When Dean tells me that he and Sam have decided to include Bobby in our plans, I almost slice my finger on the blade I'm sharpening by mistake. It's subtle so they don't catch it. I put down my tools and give my brothers my full attention.

"What are you talking about?"

"We talked about it and we need him." Sam says with a shrug even though his eyes keep breaking away from mine. "We need all the help we can get."

"Bobby hates me."

"Bobby doesn't hate you." Dean says

"He hates me."

"He doesn't hate you. He's freaked out, okay? But he doesn't hate you. I'll talk to him. In the meantime, he's all we got. Sam's right, we could use all the help we can get."

I pick up the knife and begin sharpening again. They're not listening to me. They never listen to me. Dean walks over and puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Hey."

I look up at him and cock an eyebrow.

"I'll talk to him."

"I don't care, Dean." I don't care what Bobby thinks of me as long as he stays out of my way and out of my brothers' heads. He may have them fooled into thinking he's some sort of pseudo father figure, but I'm not impressed.

Music box chimes. Bobby dead and bloody. Slumped over in his chair. Blood drizzling from his hat. My hand grips around the knife so tightly that my knuckles turn white for a moment and then I release it. He'd be more of a mess for me dead than alive. I'm not angry anymore.

"Call him." I shrug and look up, but Dean is already across the room dialing. Sam looks over his shoulder at me as he lays the suit that matches the one that Dean's wearing out on the bed.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. Where're you guys going?"

"Hospital. Gotta make sure we're on the right track."

"Swine flu."

"Swine flu." He nods, "hey, do me a favor?" He asks and tosses a pair of socks at me. I catch them and set them down beside me.

"Hey Martha" Dean clicks at me, moving the phone away from his mouth, he grabs a pair of torn jeans from his duffle and hauls it at my face. I catch it right as it hits.

"Asshole."

"Hey Ev-" Sam calls.

I look over just in time to see his jeans smack me right in the face. I pull them off and throw them on the ground.

"Evan" Dean says. I don't even look this time and I'm barraged with dirty shirts and pants all aimed directly at my head.

"You dicks!" I shout and throw the clothes on the ground as they continue to fly at me. I run to the bathroom for shelter.

I hear the front door open and close. Dean, Sam, and the suit are gone when I open come back out of the bathroom. Sam, now in his suit, is leaning against the Impala talking to Dean, who's still on the phone.

"Alright." I can hear Dean faintly say as he climbs into the driver's side of the car. Sam glances over at me and waves. I raise my hand and close the curtain.

I eat pizza and watch the sports channel while I'm in the room alone tending to the laundry. I'd missed baseball. I hardly have the chance to watch it anymore so when it comes on, I turn the volume up all the way and imagine that I'm there at the baseball park seeing it live. I don't know much about the sport. Only that I love how it makes me feel when the bat connects with the ball and I hit a homerun. The adrenaline, the energy, the rush as I make a break for home… maybe my brothers and I could go see a game some day.

The chores only take an hour and I'm running out of projects to do since I save most of my knitting and crocheting for entertainment on road trips. In truth, I haven't been able to get Haydn out of my mind since I died. I keep wondering where she is and what she's doing, who she's with and if she ever thinks about me. It makes me feel restless and now I don't have any way of contacting her at all… But she is a teenage girl and teenage girls are on the Internet these days, right?

I dig through Sam's bag and take out his laptop.

"Alright, Sam. What's your password?"

It was probably something hard to crack, nothing cheesy like 'pie' or 'password' like Dean would use. I typed in password as a joke and pressed enter. I was in shock when it worked. My brothers are idiots. I clicked the web browser and searched the web for Haydn Pruitt.

A lot of what I find has nothing to do with Haydn at all. The search thinks I spelled her name wrong and suggests I spell it with an "e" at the end but she told me that her mom thought her name looked tougher without it, so they didn't add one in. I can't find her on any social media sites that show up in the results, but they all recommend signing up for a better look. That's stupid. I don't even have an email address. There has to be an easier way, and for a small moment, I contemplate asking Sam for help.

I know what he'll do. He'll give me that pained look and furrow his brow, and tell me about how dangerous it is for me to look for her. She's safe now and shouldn't be back in this. Let her go.

I tap my fingers over Sam's keyboard and sigh heavily; his imaginary conversation with me is just as irritating as the real one would have been.

"I can't." I grumble to myself as I clear out his recent history and shove the computer back in his bag.

I'm feeling restless. The room is clean, the laundry is done, and the weapons are sharpened, cleaned, polished, and organized. I need something to do. I slip my cellphone into my back pocket; grab the room key and head out the door.

I meet Kirsten a half a mile down the road in between the Sasha's Super Slushies and the motel. She's sitting with her head on her knees on the pavement in front of the rear tire of a navy pickup; orange hair reflecting brightly against the hot Nevada sun. Her yellow sandals match her toenail polish and she's crying. There's a bruise on her arm. I stand in her sunlight and cast a shadow over her tiny figure.

"You okay?"

She lifts her head up to me and squints hard. "Who're you?"

Does it matter?

"My name's Evan. Are you okay?"

"Hi Evan. I'm Kirsten." She says and wipes her eyes with a huff. "I'm fine. I will be fine. Just… guy troubles. You know."

"What kind of guy troubles?"

My eyes flick over to the bruise on her arm and back at her face. She looks puzzled for a moment before she starts laughing.

"Oh my God, no. This little thing? I bruise all the time, low iron. Paul is a dick but he's not dumb enough to try something like that."

"Great."

I roll my eyes and start away. Her irritating cackling stops abruptly and I hear her shuffle after me.

"Wait." She frowns, inserting herself in my path. "That was real sweet of you to be concerned. I wasn't laughing at 'ya. You know most guys wouldn't have even stopped and asked if I was okay, so thank you for that."

Her eyes are welling up again so I nod, but she doesn't move out of my path. She takes a deep breath and exhales. The gold chain hanging from around her neck falls into her cleavage. Suddenly I feel the urge to fish it out with my teeth.

"What'd he do to you?" I ask flicking my eyes back up to her emerald pair.

"Cheated on me. Found out last night. Four years. Nothing." She says through clenched teeth. She takes a deep breath and fights back a sob.

Her lips are pink and swollen from crying.

"He asked me to meet him here with his-no, his mom's truck because him and his dumb friends are too drunk to drive it here themselves and they need me to tote them around all day, and of course I'm stupid enough to do it because I love him. I'm just so angry. I don't know what to do, Evan. What would you do?"

I don't answer her. I wouldn't know what to say to her if I had cared enough to put thought into an answer. She doesn't wait; she takes a step towards me. Her eyes pass over my face slowly until her gaze is locked into mine. She bites her bottom lip briefly and a tear rolls down her cheek. I brush it away with my thumb and kiss her.

The backseat of Paul's mom's truck is filthy. I can feel crumbs of something bready digging into my knees while we move. She's grabbier than the others were. She pulls at my hair, neck, shirt, and whatever else she can cling to and hangs on with every ounce of strength she has. Even her toes curl around my ankles and she won't let me flip her on her stomach; every time I try to, she starts kissing me again. Her nails dig into my back and she calls me Paul before she starts sobbing like a lunatic. I pull up my pants and get out of the truck after that.

Two guys, a short one and a shorter one with a cat, stumble out in front of me after I slam the door shut.

"Evan." I can hear the girl sniffling from the other side of the truck.

"Who the hell are you?" The short one slurs

"Paul." Kirsten gasps.

And suddenly I'm in the middle of a teen movie. Where the hell are Sam and Dean already?

"Who the hell is this guy?" Paul squints

"I'm Evan."

"He's my friend."

"I'm Paul."

"I gathered."

"This is Brent."

"I don't care." I say and check my phone for missed calls. Nothing. I slip it back into my pocket and start back for the motel.

"Baby. Look what we found." I hear from over my shoulder.

"Aw, he's so cute."

"We found him over by the dumpster. Look, look, look."

I do. The inebriated Brent is holding a string out in front of the unresponsive cat as if there's going to be a show. How amusing.

"We're gonna go see if we can wake him up." Paul laughed.

I taste bile in my mouth at the thought of what they could possibly have planned. Somehow the thought of leaving this innocent creature in the hands of these intoxicated sadists is monstrous. The cat has done nothing to them but live and they've chosen to torture and laugh about it. This is the humanity that I've sworn to protect. These are the people I'm forced to save. As I hear the all to familiar sound of my rage chime and the calm pass over me, I turn to them and smile.

"Dude, take me!"

As I wash the blood from my hands back at the motel room, it's nighttime and Sam and Dean are just getting home. I look over at the cardboard box where Loretta is napping and smile. I know Sam and Dean won't let me keep her, but she's safe now. I saved her. Dean sneezes loudly.

"Hey, we're back." Sam announces as I dry my hands off.

"You were gone for a long time."

"It's been a long day" Dean grumbles, "and it's still not… what the hell is that?"

"Oh, it's-"

"It's what?" He barks at me impatiently and grabs the box. He rolls his eyes heavily and shoves the box into my chest.

"What the hell is it with you and stray animals? No! Not in the room. Not in the car. Not within 10 feet of me. Not ever."

"Sam-"

"Sam knows the rules. Get it out of here, now."

"She's hurt, Dean."

"I got her." Sam says as he takes the box from me. "I'll see if the animal hospital is still open."

"I'll come with you."

"You sit." Dean snaps at me.

"But-"

He points to my bed and I sink down on it, watching ruefully as Sam leaves without me.

"You were busy today."

"Not really."

"Where'd you get the cat?"

"I was walking to that slushie place and I saw her. These monsters tied cans to her, Dean. I couldn't just leave her there. I had to save her."

He sighed and frowned heavily. "Dick kids."

"Sadists." I correct. "They didn't deserve to live. Not after what they did to her."

His eyebrows pull together hard at me. "That was a dick move, they shouldn't get away with it, but they shouldn't die for it. They were probably just some troubled kids."

"Everyone has troubles, Dean. Start making excuses for people and soon everyone is gonna be able to just do whatever they want."

"I'm not making excuses for them, it was wrong. I'm just saying that being wrong doesn't warrant the death penalty."

"Maiming and torturing an innocent creature doesn't warrant the death penalty?"

"Tying cans to a cat doesn't warrant the death penalty." He says, eyes widening at me.

I bite back a bitter scoff at his hypocrisy. This is coming from a man who will slaughter a creature without blinking for feeding on human blood for the sake of survival, but when a human torments an animal for fun, it's fine.

"Whatever those kids were going through that made them lash out like that is the problem." He says, "They need help."

"Sometimes people are beyond help, Dean. You can't help evil."

"Nobody is born evil. People are born good and then stuff happens. They get banged up on the way with nobody there to help them. That's how bad people are made." He says gruffly. His eyes, green like Kirsten's were, burn into mine.

I don't share his optimism but I nod anyway because he feels so strongly about this and I want him to be happy with me. I even give him a little smile.

"When you found the cat… it was alone, right?" He asks finally, "Whoever did that to it was long gone?"

I let my brow crease and give him a frown. "Yeah, they already gone by the time I showed up."

"How did that thing with Bobby go?"

"Good." He says too casually, "I talked to him. There won't be a problem."

"Oh yeah?"

"We've got bigger fish to fry anyway."

"You mean Pestilence and Death?"

"Think smaller, Crowley sized fish."

"Enough with the fish, Dean. What are you talking about?"

"We need Crowley to find Pestilence."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Nope. Get ready, we're leaving when Sam gets back."

Turns out that Sam's just as skeptical as I am when it comes to trusting Crowley again, unlike Dean is oddly comfortable with this whole stupid plan. I don't like it. I really don't like it when Crowley suggests that he and Dean leave without us.

"They're not coming."

"And why the hell not?" Sam growls

"Because I don't like you. I don't trust you. And- oh yes, you keep trying to kill me. Not to mention The Omen over there just gives me the creeps in general." He says with a nod in my direction. I ball my hand into a fist and he raises his eyebrows.

"There's no damn way! This isn't going to happen!" Sam shouts

"I'm not asking you, am I? 'cause you're not invited." He turns to Dean and points. "I'm asking you. "What's it gonna be?"

I didn't know Brady when Sam did, obviously, but I hate seeing my brother so emotionally charged up over the guy. I don't think I've ever seen Sam worked up over Jess before. I didn't think he remembered her. When Dean pushes Sam out of the room I step forward for a better look, but Crowley stops me in my tracks.

"Not so fast, Damien. Why don't you run along and check on your brothers? The grownups are talking."

I glare back at him without saying a word. I'm not leaving from this spot. His forehead crinkles at me and turns back to Brady.

"Right, then. Anyway, you can do the math yourself. If Lucifer wins, he'll turn this place into his kingdom. When the Morningstar cleans house, we all get the mop."

"He created us. Why would he destroy us? That makes no sense."

"Look at who-at what he is. Then take a look at what we are."

"Maybe you should be a little less worried about our necks and be a little more worried about yours." Brady snorts

"Has crossed my mind. That's not really the point."

"Actually, Crowley, that is the point. No one will know greater torment than you. Lucifer is never gonna let you die. As for me, I know the score. I'm dead, whether I tell you anything or not. So I think I'll die on the winning side, thanks."

"Good talk. Cheers." Crowley says and leaves the room, brushing past me as he goes.

I take a good look at Brady and wonder if he'll ever come around to helping us. I know I'm not in any position to determine that so I don't make a move towards him. He grins at me.

"So you're Evan Winchester. I've heard a lot about you. I didn't think you'd be so tall."

I cross my arms and cock my brow at him. "What are you talking about?"

"You, Evan. Surprised? Not enough people talk about you, do they? The youngest Winchester boy. Always overlooked. Nobody sees your potential, do they?"

Demon talk. I roll my eyes. Do they have seminars for this stuff? They all sound the same.

He shrugs in his seat and scoffs. "I know you don't want to hear it, but you've been kept in the shadows your whole life, kiddo. If it's any consolation, I think all of this should've been for you. Not him."

I hear a door slam as Sam storms into the room. Dean is calling out to him to let him out of the bathroom.

"Don't" Sam snarls at me.

I hesitate for a moment and then I hear Dean call to me so I make a run for the door. Sam catches me before I make it to the hallway. I hear Brady laughing from the other room. He's talking about Jessica again. Sam's hand closes tightly around Ruby's knife. His face is turning red.

"Sam." I say and grab his head. "He's trying to get to you. Don't let him."

Sam grips my shirt with his fists. The edge of the knife pokes a hole into my sleeve, but I don't think he notices.

"Sam." I say, moving my grip to his shoulders to escape the angle of the knife. I don't know if he can hear me over the demon's monologue. I pat his hair. He's sweating a lot.

"Come on, it's okay." I nod. "It's okay."

He relaxes his grip on my arms and heaves a sigh, pushing me out of the way gently and removing the chair barricading Dean inside of the bathroom.

"What happened?" Dean asks pushing past him

"Nothing."

"My ass."

"Dean, I'm fine."

"Yeah? And what about Brady?"

"Like you said. We need him." Sam says and looks back at me. Dean gives me a quizzical look and I shove my hands into my pockets. I feel pretty good about being able to talk my brother down from the ledge. He almost lost it in there and killed Brady. He almost ruined everything.

I vomit on the floor.

"Sure you're okay?"

"I'm alright."

"What about you, pukey? How're you doin' back there?"

"Shut up, Dean. I'm fine."

"Alright. You feel like hurling again, let me know so I can pull over. I don't need you blowing chunks all over the backseat."

"I said I'm fine."

We drive all night, headed for Bobby's place. When I sleep I have nightmares. There's always so much blood. Bobby's there. He whispers something into Dean's ear and Dean shakes his head at me and disappears. I can't speak. I don't have a mouth. Kirsten cries in the corner of the dumpster with her head on her knees. I touch her shoulder. When she looks up at me, her face is covered in black fur and matted in blood; her gold chain swings freely around her neck. She meows.

I back away from her and step on something soft. I turn and see Sam standing behind me. He's crying too.

"I have to go." He says. He's not looking at me. He's looking at Kirsten. She's sobbing meows at me. "I'm sorry, Evan. I have to." He says and runs away. I run after him but I can't keep up. My legs are slow and heavy. Everything is dark around me now. I can't see where I'm going.

Ellen appears in front of me, shrouded in light. "Be a good boy." She shouts.

I wake up drenched in sweat. The car is empty and parked outside of roadside coffee shop. I can see Sam standing on a long line through a window. Dean might be in the bathroom. I feel myself shake under my blanket as I crawl underneath it. I can't help, stop, or explain the tears that spill from my eyes, but the episode doesn't last. I'm fine by the time my brothers return. We'll all be okay in the end. It's the final stretch. We're almost there. We'll win this and be together and we won't have to be afraid anymore. No more nightmares. It's okay. We'll all be okay.