Disclaimer: I own Jack, her history, Chris and other oc's. Everything else is borrowed.
THREE YEARS AGO contd.
She wanted to die. She just didn't have the will to kill herself. Jack wandered aimlessly, stealing for her supper. Everyday was a contradiction. She spent months hunting down the vampire who killed her uncle but she couldn't bring herself to think he was really and irrevocably dead. She was being hunted on all ends, but she couldn't seem to get herself killed.
Jack found herself sitting outside a bar Boston, she was planning on drinking away the soreness in her abdomen where the latest creature feature had slammed her one in the latest round of 'Kill the Psychic'. The bartender, however, took one look at her and her fake id and sent her packing. She was in shady part of town, the best kind, where people barely noticed her feeling through their pockets. It was a slow night though, she had only pulled five dollars in about two days. She slept in a half-finished house up a few streets and she'd barely eaten in three days.
Jack leaned back, one foot against the outside of the bar, killing time before she was so tired she had to go climb into her hovel for the night. He stomach ached, she was dizzy from hunger. At least you aren't cold, she told herself in a hopeless attempt at looking on the bright side. It was well past one in the morning, the streets were mostly empty, except street people and people stumbling home, celebrating t he fact that it was Friday and they didn't have to be in the office or classes the next morning.
Someone's footsteps were coming closer and Jack tensed for a second before telling herself that it was just another drunk. Then they stopped in front of her.
"Hi." Jack looked up to see who'd greeted her. It was an older man in his twenties, wearing a rumpled dress shirt and glasses that hung crookedly over watery blue eyes slightly glazed over. His breath smelled faintly of alcohol.
"What?" She asked folding her arms over her chest.
"You're pretty." The man said sounding a little nervous.
"Gee thanks." Jack rolled her eyes. In her backwards Red Sox cap, baggy jeans and oversized hoodie she'd dressed the part of 'Eric' for the night, hoping some people would leave her the fuck alone.
"I don't so this a lot, man…." He started rambling looking at the ground. Jack grimaced, what now? Wasn't her day going bad enough as it was?
"H-how much?" His question brought her back to attention.
"How much what?" She asked not comprehending.
"How much to…you know…um" The guy looked around and that's when it dawned on her. She looked up and down the near empty sidewalks, a couple of scantily clad women were scattered here and there down the block and a pretty faced boy was leaning into a passing car grinning seductively at the middle aged man in the driver's side.
This guy thought she was a hooker. A male hooker, no less. Jack thought about hitting him, scoffing and saying he couldn't afford her. Then she felt another bite of pain in her stomach. She was so hungry and tired of sleeping on the hard floor. A few dollars could get her a bed at least and something to tide her over till she found her way to a richer neighborhood to steal from.
'It won't be that bed.' She told herself. 'You'll be able to eat, its a one time thing.'
"Never mind." The man swallowed nervously and made to walk away.
"Fifty bucks." Jack said without thinking. It seemed like a reasonable amount. She wasn't going to actually sleep with him.
"For?" He asked looking excited and wary at the same time.
"Blow job." Jack said off the top of her head(no pun intended).
"Fifty bucks?" He asked looking put upon. Now she really wanted to smack him.
"You don't like it go elsewhere?" She said casually. Most of her really wanted him to do just that.
"How old are you?" He asked her eyeing her up and down.
"Fifteen." Jack said deciding on the truth. She highly doubted he'd try to call DCF on her.
"Alright." He said with a sudden hunger in his eyes that made her sick to her stomach. "My car is-"
"I don't get in people's cars." Jack said firmly, panicking on the inside at what she was about to do.
"There's a bathroom inside." Jack said gesturing towards the bar she was standing against.
"Okay." He repeated. Jack pulled her hood up and led the way with her head down so the bartender wouldn't recognize her and throw her out again.
"What's your name?" Her guy asked in a low voice already thready with desire.
"Eric." She replied. Jack was going over what she knew about sex. Kissing, teasing, she knew all about, she was an expert at that game but things never went far enough with the boys she'd dallied with before, when she was more than just a street kid. Everything else was just theoretical, things she'd read in Cosmo when there was nothing else to read or taken from smutty books she used to snicker at. This was real life.
Her first real sexual experience would be for fifty dollars with a man she didn't know in the dirty bathroom of a seedy bar. Jack put it out of her mind taking the lead when they pushed open the door into the empty men's room. The kiss was dirty and sloppy, all tongue and the taste of liquor. When Jack pulled away he was looking at her dazedly.
"The money." She said holding out her hand stepping back.
"Here." He said fumbling with his wallet and shoving the money at her. Jack eyed the two twenties and the ten and pulled him by shirt to one of the stalls, where she pushed him down on the toilet.
"Do you have a condom?" She asked. He instantly produced one, Jack raised an eyebrow at him and he coughed a little and opened his fly to put it on himself.
She was tentative at first, hesitant in her touches, he seemed to like that, whispering encouragements like he got off on the inexperience. His hand on the back of her head almost made her bite down, but she closed her eyes and blocked it out, she blocked out everything. She went to that numb place she'd retreated to just after her uncle died. When he was done she left him there, breathing raggedly. She walked quickly out of the bar not bothering to hide her face anymore. She had money in her pocket and the taste of latex, booze and sex on her tongue.
After getting her things from her hideout she found a cheap place that would take cash and checked in for the night. She didn't bother with lines or charms, just went straight into the bathroom and locked the door.
She saw her reflection. Ragged, short hair covered in sweat and her cheeks flushed. Her lips were swollen and wet. Jack started to hyperventilate staring at herself.
Her hand flew to the gun at the small of her back and she put it to the side of her head, her hand shaking as it her finger edged along the trigger.
Jack swallowed the hysterical sob as she lowered the weapon after one of the longest minutes of her life.
"Itisn'tfairitisn'tfairitisn'tfair!" She started mumbling till she was screaming it at her mirror self. Then she was bashing her fist into the glass shouting the words over and over again.
The bright slash of blood from her wrecked fist almost caught her by surprise as much as the pain did.
She sank to the floor holding her hand shaking desperately trying not to lose her mind. Despite the throbbing in her hand she wrapped her arms around her legs and started to rock back and forth humming a song from her youth that Momma Fonty used to sing to her when she had a nightmare.
Never again, she promised herself as she rocked and hummed the lullaby.
Three nights later she was on her knees in an alley. A broken bottle was digging into her pant leg, not quite breaking the fabric but hurting her none the less. The pain gave her something else to think about.
Tonight's mark said his name was 'John'. Not the most original thinker. He grunted and moaned as she worked him slipping her hand into his back pocket to take his wallet. Jack spotted a couple of hundred dollar bills when he dug for the twenty he was willing to shell out for her company. Her hand was wrapped in bandages that would need to be changed when she was done there.
When she got back to her room with the stolen money she didn't have the energy to feel sorry for herself. She just washed her mouth out, took a shower and crawled into bed.
For months she went on that way, stealing when she cold, hooking when she couldn't sinking faster and deeper into her pain. Things attacked her and she went through the motions of fighting back. She didn't care either way if she lived or died anymore.
Everything narrowed down to getting through one more hour, one more day. She preferred college towns for turning tricks as a girl, younger guys with a bit of money and who were tired of fucking their fist, she always made them wear condoms and paid visits to free clinics to make sure she wasn't sick, always leaving before anyone asked too many questions. She may have miserable but she wasn't stupid. In big cities she'd work as a boy.
It was in one such city that she nearly killed two men. She was standing on a street corner in her rentboy disguise, letting her pretty face peek beneath the hood for the passersby when a guy who looked only a few years older than her stopped in front of her giving a slow smile, that had a predatory hint to it. She gave an answering seductive smile, biting gently on her bottom lip.
"Hey." She said pitching her voice low, looking at him from under the fringe of her eyelashes.
"You free tonight?" He asked invading her space. Jack imagined grabbing the wrist that reached out to stroke her smooth cheek and snapping it.
"Yeah." She said instead.
They were walking towards the back alley of a restaurant, a few feet apart form each other. He was a clean cut all American type boy, with dark brown hair and thin lips. Not the kind you'd expect to see trolling for a body for hire. He gestured for her to walk ahead of him behind the building. Not ten feet forward and she was grabbed from her side. The man slammed her against a wall before she could react and the hand of her client was over her mouth while the other held her arms down against the way. Jack saw her mistake, the second guy was hiding in a doorway she had failed to notice before.
"Told you I'd find something." The first one was saying excitedly. The second looked her over and she glared back at him.
"Nice." He said to the first scumbag approvingly.
He was strong, she couldn't move her arms but they'd left her legs free. Big mistake.
The dark haired one trailed a hand down to her jeans reaching between her legs when she clamped down hard and twisted her hips.
He yelped, his g rip loosening on her mouth enough for her to bite down hard.
"Fucker bit me!" He cried stumbling back. Jack was already kneeing the second guy in the groin. He doubled over letting her hands go.
Jack reached for his head bringing it down on her knee, shattering his nose. The second guy swung at her and she caught his arm kicking him in the stomach so he fell to the floor gasping. Jack looked down at them and something inside her snapped. All the rage she'd buried came back full force. She turned the second attacker over and straddled his hips, reigning down blows on him, seeing every broken thing in her fucked up life. He was whimpering, broken and bleeding. The first was getting to his feet. She snarled and jumped on his back as he was about to escape, pulled out her knife and put it to his throat. Fire exploded close to them, barely controlled. Jack was about to cut his throat when-
The image of her uncle dead on the country road flashed in her mind. His throat torn out. She dropped his head and jumped up staring at the two downed guys. They were human, they were bastards but they were human, she couldn't kill them. She sheathed her knife and ran from the alley all the way back to her motel room, far from where'd she'd been.
It was the last time she ever turned a trick. She knew the next time she would kill someone.
Then it was a year after and she woke up with the pain howling like a black hole in her chest. It was That Day. She could feel it in her bones. A week passed and she was in New Orleans. Skulking around hiding in the dark, Jack would edge around the cemetery, watching Maddy leave flowers on his grave and a couple of other people visit. Everything she did was done carefully. Always watchful. New Orleans was a hotbed for the supernatural.
Jack left to return a couple of months later to pay her respects properly.
The cemetery was dark and empty, shadows everywhere. Jack ran a finger along her mother's headstone.
'What would you think of me?' She wondered silently. The headstone had a photo of her mother above her name. She stared at it trying to find traces of herself in the picture. 'Beloved wife and mother.' Annabelle was an orphan, raised from the age of twelve by Momma Fonty, who'd been a close friend of her parents. She fell in love with Thomas and the two married, she was only twenty two when she had Jack.
"I would have been good." Jack told the picture. "I would have been a good daughter. I always wanted you."
When she was younger she'd imagine what it would have been like if they'd survived the fire that she'd been told of. She tried to visit the remains of their little house once but Chris intercepted her, frantic and made her promise that she would never go there again.
Jack frowned at the memory. That didn't seem right to her. She knew places of tragedy attracted bad things but something about Chris's eyes, wild and fearful, said more than his frantic words that day. Jack was too young to notice back then but now…it didn't sit well with her.
'You're stalling.' She chastised herself. She walked to her father's grave next to her mother's. The photograph of him showed a gentle smile he'd inherited from his mother. He was the more serious of he and his brother, more dutiful. In his life he'd owned part of a restaurant that locals still frequented. Chris told her that Thomas loved Annabelle more than anyone or anything in the world. He must have, he died with her.
"He raised me right. The rest is all my fault, daddy." She said clearing her throat. Next Jack braced herself for Chris.
He was everything to her, mother/father/brother and her best friend. There weren't that many things she could depend on in her world but her was one of them.
Jack couldn't talk. She couldn't do anything but stare at the cold concrete that housed his body.
"Isn't this sweet?" A voice dripping with contempt said. Jack stiffened, turned slowly.
Standing there was a man. Tall, dark and dangerous. Staring a hole in her head.
"You must be Luther." Jack said.
"You killed my brother." He said. Jack saw the shadows move beside. Out from behind a grave another vampire appeared, this one with a nasty burn destroying half his face.
"Its her." He told Luther unnecessarily.
"He killed my uncle." Jack shrugged. "I'd say we're even but I don't feel that way either."
Luther was at her throat a second later. He pinned her to her uncle's grave by her neck. Jack bucked and twisted to no avail. His hand clenched cutting off her air and something amazing happened.
She didn't want to die. For the first time in so long Jack honestly didn't want to be killed. It was like a switch going on in her head.
'So get off your back and fight.' She snarked at herself. Her vision was spotting as she lifted her leg and brought it down on the stone with enough force to trigger knife spring loaded in the tow of her boot. She stabbed blindly getting Luther's abdomen and tearing up before he pulled away.
She rolled off the surface when he slammed his fist into where her head had been, cracking the concrete.
Jack was grabbed from behind, she rolled with it backwards and hooked her blade wielding foot behind BurnBoy's foot, severing his Achilles Tendon. She backhanded him as he let go to clutch at the wound and kicked his head backwards into an angel statue.
"Bitch." Luther appeared before her. His stomach was a gory mess, but he showed no signs of stopping the fight.
'Good.' She thought.
"Daniel Elkin sends his love." Jack smirked. She turned on her heel, running through the maze of graves. She knew the place like the back of her hand. Jack would have shouted in exhilaration if she wasn't trying to escape. She missed this adrenaline rush. Everything till then had been half assed, not really wanting to live but not being able to give up just yet. This, this was different.
Fucked as it was to admit, this was fun.
The fist that smashed into her face when she came around a corner wasn't.
"Oh sonuvabitch" Jack groaned. A pair of cold hands hauled her up and she collided with another headstone. Did they really have to make those things so freakin hard? Jack looked into the face her attacker.
"I'm Kate." The woman smiled wide revealing a row of deadly, sharp teeth.
"I'm Jack. Now go fuck yourself bitch." Jack spat in the woman's face, earning another hit.
"Watch her feet." Luther warned coming towards them. He did not look too happy, Jack noticed.
Just as Kate was about to go in for the kill a flashlight shown on their part of the cemetery. Luther and Kate's attention snapped in the direction of the light and Jack took the opportunity to call fire.
Kate screamed, throwing Jack away from her with a hand that burst into flames. Jack's head hit a corner of a stone and she was down for the count, distantly hearing Luther cursing and then a man exclaiming over, shining a light her face.
When she woke up Jack was in a hospital bed. Her head killed. She groaned and tried to sit up.
"No you don't." A nurse materialized in the doorway. She put down the tray of medical supplies she was carrying, pushing Jack back down into the hospital bed.
"You had a nasty head wound. Ya need to rest." The nurse scolded gently.
"What happened?" Jack asked rubbing her eyes. It was too bright in the room.
"Night watchman found you hurt in a cemetery. You had to get three staples put in your head." The nurse told her.
"How long?" Jack asked resignedly, she seemed to be losing time a lot lately.
"Two days. I'm surprised you're even awake." She said taking out a little flashlight to shine in her eyes.
Jack batted it away in annoyance.
"Any memory problems?" The nurse asked.
"Don't remember asking for someone to shine a light in my eyes." Jack grumbled. The nurse narrowed her eyes at Jack and grumbled something about kids today being a pain in her ass in French.
"We have you listed as a Jane Doe because you didn't have any ID on you." The nurse told her. "I'll need to know your name, honey."
"Sara Kade." Jack lied.
"Alright Sara how are you feeling?" The nurse asked.
"Head hurts." She said rubbing her forehead.
"I'll up your painkillers. You rest." The nurse said. "The doctor will be in to see you in a minute. We're going to need your contact information too, or we'll have to call social services."
"Thanks." Jack pursed her lips. The nurse adjusted her morphine and left.
"Painkillers rule." Jack said aloud giggling to herself as the painkillers took effect. Then she thought about what the nurse said. It would be when she decided she wanted to live that she ended up getting hauled back into foster care.
No strike that, she thought, it would be when she decided she wanted to live that she ended up being Public Enemy number one with the bloodsucking set.
'Why are things always trying to bite me?' Jack thought. She would have to leave. Soon. They'd figure out it was a fake name fast, then the real fun would start, not. Jack fell asleep shortly after, telling herself she'd leave in the morning.
"Excuse me I was told you had a Jane Doe hear matching the description of a missing child." Jack heard Maddy from down the hall hours later. It was the middle of the night.
'Ah hell.' Jack thought. She reached over and slowly pulled out her I.V. already mourning the loss of the meds. She hopped tentatively off the bed holding the side of the bed till she found her land legs.
Getting out of the hospital was tricky, she had to find her way to an unoccupied part of it then climb out of a window. Luckily she was on the first floor so it was too hard to manage. She ducked behind cars in the parking lot hoping she wouldn't attract anyone's attention in her hospital gown. Once she got to the edge of the parking lot she picked a non descrip car, hot wired, hoping to hell she wouldn't crash and went back to her room.
Jack managed to rally herself to change into a fresh pair of clothes, but dropped off shortly after.
Her dreams were dark, swirling, vague shapes dancing on the edge of her vision. When she opened her eyes, her head was hammering again. This time she had nothing for the pain but a bottle of vodka she bought a few nights before, Money was tight for her now that her only sources of income were pick pocketing and hustling card games and such, but she splurged on the liquor because of where she was headed. Jack carefully measured out enough to get her through the day without being fall down drunk. She had enough of the haze her life had become.
It still hurt it always would, but she didn't want to die. It was a start.
Jack hopped a Greyhound to Birmingham with the last of her cash. She wasn't sure if they'd even open the door for her but she had nowhere else to go.
When she knocked on the door Billie answered, his natural smile turning to a look of shock when he saw her standing on his doorstep.
"My name is Jack Fontenot." She said, barely able to keep form fidgeting nervously. Billie looked at her for a long moment and opened the door wide for her to enter.
"Billie Parr." He introduced himself in a quiet voice.
Then, to her utter embarrassment, Jack fainted.
"Does that happen to you a lot?" Billie asked when she came to a few minutes later on his couch.
"Head injury." Jack mumbled.
"And booze?" Billie asked tapping the almost empty bottle she'd been self- medicating with. It fell out of her bag in the fall.
"No, mother hening, that's rule number one." Jack said holding up a single digit.
"There are rules now?" Billie asked looking faintly amused.
"Yes." Jack said feeling the urge to stick her tongue out.
"Who are you?" Billie asked.
"I already told you that." Jack groused.
"Jack Fontenot I remember." Billie nodded. "Look, you saved me and my brother from whatever those things were, you're welcome to stay here but I'd like to know some things."
"Vampires." Jack said matter of factly.
"Come again." He blinked.
"The things that had you were vampires." Jack said rubbing her head. "Do you have any Advil?"
"Uh sure." He said frowning. He retreated through a doorway for a few minutes.
Jack took the time alone as an opportunity to look around the room. The house wasn't big, a simple two story wooden place with a porch and was on the edge of the city. Jack reached for the small side table to pick up a picture frame. The photo was of Billie as a teenager and his little brother at five or six with their parents, a nice looking toe headed couple.
"Is water okay?" Billie called from the kitchen.
"Do you have orange juice?" Jack called back remembering her inherently bad manners. She thought she heard a snort of laughter but she could have been mistaken.
"Here." Billie said coming back into the room with a glass of orange juice in one hand and Advil in the other. He smiled at the picture she was holding, she coughed awkwardly and put it back down, taking the pills and juice from him.
"That was a camping trip we took when Tommy was seven." Billie said pointing to the picture.
"How is he?" Jack asked.
"He's doing good. Better anyway." Billie amended. "He had to see someone for awhile because of the nightmares, he wouldn't leave the house for months after it happened, but he's going to school now. He's doing better."
"What about you?" Jack asked downing her pills.
"I'm trying." Billie said looking down at his clasped hands. "Vampires are real."
"Yeah." Jack said though it wasn't a question.
"And you kill them, what? For a living or…?" The poor guy looked at a loss for what to ask her.
"Just those particular guys." Jack said.
"Lucky us." Billie gave a small smile. "What else is real?"
"A lot of bad things." Jack said.
"Werewolves?" Billie asked.
"Yup."
"Ghosts?"
"Uh huh."
"What about-"
"Rule number two is not so many questions."
"That's not fair." Billie protested.
"I know." Jack said biting her lip. "Psychics, witches, voodoo, zombies, demons and a lot of other things that shouldn't exist do."
"What are you?" Billie asked.
"What am I?" Jack repeated dumbly. She stalled by drinking down the rest of her juice.
"Yeah where do you fit in?" Billie asked.
"Nowhere." Jack said mostly to herself.
"Are you hungry?" Billie asked after a beat.
"You just said the magic words." Jack said feeling her stomach jump for joy at the prospect of food.
"I don't know how long I can stay." Jack said over lunch. "I don't like involving kids in my life."
"You're a kid." Billie replied as though that was obvious. Jack sighed and shook her head.
"I think one of the only things that's gotten Tommy through this is you promising you killed the ones that did that to us." Billie told her. "Knowing that those kinds of things are still out there though…it messes with a person.
"They're almost extinct if that helps at all." Jack said.
"Thanks to you?" Billie asked. Jack snorted.
"No thanks to people who are a helluva lot better than me." She explained.
Jack went with Billie to pick his brother up at his middle school, because he asked her to and she didn't have a reason to say no. Tommy's face lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw her. It was very disturbing.
The next day she went through her notebook where she had all the charms her family had taught her as a kid until she found the one she was searching for and got her first tattoo on her pelvis bone, a circle of protection.
Jack set up her weapons, taught the boys about salt lines and recuperated. A month into her stay she drove past a mechanics place and saw her.
All black, slightly scratched and completely beautiful in her eyes.
"How much for the bike?" She asked sauntering into the mechanics shop. The owner looked up at her from his work and out at the motorcycle.
"She doesn't work right now." He said dismissively.
"I'll fix her, how much?" Jack asked.
"You know how to fix up a bike?" He asked her skeptically.
"I will." Jack said. She shrugged, she knew her way around a car engine, she was confident she'd learn this too.
"Two grand." The guy said.
"Two grand for a bike that doesn't work." Jack said giving him her "What do you take me for" look.
"How bout fifteen hundred and you'll give me a deal on the parts." She suggested with a smirk.
"And why would I do that?" He asked crossing his arms over his chest.
"Cause I'm gonna work for you." Jack informed him. She needed money and under the table work was scarce, if she could do it this way then she would.
The man laughed. "You're a real piece a'work girl."
"I'll bring seventeen hundred cash tomorrow when I come into work." Jack said not backing down. The man stopped laughing seeing that she was serious.
"Where you stayin?" He asked her.
"Billie Parr's place, you know him?" Jack said sensing a victory.
"Didn't know he was shacking up with someone." The guy said.
"I'm a tenant." Jack said.
"Alright," He pinched his lip between his fingers thinking, "I'll give ya a shot, but I'm expecting Billie to vouch for you."
"He will." Jack said and made to leave.
"What's your name?" The man interrupted at the door.
"Jack." She said.
"Morris Nash." He said.
Jack worked twelve hour days for the next two months, not because she had to, but because she wanted something and when she wanted something she went after it with everything she had. When she wasn't replacing carburetors or putting together engines she was fixing Alice.
The money she got from the ATM card all went to the bike. She had the vague feeling of stupidity at her masochistic behavior during her time on the streets. Her inability to accept realty almost destroyed her. It was still slow going, some days she didn't feel like she could move at all. Then Tommy would knock on her bedroom door, he had a get out of jail free card to come and go as he pleased, with tears in his eyes and she'd reassure him that nothing was going to hurt him as long as she was around. Helping Billie adjust to raising a kid took up a significant amount of time too.
"You have a new tat every time you come in here it seems." Morris said one day when she reached up to retrieve a part, her t-shirt riding up to reveal her growing myriad of ink.
"I like 'em." Jack said defensively but with a smile.
"What's next sleeves?" He asked tossing a dirty rag at her.
"Naw, I like em on my stomach and back." Jack said. She liked that she could hide them easily unless she wanted to show them.
Jack found that she could sense when the vampires were near. When she woke up one night with a dark, heavy feeling in her chest that had nothing to do with grief she shot up and packed her things. Alice was just finished, her paint drying at the shop. Jack almost left without any sin but she turned back at the last minute.
She entered Tommy's room unperceived and left a note saying that she had to go, goodbye and that if they had any problems to call her and she left the new cell phone number she'd gotten on a piece of paper.
She left a similar not for Billie in his room but for him she explained why she had to leave.
Jack still had the spare set of keys to the shop and opened it up to retrieve her bike. She ran a hand over the smooth paint and put the key in the ignition feeling a sense of elation as it roared to life. She locked up the place, left the keys safely hidden before she left.
The vamps caught up with her as she was at the state line and she didn't hesitate to fight as hard and dirty as she could against them, winning her life for another night in the end.
When Jack stopped in Vinita, Oklahoma she'd only been planning on staying for a couple of days. She went into a used bookstore her second day there and she met Brian. He was taking time off from school after his father died in a car accident and was running his dad's little book shop for the time being.
He was an orphan like her, he was nice and non threatening and sweet to her. If she'd been in her right mind she would have seen right through it, but as it was she still wasn't all there and didn't.
She found herself making excuses to stay a couple more days and then just forgot the pretense of leaving. The first time he kissed her she told him her age, he said if she was old enough to live on her own what did it matter?
He had no qualms about taking her questionable virginity either. She came and went from his house and her room, making acquaintances with some of town folk. As with all things, she fell hard and fast for Brian.
Things fell apart when she told him the truth about herself. It didn't seem that way at first. He seemed to accept what she told him, even became curious about the supernatural aspect of her life. Fascinated by her fire play. The she caught him snooping through her charm book and they had the knock down blow out that ended things.
"What are you doing?" Jack asked in the doorway of her room seeing Brian holding her book and copying down some of the symbols.
"Just looking up some stuff." He said as though it were perfectly okay. It wasn't.
"No." Jack snatched the book from him.
"What are you doing?" He demanded.
"These are dangerous." She said, "You can't be messing with them, baby."
"They can't be that bad." He said with a somewhat condescending tone.
"What's that?" Jack asked spying a symbol she recognized but not from her books. "Do you have any idea what that does? That could hurt people."
Brian narrowed his eyes at her and closed the book he held in his hands.
"I don't need to take this from you." He said getting to his feet.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Jack asked blocking his path.
"That means that a fucking street walker isn't going to pass judgment on me." He said. Jack stepped back as though she'd been slapped.
He put a hand on her to move her forcibly out of his way and she grabbed it and twisted. Then she drew back her free hand and punched him harder than she'd punched any normal person, connecting hard with his jaw.
"Myuckinjw." He moaned in pain on the ground. She was pretty sure she'd broken something.
"You're an asshole." Jack said snatching the notebook he was copying things down in. She flipped through it seeing some risky spells, things she wouldn't even try. She held it up with her finger tips and it burst in flames.
"I'll call an ambulance, then I'm leaving town. Do yourself a favor and don't call me again." Jack said. Even as she was packing some of the fog was starting to clear. Brian had taken advantage of her, she felt stupid and used and too damn young.
Jack made her way around the states, stopping in Alabama to check on Tommy and stay a couple of days now and then. She read in a newspaper that Elkin was dead and wanted to go see his grave but she couldn't risk anything catching her scent. Instead she drank a shot in his name. She heard from Joseph Black that Luther was on the trail of some hunters that had something he wanted. She had a few days at least of peace, then she heard Luther was dead and laughed her ass off about it for days.
The next time she was in Oklahoma it was to open the safe deposit box her uncle had told her about in his last letter to her. She had no idea what could be inside. The box was in a tiny bank in Oklahoma city, where she showed her key and the number of the box she needed and was left along to look at the contents.
Onside was just an envelope, another letter.
"So fucking dramatic." She chastised her dead relative.
Jack opened it and read the letter:
Dear Sparks,
I really wish I was brave enough to tell you this face to face but I'm not. I know you'll resent me for that and I deserve it. I should have told you this a long time ago but I know you and I know you would have gone after it. I wouldn't have been able to stop out and I didn't want you to die.
I told you your parents died in a house fire and I lied. I also told you once that my brother would not have been able to handle your ability and although I should never have said that out loud I know its true.
The night your parents died me and Thomas were closing up the restaurant late and stopped by a bar on the way. Your momma was at home with you at the time. We were on our way back when my watch stopped and a vision hit. It hit harder than anything I'd ever felt before.
I saw you in your nursery and a man in black standing over you, stroking your cheek, while you cried and fidgeted, then Annabelle came in.
"Get away from her!" Annabelle shouted from the doorway. She tried to run to you but he stopped her without even touching her, pinning her to wall. I saw being pinned to the ceiling above your crib, bleeding onto you.
"Jacqueline." She said before bursting into flames.
You're father was holding me up when I came back to the present. I felt like I was going to die.
"The baby." I said and climbed to my feet trying to get up as fast as I could.
"What? What's wrong with the baby?" Thomas cried out grabbing me by my shoulder.
"Something's trying to hurt the baby." I told him. We took off getting into the truck as fast as we could.
We were to late, I could feel it as soon as we pulled up to the house. I could hear you crying from the truck.
"Annabelle! Jackie!" Thomas yelled as he ran inside with me on his heels.
We froze in the doorway. The man in black turned to face us, his face obscured in shadows, I felt him look right at me and I felt the evil on him. Then he was gone and your father was running inside.
He grabbed a chair from the corner and climbed up trying to get Annabelle down.
"Tom the baby. We have to get the baby its too late for Annabelle." I said. The fire started and Tom was still trying, he wouldn't let go. He loved your mother too much. I had a choice, pull him down, or get you out.
I grabbed you out of the crib and looked over my shoulder as my brother went up in flames with his wife. I ran out of the house as the fire exploded through the rest of the house. You were crying and I was crying and everything was wrong in the world.
I never regretted making the choice I made. Now, though I've been having more visions, its going to come for you again, baby girl. It wants you and others like you. I didn't want to tell you about this because I knew you'd go after the thing that killed them and so many others, but now I know there's no choice. It wants you. It can't have you though.
Chris.
Jack slid to the floor of the bank room holding the letter in her hand.
'Its never going to end.' She thought pinching her nose to keep from crying. It was never going to stop, the constant attacks, even with her tattoos and her power growing stronger. It felt like she was born to die. That old despair crept up on her. Just a day before she'd been cornered by a poltergeist that wanted her ability to takes its revenge on its killers. She shot him with rock salt and burned his corpse. Now she found out something bigger and worse was out to get her.
Inside the envelope were clippings of similar fires her uncle had collected over the years. Only one stood out to her for some reason.
The family was named Winchester, she knew she'd heard that name before. Jack set a course for Lawrence, Kansas a couple days later.
Thus endeth the Flashback……
AN: We're back to the present in the next chapter my lovelies. I told you this would be a long ass stroll down memory lane. Two days, two damn days it took me to write this chapter. I'm so tired. I was especially nervous about these past two chapters because of how dark they'd have to be, I thought to myself if you can make yourself well up with these then you're doing something right. And I did so hopefully I did the same for y'all. That sounds vaguely sadistic doesn't it. Aw, well. hehe
Reward me with reviews please, I need the love.
