CHAPTER TWENTY
The next day, Dean's eyes fluttered open against his pillow as he lay on his stomach. For a moment, he thought everything was back to normal – he and Sam were on any other job at any other motel on any other motel bed. But then he smelled Janelle's pretty scent on his pillow and he was brought back to the harsh reality of where he actually was. Next, he came to the conclusion that Janelle wasn't beside him or behind him and she wasn't in bed with Sam, and there was a slight scratching noise coming from across the room.
"Janie?" he whispered, lifting himself up, looking around. "Janelle?"
Janelle sat on her hands and knees facing the corner near the door. No doubt she was causing the sound, but what the hell was she doing?
Dean threw back the covers, climbed out of bed, and slowly approached Janelle. Her body was positioned in such a way that he couldn't see what was holding her interest or what was making the scratching noises, especially if she was focused on the carpet.
"Janelle?" he ventured, leaning forward a bit where his eyeballs widened in shock and fury. In Janelle's hand was the insanely sharp, circularly-shaped blade he'd gotten for Sam on his sixteenth birthday, and she was carefully picking away the carpet and floorboards to make a small hole in the corner. Dean was awestruck by the fact that she hadn't found a way to kill herself with the weapon yet.
"Janie!" he suddenly shouted, grabbing her arm and yanking her to her feet so quickly that her feet left the ground for a brief moment.
"Ow!" Janelle squealed, bringing the sharp end of the blade to Dean's arm and dragging it across the skin until blood flowed freely from the wound.
"What the f ..!" Dean began.
Sam rolled over in his bed, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. "Dean? What's going on?"
Dean didn't know what it was – his hunter instinct or just plain defense mechanism – when he reeled back with his right hand, swinging it around until his hand connected squarely with Janelle's jaw. He watched in horror as she fell to the ground like a ton of bricks, cradling her cheek and gazing up at him with watery eyes, and when she blinked, those tears fell down her cheeks.
"Dean!" Sam roared, jumping out of bed and running to Janelle's aid. "What the hell is the matter with you?"
Dean shook his throbbing hand unknowingly as he regarded Sammy and Janelle with empty eyes. What had he just done? He knew he hit her; he remembered doing that, but one terrifying thought wouldn't leave his head: had he smacked her or had he actually punched her? The mark he left on her face would tell the truth, but he really didn't want to wait around for those results, so he threw open the motel door and stormed out, slamming it behind him.
Sam, seething with fury, took several deep breaths to calm his nerves and focus on Janelle. "Are you okay?" he breathed, helping her off the floor and onto the bed she'd shared with Dean the night before.
"He hit me," Janelle whimpered, and Sam caught a quick glimmer of a young child in her eye.
Fantastic.
"Why did he do that, Sammy?" Janelle went on.
Sam removed her hand from her cheek to inspect the damage Dean had caused and he was only infuriated more by the small trickle of blood falling down her chin from the corner of her mouth. He angrily wiped it away with his thumb, then wiped his thumb on his boxer shorts and returned both hands to her face. He didn't have to be psychic to know she was more than appalled by Dean's actions and more than likely completely terrified of him now.
"I don't know why he did it, Janie," Sam finally answered, his voice coming out a lot softer than he felt on the inside. "Dean's …" He absolutely hated lying for his brother, particularly after such an incident, but he had no choice. "Dean's been upset lately. You know that. He just … he took it out on the wrong person. He shouldn't have done that, but I don't think he meant to. Okay?"
"He wants to hurt me," Janelle cried, looking down in shame.
"No, he doesn't!" Sam disagreed, pulling her into a tight hug. She needed comforting more than Sam needed to lay out his brother for hitting a girl who was all but mentally impaired. "He doesn't want to hurt you, Janie. He wants to hurt the thing inside of you. Do you understand? Not you. The bad thing inside of you." Janelle did not seem convinced, so Sam let the explanation drop. "Are you okay?" he inquired, smoothing his humongous hands over Janelle's messy hair.
Janelle sniffed pathetically and shook her head. "It hurts," she sobbed, idly massaging Dean's fist's target on her face with the heel of her hand.
"I know it does, sweetheart," Sam sighed, quickly surveying the room for a bucket of ice, which they hadn't needed or wanted the night before. The night before … when Jess had used Janelle's body to contact him. Janelle was going through so much, half of which she didn't even know about, and a little bit of Sam died for enjoying speaking to Jess via Janelle.
"Do you hate me, Sammy?" Janelle wondered.
Sam turned back to her, smiling warmly. "No," he whispered, kissing her forehead softly. "I never could and I never would."
"You promise?" she asked.
"I promise promise," he smirked. Glancing back toward the door, Sam knew he needed to talk to Dean – beat Dean – before he lost his nerve. "Janie," he began, looking again at Janelle's face, "I'm gonna get you some ice, okay?"
"No!" Janelle exclaimed, fisting her hands in Sam's shirt. "Don't leave me alone, Sammy!"
"Janie …"
"You can't!"
Sam huffed and scratched his head. "All right, well, I'm gonna go outside and talk to Dean …"
"Sammy, please ..?" Janelle breathed. "It's bad. Something's bad."
"Look, Janelle," Sam demanded, dragging her over to the window and throwing the curtains open. "See? There's Dean. I'm gonna be standing right there with him. You'll be able to see me the whole time."
After a moment of consideration, Janelle finally relented and nodded her head. "Okay," she whispered.
Sam kissed her forehead once more before walking out of the room, closing the door behind him, and standing next to his big brother; a man he'd worshipped for so long when he was a child had quickly been demoted to simply Some Guy.
"Well, congratulations to you, brother-mine. You not only knocked her to the floor, but you knocked her back twenty years," Sam growled maliciously, wondering how long he'd be able to contain his anger. When it was clear Dean hadn't a clue what Sam was saying, he went on to explain, "She's four again." He watched Dean's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "She thinks you wanna hurt her." Still Dean said nothing. "Is that true?"
"You know that's not true, Sam," Dean replied softly.
Sam didn't know what he'd expected, but it certainly wasn't a cool, calm, and collected Dean Winchester. "No, Dean, I don't know! What the hell possessed you to hit her?" He was shouting now, and he didn't care who heard or who saw.
"Like you don't know!" Dean yelled back, turning to Sam.
"Stop using that demon as a smoke screen, Dean," Sam grumbled. "I know it's been responsible for a lot of bad things that've happened to Janelle, but news flash, Dean! You're not the one possessed here!"
Dean shook his head and looked away.
Sam continued, "Unless there's something you're not telling me." He inspected Dean's face for a reaction and was surprised by the slight wince in Dean's eye. "Is there something else going on, Dean? Something I don't know about? Because if there is, you better tell me now!"
"You think you got everything figured out, don't you?" Dean said, smirking only slightly. "You don't even know the half of it."
Sam gave no warning whatsoever before smashing his fist into his brother's rock solid jaw, sending him flying onto the hood of the Impala. He glued his feet to the ground, body rigid in attack position for anything Dean might throw back, but his older sibling sat and stared. Stared because, Sam knew, he never thought his little brother would do such a thing, though Dean had to have known he had it coming.
"You pack a mean right cross, Sammy," Dean muttered, rubbing his jaw as he lifted himself off of his car.
"You're done, Dean," Sam disclosed, pointing a long finger at him. "I'm not letting you run this show anymore."
"Is that right?" Dean inquired, eyebrows rising.
"That's right," Sam was quick to answer. "You've caused enough damage, don't you think?"
"If that's what you want, Sam," Dean relinquished, shrugging his broad shoulders. "You wanna play Daddy? Be my guest."
"Good," Sam nodded triumphantly. "Now I'm gonna take Janie to get some ice for the fucking welt on her cheek. When we get back, we're leaving." He spun on his heels, but then turned again to look at Dean. "And stay the hell out of our way. Janelle is this close to breaking." And he made a gesture with his thumb and forefinger.
As Dean watched Sam retrieve Janelle, he thought, Me too, Sammy. He waited impatiently for the two to leave the room, and he didn't meet Janelle's eyes as they passed, bound for the ice machine. When they'd turned the corner, Dean rushed into the room. He had to know what she was digging for.
After quickly wrapping his bleeding arm in gauze, Dean used just his hands to pull the edges back until the hole was large enough for his arm, and then he reached inside, caring not for any malevolence that might be hiding within. His hand went blindly down, down, down, until his fingers collided with wood. That couldn't be it. He felt around for a moment, becoming angrier and angrier, and then his fingertips brushed a different texture – maybe leather. His hand glided across it just long enough for Dean to determine that what he was feeling was a book.
Dean yanked the book from its clever hiding place and stared at the indentation of a cross on the cover. He puffed a hard breath over the surface, grimacing when the cloud of dust flew up and away. Opening it carefully, he wasn't surprised to find a warning inscribed in Latin.
Is libri concedo tantum pro quos campana orbis. Vomica exsisto ullus quod totus quisnam lego lacuna quod insisto.
This book yields only for whom the bell tolls. Cursed be any and all who read the words which follow.
"I'm already cursed," Dean muttered to himself, flipping the page. His eyes widened a bit to find that a book such as this contained a contents page. He read through the familiar names of badass demons who had mostly been banished back to Hell – a few of them by John Winchester himself – but then the third from the last name seemed to laugh at him.
Elathan.
Quickly flipping to the correct page, Dean's heart skipped too many beats. "Fuck me," he mumbled.
It was like a kick in the head reading the Latin words of Exorcising the High-Ranking Demon of Elathan. The incantation was unfamiliar, rightly so, but seemed authentic enough, and the bold fact that Janelle had somehow known it was there – right under their feet, waiting to be found – supported this.
"Go ahead and wait in the car, Janie," Sam's voice slithered into the room through the opened door.
Dean scrambled for a hiding place for the book; his bags were out because they were in plain view of the outside world, the car was a definite no, so he stashed the book in the back of his pants and yanked his shirt over it and hoped Sam wouldn't notice.
"Are you ready?" Sam's commanding voice demanded an answer as he stomped into the room just as Dean came to his feet.
"Yes, sir, General Lee," Dean mockingly replied, saluting his drill sergeant brother before grabbing his duffel of clothes and separate bag of weapons and heading out to the car hurriedly. He stopped, though, when he saw Janelle sitting in the front seat, holding a bag of ice to her cheek. "You've got to be kidding me," he growled.
"I told you were done, Dean," Sam said from behind him, slamming the motel room door.
"So you're putting me in the fucking child seat?"
"You're acting like one, why not?" Sam shot back.
Dean shook his head. "Fuck you, Sam," he said, heading toward the back seat.
"Fuck you, Dean," Sam repeated. He realized too late that he was joining Dean in acting childishly, but that comment had seemed necessary.
Dean jerked open the door and threw his bags inside before climbing in after them. He was pissed. Since when did little Sammy grow big enough balls to punch out his older brother and to tell his older brother what to do and to use the words fuck and you and Dean all in the same sentence?
Sam put the car in gear and peeled out of the motel parking lot after checking out. The atmosphere was irritatingly quiet, except for the occasional sniffles from Janelle, which tore at Dean's heart strings one by one. He couldn't apologize because Janelle wouldn't know what he was talking about, and Sam would offer up some wisecrack or flat out call him a liar and say that he didn't mean it.
So Dean kept his mouth shut, just like he knew Sam wanted. Janelle was silent, as well, with her knees tucked against her chest, chewing on her thumbnail. Sam drove with his eyes only on the road and occasionally on the rearview mirror to check for cops. But when they turned onto an older road that maybe twelve people knew about, he kicked the speedometer up to 70.
As Dean fingered one of the many holes in his jeans, he couldn't comprehend his own luck. A country road that was literally in the middle of nowhere? Maybe things were looking up. Maybe this was supposed to be his time to exorcise the demon and not wait until they got to New Mexico. He reached into the bag with the weapons near his feet and pulled out the crucifix and holy water, shoving them into his pockets.
"Hey, Sammy," Dean called, and he was about to continue when Sam interrupted him.
"Sam," his little brother growled.
Dean rolled his eyes. "Hey, Sammm," he exaggerated.
"What, Dean?"
"Pull over."