It was dark in the motel room, Sam's breathing coming deep and even from the other bed and Dean's chest moving steadily beneath my head. All was calm and peaceful after our last hunt, but I couldn't sleep. The vampire had managed to knock me against the wall, banging up my mostly healed shoulder. It hadn't reopened, but it was throbbing something fierce, even all these hours later.

Behind me Sam's breathing pattern changed, becoming shorter and slightly panicked. I turned my head to glance at him over my aching shoulder, he was shuffling in his sleep the way he always did when he had a bad dream, his face pinched in distress.

Sam's eyes popped open and he sat up, staring straight ahead.

"Sammy?" He glanced over at the sound of my voice before reaching over to turn on the lamp on the table between the beds and shaking Dean's arm.

"Dean. Dean."

Dean grunted slightly and I sat up, watching in confusion as Sam got up and started packing his things.

Dean rubbed a hand over his eyes behind me, his voice thick with sleep, "What are you doing man, it's the middle of the night."

I twisted around to get out of bed, still watching Sam as he shoved a few items back into his bag and then made a start on mine.

"We have to go."

Dean sat up behind me, and his voice had lost the sleepy tone, "What's happening?"

"We have to go. Right now."

Dean and I glanced at each other as Sam grabbed his bag and left. Then I grabbed my jeans, pulling them back on and standing from the bed. "How long before he realises he left without his shoes?"

Ten minutes later we were on the road, I was doubled over in the back seat, fumbling in the dark to tie my bootlaces, and Sam was on the phone. "McCreedy. Detective McCreedy. Badge number 158. I've got a signal 4-80 in progress, I need the registered owner of a two door sedan, Michigan license plate Mary-Frank-six-zero-three-seven. Yeah okay, just hurry."

"Sammy relax. I'm sure it's just a nightmare." There was a distinct element of doubt in Dean's voice, barely covered by the familiar bravado.

"Yeah, tell me about it." Sam muttered.

"I mean it. Y'know, a normal, everyday, naked-in-class, nightmare." Dean told him, "This license plate, it won't check out. You'll see."

"It felt different, Dean. Real. Like when I dreamt about our old house. And Jessica."

I straightened up in the back, my laces finally tied. "Yeah, that makes sense. You're dreaming about your house, your girlfriend. This guy in your dream, you ever seen him before?"

"No." Something in Sam's voice was reluctant, trying not to hope, but seeming to do so all the same.

"No. Exactly." Dean agreed somewhat triumphantly, "Why would you have premonitions about some random dude in Michigan?"

"I don't know."

"Me neither." Dean announced, as if that settled it.

"Hello?" A small, tinny voice came from the phone and Sam lifted it back to his ear.

"Yes, I'm here." He listened for a moment, the words unclear to me as he held the phone pressed to his ear. He shot a bitchface at Dean and picked up his pen, starting to take notes. "Jim Miller. Saginaw, Michigan. You have a street address? Got it. Thanks."

He sighed and snapped the phone shut. "Checks out. How far are we?"

"From Saginaw? Coupla hours."

Sam stared out at the rainy night, the wipers sweeping across the windscreen, "Drive faster."

The only answer was the roar of Baby's engine as Dean pressed his foot down harder.


Blue and red lights were flashing as we pulled up to Jim Miller's house. Several cop cars and an ambulance surrounded the property, not to mention the crowd of curious neighbours. The Impala rolled to a stop and we watched as a coroner zipped a body bag over the face of the man laying on a stretcher.

My brothers and I exchanged a look, Dean and I were worried, Sam was visibly upset. I rested a hand on his shoulder and we watched as Dean got out of the car. Sam soon followed, shrugging off my hand, and they headed towards the gathered onlookers.

I sat for another moment, watching as Dean approached a woman, both of them watching the activity around the house as he spoke to her. Then I let myself flop back against the seat, wincing slightly as my shoulder came in contact with the leather behind me.

Sam had seen this man die, and now he was dead. What did that mean? Sam had had visions before, but I hadn't really looked too closely at it, focusing more on how Sam was coping, rather than why he was having the visions in the first place.

I let my gaze drop, staring into the middle distance as I dragged up all the information I knew about psychic abilities. Most of the time there need to be some sort of link, fortune tellers would often take a client's hand. Clairvoyants would visit a location to read its energy, as Missouri had done with the house in Lawrence. Dreams and premonitions about one's own life were fairly commonplace, nearly everyone can relate to the feeling of deja vu after all; the feeling that you knew that was going to happen before it did. But to see something so clearly that you could remember details like a number plate, about something completely removed from your own life? That's pretty rare. Skilled psychics could scry; with the right tools and conscious direction of energy and focus they could look for specific places, people or events, but something like this?

There must be some sort of link here. Something tying Sam to this place, this man whose Deathcry was reverberating against me. But what could the link be? As far as I knew, Sam had never been to Saginaw before.

My thoughts were interrupted as the Impala moved slightly with Sam's weight against it, and I opened the door, getting out as Dean joined him. "Sam, we got here as fast we could."

"Not fast enough. It doesn't make any sense, Man. Why would I even have these premonitions if there wasn't a chance I could stop them from happening?"

"I dunno." Dean sighed as I wrapped an arm around my younger brother, leaning into him and rubbing my other hand up and down his forearm.

Sam sighed after a moment and shrugged out of my grip, "So, what do you think killed him?"

"Maybe the guy just killed himself?" Dean offered, "Maybe there's nothing supernatural going on at all."

"It wasn't a suicide; his Deathcry is too panicked for that."

There was a silence following my words until Sam shook his head. "I'm telling you, I watched it happen. He was murdered by something, Dean. I watched it trap him in the garage."

"What was it? a spirit? poltergeist? what?"

"I don't know what it was." Sam answered in frustration, "I don't know why I'm having these dreams, I don't know what the hell is happening, Dean."

There was another moment of silence, I watched the family gathered on the porch of the house. The mother was sobbing against a man's chest, he had tears running down his cheeks too, and her son was stood behind them, a blank look on the boy's face. I could smell the man's and the mother's pain from here, but the boy was blank to me, still in shock no doubt.

"What?" At Sam's voice I turned my head sideways and upwards to watch my two brothers. Sam was glaring, but Dean had a look on his face that I hadn't seen there since the night Sam had left for college. It was a look that said that Dean was worried; everything was spiraling out of control and he doesn't know how to stop it, mixed with a load of guilt over how in Dean's mind, he's the big brother who should have all the answers, who should make everything okay again. But right now, he doesn't know how and it's making him feel like he's failed.

He shrugged and tried to wipe the look from his face, though the guilt still lingered in his eyes. "Nothing. I'm just, I'm worried about you, man."

"Well, don't look at me like that!"

Dean turned his head away, "I'm not looking at you like anything. Though I gotta say, you do look like crap." He and I both looked up at Sammy as he said that. He had a point, Sam looked stressed, tension in his stance and sadness and guilt written across his face.

He snorted and turned to look straight ahead. "Nice. Thanks."

Dean's lips quirked upwards, the tension broken, and he opened the car door, "Come on, lets just pick this up in the morning. We'll check out the house, talk to the family."

"Dean, you saw them, they're devastated." Sam protested, "They're not going to want to talk to us."

"Yeah you're right." He shrugged slightly, "But I think I know who they will talk to."

"Who?" I asked as I followed Sam to the other side of the car.

Dean just smirked at us in response.


"This has gotta be a whole new low for us." Sam stated as Dean reached out to press the doorbell to the Miller's house.

Dean gave him a smirk which clearly said, 'I know, isn't it great?' and turned back to face the door as it opened to reveal the man who'd been present the night before.

"Good afternoon. I'm Father Simmons, this is Father Frehley. We're new junior priests over at St Augustine's. May we come in?" Dean slipped smoothly into character and I directed my attention back to the old tape player in my hand. There wasn't any music playing, but it was a tactic I used often to blend into the background and 'disappear' while in full view in a public place. No one pays any mind to a teenage girl with headphones in and a faraway expression. It leaves me free to observe, so long as I'm careful not to show any reactions on my face to what I overhear.

"It's in difficult times like these when the Lord's guidance is most needed." Dean's voice stated as my brothers disappeared into the house. The irony of my older brother of all people saying those words sorely challenged my resolve not to show any reactions, as I trudged passed the house, discretely checking to see if any nosy neighbours were around. Also how much of the Deathcry still lingered, how close would I be able to get without feeling like I was going to throw up? Fortunately it had pretty much cleared.

"Look, you wanna pitch your whole 'Lord has a plan' thing? Fine. Just don't pitch it to me. My brother's dead." The man's words wiped the smile off my face. Not that I'd been smiling, because I'd not been showing any visible reaction, of course.

I chose my moment, and my destination, and quickly darted from the sidewalk into the bushes, disappearing and settling close enough to the house that I'd be able to listen in.

A woman's voice was speaking, "I'm sorry about my brother in law. He's...he's just so upset about Jim's death. Would you like some coffee?"

I pulled a few twigs out from underneath myself, wincing as I did so while my brothers accepted the offer of coffee and moved further into the house, I had to strain to hear them now.

"Of course. After all we are all God's children." Dean's voice was easier to pick out from the other voices around him, attuned as my ears are to my brothers' voices.

Sam muttered something too low for me to catch and I started crawling through the small gap between the bushes and the house they were growing against, trying to get to a point where I could hear better what was going on inside.

"So, Ms Miller, did you husband have a history of depression?" Dean voice was still distant, and I didn't hear the response. There was murmuring in Sam's soft voice and then footsteps in my direction. I froze, halfway behind a stem of a prickly bush I'd been negotiating with the appropriate level of care and quiet.

"Max? Hey, I'm Sam." Sam's voice was close to me now, still quiet, but close, quite possibly just the other side of the wall from where I was leaning awkwardly around the thorny stem, but no longer daring to move. "So, what was your Dad like?"

"Just a normal dad." This voice was unfamiliar, but close enough that I could hear every word.

"Yeah. You live at home now?"

"Yeah. Trying to save up for school but it's hard."

"So when you found your dad..." Sam prompted.

"I woke up, I heard the engine running." There was a pause and I tried to get a read on the pain through the wall. "I don't know why he did it."

"I know it's rough, losing a parent. Especially when you don't have all the answers."

It was so strange; I could sense Sam's pain, even with the wall between us, maybe he was thinking about Dad. But I couldn't sense any pain from this Max he was speaking to.

I began the laborious process of extracting myself from the bushes and pondered what I'd heard. Max was clearly the son of Jim Miller, and the one who'd found his father, apparently having committed suicide. That's got to mess a kid up, surely it's playing on his mind, if either of my dad's had ever done that, I wouldn't have been able to think about anything else. My brain would have been stuck on the word 'Why?'. So, why wasn't Max troubled by this?

I could sense a small amount of fear, like a stale odour permeating the air around him, but even that didn't make sense. Fear smells sharp and sour, it only smells stale when the person has been living in fear for a long time, when they're used to being afraid.

People who suffer from anxiety often smell like that, but it's generally a faint background odour, covered by whatever emotions they're feeling over the top of their anxiety. To a prangeni it's like people with anxiety have BO, covered up with deodorant, but what I could sense off Max? That was pure BO, strong and putrid.

Did he know something about his father's death, had he seen more than he was saying? But then why is the scent so old? This isn't the result of a couple of days of fear, this must be years!

Still thinking deeply about what I'd sensed, and what I hadn't, I emerged from the bushes and absently pulled leaves out of my hair as I joined my brothers by the car.

A couple of hours later, back at the motel room, I was still deep in thought when Dean kicked my foot to get my attention. "You've been cleaning that firing pin for ten minutes now. What's up?"

I glanced down at the firing pin in my hand, it was indeed the cleanest firing pin I'd ever seen and I sighed, dropping the pin and the rag I'd been using to my lap. "That Max kid Sam spoke to. There's something wrong with him."

"Well yeah, kid found his dad checked out in the garage; that'd mess anyone up"

"No, it was more than that." No grief, no pain, just that fear. The stale, cloying scent of it strong enough to be detected from outside the house.

"I really think that firing pin is clean, Ali." I glanced down again, sure enough I'd been mindlessly polishing the firing pin again. I placed it back on the cleaning kit and picked up the barrel, wiping the carbon off and grabbing a patch and a pull-through.

"Something's up with that Max kid, Dean, I'm telling you."

"Yeah, his dad took a forever nap."

I dropped it, since I hadn't yet figured out exactly what was going on with that kid and a rustle of paper behind me drew our attention to Sam; blue-tacking another A4 sheet to the motel room wall.

"What do you have?" Dean asked.

"A whole lotta nothing. Nothing bad has happened in the Miller house since it was built."

"What about the land?"

"No grave yards, battle fields, tribal lands or any other kind of atrocity on or near the property." Sam sank onto the bed behind me and I leant my head back against his shoulder, abandoning the pull through halfway through the barrel I'd been cleaning.

"Hey man I told you, I searched that house up and down. No cold spots, sulfur scent. Nada."

"And the family said everything was normal?" Sam asked, shrugging to remove me from his shoulder.

"Well, if there was a demon or poltergeist in there you think somebody would have noticed something? I used the infer-red thermal scanner man, and there was nothing."

Sam was quiet for a moment and I gave the pull through a sharp yank, the patch came out of the muzzle at speed and I caught it in the air.

"So what, you think Jim Miller killed himself and my dream was just some sorta freakish coincidence?"

"I dunno. I'm pretty sure there's nothing supernatural about that house." Dean dropped the reassembled shotgun and put his colt M1911 back together, removing the mag and picked up a revolver, running the dirty rag he'd used on all the guns through the chamber. I winced watching him, it won't get any cleaner; running a dirty rag through it will probably end up depositing carbon in the revolver, it's not like that revolver had been used since I'd last cleaned it anyway.

"Yeah. Well, maybe it has nothing to do with the house." Sam was rubbing his head, and took a deep breath as his tension head ache started to grow rapidly in strength. "Maybe it's just...Gosh." I dropped the rifle barrel and the pull through to the mattress beside me and reached for my brother "... maybe it's connected to Jim in some other way?"

"What's wrong with you?"

Sam's pain was getting pretty intense and I couldn't draw it all away as he sank from the bed, "Ahh. My head."

"Sam? Hey," Dean came and crouched in front of Sam, gripping his arm, "Hey! What's going on? Talk to me."

Sam's wide eye's looked up at Dean, then they slipped out of focus.

"Sammy? Ali, what's going on?"

"I don't know. I'm just trying to control the pain!" Was he having some sort of seizure? What was wrong with him?!

Suddenly the pain skyrocketed and then fell to a background hum and Sam's eyes focused back on Dean. "It's happening again." He announced, "Something's gonna kill Roger Miller!"

I'd removed my hand from Sam's arm as if I'd been burned and I continued to stare at him as he and Dean hurried out to the car. The door closing behind them jolted me into movement and I raced to catch up, still reeling from what I'd sensed from Sam.

That had been a Deathcry.

Only faint, no more than an echo, but the nausea was unmistakable.

Sam was still holding his head, still in pain as he spoke into his phone and then repeated Roger Miller's address to Dean. I felt bad leaving him in pain, especially as Dean questioned him on it and offered to pull the car over, pretending he was concerned about the upholstery if Sam were to chuck his cookies. But the Deathcry had seriously unsettled me. It wasn't so much the Deathcry itself, it was only a faint echo of the real thing after all, but the fact that I had sensed it from my baby brother.

"Dean, I'm scared man. These nightmares weren't bad enough, now I'm seeing things when I'm awake? And these, visions, or whatever, they're getting more intense. And painful."

"Come on man, you'll be all right. It'll be fine."

"What is it about the Millers? Why am I connected to them, why am I watching them die? Why the hell is this happening to me?"

"I don't know, Sam, but we'll figure it out. We've faced the unexplainable every day. This is just another thing."

"No. It's never been us. It's never been in the family like this. Tell the truth, you can't tell me this doesn't freak you out."

Dean stared straight ahead for just a beat too long, then said, "This doesn't freak me out."

"And excuse you!" I added from the back seat, "Weird things not being in the family; what am I?"

Sam twisted in his seat, wide eyes staring at me. "Oh, Ali, I didn't mean you!" I raised an eyebrow at him. "You don't count as weird! I mean not for us, you're 'us' normal, and you're definitely family, I didn't mean, I never meant to imply-"I let my lips twitch upwards, letting him off the hook. "You suck."

I probably could have drawn that out more, but he's just so damn cute when he's flustered.

We spotted Roger Miller as we pulled up to his apartment; he was walking towards the front door with a bag of groceries. Sam shouted out the window to get his attention, but he clearly didn't want to know.

"What are you guys, missionaries? Leave me alone."

He walked off and Dean hurriedly parked the car, Sam was out of the car and racing after Roger almost before the car had stopped. Dean and I were not far behind, but the door was closed behind Roger by the time we got to it and he was disappearing inside the building, Sam shouting after him, "We're not priests, you gotta listen to us!"

"Roger, you're in danger!" Dean shouted, but the man was already gone. We'd have to find another way in.

I followed my brothers around the corner to a back entrance, a quick glance to ensure no one was watching and Dean kicked the gate open. A little way down the alley we'd gained illicit access to, Sam jumped and caught a fire escape, climbing up and starting to ascend the stairs. Dean used the wall opposite to get enough height to follow and I jumped from standing, caught a hand grip to pull myself up and fiery pain exploded in my shoulder, I yelped and dropped the ground, Dean glanced over his shoulder at me, but I shouted that I was fine and he followed Sam up the stairs.

I watched from below as the view of my brothers became increasingly obscured by the metal framework of the fire escape as they climbed. My shoulder was throbbing angrily and I gripped it tightly, trying to ignore it and focus on my brothers up above. Sirens passed on the street and somewhere a cat yowled, then a window slammed shut and there was a dull thud. My brothers both stilled, seeming to stare upwards before Dean continued up the stairs to the window they needed.

The Deathcry reached me a moment later, only faint, at this distance and for so sudden a death, but still recognisable as the same one that I had sensed before through Sam. The nausea returned and I dropped my gaze, wandering out to the front of the building again. We were too late to save Roger Miller and Sam and Dean would deal with the investigation.

My shoulder was throbbing and my stomach was rolling angrily and I stumbled slightly as I turned the corner onto the street and was hit with a stench of stale fear. The same fear I'd scented at the Miller's house the day before. I gagged slightly and looked around, trying to locate the source of the offensive smell. Unable to do so, I decided to take shelter in the car and wait for Sam and Dean to return. The scent was strong enough that there was no urgency in following it, it would still be there when my brother's returned.

By the time Sam and Dean emerged from the side alley I was feeling somewhat better. I'd retreated to the car and lain down on my good side atop the cool leather of the back seat. Pressing my forehead against it and occasionally moving to a fresh patch once the leather became too warm. I recogised Dean's voice approaching and I sat up, wincing slightly as my arm moved. "I'm telling you there was nothing in there. No signs either, just like the Miller's house."

"I saw something, in the vision." Sam insisted, "Like a dark shape. Something was...something was stalking Roger."

Dean reached a casual hand in front of Sam's chest, stopping his advance while a car passed, "Whatever it was, we're sure it's not connected to their house."

"No, it's connected to the family themselves. So what do you think, like a vengeful spirit?"

"Well yeah, there's a few that have been known to latch onto families, follow them for years."

"Angiak. Banshees." Sam listed as he got into the car.

"Basically like a curse. So maybe Roger and Jim Miller got involved in something heavy, something curse worthy."

"And now the something is out for revenge. And the men in their family are dying." Sam paused for a moment and I gave some thought to what he'd said about Angiak. The vengeful spirit of an abandoned child that reanimates the body. When they grow strong enough they can shape shift into various animals which it can then use to kill off the members of the family that abandoned it. It's possible, they do go after families after all, but they're spirits and we'd have seen signs, EMF and so on.

"Hey, you think Max is in Danger?" Sam asked and then I remembered!

"Oh, Yeah!" Sam and Dean both twisted to face me, "You know how I said there was something wrong with that kid? Well, he was here, today."

Dean frowned at me, "How'd you figure?"

"I can scent his fear." I wrinkled my nose, "It's… pungent."

"His fear?" Sam questioned, "How'd you know it's not someone else's fear?"

"Because, like I said, that kid's messed up." They simultaneously gave me bitchfaces. "How do you expect me to explain a sense you don't have? It's like describing colours to a blind man!"

"So," Sam started, "if Max was there the night his father died, and here the night his uncle died, maybe whatever's killing them is following Max."

They both turned back to face the front and Dean started the car, revving the engine before pulling away with a squeal from the tires.


Sam and Dean had donned the priest outfits again and gone to visit the remaining Millers. I chosen to remain in the car this time, phoning Bobby. We'd had a brief chat, there was still no news of Dad, not since he'd called us about the scarecrow in Indiana. Bobby's junkyard business was suffering a little, he'd not had the time for it with the number of hunters calling asking him to research what they were hunting.

He'd had a few questions about subtypes of banshee. We'd discussed the details and original regional differences in the Lore, eventually coming to the conclusion that there were several different types of banshee originally, though over time these seem to have mingled, so now they weren't reliably found in their ancestral lands and there seemed to be cross-breeding between the types. We're not sure how they're cross-breeding, as banshee are all females, but that was the only explanation we could come up with for the new varieties that were being reported.

None of them however seemed to fit the MO for the Millers. They all foretell death, alerting the family with their keening, they don't kill silently and leave no trace. They certainly have been known to latch on to families, the lore in Ireland in particular is strong on this point, but nowhere in the lore is a banshee a silent killer.

The name, a bastardisation of the Irish beansidhe, (pronounced more or less the same) means woman of the fairy mound. They are also known as beanchaointe, which means keening woman, though that term can also be applied with no supernatural connotations to the women wailing at a funeral. Either way, wailing is kind of their thing.

Eventually Bobby had had to go, as one of his phones kept ringing. I sat in the car, fiddling with the sling Dean had insisted I wear. ("Well you keep making it worse, so now you have to wear a sling: if you didn't want to, you oughta've let it heal right the first time!") I pondered again what Sam had said about the Angiak. They're a type of Reventant; a ghost which possesses it's own corpse, or occasionally another recently deceased corpse.

If we add in Max's fear, and the fact that he was present at both murders, it's possible that a vengeful spirit might be possessing him. It would explain why he's so afraid. But possession takes a lot of energy, it's why revenants are more common than possession of a living person, the spirit would need to be continually powered by its desire for vengeance. Revenants typically don't last very long, the energy required for possession burns through them, even fueled as they are by the need for vengeance.

A long term ghost possession would be almost impossible, and Max has been afraid for a very long time. Even if a ghost could possess a person for so long, why would it wait all this time before killing? If it wanted vengeance on Jim and Roger, and it had possessed Max, surely it would have hurried up and just killed them? Why had Max been afraid for so long?

Sam and Dean left the Miller's house and strolled down the driveway, Dean removing the stiff white collar as soon as he was able. "No one's family is totally normal and happy. See when he was talking about his old house?"

"He sounded scared." Sammy observed and I scoffed; that kid's always scared, he reeks of it.

"Yeah Max isn't telling us everything. I say we go find the old neighbourhood, find out what life was really like for the Millers."


We pulled up to the address we'd found, parking across the street. The houses were fairly large, wooden built and looked quite charming, surrounded by trees and other greenery. It looked perfectly normal and happy, as Max had described. I opened the door, climbing out and crossing the street, trying to see if any 'odours' had lingered. Though given how long it had been, in such a busy neighbourhood, it was unlikely at best.

Sam and Dean got out of the car behind me and struck up a conversation with a man raking leaves in his front garden, right next to were we'd parked. I couldn't go in to the properties, only stand at the curb, with this many witnesses. But even from there I got a slight whiff of the stale scent of fear, though it doubtless wouldn't have been noticeable had I not been looking for it.

I gave up and rejoined my brothers just as Sam was steering the conversation to what we wanted to know. "Have you lived in the neighbourhood very long?"

"Yeah, almost 20 years now. It's nice and quiet. Why, you looking to buy?"

"No, no, actually, we were wondering if you might recall a family that used to live right across the street, I believe." Sam gestured over his shoulder at the house.

"Yeah, the Millers. They had a little boy called Max." Dean chimed in.

"Yeah I remember." The guy's tone had shifted, more… melancholy? "The brother had the place next door. So uh, what's this about, is that poor kid okay?"

"What do you mean?" Sam questioned.

"Well, on my life, I've never seen a child treated like that. I mean I'd hear Mr Miller yelling and throwing things clear across the street, he was a mean drunk. He used to beat the tar outta Max. Bruises. Broke his arm two times that I know of."

I stepped away from the conversation, heading back to the car. I felt as if I needed to get some air, a queasy feeling was setting in my stomach as the memory of the pain of a broken arm came back to me.

Pain experienced first hand is different to second hand pain, other people's pain is nutritional and delicious, being in pain myself? Completely different story. My father had only broken my arm once. It had been a dull sort of pain, as if it was muffled by something. It still hurt, by goodness had it hurt, but there were no sharp edges to it, coming from inside as it had, and the exact point of pain was difficult to identify. It had still made me gasp every time I felt the bones moving inside though, and I'd kept it as still as I could, ignoring the steady pain from the bone as it had healed over the weeks.

I remember most the fear that the bones might heal wrong; no one had set my arm for me. My father had broken it, and had fed off my pain while I gasped and whimpered, trying to stop the tears from falling. And then my father had left, shutting the cupboard door behind him and I had held my arm carefully against my chest, gasping for breath and crying silently in the darkness as I trembled from the shock.

Sam's pain started to trickle through my awareness, pulling my attention back to the present moment. The guy was speaking, saying something about how Max's mother had died in a car accident, but Sam had his eyes closed and he was holding a hand to his forehead, his face starting to screw up as the pain I could sense from him reached a sharp point.

Dean started supporting Sam back to the car and I reached for my younger brother, starting to pull away as much of the pain as I could as Sam's eyes glazed over and Dean and I got him into the car and got moving.

I kept my hand on Sam, helping as much as I could until the shock of the second-hand deathcry ran through my brother and into my hand on his shoulder and I drew it away with a sharp hiss.

"The Miller's house." Sam gasped, giving Dean a destination. And then we rode in silence while Sam tried to get his breath back and I rubbed at the hand that had been touching Sam's shoulder. "Max is doing it. Everything I've been seeing."

"You sure about this?"

"Yeah, I saw him."

"How's he pulling it off?"

"I don't know, like telekinesis?"

"What, so he's psychic, a spoon bender?"

Sam ignored Dean's question, continuing as if he'd not been interrupted. "I didn't even realize it but this whole time, he was there. He was outside the garage when his Dad died, he was in the apartment when his Uncle died. These visions, this whole time - I wasn't connecting to the Millers, I was connecting to Max! The thing is I don't get why, man. I guess - because we're so alike?"

"What are you talking about?" Demanded Dean, "The dude's nothing like you."

"Well. We both have psychic abilities, we both..."

"Both what? Sam, Max is a monster, he's already killed two people, now he's gunning for a third."

"Well, with what he went through, the beatings, to want revenge on those people? I'm sorry, man, I hate to say it, but it's not that insane." Sam insisted.

"Yes, it is." My voice was quiet, but it cut through my brothers' raised voices and heralded a silence that hung heavy and uncomfortable over the car. It was insane though; wanting to hurt, to kill anyone is insane, no matter what they've done to you. Wanting bad things to happen to bad people, that's not crazy, but taking it into your own hands, becoming a bad person yourself? That is insane.

Dean pulled the car over and cut the engine. We sat in silence for a few moments before he spoke, "He's no different from anything else we've hunted, all right? We gotta end him."

"We're not going to kill Max."

"Then what? Hand him over to the cops and say 'Lock him up officer; he kills with the power of his mind.'"

"Dean, just because he's insane, doesn't mean he's irredeemable."

"He's a person. We can talk to him." Sam built on my argument, "Hey, promise me you'll follow our lead on this one."

Dean eyed both us and the Miller's house with a frown on his face, clearly unhappy with the proposed plan. "All right fine. But I'm not letting him hurt anybody else." He leant across and removed Sam's Taurus pistol from the glove box.

We all got out of the car, and after a brief argument about whether or not I would be coming with (I said yes, Dean said no, Sam said we didn't have time for this) we hurried over to the Miller's house. Dean hit the door, shoulder first and it burst open, Sam and I were close behind.

Max and his step-mother were in the kitchen, both looking up, shocked at out sudden entrance. "Fathers?"

"What are you doing here?" Max questioned, clearly uneasy, and eying me warily.

"Max, can we, uh, can we talk to you outside for just one second?"

"About what?" Max was still watching me carefully, and I observed him in return. He was pale, and thin. The combination leaving him looking unhealthy. He had curly hair, beginning to retreat across his forehead despite his obvious youth.

"It's...it's private. I wouldn't want to bother your mother with it." Sam stumbled through an explanation, "We won't be long at all though, I promise."

"Shared experiences." I added, keeping my eyes on Max and curling in on myself slightly, hugging the arm that was in a sling close to me and trying to make myself appear small. Not exactly a challenge when standing next to Sammy.

Max glanced back at his step-mother before answering us, "Okay."

We turned to lead Max towards the door, and I flinched away from Sam's hand as it came up to rest on my shoulder. It was disturbing how easy it was to slip back into the timid behaviors I'd had when I'd first been rescued by the Winchesters, how easily the years seemed to slip away and allow the fear to take root once more. It was like a weed, continuing to return despite how many years I'd spent trying to eradicate it.

I don't know what happened, I was staring at the ground, despairing at my own emotions, but suddenly the door ahead of us slammed shut, the shutters of all the windows followed, leaving the hall in darkness and Max was backing away, "You're not priests!"

Dean drew the gun from his waistband but it seemed to slip from his grasp, flying across the room to land at Max's feet.

"Max, what's happening?" His step-mother asked as he retrieved the gun from the floor, pointing it at us awkwardly, as if he'd never held one before and was slightly surprised by the heavy weight of it in his hand.

"Shut up." He told her, without turning to look.

"What are you doing?" She pressed, starting forward from the kitchen.

Max flung his hand out in her direction and she twisted backwards, leaving the ground slightly before her head connected with the kitchen counter and she fell, unmoving to the ground. "I said shut up!"

"Max, calm down." Sam stepped forward, placing himself slightly ahead of me and Dean with his hands raised in a placating gesture.

"Who are you?" Max demanded, holding a hand to his head as a pale echo of the pain Sam had felt during his visions slowly faded from his head.

"We just wanna talk." Sam's voice was aiming for calm, but not quite achieving it.

"Yeah right, that's why you bought this!" He turned the gun briefly sideways to show its profile before pointing it at us once more.

"That was a mistake, all right? So was lying about who we were. But no more lying Max ok? Just please, just hear me out." Sam's voice was slightly raised, and he stepped more fully in front of me and the gun wavered in Max's trembling hand.

"About what?"

Sam swallowed, "I saw you do it. I saw you kill your Dad and your Uncle before it happened."

"What?" Max aimed the gun more fully at Sam; until that point it hadn't really selected a target, merely pointed in our general direction. Dean shifted uneasily.

"I'm having visions Max. About you."

"You're crazy."

"So what, you weren't gonna launch a knife at your step-mom?" he tapped a finger just below his right eye, "Right here? Is it that hard to believe Max, look what you can do. Max I was drawn here all right? I think I'm here to help you."

Max's face screwed up as pain and anger flooded from him, "No one can help me."

"Why?" My voice wasn't exactly stable, but I stepped out from behind Sam anyway, and Max blinked at me, as if he'd forgotten I was there. "You think you're special? You think you're the only child whose father beat them? The only child who trembled when they heard the front door slam, heard the heavy, drunken footsteps in the hall. Who tried every time to hide, because you knew, you knew, what was coming. The only child who cried alone in the dark, because it didn't matter if you screamed or not, no one ever came, no one saved you, no one cared."

Tears were pouring down my cheeks and I was seeing his face again, angry and towering above me. "There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nowhere else to go. And the anger, the hatred in his eyes, even though I didn't know what I'd done wrong. He blamed me for everything, the household chores not being done, the food running out, even Mummy dying. Even though I was just a child and I'd have done anything to save her. He hated me, he blamed me and he beat me, and nothing I did would ever make him stop."

"Ali..." I looked 'round at Sam's voice, realising from the pain in his eyes that I'd said more than I ought. I got out when Sam was only a toddler, he didn't know most of what I went through, and he didn't ever need to.

I took several gasping breathes, trying to stop the tears that were falling, trying to steady my voice before I spoke again. "You're not the only one, and you're not special, and it doesn't give you the right to kill them."

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Max still sounded angry, though his grasp on Sam's pistol seemed to have loosened. "How do I know you're not lying like they were?" He gestured at Sam and Dean with the gun, his grip tightening again as his did so. "And why didn't they ever help you?"

I blinked the tears out of my eyes and kept eye contact with Max as I reached up with my good arm and started unbuttoning the plaid shirt I was wearing over a tank top, shrugging my right arm out of the sleeve. "They did help me, they adopted me and got me away from my father years ago, my bones have healed, my bruises faded, even the majority of the scars are difficult to see now, but you'll be able to see this one." I held my arm towards him and stepped carefully and slowly forwards, my brothers shifting uneasily behind me.

"I remember the day he gave me this, I still have nightmares about it. How his footsteps were heavy, but even -sober- as he approached my cupboard. I remember how the light of the hallway was so much brighter that the darkness I was used to, I remember how the light caught on the edge of the blade he was carrying and almost blinded me. I raised my hand to shield my eyes and he grabbed my forearm, pulled me towards him. I remember struggling, pleading with him, 'no, Daddy, no! I'm sorry, I'll be good, I promise!' I don't even remember what I was apologising for, what I'd done wrong, I doubt I even knew. I just know that I was terrified, and he was so much bigger and stronger than me, and I couldn't fight him. He placed the tip of the knife on my arm, here." I pointed, awkwardly with my other arm still in the sling, at the point of the long scar where it started close to my elbow, on the side of my little finger. Then I dragged my finger along the scar that ran a ragged length up towards my wrist, the scar tissue standing out white under the pressure of my finger. "He pressed it in and twisted it. I remember the pain, I remember screaming as he twisted and turned and pulled it, millimeter by millimeter all along my arm."

I raised my eyes from my forearm back to Max, watching him swallow hard. "I was saved, my father is dead and I have a new family now, but I still remember. I still see it in my dreams, and I'm still afraid. Some nights I have to sleep with the light on, otherwise I wake up in the dark, and it's so much like the darkness of the cupboard he kept me in that I don't know it was only a dream; I think I'm back there. The fact that my father is dead, has been for years now, doesn't stop the fear, Max."

His eyes widened, and Sam spoke up from behind me, "That's why you killed them, isn't it? So you wouldn't be afraid of them anymore."

"Just because they're dead, it doesn't stop you being afraid, Max. You just have to... let it go." I gestured vaguely in the direction of the kitchen, where his step-mother still lay, unconscious on the floor.

"You have to let her go, Max." Dean echoed from behind me, Max's eyes snapped over to him and the gun, which had been slowly lowering raised again to point directly at Dean.

"Why?" Max's eyes were narrowed in anger.

"Did she beat you?" Sam tried to reason with him.

"No, but she never tried to save me. She's a part of it too." Max's eyes never drifted from Dean.

"What they did, to you, what they all did to you growing up, they deserve to be punished..."

Max's eyes now focused on Sam, "Growing up? Try last week." He pulled his shirt up at the side to reveal the discolouration spreading across his ribcage. The gun not pointing at any of us for the first time in this whole conversation. "My dad still hit me. Just in places people wouldn't see it. Old habits die hard I guess."

"I'm sorry." Sam's voice was quiet, and I'm sure he was doing the puppy eyes, though I didn't turn around to check.

"When I first found out I could move things; it was a gift." Max wasn't looking at any of us, staring down at the gun in his hand instead, "My whole life I was helpless but now I had this. So last week Dad gets drunk. The first time in a long time. And he beats me to hell, first time in a long time. And then I knew what I had to do."

"Why didn't you just leave?" Sam questioned gently.

"It wasn't about getting away. Just knowing they would still be out there." Max explained and I dropped my eyes, trying to imagine how I would feel if my father was still alive out there. "It was about...not being afraid. When my Dad used to look at me, there was hate in his eyes. Do you know what that feels like?"

Yes, I do.

"He blamed me for everything. For his job, for his life, for my Mom's death."

"Why would he blame you for your Mum's death?" I asked, wondering if there was a reason why fathers did that, I'd never worked out why my own father had blamed me for Mummy dying.

"Because she died in my nursery, while I was asleep in my crib. As if that makes it my fault." Max's voice was bitter.

"She died in your nursery?" Sam sounded a little shocked, and honestly the similarities between him and Max were starting to stack up.

"There was a fire." Max explained. "And he'd get drunk and babble on like she died in some insane way. He said that she burned up. Pinned to the ceiling!"

There was silence for a moment, and I turned to look at my brothers, consciously turning my back on Max, hoping that the subliminal message of trust would get through to him. Sam and Dean were staring at each other, clearly shocked before they looked back at first me and then Max behind me. We all knew, we all recognised that description. It was Sam who broke our silence, "Listen to me Max. What your Dad said, about what happened to your Mom. It's real."

"What?" He sounded baffled and I turned back so I could face him again.

"It happened to our Mom too, exactly the same." Sam explained, "My nursery, my crib, my Dad saw her on the ceiling."

Max's eyes, which had been somewhat more open and trusting, closed off, "Your Dad must have been as drunk as mine."

"No, no. It's the same thing, Max." Sam was starting to sound a little excited, probably at the prospect of some answers about what's happening to him, "The same thing killed our mothers."

"That's impossible." Max muttered.

"This must be why I'm having visions during the day." Sam went on, "Why they're getting more intense. Cause you and I must be connected in some way. Your abilities, they started 6-7 months ago, right? out of the blue?"

"How'd you know that?"

"'Cause that's when my abilities started, Max!" And I did some quick maths in my head; had it really been 6 months since we fetched Sam from Stanford? "Yours seem to be much further along but still, this has to mean something right? I mean for some reason, you and I...you and I were chosen."

"For what?" Max asked, though I'm personally more worried by the question 'by what?'

"I don't know. But, Max, we're hunting for your Mom's killer. We can find answers, answers that can help us both. But you gotta let us go, Max. You gotta let your stepmother go."

Max looked down, seeming to contemplate all we'd said while turning the gun over in his hands. Before his face twisted and tears began to gather in his eyes. "No. What they did to me. I still have nightmares. I'm so scared all the time, like I'm just waiting for that next beating. I'm so sick of being scared all the time, I just want this to be over!"

"It won't." I told him, "Don't you get it? The nightmares won't end, Max. Not like this. It's just, more pain. And it makes you as bad as them. Max, you don't have to go through all this by yourself."

Max looked at me, tears starting to fill his eyes, the gun rose from his side, pointing at his step-mother.

"But," I exclaimed, as my brothers and I all took a step to our right to try and place ourselves between the gun and the woman who was just starting to come back to consciousness, "That doesn't mean it'll always be as bad as it is now. Things can get better, Max. The nightmares can be fewer and further between, the fear can fade away with time and distance until it doesn't affect you at all anymore. Until it's nothing more than bad memories."

Max dropped his hand, letting the gun float unsupported in the air. He was shaking his head at me, his face twisting as he tried to contain his tears.

"Max, you are stronger than this. You can let her go and build your own life without letting the past define who you are and who you want to be. Killing her doesn't fix anything, Max. It doesn't take the pain or the nightmares away. Let her go."

Max was shaking slightly as I spoke, still trying to get myself between him and his step-mother. But his eyes were focused on me, he was listening and hearing my words, I could only hope they'd be enough to persuade him. A single sob escaped him before his whole countenance seemed to relax and he nodded slightly at me, "You're right."

I barely had time to smile at him before the gun, still hovering in the air between us swung suddenly to face him and the trigger pulled.

The bang of the gun sounded, followed by a scream from behind me, but it was the sound of the… liquid, splashing against the wall behind where Max had stood and the thud as his body hit the ground that seemed to echo in the hallway.


I sat beside Ms Miller, patting her hand gently as she spoke to the police officer. She told him that we were family friends whom she'd called to her aide when she'd realised that Max had a gun.

Her words and those of the cop's seemed to wash over me, I was both aware and not as I continued patting Ms Miller's hand, taking enough of her grief to allow her to keep a clear head whilst covering for us, but allowing enough of her grief to remain to prevent the cop from becoming suspicious of an emotionless performance.

The soft splatter sound was still echoing through my memory. The waves of the Deathcry had been soft, almost relieved, as Max had departed this world.

Eventually Ms Miller pulled her hand away from mine, raising it to cover her face as her tears broke through and Dean patted my shoulder, telling me it was time for us to go.

We were out of the house and walking down the path before Sam spoke, "If I'd just said something else. Gotten through to him somehow."

"Ah, don't do that." Dean protested.

"Do what?"

"Torture yourself. It wouldn't have mattered what you said, Max was too far gone. Same goes for you, Ali; Nothing you coulda done. I mean yeah, maybe if we had gotten there 20 years earlier."

I tugged on the car door handle, but Dean hadn't unlocked it yet.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing." Sam said, pausing to stand by the passenger door. "We're lucky we had Dad."

Dean and I both looked up at him, caught between stunned and pleased. "Well, I never thought I'd hear you say that."

Sam shrugged, "Well, it coulda gone a whole other way after Mom. A little more tequila and a little less demon hunting and we woulda had Max's childhood. All things considered, we turned out okay. Thanks to him."

My childhood did go that way, until Dad came along.


We were packing our bags, I was pleased to be getting out of here; themed motels are never my favourite, and this place was an awful mockery of a hunting lodge.

Sam handed me a crochet hook which had rolled off the bed and spoke quietly. "I've been thinking."

"Well that's never a good thing." Dean joked from across the room.

"I'm serious. I been thinking, this demon, whatever it is. Why would it kill Mom, and Jessica, and Max's mother, you know? What does it want?"

I rolled the hook between my fingers, staring at it. "I don't know."

"Well," Sam pushed on, "you think, maybe, it was after us? After Max and me?"

"Why would you think that?" Dean asked at the same time that I looked up.

"No. If it had wanted you, it would have taken you."

"Well, I mean, either telekinesis or premonitions, we both had abilities, you know? Maybe he was, he was after us for some reason."

"Sam. If it had wanted you, it would've just taken you. Okay?" Dean repeated, "This is not your fault, it's not about you."

"Then what is it about?"

Dean slammed whatever he was holding into his duffel and turned to face Sam, "It's about that damn thing that did this to our family. The thing that we're gonna find, the thing that we're gonna kill. And that's all."

"Yeah, maybe." Sam agreed and Dean turned back to his bag. I closed my own bag and started the final check, make sure we hadn't left a knife under a pillow or anything. "Aren't you worried, man? Aren't you worried I could turn into Max or something?"

"Nope. No way. You know why?" Dean turned to face Sam, bag in hand.

"No. Why?"

"Cause you got one advantage Max didn't have."

Sam scoffed, "Dad? Because Dad's not here, Dean."

"No. Me." I cleared my throat and raised an eye brow at Dean from where I knelt next to a bed I'd been checking under. "Uh, us." Dean corrected himself. "As long as we're around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you."

Sam gave us a little smile and Dean grabbed my bag off the bed. "Now then. I know what we need to do about your premonitions. I know where we have to go."

"Where?"

"Vegas." Dean said it with a completely straight face, but broke and smiled a second later, I shook my head smiling at him and collected the kitchen box, heading out to the car. Sam gave Dean a well deserved bitchface and followed me, Dean's voice calling after us, "What? Come on man. Craps tables. We'd clean up!"