belt right now."
Panic shot through me and I stilled. He set my leg down gently and resumed spanking me. I pulled the bedspread up into a bundle and sobbed into it, fighting to catch my breath when he finally stopped, but it was only to grasp the sides of my panties and pull them down to my thighs.
"What…?" I said, startled at the change. "No, Dean, please! Not on the bare."
"You bet on the bare, little girl." Then he brought down the hairbrush on my bare bottom and I shrieked and kicked again, but only with my non-sprained foot. I pushed against the mattress with my arms and tried to twist off of his lap, but he wrapped his arm around my waist and kept spanking. I gave up and cried and cried.
Finally, he stopped. "You will learn to obey the rules. I don't care how many times I have to do this. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, Dean," I said into the wadded up bedspread, still sobbing. He pulled my panties back up over my bottom and gently flipped me over to hold me, gently rubbing my back.
"You're on restriction," he said. "No TV, no playing games on Sam's computer, no Game Boy. You're lucky I'm not taking your books away from you."
"No," Sam said shortly from the other side of the room. "I am. No books except for schoolbooks, and I think that your Language Arts book is off limits for at least a week."
"Looks like you pissed off both of us," Dean said. He held me a little while longer until I stopped crying. Then he carried me to the roll-away bed and set me on it. My bottom stung when it touched the rough motel sheets, and I hissed and lifted my hips to the side. Dean went and turned the television on with the volume down low, and I turned away from it so I couldn't see it. That was the deal when we were in motel rooms.
Sam came over and dropped my butterfly backpack on the bed. He crouched down in front of me. "You scared the crap out of both of us. We don't like it when we can't find you. I'm extremely disappointed that you couldn't follow the simplest instruction of don't go too far or keep your phone on you. It seems like an eleven-year-old who used to live in the woods would know better."
I flushed. "I'm sorry, Sam."
"You're writing me lines," Sam said. "Five hundred times: 'I will keep my phone on me'."
"Yes, Sam," I said softly. At least I could zone out and tell myself stories while I did that.
"Do you know what you should do when you get lost in the woods?"
"I guess not," I whispered.
"You call us, but if something has happened to your phone, you stop and wait for us to find you. We can track, remember? We'd have found you in less than a half an hour if you'd just held still."
"Oh," I said, feeling stupid. Of course they could, that's how they found me to start with.
Sam kissed my forehead and hugged me to him. "I'm glad we found you in time," he said. He headed over to sit next to Dean and watch some sports game. It was slightly annoying because I couldn't even listen to something interesting, but that was kind of the point Dean was making.
"Sam, how long until I can start learning something about hunting?" I asked, suddenly remembering what they'd told me not two days earlier.
"At least a week," he said. "At this rate, you're not going to learn anything."
I sighed and pulled out my notebook to start my lines.
