When the massive lump on the bed behind me finally moved, it was almost twelve hours later. I had long since woken up, as had Serenity and Sam, but after explaining to them both how out of it Dean had been, we'd all agreed to let him sleep as long as we could or until he woke up on his own.

I left out the drunken kiss.

When Serenity got hotel fever, she offered to dump ice on Dean. I shook my head and threw myself down on the bed again, this time with my fully-charged Tablet to read on. It was a book on socio-pathology. It wasn't what I used to read for leisure, but I didn't feel like reading about horror when my life had become a collaboration between Dan Poblocki, Neal Shusterman, and Mary Hahn.

She and Sam left not long after to go out into town and find somewhere to get a meal. I could tell Sam felt a little bad for leaving me to babysit his own brother, but I waved it off. I didn't feel much like going out in public anyway, and if I had, then I wouldn't have been able to focus, between Cassie, Dean, and the Flying Dutchman… or whatever it is that we're calling the truck haunting its victims. Besides, Sam spent the majority of his life dealing with Dean. It wasn't going to kill me to watch over him for a short while.

For the last who-knew-how-long, I'd been on my side with my Tablet in one hand, reading the research text on top of the blankets. Dean had managed to roll over and throw an arm over my waist, his hand in front of my stomach and dozing against my shoulder tiredly. I'd let him. Serenity and I had very quickly learned that if there is another warm body in the vicinity, then a sleepy Winchester will latch on like a magnet. We think it's cute. They like to deny it later.

At first, his arm tightened around me before he realized what he was doing and then he let go. He grumbled tiredly, almost incoherently.

I turned the screen to the next virtual page. "Welcome to the world of the living, Sleeping Beauty," I said lightheartedly, forcing calm and nonchalance even though my head was buzzing and I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. Will he even remember what he did?

It took a second, but then he rolled onto his back, dragging his arm away with him. "Shut up," he complained in a groan.

I pressed the lock button on the top right of my Tablet and propped myself up on one elbow, reaching for the bottle on the nightstand next to the glass of water. Serenity had set them there so I wouldn't have to get up before Dean was awake. I think it was her way of compensating for ditching.

I knocked three out of the bottle and into my palm before I put it back on the table and got the water, holding both hands out to Dean. "Take these," I advised. He didn't move to do anything. "Aspirin," I added. That enticed him to push himself up into a sitting position against the headboard, although he sighed so I'd know he was not particularly excited about this. "Enough to actually work."

The hunter swallowed his pride and gathered the pills from one hand, knocking them back in one go. Then he swiped for the water and drank half of it all at once, washing down the medicine. "Where're they?" He asked, wiping his forearm over his mouth.

"Breakfast." I answered. "We agreed to let you sleep off most of the hangover."

He gave me a look from narrowed eyes. "I didn't sleep it all off."

"Good. Think of it as punishment for driving under the influence."

"You're such a fed," he snorted, kicking the blankets off and swinging his legs over the side. Almost immediately, he bent forward, doubling at the waist and cradling his face in his hands.

"You're such a whiner," I responded, far too used to the bickering.

He staggered up to his feet. "I feel like hell," he announced with the severity of someone who was sharing their cancer prognosis. "'m gonna take a shower. Then find something to eat." He was almost cut off by my ringtone on my mobile as it also started buzzing, playing loud music and vibrating noisily on the bedside table.

I checked the caller ID on my cell. Serenity Kasakabe. "Use hot water. It'll help your headache," I offered, trying to be helpful at least a little bit while I raised my phone up to my ear and accepted the call, connecting the line.

Running his hand through his already mussed hair, Dean forced back a yawn and stepped into the bathroom, turning on the light and fan and shutting the door behind him.

"Thanks, Holls," I heard through the door.

"Yep," I said, both to let Serenity know I had answered and in reply to Dean.

Serenity wasn't just calling to let me know she was bringing back food. "You and Dean need to get down to the road into town. You know, by the lake?" Where Jimmy had been found, I imagine – another victim? That seemed to be the spirit's killing grounds. She sounded mostly concerned, which bothered me. If someone were in danger, she'd have told me to hurry up because of it. Just having the underlying note of anxiety worried me. Why was she upset?

"He just woke up. Why, what's going on?" I ran my fingers through my hair out of an nervous tic, catching on a few tangles and forcing my hand through anyway.

"There's another victim. This one doesn't fit the pattern."

Well, that explained the nerves. If patterns broke, then it could mean anything from the latest victim intervening when (s)he shouldn't have to the spirit getting angrier and no longer caring who it hurt.

"Thirty minutes and we'll be there," I promised.

"Bundle up," my sister advised. I swear that I actually heard her scowl over the phone. "It's snowing."

I leaned forward and held my forehead with my free hand. "Damn it…" I hissed. Neither of us think that snow is the absolute worst thing of the cold seasons, but it did mean one thing for us: the holidays. Which were then followed by New Year's Eve. Which was our birthday. It's not so much that we're opposed to being twenty years old as it is that we just don't like that it seems like time has flown by. "The holiday season is attacking," I declared grimly.

Dean and I got ourselves back to the crime scene. They'd barely finished putting everything back to normal after Jimmy's murder, but now the same stretch of road was cordoned off. Along with my blazer, I was also wearing black gloves to protect my hands, fingers, and wrists from the cold. My hair was getting colored with snow falling through the minimal tree cover.

An old tan mustang was parked about a block down the road before the police tape. Dean and I parked the car behind it, got out, and then went to go find Serenity and Sam saying their goodbyes to a police officer they'd been talking to. Serenity had her arms wrapped around herself and a black and red pashmina from Istanbul around her neck. Sam had his hands deep in his pockets and was wearing a heavier jacket. We didn't have much in the way of snowy weather clothes.

The officer tipped his hat to the two of them, literally, as he turned to leave while Dean and I ducked underneath the posted police crime scene tape. Serenity nodded to us, keeping her hands underneath her arms for warmth, and she and Sam started towards us.

"What happened to you last night?" Sam started the Spanish Inquisition the moment that we were within five feet of each other, and by the way Dean's face fell and then took up a scowl, he didn't appreciate it very much.

"You were out so hard you didn't even wake up when I tried to jump on you." Serenity complained. She'd been hoping to make him scream by terrifying him awake with a jump onto the bed on the other side of him, and maybe exacerbate his headache in the process, but Sam and I had managed to convince her not to. However, it had been a very close call.

I tried to be disapproving, but it was hard to contain the small giggle. "That was so uncalled for," I tried to admonish with a straight face, and failed.

"You're not the person who had to wrestle her away." Sam scoffed and gave me a light elbow in the arm. I didn't see it coming in time to shy away from it, and instead massaged my arm, glaring. It didn't really hurt, I was just making a point.

Dean glowered at Serenity and pulled at his jacket, fitting the collar snugly against the back of his neck. "Why would you attack me while I'm asleep?" He demanded, before muttering under his breath, "Freak…"

"You drove drunk, moron," Serenity hissed lowly before raising her voice back to a normal level. Even if we'd left the police up on the road, we still didn't want to risk the boys getting into any trouble. I'm good, but I'm not some invincible legal shield. "That isn't enough of a reason for you?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "I'm getting grief from you, too? Holls has already gotten on my case about it."

I had to bring up something that he'd done, didn't I? And the recklessness seemed like it was more important than… other things that I wasn't sure how I should respond to quite yet.

Luckily, the conversation was quickly turned away from Dean's exploits the night before and to the more serious matter of the most recent victim. Mayor Todd was spread-eagled on the side of the hill in an abhorrent state. His skin was all bruised, dried blood on some parts. His jaw had been broken, the mandible detached from the rest of his skull and several teeth broken. Blood pooled in his mouth and had dried on the sides of his face. His eyes were open and glassy, his uniform tattered and filthy, and his hands, neck, and face were multicolored like someone had gone at him with a baseball bat.

"Ooh." I cringed and just said the first thing that came to mind. "What happened?"

"Every single bone is crushed," Sam reported, sounding just a little bit amazed at the fair accomplishment. Given that there are over two hundred bones in the human body, I was just about there with him. "Internal organs are turned to pudding. The cops are all stumped. It's like something ran him over."

"The man was pulverized." Serenity corrected Sam with a scowl and a wince. Apparently this was a point that had to be driven in, because the other hadn't done it enough justice. "Like the flowers crushed outside U.N.I.T. in the Doctor Who serial, "Robot.""

That painted a much more vivid picture, actually, and it did make the point that Todd had really pissed off the wrong ghost.

"I didn't like him," I started to admit slowly, raising my arms up in surrender. "But I swear this is not on me."

"Could that have happened from a truck?" Dean questioned, looking down at the mayor's corpse and trying not to seem too disgusted. This was an extremely hard feat to accomplish, between the colorful skin, glassy eyes, and broken jaw. Not to mention the imagery painted by our siblings.

Sam nodded.

Again, Sam wasn't being elaborate enough to convey the right message, so Serenity answered again in more detail. "If it went at him full-speed-ahead and freaking body slammed him." My sister was at least making the conditions on which this happened very, very clear. "Then ran over him again a couple of times for good measure."

I started to point to the body, shuffling my feet. Leaves cold from temperature and snow crackled and broke underneath me. "I know I shouldn't try to profile ghosts," I began slowly, already expecting someone to interrupt just to discourage me from doing exactly that. "But that is considered massive overkill. The mayor seriously pissed off our ghost truck."

Dean actually didn't disagree, which was a little surprising. "Any tracks?"

"None." Sam denied, and Serenity nodded her agreement, as if this was one answer that she didn't need to edify.

The older Winchester pushed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. "What was the mayor doing out here, anyway?" He asked, looking up the hill towards the road as it was dusted with specks of snowfall.

"He owned the property," Sam explained, having probably already found out from the police he and Serenity had been talking to when we'd gotten here. "He bought it a few weeks ago."

"Damn," I sighed, my shoulders falling. I hadn't realized how tense the past couple of days had made me until I made an effort to relax, and then it was like I was releasing a taut spring. "That explains part of why he was so reluctant to admit they were suspicious. He'd be a suspect." While it was good to have an answer, it was also agitating that he'd been turning a blind eye to murders just for his own reputation.

Serenity crossed her arms. "I get that he was, like, the Mayor of Doucheville, but why kill him?" Well… being the Mayor of Doucheville might be a pretty good reason, I thought to myself, but without tracks, we were left with the ghost truck rather than a living person, so socialization skills seemed like a less likely motive. "He was white," she pointed out, then paused and grimaced. "I have to say 'was' because now he's mostly black, blue, and purple. With some yellow. And red splashes."

I shut my eyes and rubbed my forehead against the incoming headache. Evidently we need to Google the definition of 'tact' again and make Serenity repeat it until it's drilled in. "Real sensitive."

"The killing didn't happen up on the road." Sam twisted around to point up to the two-lane asphalt path. "That doesn't fit, either."

Although… "His car's up there a little back," I said, pointing back behind me and looking up. We were on the declining side of the road, going down towards the lake. The incline towards the road was pretty sharp. "What if the ghost truck showed up and started hunting while he was out of the car? He tried to run, it charged, and slammed into him. The truck shoves him over the edge and his body is rolled down the hill."

"But if he was just going to get into the car, wouldn't that have worked just like it did with the other three?"

"I don't think it killed the mayor for the same reason that it killed the others." I decided in response to Sam's inquiry. "I think the mayor did something different to irritate it, and that's why he ended up killed so violently. Whatever he did, maybe someone knows."

"Who in the town are you going to talk to that will answer any weird questions? You said yourself that the locals weren't very polite," Serenity reminded me unintentionally of the hostile Stubbins and his not-much-better friend, who had told us about the rash of murders in the sixties.

I took a deep breath. Could I really have a long discussion with Dean's ex-girlfriend one-on-one? I could take Dean, but after they fought, it seemed like a bad idea. I steeled my resolve. It was far more important to keep other people from being killed than it was to stay inside my comfort zone.

"I'm going to take Cassie out for dinner and talk to her then." Hey, maybe being fed would make her feel a little nicer.

A Japanese waitress, pale skinned with dark hair pulled up in a high ponytail, smiled at us, stepping behind the grill. She carried a sharpened pencil and a notepad for taking orders, I presume. We were the only ones at this Hibachi table, so she kept her focus on us. The grill didn't look like it was turned on, but she still kept about a foot between it and the front of her apron.

She held her pencil between her fingers and put her hands together in front of her chest and gave the two of us a polite half-bow. Then she stood upright, flipping the pencil around and touching the tip of the graphite to the paper pad.

I knew it was a Japanese restaurant, but I was surprised when she started talking in Japanese. "こんにちわ と わさび ひばち ぐりるえ ようこそ。なにを たべたいますか。"

I started to grin and looked at Cassie once I got over the initial shock. It shouldn't have been that stunning – Cassie herself had recommended the restaurant, saying that it was supposedly authentic Japanese, but she looked taken aback.

She recovered quickly and smiled at me, seeing the humor in the situation. "Um, I don't know," she said to the waitress apologetically, shaking her head. The woman cocked her head and made a 'go on' gesture towards the menu Cassie was resting her hand on. I suspected she spoke English – even in Japan, most kids are taught English along with Japanese anymore, and it would be difficult to get by without at least speaking some English or Spanish in America – but had started in Japanese for the theme of the restaurant.

"They actually speak Japanese here?" Cassie said to me, confirming that that was what had been spoken.

I nodded. On the grill with the family across the room, the chef sprayed wine from a bottle onto the grill, flicked on a lighter, and held it close. The wine on the hot Hibachi burst into flames that rose almost as high as the ceiling and crackled for several seconds before burning out on its own. The children laughed gleefully.

"Apparently," I responded, amused by the kids. "It's alright, I speak Japanese. Hibachi salmon and shrimp sushi?" I asked, just to make sure that was still what we were going with.

Cassie hummed, taking it into stride, and she picked up her menu to slide it on top of mine. "Yeah. And doesn't that come with miso?"

"According to the menu, it does." I held up a finger for Cassie to wait a moment and looked up to the waitress again. Smiling apologetically for the delay, I began to talk. "ごめんあさい。えびの すし と ひばちの さけお おねがいします。また みそしるの に はち ください。" The waitress penned it down while I collected the menus and held them up, waiting for her to finish taking the order. Ponytail bobbing, she slipped the notepad into the pocket of her apron, tucked the pencil behind her ear, and took the menus, leaning over the grill to do so. "ありがとう ございます。"

Cassie looked after the waitress while she left, and then she slid around on her stool so that she was facing me instead of the table. "Impressive," she commented.

"Thanks." I grinned, feeling a sort of rush. Being with the Winchesters had sort of limited the abilities to use some of my skills, being multilingual included. Serenity and I could converse with each other in a different language, and we had on occasion, but it just wasn't the same. "Do they all speak Japanese?" I inquired, looking around to the few staff members that were in the dining room rather than the kitchen. "Is that why you haven't been here?"

Cassie shrugged. "I don't know. I just haven't really gotten the chance, you know?" She seemed earnest, like she was sincerely trying to make a connection between us. Everything aside, I liked her and I appreciated that she wasn't icing me out just because I was another woman who spent time with her ex. "They've just opened a couple of weeks ago, and… with the crashes…"

I cleared my throat. No need to dwell on her father's death, or her family's friends'. "I got it," I said, so that she didn't have to finish the sentence. "Actually… that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about." I hated dragging her out of her house only to keep doing the investigation, instead of giving her a reprieve, but I had a job to do. "The crashes, I mean."

Her smile faded slightly, but at least she didn't seem angry. She looked down to the table for a second before back up to me again. "Yeah, I kind of figured," she admitted. "I mean, it'd be sort of weird if you just wanted to have dinner."

"I thought the food might make you a little happier," I confessed sheepishly.

Instead of being offended that I was essentially using the "catch the fly with honey" technique, Cassie grinned and pointed to the family at the other Hibachi grill. "I won't lie, if the chef lights the grill on fire again, I will be a very entertained patron."

I laughed. It's nice to know my sister and I aren't the only adults who like to watch fire be set. Sometimes it's just really awesome to watch, and other times it's comforting – so long as it's contained.

"I'll ask when they get over here," I promised, both for her and for myself before letting my smile fade into an apologetic expression, more appropriate for talking about the deaths of people that she had known. "So, I don't want to freak you out by bringing up the nature of our job, but we found a string of murders that happened in the sixties." Cassie took in a deep breath and then turned on her bar stool to face me more attentively. "We think whoever was doing it then is at it again now, only as a spirit, hence why there are no tire treads."

"I suppose I've heard of those. There wasn't much ever in the paper." She thoughtfully tried to remember anything relating to the murders, but they had happened before she'd been born. "It's just something the town likes to have swept under the rug," she added, beginning to sound a little more stressed. "The police work was probably minimal, too. Back then, 'equal justice under the law' wasn't taken very literally."

I felt my phone begin to vibrate in my pocket, but I didn't immediately move to answer it. It seriously pissed me off that people wouldn't have taken their job as police seriously enough to actually do something when people were disappearing or dying. Who the hell cares what color our skin is? Humans aren't animals.

The chef from the Hibachi grill came to our table with his cart in tow, having refreshed his supplies and gathered up the items more specific to our order while he was in the kitchen. He rolled the cart to a stop a few inches away from the grill in front of Cassie and I.

I decided I should probably answer when my phone started onto the fourth ring and got it out of my pocket. Sam was on my caller I.D.. Since it was someone I actually knew, I chose to answer, accepting the call with a drag of my thumb across the screen.

"Hello?" I asked while the chef turned on the grill. Cassie leaned forward over the wooden counter eagerly to watch him work.

"Hey, it's me." It was Sam's voice over the phone, which I had to strain my ears to hear over the clanging of metal utensils that the Hibachi chef clanged together in front of us. He nodded to me in acknowledgment of my phone call, and focused mostly on Cassie while he threw them up in the air, flipping them around, and caught them again. I remember when I was a kid I loved the show that some chefs put on.

"Hold on a sec," I told Sam, not bothering to move the phone before I raised my eyes to the man, intending to follow through on what I'd promised Cassie. "あなたわ ふたたびに ひの とりっくを おこなう ことが できますか。"

He nodded, putting the utensils down on his cart and picking up a big, half-opaque, half-translucent bottle of wine. "はい、じょし。"

"どうも。" I gave Cassie a thumbs-up sign to confirm that it was a well-received request and then went back to the beginnings of my phone call with Sam. "Sorry."

"What was that?" I turned on my seat, looking down at the ground and hooking my ankles through the bars in the chair. I pressed my free hand over my other ear so that I was blocking out unneeded background noise. "Where are you?"

"Japanese restaurant, speaking in Japanese and sounding like a pyromaniac," I responded swiftly, and then continued on to the point before he could ask just what the hell it was that I had been saying or was currently doing. "What did you call for?" Not to be rude to Sam, but he knew I was out with Cassie.

There was a murmured exchange on the other end that sounded like Sam updating my sister on my whereabouts. Then he returned to the phone. "I went to the courthouse and found the records. The mayor and his wife bought a property that had been abandoned since the early seventies. The previous owner was the Dorian family for, like, one hundred fifty years."

I whistled. "That's a long time…" I mused quietly. Although I could just barely hear myself, Sam, who was hearing my voice straight through the receiver, didn't have a problem. I uncovered my other ear and turned back around to look at Cassie, who was watching the chef in interest as he dumped a pan of stir-fry vegetables on the heated grill. "Hey, Cassie, do you know anything about the Dorian family?"

It took her attention away from the chef for a moment. Her arms folded on the table in front of her, she blinked at me and then replied. "Of course. Everyone around here knows the name. They used to own the paper, actually." The paper she works for. Huh. Another tie to her family, or just coincidence? "And most everything else. They were pillars of the town, they established most of it."

"Google the Dorians," I instructed Sam over the cell.

The chef took a slice of an onion and a knife. Neatly, with a speed that must have taken hours of practice and dozens of attempts, he separated the layers and pulled the larger ones up over the smaller rings. He took a spatula and shoved the vegetables cooking in wine and sauce to the side. He added the center ring of the onion to the rest of the frying veggies.

He flipped the knife around in his hands and caught it by the handle skillfully. Then he slammed it back down in a cutting block, switching hands with the spatula and stacking the rings from the onion layers back on top of each other, biggest on the bottom and going up smaller and smaller. It was just uneven enough for them not to fall back into each other again, leaving what looked like a little onion mountain or volcano with a hole at the top from the absent center layer.

He then took two half-translucent squirt bottles from the cart with open tips. One had the Japanese word for vinegar penned onto the side, and the other had red wine. He flipped them both over and squirted both vinegar and wine into the onion-volcano, threw them up, caught them right-side up, and slammed them onto the cart before wiping his hands on his apron, then getting a capped lighter from a pocket.

He flipped the cap off, flicked the spokes to light the flame, and lowered the burning flicker down to the volcano. It touched the top of the drenched vegetable and then the fire coursed down into the volcano. When it hit the majority of the cocktail in the bottom of the volcano, the flames spurted up. He drew back quickly and a wave of heat rushed over Cassie and I both while the fire reached up to the ceiling. It cracked, sparks flying off. Cassie laughed while I could see sweat forming on her face from the temperature. The fire died quickly.

"Whoa!" I yelled, just on instinct at seeing the flames shoot upwards. I was echoed in my ear by Sam, who I had almost forgotten I was on the phone with.

"I'm whoa-ing at a volcano fire," I said quickly into the phone, just in case I'd spooked Sam like his exclamation had worried me. "What're you whoa-ing at?"

"What? Wait, never mind." Okay, maybe I could have explained better than with the phrase 'volcano fire.' "I just found this online article on Cyrus Dorian. He went missing without a trace in early summer of sixty-three. There was an investigation, but it was never closed. It was right around the time the murders happened back then. You think there's a connection?"

Well, it was honestly the best lead that we had. "The victims have all died on the family's land," I said slowly, dropping my voice down so that no other patrons had to hear this part. "So yeah."

Sam hummed thoughtfully while he worked on his laptop. "You know, the first thing the mayor did when he bought the property from the family name was to bulldoze the main house down. It was in pretty rough shape."

"Hm." While it seemed like an acceptable decision if the house had been beyond reparation, I'd learned a long time ago that ghosts aren't exactly known for being rational. "I'd be pissed if someone bulldozed my house," I said conversationally, looking to the local who'd have known about it when it was happening. "The mayor levelled the Dorian estate?" I said louder to get her attention.

Her eyes widened as she nodded enthusiastically. "It was a huge deal when he did it. He didn't even make the decision public until it was already in progress. He made the front page because it was one of the oldest houses left in town, and I don't think more than a dozen people weren't set against it." Right – a monument of the town being torn down. That would raise some havoc. No wonder the mayor owning the property hadn't been common knowledge. He probably wanted to keep his name as clean as possible while he was in office.

"When did the house go down?" I asked, back to Sam now that I'd had confirmation.

"Uh…" Faintly, I heard clicking. "Third of the month."

I nodded. I had expected it to be sometime around then. "The first of the murders was on the fourth."

"Do you think Dorian's the one re-committing all of the crimes? It's like you said, the mayor got in the way and made it angry. Maybe that's what woke him up, and this was the first time the mayor was there alone since."

Made more sense than most plots in horror novels I'd read. "Maybe Dorian was another victim," I hypothesized, throwing an arm up onto the table and covering my other ear again to hear better.

Sam objected. "But he was white. That doesn't fit the pattern from then. And if he was a victim, why would he pick up where his killer left off?"

"Good point…" I murmured. I was uncertain whether or not Sam would have been able to hear me from that volume. Considering, I offered another scenario for a second opinion. "Maybe he was actually the killer, and for some reason he died, and that's why he went missing." I suggested. "He lived on the land, though, so when Todd dozed it down, it woke up Dorian, and he decided to resume his spree."

I could imagine Sam bobbing his head in agreement while looking over the articles on his laptop, confirming and fact-checking before we put ourselves in danger with bad information. "Sounds as good as any. I'll let you go."

"Thanks." I slid my thumb between my cheek and the bottom half of my phone to hang up. "Keep me updated." I pressed the button to sever the mobile connection and pulled the mobile away, making sure it was hung up before pushing it away.

While the chef was actually cooking now instead of going out of his way to entertain Cassie, the writer leaned over to try to see the screen of my phone while I was putting it away. "Was that Dean?"

"Sam, actually," I corrected. "We think we know what's doing this." A frown pulled at my lips, my head still half on the conversation with the youngest Winchester. How do we burn a body when no one knows where it is? And how do we know who it'll strike next, so we can protect them? We still don't know for sure how it's choosing the victims.

Cassie noted the unhappy expression and hers fell. "That's good, right?" She asked, trying to be optimistic.

"Well, yeah, but the man went missing and was never found. That makes it harder to end this." No need to tell her exactly how we'd end it if we knew where his corpse was…

She didn't question it. I guess she trusted me to tell her the details if she had needed to know. Maybe she was thankful that she wasn't being graced with unnecessary information. "You and Sam seem like you get along pretty well," she commented, not sounding like she was making a point of any sort.

"Well… yeah." I thought back on the conversations I had daily with all of them and shook my head, rolling my eyes upward. "I actually argue with him less than I do Dean or Serenity." Serenity and I were mostly just arguing for the sake of entertainment, and Dean and I didn't tend to have actual fights, per se, but Sam and I rarely went back-and-forth in the same way.

"It must be nice to get along with your sister's boyfriend so well," she remarked, with no undertone of prying or irritation. She swirled her straw around in circles in her water, clinking the ice together and against the sides. I blinked once and then what she had said really hit me, and my jaw dropped open. Cassie didn't see, and kept talking. "I don't have any siblings, but I have a friend who can't stand her husband's brother. She can't be alone with him or he irritates her to no end!"

My eyes had to be as wide as if I were high. "Um, Cassie…" My lips quirked, though I tried to remain straight-faced. "Serenity and Sam aren't…" Screwing? Dating? Involved? "… Together," I finished, because being vague seemed better than being specific and being wrong about what, exactly, she'd assumed.

She looked a little taken aback and straightened her spine, leaning slightly enough away for me to suspect it wasn't a conscious action. "They're not?"

I shook my head quickly, laughing nervously with just relief and a touch of humor at the idea of Serenity and Sam being involved. It seemed a little silly, and I chose to think of that rather than that less likely couples have happened. "No," I confirmed, the other woman looking a little embarrassed for being wrong. "Sam's girlfriend died a while ago in an accident at college, and Serenity's just not interested in a relationship, as far as I know." I explained. I left out the specifics, but Cassie seemed the type of person to know not to push for information from me, let alone Sam.

She blushed, but started to laugh. "Sorry! I just assumed that – because of you and Dean – it made sense that they'd be, too." She shrugged, like what can you do? and continued to smile apologetically.

I started to laugh even harder. She'd really thought – me and Dean? She knew what Dean was like. That was even funnier than Sam and Serenity! "Dean and I aren't together, either!" It made me feel a little sad that the idea was so laughable even I thought it was hilarious, but this wasn't a situation I figured I could change.

Cassie stopped laughing, so I did my best to curb mine so that it wasn't too awkward. There was a certain degree of inevitability with that, but I didn't think it was worth it to make it worse than it was already going to be.

She cocked her head, her corkscrew-curled hair falling in front of her shoulder where she'd pushed it back. "But you two are always close," she reminded me. Suddenly I remembered her eyes watching me while I was comforting Dean in her house and made the connection. No wonder she'd thought that – if I were her, I probably would have made the same assumption.

"We're friends, Cassie," I corrected mildly, not getting worked up about it. It was a simple, innocent misunderstanding. There was no need to be upset or offended, and I didn't need to tell her that Dean had kissed me while he was drunk. That was both my business and something I still wasn't confident about.

She raised her eyebrows. "Just friends?" She double-checked, somehow sounding knowing.

It kind of irritated me that she was seeing through it, but on the other hand, it was kind of nice to think I could let my guard drop and have a confidante. After all, if anyone else was going to understand how frustrating it was to have a crush on Dean, then it would be one of his exes. A plus? Cassie isn't one of the people who hates their ex and everyone affiliated with them, or who loathes anyone they think might be involved with their ex. I've met people like that. It's infuriating.

I let down the cheerful attitude to be more heartfelt, just so she'd know for sure that I wasn't screwing with her. "I have a feeling you'll see through it if I lie," I began to admit slowly. This took an entirely different kind of courage than facing off against a reaper. "I may… like him…" Great. What am I, a third-grader? I thought at myself. "More than I should, but I don't have a reason to do anything about it."

I could see Cassie about to question it, seeming puzzled, so I answered it for her. "It's inappropriate for our situation," I tried to explicate as simply as I could without getting all into the dynamics of everything. "He's not the relationship type of guy and I'm not a hook-up type of girl, so it's just not important." While that was upsetting if I let it get to me, I wasn't going to fool myself into thinking I could change Dean's personality. If he altered how he acted, it would have to be all on him. I didn't think I'd want to change him, anyway. I like him the way he is, even with his obsession with his car, and if I wanted him to be different, then it would be an idea that I was infatuated with, not a person. "We're friends. That's all."

She nodded slowly. I could tell Cassie was honestly taking it into consideration, and I was extremely grateful that she didn't immediately try to offer up advice of what to do. It was respectful of the decisions I'd already made. It was cathartic to get it off of my shoulders, but that didn't mean I wanted help. It just meant that I had that building up and couldn't really talk to anyone else – Sam, who's Dean's brother, Dean, who is the topic and therefore defeats the purpose, and Serenity, who has already expressed to me her aversion to the idea.

"I'm sorry I assumed. It's just, you two seem like you're always really close to each other."

"I like being close to my friends," I confessed willingly with a hapless shrug. "The boys and Serenity, they're the closest I've got to a family, so…" Why wouldn't I want to be near them? Still, not all families are as close as the four of us are. "I investigate murder," I reminded her, while the chef began to flip over the meat on the Hibachi. "By humans, or by supernatural things. So I know that sometimes life is fleeting, and so I like being near people I care for. I'm just sort of protective."

The woman nodded slowly, her eyes darting to see the fish being cooked through before looking back to me. "That makes sense, I guess. I don't think I'd be able to do a job like yours. Hunting, or in the FBI… I think I'd be too bothered by what I saw." She was earnest. I couldn't blame her. I'd seen people who spiraled because they blamed themselves for something they couldn't prevent, or because the reality of the job was far worse than they'd thought. If they got out when they realized they weren't fit for it, their illusions were still damaged. "People killing each other seems like a bit much for me. I don't know how people do it."

Somehow, this had turned from getting information to having a thoughtful, mutually engaging and personal discussion. I found I didn't mind. I liked Cassie more than I had thought I would.

While our food was set onto plates for consumption, the waitress came into view from the kitchen with a plate of sushi. "Well, it's certainly disillusioning." There wasn't much else I thought I could say, and I didn't get a chance before the chef slid Cassie's plate in front of her, turning off the grill, and the waitress came up behind us to set the sushi in the middle.

I looked over my shoulder. "みずを ください。" I asked politely. She nodded once while she left to go get the water I'd asked for, and I looked back in time to see the chef packing his remaining ingredients up. Cassie and I were left with a plate of shrimp sushi and a large entrée of Hibachi-grilled salmon, rice, and vegetables. I held up the pair of chopsticks that came in the napkin set with the silverware and beamed at the journalist. "いただきます！"

"Thanks so much," Cassie said again, almost glowing happily while she set her car keys to hang on a jacket rack by the front door. I pulled it shut and flipped the deadlock out of habit while the other woman left the front hall for the living room. "That was great. Do you want a ride to your hotel?"

I waved one hand. I'd mostly just come inside to make sure that she was going to be safe when I left. "I can do with the walk. I like being out at night." I looked through the Venetian blinds over the windows in the living room and saw nothing while she put down her bag in her armchair. In truth, my decision was more motivated by not wanting to be in a car if I didn't have to be until the ghost truck thing was taken care of.

"Do you want any tea?" Cassie asked, turning on the light as she passed me by in the hall. While I remained in the living room foyer, she crossed the hall again to the kitchen.

Vroom…

The sound of an engine grew louder, revving up like the gas was being pressed while the gear was in park. I tensed as it broke through the silence. "Do you hear that?" I asked her cautiously, a sinking feeling in my stomach. "I don't suppose you have any neighbors?"

Cassie stopped. I couldn't see her anymore, but I couldn't hear the clacking of her shoes on the kitchen floor tiles. "None," she called back, with an appropriate amount of apprehension when she started to hear the engine outside, too.

Without warning, light blasted in through the open blinds on the windows. Suddenly I was half blinded by the brightness after my eyes had already adjusted to the dark of the outside world. It made the overhead light in Cassie's house seem like a lighter compared to a skylight. I threw my arms up in front of my face to protect my eyes before I had even realized what I was doing.

With a noise as loud as thunder, the engine revved again. It felt like a threat. I squinted and tried to look through without hurting my eyes any more than strictly necessary and made out a faint silhouette hiding behind the beams of light directed straight at the windows. It looked like a huge, dark truck.

Dropping my arms, I lunged forward and grabbed at the rod to twist the blinds shut. "Cassie!" I shouted over the increasing volume from the ghost vehicle. "Get as much salt as you can!" Salt lines, to keep a ghost from getting in… hopefully that would apply to a truck, too!

"Salt?!" She yelled incredulously, now sounding frightened, but I heard a cupboard creak and slam shut a second after.

I kept a hand on the wall and dashed across the wall to the other side of the room, again reaching to turn the blinds down. "Trust me, just do it while I lock the doors and windows!"

I let go of the rod with one hand to dig after my phone, fingers slipping over plastic with a bit of a fumble while the blinds turned down and blocked out some of the light. It made it less shocking and strong, but I could still see the headlights beaming through the cracks and sides. Thanking God for speed dial, I flipped the lock on the window pane at the bottom, underneath the blinds, and held my phone up between my shoulder and ear.

"Dean!" I yelled at the phone, even though I could still hear the dial tone playing monotonously. I needed to get some of the nerves out so I yelled, and at least he'd get the message that there was trouble as soon as he answered. "Dean, pick up!"

A/N: I did not just use Google translate; I'm actually a Japanese student. Part of this was me showing off, but only a small part. The rest is me making a point; there are communities just like Cassie's in America, and the racism, sexism, and overall bigotry present in Cassie's town is a very real issue. A lot of the people in her town have their heads stuck in a time when slavery was A-O.K., sexism was normal, and prejudice was acceptable. Having an authentic Japanese restaurant thrown in the middle of the place was me making a statement against that kind of closed-minded and offensive behavior.

1. Good afternoon, and welcome to Wasabi Hibachi Grill. What would you like to eat?

2. I apologize. We'd like shrimp sushi and Hibachi-grilled salmon, please. Also, two bowls of miso soup. ... Thank you (polite, formal).

3. Will you do the fire trick again please?

4. Yes, Miss.

5. Thanks (less formal).

6. Water, please. ... "Itadakimasu!" (A polite phrase without literal translation that is said as a polite nicety before eating.)