"Jessica." Brady toyed with the cookie remnants. His gaze went to a little plate of cookies she must have arranged with whatever batch she had finished right before he came in. It had a folded note on top that said: Miss You! Love you!
"What?" Jess asked, using the spatula to unstick the others from the metallic sheet. "You want another one?"
"Yeah." Brady stood up and walked over to grab one from the reserved plate. "This is sickeningly cute."
"Hey." She scolded. "Don't touch! Those are for Sam. Have one of these. They're warm anyway."
Brady paused, his hand hovering over them. He locked gazes with her and smirked.
"Brady," she held out her spatula like a weapon. "I will smack you. Those are for Sam. I made a whole other batch."
He gave her a little grin. "I've never had a problem taking what is Sam's."
She stepped back a fraction and he saw that same flicker of reticence in her eyes. She knew something was off.
He switched the path his hand traveled and grabbed one from the tray. "Okay, okay."
He bit into it. "So." He said around a mouthful of sugary carbs. "You know when he's coming back?"
"It's gotta be tonight. He has an interview tomorrow."
"Where'd he go?"
"I'm not sure where they ended up," she told him.
Brady gave her a little smirk. "You don't know a lot about your boyfriend."
That caught her off guard. He saw the surprise cross her face. "What do you mean?"
"Sam..." he bit into the cookie again. "You don't even know who he is."
She wrinkled her cute little nose. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"He hasn't told you any of his past, has he?"
She set the spatula down and wiped her hands on a dish towel. "Sure he has."
"Did he tell you what his family does?"
"His Dad was a salesman."
"Wrong." Brady replied flippantly.
"His brother is a mechanic."
"Wrong."
"Brady what are you talking about? I know Sam."
He tilted his head. "Wrong." A flash of dimples. "You're batting zero for three here, Jessica."
"What?" She'd completely abandoned the cookies and began to edge her way back from him. He tipped his head, watching her with a detached curiosity like a cat sizing up a vole.
He took another cookie. "Your boyfriend isn't the son of a salesman. His brother isn't a mechanic. And Sam has lied to you for the duration of your relationship." He took a bite. "Mm. Soft, my favorite kind."
She'd gone still and he could see the wheels turning in her lovely head.
"Yeah, you know deep down his story never added up... You know why it didn't add up?" Brady asked, waving the cookie in his hand. "Because it's bullshit." He said cheerfully. "See? This is good. Confession is good for the soul." He popped the rest in his mouth.
Jessica blinked. "Brady…" she stumbled over her words. "L..look I need to take a shower and go to bed so...let's call it a night, okay?"
"Don't you want to hear the rest of the tale? Don't you want the truth?"
She furrowed her brow. "No. I kinda don't right now. Look, you're my friend and I'm asking you to leave, okay? We can talk tomorrow."
"You think I'm your friend." He guffawed.
He saw her blue eyes light up with hurt.
"Wrong again! You are just full of wrong today."
She backed away more and he closed the gap between them with a large step, reached out and grabbed her by the throat.
She was easier to over power than a rag doll. He shoved her against the counter and she cried out, eyes wide with fear, hands trying to pry his grip off her neck.
"Now," Brady said, reveling in the feel of her blood singing underneath his fingers in her adrenaline driven terror. "You need to get changed. You have to look pretty for Sam. I have just the thing for you."
Dean narrowed his eyes and veered around a pothole. There were so many less of them out here than in the frost bitten parts of the country, and yet sometimes they took him by surprise. They didn't seem to belong here.
His brother was brooding beside him, folding and unfolding the map he had been working with.
The conversation, the ease, the sheer rightness of them being together had died with Sam's declaration that he was going back to Stanford.
Dean shoved his emotions down until he could feel a lump in his throat that made it hard to swallow. It was Sam's choice to make after all. His choice to leave his family again. Even though it was dire circumstances this time.
Dean could feel that little anxious gnawing in the pit of his stomach return. He was going to be alone. -Trying to find Dad alone. Sam being with him was temporary.
He blinked hard at the thought a few times. They'd never be what they had been growing up again. Sam would marry this chick, settle into his apple pie life with three kids and Dean would hardly have been a footnote.
Dean would hardly have been a footnote. ...And yet Sam had been his whole purpose.
He wondered if that was how his father felt about being cast aside by his youngest.
He missed his Dad. He was all Dean had left now. All that he'd had left since Sam had stormed out that door four years ago- was John Winchester. The man who fought for him, raised him, taught him everything he knew about how to be a man.
He needed him back.
Jessica stepped awkwardly into the white slip Brady had stashed in his jacket pocket. She was trembling, her clothes cast aside in a wad next to her. Brady realized he'd have to clean those up so that they didn't tip Sam off to something wrong.
"What are you doing?" She asked, her voice as unsteady as her legs. "Why, Tyson?"
She probably thought he was going to rape her. The thought had crossed his mind. But fear of Azazel kept him from it.
"I told you." A strap of her dress slid off her shoulder. He stepped forward, encroaching on her personal space like a lover and touched it with his finger. "You need to look pretty for Sam."
It would be his last memory of her after all, he left unspoken.
Jessica was terrified. He could feel her mind whirling with thoughts of escape. Biding her time, trying to figure out when to run. -Measuring whether she could catch him off guard with a blow to the head with a cookie sheet or a pan. He could almost smell the adrenaline on her. It was intoxicating.
Brady slid the strap back into place and let his finger linger on the bare skin of her shoulder longer than necessary.
He tilted his head, smiled with his vessel's charming dimples and All American looks.
"What are you doing?" She asked, feigning concern, her lip trembling. "If its drugs...we can...we can get you help. Please Brady."
Brady bent down to pick the wad of clothes up off the floor. He threw them in the oven and just as he suspected, Jessica made a break for it.
He lazily flicked his hand as he saw which exit path she was going to take and sealed the door shut.
Jess slammed into it and she tugged on it to no avail, frantic- so frantic she almost knocked loose one of the screws that held the doorknob. Brady headed toward her with the calm surety of a snake thrown a mouse in an aquarium.
She opened her mouth to shout for help and he realized it a split second before she got a sound out.
Well that wouldn't do. Someone might hear.
He cut her off by grabbing her arm and whirling her to face him, then pressing his hand over her mouth. Her protest came out as a squeak of terror. He pressed her against the wall, his body flush with hers. He could feel the soft flesh yield underneath him, her frantic panting breaths through her nose wet and warm against the back of his hand. She was such a temptation.
She struggled with him for a minute until she realized that it was utterly futile and she froze, eyes wide, like a frightened rabbit.
"Sam and his brother are about done with their little excursion. Should be on their way now." Brady let her go and he could feel the sudden release of tension as he backed away casually.
He reached out and snagged her arm, hauling her toward the bedroom. She leaned back against his pull, fighting, until he gave her a hard tug that nearly wrenched her arm out of its socket. "The melodrama isn't going to help, Jess."
She switched tactics. "Brady. We can help you. What is it you need? Money?"
He snorted.
"Then what? Please. Let me go. I won't report any of this."
Brady shook his head, releasing her wrist once they had crossed into the bedroom.
His eyes lit on the framed picture of John and Mary Winchester on their dresser. "Oh look. He still loves Daddy… even after all that." He picked it up. "You look just like Sam's mother. All that blonde hair. This pretty white outfit. I always wondered if he had a bit of an oedipal complex going on with you."
He turned to look at her. She was still terrified but she'd regained her composure amazingly well. She was an exceptional woman, really.
"Sam always wanted a mommy." Brady observed.
"Every kid wants a mommy," she said, wiping her eyes.
"And all he got was dear old alcoholic Dad obsessed with revenge." He set the picture back down with a laugh. "John Winchester was so over his head with two rugrats after his wife burned in that house."
"Revenge?" Her brow furrowed. She pursed her pouty lips. "Revenge on...who?"
"The thing that burned her."
Jessica's face betrayed her sudden puzzlement."It... it was just an electrical fire."
"Wrong." Brady said again, leaning against the dresser. "Man, I should write these down! I need to keep track of them." He paused to deliver the information. "Sam's mother was murdered."
He saw the air leave Jessica's lungs. "Murdered?"
He nodded. "Right in little Sammy's nursery. Twenty two years ago on this very day, in fact."
He saw the color leave her face.
Brady waved off her expression. "Don't worry. He was too young to remember," he scoffed. "Hardly a mind screw for him. Not the same for Daddy, I'm afraid. Daddy hasn't slept a decent night since it happened. Daddy is just a burned out shell of a pretty idealistic guy. Not anymore." He grinned. "You know why? 'Cause idealism is stupid! There, I said it. It's just stupid. This is the real world Jessica. Shit happens. If you don't know that, you're just an idiot."
Brady was enjoying himself. It was fun to have a captive audience to talk to this stuff about. She didn't look like she was having fun. Which made it more fun. Of course it would.
"So Daddy lost his shit and started dragging his kids everywhere in the continental US. And that's what Sam has been lying to you about. ...Well, one of the things. Among many." Brady paused again for theatrical effect. "John Winchester is ex-military. He raised Sam as a soldier."
He saw the surprise light her face.
"Yep. While you were learning to ride your bike and play with puppies, Sammy was learning to wield a knife and handle a shotgun. Not quite the childhood he told you about, huh?"
She said nothing.
"Your mild-mannered sweet Sammy is a bonafide hard-core trained killing machine, Jessica." He slapped the dresser, making her flinch. "Ain't that a kicker?! I mean, hello! Plot Twist. Am I right?"
"Sam's never fired a gun in his life," she tried.
"Wrong. He comes from a family of killers. He was deceiving you all the time he was banging that sweet beautiful body...I mean such a man, am I right? Of course I'm right! That's what men do...assholes." He kept up the friendly conversational tone. "Why do you think he never talks about his past ever? Why do you think he can best several men in a fight? Why do you think he's always such a sad sack? Put two and two together, Jess." He continued, sensing time was running short.
"Daddy disappeared on a hunting trip. Hunting. Yeah let that sink in. Big brother got so worried he had to come grab Sam to come deal with the aftermath. I mean, who knows what they'll find?"
He could see the goose pimples rise on her arms.
"What they'll find hunting?" She asked. "Hunting what?"
"Things like me."
Brady let his eyes turn beetle black.
Dean watched Sam walk into the door of his apartment building then turned his eyes on the road. He wanted to grab him and make him stay. Shake sense into him. He also knew he had to let him go. Sam was his own man and had to make his own decisions and he had always done that. Even when Dean didn't like them.
Sam offered Dean an olive branch. "Call me if you find him. Maybe we can get together sometime."
Dean had rebuffed the offer with a dismissive "yeah." A moment later he realized it came out a little harsher than he meant it too, softened it with a "we made a hell of a team back there."
He hadn't realized how much he'd missed Sam. How well they worked together, almost by instinct. A look, an imperceptible shrug, a sense of what their counterpart was feeling sent the brothers immediately adjusting their course to be in unison.
Even the presence of Sam in that passenger seat- brooding, quiet Sam... Dean had missed it so much. It was like having a paralyzed limb come back to life. And now...gone. Dean wrestled back the grief until he was left with anger and frustration-emotions he was better prepared to grapple with- and drove off.
The expression on Jessica's face was priceless. It was a combination of shock, betrayal and sheer unbridled terror like he'd never seen before. Brady held out his hand and used his powers to slam her against the wall and pin her there, mute, helpless.
"All your worst nightmares. All the things that go bump in the night. All the shit you were scared of as a child. Yeah. That's all real." Brady could hear the sound of the Impala growling. "And your hero has come. Except he's too late, baby."
He raised his arm and her body slid up the wall. Brady stepped behind the tall dresser. He moved her onto the ceiling just above the bed, her long tendrils of hair haloing her face like an elaborate crown of gold.
He held her there, suspended in mute terror. Unable to warn Sam. Unable to help herself. He could hear Sam coming up the stairs. His footsteps unconcealed. He had no clue.
Brady melted into the shadows and licked his lips. He waited until he heard Sam's arrival and call for his girlfriend. And then with nothing more than a thought, Brady opened her belly. He slit her womb- the womb that one day may have born Sam's child- and saw the line of red open up like a botched c-section.
Dean Winchester didn't drive far. The street was oddly silent. Even though it was late and that alone normally shouldn't have been an issue, it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The night wasn't just quiet. It was that preternatural silence that signaled something wrong. Like the silence that proceeded a storm or an animal stalking its prey.
He glanced at his wrist watch, squinted to read it in the dark. The second hand had stopped ticking. It was frozen. Lifeless. Ahead of him a street lamp flickered. His hunter's instinct went off with a clear warning. Something was wrong. Without another thought, Dean turned the car around.
"Jess, you home?" Sam walked into the darkened, shadowed apartment. "Jess?"
The physical tension he hadn't been realizing he was holding drained off of him suddenly and his shoulders loosened. He went to the kitchen. A plate of chocolate chip cookies greeted him. The room still smelled of them.
He immediately saw the little note that said: Miss you! Love you! Sam smiled and grabbed one, took a bite. She knew how much he loved her homemade cookies. He'd never had one before Jessica and never would after.
But he didn't know that yet.
Sam crossed into the bedroom and tossed his bag on the floor. He flopped onto the bed, settling ontop of the bedding with an indulgent sigh. It felt so good. His eyes closed. Home. He was home. And it would all be okay.
Something wet dripped on his face and he winced. He barely had time to react before another drip hit him.
He opened his eyes thinking there was a leak in the roof and there above him was Jessica Moore. Beautiful and terrified and bleeding from his ceiling. Sam's first instinct was to back away up the bed, scrambling for purchase. Panic shot through him. "Jess! No! No!"
And then somehow impossibly, she combusted into flames. Bright licks of flame streaming from her, consuming her and yet, not. Her face remained beautifully frozen. Adrenaline shot through him as he tried to figure out what to do. Tried to make sense of what was even happening, and the temperature in the room shot up as the scorching fire began to swirl in an angry cloud and consume the ceiling, the walls, everything.
"Jess!" He shouted.
And suddenly Dean was there, grabbing his flailing brother, who, running on sheer instinct, was trying to reach for his girlfriend. -Reach for the thing he loved most in all the world, even though the rational side of his mind should have told him that the action was futile.
"We gotta get out!" Dean hauled him backwards and Sam fought his brother like a man possessed, trying to run back into the fire that was taking the woman in his life for the second time.
"Sam!" Dean jerked him hard, hands fisted in his jacket.
Sam's long legs lost their purchase, tears steaming down his face. "Jess!" He cried, grabbing onto the battered leather of Dean's coat. "Jess!"
The fire roared and swirled and raged. Caught the writing desk Sam had saved all those years ago and sent the wood popping to life. Ate the curtains and Jessica's plants and the photograph of John and Mary Winchester.
And Jessica Moore herself.
Dean's raw strength won out and he pushed Sam back through the exit, which had miraculously stayed clear of flame, allowing their escape.
And for the second time in his young life, Dean Winchester clutched his little brother in his arms and they fled down the stairs into the clear Autumn night. The apartment exploded as their feet hit the pavement and Sam collapsed into Dean's solid embrace.
There was no John Winchester to hold them that night, but Baby stood there as she had twenty-two years ago- quiet, sleek, sturdy. She, the only witness to the twin events of November the Second, aside from two brothers.
Despite his subtleties and his convoluted schemes, Azazel hadn't foreseen everything. If he had, he would have burned her too.
Penultimate chapter! So hard to write. I bawled so hard I fogged up my glasses. Hahaha. If you can, drop me a review, pretty please! Stay tuned for the end.
Love, Celine.