Dean walked in on Seren holding the tag. He immediately frowned at the sight of it.
"What is that?" he questioned. He had come in to check on her. The boys had taken turns doing so through the night, praying that she wouldn't do anything rash.
Seren quickly shoved it under her bed sheets, her blood rushing from her face. She felt abnormally pale. The one thing she didn't want to show the Winchesters was the tag. Anything but that.
"Nothing," she quickly assured him. It clearly showed on Dean's face that he didn't believe her. No one would after she suspiciously hid something under her bedsheets.
Instead of accusing her of lying, Dean adopted a more gentle look on his face. He walked a little nearer to the bed, and Seren froze. She prepared herself to do anything. He had shut the door behind him, after all.
Dean quickly got the message after she froze. There was a minute of silence between the two, and Dean wished he could fill it. More than anything, he wished she would trust him enough to show him what she had.
"It's nothing, really," Seren insisted. She prayed that he would let it go. She wished that he would just walk away, but she knew that he wouldn't. From the brief amount of time that Seren had spent with him, she knew that he was a stubborn man. Dean wasn't going to give up just like that.
A little praying would do nothing to help Seren. No angel, not even Castiel, was going to come down to save her from this. They didn't was something that seemed so trivial.
It wasn't trivial, though. This was a clue to Seren's past. A clue she wanted to burn. Nobody's eyes should ever see what she hid between her sheets.
"You can show me," Dean insisted quietly. He lingered a short distance away from her bed, not daring to get any closer. In all honesty, he feared what would happen if he got too close. Another freak out like the one she previously had would do nothing to help Seren and find out about her past.
Dean took a deep breath. He knew that Seren wouldn't want to tell him. Her eyes lingered anywhere but his eyes. She would never really meet them. Even now, Dean could tell that her eyes were drifting around in the dark, avoiding all contact with him.
"You don't have to answer," Dean started off slowly, making Seren tense, "but will you tell me what you volunteered for? Sam and I... we have to know to help you."
Seren scoffed. They wouldn't want to help her. No one would want to help her after they learned everything she'd done. She was a monster, simply put. She volunteered to be put into the program, and they made her into a monster just like they promised to.
People could say whatever they wanted about demons, but they always kept their promises when it came to things like that. They didn't have to linger at crossroads to guarantee it.
"You'd hate me if I told you the truth," Seren spoke. She turned on her side, smushing the tag below her thigh. The sheets ruffled around her. She stared into the darkness. Seren squeezed her eyes shut as she remembered the color of Charlotte's hair. She'd do anything to forget. Hell, she'd wake up in another body bag in another parking lot just to forget.
"If I hated you for what you've done, then I'd be a hypocrite," Dean spoke earnestly. "Trust me, Seren, I'm just as bad as you could ever be. The things I've done... Sammy and I didn't want this. Our father dragged us into it. A yellow-eyed demon killed our mother. Dad practically went crazy trying to get revenge. Didn't think he would ever stop.
"The only time he did stop was when he died. Even then, he didn't really. It was a mess," Dean said, almost whispering the end. Seren didn't turn on the bed to face him. The place the tag was digging into her skin seemed to grow hotter and hotter with each passing minute. The guilt ate her up.
Slowly, her fingers grasped the tag. She shuffled around a bit in bed to pull it from under her thigh. The blankets fell around her arm as she lifted the tag into the air for Dean to take.
In the small amount of lighting, the tag looked like nothing. It was simply a piece of paper. Seren told him to turn on the lights, to see what it really was. Dean shuffled towards the door, switching on the lights.
Seren shut her eyes. It was both to protect her eyes from the light and in anticipation for him to see it. She feared the moment that he would read it and throw her out of the place. Though Sam and Dean showed her hospitality, she ran away from them. She was a bitch when they gave her a chance for a new life. Once he read the tag, she deserved anything he threw at her.
The soft sound of paper meeting floor met Seren's ears. She almost twitched when she heard Dean rubbing the day-old stubble on his chin. He read the note. She didn't doubt it for a single second. Her back stiffened as she waited for him to throw insult after insult at her.
"You were declared dead?" Dean questioned. It didn't really sound like a question, though. It was a question that Seren had no response to except for a nod of her head. She couldn't hide in the bright light. There was no doubt that Dean was watching her closely.
Dean slammed the door behind him as he left. He marched down the hallway, the edges of his vision tinted. The tag was left there on her floor as he marched towards the library where Sam was undoubtedly reading at this ungodly hour.
Sam looked up in surprise when his elder brother marched into the room. He closed his book when Dean threw a chair into a wall.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked, almost scared of hearing the answer. There had been many instances in his life where he had been scared to ask his brother what was bothering him. It usually ended up being a grocery list of things. This time, it was only one thing.
"She was dead," Dean gritted out. He stared at the chair that he had thrown. "She has a tag that's put on dead bodies at the morgue. Seventeen was on it, of course." His voice was bitter. "She was dead, Sam."
"So were we," Sam spoke carefully. Dean's eyes snapped to his. Green eyes were filled with nothing but pure, unadulterated fury. Sam tried to think of the last time Dean had gotten this angry and how he had calmed him down.
"Don't you understand? People proclaimed her dead! She should be in a grave right now! That's why I found her in a body bag! Don't you understand where people go when they're dead?" Dean said, his voice hardly a step away from a scream.
Sam took a deep breath, trying to keep reason in the argument. "Heaven or Hell. Which do you think she went to? I think it could be either. Except..."
"Except she said they were constantly hot. Seren admitted that they were always sweating hot. Do you know what that means? It means that Seren died, went to Hell, and now she's raised up again like some kind of anti-Christ!"
"She's not the anti-Christ," Sam sighed. He rubbed his temples with his hand, trying to wrap his head around it. Dean wasn't wrong about the rest of it. It was almost ensured that Seren had gone to Hell. Where else would she be constantly hot?
Dean wanted to punch something. Seren was a demon. If she came back from Hell, she was definitely changed in some way. Seren may have been nice once, but that was most likely gone. Everyone came out of Hell a different person. Plus, she mentioned them tampering with her soul. That only meant she was more dangerous. Castiel would have to look at her soul before they could be sure.
"I think we need to go to bed before we do anything irrational," Sam spoke reasonably. He wondered if Seren was still awake. She could have been lurking around, listening to snippets of their conversation. If they wanted to argue about this, it'd be in private. The closest thing they'd get to private would be the Impala.
Dean sighed and nodded his head. Rest was exactly what he needed. He needed to give his head a break from all of this. Seren was quite possibly a demon, and she had been living with them for a little while. But demons couldn't get passed the Bunker enchantments... could they?
No. There was no way. If Seren was a demon, they would know by now. Whatever Seren was, Dean would be able to figure it out in the morning.