I was unnaturally calm, driving around in my black, 1967 Chevrolet Impala.
I'd been on the road, searching for four days, and in that time, I must have used at least four full tanks of gas, slept less than six hours and eaten at twelve different restaurants.
I wasn't quite myself. I'd always shuddered or scorned those who'd said they did something like 'a man possessed'. But now I got that.
People greeted me in the street, politely, and I kept walking. My mobile rang off the hook, Sam or Bobby always on the caller ID. I never answered. I always knew it would be the same old story-
"Dean, come home"
"Dean, we need you"
"Dean don't be an Idiot! It's a suicide mission"
"Dean she's not worth it!"
Well, she was worth it.
She was worth it to me.
I couldn't explain it, but since I'd met her, my world had flipped.
The nightmares that had plagued me since hell had taken a turn. The events I relived now slowly lessened, dimming to a muted background fuzz, the foreground now taken up with Lycire, while she stood before me, like a ghost, not a vampire in a white nightdress, reaching out one hand to me, a small but quirky smile playing on her lips, her black hair out and flowing in some unfelt breeze. I reached back to her, but my callous, tanned hand never met her pale dainty one, yet it was enough. Her presence let me sleep. She let me get my rest.
Of course, real life had always been different.
She spoke to me most out of the small group we had, but usually I had started it, and it consisted of nothing more than snide comments, disdainful jibes and the occasional threat to my manhood. Always joking, but leaving me feeling empty and defeated.
She had rejected all of my advances, and just simply claimed to hate me.
But I knew she didn't hate me.
Else she would've left already. It wasn't Nil that kept her here.
But as for loving me- that was a very, very long stretch.
One that everyone but myself seemed to think all too real.
Nil and Lycire were constantly at each other's throats over Lycire's feelings towards me. Something childish like
"You love him!"
" I damn well do not!"
"Do too!"
But nothing that could be said would ever convince me of this supposed love. Not unless It was said in her eyes, aswell as her words.
I was brought out of my reviere by a traffic light.
The blood red beam shone out of it's black socket at me, into the dark night air, bringing my car to a halt.
I surveyed the area, squinting, looking for a shop sign or street sign that told me where I was.
Joliet Carpenter's.
Joliet? That wasn't far from Illinois.
"Everything happens in Illinois" I muttered to myself, remembering the many, many hunts and monsters we'd encountered in Illinois.
Illinois was the new 'Sin City'. Normal people just didn't know it yet.
Turning back, I saw the light was green.
I drove off, feeling the loneliness of the empty streets echoed in my car.
What was this chick doing to me?
I never got lonely- I was a hunter. Loneliness was part of the job description.
We didn't for attachments because people got hurt.
Like Lycire.
She had been taken from me, because I loved her.
And that's why I had to save her.