Chapter 19: Fata Viam Invenient

Several shotguns go off at once, as a group of several heavily armed people amass against another group of unarmed people. The furniture in the dark, rundown bar has been upturned and scattered everywhere in this fight. Some of the armed individuals take cover behind the wooden bar, reloading their weapons. One by one, the armed individuals are picked off by the unarmed ones, mostly with their own weapons. Outside, the entire bar is surrounded by more people, or at least what look like people. Shotgun fire can still be heard from outside of the bar, along with a few cries of pain. The air seems to hum with unseen energy right before it happens. In the span of a single second, swirling black pillars of smoke erupt from all of the people outside. A few vortexes of black smoke crash through the windows of the bar and out through the wood walls on all sides. Suddenly, the orange glow of flames can be seen through the broken windows. Thick, gray smoke starts to pour out of the bar. It takes only a few seconds for the flames to engulf the wooden building. Glass bulbs explode out of the sign on the front of the building that reads: Harvelle's Roadhouse.

It is dark outside when I wake from a dead sleep, the image of flames still before my eyes. It takes me a moment to stop shaking. I sit on the edge of my bed, trying to slow my breathing and recover from what I just saw. There is no doubt in my mind: that was a vision. It felt different, though. The vision itself seemed to be of a higher energy, urgent. I look over to my alarm clock: 5:47. As soon as I calm myself down a little, I start to get dressed. For some inexplicable reason, I know this vision is going to play out soon. I've never felt that way about any of my other visions. Honestly, if I wasn't so edgy right now, I would probably be a little more suspicious of the feeling. All I know is that I have to find that roadhouse as quickly as possible. On my way out of my room, I grab my black, lined canvas jacket. The weather has been damp and colder lately, and I have no idea where I'm heading. I figure when I get downstairs, I can look through Mike's contacts and see if there is a "Harvelle" listed. Mike has mentioned a roadhouse for hunters before, but never where it was.

Even with avoiding all of the noisy steps on the staircase, Mike is already waiting for me when I get to the bottom of the stairs. I suddenly feel like a teenager who has been caught trying to sneak out of the house. A feeling I know all too well.

"Lara, what in God's name are you doing up this early?"

"I could ask you the same thing," I say, moving past him.

He turns and follows me into the kitchen.

"I heard you tossing around, so I came to check on you. I was heading back to sleep when I heard you get up. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Anyone else would think that was just a paranoid comment from a hunter, but I have no one to blame for that except myself. I hate that I made him worry so much that he has to check on me every time I make a noise in the middle of the night.

"I'm fine, don't worry."

"Where are you going?" he asks, noticing that I'm fully dressed.

"Harvelle's Roadhouse. You know where it is, right?" I say.

I don't want to lie to him about where I'm going, only why.

"Yeah. What do you want with that place?"

"I'm meeting someone there," I say, hesitating slightly.

I can tell he's getting suspicious, but I really don't need him to start worrying.

"Who the hell would be meeting you there so damn early?"

"Dean Winchester," I say without hesitating.

I would be an idiot if I assumed Mike hasn't figured out one reason why I enjoy working with the Winchesters so much. Better for him to think it's about anything other than my visions. He shakes his head in disbelief, smiling for a moment.

"Fine. Just be careful, all kinds of hunters go through the Roadhouse. They ain't all friendly," he says.

As I start to gather up my supplies, he adds,"And, Lara, I'm happy for you. You need someone in your life, besides me."

"Thanks, Mike," I say with a small smile.

I go back to packing and he starts telling me where to find the roadhouse.

In less than half an hour, I'm on my way to Nebraska once again. It has hardly been a week since the werewolf case in Lincoln. After Mike calmed down from seeing my torn up shoulder and bruised neck, we went to one of his friends to get my shoulder properly sutured. The retired Army medic said the sutures already in my shoulder would have done just fine in a pinch, but the medical grade ones he had access to would hold up much better with motion. My shoulder is still healing, but I've been able to move it more and more each day. A good thing, considering what I'm about to get myself into probably won't be a walk in the park. The drive seems a lot longer this time. I try to stay focused on the road and not let my mind wander back to my vision. Inevitably, it does anyway. There is still a pit in my stomach, the same unpleasant feeling I got when I had the vision about the yellow-eyed demon. There is no way to know, other than the feeling, if this new vision is connected to the demon. I hope it isn't, but hope hasn't done much for me lately.

It is a few hours after dawn when I start to follow Mike's more specific directions to the roadhouse. The sky has turned grey and cloudy, making the day gloomy already. When I round the final bend in the road my stomach drops. In the distance, thick smoke billows upwards into the grey clouds. I slow down and pull around the smoldering remains of the roadhouse, finding a place to conceal my car. I get out of my car and walk toward what's left of the building, keeping my gun close. Frustration builds inside me, frustration and helplessness. I am too late. All of those hunters are dead, the demons are gone. The building is almost unrecognizable, only half of the front wall remains, the rest is just a heap of blackened wood and metal. The sign has been almost completely destroyed, only a few letters remain. If Mike hadn't given me such specific directions, I wouldn't even know I was in the right place. There are still flames burning, which means this happened not too long ago. I look around, making sure I am truly alone before I start to search for answers. Why would demons all of a sudden decide to lead a mass assault on a building full of hunters? According to Mike, Harvelle's Roadhouse had been around for a while. Surely demons knew about it before today, so what made them attack now? I look around, trying to stay alert as I sift through the rubble. I haven't been looking long when I start to hear an approaching car. Before I can even seen it, I quickly duck down, trying to hide myself the best I can. Just by the sound I can tell it isn't a fire truck, so that leaves only two options: hunter or demon. While it is unlikely a demon would be driving, it isn't impossible. Even if it is a hunter, I need to be careful how I approach this. Hunters tend to be very suspicious, especially around strangers, and the last thing I need is to be blamed for this. I hear the car come to a stop and hear the engine turn off. A few seconds later, I hear two car doors open and close with distinctive creaking. I hear voices, but I can't make out what they're saying. I hold my gun close, ready to catch whoever, or whatever, it is unaware. I hear footsteps getting louder, closer, and shift my weight. When the footsteps are practically on top of me, I jump up out of my hiding spot, aiming my gun at their source. To my surprise, I find I am staring down the barrel of a gun myself.

In the moment it takes me to register what exactly is going on, I crack into a smile.

"We really have to stop meeting like this," I say, lowering my gun.

Even though I start to joke, my hands are still shaking as I put my gun away.

"Dammit, Lara, I could have shot you!" Dean says after a long pause.

He puts his gun away and starts to look me over.

"Are you okay?"

Even before he asks, I can tell something isn't right. He seems shaken too, no doubt because of the Roadhouse. There is something else, though, but it fades as I start to talk.

"I'm fine. It was like this when I got here."

"Why are you here, anyway? This is a hell of a coincidence."

There it is, that slight tone of scepticism in his voice. I don't blame him. I could be possessed for all he knows.

"Honestly, it isn't even a coincidence. I had a vision, I saw this place get attacked. So, I tried to get here as fast as I could, to warn people, but...I was too late."

"Attacked? By what?"

"Demons, a bunch of them. They surrounded and destroyed this place. The hunters tried to fight back, but- I couldn't save them, Dean, I tried, but I wasn't fast enough."
Dean places a hand firmly on my shoulder, "If demons were here, I'm glad you were too late. If you'd been here, you could have been killed. Hell, you probably would have been. Don't beat yourself up about this."

I try to take his words to heart, but I still don't feel any better about it.

"Wait, what are you doing here, then? If you didn't know about the demons-"

"Sam's gone."

The tone of his words instantly turn my blood to ice.

"Wh-what do you mean 'gone'?"

"He's missing, demons took him. I've been trying to track him down all morning, but there's nothing. We had a contact here, a friend, named Ash. He was looking for a way to find Sam, he found something else. He said it was 'huge', so big he didn't want to talk about it over the phone. We were supposed to meet him here, but-"

Dean looks over to the smoldering rubble. I nod solemnly.

This say just went from bad to worse. If Sam is involved, those demons were probably connected to the demon, just as I feared.

"So you don't have any clue where Sam is?" I ask.

"No, did you see anything?"

"Just demons, nothing distinguishing at all."

It is then that I notice the other man with Dean. He is older and wearing a faded baseball cap. I've seen him before, but not in person.

"Bobby Singer, I've heard a lot about you. Mostly good things, of course," I say with a quick smile. "It's nice to finally meet you, I just wish it was under better circumstances."

"You're Daniel Wright's kid, aren't you?" he says in a gruff voice.

I nod, "Yes, Lara."

"Oh, I know. I've heard a lot about you too," he says, his voice almost sounding amused, "from your biggest fans."

I'm confused, until Dean turns away from me. A smug smile spreads across my face.

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, according to Dean, you're one of the best hunters out there."

I can tell he is enjoying embarrassing Dean almost as much as I am.

"Come on, don't we have more pressing matters here?" Dean interjects.

He is right, but it was nice to not think about that for a moment.

We start to walk back toward the front of the Roadhouse, what little remains of it. As we step over burned boards, I can tell this is weighing heavily on both Bobby and Dean.

"This is-" Bobby says, trailing off.

"What the hell did Ash know?" Dean asks.

They stop beside the Impala and I stand back from them, trying to give them space.

"We got no way of knowing where Ellen is, or if she's even alive. We have no clue what Ash was gonna tell us, so how the hell are we gonna find Sam?"

It isn't hard to hear the worry and fear in Dean's voice. It's a tone I understand all too well.

"We'll find him," Bobby says, but even he doesn't sound so sure of his words.

All of a sudden, Dean grimaces in pain, pressing his hand against his forehead.

"Dean?" Bobby asks, concerned.

Dean stares at the hood of the Impala, the pain seeming to have passed. I take a step closer in alarm. Dean groans and clutches his head again, doubling over the Impala.

"What was that?" Bobby asks.

Dean shakes his head, clearly still in pain from whatever just happened. I step closer, until I am beside Dean. He looks at me and then back to Bobby.

"I don't know. A headache?"

"You get headaches like that a lot?" Bobby asks, sceptically.

"No...must be the stress," Dean says with a small chuckle.

He grunts in pain, rubbing his face with his hand again, "I could have swore I saw something."

"What?" I ask, not even trying to mask my concern.

"What do you mean, like...like a vision? Like what Sam gets?" Bobby asks.

"What? No," Dean says, leaning on the hood of the Impala.

"Well, I'm just saying-" Bobby says.

"Come on, I'm not some psychic," Dean says, seemingly annoyed by the notion.

"No offense," he adds when I raise an eyebrow at him.

All of a sudden, Dean cries out in pain.

"Dean?" Bobby asks.

Dean cries out again, falling down against the Impala. Bobby runs around to us.

"Dean!?" Bobby and I both exclaim.

I've never seen anything like this before and it's starting to scare me. Bobby places a hand firmly on Dean.

"Dean? Are you with me?"

Dean continues to groan in pain, but starts to lift his head off of the Impala.

"Yeah, I think so," Dean says, his voice raspy.

Bobby and I look at each other in confusion and concern.

"I saw Sam. I saw him, Bobby," Dean says.

"It was a vision," Bobby says.

"Yeah," Dean says, pushing himself up off the Impala. "I don't know how, but-but yeah."

Dean sighs in relief, "That was about as fun as getting kicked in the jewels."

I chuckle, rolling my eyes.

"What else did you see?" Bobby asks.

"Uh...there was a bell."

"What kind of bell?"

Dean looks up at Bobby, his face still wrinkled with pain, "Uh...like a big- a big bell. With, uh, some kind of engraving on it. I don't know."

"Engraving?" Bobby asks.

"Yeah," Dean says, catching his breath.

"Was it a tree? Like...an oak tree?" Bobby asks.

Dean and I both look at him, clearly he knows something.

"Yeah, exactly," Dean says.

"I know where Sam is," Bobby says.

Before I can completely understand what just happened to Dean, he and Bobby are piling in the Impala. Sensing the urgency myself, I start to run to my car, calling back to Dean that I'll follow them. There's no way in hell I'm leaving my car here. Dean peels out of the Roadhouse lot and heads toward the highway. It's going to be a task to keep up with him. Not that I blame him, I would be anxious too. Hell, I am anxious. Despite knowing where Sam is, we still have no clue what is going on. A knot starts to form in my stomach as I start to think about my vision again. I haven't had it again, not since I told Sam about it. With all I know about my visions, that could either be a good thing or a bad thing. Either I changed something by telling Sam, or I just stopped myself from having the vision. I don't even know where we could possibly be heading until we start going north on the highway, toward South Dakota. A long time ago, when I first decided to start hunting with Eric, Mike started telling us stories about myths even hunters didn't believe. One of those was about Cold Oak, South Dakota. Cold Oak was a frontier town, supposedly so haunted that every person who lived there left. No one ever lived there again, and those that tried to resettle it disappeared and were never heard from again. Those who know the story, whether they believe it or not, know the symbol of Cold Oak: a large bell with an oak tree engraved on it.

The drive to Cold Oak is long, it is nearly sunset before we even turn off the highway. The deserted town is deep in backcountry, from what I've heard, surrounded on all sides by miles of thick woods. The roads we are on start to turn to unpaved, dirt roads the longer we drive. Soon we are driving down narrow roads that are nestled between towering trees. Navigation becomes increasingly difficult as the sun slips below the horizon, throwing us into complete darkness. If it weren't for the headlights on our two cars, there would be no light out here. Even the moonlight has been shrouded by clouds. Ahead, I see the Impala slow to a halt. When I pull up behind it, I see why. Illuminated by the headlights are two fallen trees blocking the road. There is no way around them and they are too big to move. I see Dean and Bobby get out of the Impala, and I follow suit.

"Well, looks like the rest of the way's on foot," Bobby says.

I grab my lined jacket from inside my car, putting it on as walk around to the trunk to grab a few weapons. I slip a knife into my belt, holster my revolver on my hip, and grab a shotgun. I grab a flashlight and try to turn it on, only to find the battery is dead. There is no telling what we will be up against out here. I walk toward Dean and Bobby, who are also loading up on weapons.

"Hey, Dean, got a spare flashlight?" I ask. "Mine's dead."

"Sure," Dean says, passing me one.

"Thanks."

He and Bobby both take out sawed-offs and flashlights before Dean shuts the trunk.

"Let's go," Dean says, walking off.

Bobby takes the lead through the woods, leaving me and Dean to walk beside one another. Even in the darkness, I can see Dean clenching his jaw tight.

"It's okay, we'll find him, Dean. Don't worry."

He looks over to me, as we continue to walk, and I can see the worry in his eyes too.

"I don't even know if- what if something happened?"

"Sam's strong, like you, he'll be okay."

I don't know if I'm assuring Dean or myself, or both, but I believe in every word I'm saying. We tread carefully through the thick, muddy woods, trying to keep our footing and our speed. For one thing, I am grateful for bringing a heavier jacket. There is a damp chill in the air that is making the night feel even colder than it actually is. I can even see my breath in the dark air.

"I thought Cold Oak was just a legend," I say.

"Not if you live in South Dakota. Trust me, the place is real enough," Bobby says from up ahead.

Thunder rumbles in the distance, echoing through the trees. As we head farther into the woods, a light rain starts to fall through the canopy. It's hard to tell just how far we've walked, but I'm starting to feel the cold in my fingertips. We walk about another half-mile or so before the woods start to thin. The path we are on takes a slight curve and when we round the corner, I stop dead in my tracks.

The woods suddenly open into a clearing, a clearing with a few, old wooden buildings in them. The buildings are falling apart, looking like they're out of some ghostly Western. But the sudden appearance of buildings in the middle of the woods is not what twists my stomach into knots and makes my blood run cold. I recognize these buildings. I've seen them three times before, every time I had the vision about Sam.

"Lara? What's wrong?" Dean asks.

"Nothing, just a...weird feeling."

We follow a wide dirt road through some of the buildings. The road is overgrown to each side and spotted with puddles from a recent rain.

"Sam!" Dean calls out.

Thunder continues to rumble in the distance and the rain starts to fall more heavily. We walk around one of the buildings, Dean and Bobby in front of me. I look down the road and am relieved when I suddenly see Sam staggering toward us. Dean and Bobby seem relieved as well. Even from this distance I can see that Sam looks exhausted. He is cradling his right arm, but otherwise he looks fine. I start to think maybe all of my worrying was for nothing.

"Sam," Dean says.

"Dean!" Sam says, smiling at his brother.

He looks just as relieved to see us. It only takes a second for me to realize I was wrong. I see him at the same time as Dean, a man comes up from behind Sam, rushing him.

"Sam! Look out!" Dean yells.

At the exact same time, Dean, Bobby and I run toward Sam. The guy thrusts something into Sam's back and I see Sam's face wrinkle up in pain.

"NO!" Dean yells.

All of us run faster toward Sam as he collapses to his knees with an audible gasp. Dean slides to the ground in front of Sam, catching him before he falls over. Bobby takes off after Sam's attacker, who is fleeing rapidly.

"Sam," Dean says, grabbing the front of Sam's shirt to keep him upright.

I stop a few feet behind Dean, unable to believe what I am seeing. My entire body feels numb. I can do nothing but watch in horror as one of my worst visions plays out before my eyes. Only this time, it isn't a vision, this is real.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sam. Sam. Hey!" Dean says firmly, trying to keep his brother awake.

Dean pulls Sam closer to him, "Come here, let me look at you."

I watch as Dean places his hand on Sam's back. I don't have to see the wound to know it's bad.

Tears come to my eyes and start to roll down my face. Dean holds Sam in front of him, but Sam is struggling to keep his head up.

"Hey, look. Look at me. It's not even that bad. It's not even that bad, all right?" Dean says.

But I can tell by his voice, Dean is just desperately trying to convince himself.

"Sammy?" Dean says as Sam's eyes start to close. "Sam! Hey, listen to me. We're going to patch you up, okay? You'll be good as new, huh?"

I start to cry harder as Dean bargains with his brother to stay alive. My hand trembles as I cover my mouth. I've been where Dean is, utterly helpless as my life shattered before my eyes.

"I'm gonna take care of you. I'm gonna take care of you. I got you. That's my job right? Watch out for my pain-in-the-ass little brother. Sam? Sam. Sam! Sammy!"

Sam is completely limp, only being held up by his brother.

"No. No, no, no. Oh, God," Dean says, pulling Sam into his arms.

Sam falls limply into Dean's shoulder and I hear Dean's breath hitch as he starts to cry.

"Sam!"

A/N: Well, that happened. Still trying to be better about updating, but this chapter came together a lot faster than expected. As always, thanks for your continued support. Reviews and favorites/follows really do mean a lot to me, so thanks for those.