CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

"What exactly is going on?" Kieryn asked sceptically, backing into the living room as Dean and the stranger made their way down the hall toward her. Why had Dean just invited this Missouri woman into her home without even telling her?

"Missouri's going to help you," Dean said as the two entered the living room. He led
Missouri over to the leather sofa adjacent the one Kieryn was now seated upon, before taking a seat beside Kieryn himself.

"Help me?"

Missouri locked Kieryn in a deep stare, as though wearing her down through merely the assertive look in her eye. "Yep. There's definitely somethin' been messin' round with her head."

Dean laughed loudly, triggering a glare from Kieryn's direction. "Kier, Missouri's a physic. Well, technically, a palm reader, but you get the drift."

"Boy, don't spare the details!" Missouri chuckled sardonically, her gaze turning back to the weary redheaded girl before her. "Now, Kieryn, I'm gonna need you to lie down."

Without obliging, Kieryn merely looked at the woman incredulously, as though she were utterly insane. She then looked up at Dean, who had risen from his perch beside her and was standing idly beside the sofa, watching with a smug look upon his face. "Why?" She asked finally, turning back to face the stranger.

"Boy, your brother never mentioned she was stubborn as heck." This, Missouri said as she glanced up at Dean, her lips pursed together in a tight line. "Now," she began, turning back to face Kieryn. "Make this easy on yourself, dear. Lie down."

Despite her annoyance, Kieryn let her back fall down onto the plush leather beneath her, spreading her legs over the armrest of the sofa, her head resting upon the other armrest.

Dean barely noticed the hint of a glare that the girl shot over in his direction. Missouri was already proceeding, her hand resting upon Kieryn's forehead as she muttered a few inaudible words under her breath. When Dean looked down at Kieryn's face next, her eyes were closed, her breaths already turning to a steady, tranquil pace.

"Now, Kieryn." Missouri spoke softly, pulling her hand away from Kieryn's pale forehead as she began to speak once more. "I want you to tell me what happened the night of February the-" Her words halted and she glanced over at Dean quickly. "When did it last happen, again?"

"Feb 14." Dean answered in a whisper, chuckling softly.

"Okay, Kieryn. I want you to tell me exactly what happened the night of February the 14th, 2007."

Dean watched as the redheaded girl began to quiver, her jaw setting in place as few words began to flow from her mouth, hoarse with hesitancy. "I was asleep," she murmured, her eyes scrunching up even more. Dean noticed the minimal trembling of her bottom lip as Missouri continued to speak to her.

"What happened after you went to sleep?" Missouri's words were velvet soft in contrast to the jagged breathing that was now spluttering past Kieryn's lips.

Kieryn's head turned to the side to bury into the plush leather of the sofas backrest, away from the view of the other two. Only a second passed before her head abruptly flicked up once more, her widened eyes locked to the ceiling above her as stumbled words escaped past her quivering lips. "I c-can't do th-that," she stumbled, barely a whisper.

Missouri opened her mouth to speak but before anything came out, Kieryn's words were proceeding with the same fear and hesitancy as the ones previous. "Why do you want me to do that?"

Dean shot Missouri a quick glance of confusion yet the woman merely pressed a finger to her lips, glaring at him like he was a naughty child in need of scolding. This made Dean the slightest bit irritated, and he plopped himself down onto the sofa alongside Missouri, his brows knitted together in concentration as he watched Kieryn's continued struggle.

"I don't understand," the girl said, her words now louder and more confident. Her eyes were now screwed closed once more, her fists were clenched tight and glued to the sides of her body.

"Talk to me, Kieryn," Missouri demanded. "What don't you understand?"

"He wants me to hurt this man," Kieryn mumbled, her tone clearly signifying that they should know this already, that Missouri's inquiry was pointless.

"Who does?" Dean blurted out, growing frustrated with the half-answers that Kieryn's subconscious was presenting them with. He needed some clarity. Now, preferably.

"He does!" Kieryn screeched, launching her fists upward then slamming them back down onto the leather sofa beneath her.

"Who is he?"

Kieryn was shaking her head hastily. Her mental state was becoming utterly distressed as shown by her rapid pants of breath, the clenching and unclenching of her fists every few moments, the thumping of her heart against her chest that Dean swore he could hear from his seat at least a metre away from her. "He's not like us. Well, not anymore," she whispered finally, her posture relaxing just an ounce. "He's telling me to kill the man. Give the man what he deserves. No. I tell him no, but I can't speak. I can't stop myself from doing it. I can't-" Her words ceased as a deep breath was sucked in through her parted mouth. She was shaking her head again, yet this time, not as a frantic protest but something more of a denial.

"Who is making you do this, Kieryn?"

Another deep breath. "I don't know."

"I want you to think really hard. Can you remember anything about him?"

Kieryn's body stiffened once more, and Dean noticed her jaw set into place, her teeth gritted together as she spoke. "I can't see him," she muttered, screwing her eyes up even tighter, if that were even possible. "I can hear him. And feel him. Sense him."

"Can you tell me now what happened on the night of February the 14th, 2007?"

Immediately with Missouri's inquiry, Kieryn froze. Her jagged breathing included. There was an extended pause before a loud breath spluttered from Kieryn's mouth, followed by the frenzied trembling of her bottom lip. Dean spied the liquid developing in the inner corners of her closed eyes, the tears clinging onto her dark lashes to form large droplets. "Please don't make me," she mumbled, words stifled by the sobs hitched in her throat. "Please don't. Please don't. Please don't." She repeated the words over and over again, ascending in volume each time until she was almost screaming the words, her clenched fists bashing against the leather beneath her, her entire figure squirming to escape the invisible force threatening her. "I didn't mean to do it. Please don't. Please don't!"

"I think we should stop," Dean muttered urgently, glancing at Missouri as she continued to speak words of reassurance to Kieryn's squirming self, words that Kieryn refused to hear over the sound of her own screaming.

"On the count of three, you're awake." Missouri cupped Kieryn's forehead, brashly slapping away the girl's arm as it flung up in protest, attempting to push Missouri away. Missouri remained her staunch hold, quickly muttering the required countdown. "One. Two. Three."

In an instant the girl's squirming ceased, replaced with such an abrupt tranquillity that it was almost totally implausible. Dean watched in awe as Kieryn's eyelids slowly etched open, widening as she examined her surroundings.

Kieryn sat upright hurriedly, swivelling herself around and pushing her back against the cold leather backrest, glancing at the other two in confusion. Dean and Missouri each shared an equal expression of shock and disbelief upon their faces that it almost made Kieryn the slightest bit uncomfortable. She waited for either of the two to speak, say anything as to what had happened during her time under, whether any useful information had been produced. But neither of the two uttered a single word and this only made Kieryn irritated. Finding her voice, Kieryn began with a witty inquiry of her own.

"What did I miss?"

Sam examined the time on the clock above the door to be 4:12pm. He huffed out a dramatic sigh, dropping his arm back onto his thigh and leaning further back into the backrest of the ragged armchair. Dean and Kieryn had left the hospital at eight, Dean promising that he would call as soon as Missouri arrived. Yet Sam hadn't heard a thing from his brother since their departure.

Emerson stirred in her sleep, huffing a short breath through her nostrils that made Sam instantly aware of her presence beside him once more. She'd been sleeping for the past couple of hours, catching up on the rest she'd missed out on from the previous night, leaving Sam in peace to continue with his research. Not that anything useful had come from it. He'd been studying the book Emerson had found at the library the whole time he'd been there and had only made it to just past halfway through. He was sure he would have finished it by now, had he not had to hesitate with every sentence in order to decipher the messy handwritten script.

"Dean called yet?"

At the sound of the voice, Sam's eyes flicked up to meet the blonde girl's gaze in an instant. She was watching him from her sideways lying position upon the hospital bed, gazing at him intently through widened blue eyes as she awaited his answer. Locks of honey blonde hair splayed messily across her pale face, singular strands clinging to her lashes and barely falling into her mouth. He inhaled a well overdue breath before answering with a shake of his head. "Nope."

"Damn," Emerson murmured. "Maybe he just forgot to call."

Sam nodded in agreement, though a tiny speck of doubt was eating away at the back of his mind. "Yeah, maybe."

"Anyway, you found anything useful from that book yet?"

With this, Sam shook his head regretfully, huffing a sigh of frustration and setting the book down onto the steel table aside Emerson's bed. "The majority of that book is filled with presumed real ghost stories from people who won't have experienced a real spirit in their lives. I think whoever wrote this journal was somewhat of a roadie, travelling around collecting as many stories as they could in order to fill the whole goddamn book." Sam paused to make sure that Emerson was still keeping up with what he was saying. She was still watching him raptly so he decided to continue with his rambling. "Though I'll admit some of the stuff in here is pretty believable. The chapter on mind possession mostly, as it's talking about someone who claimed to have experienced total loss of control over their body at the hands of some unknown force; made to do things against their will. These things didn't exactly include numerous accounts of cold blooded murder like in Kieryn's case, but it's still something."

Sam pretended not to notice Emerson's halt of breath as he mentioned Kieryn's crimes. Pretended that he didn't at all sense her instant unease at the phrase he'd used. Instead he merely bit back his bottom lip, glancing over at the door as another presence within the room was made known with the sound of shoes scuffing across the linoleum floor.

"How are you feeling, Ms O'Riley?" The young nurse asked as she approached Emerson's bed from the opposite side as Sam, her clipboard clutched tight to her chest with her left arm.

"Alright," Emerson said, not bothering with an ounce of her usually preferred sarcastic response, tugging her gaze away from Sam to glance up at the nurse with a wide smile.

The nurse pulled her clipboard out, scrawling something across the paper upon it while Emerson shared a short glance with Sam. "When can I get out of here?"

"I'm afraid that you suffered quite a sufficient amount of blood loss this morning. The doctor believes it is in your best interest to spend the night here, just to be certain you will receive a full recovery. But hopefully by tomorrow, you will be able to check out."

"You've got to be kidding," Emerson muttered, slamming her head backward into the hard steel headboard of the bed.

"Keep whacking your head like that and you'll be in here even longer," Sam said with a chuckle, as the nurse departed the room leaving he and Emerson alone once more. As the ring of Sam's cell phone sounded, he quickly fished it from his pocket, flipped it open and pressing it to his right ear. "Dean?"

"Sammy. Hey."

"Missouri there?"

"She sure is," Dean said, words drenched with mock enthusiasm.

"And?"

"Well…" Dean began, pausing, which only made Sam even more curious by the second. "There's definitely been something controlling her. Missouri said she could feel it the second she walked into the house. Wasn't exactly sure about what, though, she said the trace of it was too thin for her to recognize. When she put Kieryn under, Kieryn was saying that someone was telling her to kill the man, she could hear him and sense him, but not see him, and that she couldn't stop herself from doing the things he was telling her to do. If that's not a sure fire sign of possession, then I don't know what is."

"It does sound a hell of a lot like demonic possession," Sam murmured. "But it can't be a demon, Dean. Demons don't work like that. They don't just inhabit a body for one night, fleeing as soon as the deed is done only to come back a couple of weeks later." The uncertainty in Sam's words was presented perfectly with his tone, not failing to mask a single ounce of the confusion and utter loss he felt.

"I know," Dean mumbled, knowing full well his brother's words were correct. "But it's the best assumption we've got at this point."

Sam nodded, then realizing his brother would not see the gesture through the phone, and spoke up. "I'm not so sure about that, Dean. The book Em found is definitely something to consider. It's possible that a spirit could be behind this."

"And the Sulfur?" Dean asked sceptically.

Sam shrugged, though the gesture wouldn't reach Dean's knowledge. "We only found it at the one scene, Dean. Coincidence?"

"Coincidences don't happen to us, Sam."

Sam let out a loud sigh, knowing from numerous experiences that Dean's statement was utterly true. "Yeah. You're right," he murmured, stare locked to the floor in thought.

"So what's the plan from here?"

"I guess we'll just have to wait until this happens again. Em's stuck here for another night, so it's up to you not to let Kieryn out of your sight tonight. You hear? You've got to be watching her at all times. If she starts sleepwalking, you follow her. And you call me. Clear?"

"Ai ai!" Dean chimed, and as the words flew through the receiver Sam pictured the image of his brother saluting in assurance.

"Dean…" he muttered in scolding.

"Jesus, Sammy! I understand. That girl isn't to go anywhere without me tonight. She's going to hate me so much for this…"

"Good," Sam murmured. "Keep in touch." With this, he slammed his cell phone to a close, slipping the device deep into his jeans pocket while shooting Emerson a small smile of reassurance, preparing to give her an explanation of their conversation.

A/N: I am so so sorry for the wait! Computer problems, you know what it's like. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thank you very very much for the reviews on the previous chapter! Anyway, until next time. :)