Thanks to all of my generous reviewers! Please keep reading. I'm so glad there are several people out there actually paying attention. "Gasp!" LOL. In this chapter you get some Sam and Dean banter, Dean meets Kira, and we begin to answer the question of what's really going on with Sam and Kira. Enjoy!

Chapter 3

"So, explain to me again how you met this girl." Dean and Sam had found Kira's house without incident and were now sitting in her driveway, the car idling.

"I had a friend who transferred from Stanford to NIU last year. He got a job where Kira worked and he invited her to this party that he had over spring break. We talked for a while, and we hung out a couple of times during that week. We've been keeping in touch though e-mail ever since."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Okay, that's peachy and all, but what I can't figure out is why you were so tight-lipped about what we do to your other friends and with Kira it seems like you told her your whole life story." Sam rolled his eyes. Dean waited patiently for Sam to answer him.

"She didn't know about us until a couple of months ago when she e-mailed me about these bizarre dreams she was having. She told me that they were short dreams about normal things, but that they always came true. I didn't want to be responsible for something happening to her that I could have stopped. So, I told her about us. I told her about me and what happened with Jessica, and I said that she should call me if anything ever happened to her like that."

"That was after you told me, right?" Dean asked, teasingly, turning off the car and getting out. Sam just shot him a vaguely annoyed look before following him up the walk toward Kira's house.

The outside was painted neutral beige and it could not have been more than ten years old. Unlit Christmas lights dotted the bushes on either side of the house as a testament to the fast-approaching holiday. Sam rang the bell when they reached the door. When no one answered after two rings, Dean rang the doorbell, obnoxiously, earning him another disapproving glance from his brother.

"What?" He asked, innocently. At that moment, the front door opened revealing Kira dressed in her pajamas and a bathrobe. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. There were dark circles under her eyes, and as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear the brothers could see a large, hand-shaped bruise on her neck.

"I'm so glad your guys are here." She reached up to hug Sam. "Sam, thank you so much for coming." Her voice was mottled with tears. Desperately, she kept them in check, breaking out of the hug and moving to introduce herself to Dean.

"Hi, I'm Kira," she said, simply, shaking Dean's hand, warmly. Dean nodded in return.

"Please, come in guys. I'm sorry I'm such a mess, but I really didn't feel like going to school today. I decided to take a personal day."

"Playing hooky. I like you already," Dean answered, his comment reaching the desired effect when Kira smiled.

"Your brother certainly has a sense of humor. I like it." Kira directed at Sam. Sam just scoffed slightly. "I'm sure you're wondering why I called you. Sam, you told me that if I ever had a violent premonition that came true I should call you. The night before I got...attacked, I had a vision. I thought it was just a regular nightmare, but last night as it was all happening, I remembered. I saw that...ghost, or whatever it was come to me in my dream first." Kira moved to sit down on the couch in the living room, waiting for Sam and Dean to follow before going on. "I had another one last night. I don't remember a lot of what happened, but I can remember its eyes. They were the same eyes. Blue, almost violet, reaching into me; trying to discover my secrets. It told me something. Last night it gave me this bizarre part of a riddle after it slammed me against the basement wall. It was something like "Through the thorns, though you'll bleed. Come, come get to me." I will never forget that, ever." Kira broke off, suddenly, not able to go on.

"Kira," Sam started, gently, moving to sit next to her. He began rubbing her back, slowly, trying to get her to calm down. "What did it say to you in your dream?" Her face contorted into one of confusion she tried again, "The clock chimes thrice, then all will hear, the sound of the ringing there." I have no idea what this could mean." The brothers exchanged thoughtful glances. Each knew what the other was thinking. The ghost was using Kira as a medium for its message. But why?

"I just want this...thing...whatever it is out of my head and out of my life. Everyone already thinks I'm crazy. I don't need things that go bump in the night pestering me to add to that." Kira got up from her place on the couch and walked toward the sliding glass doors on the far side of the room. She peered out at the cloudy sky. It reflected her mood perfectly today.

"Can we see where this happened?" Dean questioned.

"Yeah, uh, sure. Just let me get cleaned up and let me give Jake a call to let him know we're coming. It shouldn't be a problem. Make yourselves comfortable. I shouldn't be long." With that, Kira disappeared up the flight of stairs that stretched into the far corner of the living room.

When she was out of earshot, Dean spoke up.

"Well, that was certainly interesting. What kind of girls are you chasing these days, Sammy? She couldn't have been older than 18. Did you see how she was looking at you the whole time? You'd think you were her hero or something." Sam let that comment go. He knew how Dean could act in these kinds of situations.

"You know that's not why I came here. She's just a friend. I felt like I had to help her out. I certainly wouldn't question you if you suddenly decided to take a detour to help an old friend out with poltergeist problems."

"Provided I had any friends, and even if I did, I guarantee you that none of them would be that young." Not bothering to respond to that, Sam got up, making his way into Kira's kitchen. He had originally gone in there for a glass of water, but now he was just glad to be away from Dean. Usually, he loved his brother and was grateful to Dean for looking out for him on an almost daily basis, but sometimes Dean could really get on his nerves. Who did he think he was saying things like that? Sam was certainly not out to start another relationship with anyone just yet. Jessica's death still scarred him in a way that he didn't think he could start another relationship so easily. Even if he was ready, Sam knew it wouldn't be Kira that he would be seeking a relationship with. As Sam filled his glass with water from the tap, he wanted to this to be true, though somewhere inside of him he knew that it wasn't.

"Why are they even here? I don't know how they're going to be able to help us, Kira. It was just an accident. Can't we just leave it alone?" Jake had taken Kira aside the moment she had shown up at his door with Sam and Dean. Jake was not one to believe in things like this so easily. He didn't exactly take them seriously when they had come into his house brandishing shot guns loaded with rock salt and demanding to see the place where Kira had been "attacked". Now, they were standing in his foyer whispering, harshly, as Sam and Dean stood in the doorway to the living room pretending to be disinterested in their conversation.

"No, we can't just leave it alone Jake. Something happened down there to me, and I want to know what! This," Kira drew back the hair from her neck, "was no accident. Something physically choked me and nearly killed me. It's visiting me in my dreams now. I just want it to go away. Please, I need your help more than I need theirs." She cocked her head toward Sam and Dean, slightly.

The look on Jake's face still told Kira that he was in denial, but he would do this for her. He had been best friends with her for as long as he could remember and he wasn't about to abandon her now to some ghost hunters.

"Of course, I'll help you."

"Thank you." They broke away from each other, turning to face the brothers.

"You guys want to see the basement?" Jake asked, simply.

"Yeah, that would be great." Sam answered, lightly. He didn't want to create any rifts between Kira and Jake solely by being there. He had made a personal vow to be as agreeable with Jake as possible. He just hoped Dean would do the same. So far, it didn't seem like it.

"Let's get something straight here first," Dean began, directing his statement toward Jake. "This isn't going to work unless everyone here believes that what we're saying is true. What is it going to take to convince you that were not just some crazy guys with an arsenal in our trunk that could outfit an army?"

"But you are just some crazy guys with an arsenal in your trunk that could outfit an army," Kira stated, breaking the tension. Sam laughed, shooting an amused look at Dean. Dean did not look very amused. Instead, he was still glaring, unrelentingly, at Jake. Jake ignored him, moving past all of them into the hallway and toward the basement door. The others followed him, quickly climbing down the steps. Kira could feel a sudden chill envelop her. She hadn't stayed down there for very long after Jake had found her crumpled on the floor the night before. She had hoped she wouldn't need to return to the basement anytime soon. Now, she was being asked to reenact what had happened during the attack. Well, at least she had the three of them to protect her now, though she didn't know how much good that would do.

"Show us where it happened." She glanced at Sam as he said this. A look of reassurance was written in his features. She would be all right.

"Well," she began, "I walked down the stairs and into that closet under the stairs to look for the fuse box. I stopped once on the way, thinking that I had heard something. All that I could find was a rocking chair that had been moving from what I thought was a draft." Immediately, Dean removed his EMF meter from insidehis coat pocket. Running it over the rocking chair in the corner of the room, he got nothing.

"Nope," he called back to Sam. Kira went on with her story, tracing her steps as she went. "I walked into the closet and asked Jake where the fuse box was. He told me and I tried to turn the switches back on, but nothing happened. He told me to try again and I did. Nothing happened. At this point I had realized that I had seen this before. I knew what was coming. I tried to call for Jake again, but I didn't get any response."

"The door slammed shut. It was stuck and I couldn't get it open. I thought she was joking. We do stuff like that all the time, I didn't think anything was wrong." Disbelief was evident in Jake's tone.

"I ran out of the closet and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked around with my flashlight, but I couldn't see anything. That's when that...thing pulled me backward and held me against the wall." She made her way over to the far wall facing the stairs. The wall was only about ten feet from the stairs, but had seemed much farther then."He held me up so that only the tips of my toes were able to touch the floor."

"How tall was he?" Sam ventured. "My height, Dean's height, or shorter?" Kira beckoned him over, flattening herself against the wall. Standing on her tip toes, she put Sam's hand around her neck, loosely.

"About your height. The eyes appeared right in front of me and then moved closer to the side of my head. It needed to whisper the words to me like they were some kind of secret. After that, it dropped me to the floor and Jake broke the door down."

"I found her crumpled on the floor in front of the wall. She had a red mark on her neck, and she was talking about being attacked. I really didn't know what to think."

"Well, it's definitely some kind of ghost that's attached itself to you. That's why it feels like it can only come to you to tell you things. You're really its medium. Anything, anything, at all that it tells you, I want you to tell Sam and I what it was. We're never going to get rid of this thing unless we know how to help it move on." Dean's tone carried that professional quality it always had when he was dealing with a case.

"What do you mean, help it. I just want to get rid of it. I don't want to have any more dreams. No. No, no!" Kira was shouting now. Sam moved to put a hand on her shoulder.

"The only way we can get rid of it is by finding out what it wants and giving it to him."

"Well, besides salting and burning the remains," Dean added.

"How would you do that?" Jake asked, skeptically.

"By finding its bones, pouring rock salt on them, and burning them to ash." Dean answered, expertly.

"How are we even going to find his remains whenthe only clue to his identitywe have to go on is the color of his eyes that I saw when he appeared to me?" Kira glanced at Sam, expectantly, waiting for an answer.

"Anyone up for a trip to the library?"