Long chapter, yay! This one will be very Amelia focused, just warning you. The Winchesters will show up again soon, though, just because they always show up hehe. :)
JBethH: If this was a happy story, yep, Amy would totally have talked to Sam, but as things are... *laughs evilly*
Makayla Monahan: Thank you SO much! It means so much to me to hear that you like my story. :) I know it's hard to get involved in OC stories, too, so it means even more that you think Amelia is awesome! :D
BrySt1: You'll like this chapter, more developing abilities, yay! Thanks for reading. :)
After breakfast, Amelia buried herself in the book of demons again, alternating with a book on spell ingredients when she couldn't read Latin anymore. Sandwiches for lunch, and customers for the junkyard in the afternoon. Leftovers for supper, Amelia discreetly threw some questionables away, and a crash course in Japanese by Bobby for evening entertainment. Amelia's head pounded by the end, and she could barely focus on the glyphs. No training her weird powers that night, no run even. Amelia crawled into her bed at an early hour, and buried herself in the blankets that still smelled like smoke. For the first time in a week, she slept without nightmares, and after waking up feeling refreshed, she went for a morning run.
That afternoon, Bobby answered the phone in the kitchen, with Amelia sprawled on the couch engrossed in another book.
"Amelia!" he bellowed.
She flew off the couch on instinct, her feet shifting towards the door in case she needed to bolt.
"Ingredients to block the affects of a hex bag, double time!"
Amelia froze, thinking wildly. "Graveyard dirt!" she thought out loud. "Amaryllis." She grabbed at her hair. "Uhhhh..." It needed one more ingredient to work right. "Poppy flower or opium or something? Cat's blood to bind it all together."
"That'll work," Bobby said. "Graveyard dirt, amaryllis, morphine, and cat's blood will do the trick for you, bind it up in a bag, keep it around your neck. No problem at all. Good luck."
"What?" That didn't sound like someone in immediate danger.
Bobby hung up. "Just wanted to see how you'd do under pressure. Very nice job. It would be hard to find those in a pinch, though. Any substitutes?"
She sat back down, feeling slightly betrayed. "Jasmine flower instead of opium. Theoretically some perfumes might work. Pretty small concentration though. Graveyard dirt is pretty standard. Baby blood or kid's blood would work, if they're into that."
Bobby snorted, and returned to his desk. "And if you wanted to work a spell?"
"Ahhh," Amelia screwed up her face. She knew hex bags pretty well, but her spell ingredients were a little fuzzy. Spells were notoriously fussy. "Cloves? Dust from a blessed statue?" she suggested, then shook her head. "I can't remember."
"Review time," he told her. "That's one of the most useful spells."
She searched around until she found a spell ingredient book, stained and marked up, and settled back down on the couch to try to decipher it. By that evening, she finally found it, and was able to recite it to Bobby's satisfaction.
That night, Amelia dreamed of fire.
She hung from her hands in the warehouse again, and Paul dangled ten feet away, his head hanging low.
"Paul!" she shouted, and she saw him stir, but he did not reply.
Amelia threw herself against the cruel chains, trying to pull her hands out. But they held firm, and blood from her wrists dripped into her face. Amelia screamed in frustration. She had to reach her brother, she had to help him. Then she smelled smoke, and she watched tiny flames lick at the walls of the warehouse. And grow.
"Paul wake up!" she yelled. "We have to get out!"
The smoke rolled across the floor as the flames raced up the walls and across the floor. She could not escape, and she watched the fire reach out towards her brother, touch his clothes, and curl up his body in a warm embrace. She screamed and screamed as he burned alive, and he screamed, and looked at her from his agony, face wreathed in flame. The fire reached her, and she burned with him, but she didn't die, she just kept burning and burning.
Amelia screamed, and the darkness of the panic room was lit from two dancing streams of fire that leaped through the air from her thrashing hands. Shaking and heart pounding, she jumped out of her bed, and pulled on her running clothes. It took her five tries to tie her shoes, and she had to grab both railings to make it up the stairs. When she walked through the dark kitchen, she grabbed a lighter, then she was outside and running flat out, like she was some sprinter. She ran until her heart fluttered in her chest and each breath felt like splinters. Amelia let herself fall to the ground, prickly grass pressing into her knees, and took a minute to catch her breath, staring down mutely at her hands.
Then, she slowly raised a hand, pointing it away from her, and replicating her performance from when she awoke, channeled her pain and confusion into a blast of flame off into the night air. The fire crackled in the air, and she felt the heat lick at her hand, as the fire flickered and cast shadows on the ground. Blood trickled from her nose, and she closed her hand, extinguishing the fire. Ignoring her nose for the moment, she took the lighter from her pocket, and flicked it open. Lighting it, she stared at the flame for a few seconds, and tried to will it out of existence. An hour later she extinguished the tiny flame once, gaining such an awful headache that she instantly stowed the lighter away, and walked back to the house rubbing her temple. Two aspirin, a beer, and a long shower later, she slowly worked her way through a bowl of cheerios.
"You alright?" Bobby had to ask, when he came downstairs at six thirty, and Amelia looked ready to fall asleep at her computer already.
"Kind of a bad night," she mumbled, sipping whiskey.
He didn't ask any more questions. "Firebird probably needs an oil change after that last drive, wanna ditch the research for today?"
"God yes," Amelia slammed her computer shut. Her eyes could barely focus on the screen.
While the oil was draining, Amelia cleaned out the trunk and resorted her gear, cleaning the knives and oiling the guns. She included a few more ingredients for spells after her recent study of witchcraft when she stowed everything away again. A few hamburger wrappers needed to be thrown out. Then after the oil had been replaced, she decided the car looked a little dirty, and washed it off, radio playing in the background. The sun felt good and the fresh air helped her headache. After that, she had to wax it of course. By the end, the car gleamed, and Amelia hopped up on the trunk with a contented sigh and a sandwich. She finished out the afternoon dealing with a few customers that showed up to the salvage yard, and after they ate supper Bobby chased her into town to practice her hustling. Amelia did pretty well, playing a few college students for her drinks and a few extra dollars.
That night, she watched her brother burn. After she checked for anything on fire, Amelia forced herself to lay back down, and covered up with her now slightly charred blankets. Hours passed before she fell back asleep, and the dreams were worse the second time. She went for her morning run at five, and got her morning headache forty minutes later. The lighter flame still posed a problem to her, and the effort gave her the mother of all head aches. At six, she took her first dose of aspirin for the day, washing it down with coffee.
Bobby stood in the kitchen frying eggs when she emerged after her shower. Another cup of coffee and some eggs with the morning paper.
"I think I might apply for the hospital position," Amelia said, paging through the paper. "Get some trauma experience. Part time."
Bobby nodded, sipping his coffee. "Would come in handy as a hunter."
Amelia started working the next week, mostly in the emergency room. The nightmares had become so bad, she could hardly sleep anymore, just a few cat naps throughout the day. She didn't get much hands on experience, that was for the doctors and Rns, but Amelia watched closely, and learned a lot about broken bones and overly concerned parents. The beginning of the fall semester came, and she stayed in South Dakota. She no longer felt any connection to the college world.
No matter how deeply she delved into demon lore, she never found anything mentioning demon blood. However, she did find a lot of speculation on how souls were lured to hell, and was not reassured. Amelia lost track of how many miles she ran each day. With less time devoted to sleeping, or trying to sleep, she spent more time running, or practicing putting out fire, or watching mindless Youtube videos. Anything to keep from the mind-numbing helpless despair of her nightmares. They had only gotten worse, and instead of acclimating herself to the nightly horrors, she dreaded it even worse every time she woke up in her bed, catatonic with grief, or screaming her lungs out. If Bobby noticed anything, he kept it to himself. After her burn healed sufficiently, she had the anti-possession tattoo redone so it was complete again. In September, she took third in a full marathon and received a modest sum of money.
When the weather grew colder, Amelia put up with it for a few weeks, but she finally faced the truth that she wouldn't be able to run outside for much longer. The thought of being trapped inside all winter almost made her panic.
"I put in my two weeks at the hospital yesterday," Amelia told Bobby over breakfast the next morning. "Sorry, but I have to get out of here before I get snowed in and go crazy."
He took a swallow of coffee. "Well, I can't keep ya here if you want to leave."
She returned to her bacon and pancakes.
"Could call up Ellen, or the Winchesters," Bobby muttered.
Amelia took a breath. "I'm not going to be a third wheel," she told him. "A hunt or two is fine, but I don't want to be the outsider mixed up in their family business."
"If you don't think you're family by now..." Bobby glared at her in an exasperated, but fond way.
"Look, I know they'd take me in. I just need to not be around them every day, alright?" Dammit, this wasn't going very well. One of Bobby's favorite adages was, "a lone hunter is a dead hunter."
Bobby shook his head. "I don't like it, but I can't keep ya here if ya want to go. Just be safe, alright? I've known way too many hunters got themselves killed."
"I will," she promised him. "I won't do anything particularly stupid. Hell, I might end up back here in a couple months anyways, or hook up with some other hunter."
"I'll start putting stuff together for you," he said, jotting down a few items on the back of a grocery receipt.
"Thanks Bobby," she told him. "For everything. I mean it. I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't come here. Dead, probably."
"Just don't get yourself killed out there. A hair stands up on your head, you don't ignore it."
Amelia nodded, and put her dishes in the sink. She had a long work day to look forward to. She felt only slightly guilty in wishing for some bloody accident to give her something to focus on other than doing paperwork for the higher up nurses.
"See ya later Bobby," she waved as she pulled on her jacket and walked outside into the already crisp air. Her encounter with Bobby could have gone much worse. And soon enough she wouldn't have to worry about waking up from a nap and burning someone's face off by accident. She saw enough people burning in her dreams each night.
The night before she left Bobby's, they shared a six pack over a movie and he gave her some last pieces of advice. How to find cheap hotels without losing one of your kidneys. Car maintenance. The importance of picking up her damn phone and giving him a call if she got into trouble.
The next morning, he gave her a few of his precious books, a bag of sorted spell ingredients, and a carefully made charm.
"This should keep you safe from hex bags," he told her. "Just haveta activate it. There's a little glass bottle in there with cat's blood, so break the bottle and you're good fer a day or two."
"Thanks Bobby," she hung it around her neck for the time being, and loaded the final things in the Firebird's trunk. She certainly had more possessions than when she came, mostly in the weapon category. There was still a decent amount of room in the trunk, however.
Amelia slammed it shut, and turned to Bobby. "I guess this is it."
"Ya take care of yerself now. Try to sleep. Don't drink too much," he told her gruffly.
Maybe he had noticed her erratic behavior. "I'll try." She climbed into the driver's seat and started up the car with a small smile. She enjoyed the rumble of the engine.
"You're always welcome back," Bobby told her from the porch.
"Thanksgiving," she promised, slammed the door, and drove off.
Amelia hit the highway, and settled back in the seat, cranking the radio up on a classic rock station. The road lay in front of her. East, west, south, north, they all lay completely open to her. Well, not really north, who wanted to go to North Dakota anyways. But complete freedom, with so many guns in the trunk of her car she couldn't be scared if she tried. A thrill of excitement chased up her spine. She could hunt freaking monsters if she wanted to. Hustle pool every night. Run a marathon every other day. Find some drugs and get a decent night sleep for once. Amelia chuckled at that.
She ended up driving for twenty hours straight without a minute of sleep so she could watch the sun rise over the Grand Canyon. Loading up her backpack with water and granola bars, she took her morning run down in the canyon, watching the morning sunlight slowly inch down the sides of the ruddy walls of the canyon. The movement felt glorious after sitting in the Firebird for so long, and she flew down the path, drinking in the dry, warm air. Some hikers were very confused that day as she jogged by them whistling CCR.
After a while, she chose a comfortable rock to sit on and munched a granola bar, watching the river below and the bright blue sky above, and the colorful canyon all around. Totally worth it, she decided, and started the slower trek back up to the rim far above. When she reached her car again, she cranked the A/C up for the first time that day. South Dakota might already be in fall, but Arizona felt like summer to her. Amelia drove to the nearest town, bought a single room at the first half-decent hotel she drove by, and after a nice cool shower crashed on the bed.
Paul stared at her.
"Aim!" he yelled, her childhood nickname. "Aim!"
She struggled against the chains holding her fast. "I'm trying, Paul," she snapped.
Then the demon sauntered up behind Paul, and traced down his face with the already bloody knife.
"No!" Amelia growled, "you stay back you bitch!"
The demon laughed, casting back her head, and her cruel laughter echoed off the walls, sounding like thousands of gleeful demons stood in the warehouse longing to carve them up. She started to plunge her knife into Paul, again and again. He screamed, and blood dripped from his bruised lips.
"Amy," he whimpered, staring up at her through his sweat-soaked, blood-soaked hair.
"Paul," she whispered, tears rolling down her face.
The flames were almost a mercy, when they started, consuming the blood and the demon and her brother with his haunting, pained eyes. They danced over her skin, prying open her mouth and reaching their fiery, piercing fingers into the depths of her being, setting her on fire from the core out.
Amelia awoke to the smoke alarm blaring. Her entire comforter was on fire. She kicked it off herself, coughing from the smoke, and stretched out her hand to the blazing blanket, focusing her bleary, adrenaline filled mind. Slowly, the flames died down, and blood started to trickle from her nose. After a weak, last-ditch effort by the fire to reclaim it's lost territory, the flames died out, leaving a slightly charred blanket and the still ringing fire alarm behind.
One peaceful night, well afternoon. Too much to ask apparently. At least she had taken a shower before she slept. Tossing the few things she had so recently unpacked back once again into her duffel, Amelia shouldered it, grabbed a handful of kleenexes to hold against her nose, and loaded back into the Firebird.
Two towns later, she stopped for "Best Biscuits and Gravy in Arizona," and judged them to be pretty decent. The biscuits were certainly top notch, and she got a half dozen for the road. She also got some gossip for the road: a supposedly haunted abandoned ranch house outside of town.
Amelia bought a hotel room, slightly classier than the last one, and headed to the town library to do some research. Three hours later, she hadn't found anything substantial. Every few Halloweens, the local paper would do a sensational article on the haunted ranch with interviews of different people who had supposedly seen ghosts there. But she couldn't find any violent history at the ranch no matter how far back she looked. Amelia decided to check it out for herself. The reports seemed to cover all months, so if a ghost did haunt the ranch it didn't seem to be seasonal. In addition, none of the people interviewed had been harmed by the ghost, so Amelia decided she would be safe.
That evening, armed with a flashlight and an EMF reader, Amelia walked around the old, fallen down building, scanning and looking for any sign of a ghost. After an hour and a half of searching, with no readings on the meter and a serious case of the sneezes from all the dust in the old building, she gave up. If a ghost did haunt the ranch, it didn't seem to be poking around that night. Still sneezing, Amelia drove back to her hotel room, and changed into her running clothes for a good long run to clear the dust from her nose. When she ran by a small park, Amelia did some stretches, and found a clear space, taking her lighter from her pocket.
It had become her nightly routine. She flicked on the lighter, and concentrated on the tiny flame. It took a few seconds, but she managed to snuff it out with her weird powers. At least she had some control over them now, even if she woke up every other night with her blankets on fire. She extinguished the flame ten times, the process got a little easier each time she did it. The headaches never went away, though, and by the sixth time blood started dripping from her nose.
Making fire came easier to her, but she didn't think it was a good idea to practice that too much. She had no desire to wake up to even larger flames springing up from her hands. Still, it was undeniably cool, and the burned beds were due to the nightmares, not any lack of control on her part...
Amelia let herself practice making flames once a week. Compared to putting out the tiny flame of the lighter, making fire appear out of nowhere was almost laughably easy. That made it hard not to go overboard. She would stand with her arm out, spinning in a slow circle, fire trailing from her extended arm like some gaudy scarf. After a few times practicing, she could even make fire appear without using her hands. That gave her a headache like none other, but the first time she sat motionless and a tiny flame bloomed up three feet away, she laughed for joy, blood from her nose trickling into her mouth. She told herself it would be invaluable as a hunter: a weapon that no one could take away from her. Maybe it was what the demons wanted from her, but after her hopeless nightmares each night, she relished the sense of control and power it gave her. Amelia went to sleep that night after a fifth of whiskey, head ringing like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Before you say anything, I am from North Dakota and I love my state, but that doesn't mean I can't poke fun at it! :) Will post again soon, thanks for reading. :)