"It's Lilith," Ruby said. My ears perked up from where I was sitting on the couch. I'd been pretending to read a book for the last hour as they'd finished piecing together signs of demon activity in the area. So far, they hadn't shooed me out, so my plan was working.

"Are you sure?" Sam asked.

"I'm positive," Ruby said. "All these omens, and these signs here. She's definitely here."

"We have to strike at her first," Sam said. He grabbed his jacked and pulled it on, zipping it up.

"Sam!" I objected. "You can't. You promised!" I got up and went into the kitchen to stand next to Ruby.

For once, Ruby agreed with me. She told him that he had to wait until he could get it right because he hadn't been too successful. Sam said he would use the knife instead. Ruby told him that he only had one shot, and he was the only one who could do it. She started to say that if Lilith killed Sam first, and then she stopped when she had a realization. My eyes shot to her, and I crossed my arms over my chest.

"You don't want to survive this," she said to him. "It's a kamikaze attack. You want to die fighting Lilith."

"Sam!" I said again, panic suffusing me. I took a step towards him, but he turned away.

"That's stupid," he said.

"You promised you wouldn't leave me," I said, tears coming to my eyes. I took another step towards him.

"I'm not going anywhere, Jessie," Sam said. "Go to your room."

Go to my room? Yeah, I'd go to my room, all right. Without another word, I turned on my heel and stomped to the room where my bedroll was. I slammed the door shut behind me, crossed the room, and slid out the open window, hearing Ruby's raised voice from within the house as she tried to convince Sam not to get himself killed fighting Lilith.

I went to the Impala, opened the back door, and climbed in, huddling down in a ball behind Sam's seat. I was almost too big to do this, but not quite. I just had to hope he wouldn't see me there, and with how recklessly he was acting, it was entirely possible that he would miss me there behind the seat. And then I'd keep him from getting himself killed at Lilith's hands.

I heard the door to the house slam as Sam left and his footsteps approaching the car. I scrunched myself up as tight as I could behind the seat. He opened the front door and dropped into the driver's seat, starting the car.

I kept my breathing slow and steady for the ride to the house where Lilith was, careful not to move so as not to get caught. The ride was only about twenty minutes long, but it felt much longer than that. Every time Sam coughed or moved, I got a little shot of adrenaline.

Finally, he pulled over and got out of the car. I waited for him to walk away and then for a count of twenty. I climbed off the floor and looked outside the car. Sam was walking down the street in the bright summer sunshine. I kept an eye on him, watching until he turned the corner. Then I got out of the car, closing the door as quietly as I could, and hurried as fast as I could down the sidewalk without running. When I reached the corner, I hid behind a hedge and peeked around. He was still walking. Finally, he stopped and glanced at a house to his right. He went to the front door and went in.

I went around the corner at a full run, pushing the front door open as Ruby came out of the kitchen and slit the throat of one of the demons inside. Another demon had Sam shoved up against the wall, his arm against Sam's throat.

Ruby pushed that demon off of Sam and told him to take the girl and run. Sam grabbed the little girl that was sitting at the table, and then saw me. Anger swept across his face, but he brought the girl to me.

"Take her outside and back to the Impala," Sam said to me. I grabbed the girl's hand and led her outside, running with her all the way back to the Impala. We both climbed into the back seat.

"You ok," I asked her. She looked like she was about 8, maybe 9. Not that much younger than me. She nodded, not looking at me. She stared down the street in the direction we'd come from.

"I'm Jessie. What's your name?" I asked her to distract her.

"Sandi," she whispered.

"You live around here?" I asked.

She nodded. "My parents live three blocks that way." She pointed. I looked up the street and didn't see Sam coming. Maybe I could save some time and deliver her home. Plus, wouldn't it piss Sam off if we weren't here when he got done. I thought it would. I tightened my stomach against the ache there.

"Are they home right now?" I asked. Sandi nodded.

"Ok, let's take you there," I said. I climbed out of the car, and we walked the three blocks to her house. "What are you going to tell them?" I asked.

She shrugged.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Those two men came and locked my parents up in the basement. I don't even know if they're ok. Then they made me wear that dress and took me to that house to sit at the table until that guy showed up," she said, watching her fett as we walked. "He rescued me."

"He's good at that," I said. He wasn't good with me though, I thought. We'd reached her house. She dug a key out of a fake rock and opened the front door.

She led me to the basement door and we went downstairs to find her parents still tied up, zip strips and cotton cord.

"Sandi, go upstairs and get me a knife, ok?" I asked. "So I can free them." I bent down to work on the cord and had her dad mostly free by the time she came back. I used the paring knife she brought me to pop through the zip strips and the rest of the cord on her parents.

"Who are you?" the mom asked me while the dad hugged Sandi.

"Just here to get you out. I helped get Sandi away from those guys that tied you up," I said. I looked at Sandi. "If you're ok, please wait an hour before you call the cops, ok?" I turned and started climbing the stairs. My cell phone started ringing in my pocket, Sam's ringtone.

"Wait an hour and then call the cops, ok?" I asked again. They didn't answer me, too busy hugging each other in relief.

Once I was at the top of the stairs, I took off, running out the front door. My phone started ringing again and this time I answered it. "Hello?" I asked, jogging down the street.

"Where are you? I told you to go to the Impala." Sam said, his voice hard.

"I'm on my way back," I said. "I took Sandi home."

"Who?" Sam asked, sounding annoyed.

"The little girl you saved? Remember?" I asked snidely. I was proud of myself for being able to jog and talk at the same time.

"Jessie, I told you to go to the Impala!" Sam said. "Not take her home."

"Well, I'll be right there," I said. "Jesus." I turned the corner then and saw the Impala coming towards me. I waved at it. Sam pulled over, and I climbed into the back seat, shutting my phone. Ruby was in the front seat.

No one said anything. Sam started driving in silence back to the abandoned house. I sighed. Fine, if that was the way it was going to be... I slid over and leaned my back against the door behind Sam, staring out the opposite window.

After a minute, I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them, and then burying my face. I imagined Dean saying, "Jessie, what the hell were you thinking?" and I started crying.

"Sam," Ruby said softly a couple of minutes later. I heard Sam sigh and it made me cry harder.

"Jessie," Sam started, pulling into the yard of the abandoned house. "It's going to be ok," he said. As he braked and before the car even stopped, I popped open the car door and ran into the house, going into the room with my bedroll and shutting the door behind me again. I saw the snowman in the corner and rescued him, brushing him off and clutching him to my chest as I dropped onto the bedroll and curled into a ball.

Sam knocked on my door.

"Go away," I said.

"Jessie, you can't break all of the rules and follow me on a hunt and expect me to go away," Sam said through the door.

Hope rose in me. I crushed it. "I can do anything I want," I whispered.

"I'm going for a walk. I'll be back in an hour," he said, still through the door, "and then you and I are going to have a little talk. Get yourself together, young lady."

The words fell dead on my ears. I didn't believe him. He'd broken all of promises to me. He promised to take care of me and he promised not to kill himself. He hadn't done the first and he'd tried to do the second, after promising me over and over, and who convinces him not to? A fucking demon.

I opened the door to my room and glanced out. Sam wasn't there and neither was Ruby. I went to the table in the kitchen and opened an old pizza box there, pulling out a crust. I had no salt, but maybe two out of three wouldn't be bad.

I only had a few minutes. It was early enough still that there was no fire in the fireplace. Screw it. No one gave a shit anyway. I opened my furnace and aimed it at the fireplace. The partially burned wood and the area about two feet around it lit up. I stayed connected to the fire and tossed the crust in. When it caught, I said, "Sacred Gabija, be satisfied." The tingling started as soon as I said the blessing, from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head, the entire time the crust burned, until the crust was gone. Then I pulled the fire back into me and locked it back into the furnace.

The floor was scorched but I'd done it. I sat down on the decrepit couch and pulled my feet up with me. I was so tired suddenly. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

"I am pleased to see you again so soon, my priestess," Gabby said.

I blinked. We were in a corn field this time, between the rows. Gabby sat in front of me, same clothing as normal in our dreams. The brown hair that came out of the back of her kerchief shone in the sun rising behind her.

"I want you to teach me, my goddess," I said.

"I need to see how deep your furnace is," she reminded me. "You must let me in."

I took a deep breath. Dean would be mad, but he wasn't around any longer, and Sam seemed to think it was better to cavort with a demon than to take care of me. Well, what's good for the gander is good for the goose, as my mom used to say. If he could fraternize with the enemy, so could I.

"How do I do that?" I asked.

She held her hand out to me and I took it… and screamed. It felt like she ripped the furnace door off its hinges and plunged a round, wire, chimney cleaning brush deep into it, threading it deeper and deeper within me. She scraped me raw with her invasion, the brush curling and curling. "You are so strong," she whispered. "You are truly meant to be my priestess." At last she stopped and pulled back out of me in a rush. I screamed again.

Once she was out, the pain faded slowly until it was gone and I could breathe again. Even in my dream, my throat was sore from screaming. When I became aware of my surroundings again, I realized I was curled into a ball in the dirt. I panted for a moment and tried to even out my breathing before I pushed myself back into a sitting position. Putting my arms back around my stomach, I looked at the goddess. She looked pleased indeed.

"I can teach you," she whispered. "There is so much I can teach you."