WARNINGS:

The same as the previous chapter. Again, thank you for reading. Leave your comments, criticisms, but no flames, please.


The small steps of old-fashioned heels clunk briskly along the scorching sidewalk, almost burning some of the rubber into the cement. A cheerful tune cuts through the condensed humidity, perhaps Buffalo Gals. Little swishes here and there indicate a schoolgirl dress: knee-length and charcoal black in the sweltering heat. An armload of composition books add on to the sweat, causing Katarina Strauss to take a large breath of dusty air before whistling again, this time a darker tune. As her whistling continues, her stride gradually slowing with each passing step.

"More coffee?" asks the Blueberry Hill waitress, Kim. Sam shakes his head while Magnolia and Dean eagerly offer up their cups, which Kim fills with a not-so-gracious bend over, giving a view straight down her blouse. She leaves the table with a sensuous stroll as the only other female present gags and takes a quick sip of the coffee to down the bile before setting it down and staring out of the dirty, rain-streaked window. The weather was clear yesterday; the sun was shining and there was perfect seventy-two degree temperature and everything, but today was very much drear. Clouds formed a halo over the valley as the rain pounded the dirty pavement, taking about twenty degrees alone off the temperature; never mind the fact that it was only five in the morning.

"Magnolia, we could use your mind to be in this conversation, seeing as how it pertains to you." She sighs, taking one last glance at the monotonous landscape outside the dirty piece of glass before turning to the two brothers seated across from her in the booth. Sam was looking at Maggie contentedly with his brow furrowed while also awaiting the arrival of the morning paper; whereas, Dean was chowing down on a stack of pancakes drowning in maple syrup with strawberries and cream.

"Yeah, shoot," she mutters, taking another sip of coffee.

"So, I assume that you know of your…" Sam trails off, folding his hands on the table. "Abilities?"

"They're kind of hard to miss, if you can understand," she replies stoically, more preoccupied with putting copious amounts of sugar substitute in the liquid. "I mean, predicting the disappearance of your father and the demise of your only dog is, as I said, a kind of hard coincidence to miss." Both attractive brothers meet glances before breaking away to study Magnolia again.

"Okay, so we can say something weird and you won't be freaked out?" Sam questions, staring at her as she fiddles with about the sixth sugar packet she has opened. Finally managing to tear off the top of the Splenda package, she grunts triumphantly while nodding her head.

"Sammy and I hunt demons," Dean states proudly to her, hoping to get a reaction out of her, like terror or skepticism. For the entire time that she had been with them, she had showed virtually no expression except for that smartass smirk, and that was Dean's job, and much to his dismay, no significant change was made. Instead, the psychic glances up with a deadpan look on her face, with only the smallest carving of a smirk on the left corner of her mouth. Taking another sip of caffeine, she thinks meaningfully of the two expressions presented in front of her: trepidation on her left, and disappointment her right. A smirk becoming more pronounced, Dean is almost taken aback.

"That's all you have that might freak me out? Dude, did you not catch the neighborhood I live in or my family history?" Silence ensued, and the regular breakfast routine continued on. Dean stuffed his mouth with even more strawberries, not taking his gaze off of Maggie, while Sam scurried off to grab the first copy of the newspaper. Kim watches from behind the pie counter, obviously staring at Sam's perfectly defined ass, or so Maggie observes with a grimace and puckered mouth. She was going to be the first to admit that she had a bit of an insecurity problem…or more than a bit. Chunky and overly tall wearing ratty T-shirts with skinny jeans, Magnolia Fride was the exact opposite of the confidence she frequently tried to exude. As a result, she wasn't too much of a crowd favorite; except for the weak kids she always saved (meat beats bones any day of the bitchy menstrual cycle). Either way, any friends or kind acquaintances she made were the recipient of her learned territorial nature, and this Kim chick was getting on her last fleshy nerve. Honestly, it wasn't as if this girl's immense attitude problem wasn't enough to get under any body's skin, this was taking the cake- or at least in her head.

"Alright Dean, we have a case," Sam says unexpectedly, slapping the clean paper onto the table. As Dean studies the cover page while swallowing a bit of orange juice, Magnolia watches Sam's hands brace him onto the table, knuckles turning white as he slides into the cushy booth seat, and then his hands move to shift the paper more towards him. He has nice hands, she thinks to herself.

"Young girl, named Katarina Strauss. Just found dead in her school, located in Fluorentine Hills. Found by childhood friend slash fellow churchgoer Mira Lanning chopped in her locker with an inverted pentagram slung around her neck."

"Hey, Katarina…Saunders, you said?" Maggie cut in clearly and evenly with a vague gleam of disbelief in her eyes.

"No, Strauss…why?"

"Poor girl. Her mother must've married that jackass guy she was dating. Man, Kat didn't deserve that…" she trailed off, ignoring the furrowed, questioning brow that both brothers were so kindly giving her. They allowed her a moment of reflection, which was apparently all that she needed.

"Katarina Saunders was my friend in Fluorentine."

"You lived there?"

"Kind of. Probably why you boys found me at this time. The Fates have a way of doing those things..."

"When?"

"Pardon?" Maggie asked, obviously confused by being broken from her train of thought.

"When did you live there?" questioned Dean, tearing off a piece of what clean napkin he had left and using a Keno crayon that was on the table for written information.

"I didn't. I just went there during the summer to visit. Mom came too, sometimes. But then she got a boyfriend, and so I usually went just by myself. I met Kat at a little housewarming dinner that my dad always threw for me when I finally arrived in Ohio. I liked her; she was a nice enough friend. Just a little too godly for me, if you know what I mean. Well, I mean, just way too many cross-talks during play dates when we could've been making mud pies." She shrugs, and plays when the straw paper, trying to prepare herself for the inevitable questions that may follow.

"You're saying she was a…"

"Bible thumper to the core. You have no idea, dudes. It was almost scary in her room, with all of these descriptive posters of Jesus bleeding on the cross. Dad never let me stay there again after the trauma that I suffered from." A small hysterical giggle was released from Dean's mouth, before he doubled over his plate in laughter, and is soon joined by a small scoff on Magnolia's end. After a moment of thinking about what was so funny, Sam figured it out and let out a humorless smirk.

"So you're afraid of Jesus, Magnolia? Now that is frightening."

"Oh definitely, Dean. Compared to this crap I see, Jesus really takes the cake."

"You folks done here?" Kim asks, wearing a bright smile with newly-done overly-eyeliner-ed eyes.

"Yeah, sure," Dean responds, ogling the girl's chest. A small knot in her stomach twists, and she grips the edge of the table in desperation. Sinking sensations are at tug of war with her nerves, and are winning the battle. The room spins, and nausea slowly creeps into the skull, gnawing at it until there is nothing left but a jiggly brain. Trachea tightens uncomfortably, almost strangling her, and dying, death, dead.

"Hey, Mag, you up yet?" Dean calls back from the driver's seat, looking back in the rearview mirror. Sam is also looking back with concern in his eyes, obviously in the internal struggle if he should rub her shoulder or something, but the struggle is over when he decides that he doesn't want to be branded a pedophile today.
"…Did you guys get the pie I wanted?"

Kelley Chronicle, Entry #1, Colorado

The fact of the matter was that I couldn't make heads or tails of anything that happened for about a day since Blueberry's. Sam said I kept mumbling to myself, saying Dean's name a lot. Both of them keep looking at me funny, and I really don't blame them. Of course, I think it's kind of worse that I don't even know what it is, what I've seen. All I know is that it wasn't good, and it smelled like death, and that waitress triggered it. But thanks to Abbott and Costello, I couldn't very well just go back and threaten to strangle her with her cheap little belt if she didn't give me the answers I wanted, because we were no longer in the sandy state of Nevada, oh no. Now we were breezing through the wonderful Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and I had absolutely no say in the matter.

They can get why it is that I'm handing them the silent treatment, but Dean isn't really appreciating it as much as Sam. However, we all know that Sam's the one with the conscience. He's also the one that when I was done with my heated little rant that gave me this gem of a book. Told me that there was a lot of crap I was going to see, and that it may just be best to journal it somehow- he said that I have their dad's talent. I can guess that that's a good thing, but really, an odiferous leather journal isn't my idea of an initiation present, especially when I know that I won't be coming back after all of this is over. They know it too; actually, I think they're banking on the fact that I won't be coming back. Well, so am I. I think.

Anyway, we just stopped at some fast food joint outside of Denver. Dean says that we're going to be in Fluorentine in a little over a day, which is okay. After sitting for so long, it's a miracle I can still even tell that my legs are attached to my body…right? Sam laughed a little when I commented on that, but then both he and Dean just went right back to being quiet and concentrating. So here I am, journaling in my journal, thinking of any other worthy thoughts to put in here.

I'm kind of peculiar like that, you know? I don't like revealing too much information at one time, to people and in my writing. When I think about it, I am going to have to think about that little vice more often. The way Sam was trying to explain hunting, when lives hang in the balance, all essential information must be out on the table at all times. And when I think about it even more, I don't have a lot of essential information that they need to know about at present, even less my journal. So I suppose I might as well just bring out some memories of Kat.

Have you ever had a friend that was just too good, dear person who is not reading my diary? I have, quite obviously. When I told Dean that I was afraid of Jesus because of Kat, I wasn't trying out a joke for size. Really, that girl was so extremely worried about pleasing "Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ" that by the end of an hour long get-together, I was ready to nail myself to the cross and tell them that I believed to just make her stop drilling the damned Bible into me. She was nice though. Even if at the end of my rants of believing that something was off and she would respond that God make everything okay again, she would always listen dutifully and without interruption. She was a nice girl, watched out for my rainy days and baked me angel sugar cookies on them. What always fascinated me with her was her complete inability to get angry or depressed in the sweltering heat and in her two little situations-