Chapter 3:

"Trevor's ten years old. Being six years older than him, I've always taken care of him," Jaz said, staring out the window. "I never knew my dad. He took off early. Trevor's actually my half-brother. I guess my mom had a talent for finding fathers that wouldn't stick around. My mom…left something to be desired when it came to motherhood. I wouldn't hesitate to call us white trash, or at least she was. We lived in a trailer park; that was all she could afford. I was pretty good at keeping the place together. Keeping Trevor fed and the place clean. We went to school, kept our heads down to keep off of CPS's radar."

"When Trevor's ability started up, he came to me first. He was eight. I was fourteen. He's a smart kid and…." Jaz let out a shadow of a smile. "Actually one of the first things he said was that he knew that something like this would raise our chances of catching the attention of someone. At first it was just flickers of thoughts he'd catch. Then it developed into reading thoughts whenever he wanted to. Then the nightmares started, and then the visions during the day. Eventually he didn't like to touch people. Even me. He said it was overwhelming. Like he had two brains inside his head. So he wears gloves, long sleeves, pants, whenever he goes out. But mostly he just stays in."

"My mom didn't want to deal with him. She just…didn't deal with anything very well. When she started talking about sending him away or calling CPS for our own good," Jaz said, saying in no uncertain terms what she thought about that statement, "I started to get worried. It didn't take long to decide that we needed to get out of there. If we went into foster care they'd split us up and Trevor wouldn't be able to make it without me. Not with what he goes through every day."

"We lived in New York City for a while. Not hard to live there under the radar and the homeless tend to protect their own, so we didn't have to worry about being turned in. I worked under the table for this guy who ran a pawnshop. I kept the two of us going and still managed to save up some money. When I hit sixteen, I got emancipated and got a P.O. box so I'd have an address, got an apartment, and started working at a Walmart and a Barnes and Noble. After two months working, I must have caught someone's eye and was confronted by some people from CPS. Being sixteen and emancipated, though, they couldn't make me go back to my mother, and I told them that I didn't know where Trevor was. I knew that I just had to make it to eighteen and I could submit a request for custody."

"We were doing fine. I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. But two weeks ago I came back to the apartment and Trevor said that he'd been having bad feelings all day. I comforted him, told him not to worry. So he didn't. Then all this happened."

Sam and Dean were silent for a few moments before Dean spoke up. "I've got to hand it to you, kid. You're one tough chick to make it this far."

Jaz pursed her lips, not looking to him. "Thanks."

"Okay, so it looks like you somehow got noticed and they grabbed your brother, put you on ice, and then two days ago planned on taking you somewhere else?" Dean asked.

"That's what I gathered, yea."

"Do you know how they managed to get the mental ward to take you? Did they dummy up some paperwork or something?"

"Yea. I found it in my file," she replied. "Apparently my father thought I was a danger to myself and others, mainly because of hallucinations I'd had and things I'd do when I acted out."

"Okay. Where's your brother at exactly?"

"Crowell, Texas," she replied. "The medical file said he'd gone to a place in Dallas, but…he told me he was sent to Crowell Mental Ward for Children."

Dean glanced back at her. "He told you?"

Jaz let out a long breath and finally looked to Dean. "He contacted me somehow. While I was asleep. Seemed like it took a lot of effort and was really difficult for him, but he told me he was in Crowell. Not in a ward, he said. In some abandoned building. He said…." Jaz swallowed past a lump in her throat. "He said they were hurting him."

Dean sighed tightly. "So there were three guys that took you and Trevor a week ago. You know anything else about them?" he asked.

"No. I don't know who they are. I don't know what they want. All I know is that if they hurt my brother, they're as good as dead."

"That's a great philosophy, and cut and dry killing them is always a plan I'm willing to go with, simple, easy to remember, but with demons it's a little complicated. You can't just out and out kill a demon."

Jaz looked to him with narrowed eyes. "How do we go up against them then?"

"Okay, first of all, we are not gonna do anything. Sam and I are going to assess the situation, come up with a plan, get backup if we need to, and get your brother out," Dean told her.

"Like Hell!" Jaz exclaimed. "I'm coming with you."

"No, you are not," he said firmly. "Listen, you've got less than no experience dealing with demons. You coming with us just gives us one more person we have to worry about. It will be a lot better if we do things our way. You trying to help is a good way of getting all of us killed, and that isn't going to help Trevor."

Jaz clenched her teeth together, staring out the window. "Fine."

"Alright. For future notice, how does the astral projection thing work?" Dean asked.

"Either I need to see where I'm ending up or I need to have been there before so I know where I'm ending up," Jaz replied. "I'm somehow solid when I'm in another form, but it's a weird feeling. Hard to describe. I can be hurt, but when I go back to my regular body it doesn't transfer. I don't know what would happen if I died though. Never tried experimenting with that. It's a little too permanent."

"Good to know," Dean replied.

Jaz hesitated. "When we get him out…could they find us again?" she asked quietly.

Dean sighed, shifting his grip on the wheel. He noticed she said when and not if, and he was glad for her confidence. "Honestly, we don't know how they found you in the first place, so I'm not sure. We'll see what we can find out once we get there, go from there."

Jaz nodded, fidgeting nervously with her hands. "Okay."