The Road So Far…

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

"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."

"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."

"When I was a kid, I lost people I loved. When I was around your age, I lost my mom. I remember being really scared."

"My father died in a plane crash. It was sabotage. Never really found out who did it."

"Your dad's still alive."

I lounged in the passenger's front seat of the Impala, my shoes slipped off and my legs crossed. My seat was a bit reclined so that I could lean back further, and I held my iPod up in front of my face, playing Sudoku on a free downloaded app. My Sudoku habits confused Serenity - who never liked Sudoku and claimed she wasn't very good - to no end, but I love the game. It's addictive and passes time.

Dean's classic rock played over the Impala's speakers and he was humming along, tapping his fingers on the side of the window and bobbing his head to the music. Serenity was chilling out behind Dean in the backseat with a book in front of her face while Sam, directly behind me, slept, taking a catnap.

Since the demon, we'd had one lead to follow that the boys had thought would possibly be a hunt, but it turned out to be the work of a mental patient that had knocked out his guard and escaped during a shift change. Since then we'd gone to the west from Kittanning, heading to no direction in particular.

I winced as a foot collided with the back of my seat and Sam murmured incoherent words sleepily. "Serenity, wake him up," I asked with a heavy sigh. Despite Jess's death being a thing of the past now, and only becoming more so with each passing day, Sam still frequently relived the night after ganking Constance Welch, when Serenity and I had come into his house, realizing that something was inside, just in time to see his beautiful girlfriend, Jessica Moore, pressed against the ceiling with a bleeding gash across her stomach before fire enveloped her and burnt through the shared house.

Serenity looked up from her book and peered at me through the rearview mirror for a moment before she shrugged and leaned over, planting a hand on Sam's shoulder and shaking firmly. "Sammy, rise and shine. Don't you wanna go see a dead person?"

I brought my iPod down to collide with my forehead in exasperation.

Sam jerked awake with a shout that died on his lips the moment he realized what he was doing before he sat up straight, cleared his throat, and looked around and out the windows to see where we were.

Where we were was actually parked outside of a small, local hospital in Toledo, Ohio to check out the morgue. Dean found an obituary in the papers this morning that apparently he thought might be our kind of job - of course, he told me I'd find out what it was when we got there, meaning I had absolutely no idea except that the dead guy was someone named Steven Shoemaker and I was supposed to break them in to see the man's corpse.

Sometimes I feel like I'm only with them so that they can abuse my authority.

Oh, hell, that is the reason Sam and Dean let Serenity and I tag along in the first place. I know that by now, we all see each other as friends more than as tools, but that doesn't change the initial reason why we started working together in Jericho.

Sam took a deep breath and sighed. "I take it I was having a nightmare," he guessed, voice dulled.

"Yeah," Dean replied, his voice carefully devoid of any significant emotion in the response. I know he's upset that his brother's life was ripped up to shreds, and I know he wishes that Sam could recover enough to sleep peacefully. I also know that Dean isn't very in touch with his emotions and he'd probably rather cut his tongue out than try to talk seriously about Sam's feelings for a girl that Dean barely knew. "Another one."

"Hey, at least I got some sleep," Sam tried to justify with a mirthless chuckle.

Dean sighed and hit the button on the radio controls, turning off the music from the CD. "You know," he said reluctantly. "Sooner or later, we're gonna have to talk about this."

Sam didn't even try to cover up the ignorance, just blatantly pretended his brother hadn't spoken. He yawned and his arms stretched out. I heard the soft popping of his joints settling back into place. "Are we here?"

"Yep," Serenity answered with a sarcastic smile, closing up her book after taking note of the page number. "Welcome to Toledo, Ohio - the only city in America that I've been to without seeing a McDonalds thus far. And let me tell you, I am starving."

"We'll find somewhere to eat eventually," I promised. Knowing Serenity, she'd probably knock Dean out, stuff him in the trunk, and drive the Impala herself to get food if we made her wait for too long. While it would be hilarious in the moment, I highly doubted that we'd be laughing once Dean was sulking and having his tantrum about it.

"So what have we got here?" Sam clicked off his seatbelt and it retracted audibly. The tall man rolled down his sleeves in an effort to make himself more presentable.

"Steven Shoemaker, a forty-six year old white male who died Monday and who, ironically, doesn't actually work in a shoe company. His family, which consists of two seventeen and twelve year old daughters, is holding a service today at their house; the funeral is Sunday and I have absolutely no freaking idea why Dean thinks this is supernatural," I concluded, shooting Dean a dark look.

"Hey, trust me, you'll get it when you see it," Dean defended, holding his hands up as a shield.

I rolled my eyes. "Will you at least tell me what he died of?"

"That's what we're going to find out as soon as someone puts their shoes on so we can go inside," Serenity remarked. I blinked and looked at my feet, saw the bright striped socks, and then bit my lip, awkwardly leaning forwards to find my shoes in front of my seat.

I pushed open the double doors to the morgue in the basement of the hospital, stepping into the front office and looking around. There were two desks. One was larger, cluttered, and further back - the name plate Dr. D. Feiklowicz stood at the very edge, threatening to fall over. The other desk was closer to the doors, like a reception, with fewer miscellaneous items but more office supplies, a grey landline sitting next to the computer monitor.

A short man sat in a chair at the receptionist's desk - probably a techie for the morgue, meant to keep records and logs and fill out admin work. He had dark brown hair but had it shaved close to his head, and he wore white scrubs like a coroner might, so he probably had a medical license.

"Hey," he greeted, his voice breaking the near silence of the morgue. Serenity, Sam, and Dean wandered in after me, looking around and taking their own inventories.

"Hi," I said back carelessly, seeing the next set of doors straight ahead that would lead to the actual morgue.

The tech stood up from behind his desk uncertainly. "Can I do anything to help you…?"

I pulled my badge from my pocket in a matter of seconds and held it out for his inspection over the desk. He looked at first it, then back to me. "Agent Holly Kasakabe," I said as introduction. I figured that the title of doctor would be more helpful than a lie in this context. "I'm here with some med students from the college. They came for an interview with Dr. Feiklowicz and I myself was going to oversee an autopsy." I was lying straight through my teeth - I'd never heard of Feiklowicz before - but I hoped that the absence of anyone at his desk meant that he wouldn't be in to contradict the cover story.

"It's a pleasure, Agent Kasakabe," the tech said with a shy smile, before it slipped away and he apologetically yet respectfully continued, "But I wasn't aware of any interviewers from the college. Which school, exactly?" He asked curiously, turning to the other three.

Dean's eyebrows pulled down as he tried to figure out how to pronounce the doctor's name and he ended up failing epically. "Oh. Dr. … Figlavitch didn't tell you? We talked to him on the phone, uh, we're from Ohio State."

"He's supposed to be showing us the Shoemaker body," Serenity added pointedly, with a gesture towards the doors leading to the sterilized room where the autopsies took place and the bodies were stored. "It's for a paper. Thesis, actually."

The tech nodded in understanding but then shook his head to her, not willing to permit it in the doctor's absence. "Well, I'm sorry. He's at lunch."

"Oh." Sam frowned dejectedly at the floor, catching the role of a disappointed graduate pretty damn well. "Well, he said, uh-"

"You know, it doesn't matter," Dean supplied, filling in helpfully and giving the technician a bright, hopeful smile, his eyes lighting up. "You don't mind just showing us the body, do you?"

"Sorry." The med tech didn't sound sorry at all, which kind of made his words irrelevant. "I can't." He looked between Sam and Serenity - probably because Sam looked sad and Serenity was, well, female - and he added hastily, "Doc will be back in an hour. You can wait for him if you want."

"An hour?" Dean repeated, flinching back. "Oh. We've gotta be heading back to Columbus by then."

I rolled my eyes in faked irritation. "Alright, you three, you can come in with me. Just do as I say and don't touch anything, got it? Then you'll get out of here and get back to your university." I looked back to the morgue technician, trying to appear as though I wasn't internally laughing at his gullibility. "It's alright if they're accompanied by myself, correct?"

He started shaking his head but I stared at him intently and he slowly stopped, adopting an expression of uncertainty. "Well... I mean… I don't know for sure what the doc would say…" Huh. Better than no, at any rate.

Well, if the force of my stare is enough to tip him, then a threat would certainly work well for me. "Hey man," I started, putting on my poker face. I had to seem completely serious about this for the full effects, and I quite like having people do as I ask when I ask. It's part of why I like being in charge. "Give me the keys, or I'll punch you in the face cartilage."

The technician let out a very short, startled squeak before he tried to cover it up with a cough, raising the crook of his arm up to cover his mouth. He shook himself like he was knocking off the indignity and looked up to me briefly, seeming almost afraid that I would actually follow through with my threat. "Follow me," he invited, stepping away from the desk chair, and positively scampered to the double doors into the morgue.

"Face cartilage?" Serenity muttered lowly under her breath so that I could hear. "Is it really that hard to just say "nose" like a normal person?"

"What, and you think inspiring fear is something I'm not good at any more?" I asked her sarcastically, holding out one arm in the general direction of the employee who was now convinced that I was going to assault him in the nose if he didn't show us the Shoemaker corpse. "Look, you wanted in, I got us in, alright? Don't… don't question me. You always question me." I shook my head in disapproval, but knew that it was a fruitless battle even as I did the motion.

The morgue tech led us to a stainless steel, sterile grey table with a sheet over the corpse. Evidently, the doctor responsible had taken his leave for lunch without completing his reviews of the body. Either that, or he forgot to store it, in which case his M.E. card should be turned in.

"Now, the newspaper said his daughter found him." Dean tapped his fingers on his thigh, moving around the table to stand by the body's head. Sam got on the other side of Dean and Serenity kept herself at least two feet away from the table due to the smell. Just because she's used to it, doesn't mean she has to like it. I gathered a pair of white latex gloves from a disposal box on a tray of instruments and raised one up to my mouth, puffing into it to stretch it out. "She said his eyes were bleeding."

The tech snorted, crossing his arms as I snapped on the gloves as quickly as I could. It was still a little uncomfortable. No matter how often I use latex, it's weird to have the plastic texture against my hands. "More than that. They practically liquefied."

"Were there defensive wounds?" Serenity asked, eyeing the sheet-covered corpse with a mix of weariness and curiosity. She probably wanted to see what had happened to Shoemaker's eyes, because I know that I did. I pushed the technician out of the way and grasped the top of the scratchy white sheet. It rustled as I pulled it back down over the corpse and folded it over on top of the man's chest.

"Nope. Besides the daughter, he was all alone," the tech answered casually, while my mouth fell open at the sight of the dead body lying on the table.

"Whoa…" Sam breathed in shock.

"I mean this literally: What in the actual Hell happened to this guy?" Serenity asked, her eyes wide. Although I knew she was actually posing the question of what psycho/monster had done this, but it sounded like a general surprised interjection to the technician, who shrugged.

The cavities where Shoemaker's eyes should have been didn't have eyes anymore - and it wasn't just because they were surgically removed. There were what looked like nail marks around the eye sockets, pressed just barely a darker color where they had started to bruise before the man died. His eyes had been wrecked, blood still staining the pale skin of his ashen face where they hadn't quite managed to get it all completely off. The orbital cavities were dark and there was blood in the recesses - there would be until he was drained, embalmed, and buried.

"Have you ever seen this before?" Sam asked me, looking disturbed and almost nauseous. I honestly couldn't blame him, because my own stomach did a little flip.

I shook my head slowly, almost wishing that my gag reflex would work so that I would have an excuse to leave. Unfortunately, I've seen worse. "No, nothing, ever, at all. Not even remotely." I cleared my throat, coughing, and looked back to the morgue tech, schooling my expression back into one of neutrality. "What's the official cause of death?"

The man rubbed the back of his head, squinting at the body as he tried to remember. "Ah… Doc's not sure," he finally replied with an apologetic shrug of his shoulders. "He's thinking a massive stroke - maybe an aneurysm? Something burst up in there, that's for sure."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, both curious and attentive. I liked that he was at least interested in the medical reasoning behind the determination of supernatural and human.

"All of the blood…" I answered, making a general gesture at the corpse's face. "Serious cerebral bleeding. There's not normally that much blood in the skull, not for there to still be some in the orbital cavities. I don't think he'd have been without symptoms if it was an aneurysm, though. Either something ruptured or this guy pulled a super Guinness World Records-worthy case of scratching his own eyes out."

I emphasized the super part deliberately, hoping that they would make the connection and we could scram, because we'd have to talk to the daughter to be sure that there were no signs, but it was probably not a normal death by any means.

"Ah, blood flooding the brain leads to a near immediate death," I said, elaborating to Dean, who looked a little confused by the subtle reasoning. "The only time I've ever seen anywhere hear this level of hemorrhagic staining in the eye sockets was when a torturer also happened to be an enucleator and removed the eyes while the victim's heart was still pumping. The blood was still flowing, so when the eyes were removed, the blood pumped itself right on out." His eyes were scratched out while he was alive. Probably literally. Also probable cause of death.

"Removing the eyes? There's actually a technical term for that?" Dean narrowed his eyes to see if I was jerking him around.

"Verb: to enucleate, adjective: enucleator or enucleated, commonly associated with the Criminal Minds episode "The Eyes Have It" but, unfortunately, a very real term based on very real crimes," I confirmed quickly and without hesitation.

Dean stared at me for a long moment before he dropped his eyes back to the body. "That's sick," he muttered.

"Tell me about it."

The technician didn't seem to care that we weren't paying him a lot of mind. "The capillaries can burst," he offered unhelpfully. "We see a lot of bloodshot eyes with stroke victims."

Serenity turned her eyes on the man and willed him to shut up with a well-placed, snarky and biting remark. "And bloodshot eyes and exploded eyes are definitely quite similar, aren't they?"

The tech opened his mouth but no sound came out and, with a blush of embarrassment across his cheeks, he looked back down mutely.

I plucked at the bands of the bloodied latex gloves from the morgue, trying to pick them off of my wrists without getting any of the red on my skin. It was a frustrating battle.

Sam, Dean, and Serenity walked just ahead of me in a row of three down the stairs at the front of the hospital building, none of them particularly caring about my own plight. I stared venomously at the gloves when they snapped back on my wrist once again.

"It might not be one of ours," Sam suggested, but even I could hear the skepticism in his own voice. "It might just be some freak medical thing."

Serenity snorted indelicately, reaching out and giving Sam a good shove - not hard enough to hurt or send him falling, but hard enough to make him stumble down the next few stairs. "Yeah, and Hell's frozen over."

"How many times in Dad's long and varied career has it actually been a freak medical thing, and not some sign of an awful supernatural death?" Dean asked Sam pointedly, knowingly.

"Uh…" Sam sighed. "Almost never."

"Exactly."

"I guess we should go talk to the daughter."

"Uh-uh," Serenity interrupted stubbornly, crossing her arms and shooting a lethal glare at Sam. "I am getting food. You know - those things that you can eat. You can go talk to the daughter of Mr. Exploding-Eyes, but I am going to book a hotel room and find a fast food joint before I die of starvation."

"Ugh!" I screamed suddenly without warning, throwing my arms down to my sides. "I hate these stupid fucking latex gloves!" A tall man in glasses and a three-piece suit stopped and stared at me in abhorrence for the profanity and I bared my teeth, growling. "What the hell are you looking at?" The man ducked his head and continued up the stairs in the direction we had come from.

Serenity laughed loudly at my frustration and she jumped down the last several of the stone steps and onto the cement of the parking lot. "Very nice reputation, Holly," she praised. "Screaming and cursing on the front steps of a hospital like a lunatic. You're expanding your horizons."

"Expanding your horizons my ass," I seethed. "I just want these God damned gloves off without getting blood on my hands! Is that too much to ask?!"

Dean and Sam both stopped walking and turned half around so that they were staring at me. Seeing as the entourage stopped, I took the opportunity to pause in walking and dedicate more attention to the infuriating latex gloves.

"Holly…" Sam said, but paused and then looked at Dean. He jerked his head towards me, telling his brother to deal with the situation, but Dean shook his head frantically and held up his hands. By the time Sam looked back to me I was unimpressed and glaring. "How much sleep did you get last night?"

"Not a whole lot, considering my night was spent in a bunch of metal forged nearly fifty years ago," I retorted swiftly. Dean started, his shoulders slumping in dejection like I'd insulted him rather than his car. "I just want these gloves off! They're like torture devices created solely for your hands because now my hands are going to be too dry and it's too hot to leave them on!"

Serenity rolled her eyes. "Just take them off already. You're not hemophobic, you can wash your hands."

I glared at her but she did have a point, so I very deliberately grabbed the ends of each glove with the opposite hands and pulled, turning both inside out and off. A short pink streak was left on the inside of my left wrist.

"This is why it's nice to have an actual agent with us," Sam commented. I think it was meant to be a compliment to me. "We don't have to wear them anymore."

I didn't take it nicely and instead pulled at the fingertips of the gloves, holding it out like a slingshot to snap them at the younger brother. "Screw you, Sam," I declared bitterly, trying to hit his jacket.

Sam moved away, eyes wide and holding up his arms defensively. He backed up off the sidewalk and into the parking lot. "Hey, don't touch me with those. There's a dead man's blood on them, it's gross."

I leapt right into a sprint and chased after Sam, who turned tail and ran through the parking lot like a bat out of hell, fleeing towards the Impala as fast as his legs could carry him. "Get back here, Samantha!" I shouted. "I promise I won't ruin your pretty little manicure!"

From behind me, I think I heard Serenity say to Dean, "This is why she has a therapist on speed dial."

I'm much better with the dead people than the living; particularly when it comes to etiquette. It's not like a corpse is going to care about my manners. With Sam and Dean on either side of me, nosing around the framed photographs and carefully-arranged tributes that had been set up in honor of Steven Shoemaker. The Shoemaker house was large for a family of three; Shoemaker had a seventeen year old daughter in her senior year of high school, Donna, and a twelve year old girl in seventh grade, Lily. There were two floors, long hallways, and wide rooms. The front door opened into the parlor.

Serenity hung back on this one. She doesn't like real, grieving people all that much, either, and she was just ready to get food and take a nap. Which left me with two men in jeans, one with a long leather jacket and the other with a plaid button-up and dark coat. I was the only one of the three of us who looked even remotely dressed for the occasion, with my plain white blouse and black suit jacket. It wasn't even on purpose.

"I feel like we're underdressed," Dean remarked under his breath. There were a few scattered groups of people on the first floor; one in the kitchen, and one across the parlor, and I could hear the voices of another set. The men wore tuxedos and suits, and the women were either wearing pantsuits or respectable-length black dresses. One of the women in the kitchen even had a black mesh veil.

"Yeah, I get that feeling, too," Sam agreed, leaning down further to my height so that only Dean and I would hear.

"That's because you are," I whispered to them pointedly.

Once on the patio, I looked around the back lawn. There were yard chairs and several benches set up for the small but generous crowd paying homage to the deceased. Many people were sitting around in the fair sunlight, holding up beverages and telling stories.

Four girls were seated around an in-ground barbeque pit towards the center of the backyard. Two girls I recognized from pictures inside. The older one, Donna Shoemaker, was sitting on a bench next to a tall blonde girl near her age, give or take a year. Donna was a pretty girl, wearing a plain black dress that was snug but not inappropriately or provocatively so. The sleeves were short but she wore a light grey shawl to make up for it. Her hair was short and black but wavy, and parted to the side. The ends curled up around her ears, the cut lower in back than it was at the sides.

The girl to her right had soft green eyes and a hand was on Donna's shoulder. Her nails were done with French tips, probably acrylics, and she wore a dress like Donna's. The only difference I noted was the length of the sleeves, and hers went down a few inches further past her knees. Her hair was straightened, the natural blonde of her hair fairly glowing where the sunlight hit.

The two other girls were in lawn chairs. The younger one was right next to the end of Donna's bench - her younger sister, Lily. Lily hadn't quite grown out of those awkward puberty years, so the bust of her black dress wasn't completely filled out, there was a smattering of freckles over her cheeks, and her nose had a slightly different tone than the rest of her face, probably because she used concealer. Still, she was a beautiful little girl, with her long dark brown hair brushed straight. Locks of her hair had been twisted into braids at the front and then pulled back to meet and fishtail behind her head.

The fourth girl was Donna's age again. She wore a tighter and shorter black dress; she was bustier than her friends and wasn't bothering to hide it. Her hair was shorter than the other blonde's, except hers had more obviously come from a bottle, the very start of her roots showing. There was a lilac coloring over her eyelids and her eyelashes were darker with mascara, a touch of gloss making her lips shine.

I held out a hand in front of Dean's chest as we stopped in front of them and I put on my best "caring" face. "Donna and Lily Shoemaker?" I asked politely.

Donna leaned forward and reached out, setting a protective hand on Lily's shoulder. Lily looked up to me, scared, like a doe caught in headlights. I made a note of the fear and guilt. "Yeah," Donna murmured softly.

"Hi," I said softly, approaching and sitting down on the opposite side of the bench from Donna and the natural blonde. "My name's Holly, and this is Sam and Dean." I pointed at each guy in turn. Sam had his hands awkwardly in his pockets; Dean offered a single wave and a smile. "We wanted to offer our condolences for your father."

"We worked with your dad," Sam told Donna in a convincing display of earnesty.

Donna paused and blinked, looking down, and then turned to look to the natural blonde next to her. The other girl squeezed Donna's shoulder supportively and Donna looked back up in confusion. "You did?"

"Yeah. This whole thing…" Dean sighed and shrugged his shoulders sadly. "I mean, a stroke-"

The natural blonde cut him off without warning. "I don't think she really wants to talk about this right now," she said in her friend's defense, shooting Dean and Sam both a warning glare. If the situation weren't palpable with tension I would have whistled at the deliberate dismissal.

"I'm - it's okay," Donna corrected the other girl gently.

"Were there any symptoms?" I prompted delicately, leaning across the table. I let a hand stay on my thigh, keeping the fabric of my jacket from riding up. I don't want to scare Lily by accidentally showing her my pistol. "Dizziness? Migraines?"

Donna shook her head, turning away from me. I couldn't tell whether it was on purpose or just a reflex to look the other way.

Lily had been staring up at Sam and Dean nervously, but she shifted to turn in an angle on her yard chair, looking up to me with wide, frightened eyes. "That's because it wasn't a stroke," she told me desperately. She spoke like someone desperate for someone to believe her - her pupils were dilated in genuine fright.

Donna leaned forward and stroked her palm down Lily's sleek hair. "Lily, don't say that," she protested quietly, talking to her sister like she was a frightened animal. She probably knew Lily was going through a trauma and was trying not to let her break down.

"What?" Sam asked Lily, kneeling down by the little girl's chair.

Donna looked up to Sam and her eyes flashed in first frustration, then alarm, and then resignation. "I'm sorry," she apologized, stroking her sister's hair lovingly. "She's just upset."

"No," Lily argued against her sister, reaching up and knocking Donna's hand away. "It happened because of me!"

"Sweetie," Donna cooed. "It didn't."

"Lily," I murmured softly, leaning forwards over the table. "Why would you think something like that?"

Lily hesitated and her lower lip trembled before she answered. "Right before he died…" her voice dropped down to a whisper. "I said it."

"You said what?" Sam asked with a confused frown.

"Bloody Mary," Lily whispered, her eyes darting back and forth like she thought saying it the once would summon an angry ghost. "Three times in the bathroom mirror." I honestly had no response to that; I opened my mouth, but no sound came out of my throat. I looked up to meet Dean's eyes quizzically, but his face was just as perplexed. Lily took note of the silence and persisted, "She took his eyes, that's what she does!"

"That's not why Dad died," Donna whispered fiercely, reaching out to tuck a strand of Lily's hair back behind her ear maternally. In a second of thought, I wondered over what would happen to them now. If their dad had set up a trust fund, then Donna could apply for emancipation and take Lily's custody - or maybe if her grades and record were good enough, they'd let her have her sister's custody without going through the emancipation process. She was close enough to an adult already.

"I think your sister's right, Lily," Dean put in helpfully, offering the girl a warm, reassuring smile. "There's no way it could have been Bloody Mary. Your dad didn't say it - did he?"

Lily frowned as she realized the flaw in her own explanation, her eyebrows knitting together as she looked down, puzzling it out herself. "No… I don't think so…"

The three of us excused ourselves from Lily, Donna, and their blonde friends and snuck out way upstairs to the murder scene. We moved as quietly as possible - the floor only creaked once or twice but no one downstairs seemed to realize that we were snooping where we shouldn't be.

The hallways were carpeted in soft brown and the walls were painted a dull sort of light purple. Dressers were pressed to the walls and framed photos and mirrors were nailed up above them. It was clean, surprisingly so for a house with two kids and one adult.

Lily's claim was really making me think. Bloody Mary? It was intriguing and horrifying to think about, both at the same time. Every kid plays Bloody Mary at one point or another - at least, every adrenaline junkie does. I'd never believed there was actually a monster trapped in my bathroom mirror, though - I always knew it was a trick of the light, and later I found out that it was due to the flickering of the candle searing temporary images into my retinas, then reflecting through the mirror and appearing as a face.

I'd never considered there could be a kernel of truth in there somewhere. Even when I'd first learned from Sam and Dean that urban legends could be inspired by real monsters, I had dismissed most of my favorite childhood spooky stories. Stories like Bloody Mary weren't consistent enough to be true - there were at least fifty different versions, all depicting her death and her title differently. The only true consistencies were the factors of her name, Mary, and the mirror, and they didn't mean much because without them, the legend fell apart entirely.

Sam pushed the bathroom door open. The floor wasn't carpeted, just off-white tile with a simple patterned swirl in the corners of the squares. There was still dried blood staining the tiles where Steven Shoemaker had gotten his eyes clawed or liquefied or whatever.

"The legend… Bloody Mary." I kept my voice down so no one downstairs would hear me in a lull of conversation. "Did your father ever find evidence that it actually exists?"

Dean walked into the bathroom past Sam, stepping over the bloodstains. "Not that I know of," he replied, reaching up and running a hand through his already-ruffled hair.

Sam knelt down and touched the pink tiles with the tips of his fingers slowly, like he was ready to jump away if it was wet or fresh. "I mean, everywhere else, all over the country, kids play Bloody Mary, and as far as we know, nobody dies from it."

"Dean said in Wisconsin that spirits can be… sort of tethered to things they were close to while they were living." I theorized, standing in the threshold of the bathroom. The mirror, ironically, was covered in a black cloth out of tradition and respect. I crossed my arms and hooked one ankle behind the other. "What if Lily's right? I mean, the girl got that part right, in most of the legends, Mary scratches your eyes out. What if Bloody Mary really did die in front of a mirror, but it's only happening here because she's tethered to a certain mirror?"

"You mean the place where the legend began?" Sam questioned, standing up and yanking the cloth off from over the medicine cabinet's mirror over the sink. He pulled it open and looked inside before shutting it, not finding anything of interest. "One thing, though: according to the legend, the person who says Bloo-" he cut himself off cold and stared at his reflection in the mirror. Slowly, he pushed it closed and rearranged the fabric over it again. "The person who says you-know-what gets it. But here-"

"Shoemaker gets it instead," Dean finished with a nod. "Yeah."

"Right."

Dean lifted his arms in a hapless shrug. "I've never heard anything like that before. Still…" he sighed and jerked his head towards the mirror. "The guy did die right in front of the mirror, and she's right. The way the legend goes, eyes are overrated and you die a bloody death."

"You think it's worth checking into?" I asked, leaning back out of the bathroom and turning my head to look down the hall, hearing footsteps on the stairway landing. Sam opened his mouth to reply to me but I shook my head quickly, standing upright and backing up. "Someone's coming."

Dean pushed past Sam and Sam looked over at the mirror before hurrying past. The three of us all awkwardly dashed out of the bathroom and closed the door before the naturally-blonde of Donna's friends mastered the stairs and stepped down the hall. I nudged Dean with my elbow and Sam reached up to his neck, looking up at a still life painting in pretend fascination.

We probably looked ridiculously obvious.

The girl canted her head at us and her lips pulled back in a derisive sneer. Oh, well. Being a government official gets me a lot of leeway, but there's no law that says people have to like me. "What are you doing up here?" She asked, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes.

"We…" Sam started unsurely.

"We had to go to the bathroom," Dean lied ineffectively.

The woman, probably seventeen - only two or so years younger than me - raised her eyebrows skeptically. "All three of you? Together?"

I blinked. "It's the buddy system. You can never be too careful." Serenity would praise me for that one if she were here - although if she were here, she'd probably be so psyched about having a more and more probably Bloody Mary case that she'd brush off the girl completely.

She rolled her eyes at me. Confrontational and loyal to her friends… I like her. "Who are you?"

"Like we said downstairs…" Dean cleared his throat by coughing into his arm. "We worked with Donna's dad, and Holly here was just passin' through town."

She rolled her eyes and glared. "He was a day trader, or something. He worked by himself."

Maybe we should start doing a bit more research on the victims…

"No, I know," Dean said, holding up his hands defensively and trying to backtrack. "I meant-"

"And all those weird questions downstairs?" She pushed challengingly, taking several swaggering, confident steps closer. Although she was really just a high school teenager, I still found myself grimacing and backing up. "What was that? So, you tell me what's going on… or I start screaming," she threatened.

"Alright!" Sam urgently threw his hands out in front of him, trying to placate the girl. "Alright, alright. We think something happened to Donna's dad."

"Yeah." She scoffed in disbelief. "A stroke."

I uncrossed my arms and pointed with one hand behind me to the ajar door of the bathroom. "Have you seen the state of that floor? That's not a sign of your typical stroke. We think it might be something else… so please, just chill yourself out and let's start over again." I took a deep breath, rolling my shoulders, and then held out my hand to her. "Agent Holly Kasakabe, these are some pals of mine, Sam and Dean."

She looked over the three of us slowly, taking her sweet time analyzing and trying to come to a conclusion. Finally, she let the offensive detail slip away and stepped forward, grasping my hand in hers. "Charlie," she shared. "Short for Charlotte." She took a deep breath before pulling her hand out of mine and crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "What do you think could have happened to Donna's dad?"

"Honestly?" Sam asked for clarification. Charlie gave him a 'seriously?' expression and nodded. "We don't know yet. But we don't want it to happen to anyone else, and that's the truth."

"So, if you're gonna scream…" Dean motioned over to the banister over the stairs casually. "Go right ahead."

Charlie looked between the three of us again and I offered an apologetic smile. "Who are you, cops?" She asked Sam.

Sam looked over at Dean, at a loss for an answer.

"Yeah, they're pals of mine from the local P.D.," I lied, covering them quickly. "I thought something fishy was going on here, and they need some field experience, so we're collaborating." I pursed my lips tightly and slid my hand into my inner jacket pocket, sewn into the inside of my suit coat. I pulled out one of my business cards - I made them myself, printed off onto cardstock and including my name, rank, qualifications, email, and phone number. "Look, take this. If you think of anything, or you or - or Donna, or Lily, or your other friends - notice anything strange or weird or that just doesn't sit right, give us a call, we'll stick around until we solve this."

Sam pushed open the doors to the library and Dean and I walked in in front of him. "Alright, so say Bloody Mary really is haunting this town," Dean hypothesized reluctantly, stopping just inside and turning to watch Sam come in behind him. "There's going to be some sort of proof - like a local woman who died nasty."

"That's my issue with believing this," I started to argue. "There's nothing concrete, it's all changing depending on who you hear it from."

"She's right." Sam set a hand on my shoulder in praise before nudging me back towards the study and archives in the back of the library. I started off slowly, walking at a leisurely pace between the two boys. "A legend this widespread is hard. I mean, there's like fifty versions of who she really was. One story says she's a witch, another says she's a mutilated bride…" Sam held out his hands and started to tick them off on his fingers. "There's a lot more."

Dean groaned softly, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. "Alright. So what are we supposed to be looking for?"

"The consistencies are how we'll find the original," I said firmly. One thing I had always been good at was research - and this was research, albeit of a different kind. "In every story, it's a female named Mary, and every time she dies, there's a mirror nearby."

"So we've gotta search the local newspapers and public records," Sam decided, rubbing the palms of his hands together in anticipation. "As far back as they go. See if we can find a Mary who fits the bill."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Well, that sounds annoying," he complained.

"No, it won't be so bad," Sam disagreed, sounding almost like he was struggling to believe it himself. "I mean, as long as we use-" He looked over to the media center, of a rounded table with half a dozen old-school computer monitors on top. All of the screens were black with ruled college notebook paper taped to them, the words "out of order" scrawled in black Sharpie. Despite that our work seemed to have gotten a lot more difficult, Sam chuckled. "I take it back. This will be very annoying."

The low, comforting rumble of the Impala's engine cut off as Dean pulled the keys out of the ignition in front of the small local motel. Serenity was in our room - this hotel had the doors facing the outside, along a sidewalk separating the building from the parking lot. It was now nearing six in the afternoon and after the long day, I was as ready to snap for food as Serenity had been around lunch time. We hadn't found anything at the library and I was more than ready to eat a large meal and then collapse on a mattress.

"Well, that was a long, taxing waste of time." I groused, leaning forward so that my elbows rested on the dashboard, covering my face with my hands as my jaw stretched wide in a yawn. "Look, people are going to keep playing Bloody -" I stopped as I caught sight of my own weary reflection in Dean's side mirror. I swallowed and said instead, "Bloody you-know-who until someone else dies. We should get in Donna's school, try to make sure no one can say it in there without us knowing."

"Point," Sam allowed, leaning back in the backseat and sliding forwards so his head was against the headrest and his knees poked the back of my seat. "But how're we gonna do that? Dean and I are too old, and they know you."

Dean leaned back and rested his cheek against the window. It was far from comfortable in my opinion, but we could definitely use a break from activity for a minute. "Yeah. They know Holly… but… not Serenity."

I sat up and blinked blearily at the older brother. "Serenity…" I chuckled. "You want Serenity to masquerade as a high school student to keep an eye on Donna, Charlotte, and their friends?" I laughed harder, running out of oxygen in my lungs. The very thought of Serenity sitting with her head on her arm in trigonometry class, doodling anime on her paper and smart mouthing a teacher was hilarious.

"Why not?" Sam asked, sounding genuinely confused by my reaction. "She's the only one who can at this point. You can go to the local mall, get her some high school… ish clothes, get her nails done or whatever… you can pull some strings and have her in as an exchange student or something for a few days. Just long enough to wrap this up."

I sighed. "You're serious." I still had a silly grin on my face and I reached for the door handle. "Alright, yeah, let's see how this works out."

"I hate you so, so much," Serenity grumbled, stabbing her sushi dish with her plastic black fork. I snickered, a hand over my mouth to try to hide my amusement, holding up a ham sandwich from Subway. Over Serenity's shoulder, I eyed the mall's frozen yogurt stand before looking back to my sister, who took an angry bite and rather violently chewed her dinner.

"No, you don't," I sang, drinking some of my fruit punch and sending Sam a pleased grin that served just as well as an I-told-you-so.

"So, first on the list is that, uh, Cali Nails," Dean teased, sitting next to me. He leaned over to nudge me with his shoulder and nodded back to Serenity, putting on his serious face. "And then you can get some nice high heels from the shoe store. I think Forever 21 is open for another couple of hours."

Sam, Dean, and I all laughed as Serenity shot Dean a venomous glare. The next stab of her fork looked less like she was stabbing a fish and more like she was trying to imagine that she was stabbing Dean. Through the heart. With a blunt knife.

"Oh, I love this," I exclaimed with a bright grin, shaking my head happily.