Here's the next chapter! Enjoy!
Gracilynn bolts up, breathing heavy, the image of her mother's bloody body still seared into her brain. She feels two hands on her and she knocks them off, throwing a punch in front of her.
"Hey, hey, hey," a voice says, dodging out of the way. "It's just me."
Gracilynn clears her foggy vision and looks in front of her. Her dad is sitting on the bed, looking at her warily, waiting for her to throw another punch. Gracilynn forces herself to calm down and seeing she's doing this, Dean relaxes himself.
"You all right?" Dean asks, studying his daughter in front of him.
"'M fine," Gracilynn replies.
"Really? 'Cause you were having a pretty bad nightmare," Dean points out.
"Stupid spider dreams," Gracilynn says off-handedly. Dean looks at her and sees the haunted look in her eyes.
"Never seen you react like that to a spider dream," Dean calls her out. Gracilynn shoots him a glare.
"I'm fine, dad," she says firmly.
"Yeah, sure you are," Dean replies doubtfully.
"You know, bottling it up inside isn't going to help you any," Sam's voice says, coming from the bed next to her. Gracilynn looks over at her uncle, who's sitting up in his bed now, and scowls.
"There's nothing to talk about. I'm fine," Gracilynn replies.
"You keep saying that, yet, no one here believes you," Dean counters.
"Can't you two just drop it?" Gracilynn asks angrily.
"Not when you've only been getting like, two hours of sleep every night since the herpe thing," Dean says.
"There's nothing to talk about!" Gracilynn shouts, yanking her sheets off and frustrated, climbs out of her bed. "I'm fine! So, stop pushing it!"
Dean watches as Gracilynn all but stomps into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Dean sighs and looks over at his brother.
"Well, that didn't go as planned," he says. Sam sighs himself.
"Can you blame her? She does just what you do. Clams up, gets angry, and stomps off," Sam says.
"I do not stomp off," Dean retaliates.
"No, you drive off but she can't very well drive anything unless she takes the Impala can she?" Sam points out.
"Something's going on with her," Dean says, rubbing a hand through his hair and down his face.
"Yeah, I know," Sam says, mimicking his brothers' position, sitting on the side of the bed, feet on the floor and arms resting on his knees.
"No, I mean something more than the whole Bobby thing," Dean clarifies.
"Yeah, but what?" Sam asks.
"Hell if I know," Dean says, sharing a look with his brother.
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Dean glances from the TV to the table where Gracilynn is sitting, looking up something on Sam's computer. Dean looks over at his brother in the other bed to see him pretending to read the book in front of him. He says pretending because he can see Sam studying Gracilynn from overtop the book. Dean looks back over at his daughter, studying her himself. To anyone else, she would look fine. But to him, he could see the tenseness in her shoulders, the exhaustion circles under her eyes, and the sidetracked look she always seems to have on her face. Sam seemed to have picked up on it as well.
"I think I got something," Gracilynn announces, not looking from the computer screen.
"Like what? You sick or something?" Dean asks, sitting up. He doesn't miss the eye roll from his daughter.
"No, dad. I mean, I think I found us a hunt," she says.
"Wait, that's what you were doing on the computer?" Dean asks. He looks over at Sam and sees he has disregarded his book and is listening intently.
"It's a town about an hour east of here. Within the past month five people have died of exhaustion," Gracilynn says.
"Exhaustion?" Sam asks. Gracilynn sighs in frustration and looks over at her dad and uncle.
"Yeah, exhaustion. Like they kept going until they literally dropped dead because they couldn't go anymore," Gracilynn explains. Dean bites his tongue on the sarcastic remark he's about to retaliate with. Did he mention she'd been testy too?
"I guess we could go check it out," Dean says.
"I'm telling you. It's a job," Gracilynn says, grabbing her bag and heading into the bathroom to get ready to leave.
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"All right, you two can go talk to the victims' families," Dean says to Sam and Gracilynn. "I'll go meet up with the coroner."
"Wait, you don't want to talk to grieving families?" Sam asks sarcastically. Dean just shrugs his shoulders.
"Yeah, well, now that I don't have to watch your soulless ass all the time, it doesn't matter if I'm there or not," Dean replies, grabbing his coat and heading out the door. Sam and Gracilynn hear him yell back at him. "The coroner is just a few blocks away. I'll leave the Impala."
"You'll let me drive right?" Gracilynn whispers to her uncle. Sam begins nodding but Dean pokes his head back into the room and stares them down.
"You are not allowed to drive," Dean says, pointing at Gracilynn. Then, pointing at Sam, "You are not allowed to let her drive."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sam and Gracilynn say. Dean narrows his eyes before disappearing once again, shutting the door behind him this time. Gracilynn looks over at Sam.
"I won't tell if you won't," she says.
"Sounds good to me," Sam says, getting up off his bed and grabbing his clothes.
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"Okay, so maybe there is something here," Dean admonishes as he walks into the hotel room. Sam and Gracilynn look up at him, Gracilynn looking pleased.
"Told you," she says.
"So, what d'you find out?" Sam asks.
"All of the victims? They all had excruciating amounts of Oxytocin in their blood," Dean says.
"Oxytocin? The hormone produced during sex?" Sam asks, his mind already reeling with what they could be dealing with.
"Yeah, and they all actually died of exhaustion," Dean says.
"So, what could this?" Gracilynn asks.
"You got me," Dean says, throwing his jacket on the chair. Sam already has his computer booted up and is looking in the search engine. "You two find anything?"
"Yeah," Gracilynn says when Sam doesn't say anything, lost in research. "It goes along with your Oxytocin thing. All of the victims' family said that the days leading up to their deaths they were…getting a lot of action."
"Okay," Dean says, "But they were all young men. There was only one female."
"Yeah, but the families? They said the victims' got around but in those few days before they died? They became the energizer bunny," Gracilynn says.
"Her words, not theirs," Sam says from the table.
"Okay, so what? We're looking for a creature? God?" Dean thinks aloud.
"Not sure," Sam says, "I haven't come up with anything yet. I'll keep looking though."
"You do that," Dean says, grabbing his keys. "I'm gonna go grab dinner."
"See if they've got any Cheese Fries!" Gracilynn shouts as her dad exits the room. Gracilynn goes back to flipping through the channels on the TV. Moments later, however, the Impala door opens and shuts once again and determined footsteps are heard walking up to the door. Dean tries to open the door, but realizes he forgot the room key. Instead, he bangs on the door. Gracilynn and Sam look over at each other and share a look.
"Tell me you put the seat back," Sam whispers harshly.
"I thought you did it," Gracilynn whispers just as harshly.
"Why would I do it?" Sam asks.
"Because you were supposed to be driving. It had to be back as if that was the case," Gracilynn whispers back.
"Open the door," Dean demands.
"Yeah, Uncle Sam, open the door," Gracilynn says.
"One direction. One. And you guys can't even handle that," Dean yells through the door.
"I'm not opening the door," Sam whispers. "You open the door."
"He's gonna kick my ass," Gracilynn says.
"He'll kill me," Sam replies.
"Fine. Don't open the door," Dean yells. "But I've got the food. And sooner or later, one of you has to come out."
Footsteps are heard stomping off and a car door opening and shutting. The Impala's engine rumbles and Dean squeals out of the parking lot. Gracilynn and Sam look away from the door and back at each other.
"Why couldn't I drive the Impala again?" she asks, louder now that Dean's gone.
"That's important right now why?" Sam asks.
"Because we have to come up with a good argument otherwise we're both toast," Gracilynn points out.
"I don't know. You weren't grounded were you?"
"Not that I know of. So, I'm gonna say no 'cause dad's pretty good about making it obvious when I am," Gracilynn replies.
"You have been pretty bitchy lately," Sam points out.
"And you guys have been prying lately," Gracilynn says sarcastically, giving her uncle a look.
"We aren't the one who haven't been sleeping. Having nightmares. And is obviously hiding something," Sam throws back.
"That's it!" Gracilynn says, diverting the attention away from at least the last statement.
"What's it?" Sam asks, noticing the topic change.
"Dad didn't want me to drive because I've been so tired lately," Gracilynn says. "Which means, if I had taken a nap…"
"You wouldn't be tired anymore and therefore could drive," Sam finishes, smirking. Gracilynn returns it with one of her own.
"I think we've been around dad too long," Gracilynn says.
"No, I just think it's a Winchester thing," Sam replies.
AN: Please review and let me know what ya'll think! Thanks for reading and reviewing!