"I'm not hungry, Dean," I whined. "My stomach hurts."

"Jessie, it's been three days since you ate more than five bites at any meal. If you want to go with us today, you. will. eat," Dean said, raising his eyebrows and gesturing at my oatmeal.

I sighed and poked my spoon into the oatmeal, twirling it around to make gouges and designs. The guys were dressed up like FBI agents again, this time to meet with the fire investigator who had looked into the cause of the fire that Audra had gone missing during. I wanted to go. I needed to find out what happened to her, to hear all the details. I needed to see if I could find any indication at the site that would tell us where Gabby had headed next. Even after crying all over Dean this morning and after he'd told me all about how I wasn't at fault, I couldn't let it go. I just couldn't. If I'd let her take me, these girls wouldn't be missing and probably dead.

I took a spoonful of the oatmeal and swallowed it, not even tasting it. It went down easy, at least. I stuck the spoon back in the bowl and tried to get it to stand there in the oatmeal all on its own, but it wasn't working. After Dean had spanked me this morning, Sam had taken me out to run. There had been a park about a mile from the motel with an exercise course on it that included ropes to climb, chin-up bars, and stuff like that. We'd run down there and then he'd run me through the course. When I was good and exhausted, he explained in small and careful words that I was not to read any of the occult books without his express permission. Then he'd run me through this hellacious set of push-ups, squats, arm rotations, side straddle hops, and steam engines. If I thought I was exhausted before, I was wrong. Between the sleeplessness and the exercise, I was light-headed with exertion when I was done and very, very sure I never wanted to get caught with a book I hadn't asked about again.

I looked up at Sam and Dean. Dean was reading through a newspaper and Sam had his laptop open. I sighed. "We'll sit here as long as it takes for you to finish, little girl," Dean said, not looking up. I looked down at my oatmeal again. I took another bite, swallowing past the lump of guilt in my stomach. It hurt. How could guilt make an actual lump in my stomach that hurt to swallow past? I took another bite and then drank some milk with it. This time it went down easier. The oatmeal was basically cold now and only about a third gone.

When Sam and I had gotten back to the motel room after our workout, we'd showered, dressed, and packed up our stuff. Once we visited the site of the fire, we were most likely going to head out of town. I'd gone to get my backpack off of Sam's bed, anxious to get my notes on Gabby back to look at in the back of the car, but he'd lifted it out of my hand. "You'll get this back later," he'd said and slung it over his shoulder. He'd handed me my Game Boy and the beat up Harry Potter paperback that I was reading my way through. I'd taken them hesitantly and then looked up at him. "Take a break," he said shortly and walked out the motel room door with my multi-colored butterfly backpack over his shoulder. I'd've laughed if I hadn't wanted to cry so much.

"Can I be done?" I asked.

"Do you wanna come to the fire site?" Dean asked, looking up from his paper.

I met his eyes, pleading. "Yes," I whispered.

"Then no," Dean said, looking back down at his paper.

"It's cold," I complained. A tear rolled down my cheek unbidden.

Dean sighed and set his paper down. He waved the server over. "Can you heat this up?" he asked. "She doesn't want to eat it cold."

"Sure, man," the server said, taking the bowl from in front of me. "I'll bring it right back."

"Ok?" Dean asked me. He picked the paper back up.

"Yeah," I said. I looked down at the now empty table in front of me. I needed to get away from them for a while. I looked back up. "Can I be excused?" I asked. "I have to… you know."

"You come right back here when you're done," Dean said, pointing at me. "Don't screw around with me."

"Yes, Dean," I said. I got up from the table and walked around the separator wall that separated us from the hallway to the bathroom. Once I was in the bathroom, I went in the handicapped stall and washed my face. Leaning against the wall, I rubbed my hands up and down my arms. I'd been burning every other night and didn't need to light a fire, but I wanted to. It would make me feel better. I fought the urge though. If I got in any real trouble at all, they'd shut me down and I wouldn't be able to help any more. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply to try to calm down. When I figured that I'd delayed as long as I reasonably could, I left the bathroom, walking slowly down the hall. As I approached the edge of the wall, I heard Sam say my name. They were talking about me. I slowed down and shoved my back against the wooden wall to listen.

"She hasn't been eating. She's not sleeping. She's sneaking around to do research," Dean said. I could hear the pain in his voice and the guilt in my stomach spiked.

"I know you're worried, Dean. I'm worried, too. Listen, I'm going to get her to start her schoolwork again today. She can't spend all her time researching Gabby. She's driving herself nuts," Sam said. "I'll make research a condition on her finishing her schoolwork."

"You do that and she'll race through the schoolwork just so she can go back to the research. No. We have to restrict how often she gets to run her searches and how long she gets her notebooks."

"I don't know how effective that'll be, Dean. She practically has the notebooks memorized."

"We have to do something! She's making herself sick," Dean exclaimed. I jumped when his hand hit the table, the dishes clattering.

"Ok, look, we can't keep her from thinking about it, but we can distract her and we can keep her away from the laptop and the notebooks. If worse comes to worst, we can lock them in the trunk when we don't want her near them," Sam said.

"She's guilt-ridden over these other girls," Dean said. "That's what's eating her up. She thinks it's her fault because she's hiding from Gabby and so Gabby is looking for a new priestess."

I pushed away from the wall and crept back down the hallway away from them to take a few deep breaths before I walked up the hallway with more noise this time. I didn't know what to do with what I'd just heard. I felt bad worrying them both, but they didn't understand. How could they? The sacrificed themselves all the time for other people, but me? I was hiding, a coward, and other people were paying the price.

They'd stopped talking by the time I came around the wall, trying to look nonchalant. My oatmeal bowl was sitting there, just as full as it was when I left. I looked up at Dean. "He heated up your oatmeal," Dean said when I met his eyes. "You gonna finish it now or are you spending the day in the car while we talk to the fire investigator?"

I picked up my spoon and forced the oatmeal down in five large bites, not even tasting it. I drained the rest of my milk and looked at Dean. "Well?" I asked. "What are we waiting for? Let's go."

I walked behind Dean while I listened to the two of them talk to the fire investigator. I couldn't make any sense of what she was saying. She was leading us around the damaged building, going through all sorts of technical details about the fire, using big words with almost no meaning to me, but Sam was nodding his head like he knew what she was saying. Hell, he probably did. Dean was flipping through the report, looking at the pictures and presumably skimming the text. The investigator had Sam's full attention as she pointed to areas the walls and gestured while she spoke. I sighed. This wasn't helping me at all. I couldn't tell anything from out here. I needed to be in the building, but the investigator had said that the building wasn't safe. Sam asked her some question about accelerants, and I gave up. The building to my right had a huge hole in the wall where the wallboard and door had burned. The brick was covered in soot. I looked at Sam and then at Dean. I needed to know where to go to find Gabby next and the only way I was going to find out was in the basement. I swallowed hard and slipped into the building.

The inside of the building was dark and dusky. There was no electricity, but the holes in the ceiling and walls provided some ambient lighting, enough that I wasn't tripping. I pulled the ring out of my shirt and fingered it, thinking about Gabby. I could take it off and she'd just show up, and then I could take her down. But Dean said that I wasn't ready, that my training wasn't complete. I fiddled with the ring and headed further into the building, looking for a door that led to the basement. I didn't find one, but I did find a hole in the floor. It was significant because it wasn't singed or broken wood or stone. There was no wood or stone at all. Something had melted metal.

I got down on my hands and knees and peered into the basement. It was too dark and I couldn't see anything. I touched the melted metal bar and tugged on it. It was solid now and would hold my weight. Good thing I'd skipped all those meals, I thought without meaning it. I grabbed the bar with both hands and slid into the hole. As my feet dropped into the darkness, I heard Dean's voice holler my name.

I hung from the bar and stared beneath me. My eyes were adjusting to the lack of light, and I could see shapes about ten feet below me. I couldn't tell if it was safe to drop. I looked above me. I could pull myself out and go to Dean. Then he wouldn't kill me as much. I knew I was already in for it. I'd already left his sight without telling him where I was going or getting his permission. Or, I could drop down and look for signs of where Gabby had gone. Guilt fought with guilt and Gabby won. I let go of the bar as I heard Dean's voice come closer.

My feet hit on a pile of burned wood, ash, and beams, but I lost my balance and fell to my knees. I gasped as pain shot through me. My right knee and the palms of my hands were throbbing. It felt like I'd probably skinned them, but I couldn't see well enough to tell. I was tempted to set something on fire so I could see, but that seemed like a bad idea. My phone rang and I jumped. I dug the phone out of my hoodie pocket and answered it. "Hi," I said, my voice guilty.

"Where are you?" Dean growled.

"In the basement," I said, wincing.

"You stay right where you are, Jessie. We're coming to get you," Dean said.

"The floor isn't safe," I heard the fire inspector say. "It's not going to support our weight. She's much smaller than any of us."

"I'm going to get her," Dean said. Guilt flashed through me. He was going to risk his life to get to me and I wasn't even in any danger.

"Dean!" I said into the phone. "Wait! I can find my way out."

"No, Jessie. Stay put. You understand me?" His voice was rough.

"I'm fine," I said. "Nothing has happened. I can find my way out!"

"And I'm going to make sure you stay fine. Stay put, little girl," Dean said. He hung up before I had a chance to answer.

I looked at the phone. He didn't actually know where I was. He only knew that I was in the basement. The phone was giving off enough light that I could make out the boiler across the room. They'd found Grazyna's bones behind the boiler in Indianapolis… I pointed the light on the phone at the floor and made my way slowly across the broken slab to the exploded boiler. The heat must have been intense to crack the slab like this. Once I'd picked my way to the boiler, I aimed the light from the phone behind it. There was definitely something back there. I stuck my arm behind the boiler and prodded the pile. It broke apart in my hand, but I managed to grab something. I pulled it out. It was a charred bone, a long bone, like from a leg.

Horrified, I dropped the bone. Audra was definitely dead. I swallowed hard.

"Jessie?" I heard Dean yell. I stared at the bone on the floor, unable to holler back. My throat was dry and sore. Tears dripped from my eyes into rubble on the floor, onto the bone. I was so selfish. She'd died because of me. "Jessie! Answer me!" Dean's voice came from closer now.

"I'm here," I tried to say, but my voice wouldn't work. Unable to help myself, I reached back behind the boiler and grabbed something else. This one had jagged parts. It was too wide to pull out the same way I'd pulled out the leg bone. I stood on my toes and lifted it up and over the top of the boiler. When I saw what it was, my sight wavered. The pain in my knees flared and pushed me out of shock. I was on my knees, holding Audra's charred skull in my hand. The top half of the part that held the brain was gone… like her head had exploded. I dropped the skull next to the leg bone, my stomach heaving.

I dropped onto my hands and threw up. Dean's voice seemed like it was getting farther away. The ring rocked free at the end of the chain around my neck. Gabby.

Gabby would come if I took off the ring. I couldn't kill her yet, but she'd take me with her and stop hunting these other girls. I balanced on my knees and unfastened the necklace. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. This was better. This was the only answer. I held the necklace in my hand, closed my eyes, and let go.

"No, sweetheart," Dean said quietly next to me. I opened my eyes as he put the necklace back around my neck. "No. You're not sacrificing yourself today. Come on. I'll get you out of here."

I burst into guilty, terrified, and relieved sobs and clung to him as he picked me up and carried me out of the building.