26. Lily

We arrived at Brian's house later that day, while the sky was noticably darkening and the wind had picked up into a sharp chilly whiplash against our skin. Mira had obviously forgiven me, and I could tell were were on better terms when we parked, because she began discussing the interview up ahead. Neither of us knew what to expect while talking to Brian, but since he was a werewolf, I knew we would have to tread lightly with our questioning. Which meant that Mira was going to be doing all of the talking.

A large, burly looking man answered the door with a hard expresion, his unusually tight eyes darting between Mira and I. He reached up one hand to scratch at his thick beard, and as he did this, I tried to swallow the nervous lump that had risen inside of my throat. "Hi," I said, stepping towards him. "I'm Agent Harrington, and this is my partner, Agent Collins. We were wondering if we could have a few minutes with Brian?" I took a chance at assuming this wasn't him who had answered, because deep down I was sincerely hoping that it had't been him. To my great relief, the man stepped back away from the door, and hollared to someone behind him that Brian had a vistor.

There was the sound of a gentle murmuring in the background, terribly quiet in comparison to this man's loud, gruff voice, and then he turned back to us, moving to the side so we could enter his home. "Brian's upstairs in his room. Y'all can go right on up." He watched Mira and I as we entered, looking generally curious and, almost suspicous as to why two agents were knocking on his door, wanting to talk to his son. When we started up the short wooden stair case that was to the left of the small foyer, he called after us, "He hasn't done anything, has he?"

Despite his rough exterior, this was obviously a man who cared about his son, and judging from the way his eyes had softened, waiting for our answer, I could tell he wasn't wanting to hear anything bad. So, I just nudged Mira who was a step ahead of me on the stairs, and she turned around to give him a reassuring smile. "That's what we're here to find out."

Upstairs, we were met with a short, dark hallway with not a single window in sight. Mira exchanged a nervous expression with me, and I noticed her hand was hovvering beside her jean's waist band where her hand gun was hidden. I would have done the same, but after looking back down the stairs and seeing Mr. Patterson watching us with the same, worried expression, I decided it wasn't necissary, not right now, and shook my head at Mira for her not to bother either.

I was about to ask her which door she thought we should open first, since none of them were standing out, when a strange sound emitted from the one closest to us. It was an odd sound, and definitely and unexpected one. When I looked at Mira, her eyes were wide, having recognized it at the same time I did. It was a whimpering, almost like a dog.

Or, a wolf.

Pressing a finger over my lips, I began quietly towards the door, grabbing for my gun.

The sound continued, that same whimpering moan coming from the room. I looked back at Mira quickly as I neared it, giving vague motions with my free hand that signalled her to stay back as I opened the door. She nodded once, and I heard a slightly muted click as she muffled the cocking of her gun in the sleeve of her shirt, no doubt trying not to let the parents down stairs hear her.

"Brian?" I asked tentatively, closing my hand around the door knob. "Are you-"

"I told you to leave me alone!"

I wasn't expecting that tone of voice. Whoever was in there, if it was Brian, was sounding very upset. Casting Mira a confused look, I threw open the door, and took a step inside the dark room. Not much was visible, since the curtains were drawn and the only source of light was from a flickering television set in the far corner. What I could see, though, was a teenage boy lying face down on the bed, his legs hanging over the end as he buried his face in his pillow.

"Er, hi." Mira came in the room behind me, frowning at the tall figure who was sobbing. "I'm Agent Collins, and this is Agent Harring-"

"I don't care who you are! Just get out!"

Mira looked taken aback, but she persisted, moving even closer to the bed with gentle, cautious motions. "Brian, can you please talk to us, just for a minute?" I inhaled sharply as she reached out a hand to touch his shoulder blade, and then bit back my natural instinct of telling her not to. Despite the reason we were there, I wasn't able to see a werewolf anywhere. All I could see was a teenage boy, breaking into a million little pieces before us.

When Mira's fingers brushed his shoulder, he rolled onto his side, giving us a full view of his tear stained face, pinched eye brows, and quivering lips. He looked shocked to see two women in his room, which you can read anyway you want, but there was no glint of interest or amusement in his eyes. There was just a pathetic sadness that made him look years older than I'm sure he was. As Mira tried her best to comfort him from a relative distance, his shoulders continued to shake, but I noticed he was calming down slightly in the presence of two FBI agents.

"So," I said, "Can you tell us what you were doing the night of Melinda's death?"

That was all it took, really.

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Brian's face crumpled, and he covered it with his hands as his body racked with sobs. "Oh God, Melinda! I'm sorry!" he cried out, surprising Mira a few steps backwards. "I'm sorry about what I said to you!"

"What did you say?" I asked, only to be drowned out by more of his muffled cries.

Mira touched his shoulder again, letting her hand rest there for longer than necissary. "Please, Brian. What did you say to Melinda?"

He was still sobbing into his hands, looking so much unlike a teenage boy, let alone a masochistic were-wolf. "Melinda broke up with me one day," Brian said through his trembles, slowly raising his face so that he and Mira were looking eye-to-eye. "She said I was too emotional. But without her, I'm nothing...and I called her house, reading my favourite lines from an Edgar Allen Blackheart Raven peom about a double suicide because I love her so much! And then that night...she...she..." he broke off before finishing and let his face drop again, letting out a pained howl.

I looked at Mira, and from the way she was rubbing at her eyes, I could tell that we were both thinking the same thing. There was no case here. All we had was a teenage boy, a softie, who was mourning the loss of his dead ex-girlfriend.

"Thank you for your time." Mira began towards the door where I was already turning around, heading back into the hallway. Brian didn't respond, and when the door was shut, Mira gave me a long look. "It wasn't him, Lily. You see it too."

"Yeah I know." we walked side by side down the stair case, and I gave a reaussring smile and nod at Brian's father, who had been looming at the bottom, watching our descent. "Don't worry, sir. Your son isn't in any trouble at all. Thank you for your time."

Back at the hotel, Mira was sitting extremely quietly on her bed, staring with hard eyes at the wall across from her. I had my laptop out, resting on my laptop while the fan silent whirled, but I had no idea what to search. We knew Brian wasn't the werewolf, so what was I supposed to look up? There was no research to be done, now. From here on it was going to take us putting our minds together, thinking hard, and most importantly, staying on task-

"I think we should call her." Mira suddenly said, and when I looked at her, she was staring back at me confidently.

"You really think she'll pick up?"

Tentatively, Mira tucked some of her hair behind her ear, and shrugged helplessly. "No, but it's worth a shot."

As afraid as I was about talking to her again, I felt something inside of me jump at the idea of it, and without argument, I grabbed for the cheap plastic hotel phone, and dialed Ash's cell phone number. While it rang, I anxiously twirled the cord around my finger, praying she would pick up. How much of an ego bruise would it be if she just sent me right to voice mail? That was something we told each other we would never do, not just because it could be an emergency, but because we were sisters, and sisters don't do that to each other, ever.

In the weeks being without her, I'd had some time to think about what she had done. Yeah, she screwed up. And we were going to be hard pressed to trust her when Angels were involved. I knew, especially, it was going to take some time to get back on Sam, Bobby, and especially Dean's good side. But, I also knew that one mistake shouldn't exile her forever, at least not from Mira and I. We'd gone through too much together just to let one of us slip away like that, right from our , I was worried sick. She drank heavily on a regular basis, despite my pleas for her not to, but how would she be during this period?

On the fifth ring, I got her voice mail.

"This is... you know who this is. I'm fucking busy, call-" there was a pause, some noises in the background including a car horn honking, and then she spat into the speaker, "-me later."

As I slowly place the phone back into its cradle, I exhaled slowly, feeling a head ache coming on. "Judging from the machine, she's doing wonderfully without us." Mira looked up when I said this, and I could see how worried she was.

"What makes you say that?"

"She's driving, which probably means she's already got a new case. Plus," I looked back at the phone again, my eye brows bunching together. "I could have sworn I heard someone else in the background, but I can't be sure."

Mira frowned. "Like, a guy?"

"Sounded like it."

Laying down on my bed, I fidgeted slightly, thinking about Ash. Where was she, and what was she doing? Had she already found people to replace us? It hurt to wonder, that last part, so I turned on my side, and tried my best to clear my mind of all thoughts of her. But it was useless, because Ash plagued my thoughts with all the questions I had. The most important one, though, was if she was alright. It was killing me, not knowing.

The television, which we had left flickering on low volume in front of us suddenly changed from a late 90's sticom into an urgent news bulletin. Sitting up again, I grabbed for the remote and quickly turned up the sound as a woman with a solemn expression spoke:

"...have just confirmed the cause of death for Melinda Goodwin, the young woman who was murdered several days ago. Police have released the name to Jeremy Roth, a homeless man living in the area who is arrested for the murder and cannibalism of the young girl." The woman noticeably shuddered before continuing, turning her face to a different camera so to add to the seriousness of the report. "The murder weapon has been confirmed to be a chinese chef's knife, more specifically a santoku-type, which police say the man must have gotten from a dumpster outside of a restaruant, as the blade was dull, but efficient enough for a sloppy murder. More on this, and other news, at eleven thirty."

I waited until the sitcom had returned to the screen before flipping the television off, stunned into silence. On her own bed, Mira had sat up as well to watch the news, ands looked equally speechless, shaking her head slowly.

"It...it wasn't a werewolf." I whispered.

"But how?"

I thought back to the morgue when we had examined Melinda's body. It seemed for sure like the job of a were wolf, but maybe we'd over looked something, like jagged edges on the cuts. I just couldn't believe that we had mistaken the job of a cannabalistic homeless man with a chef's knife to be a werewolf. Something was up. Mira and I definitely were never that careless.

Almost immediately, I knew what the problem was.

We were missing a vital piece to our group.

To put it simply, we were a tricycle missing a wheel, if that makes any sense. Without Ash, Mira and I weren't as efficient as we could be. I just wondered if the same was happening with her, wherever she was. Was she finding it hard to work a case without us, as well?

Just then, the phone rang. Startled, I grabbed for it, and pressed it against my ear in the hopes that it would be her. "Hello, Ash?"

"Sorry, no. Are you a friend of...Ozzy Rose?" I didn't recognize the nervous female voice on the other end, but I did recognize the name she gave. I would have laughed, too, if I wasn't worried about Ash. She was getting lazier with the names.

"Yes," I answered, and then paused, feeling sick. "Who are you? Has...has something happened?"

"I'm nurse Graham at St. Alindale's Civic hospital, and I have you friend, erm, Ozzy here." the woman paused, and I heard her muffling the reciever of the phone to talk to someone briefly before coming back on again. "Sorry about that. Anyway, she's here, and told me you were her emergency contact. I need you to come down here immediately."

A/N: Hey, FinnHudsonxoxo here. So, this is our first update in...oh, about a month and a half, so yeah, it's kind of short. But the others will-SHOULD- be longer, so don't go thinking we're slowing down on the writing length or anything. Alright, so I think that's all I have to say about it. Enjoy the chapter, and should be up soon...ish? :) thanks for reading!