A/N: Okay so we're both going to be surprised where this chapter goes, I'm doing my a/n before writing it. I've spent a lot of time trying to peg this chapter but it remains as elusive as curls of smoke. So bare with me I know where this fic is going I just need to stop for directions to get there, and I'm shy as all get out so you know I'm not going to be stopping.
Chapter Two
Sam pocketed the keys, and climbed out of the Mustang, his next problem was going to be balancing a box of donuts, four coffees, and opening the motel room door, which he'd locked. He'd watched Athena and Autumn do it often enough with trays and beer at the bar, so he slid the crate of coffees on top of the donut box and hit the car door with his hip to shut it, in a way too feminine display. He fished the room key out only to find the door was unlocked, figuring Athena was already up he didn't think much of it, opening the door.
"Teenie, I've got coffee, not that I'm sure its much better than yours." He'd had a drag of the brown-black liquid in the car and it was just a hair better than the concoctions Athena called coffee. He sat the box on the TV and turned to the room, only to find it empty. "Teenie?" he called already knowing he wouldn't get a response. He swallowed hard when he saw the pad of paper was out instead of tucked in the drawer like it had been before he left. He tried to convince himself that it was just her telling him she'd taken John out for a walk, but her bag was missing from the foot of her bed where she'd dropped it when they'd arrived two days ago.
Guys-
Don't come after me. I need to do this. I'll be fine.
Kill you later
Teenie
Sam swore under his breath, there was only one thing this could be, and it definitely wasn't something as safe and cozy as going off to college like he'd done. He knew she'd be headed to find Will soon, but he'd thought that they'd all be with her. He sat down on the edge of her bed to try and put this together. Autumn would go ballistic; she'd be stark raving mad and try to go after her sister. Dean would be hot on her trail; neither of them understood this need. Neither of them were ready to accept what he'd only seen in Athena the once, on the night he'd taken her back to the motel. Taking a deep breath he decided there was no tactful way to say this, he'd just have to spit it out.
Autumn dropped a soaking towel on Dean's face, giggling and jumping back when he started in bed. "What the Hell?" he asked dancing between amused and furious as he made futile attempts to catch her.
"Time to get up sleepy head," she chirped.
"What makes you so pleasant this morning?" he disentangled himself from the bed and stumbled to the bathroom, not bothering to close the door so the conversation could continue.
"Kid's have joint funerals today. A smidge late because of the shady circumstances surrounding their deaths: such as two happy, healthy, young lovers offing themselves in a romantic setting." She dropped onto the bed flinging the towel in the direction of the bathroom and dragging her duffel bag into her lap. "But while the family's away the hunters will play." She added in a sing-song voice.
"You read this kid's bog you know they've got big dogs, have you got anything to distract them?"
"Blog, babe. And my uncanning beauty isn't enough?" she batted her lashes at him as he returned to rummage through his own bag, invoking the morning routine.
"You're going to stop them with your dazzling smile, eh?" he teased. Rolling her eyes Autumn pulled on her jeans. She was about to throw a smart ass remark back at Dean when some one knocked at the door.
"Who goes there?" she asked.
"Sam," came the answer from the other side of the door. Dean handed Autumn a shirt going to unlock the door for his brother.
"What's up?" he asked. Sam hesitated before coming in and his eyes darted around like a cornered animal. "Sammy, what's wrong?" Autumn came up behind him, gently moving Dean out of the way and drawing Sam in, she forced him down in a chair and knelt before him.
"Hey, you look like you've just seen a ghost." He offered a faint smile at her joke and swallowed.
"Athena's gone." Sam finally spoke up handing Autumn the note.
"What do you mean gone?" Autumn demanded reading the slip of paper in her hands. "Didn't she say anything to you?" she passed a waiting Dean the goodbye note without taking her eyes off of Sam.
"No, she never said anything about leaving." He told her keeping his voice calm, though he knew if the shoe were on the other foot he'd be a little freaked out right now too. Autumn stood up and went for her bag, shoving her feet in her shoes, and all mislaid belongings in her bag.
"Let's go, we go now, we can catch up." She was already at the door, and just like he'd thought Dean was following suit.
"We can't chase her down." Sam said standing up but making no effort to leave. Autumn reeled around on him, dropping her bag and stalking toward him.
"Why the hell not?" she demanded fire flashing in her eyes.
"She doesn't want us to. We go after her she'll think we don't trust her on her own." He played the guilt card earlier than he'd planned and Autumn faltered.
"She can go; we just have to talk to her first." Dean said clearing the matter up. "She can't just walk out."
"No, she can." Sam assured him. "Look, guys, she needs to do this. She needs us to be confident in her and wait until she calls us before we hunt her down. She needs to know she's her own person."
"Damn it, Sam, she knows that." Autumn stomped her foot, but already the signs of defeat were showing.
"Does she really?" Sam pushed a little further. Autumn refused to meet his eyes and Dean inched closer to her, as if he really thought Sam was going to keep going and she'd need saving. The moment stretched like a lazy cat, taking control of the room with ease and then it was gone. "I've got coffee and donuts, when you're ready." he told them before slipping out of the room.
"Go eat, I'll be there in a minute and we'll head to the house." Autumn dismissed Dean going back to her bag to find a different shirt, as much as she like wearing his tees it wasn't something she'd be seen in public wearing.
"You sure?" Dean asked lingering.
"Yea, we've got a hunt to take care of. Everything will be fine." Neither of the two were sure if she was trying to convince him or herself, but Dean grabbed his boots and went after his brother for a quick breakfast. The moment Dean was out of the room Autumn dialed her sister's number and wasn't surprised by the voice mail message.
"Yea, I'm not answering, big surprise. I'll call you when the time is right. Take care, dweebs." Athena's voice was sugary and teasing, the thought of her alone somewhere nearly brought tears to her sister's eyes. Autumn threw the phone on her bed and finished getting ready, she didn't have time for silly kids game.
The long drive was marked by a beaten tin mailbox. The practical familiarity of the red brick house was lost to the hunters, who scanned thee house for ways to get in. The place was a burglaries' dream: open windows with the screens improperly installed, garage door open the door leading to the house cracked where a rug had got caught in the door jam. On the tree lined, cracked, blacktop driveway the Impala looked out of place, or it could have been the monster pick ups it was parked next to. Autumn let Sam out of the back seat looking across the top of the car at Dean who was still appraising the house.
"How you want to get in?" she grinned.
"They've got it locked up tight, I don't know how we could get in short of TNT or a battering ram." He answered her.
"No one locks up outside of suburbia." Sam reminded them, almost defending the house's occupants.
"Duh, I don't think we ever locked our doors, of course there was a gun in just about every room too so…" she trailed off. Dean started for the garage, the easiest way in, and the others followed.
"Aut, you have your smile ready to stop the dog?" he teased, easing open the door.
Betsy froze, she didn't recognize those voices. At least two males and a female, she waited until they'd disappeared toward the basement, only confirming her fear that they weren't from the funeral, and went to the kitchen. She pulled a knife from the wood block and tucked it up her sleeve, pre-dialing 91, before going to follow the voices. Betsy was used to hearing them in this house, it was a common place.
"Someone had a lot of leash." The female voice said in a tone that made Betsy want to go slap its owner. Iris had her parents trust, because she was a good girl, what happened wasn't because she had too much 'leash'.
"Her room's better equipped than most the motels we've been to." One of the men answered, ruling out the possibility of ghosts. Swallowing the spike of fear that tried to stop her she padded down the stairs silently.
"Dude, this leads to the backyard." She could see the speaker now, he looked rather average from behind, the other two trespassers came from behind the wall blocking her vision of the rest of the basement.
"Yea, that's how the boy got in, parents said he wasn't here when everyone went to bed." The woman spoke, she looked about like most twenty-somethings, though she carried herself in a way that, despite the soft impossibly innocent voice, made her seem dangerous beyond words.
"But no demonic traces, so that can be ruled out." The tall guy with the shaggy hair that accompanied the woman said. Betsy held herself still, the way she did so often when stumbling across wild life in the woods, afraid that any sound would scare off the object of her curiosity. As she watched them, she realized they all radiated with the same hidden danger vibe, she wasn't surprised at all to see the flash of silver when the shorter man stretched his arms over his head causing his shirt to ride up. This flash made her little knife obsolete, she quickly surveyed the other two for weapons, and noticed similar bulges or flashes of metal when their clothes would move revealing soft flesh and weaponry.
"Boys, we've got company." The woman said nodding in Betsy's direction. Betsy tried to make herself look completely at ease, though this wasn't very possible with her heart racing, pumping adrenaline through her veins like it'd never get the pleasure of hyping her up again. The men turned to look at her and the tall one stepped out, hands held out showing he was unarmed, a lie she knew, and smile. She watched him cautiously as he shook his head enough to toss the chocolate locks from his puppy dog eyes.
"Let me guess you come in peace?" she asked with the hint of the snarky attitude her brother had sworn would get her killed.
"We do." He smiled politely, the pair behind him moved closer so they'd all be in her line of vision at once; seeming to know exactly how to handle terrified home owners.
"Wish I could say the same. What are you doing invading my home planet?" she kept up the sci-fi theme.
"We're looking for a renewed source of food," the first intruder she'd seen said.
"Don't eat me, I don't taste good." The woman smiled at some joke she didn't catch and it made Betsy mad, up to this point life had been kind enough to keep people from laughing at her while posing a threat. "Look, my folks are going to be back in a minute, so you've got that long to convince me not to call the cops."
"Now, come on, you don't want to do that," the short guy told her.
"No, Dean, if the girl wants to call the cops let her," the other man argued.
"What are you after, and why are you looking for 'demonic traces'?" she demanded.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" the woman asked, she looked like she wanted to step forward but didn't want to scare Betsy either.
"Like Casper?" It was a question Betsy often tried to avoid, few people managed to not question her sanity on this topic.
"Kind of," the woman nodded. "Sweet heart, have you ever seen something that can't be explained?"
"A: I'm not your sweet heart, I'm Betsy. B: You're insane."
"That's probably true, Betsy, but do you really believe your friends here killed themselves? Would they do something like that?" The woman continued not realizing how close she was hitting to a thought that had plagued Betsy the past few days.
"No, Scottie, and Ris were happy, they wouldn't do this. But J.R. would have stopped them. He always stops the bad things."
"J.R.?" the woman asked. It was too late, when Betsy realized her mistake.
"Iris' older brother, he's always kept a really close eye on us." The woman must have sensed the break in her defenses because she stepped cautiously forward.
"He must be really broken up about this." Betsy snorted.
"I'm sure he is, but he doesn't show it."
"I'm Autumn, and these are Sam and Dean.," the woman introduced them. Her name was fitting, and surely her parents' bad joke, as she had a mane of auburn hair that reminded Betsy of the fall.
"What do you want?" Betsy forced past the lump forming in her throat.
"We want to help, but you're going to have to work with us. You can't call the cops on us, we won't hurt you or anyone else, I promise." Autumn's voice was infinitely more guarded now that she knew Betsy was there, before real emotion had been evident now it was like a well rehearsed play.
"Your question, about the ghosts," Autumn nodded encouragingly. "I know they're real, I've seen them."