I'm sorry that I didn't upload last week, but I was on vacation and didn't have time to! I hope you take this early chapter as a formal apology and PLEASE review this so I can have a reference point.

Chapter 3:

I accidentally saw pictures of Mom after the attack. I was in the police station waiting for child services, and there was a manilla envelope sitting on the police officer's desk. I don't think I really understood what had happened to her until I lifted the lid and slid out the contents. Large, graphic pictures of her bloodied face and body to match ripped clothes and missing teeth were just there in front of me. I stared for a few seconds, too shocked to really have any thoughts at all. But when I did swim through the emptiness, I screamed. And I mean screamed. Louder than I think anybody in that precinct had ever heard. Someone rushed over and pulled me away as I struggled to get free, all the while screaming over and over again repeatedly. But I couldn't get loose, and I couldn't get the image of her lifeless body, so insultingly thrown on the ground, out of my mind.

I woke up, sweat drenching my face and labored breathing making it impossible to forget. The room was dim with filmy light fixtures and people hastily moving around. The manila envelope sitting on top of a police officer's metallic green desk. I knew what inside of the envelope, but I still reached for it. I screamed at myself Put it down! Don't do it! But my movements never faltered. The pictures fell out and the tell tale recreation of that day started again.

I still couldn't deal with the memory. It haunted my dreams. A little less as I had gotten older, but haunted all the same. Sometimes she was holding her hands out towards me, bloodied and all. Others she was chasing me saying she only wanted to hug me, but it wasn't her. I knew it wasn't her, that's why I ran. Even though I knew it was only a dream, it was still as traumatizing each time.

I stared at the ceiling for a few minutes until I had calmed down enough to lift the covers and get up. The clock on my bedside table said it was 5:35, so I decided to just wake instead of risking another nightmare.

I climbed out of bed and stumbled to my clothes bureau and grabbed an old t-shirt and black jeans. Taking a shower was step 2 in becoming a fully functional awake person, so I walked to the bathroom and fulfilled my mission.

When I had decided that I was ready to face my day I had walked out of my room towards the kitchen. Just before I reached the door frame I heard Sam talking in a rather serious tone.

" Dean, you can't keep making that excuse. You know it's not better."

"Sammy, come on, you and I both know the only way to make she never gets in the same trouble is if it's this way. It's the only way I can protect her." I heard Dad say half playfully.

"Dean, do not 'Sammy' me right now." Sam scolded coldly.

I leaned up against to wall so I could be closer while not detectable. This seemed important, and there was no way that I was gonna pass up this opportunity. When Sam did show up, it was almost never for a visit. Once or twice it almost seemed like he just genuinely wanted to come by, but most of the time he just came to help Dad with a hunt. That's what my human contact consisted of, polite grunts in each other's direction when you know it's impossible to keep ignoring one another.

" This is what's best for her." Dean declared assertively.

"Don't you want a relationship with her?" Sam pried.

"Do I want a relationship with her?" Dean scoffed, "Of course I want a relationship with her, she's my daughter." He said a little softer.

Silence encased the room and I worried they might hear me breathing, but alas Sam spoke with a strained voice.

"Then why don't you make one?"

Dad sighed and his chair creaked like he was squirming.

" You're not here Sammy, you don't have to see her everyday and feel the pain when she glares in your direction. You don't have to remember everyday that your own daughter hates you." He paused for a second, " But if her hating me saves her, then the pain is worth it." He finished with an authenticity that made sure you knew he'd won the argument.

Chairs scraped against the floor signalling me to quickly escape without being seen. I scurried towards the door, grabbing my bag out of a chair in the library and slipping outside. I jumped on my bike and pedaled furiously to get away in case they knew I was there. Yes I rode a bike, but it wasn't because I couldn't drive, I was completely capable of driving. I just didn't want to drive to school when it was only five miles away. Dad had called me a hippie when I told him my reasons for not using the car he bought me.

"You're going to bike. Everyday?" he asked incredulously.

"It's only five miles, and I don't want to add the the ignorant overuse of fossil fuels." I explained.

"What the hell does it matter? It's not like that stuff is ever going to happen anyway?"

"Do you even watch the news?" I asked mocking him.

He just looked at me and set his jaw, "Fine. if you want to give up a car for sore muscles, go ahead."

So I did. I biked every day, even when it rained. But this morning was bright and the air dry. I rode along the back roads wondering what the hell Dad and Sam could have been arguing about. Obviously I was involved, but how? It's not like I'd done anything to get their attention, and I made sure I didn't. But Dad was talking in an assertiveness I'd never heard him use. It was almost like he not only didn't want to talk about it, and he couldn't.