Claire was still reeling from the last week, and although she had originally intended to just sit quietly and watch Jesse skip rocks on the pond, every so often something would slip out before she could stop it.
"Your parents aren't real, are they?"
Claire felt guilty when Jesse actually flinched at that one. He didn't meet her eyes, just picked up another rock, and sent it flying out over the water.
"No, they're not," he said softly.
And didn't that explain so much about how liberal Mr. and Mrs. Turner were about things like rules and permission slips, the bigger things like epic allowances and Claire's all-access pass to their home. It even explained what they did all day while Jesse was at school; Claire would put money on them just . . . not existing . . . between the hours of eight and three.
They're not real.
"I don't have parents anymore," Jesse admitted. "Because I'm part demon, and my birth mother put me up for adoption, and I made my real adoptive parents forget about me so that they would be safe. The demons want me to fight for them, and the angels want me dead because I could kill them, and people just aren't safe knowing all this, Claire."
Claire rocked to her feet and shoved Jesse hard, sending the younger boy sprawling into the water. As Jesse flailed in the shallow waters, she planted her hands on her hips and stood tall like the righteous angelic warrior that Castiel had left imprinted in Claire's head. And then she unleashed her equally righteous fury on the teenager sitting in eight inches of mud and pond scum.
"I will not forget, and don't you dare make me, because if you even try, I will beat you into a bloody pulp and take you home to my mother," Claire commanded, "and then you'll never be rid of us."
Jesse nodded wordlessly.
"I'm of half a mind to do that anyway," Claire growled. "Stupid boy."
Jesse flushed, but didn't disagree. That made Claire even angrier.
"You have superpowers! You could make the whole world just go boom!" Claire stomped her foot. "You make up pretend parents, and you snap up money and food, and you turned that demon inside out, and you never even told me that you could!"
"You never told me that you had that angel inside you!" Jesse returned hotly. "He tried to kill me! Again!"
"Castiel's a jerk," Claire agreed, "but he didn't leave me with something worth mentioning. I don't have superpowers or anything. It's just a bad memory, and we don't talk about things like that!"
"Then why are we talking about this?" Jesse shouted, hitting the water hard enough to splash Claire.
There was a long minute where everything was quiet. Claire stared down at Jesse. He looked up at her with angry hard eyes that reminded her of Castiel's. Light and power and other . . .
"Because you're my best friend," she said finally. "And because I don't like the idea of you being alone. Because you almost died, and I couldn't do anything about it. I didn't know you could."
Jesse sank a little deeper into the muck, and when he broke eye contact, his eyes weren't that awful hard light anymore. Claire let him wallow for another minute, and then held out her hand expectantly.
And wasn't even the least bit surprised when Jesse yanked her in beside him.