Thank you guys for such sweet reviews. Thanks for bearing with me after I left you with such an evil cliffhanger. Hope you like Chapter 6. Let me know what you think. Oh and normal disclaimers apply. :)
Chapter 6: - Deadly Secrets.
'He looks like he's asleep,' Dean thought, remembering the countless times he'd watched Sam sleep over the years, especially when they were younger and their father had gone off on hunts, leaving them completely alone. He had always been left in charge. 'Look after your brother Dean,' his father had told him so many times. Dean had been afraid to leave his brother's side for fear of failing him, especially after that one night when the Shtriga came for Sam. "Well I'm not about to give up now!" he muttered stubbornly, breathing again for his brother. "Sammy don't you dare do this now, breathe."
Dean blew air into Sam's lungs several more times, desperately looking for a response. Seeing none, he thumped his fist on his brother's chest in desperate frustration. The force of the blow forced the water out of Sam's lungs, who coughed it up, gasping and choking as he finally responded to the air.
"SAMMY!" Dean exclaimed, pulling his brother into a relieved and affectionate hug. Sam leant against him feeling dizzy and slightly nauseous. "I thought I'd lost you," Dean whispered. Sam embraced his brother, smiling weakly. "Are you okay?" he continued, pulling back and cupping Sam's face in his hands, looking intently into his eyes.
Sam nodded slightly, his mind giddy with the sudden influx of oxygen. "Yeah, I think so."
Dean pulled him into a relieved brotherly hug, grinning from ear to ear.
"You're not crying are you?" Sam smiled, trying to break the awkward tension. "Cos I know how you hate chick flick moments."
"Don't be a smart ass," Dean muttered, cuffing Sam on the shoulder. "I knew you'd be fine!"
Both knew it was a lie and Dean had been desperately scared of losing his brother, but neither spoke about it, both acknowledging it as an unspoken truth.
"Please don't tell me you gave me mouth to mouth resuscitation," Sam continued playfully, feigning revulsion.
Dean flicked his brother on the nose good-naturedly. "Well what was I supposed to do? You were dying on my ass," he grinned.
"Yeah, but man you could have let the girl do it," he laughed, looking at Alex. "I mean you sure know how to make a guy feel special!"
"Aww shut your mouth, you're breathing ain't ya. If I knew you'd react like this I'd have left ya to rot. And by the way it wasn't all that for me either. I mean going mouth to mouth with my little brother wasn't exactly high on my list of priorities. When did you last brush your teeth?"
Sam grinned up at his brother with a devilish glint in his eye.
"I see that near death experience did nothing for your charming personality," Dean laughed. "Come on, let's get off this damn beach before anything else happens." He pulled his brother up to his feet. Sam wobbled unsteadily, his brother and Alex both supporting him as they walked across the sand towards the parking lot where the Impala was stood waiting.
"Here," said Dean, chucking a couple of towels at Sam and Alex. "I don't want you getting the seats wet."
Sam laughed as he placed one on the passenger seat to avoid damaging the upholstery, Alex copying him as she climbed into the back seat.
"What?" said Dean innocently.
"Nothing," Sam grinned. "Just drive."
Unlocking the motel room door, Alex stepped aside to let Dean, who was supporting Sam, in. Closing the door behind them, she stood awkwardly in the corner as Dean helped Sam to one of the beds.
"I'm okay Dean, stop fusing. You're turning into a woman."
Dean pursed his lips, making Sam laugh. "You're back to your charming self," he muttered with a smirk, perching on the dresser. Turning to Alex he beckoned her forwards. "Make yourself comfy," he said, handing her a clean towel to dry herself off with.
Taking it, she perched on the edge of a chair which sat in the corner of the room. Looking round anxiously, she bit down on her bottom lip, the towel lying abandoned in her lap. An awkward silence filled the room as Dean glanced at Sam who shrugged, not knowing where to start. Alex saved them the trouble.
"What the hell just happened?" she whispered under her breath, looking from Dean and Sam to her hands in fear, not wanting to believe.
"I think you just saved our lives," Sam smiled gently, leaning forwards, the colour rapidly returning to his pale cheeks.
"But-" Alex gestured, not able to fully comprehend what had happened.
"How?" Dean finished for her. "That's what we have to find out."
"What exactly did you hear earlier?" Sam asked softly, his face full of compassion.
"Well-" she started sceptically, thinking over the ludicrous conversation she'd heard that lunchtime. "You'll think I'm crazy, but I'm sure I heard them correctly. They-I mean … Sheriff Peters … he called me … a witch … said I was just like my great great great great great great grandmother. They were arguing. My fath- Jack - and Peters … about some sort of curse. Jack … he said it was the town's fault if the curse came true, not mine … that it was they who had driven some woman crazy. Peters wouldn't listen … said they needed to finish it … that I'd killed three people-" She spoke rapidly, hardly daring to breathe for fear of not being able to finish. "They want to kill me don't they?" she said timidly, looking first at Dean then at Sam. The pair glanced at one another knowing the truth, having seen similar things happen in the past. "What the hell is happening?" she cried out in frustration, it bursting from her before she could check herself.
There was a short tense pause.
"We think a vengeful spirit is haunting the town," Sam sighed finally, prepared for the inevitable.
"You what?" Alex almost laughed; thinking there had to be a more logical explanation, even after what she had seen.
"Look, it's not just a coincidence that we're here," said Dean, pacing the floor. "Sam had this dream about your mother's death and we came to … well investigate."
Alex, overloaded with the bewildering information didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"Look," said Sam, changing tact. "Our mother died when we were young in a similar way to yours …her death was unexplainable … something no one would believe … my girlfriend, Jess, died in the same way not long ago. I know it sounds crazy … I'm the first to admit it. I-" he glanced at Dean. "I walked away … I went to university to try to find a normal life … but my past came back to haunt me."
Dean looked at his brother, whose eyes twinkled with sadness. He'd never heard Sam talk so openly about his reasons for leaving to go to university with a stranger before.
"I'm not sure I'm following you," said Alex sadly.
"Ever since our mother died … we … and our father, have been hunters-" Sam faltered, glancing at Dean sadly.
"Hunters of the supernatural," Dean finished for him.
Alex stared at them, struggling to believe her ears. "This has to be the cruellest bad dream," she muttered, pinching herself. "I can't believe this."
"You saw … felt it for yourself," said Dean, looking at her nervously, having felt something even he couldn't explain.
Alex stood up and walked over to the window which overlooked the sea in silence, lost in thought. She couldn't explain what happened. But spirits! Curses! Witches! It was almost too hard to believe. Sinking down on the bed next to the window, her back to the room, Sam and Dean, she looked down at the floor shaking her head slowly.
Watching her in silence, Dean moved to pick up some clothes. "Here," he said, walking towards her, trying to break the uncomfortable silence which had settled over them. He held out the items. "It's not much, just one of Sam's tops and a pair of my jeans, but we've got nothing smaller."
"Thanks," she smiled, taking them from him gratefully, and headed for the bathroom to change out of her wet outfit. Snapping the door shut behind her, she pulled on the boys' clothes which were several sizes too large for her and returned to the bedroom. Twisting the t-shirt, which hung to her knees, she tied it into a knot so that it didn't reach past her waist and held up the jeans with her hands. "Umm, do you have a spare belt," she said, looking down at the jeans that gaped at her waist.
"Here," said Sam, throwing her one from the floor.
"Thanks." She pushed the belt through the belt loops and tightened it, making the jeans fit as nicely as possible on her hips. She then sat on the nearby bed crossing her legs. "What now?" she asked, her head propped up on her hand.
"Sammy here's gonna hack into the town's database, see if we can dig up some information on this curse."
Alex raised her eyebrow out of habit. "I'm sorry," she said, checking herself. "I guess I just find this all difficult to believe – Maybe I'm a cynic."
"It wouldn't be the first time," Sam laughed weakly He looked at Dean, who flushed at the thought of Cassie, his first love's reaction when he had first told her what he did for a living.
"Yeah, well I guess you have to see it to believe it!" he muttered, remembering her change of heart after her father's mysterious death. "Come on college boy," he continued. "Do your worst." He handed Sam the laptop, who snatched it from him and began breaking down the access codes into the town's restricted files system.
"Right, I'm in," he muttered after ten minutes. "Damn, there's a highly restricted data base here. It must hold a bunch of files that no one's ever meant to see. Oh and the good news is that we only have three chances to get it right," he said, shifting off the bed and placing the laptop on the desk before drawing up a chair, his father's journal on his lap.
"Great, this is gonna be such fun," Dean muttered sarcastically.
"Well dad sent us here, so he obviously thinks we're capable of this. Have another look in his journal," Sam muttered, chucking it to him. He started opening internet windows and browsed through the town's archive of newspapers for a password.
"Try Elizabeth," said Alex thoughtfully, concentrating hard on what Peters had said.
Dean looked round at her, curiosity evident on his open and expressive face. He turned to Sam and shrugged. Sam typed in the name Elizabeth in to the red box under Password, hesitating before hitting enter.
A green box replaced the red one, reading Access Granted. Sam looked at Alex questioningly. "How did you-"
Alex shook her head. "I'm not sure … I just knew … I could feel it."
Dean looked at her intently, his brow raised in alarm but a glint twinkling in his eye. "And you said you were cynical about this stuff."
Alex shrugged, a weird sensation settling over her body. Her mind raced with all the events of the day but at the same time it was exhausted, her concentration on the password draining her last reserves of energy. As she watched Sam typing away at the computer, Dean leaning over his shoulder, her eyes blurred and the boys' low soft voices became a faint hum. Feeling giddy, she laid her head on her arm, feeling the soft mattress give beneath her as the room faded away.
"Bingo," Sam said triumphantly, pointing at the screen with one hand and scrolling down with the other, scanning the files' contents. "I think we have a winner. Elizabeth Green, a local woman was hanged, it says here for making a pact with the devil and for seduction."
Dean shook his head in annoyance. "Great, so they believed she was a witch, which explains their recent behaviour."
"That's not all," Sam continued. "It says here that Elizabeth Green was hanged in 1806, two hundred years ago last week. The same day Alex turned eighteen and the very same day her mother died, the day I had the vision.
"Oh this just keeps getting better and better," Dean muttered sarcastically. "And to top it all off we've got one pissed off spirit coming back from the dead to seek revenge.
They glanced at Alex who was lying, eyes closed on the bed. "Should we wake her?" Sam muttered. "Tell her what we've found?"
"Nah, not until we know exactly what we're dealing with here. Plus I should think she's shattered after dragging your fat ass out of the sea."
Sam grinned. "She saved your ass too Dean."
"Yeah well, come on, what else does it say?"
"Well from the looks of this, I'm not totally convinced it's a fully fledged spirit," Sam muttered. "It doesn't fit the normal pattern."
"What does in our line of business," Dean butted in. Sam just glared at him and continued.
"Alex mentioned something about a curse. What if it's the curse that is coming true, not a spirit?"
Dean shrugged. "I dunno, but I sure as hell ain't gonna wait to find out. Let's get this over with."
"Hang on, there's another file here," said Sam, clicking on it and reading. "Bloody hell, it's a list of people at the trial – it's, it's like a transcript. Like the Salem witch trials," he muttered, looking at the list of names. "Have you got that copy of the town's ancestral tree we took from the library?"
Dean reached for his leather jacket and pulled a folded piece of paper out of it. "What you looking for?"
"I have a hunch."
"A hunch?" Dean said disbelievingly, rolling his eyes. "It's like the mad and the crazy in here today," he muttered under his breath, glancing at Sam and then Alex, shaking his head in amusement.
"I don't know how else to say this, but I think we have our death list," said Sam, looking round at Dean.
"Excuse me?"
"Look, here's the list of people that condemned Elizabeth Green," he said, handing the laptop to Dean. "Now look at the tree." He ran his finger from the condemners down to their descendants, his finger finally hitting on Seth and Adam's names. "Our spirit or whatever she is, is coming back to seek revenge on those who condemned her – or their modern day descendants."
Dean looked at the names his brother was circling. "Great, so we have four descendants directly related to the condemners and condemned left, this just gets better and better!"
"Does it say where they buried her body?" Sam asked.
Dean scrolled down the web page. "Yeah … in an unmarked grave on that cliff top," he said, pointing out of the window. "Next to an old oak tree."
"I'll get the shovels," Sam offered, jumping up and heading over to the door. Dean chucked him the keys. "I think you better wake up Alex, tell her what we've found," he said disappearing out of the door.
Dean moved over to the other bed, touching her gently on the shoulder. "Alex."
"You coming?" Sam shouted seconds later, as he burst through the door. "You not woken her yet?"
"Alex," said Dean, shaking her. Turning to Sam, he muttered, "She's not responding."
"She's breathing?" Sam began in alarm.
"Of course she is stupid; she's just not waking up!"
Sam shrugged, having seen Dean almost comatose with sheer exhaustion after gigs and wasn't too worried. "Leave her a note. We gotta get this done before anyone else from that list dies."
"Grab the body," Dean muttered, throwing aside his shovel and wiping his sweaty brow with his arm half an hour later.
Grumbling slightly as he climbed down into the unearthed grave, Sam gently scooped up the bones. Laying them down on the grassy cliff, Dean stepped forward, throwing salt over the remains before dousing them in petrol. Sam struck a match, pausing for only a second before dropping it, the remains engulfed in flames.
"You reckon it's over," he muttered, turning to Dean.
Back at the motel, Alex lay in a slumber on the bed, Dean having scribbled a note and placing it in her hand. She jumped in her sleep and awoke suddenly, as if she had received an electric shock.
Sitting up disorientated, she looked around her, taking in the darkening room. Shifting gently, her muscles stiff and aching, she heard a rustle near her hand. Looking down, she picked up the piece of paper and read Dean's message.
Standing up, she drifted over to the window, glancing out over the dimly lit sea. Behind her the door opened.
"You're awake," Dean said, as he flicked on the light switch, Alex blinking against the harsh glare.
"So what did you find?" she said.
Sam looked at Dean. "A lot," he muttered.
An hour later, a spellbound Alex left the motel room, numb by what Sam and Dean had shown her. They followed her out of the door and walked her home.
"Is, was she … Elizabeth ... a witch then?" she said, dreading the answer.
"We're not entirely sure," said Sam honestly. "A restless spirit doesn't necessarily mean the person possessed supernatural powers or gifts in life."
"Do you think she's ... her spirits still … alive?"
Sam glanced sideways at Dean, who muttered, "No, I don't think so. We burned her remains, which usually works." Alex shuddered at the thought.
They walked down the hill in a comfortable silence, each lost in their own thoughts until they reached Alex's home.
"Thanks," Alex said, meaning more than just the walk home as she turned to the brothers.
"No problem," Dean smiled. "Oh and thank you," he said, looking from her to Sam.
Alex understood the glance and smiled. "It was the least I could do." She turned to the house, opening the door, giving them one last lingering look before disappearing inside. Sam and Dean were left looking after her, both looking up instinctively at the blackened burnt out bedroom window.
Alex slipped off her sandals and walked towards the kitchen, Dean's jeans catching on the smooth wooden floor underneath her bare feet. Taking out a couple of biscuits and a glass of orange juice from the cupboard, she headed for the stairs.
The house was quiet and still. Alex wondered half-heartedly where the man she had believed to be her father was. Shaking off the feeling easily, she headed up the staircase and walked across the landing towards her room, nibbling on a biscuit. She flopped down on her bed, her ears ringing with the oppressive silence that filled the house.
Lying down, snuggling her head against the soft feather pillows, she closed her eyes, breathing deeply. She could still smell the faint odour of the fire a week before. A single tear shimmered in the corner of her eye before bleeding its way down her pale cheek.
Wiping it away quickly, she sat up, gulping down the orange juice and finishing off the other biscuit. She struggled to her feet and made her way to the bathroom, wanting to wash all the sea salt off her skin and out of her tangled windswept hair.
She climbed out of the overlarge clothes, folding them neatly on the box seat before climbing into the shower. She felt her spirits lift slightly as the Coconut fragranced shampoo and body wash removed the sand, salt and sweat.
Rinsing off, she turned down the water and climbed out, wrapping a towel round her as she began to dry her hair in the steamed up bathroom mirror.
As she turned off the hairdryer and opened the bathroom door, letting out a waft of hot steam, she heard her 'father' moving round downstairs. Hurrying into her bedroom, she proceeded to get dressed, pulling on a pair of dark blue jeans and a bright green strappy top.
She threw Sam and Dean's clothes onto her wicker chair and did up her black string necklace which hardly ever left her neck. The necklace had a silver A on it with a delicate deep green gem encrusted into it. Her mother had given it her as a young child and she had told her to wear it close to her heart. She instinctively touched the familiar detail as she remembered the day she had received it. Silently she reached out for the ring her mother had worn on a bracelet, a gift from someone her mother said had saved her life. She did up the clasp around her wrist, watching as it tinkled against her hand
From downstairs there was a knock at the door. Alex heard her 'father' cross the hall and open it, before raised voices could be heard. She crept quietly over to the bedroom door, opening it just a crack to hear the voices.
"Where's Alex?" one spoke.
"What's going on?" her 'father', Jack responded hesitantly.
"My deputy and his wife are dead, that's what," she heard Peters snap, as he barged his way into the house. "Now where is she? The witch! The one that's causing all this! It has to end now. No more protecting her from her fate."
"I think she went for a walk along the beach," Jack said evasively. "Gone to clear her head."
"Well you won't mind us checking your house then?" Peters growled threateningly, taking a step up the stairs.
Alex jumped back away from the door and looked round for a means of escape. She crept silently across the room towards the window, pushing it up as quietly as she could as the pounding footsteps on the stairs grew louder. She climbed out of the window as fast as she could, pulling it too behind her as she climbed down the wooden trellis that was attached to the side of the house.
Jumping the last two or three feet, she crouched against the wall looking down the side of the house towards the street seeing that half the town stood waiting.
"Check out back," someone yelled.
Crawling out into the hedges at the back of the yard, she made her way as fast as she could out into the open fields beyond. Crawling through the long grass, she made her way as fast as she could all the way up the hillside, keeping out of sight of the street, and back on herself until she reached the motel.
Crawling through the undergrowth trying to stay out of sight of the windows, she came to a stop. Crouching down behind the building, she counted the windows trying to remember how far over the room she'd been in just hours before was. Crawling on all fours, she headed for the seventh window across, praying it was the right one. Pushing it open, she climbed inside.