A/N: Warning-this chapter contains a violent encounter between Janie and Leon. He finds out something about Janie and goes after her.

"Hi, there."

Janie jumped and looked up to see John looking down at her. She had been so focused on what she was going to say to John that she had forgotten how big and intimidating the man truly was. The thought crossed her mind that, if she was completely honest with John right then, he would make short work of passing some of the hurt her father had caused her back onto him. She scrapped that thought and faked a smile.

"Hi."

"Can I join you?" John asked.

At least he's friendly, Janie thought. "Sure. I actually came to talk to you."

"You did?"

"Yeah. Are you busy?" Janie asked.

"I was just about to have some lunch. You want to join me?"

Janie nodded. "Yes, please."

As John sat, he noticed that Janie wasn't really looking him in the eye. Every time he got close to her, she would pull away. He also noticed her squirming. He'd thought about her the night before. All night he'd thought about her. She was far too quiet, too shy, and too timid for his liking. He opened a menu, about to offer to buy Janie lunch, when she made a casual observation.

"I can tell you're not from this town."

John chuckled. "How's that?"

"'Cause you actually like me."

The matter of fact way she said it made the smile drop off John's face immediately. "What does that mean, Janie?"

Janie realized that she'd gotten too comfortable with this stranger and shook her head. "Nothing. Never mind."

Not wanting to push her away, John decided to let it go. "You said you wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah. I, um, I didn't exactly tell you the truth yesterday."

"About what?" John asked, even though he already knew. Janie squirmed some more, and John wondered if she was nervous. "Janie, it's okay. I'm not mad. You'd be surprised how often people lie to me about that."

"You asked if I'd seen anything weird."

"Have you?" John asked.

Janie took a deep breath. "Yes. But I'm afraid to tell you."

"Why?"

"You won't believe me." Janie said.

"Try me."

Tears pooled in Janie's eyes. "I think it's my mom."

"Whoa, whoa. Here." John pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her. "Why do you think it's your mom?"

"I think she's trying to protect me."

"Protect you from what, sweetheart?" John asked. When Janie nodded her head furiously, John realized what she was trying not to tell him. He lowered his voice to avoid embarrassing her. "Is your father hurting you?"

"No." Janie said much too quickly to be believed. "No, we just…we fight sometimes."

"Janie, if your father is hurting you, I can help you get out of here. Get away from him and someplace safe."

"He's not hurting me!" Janie said again, a little too loudly.

"Okay, okay, fine." John said. "Then why do you think it's your mother?"

"I've been…hearing her. When I'm in my room crying after my dad and I fight. I'll feel her sometimes, too. Rubbing my back to make me feel better, putting her arm around me."

"A lot of us feel like we hear and see people we love that have died." John said.

"My mom died over three years ago. And I haven't just been feeling her."

"You've seen her?"

"Yes. In my room last night. I was crying and I saw her." Janie said. "She was kneeling next to my bed, wiping my face and telling me I was going to be okay."

John's heart, hardened by years of hunting ghosts like this, cracked and almost shattered at the way this poor child was so obviously hurting and in distress. He had assumed that the ghost was malevolent, but maybe it was there to comfort and soothe Janie.

"She was a ghost, wasn't she?"

John nodded. "Yeah, sweetie, she was."

"I didn't think ghosts were real."

"They are." John said. "In fact, that's what I do. I hunt ghosts."

Janie looked up at him, alarmed, but before she could say anything, the front door to the diner opened. Her furious father was storming towards her at the table. He grabbed Janie's arm and whispered softly under his breath.

"Get your ass in the car. Now."

"There's no need for that, Mr. Foster. Janie and I were just having a little chat…"

"You stay the hell away from my daughter and out of this!" Leon said to John just as viciously.

"Janie lied to me about school today, she knows the punishment for that."

"John, please, please don't make this worse…"

"I said, GET YOUR ASS IN MY CAR RIGHT NOW!"

Leon turned and swatted Janie once, but the embarrassment of being in a public place made the swat sting a hundred times worse. John, as hard as it was, respected her request and left it alone. He heard Janie begging her father to just let her walk, but Leon dragged her to the car and threw her roughly into the passenger's seat. John fought the urge to follow them, run the car off the road, rescue Janie and shoot the bastard in the head. He made up his mind that no matter what happened, he would be leaving that town with her.

As the car stopped and Leon walked around, Janie found herself regretting not telling John the truth. This would be the day that she always feared. Anger was her father's default expression, but she'd never seen him rage the way he had at the diner. Her father seemed blissfully ignorant of his reputation in town as a degenerate and drunk, and until today, had never done anything to her in public. He was losing what little bit of self-control he had.

This is it, Janie thought as Leon yanked open the car door and pulled her out. The day that her father would either cripple or kill her.

Instead of immediately starting in on her, Leon did something that actually surprised Janie. Something he'd only done a few times before. He pulled her around to the back of the house, and opened a door that Janie hadn't seen in months. Janie never fought her father, mostly since it would only result in more hurt for her, but today she fought with all her strength to get away.

"No, Daddy, no, no, please…"

"Shut up." Leon opened the door, which led down into the basement of the house, and pulled Janie down the stairs.

In happier times, the basement of the house had been a place Janie couldn't wait to get to. Her mother and father had turned it into a playroom just after Janie's fifth birthday. Janie remembered many afternoons with her mother and father in the basement, playing dolls or dress up or any other games Janie thought up. In one of her father's crueler punishments, he had ripped the playroom apart, thrown out all of Janie's old toys, and locked her in the basement for the first of three times. What had once been a bright, colorful place for Janie to play had now been turned into a dark, damp, bug and rat mouse infested hole in the ground. Leon threw Janie down and closed the door behind him.

"What the hell were you doing with him?"

"I wasn't doing anything…"

"STOP LYING!" Leon shouted. "Tell me now, what were you doing with him?"

"I just…" Janie swallowed, trying to come up with a believable lie. "I didn't go to meet him. I just went to the café for the day and he came in for lunch. We were just talking, I swear."

"So you're not gonna tell me. Okay, that's fine. You can stay down here until you do."

"What about school?" Janie asked.

"Do you think I'm stupid? I ran into your teacher in town. You're out of school for a long weekend. If you decide to be stubborn, then you'll be sick for a few days. You aren't going anywhere."

So he wasn't going to hit her. He was going to starve her. As Leon left, and Janie heard the door locking behind him, she felt the fear finally start to grip her. She heard a phone ringing in the distance, and hit her knees trying to take deep breaths and stop herself from hyperventilating.

"Mommy, I messed up. I didn't listen to you. I'm sorry. Help me out of here and I swear I will."

Look up Janie.

Janie looked up and directly in front of her was an old piece of wood. She didn't know where it had come from or how long it had been there. Just as her mind registered the board's exact location, the basement door flew open again and her father was back. Before she could say anything, Leon had pulled her up and had her by the collar.

"You stupid, stupid bitch."

"Daddy? What…?"

"Don't. Don't say a word. That was your school nurse on the phone."

A slap to the cheek, somewhat harder than she was used to, but nothing that hadn't happened before. So he's changed his mind, Janie thought. She somehow managed to stay standing and dared to disobey her father.

"What did she say?"

"I said for you to shut up."

A punch to the nose, and Janie was leaning against the wall. A bitter taste in her mouth made Janie spit. She saw blood on the ground where she'd spit before Leon picked her up and punched again, this time in the eye and knocking her to the floor. Janie let out a cry, which only seemed to further enrage her father.

"Have you been getting sick? Throwing up?"

Janie, thrown by the question, looked up at Leon. "What?"

"Don't act stupid. Answer the question."

"No, sir. I haven't been getting sick."

Another slap to the cheek, and Janie was pulled back up again. "Don't lie."

"I'm not. I swear. I haven't been sick."

"You're about to be." Leon said bitterly. "The ER called your school nurse because they got the results of the blood tests back. The blood tests you didn't tell me they did."

Janie stuttered. She hadn't told her father that the ER had done blood tests. She wanted to protest that she hadn't lied to him, which was half true. She had passed out in school for the second time in two weeks and had simply been trying to keep herself from passing out again.

"Want to know what they said?" Leon asked. "Congratulations. You're pregnant."

"What? No, that…that can't be."

"Well, it's true. And you better enjoy it while you can. Because I'm gonna beat this out of you. Even if it kills you, I will beat this outta you."

In the years to come, Janie wouldn't know what to call it, but something happened. Adrenaline. Protection. Motherly instinct. Whatever it was, Janie struggled against Leon harder than ever. She got her own kick in, right behind her father's knee, knocking him to the floor. Janie scrambled for the other end of the room, where she'd seen the board. She heard her father scream behind her, a scream of rage that shook her to her core.

That was the moment that there was a shift in Janie. She went from a terrified, beaten down little girl to someone she didn't recognize. Someone who could take care of herself. She didn't see it, but she knew her father had gotten up and was coming for her again. A familiar voice sounded in her mind.

If you don't put him down, he'll kill you. Hurt him. Hurt him as bad as you can.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Janie grabbed the board from the floor and swung blindly. She heard a loud crack, and her father screamed again, this time from pain. Janie gained enough leverage to stand up, and found her father writhing on the floor, bleeding from his forehead.

"Don't get up."

"You bitch! I'll kill you…"

"No, you won't."

Janie lifted the board behind her head again and brought it crashing down on her father's. The board split in two and Leon stopped moving. Janie's adrenaline slowly started to fade. She threw the piece of the board still in her hand down and looked around.

Her father was on the floor, bleeding and likely not breathing. Her first instinct was to call 911, but that couldn't happen. If it did, the whole story would come out. It was humiliating enough to deal with it privately. The whole world didn't need to know.

She left the basement and went to the living room, wondering where she would go. Her life was over. She had to run somewhere. Janie remembered her mother's directions and headed out the door.

John took his coffee cup and threw it across the room. It had been three hours, and he'd yet to come up with a plan to help Janie or get the ghost. Failure wasn't an option. What really bothered him was not knowing what was happening to Janie at that moment. Everything inside John told him that, despite Janie's denials, she was being hurt by that bastard. He'd done a records search on Leon Foster before coming back to his room. He hadn't found much information, but what he did find was telling.

Two months before Sabrina Foster's death, police had been called to her home because of a fight between her and her husband. Eleven-year-old Janie had made the call. One month later, Sabrina had filed for divorce and put a down payment on a two bedroom house. John filled in between the lines there-Sabrina was leaving Leon and taking Janie with her. Three weeks after filing for divorce, Sabrina Foster was dead. The records after Sabrina's death were even more telling. Janie had been to the emergency room a total of five times in four years. She'd received broken bones, stitches, and mysterious bruising that the doctor noted as 'possibly needing intervention by Child Protective Services'. CPS had been out three times in those four years, and John couldn't decide if he was more disgusted with them or Leon. Janie had never been removed from her father's care.

John had hunted more his share of disgusting monsters in his time. Ghosts, werewolves, djinn, too many others to name. But if his suspicions about Leon Foster were correct, John would be dealing with the biggest monster he'd ever dealt with before.

John put his research down, rubbing the space between his eyes. He was getting a major headache. He opened his eyes and a photo caught his attention. He'd left it on the nightstand, as he did every time he went on a hunt without his sons. In it, John sat on the hood of the Impala, with eight-year-old Sam on his lap and twelve-year-old Dean standing next to them. Dena, as always, looked happy and excited. Sam, on the other hand, seemed annoyed. John remembered that he and Sam had just gotten over one of their first fights when Dean suggested having Bobby take the picture. Though the memory was a good one for John, something occurred to him that he'd never considered before.

Had Sam ever been afraid of him the way Janie had been afraid of her father earlier?

A furious knock at his door shook him out of his thoughts. He answered it with a hand on his gun, only to find a crying, bloody Janie there waiting for him.

"Help me."