I
woke up the next morning with a start as I heard breaking glass and
fell out of the bed, landing on the hard floor,
"Owwww." I
whined, I looked up and saw Sam standing by the table looking
sheepish,
"Sorry. I dropped a cup."
"Smooth Sam.
Smooth." I mumbled mostly to myself as I got untangled from the
blankets and stood up off the floor, "Where's Dean?" I
questioned,
Sam looked up from where he was picking shards of
glass up off the floor,
"Went out to get some caffeine and then
we're going to figure out what to do about his damn Djinn."
I
nodded my head, coffee was just what I wanted. And plus beating the
Djinn into a bloody pulp also sounded very appealing,
"Sounds
good Sammy."
He shot me a look, which I chose to ignore. So what
if he hated me calling him Sammy? I was in a good mood and no
brooding Sam was going to bring me down.
Dean returned carrying a
brown takeout bag and a tray of coffee. I took the Styrofoam cup he
handed to me, took a sip and sighed,
"That's why I keep you
around."
He pulled me into his arms, careful not to spill my
coffee,
" I can think of a couple other reason's you'd want
me around."
I laughed,
"Oh and what reasons would those
be?"
Dean opened his mouth but before he could get his words out
Sam interrupted him,
"I don't want to know these things! Could
you please have this conversation when I'm not here?!"
Dean
sniggered,
"Calm down Sammy. We promise we won't go at it when
you're still in the room. Well, as long as you leave soon."
I
punched Dean in the ribs and sat in one of the chairs around the
table, continuing to drink my coffee. Dean tossed an object wrapped
in wax paper at me,
I opened it and saw it contained an everything
bagel, it was cute that he remembered my favorite food. Not that it
was a difficult task,
but Dean could barely remember where he was
a large percentage of the time, so I didn't take any loving gesture
for granted,
"Thanks."
He smiled and me and told me,
"No
problem babe."
Babe? I mentally questioned, he never called me
any of those pet names. That was weird. I decided to let it slide and
instead focused on the bruise that had fully formed on Dean's right
cheek,
"How's the face?" I inquired.
He turned to me and
gave me his famous thousand watt smile,
"Hot. As it usually
is."
I rolled my eyes,
"I mean the bruise you reject."
Sam
choked on his coffee and some came out of his nose, effectively
spraying Dean with it. Apparently Sam found the way I treated his
brother amusing, I'd been told that in all of Dean's
relationships,
especially the ones that lasted only one
night,
the girls treated him like some kind of god.
Maybe
that's why the guy has such a massive ego.
I thought to myself. I had no problem taking him down a notch or
two.
Dean informed me that his face was fine and he asked me, with
guilt in his voice, how my neck was feeling,
"It's good. It
honestly looks worse than it is."
Okay. It was lie. My neck
felt like it was on fire and breathing and swallowing were in the
category of agony. But I couldn't tell him that, not when he was
obviously beating himself up over it.
I think Dean's sensor that
detected any moments when someone wanted to have a serious
conversation started beeping, because as soon as I went to confront
him about his obvious guilt he said,
"Well I'm going to get up
shut eye. When I'm up, we'll talk about this genie bastard." He
laid on the bed,
"It's Djinn you special Ed student!" Sam
said as he finished picking up the shards of glass that littered the
floor around the table
"Whatever." Dean mumbled as he closed
his eyes and rolled over onto his stomach.
I leaned back in the
chair I was sitting in,
"Why I date that guy I have no idea."
I said, mostly to myself.
Sam laughed,
"Are you kidding me?
You're perfect for each other. One day you'll have very…blonde
haired green eyed babies."
I rolled my eyes and stood up from
the chair, I grabbed a pair of shorts and a t-shirt from my duffle
bag and walked into the bathroom.
I reemerged wearing my jogging
clothes and sat down on the bed, pulling on my running shoes,
"Where
you going Kaiden?" Sam asked from behind his computer,
"Run!"
I called over my shoulder as I went out the door.
It had been
too long since I had been out for a good run and had been able to
seriously clear my thoughts like I needed. I thought about everything
from that night when Dean and Sam came back into my life and my dad
died,
to the night when my brother broke into the roadhouse and I
was damned close to killing both myself and everyone else there.
I
ran for about 5 kilometers before I slowed to a walk and leaned over
to catch my breath. How had Dean and Sam known to come to the forest
that night?
I was surprised that it had taken me this long to
realize that there was something off about that, there was no way
that they would have known to come there just in time for them to
save me.
Instead of continuing my run like I had planned on, I
turned on my heal and sprinted the entire 5 kilometers back to the
motel as fast as I possibly could. There were questions I wanted
answered.
I reached the motel, pulled out my key and swung the
door open. Dean jumped half a foot off the bed as the door slammed
into the wall and Sam nearly dropped the coffee he was holding,
"How
did you know?" I asked, gasping for air,
"What?" Dean asked
pulling himself together after the scare I had given him
I
repeated this question, this time more clearly since I was starting
to get my breath back,
"I said, how did you know?" At their
looks of confusion I elaborated, "How did you known to come to the
forest that night?"
Sam and Dean exchanged glances, I knew they
were trying to urge the other to speak so that they didn't start
talking at the same time with different stories. Normally I would
have found this brotherly thing cute, but I was in no mood for
games,
"Spit it out." I said with an edge to my voice. Dean
stood up from the bed and shrugged,
"It was good timing, that's
all. Coincidence."
Sam turned away from Dean and ran a hand
through his hair. I knew if I was going to get the truth from anyone
it would be Sam with is ever guilty conscious,
"Sam?"
He
looked desperately from me to Dean, then sank down onto the edge of
the bed closest to the bathroom,
"We can't lie to her
Dean."
"I'm not lying to her. What I said is the truth."
Dean's tone was steady but I could hear the warning in his voice.
He was warning Sam not to spill the beans, and I was pissed,
"God
dammit Dean! You are lying to me, and I swear to god if you don't
tell me the truth right now I am leaving here to find the truth
myself, and I wouldn't count on me coming back."
Dean was
quickly pacing the room, he ran a hand through his hair,
"Fine.
Sam, tell her."
Sam looked up at me from where he was sitting on
the bed,
"Kaiden, I had dreams about that night in the forest.
And in my dreams, you were the one that died, not your dad."
I stood there in shock, I knew that Sam had freaky dreams like I did, but he had never had one that related to me, well not that he had told me about at least,
"So you came to help out? That doesn't make sense. You didn't show up until after the werewolf had attacked."
"No, we called your dad first." Dean said
from where he was now leaning against the motel door, as if trying to
tell me that I wasn't leaving, "He said he'd make sure nothing
happened to you. But he wanted to be certain nothing bad went down.
We were only a state over, so we came to help out."
I felt
nauseous, it was a good thing that I had already digested the food I
had ate for breakfast, or I had a feeling that it would have been all
over the already not so clean motel carpeted floor.
I honestly
couldn't believe it, if Sam hadn't have had those dreams then my
dad would have still been alive.
It really was my fault that my
dad had died. Over the time since the attack I had convinced myself
that there was nothing I could do to save my father, it had been a
random coincidence.
But it was my fault, I lived and he
died.
Tears burned my eyes but I refused to cry. I nodded my head
as acknowledgement of what they said and walked into the bathroom.
I
turned the shower on full blast and stepped in with my clothes on,
I
just sat there letting the water run over me, eventually the hot
water turned to cold and I still didn't move.
I heard Dean
knock on the door but I didn't say anything. He continued knocking
for a few minutes before he just picked the lock and let himself
in.
I was a state, I was shaking uncontrollably from the freezing
cold water, I could see that my fingers and legs were blue so I
figured the rest of me was as well,
"Jesus, Kaiden." He
muttered to himself as he wrapped his arms around me and lifted my
petite frame from the spray of icy water. Dean grabbed the towel off
the rack and blanketed it around me, trying to warm my shaking
body,
"Y-you should h-h-have just let m-me stay in t-there." I
said through chattering teeth,
"Stop it Kaiden. Just cut it
out." He said in a harsh voice, "You have been punishing yourself
mentally since the second your dad died and now you're stepping it
up to physical punishment. This has got to stop. It'll kill you."
I
unwrapped his arms from around me and stood up off the floor,
"I
think we have more important things to deal with right now Dean."
He
looked at me in shock,
"More important than you ending up dead
because you can't forgive yourself for something that wasn't even
your fault." He was angry, I could tell that much. But I was angry
at him as well so I had no interest in doing something to appease
him,
"We have to kill his Djinn." I said in a firm voice, "It
will keep killing people unless we stop it."
Dean shook his
head,
"Nuh-uh. No way in hell are you going anywhere."
I
walked to him until we stood toe to toe, staring each other down,
"I
am going whether you want me to or not. Either I'm doing this along
or you two can come and help. It really doesn't make any difference
to me."
I could see a battle going on behind Dean's eyes. On
one hand he wanted to tie me to one of the chairs in the room so that
he could make sure I didn't go anywhere and have anything, but on
the other he knew I would eventually untie myself and kick his ass
for doing something so stupid. He knew that if they went with me it
was the best way for him to try to protect me. He sighed,
"Fine.
Get changed and then we'll go."
I suppressed a smile. I
walked over to my bag and grabbed a new pair of jeans and a t-shirt.
As I changed I thought about how weird of a hunt this was. Before
when I used to hunt with my dad it was always easy, we'd research
and then kill the son of a bitch. But with the Winchesters there
always ended up being so many more twists and turns, maybe my dad
just picked the easier hunts, I had no clue.
I laced up my
favorite pair of combat boots and walked towards the door where Dean
handed me a pistol. I looked at him,
"We're just gonna shot
it?"
"Yupp, it is just like us but invisible. We can ventilate
it and then it's down for the count."
I nodded my head and
followed him and Sam to the Impala.
I was off in my own
thoughts for a long while and before I knew it, we were standing in
the attic of the house that the Djinn was living in.
We waited for
a while before there was any sign of it even being up there, but
eventually we heard rustling coming from the east corner of the
house. Dean shot in the direction and ended up stumbling backwards,
his gun skittering across the attic floorI rushed to steady
Dean, I heard the bang of a gun being fired and felt Dean's body
jerk backwards. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw the
gun, just floating in mid-air. I threw Dean to the floor and saw that
he had been hit in the right shoulder. Before I had a chance to do
anything more than that I heard three bangs and felt like I was being
hit by a bus,
"Kaiden!" I heard Sam yell.
There was
agony all over my body. I collapsed onto the floor beside where Dean
was laying.
The last thing I saw was Sam firing his gun in the
direction of where the Djinn was and I heard an unearthly scream.
After that my eyes rolled back into my head and I lost
consciousness.
