Chapter Twenty-Eight: House of Cards
When you were here before
Couldn't look you in the eye
You're just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
You float like a feather
In a beautiful world
I wish I was special
You're so frickin' special
But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doin' here?
I don't belong here
I don't care if it hurts
I wanna have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice
When I'm not around
So frickin' special
I wish I was special~
"I know that, Dean! But, honestly, I'm more worried about Jack right now!" Sam exclaimed. Dean's knuckles were white against the Impala's steering wheel and the pedal was to the metal. The hunters ripped down the highway with as much speed as Dean could possibly coax out of his car without lasting damage.
"So, what is it that you found out about Marty?" Dean asked, his eyes never straying from the tarmac ahead of him.
"Nothing!"
"S'cuse me?"
"Dean, I found nothing!" Sam said, throwing his hands into the air.
"What's that supposed to mean?" The older Winchester asked, annoyed with his younger brother's persistence.
"It means that Marty doesn't exist, not according to public records anyway," Sam huffed, running a frustrated hand through his hair. Four hours of digging and nothing but nothing.
"Did you search for her brother?" Castiel inquired from the backseat. The brothers had picked him up earlier. His voice made Sam jump, he had almost forgotten the angel was there.
"Yeah, when I couldn't find any Martina Imogene Linville's that lived in Florida outside the last five years, I looked for anybody named Isaac Linville living in the same time frame. There were four, but three of them are still alive so, obviously, they can't be our ghost. But I looked into the one who died and, turns out, he was murdered. Him and his family," Sam said. He paused, tapping a few keys on his laptop.
"What else did his file say?" Dean asked, slowly.
"I'm getting to that, just hold on," Sam explained. He began reading from his laptop, "The Linvilles lived in Port St. Lucie, Florida and were found dead in their home on the morning of June 23 along with an excessive amount of blood matching the DNA signatures of six unidentified individuals. The corpses of the family were found with grievous wounds to their throats and their bodies were drained almost entirely of blood. When no valid evidence could be collected, the case went cold and was deemed shut."
"Sounds like a Vamp attack." Dean nodded. Sam continued.
"Isaac Linville was born May fourteenth nineteen-ninety-eight to Arwan and Ophelia Linville. He was the oldest of, apparently, four children - not five - two boys and two girls."
"Marty said somthin' about a little brother, right?" Dean interrupted. He only remembered because she had been talking about his car. Sam nodded again.
"A-and two sisters, yeah."
"If not Martina, then who were the other siblings? Cad asked, tilting his head.
"See, this is when things start getting a little weird. It says here that the Linvilles had four kids. They had Isaac Linville, of course, who was eighteen. They had twins Jacqueline and Briana Linville who were both seventeen. Then they had Jasper Linville who was, get this, ten-years old when he died." Sam looked up at the others questioningly. "See the problem?"
Cas nodded, eyes at half-squint power. His expression was deep in thought.
"So, the question is this: If Martina was nine-years old when her family was slaughtered, how can her younger brother be a year older?" He wondered, pointedly.
"Exactly! Sam exclaimed, a little of his excitement showing through. He couldn't help it, this was his domain. This was where Sam Winchester shined. "A-and that's not all! There are other inconsistencies!" He continued.
"Like what?" Dean prodded.
"Well, for one thing, there's the blood."
"What about it?"
"Uh, out of the six supposedly 'unknown'" - Sam made air quotes - " blood samples, one of them bears - er - bore genetic markers that remarkably resemble the DNA of the Linville family members."
"That can't be a coincidence," Dean said, shaking his head.
"Yeah, and get this: I was looking through pictures of the crime scene and I looked at the floor plan of the house too. Now, by the layout of the house, there are four bedrooms, right?" Sam explained, his words coming quicker the more exited he got. The angel and his brother nodded in unison.
"So, the parents were in the master bedroom, of course, and it looks the twins were sharing a room but so were Isaac and the little brother. Now, that leaves one room left and if nobody else lives in the house then it would make sense for it to be the guest room, right?"
"Naturally," Cas agreed.
"But it's not! Because downstairs the family had an office and in the office there was a pullout bed that had signs of being used while the last bedroom was covered in posters and personal objects. Just look at the picture!" Sam held the lap-top so the others could see. Cas leaned forward to examine it but Dean just shook his head.
"Drivin', Sammy," He reminded, his eyes fixed on the road.
"Yeah, sorry." Sam pretended that they were only going ten miles an hour above the speed limit.
"This looks... very lived in," Cas agreed as he eyed the picture of a very messy bedroom.
"Yeah, but if I zoom in on the wall..." Sam enlarged the picture to focus on a wall in the background. The picture was cut-off but one could clearly see the letters hanging on the wall. The obviously spelled out the occupant's name.
M-A-R-T-I-N-
I-M-
L-I-N-V-I-
"I think that name looks like somebody we know," Sam said, smirking.
"I get what you're saying, Sammy. Seriously, I do," Dean started. He didn't want Sam to try and explain all the computer crap or whatever to him again, "But why? I mean, we already know Marty exists!"
"Exactly! So, why?"
"That's what I just asked..." Dean trailed off. Sam rolled his eyes.
"Why doesn't she exist, Dean? Why no records? Why no birth certificate? Why no education files? Why no frickin elementary school yearbook?!" Sam questioned, grinning. "We know Marty exists, that's obvious by just looking at her house! So, where did she go?"
In the back seat, Cas spoke up.
"Sam! That's it!" He exclaimed.
"What?"
"The house, that's the key!" The angel insisted.
"I don't follow..." Sam shook his head, confusion written across his face.
"The question is not where Martina herself went. If the house is proof that Martina existed, then where did it go? Or rather, to whom did it go to?" The angel explained. Sam's eyes flew wide and he gasped.
"CAS YOU'RE A GENIUS!" He shouted, half laughing as his fingers began to fly across the keyboard.
"Um...Thank you," Cas said but Sam didn't reply. The car was silent as Sam typed away but it wasn't for long.
"YES!" The younger Winchester cheered, pumping his fist in the air.
"Ya got anything?" Dean asked.
"Okay, this is great. Cas, again, you're a genius!"
"Thank you, Sam."
"You're welcome."
"What did you find?" Dean asked again, a bit more impatient.
"Somebody bought the Linville house as soon as it went on the market!" Sam said. He sounded as exited as a kid on Christmas.
"And that means?..."
"It means somebody had a crap-ton of money to blow! The buyer paid one hundred thousand dollars on top of the sellout price and the entire value of the house was paid up-front. There was no realtor involved on the buyer's side and the home was for sale by the bank itself. On top of that, the exchange went down entirely over the internet and the complete sum was paid via - get this - wire transfer," Sam said, smirking at his own cleverness. Dean, however, was thoroughly confused.
"I understood, like, twenty percent of that," He said, shaking his head slowly. Sam sighed.
"It means that, for a house that an entire family was just murdered in inexplicably, somebody wanted that place pretty bad. It also means that whoever the buyer was went out of their way to remain anonymous," The younger Winchester explained.
"So, can you find out who it was?" Dean asked.
"Way ahead of you." Sam grinned. "So I hacked into the email that the buyer was using and, turns out, it's fake. Who would've thought, right? But it was a really good fake, if-if I'm being honest. I mean, except for the part about being registered to some Nigerian prince; you know, like all those scams emails you get, right? I mean, it tells you our guy has a sense of humor but-"
"Sammy?" Dean cut him off.
"W-what?"
"Back to the point," He reminded.
"Oh! Sorry..." Sam didn't mean to ramble but this was just so exiting. It was like a digital game of chase and hide-and-go-seek at the same time. Sam was loving it.
"It's good just get back to it."
"Right. Anyway, I figured that if the account was fake then I would have to chase down the money and not the person. See, the buyer ended up paying a little more than seven hundred thousand dollars for the home and that kinda money doesn't just disappear. So, I ran a back-trace to see if I could find out where the money came from. Now, buckle-up because this is where its gonna get crazy and a little confusing-"
"This is where it gets confusing?" Dean sighed, "Oh geez."
Sam just ignored him and continued.
"Okay, so the money that the buyer paid to the bank was paid via wire transfer, but before that, the money was run through no less than twenty-three fictitious dummy accounts. Now, three years ago the last of these accounts was found to contain millions of dollars which had been stolen from various banks around the world by a group of international super hackers called The Carbanak Gang. These guys are elite level Black-Hats, Dean. They've stolen more than a billion dollars from banks all around the world and nobody even knows who they are!" Sam laughed. Whoever had pulled this off was brilliant. He wasn't even bothered that he'd been out-smarted.
"So, that's it?" Dean asked.
"That's where the trail ends." Sam nodded.
"Well, that's just great! We're not only dealing with an eight-thousand-year-old vamp with a vendetta against a suspiciously innocent fourteen-year-old, but we're dealing with super hackers too! This is just wonderful!" Dean exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air before re-focusing on the road. "What does all that even tell us, Sam?"
"It tells us that somebody tried very, very hard to make Martina Imogene Linville disappear," Sam said. An odd silence fell over the Impala for a moment. It was Castiel who broke it.
"But who?" He asked.
"I don't know if that's the question we should be asking..." Dean muttered, eyes trained on the road. Sam twisted his head to look at his brother. Dean had been so quiet and Sam had only barely heard him.
"W-what do you mean?"
The question seemed to knock Dean from his stupor because Dean blinked and shook his head, sitting up straight in his seat.
"Well, the real question is why, right? I mean, why go through all that trouble and effort to disappear one kid who was probably already presumed dead? And if they're gonna go through all that effort, why leave behind enough of a trail that someone like you could follow it? If they have contacts with a team of super hackers then why are there still pictures of her room? Heck! Why are there pictures of her house at all? If they disappeared her, why not wipe her entire family off the internet while they're at it? It doesn't make any sense!" Dean explained.
"Yeah, you're right," Sam mused, scratching the back of his head, "If Felix's trick with the routers is any indication, then the guy knows his way around tech, o-or he has people who do. The point is, why would he be so sloppy in wiping Marty from the system yet so precise when buying her house?"
Now it was Cas's turn to speak.
"I think you are both looking at this the wrong way," He said, shaking his head.
"What makes you say that?" Dean asked.
"While I may be the furthest thing from an expert on technology or 'the web'" - Cas made air quotes - " I do know probability. There must be a way for the erasure of Martina's information and the purchase of her place of residence to be two completely unconnected events."
It took Sam a moment of thinking to understand the angel's peculiar way of explaining his thoughts but as soon as he had, the idea clicked.
"Wait, you're saying you think that the person who made Marty disappear wasn't the person who bought her house?" Sam asked in confirmation.
"Yes," Cas said.
"Are you saying there could be a third party here?" Dean asked, disbelievingly.
"No," The angel replied, "But I think there is another possibility here that we aren't considering."
"And what possibility is that?" Sam questioned, his brows furrowing.
"The possibility that the victim may, in fact, be the culprit," Castiel said evenly.
"Wait, you think Marty wiped herself from the system?" Sam asked, frowning and turning his body to face the angel in the backseat.
"Why would she do that?" Dean added.
"To hide from this Felix perhaps?" Cas suggested. Sam shook his head.
"But Felix said he knew everything about her already. Why go through all the effort? That doesn't make any sense!" The younger Winchester pointed out.
"Unless its not Felix she's trying to disappear from." A new yet familiar voice spoke from the back seat.
Sam and Dean both jumped in surprise but the Impala didn't swerve from its path. Angels appearing in the back seat of the car had become far too commonplace for the Winchesters to be anything more than mildly annoyed with it by now.
"Agh!"
"Well, good morning to you too, Sam!" The archangel called from the backseat.
"GABE! HOW ABOUT A LITTLE WARNING NEXT TIME?!" Sam shouted.
"Eh, where's the fun that?" Gabriel chuckled, whipping a lolli-pop from his pocket and peeling the wrapper away. He stuck the treat in his mouth with a smirk. "Anywho, we gotta get back to your bunker, like, now."
"Why? What's going on? Is it Jack? Did something happen? Is he okay?" Cas asked, his voice rising with worry for his surrogate son.
"Jack? What's up with the kid?" Gabriel asked, his face scrunching up.
"New York kind of freaked him out; he's with Marty back at the bunker now," Sam answered.
"Wait, Jack's with her?" Gabriel's eyes widened and for a split second, Sam almost thought he saw fear there.
"Yeah," Sam said, carefully, "Speaking of, how do you know about Marty?"
"Ran into the lil' creep sometime around yesterday morning while I was lookin' for you," Gabriel shrugged dismissively, "So, Jack is with her, alone, right now?"
"Yes?"
"Uh, oh. That's not good," He muttered. His eyes were as wide as quarters and they held dread.
"Woah, whoa, whoa! What's not good?" Dean demanded.
"Sorry guys. I really thought I would've had more time to explain but we have got to go NOW!" The archangel stressed.
Then he snapped.
"Marty?" Jack spoke, hesitantly.
"Hm?" I glanced up at him. Honestly, I was exhausted. I thought I was gonna pass out and die right there on that bench.
I had been Sweet Talking Jack for nearly an hour straight and only now was he beginning to think that just maybe he wasn't evil. If I thought I had self-esteem issues, then this kid was on a whole other level!
"Can you do me a favor?" The boy asked. His voice sounded so defeated. It was awful.
"Anything," I replied. Jack took a deep breath. I could practically see him steeling his nerves.
"When all this is over-" He started, nervously- "when you don't need us anymore - our protection, I mean. Where will you go?"
His question caught me off guard. I hadn't exactly been planning to make it through 'all this'. The notion hadn't really been in the cards. If I got my revenge on Felix then I would surely die in the process, there wasn't too much of a debate about that. Even if by some miracle - No, no. Fluke. I don't get miracles. - Even if by some fluke I survived, then the Winchesters would finally see what I was and they would put me down. That's just how things were. Any other idea had been a vague hope, a dream I didn't dare wish, a desire I didn't dare chase. But maybe it didn't have to be.
"I don't know," I answered him honestly, "I never thought I would have the chance to live again so I didn't bother thinking about it."
Jack grasped my hand, tangling our fingers together.
"Could you stay with us? Please?"
The hope in his eyes broke my heart. I didn't like lying to him. I hated it! He had been nothing but kind and honest with me and I had been nothing but deceitful to him. I just kept on lying.
But that's what I was. A liar. A monster. A creep. I didn't deserve to sit beside him. I didn't belong there.
It made me want to cry. Because Jack was an angel and he couldn't even see it! I was scum and he was beautiful. He was so freakin' special!
I didn't belong there. I didn't belong with him.
I could never belong there.
"You-you want me to stay here?" I whispered. I had to blink rapidly to keep the tears at bay. Jack nodded, giving me that lopsided smile that made me want to hug him forever.
But I would never belong there.
"Of course! You're my friend and you know that." He smiled again and my heart kept on breaking. "But I think you're also a little more."
Oh, no.
'Please don't do this to me, Jack. Please don't give me hope. Not for this.' I thought. 'I can't take it.'
"Woah, Jack. Uh - I - um -" I didn't want to hurt him, but I just couldn't do it. Jack squeezed my hands in his, shaking his head.
"No, no. Jus-just hear me out! Okay?" He tried.
I could do that, right?
"Yeah, okay..."
I could do that for him.
Jack looked away and started playing with my fingers. He looked out at that house across the lake, sighing.
"It's just that - I don't know what I'm doing and everybody wants me to be more than I can right now but I'm not, and I'm not ready. Everybody says that I'm doing fine but that's not true because I never did in the first place! I mean, how can I understand how to be if I hardly ever was?" He spoke quickly and stumbled over his words. But I didn't blame him. Explaining the unexplainable was always a difficult task.
"Sounds tough," I said, nodding. Jack sighed again.
"Nobody understands..."
"I bet they don't." I smiled at him a little, hoping he would catch what I meant. His eyes met mine with a twinkle of something that I wanted nothing more than to see in them forever but that made my heart hurt all the same. Because if he knew what I was then he would never look at me that way again.
"So, can you stick around after all this is done? I need someone to help me figure all this out, to show me how to grow up. Sam, Dean, and Cas... They're great, but they can't do that," Jack said. Why did he have to look at me like that? I had to look away.
"I really don't think I'm the best candidate for that either..." I trailed off.
'Please, don't ask this of me. Anything else I swear I'll do. Just please don't ask me to love you.'
I couldn't take it. Maybe I shouldn't've thrown that knife in the lake. I needed something to remind me of my place.
"But you are! You're like me - you're not grown up yet - you're still turning out. You're nice, and funny, and you know how to do so many things and I really like you!" Jack said, grinning hopefully. The pain was only building.
'Don't hurt me like this, please.'
"I'm sorry, really, I am. But-"
"We can figure it out together! Can you stay here? With me?" He begged.
"I-"
'I won't. I can't. I shouldn't.'
"Can you be my sister?" Jack asked. Those words ripped my heart out.
If it was exactly what I needed to hear, then why did it hurt so much? If it was the only way things could work out well then why did I want something different?
'You can't have him. He's not yours; he won't ever be. Remember your place.'
I wished I could.
"Oh! Well, that I think I can do," I chuckled. I guess a smile was my brave-face then. "You had me worried there for a second. Thought you were gonna ask for something way different..."
I laughed it off like it wasn't that deep. I had to hide what I felt, for Jack's sake, I had to hide it.
For a second, I thought I saw something hurting on his face too. But I was just imagining things. I had to be.
"Oh! No, no. I'm not ready for that, I don't think. Just a sister, a best friend," He chuckled.
See? Just imagining things.
I'll always be left imagining.
"That's good." I nodded.
"I mean, I'm two!" Jack's tone held this strange feeling. It was as if he was justifying something.
But no. That was just me.
I could only ever imagine.
How could he ever want me?
"Hence why I was getting worried!" I tried to joke. I just hoped it didn't sound as broken as the shards of the words felt passing by my heart on their way to my mouth.
"You are pretty! But I don't like you that way," Jack insisted.
He doesn't like me that way.
How could anyone ever like me that way?
"Same here," I lied through my teeth, "Siblings then?" I offered him my hand and he took it.
"Yeah, siblings." He grinned and grasped my hand.
He shook our hands to happiness.
I shook our hands to pain.
But what did it matter? As long as he was happy, it was okay. It was good. I didn't deserve to be happy, especially not with him.
"Okay, but one condition!" I did my best to put on my usual smirk. I think I did alright.
"What?" Jack asked, tilting his head to the side. He really did look like a puppy.
"If we're gonna do this, I'm not your little sister. I am your older sister and you are my baby brother. Okay?"
After all, he was just like Jazzy.
"Alright." He nodded easily but I could see the question as it came to his mind. "Is this about your height again?"
"Mmmm... Maybe."
"Pipsqueak..." Jack muttered. My eyes were wide as I turned to him. I could fall into a pattern like this.
"What was that?" I asked, innocently.
"Nothing!" He replied, shaking his head. I crossed my arms and gave him my best threatening smile.
"No, no. Please, continue!"
To my surprise, Jack looked, genuinely alarmed.
"No..." He trailed off.
"Why not?" I pressed, sweet as can be.
"I feel like I've made a mistake somehow..." He said, his brows furrowing.
"You're darn right!" I chuckled and he eased up a bit as well. "Are you ready to go back to the bunker now?"
Jack took one last long look out across the lake. Gazing at that strange old lake-house with a nostalgic expression. I wondered what it was that drew him to it.
"Yeah," He said, "Yeah, we can go home now."
~Whatever makes you happy
Whatever you want
You're so frickin' special
I wish I was special
But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doin' here?
I don't belong here
I'll never belong here~
Lyrics from: Creep by Radiohead