Disclaimer: Y'all know the drill. I own nothing but the clothes on my back and even that's iffy sometimes. Lol
"Dad, Dean's in trouble." Sam left the message, short and to the point on John's voicemail and hung up. He was frustrated that after months of being in at least semi-communication his dad had chosen that moment not to answer the phone. Meanwhile Jack was trying to get hold of Missouri Mosely.
"Missouri, we got a problem." Jack said in a rush when Missouri answered the phone.
"Jacqueline Annabelle Fontenot." Missouri scolded tiredly.
"Don't triple name me." Jack managed to whine. Her and Madeleine, damnit.
"Don't use that tone with me. Its the middle of the night and you call up and without so much as a 'Hello, Sorry for waking you' you start asking for help." Missouri snapped.
"Hello. I'm sorry for waking you. Oh yeah and Dean's in trouble." Jack said.
"What kind of trouble?" Missouri asked doing from irritated to worried in two seconds flat. A new record, Jack thought.
"The exorcism gone bad kind. Demon body jumped into Dean." Jack said giving the short and certainly not fucking sweet of the situation.
"What kind of demon?" Missouri asked.
"Not sure. We're on our way to talk to the last victim, see if she remembers anything aside from what the demon made her do." Jack said.
Sam was alternating between watching the road as they drove back to Erica's hotel and glaring at his phone, willing it to ring.
"Can you look at the cards? See if you get anything. Where he might be?" Jack asked trying to keep her cool. The streetlights were still too bright for her overwrought senses, she could just imagine how craptastic Sam must feel.
"I'll try but like I've told all of you before I can't just pull facts out of thin air." Missouri said sympathetically. She could sense even with this little contact how anxious the girl was.
"Thanks Missouri." Jack said.
"Call me in about twenty minutes." Missouri said.
"Sure thing." Jack said before hanging up. Jack looked at Sam's white knuckle grip on the steering wheel. He'd told her what Dean had tried to do, nearly giving her a heart attack just thinking about the botched suicide attempt.
"Sam." Jack said putting a hand over his on the steering wheel. He glance in her direction and nodded.
"I know." Sam said. He knew she felt guilty, he did too. They'd get Dean back and then, he smiled a little, kick the shit out of him for trying to hurt himself.
"We're here." Sam said unnecessarily as they parked around the corner from the hotel. They were going around the back again away from anyone who might ask questions about why two bloody, dirty young people were walking into a five star hotel. As soon as they could both walk without puking they left, without time to do anything but raid Jack's weapons stash and swig down some mouthwash.
Anyone watching them walk through the alley then would have seen that they'd never looked more like what they were than at that moment; Hunters, all predatory grace and watchfulness.
They didn't bother to knock on Erica's door. She might not have let them in if they did. She was curled up on her bed shaking and mumbling incoherently when they walked into her bedroom. If the woman heard them enter she made no sign of it.
"Erica." Sam said putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. She flinched and curled tighter without looking up at them.
"Erica, we need your help." Jack tried. She moved to the other side of the bed to look Erica in the face. The sheet was pulled tight over her head, like she was trying to hide from the world.
"Erica please. Our friend is in trouble. That thing is inside him now." Jack pleaded.
Sam came to stand by Jack when he spotted something dark under the white sheet. He watched as the darkness spread and realized it was blood.
"Jack." He hissed, she'd already noticed and swung her backpack around to dig out the first aid kit while Sam pulled the sheet off Erica.
"No!" She yelled trying fruitlessly to stay covered. Sam yanked as hard as he could without pulling her off the bed and saw that she had a kitchen knife in her hand was sawing into her wrist. Sam wrestled the knife away from her.
"Thank God you suck at suicide." Jack said through gritted teeth as she enclosed Erica's wrist in her steely grip. The cut was too high up and going in the wrong direction. More painful than dangerous if caught in time, but maybe that was the point. Pain to cancel out pain.
"I have to! I have to!" Erica was crying as Sam opened the kit and doused a bandage with antiseptic then pressed it to the gushing wound.
"I deserve to die. I killed him." Erica sobbed hysterically trying to fight them as while they tried to slow the bleeding.
"Erica it wasn't your fault. Listen to me." Sam tried but she was shaking her head and jerking out of his grip making her wound worse.
"Stop it!" Jack lost her patience and shoved the woman down into the mattress. She pinned her arms down with her knees and forced the woman to look at her, putting a hand over her mouth.
"It hurts. You did something horrible. I know. You'll never forgive yourself. But you're not allowed to be selfish enough to die." Jack said. She waited till her words sunk in to speak again.
"Your kids are alive. They need you. They already lost their dad, do you really want them to lose you too?" Jack asked without sympathy. Erica looked at her with wide, blood shot eyes.
"They're at a hospital right now. Your son is safe, we'll take you to them if you want but first we need you to help us." Sam said. "It has my brother. It will do to him what it did to you. Please."
"Now Jack's going to let go, but you have to promise you'll let us fix your arm and that you'll talk to us for a few minutes. Can you do that for us?" Sam asked her. She glanced at each of them and nodded slowly. Jack got off of her and Erica lay limp and pliant while Sam cleaned the gash and Jack did a stitch job.
"What do you remember?" Sam asked quietly as Jack pushed the needle and thread with surprising gentleness through the woman's skin.
"I remember it telling me things." Erica started, her voice barely above a whisper.
"What kinds of things?" Sam asked.
"That Danny didn't love me anymore. That I was a horribly mother. It said that Danny wasn't really sorry." Erica's voice cracked and it took her a moment to regain her composure.
"Sorry about what?" Jack asked her.
"We had this fight a few days ago. We weren't really talking till the night that he…"
"Its okay." Sam soothed.
"I didn't want to. I couldn't control my own body. And it just kept getting worse and worse. It was like…I don't know what." Erica said sniffling.
"Did it show you anything? Take you someplace maybe?" Sam pressed her for more information.
"No." She replied. Sam felt a stab of disappointment.
"It showed me things though." Erica continued.
"What kinds of things?" Sam asked grabbing at what little hope they could find.
"What it did to the others before me. It made them hurt people, do things awful things and then it would leave them and watch them do it." Erica said with a look of terror.
"Do what?" Jack asked even though she had a feeling what "It was".
"They'd kill themselves." Erica said looking down.
"Dean was right about the suicides." Sam said grimly.
"It felt stronger after." Erica said. "It always felt stronger after it hurt someone or when me or the kids got sad."
"It fed off your pain." Jack told her.
"What is it?" Erica asked the million dollar question. Jack glanced at Sam, tine for the "truth is out there" speech.
"A demon that possesses people. I wish I didn't have to tell you that these things exist but they do. They hurt people and that's where we come in." Sam explained. "We help people who get caught in the crosshairs."
"Your so young though." Erica said focusing her eyes on them for the first time.
"Graduated early from Boo-School." Jack joked tying off the end of the thread and cutting the excess.
"This is your job?" Erica asked.
"Yeah." Sam said.
"We're good here. We can take you to the hospital now." Jack said putting away the medical supplies. She handed an Advil to Erica.
The ride to the hospital was quiet. Erica hesitated getting out of the car.
"What-what do I tell them? My kids?" She asked with her hand on the door handle.
"Tell them you love them. If you think they can handle the truth tell them what we told you. Just don't tell them about your part in their father's death." Sam cautioned. "Nothing good will come out of that."
Erica's eyes filled with tears again. She nodded, stepped out of the car and walked, hunched over into the E.R. Sam's phone rang then and he heaved a sigh of relief. It was his dad.
"Dad." He said as he answered the phone.
"What happened to Dean?" John interrupted.
"He's possessed by a demon." Sam explained what happened at the hotel and the abandoned building.
"Its in Dean's body, the car and about half our arsenal in the trunk and we don't know where to find them." Sam finished.
"Fuck." John swore on the other end.
"Yeah." Sam said hoping John would have something more to offer than that.
"If its in Dean's body it should come after you guys soon." John said.
"Dean won't let it." Sam argued.
"Well you better hope he does come after you two." John said.
"Why?" Sam asked in bewilderment.
"Because otherwise you'll have a hard time finding him. Nearly impossible." John explained slowly.
"If and when he comes for you, you need to be ready. Set a trap for him." John said.
"Its got Dean's memories it'll know all our tricks." Sam said.
"You'll have to improvise. It'll know all Dean's tricks but not yours." John said. There was a crash on his end of the line.
"Dad what was that?" Sam asked.
"Just an irate psychic." John said with a touch of amusement. "Gotta go son. Call me when you get Dean back."
"I will dad." Sam promised.
"Yeah, alright thanks anyway." Jack was saying into her phone. She hung up and looked at Sam shaking her head.
"It was a long shot anyway." Sam said pushing back the sense of hopelessness that was threatening to take over. John seemed to have faith in their being able to get Dean back but Sam wasn't so sure of himself. From the deep frown on Jack's face he guessed she felt the same.
They drove on each deep in their own thoughts, not really knowing where they were going.
Jack had something digging at the back of her mind. Something she felt should have been obvious but she couldn't really think about clearly.
"Set a trap…." John's words when Sam spoke to him echoed through her mind. She punched the dashboard with her mangled fist when a she figured out what they had to do.
"Sam I have an idea." She said looking at him. He turned to look at her tiredly ready to jump on board with whatever idea she had.
"Put out a personals ad. Freaky demon seeks same?" He asked to cover up his anxiety.
"That'll be plan B." Jack said. She gave him that grin that usually preceded them getting shot at, or nearly eaten by something.
TBC……………………..
AN: I was supposed to rest today. Really I meant to take a break, but noooo. My addiction took over and now there's a whole nother chapter. Enjoy.