AN-Sorry I disappeared again. My chronic medical issues spiked and I had to take some time off work to deal with them. I am improving over time, which is a great relief. So with no further ado, here's the next chapter in Jessie's saga.

"Go up to the next lane and turn right," Bobby instructed, pointing at the lane between two stacks of cars. "Don't forget your turn signal."

"Okay," I said, concentrating hard on keeping my eyes on the 'road' and the dashboard instruments and trying to downshift without grinding the gears in the transmission.

Bobby had been teaching me to drive for the last month. We'd started with a car with an automatic transmission that he'd gotten working just to teach me. We used the salvage yard as my training ground, driving the car in the twisting lanes between the stacks. When he'd judged me good enough at just driving the car, he switched me to a car with a manual transmission because you never knew what kind of car you were going to have to drive when you were out hunting.

"But I'm not going to be a hunter, Bobby," I'd responded. "None of you want me to."

"Maybe not, but you should be able to help the boys if they get in a jam, cause they're always getting into jams," Bobby had said. "If you know how to drive and hot wire a car, that's something you can use to help them get away if they need to."

My eyebrows had shot up in surprise. "You're gonna teach me how to hotwire a car too?"

Bobby had grunted. "Yeah, but you can't hotwire the newer ones as easily so I'll show you the basics for older cars. Just remember that if the car is older than the mid-90s, you're gonna have issues."

And he'd taught me. It was complicated, so to start he taught me on junked cars that didn't run. I had to master the steps on those before he let me move on to junked cars that ran. But now I knew how to drive and how to hotwire a car. He also showed me how to change a tire, just because that's something everyone should know.

As Bobby directed me back to the garage area of the salvage yard, I thought about the other things that he'd been teaching me over the three months since I came to live with him. A lot of them I didn't think Sam and Dean would approve of, but Bobby said that I wasn't living with Dean, I was living with him and he needed me to know this stuff. So aside from teaching me how to break into, hot wire, and drive a car, he was also teaching me basic first aid and Latin. He even let me help research things.

I parked the car where he directed me and got out. On the way back to the house, he quizzed me on the Latin that he'd taught me that morning. Then we made dinner together. He was teaching me to cook his late wife's recipes, which was funny because he didn't even know how to cook his wife's recipes. We were going off of index cards that had been stored in a little wooden box that read 'Recipes'. Bobby had to learn some things too, which made the whole process a lot of fun. A couple times, we'd messed up the recipe enough that we'd had to dump it and order pizza.

During the process, I found out that Bobby could swear with the best of them and sometimes his swears were really creative.

After dinner, Bobby got on his computer for a while to do some research into something personal, and I washed the dishes and spent the evening on the couch watching TV until he sent me to bed.

My bedroom was the panic room now. Bobby had confirmed that not only were Frank and Earl hunting me (I still didn't know their last names), but there were a whole bunch of hunters that had just decided I needed to be gotten rid of, that I was some sort of monster. Bobby didn't think they knew I was staying with him, but just in case, he'd moved all my stuff down to the panic room and we'd decorated it for me and everything. The lock was on the inside of the door now so I could keep people out, as was the sliding window in the door. When I went to bed at night, I closed and locked the window and the door. If Bobby wanted me up at a specific time, he either told me and I set an alarm on my phone or he came down and banged on the door until I got up.

He was worried that he wouldn't be able to stop hunters who came after me. At the same time, the fact that most hunters respected him and needed his help once in a while meant that if they found out I was staying at Bobby's, they were less likely to come after me at all.

And that was why I wasn't allowed to go anywhere. Jody Mills and Bobby were the only ones who knew I was in town. I hadn't even been allowed to tell Drake. I'd gotten upset at that until Bobby pointed out that it made Drake a target or possible collateral damage in the same way that Ben had been. When Bobby left the house, I went into the panic room and stayed there until he was back.

I think the lack of things to keep me occupied was also a reason that he was teaching me stuff. He even let me practice my fire every day, even new things, as long as I cleared the new thing with Dean first.

I called Sam and Dean before I went to bed every night. They talked to me on speaker phone and asked me general questions about how I was doing. I answered them, but not with any kind of detail. Sometimes Dean tried to push for more information, but I was stubborn about not giving any detail.

If he wanted to know how my days were going, he could damn well come here, pick me up, and take me with them. I'd bugged him about it pretty much every day at first until he'd told me that he wanted me at Bobby's because he thought I was safer there than with him and Sam. Bobby wasn't constantly hunting things and they agreed that Bobby's reputation and the panic room would keep me safe.

I'd argued, saying that I just wanted to be with them and that I didn't want to hunt, but they had still shut me down. That made me mad, but all the adults in my life wanted me at Bobby's, so I was stuck until something happened to change their minds.

Over breakfast the next morning, Bobby said, "I got somethin' I gotta do, so you're gonna go stay with Sheriff Mills for a couple days."

I perked up. "What is it? Can I help?"

He chuckled. "Not with this one. I've gotta go get something and it's too dangerous for you to tag along."

"Okay," I said and went back to eating my Cocoa Krispies. Bobby let me help with a lot of things a lot of the time, even if it wasn't actually hunting, and since I wanted a normal life now, that was enough. I'd happily go stay at Jody's for a couple days.

After breakfast, we both packed up some clothes and he dropped me off at the station. The only reason Sam, Dean, and Bobby considered Jody safe was because most hunters had records and avoided the police like the plague. To keep my identity hidden, any time I wasn't at her house, I was at the station as 'the sheriff's visiting niece'. Jody had me sit in her office while she did all the work things she did. A couple times she had to leave and go do cop things outside of the station, but I was still safe in the station and spent all the time I was there playing on my new phone.

Bobby had splurged on me and upgraded my phone to a Motorola Droid with Internet access, but he warned me that I needed his permission to install games and that I damn well better stay off the sites I know I'm not allowed on. Unlike on the guys' laptops, there was no parental control on the phone or any app you could download for it. He said he'd be checking my history, which better be there, and the contents of my phone periodically. That was fine. I had no interest in going to the hunting sites anymore, and he always said yes to the games I picked.

After Jody's shift, we headed back to her house where we watched a movie while we ate dinner, which was a pattern now. I always helped her with the dishes and any other housework she'd let me help with when I stayed with her too.

See, I was being very, very good because I knew how much danger I was in. Even though I missed Drake, I agreed that I couldn't contact him. The only way I had to protect myself was with my fire and I didn't want to kill or hurt people with my fire. I'd already done too much of that. Hiding with people who could keep me safe was better, so I behaved myself for Jody and Bobby because I was terrified that they'd kick me out or rename me and send me off to foster care or something if I became too much trouble for them to handle.

Plus, there was always a knot in my stomach now, and I was always watching behind me when I was in Bobby's and Jody's cars. The only reason I was sleeping okay was because I was in Bobby's panic room where no one could get me. I still had nightmares about Gabby or the school fire occasionally, but they'd died down since my life had become more normal. More often now, when I had nightmares, they were about hunters catching me and killing me.

That evening while Jody and I did the dishes, she dropped a bombshell on me. "So how's your schoolwork going, kid?"

I almost dropped the glass I was drying. "Schoolwork?" I gulped out.

"It's September. School's started. Bobby isn't homeschooling you?" She turned from the sink to look down at me.

"Well, he's teaching me stuff," I admitted, putting the glass in the cupboard so I wouldn't have to look at her.

She tutted. "He needs to talk to Sam and get your schooling going again."

I sighed, my shoulders dropping in disappointment. "Sam should've remembered and brought it up," I muttered, turning to go back to the dish rack.

Jody looked at me and then dried her hands before pulling me into a hug. "I'm sorry, sweetie," she said. "I'm sure he's just busy with the stuff they're hunting. The alphas?"

I blinked and pulled back to look up at her. "Alphas? What are alphas?"

She sighed and let me go, going back to her dishes. "Well I've put my foot in it if you don't already know."

I followed her example and went back to drying. "They don't really tell me anything because they don't want me involved. And I kind of used to involve myself even when they didn't want me to."

Jody smiled, looking at me again. "And you don't now?"

I shrugged and picked up a pan to dry, not looking at her. "I can't now. I can't do anything. I have to stay at Bobby's or with you. How could I involve myself even if I wanted to?" I went to put the pan in the cupboard. "And I don't even want to, but that doesn't matter. They still don't tell me anything."

"All right, I can tell you. It won't hurt anything for you to know. It turns out each monster has an alpha monster in charge of all of them, the most powerful version of that monster."

"Really?" I asked, a little shocked. "Even the ones that are loners and stuff?"

"Really," Jody replied. "And Sam and Dean are hunting for them now with their mom's family, the Campbells."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Bobby told me. Sam's been hunting them for a while, but now that's what Dean is hunting too."

My hands started shaking so bad I set the plate I was drying on the counter so I wouldn't drop it. "That seems really dangerous, even for Dad and Sam," I said carefully, trying not to give away my fear.

Jody nodded. "That's why they are hunting with their family. They all go after the alpha. It's not just your Dad and Sam."

"So their grandpa is the one that has them doing this?" I asked, just to make sure. I'd gotten some details out of the guys during our nightly calls, and one of them was that Samuel Campbell, who was their mom's dad, was in charge of the Campbell clan. He was the one who told them what needed to be hunted and where. There were a whole slew of cousins, not that I'd get to meet any of them. I wasn't even sure I wanted to.

Jody nodded. "As far as I know from what Bobby told me."

I ran a hand through my hair. "Couldn't be bothered to tell me, though."

Jody rinsed the last dish and put it in the rack. "They're trying to keep you safe. You said yourself that they didn't think you needed to know that."

"Whatever," I said and went back to drying dishes, trying to shove the Campbells and the alphas out of my head. I didn't even bring it up on my bedtime call to Dean and Sam.

When Bobby came to pick me up a couple days later, I didn't bring it up with him either. Jody must've told him about our talk though, because he brought it up on the way home. "Jessie, about the alphas and your grandfather…"

"It doesn't matter, Bobby," I said. My voice cracked though, giving away my lie.

"It does matter. I thought your Dad or Sam had told you about that or I would've. I wouldn't have kept that from you."

I turned to look at him with tear-filled eyes. "Really?"

"Really, darlin'. And it didn't come up when you and I were talking either. You don't talk about them much anymore."

The tears overflowed and I quickly looked down at my lap so he wouldn't see them fall. "They don't tell me much to talk about," I admitted.

"I'm here if you do want to talk," he said. "About them or about the Campbells or the alphas. Or even about the hunters after you."

I snorted. "You already tell me about the hunters." Then I got worried. "They still don't know I'm with you, right?" I asked.

"Not as far as I've heard," he said.

But doubt still niggled at me. Would his sources actually tell him, especially if they secretly wanted me gone? There was no way to know. I sighed and picked at my cuticles.

"Listen, kid, I had to put something in the basement, so I moved your clothes and stuff upstairs. You're going to be sleeping in your cot in my room until I'm done with it." His eyes were on the road ahead and his face gave nothing away.

"What is it?" I asked, frowning.

Bobby thought a second with an intense look on his face and then answered me. "It's a demon. I've got it trapped down there and I need answers from it about Crowley so I can get my soul back."

My mouth dropped open. "He still owns your soul? But he was supposed to give it back after we stopped the apocalypse."

"Well, he didn't," Bobby said. "So stay out of the basement and away from that thing until I get rid of it. You hear me?"

"Yeah, Bobby. I got it," I said. "What information do you need?"

"His real name," Bobby said.