Chapter 2
Kenzie assumed Sam was sound asleep; his breathing was more shallow and his grip on her relaxed some. She was about to doze off when Sam mumbled a few words, slurring them into one drawn out sentence. She turned her body so she was no longer facing the wall and noticed Sam's eyelids fluttering, he was on the cusp of REM sleep. She stroked his cheek and asked him to repeat what he had said, thinking perhaps he was just entering a state of dream. His eyelids fluttered open; wide eyed pupils stared out to her in the dark.
"I saw him," he whispered.
"Who?" Kenzie asked, confused. "Who'd you see, Sam?"
"Dean." His name dropped like a brick; the only sounds that could be heard were the crickets outside her window and the ceiling fan that stuttered when it made its third turn.
"Sam," Kenzie reached for him, "you're having a nightmare; it's over now."
"No," Sam pushed away from her, putting an emphasis on the word, "I saw him a few days ago."
"Clear as day," Sam ran a hand through his hair, "I know it was him."
Kenzie didn't argue with him; there wasn't much to say. Having released what had been scaring him for the past few days came as a catharsis to Sam. He pulled himself back towards her, nudged her neck, and mumbled again,
"He's alive."
Staying awake proved harder than she thought; Sam's constant grumbling and his erratic leg thrashing, sent Kenzie into a fit of discomfort. He had his arms wrapped tightly around her and the more he struggled with his fitful sleep, the more she felt suffocated. She was battling with what Sam had revealed to her. He had seen Dean. Had he really? Could the deprivation of sleep over the back months caused him to see things that his heart longed for, and his mind was just creative enough to imagine? Any professional would answer with a resolute 'yes', but what was her excuse?
What was her justification for having the same hallucinations? Seeing Dean a week prior had caused her to take action. Calling up an old friend of the Winchesters, Bobby, a skeptic once, believed in all too many supernatural phenomena. Bobby too had seen Dean. For only a few minutes, it was as if Dean was waiting for him, but when Bobby rounded the corner of his house, Dean was no longer there. He straggled to the garage, its door slightly ajar, but nobody, not even a mouse, scattered when he entered.
Similar to Bobby's experience, Kenzie had been driving along the highway where they had buried Dean, an old abandoned field of lush greens, a solitary white picket cross signifying a lone soldier's grave, shone bright as the sun reflected off of it. She drove by occasionally, more so on the days, she knew Sam was not going to reach out to her, but on this day, a figure was standing in the middle of the field, his black button down, flapped in a breeze that only surrounded him, his body facing the cross.
She had pulled up her '76 Camaro and sat idling, wondering who the stranger was; until he turned to face her, his steel blue eyes pierced through her windshield. He turned away and stood sentry at the cross as if he didn't belong. She pulled out her zoom lens and snapped a few quick shots, uploaded them into her zip drive, and emailed Bobby. If anyone could disprove what was standing right in front of her, it was him. Her cell phone went off not even a millisecond later; Bobby's gruff voice was talking a mile a minute. He was instructing her to drive away, it could be Lilith luring her in, or even a Trickster, but Kenzie couldn't help but be mesmerized by the mere audacity that was Dean. Standing there in all his humanity was Dean Winchester.
Thrusting open her car door, its hinges creaked, sending a flock of crows to disperse to a tree to her left. The sound of the birds disturbed not only her, but sent doppelganger Dean fleeing down the field. She began to call out to him, but the more she called, the further he ran, until he was no longer in her sights. She hadn't realized she was running until she had to stop to catch her breath, Bobby's voice hoarse and scratching over the airwaves.
"He…just…ran." She exhaled into the phone, her breath erratic.
"If it's Dean," Bobby's voice lacked conviction, "he may be disoriented."
"You don't know what or who you're getting back from Hell."
"We have to call Sam," Kenzie pleaded, but was shot down by Bobby's stern voice.
"Call all you want, that boy ain't goin' to answer."
"You and I both know it," he sighed, "don't go settin' yourself up for more disappointment."
"Everyday's a disappointment, Bobby," Kenzie regained her stability and headed back to her car. Glancing down at the cross, she noticed the earth had shifted, dirt and grass were uprooted.
"Then again," she smiled sifting the earth in her hands, "today's a new day."
Rehashing prior events, Kenzie spent the past week driving past the old gravesite, hoping for another glimmer of Dean. Unfortunately, she came up empty handed. Perhaps it was the Trickster playing her like a fiddle. He had done it to Sam; why not her?
Lara "Kenzie" Kensington had grown up in Salem, Massachusetts, the daughter of world renowned occultist and archeologist, Patrick Kensington, and his haughty philanthropic wife, Cassandra. Lara had spent her childhood traveling the world with her parents as they pursued various continents for riches, uncovering ancient artifacts, and giving their only daughter, an education any two parents could hope to give onto their child. She was tutored by her mother on the cultures of the world while she tagged along with her father, excavating ruins and tombs. They settled for Salem, for its mysterious culture, its welcoming people, and its idealistic ways.
She was nineteen when she came home on a crisp Autumn afternoon on college break, to a home, dark, and uninviting. A strange car, was sitting alongside the curb across the street, its sleek exterior, shimmered in the fading sunlight. She would find out later, that it belonged to John Winchester and his two sons.
Glass shattering and gunshots could be heard from inside her house and before she could get her hand on the doorknob, the front door swung open, a man, barreled down the stairs, followed by two young boys. One of them, slightly taller than the other, noticed Kenzie on the porch and called out to his father,
"Hey Dad," he forked a finger in her direction, "she's right here."
"Who…who are you?" she hollered and attempted to run into her house, but was pulled back by John Winchester. She could see two fallen bodies at the foot of the spiral staircase; their faces distorted in pain, the color drained from their skin.
"Dad!" she fought off the intruder, "Mom!"
"Easy, easy, now girl," John tried to assuage her, "there ain't nothing you can do for them now."
"You murdered them," she elbowed John in the stomach; a puff of bated breath escaped his lungs as he doubled over and watched as she ran back into the house.
"Oof," he grinned, "girl's got more muscle than you, Sammy boy."
She fell to her knees at her parents' bodies and blinked back tears as she tried hard to swallow the bile that was rising from the pit of her stomach. Gunshots, her mind seemed to be speaking to her, luring her back to reality, there were gunshots. But why, why, weren't their bodies riddled with them? The wall to her right was spotted with three bullets, bedded in the foundation; away from the bodies. The wooden floor was wet with water and the air smelled of sulfur and garlic. There wasn't any blood or wounds, visible, until she bent over her mother to retrieve the amulet from around her neck. Two puncture wounds in her mother's jugular caused Kenzie to falter back. Luckily for her, someone was there to catch her.
"It'll be okay," Sam coaxed her up, "you don't need to see this."
"What's that she got, Sammy?" the older brother nodded to her curled up fist.
"Some sort of amulet," he shrugged, "heirloom, maybe?"
"She…she got this from Romania," Kenzie managed to mutter, "while we were on an excavation dig with my father."
"You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'," Dean spoke to his father out of the corner of his mouth.
"He came back for the amulet," John nodded, "the son of a bitch."
"Who?" Kenzie pushed Sam off of her, "Who the hell would do this?"
The Winchesters stood around her in a protective circle and ushered her to have a seat. That day was the mark of her supernatural birth; the day she found out, Dracula, Lord of the Night, The Devil himself, was not just a movie monster, who charmed his way into a woman's bed and drank deep of her purity, but was in fact real; authentic as her fingerprints and now dead, thanks to the men that had taken her in as part of their family.