I know he expects me throw a tantrum. Like when I was little, when I thought my ear-piercing screech would keep him here instead of drive him away. I have to make up my mind quickly, because a night isn't enough.

"Give me a week," I say, still trying to hold on to the disinterest, but the bills are officially abandoned. It's not like I'll ever be able to catch up on them anyway. There's no point in saying I won't go, he'll just force me to in the end, because like a five year old, Dean always has to get his way.

"I don't have a week, kid. Go get packed," he tips his head back, leaning further into the couch and closing his eyes. Dismissal. Again.

"Then you don't have me." Cheesy, I scold myself lightly, and a bit too emotional.

He wanders through some rant that sounds like a complete carbon copy of something John would say, but Dean isn't quite that good at lecturing. At the point when he reminds me that he's "the father here", I want to cut in. Deny it all, but the little girl in me won't go with it.

"Look, I need three days. I need to pack, get a school transcript, and sort out Alyssa. You may not have responsibilities, Dean, but some of us do." I don't want a response from him, so I leave back to my room. He doesn't follow, because for the amount of times he says I don't have the guts to be a hunter I could tell him twice over that he doesn't have the guts to be a father.

The light stutters, but flips on, revealing the dark blue walls of my OCD organized room and Gracen. I figured he would be here; the demon blood gives him pretty intense visions.

"What happened, Red?"

I wince. His voice is gruff, and pissed. Great. "My dad showed up, Grace. It's not a big deal. I'll get out of here before three days are out and he won't bother to look."

"Why didn't you use your powers? I told you not to let people push you around like that, Red." As if to juxtapose his words he forcefully pushes me against the wall, no hands used of course.

"He's my father, Gracen. I can't pull shit like that with him, you know that." I gasp the words through the constricting force on my chest.

"He's one of them, Red! He wants to kill us, he wants to hunt us down and torture us, Red. You're not even exempt from his kind. Hell, with you being what you are, you'd be a fucking trophy!"

I want to toss the words back in his face, but I can't. He's right. I'd be a trophy, my ashes kept in a damn vase on the mantle.

"I'll do better Grace, I promise, please," I gasp again. Pathetic.

He repeats my internal description of myself and lets my body slump to the floor. Just then I hear Dean's boot stomps move down the hall.

"Archer, what the hell is going on in there?" His voice booms and I feel the burning in my palms as Gracen looks on in approval. He knows what I'm feeling. When he turned demon he killed his baby sister by accident. He now takes in people like me, like James and Tara, and trains us. He helps us along and tells us to use our powers, to not hold back because of a few hunters. Funnily enough, I'm kind of like his trophy. A hunter's daughter, turned supernatural creature and I'm all his to create into something new. I let him because there's no one else. Everyone else turns tail and runs when I reveal what I am.

Dean's voice shouts from the hall again, and I want to scold him. Tell him Alyssa is sleeping, and I don't want to deal with her shit right now. Gracen gives me a nod that conveys too many messages and then goes over to use the fire escape to leave, because for all his demon qualities, he really doesn't like confrontations, he prefers his minions do his dirty work when it comes to hunters.

Before I can really collect myself and move from the floor, Dean barges in. His hand is at his waistband where I know a gun is kept and I hear Gracen's voice in my head. "All a hunter wants is to kill you, Red. He wants to watch you burn. He wants to watch the bullet enter your brain and the light leave your eyes. We have to get to them first, Red. We have to."

I'm tempted to raise my hand and end it all, it would be a release and after all he wanted me dead anyway. But then the niggling little conscience in my brain reminds me.

"Daddy!" I screeched, running at him at top speed.

He laughed, picking me up and spinning me around, "Hey sweetheart." He kissed the top of my head and strapped me into the car. I loved that he told me I was big enough to not need a car seat.

When he put me into bed that night after giving me his old ACDC t-shirt to wear, he told me he loved me and wouldn't be gone as long this time. Momentarily I forgot that the kids at school teased me because I didn't have a daddy or a mommy, and I wore torn clothes, and my aunt was crazy, and crazy was genetic so I was too. I forgot it all, and promised him I would wait for him, because I just knew he was going to be back soon and he would live with me and Auntie Alyssa and we would all be fine.

Childish. Stupid, childish fantasies that I no longer indulge in because there's no point. But I can't kill him. I could kill any other hunter, but not him. At least I think I could, I've never really tested that little theory.

"It was nothing, Dean. I fell." I say the words easily; because frankly lying about a boy being in my room isn't the worst I've misled him about.

He eyes me critically for too long. Finally, he gives a short nod, and I hope to god he doesn't hear my quiet sigh of relief.