Chapter Five: Youth
Dean Winchester liked to think that his father was a good person, someone who helped those in need and put the safety of civilians above all else.
Dean liked to think that. But if John Winchester was such a good person, why was his sixteen-year old son sitting across from a terrified young woman with his gun pointed at her?
Fifteen hours earlier…
Bobby Singer looked up sharply as gravel crunched under tires on his driveway and the rumbling of an engine was quickly cut off. Turning around in his seat at his desk, the grizzled hunter peered out of the large bay window behind him and saw a very familiar car.
A very familiar car John Winchester should not be exiting.
"What the hell?" Bobby asked himself and moved around his desk as the younger hunter's boots thudded quickly up the porch steps.
Before John could even lift a hand to knock on the door, it was open, Bobby filling the doorway.
"The hell are you doing with that car?" the older hunter asked, anger and trepidation clear in his tone.
"You knew," John spat, "You knew about it."
"What are you talking about?" Bobby asked, "An' why do you have that car?"
"I trusted you, Bobby!" John growled, "And you betrayed me."
"What. Are. You. Doing. With. That. Car?" Bobby asked slowly, feeling adrenaline pump into his veins as he tried to figure out why the younger hunter would be driving in his daughter's car.
"Why didn't you tell me it was still alive? Why didn't you tell me Josh had it?" John snarled and Bobby suddenly realized what had the younger hunter foaming at the mouth.
"That's yer child yer talking about!" he growled, "Your flesh and blood!"
John raised both hands and grabbed the doorframe in a threatening manner, as though he really wanted to grab Bobby by the throat but was holding back.
"That… boy… is the reason Mary's dead," he ground out, "She's dead because of it."
"Are you out of yer mind?" Bobby asked, "That child was a baby! A baby! No more capable of killing yer wife than he was of understanding advanced thermodynamics."
John shook his head, a small smile on his face.
"That's where you're wrong, Bobby," he said, chuckling as if it was all very funny, "It looked like a baby but wasn't. It started that fire and killed my Mary."
Bobby stared at John, awestruck.
"It's my fault really," the younger hunter continued, "After Mary passed I tried to kill it but… it was too good… it looked too much like a baby and I couldn't bring myself to hurt it."
"You tried to murder your own child?" Bobby asked, shocked by the confession.
"I thought Josh understood what it was," John continued, "But I should have known better. It fooled me and it fooled him."
The older hunter stared, unable to believe what he was hearing.
"So he's kept it all these years," John said, lifting his gaze to Bobby's, "And raised it like his own son. And you knew about it, Bobby and didn't say anything to me!"
"Josh told me what you two talked about over the phone," the grizzled hunter said, "How you wanted him to take the boy and kill 'im. Make it look like some pedophile or whatnot had snatched the boy. Josh thought you were crazy and, John, I'm sorry to say, he was right."
"It has you wrapped around its little finger!" John insisted, "All of you!"
Bobby shook his head, "I can't believe what I'm hearing. I always thought you were one of the more mentally stable hunters around."
"I am not crazy, Bobby, and I'll prove it," John told him, "I'm going to finish what I started eleven years ago."
The younger hunter's words brought the older man back to the thing that had first set off warning bells in his head in the first place.
"Why are you driving my daughter's car?" he asked the younger man slowly.
John grinned, his eyes filled with a fanatical light.
"I knew you wouldn't want to co-operate," he said, "I knew you'd think that little monster was just a little boy. So, I took out some insurance."
Bobby felt his heart skip a beat and the blood drained from his face.
"Why get her involved? She doesn't know anything. I haven't talked to her in years," he told the younger man.
John shook his head, "Like I said, I needed insurance. Don't worry; I didn't hurt her. Dean's with her right now."
"Insurance for what?" Bobby asked through narrowed eyes, "What are you planning?"
The younger hunter sucked in a deep breath and straightened, lowering his hands from the doorframe.
"You're going to call Josh," John told Bobby, "Get him and… the kid… to come here, if you can-"
"Yer not killing anyone on my watch!" the older hunter interrupted vehemently.
"And you're going to let Josh know old Motormouth spilled the beans to me," John continued as though Bobby hadn't spoken.
"Richard Hawkins?" Bobby asked and John nodded.
"The idiot got liquored up and told me everything he knew about Josh and the boy. Rufus was there too, tried to tell me Hawkins didn't know what he was saying. As if I believed that."
"You're going to get them here," the younger hunter continued upon the original line of dialogue, "Tell them I'm on their trail, suggest they get out of dodge. Go to Rufus' cabin, say, since he doesn't use it often."
"An' where will you be," Bobby asked.
John's eyes rolled up to look at the ceiling, "So I know you're co-operating."
"And Carrie Ann? What about her?" Bobby asked, feeling his heart pound in his chest at the thought of his daughter.
"As long as you do what I say," John assured him, "She won't get hurt."
"Yer a cold bastard, John Winchester," Bobby told him but moved out of the way to let the younger man enter his house.
"I want to know my daughter's all right," the older hunter demanded and John sighed as though the request exasperated him.
"Fine," John grumbled and pulled out his cell phone, dialed his son's number and held it up to his ear for a moment, "Put the girl on."
The younger hunter handed the phone to Bobby, who took it, his mouth suddenly dry.
"Carrie Ann? Are you okay?" he asked, and felt tears well up in his eyes at the sound of his daughter's voice.
"Dad? Dad, what's going on? I'm fine but I don't-"
John grabbed the phone from Bobby and ended the call.
"Josh ain't stupid," Bobby told him, "You know that, right?"
"I know," John replied, moving towards the kitchen, where Bobby's half dozen phones hung from the wall behind the table, "That's why I need you to help with this."
"Call Josh up," John instructed, "And for your daughter's sake, make it believable."
Bobby, glaring daggers at the younger man, picked up the nearest phone from the cradle and punched Josh's number in, waiting as it rang and rang before the hunter answered.
"Yeah?" Josh's familiar voice asked and Bobby started talking.
SPN
Dean didn't know what had his father so excited. John rarely displayed this kind of passion, even when they were close to catching the supernatural threat during a hunt.
The sixteen-year old couldn't be sure but he thought that his father's fervor had started after he'd listened to Richard 'Motormouth' Hawkins blab about some kid another hunter had with him. Dean had no clue why that would get his father foaming at the mouth but John had been especially excited to hear more about Josh's boy, even going so far as to buy Hawkins another beer and egg him on. Old Rufus Turner, who happened to be sitting at the far end of the bar, indulging in his alcohol of choice; Johnnie Walker, had sidled closer to the two men, eavesdropping and then engaging in the topic of discussion himself.
Dean had mostly ignored the conversation. He decided that his father was probably interested in hearing about the newer generation of hunters or whatever, since not many kids were raised in the life.
After gathering all he was going to out of 'Motormouth' John had dropped Dean off at the motel before heading to the library, which was closed at that time of the night. The younger Winchester had asked his father why he suddenly had an urge to hit the books but John had told him not to worry about it and to get some sleep.
Shrugging, Dean hadn't argued, used to John's insistence that most information was on a 'need to know' basis and had lounged around until after midnight when he'd finally called it a night and turned in.
The next morning, John shook his son awake, his dark eyes lively and sparkling with anticipation.
"What's wrong?" the sixteen-year old had asked groggily, rubbing a hand down his face.
"I have a lead on a monster," John informed him, "Grab your stuff; we're leaving."
And that was that. Within five minutes the Winchesters were on the road out of town, Dean driving the Impala, confused and irritated he'd been forced awake at the crack of dawn and John practically giddy in the seat beside him.
"Where are we going, Dad?" Dean asked, glancing at his father.
John, leaning forward as though that would help the Impala move faster, told his son that they were headed to a town called Bridgewater in South Dakota.
And that was it. John offered no more information until they arrived at their destination.
W
"Find Mayberry Crescent," John instructed his son, sitting up taller in his seat.
Dean nodded and turned down the rock music he'd been blasting from the Impala's speakers.
"What are we looking for once we get there?" the sixteen-year old asked.
"I'll let you know when the time calls for it," his father replied cryptically.
Dean sighed and drove down the residential area of Bridgewater until he found the street his father had mentioned.
Inching the Chevy forward at a crawl down the quaint street, the teen jumped when his father told him to stop in front of a brownstone townhouse with a brass number fourteen beside a red door decorated with a wreath of wildflowers. A silver Toyota sat in the driveway, indicating the owner was home.
Parking the Impala at the curb, Dean climbed out of the driver's seat, brows knitted together in confusion.
"Dad, will you tell me what's going on?" he asked, following his father as John stepped out of the car and headed towards the trunk.
Automatically Dean unlocked the trunk and John lifted the false bottom to reveal an array of weaponry. With a moment's pause, the older hunter chose a pistol before returning the fake bottom of the trunk to its proper spot and closing the lid.
"Dad, why do you need a gun?" Dean asked but again, John ignored him and started up the short walk to the front door of number fourteen.
"Let me do the talking," the older hunter instructed his son and slid the hand holding the gun into his open jacket, leaving it there.
Reaching the front door, John nodded to his son and Dean pressed the doorbell.
For a moment nothing happened but then the red door opened and a female face peered out at them from behind the storm door.
"Yes, how can I help you?" the young woman- in her mid- to late twenties if Dean had to guess- asked in a pleasant sounding, though cautious voice.
"Carrie Ann Singer?" John asked and the woman nodded.
Singer? Dean thought, as in Bobby Singer?
Peering at the woman, the sixteen-year old saw that she had wavy, sandy-red hair similar to her father's and blue eyes the colour of cornflowers. Ivory skin and a dusting of freckles over her cheeks and nose completed the picture. She was wearing a sleeveless yellow blouse and white shorts with bare feet.
"Do you have a moment to talk?" John asked, "It's about your father."
The woman's blue eyes narrowed, "I'm sorry, who are you?"
John smiled, "Just friends. Can we come in and talk?"
"I don't think so," Carrie Ann began but froze when the elder Winchester pulled the gun from his jacket and pointed it at her through the screen door.
"Please open the door," John said, "I don't want to have to shoot you."
"Dad-" Dean began, eyes wide in shock but John put his free hand on his son's arm and squeezed, hard.
"I don't want to hurt you," John continued, keeping his dark eyes pinned to the woman's face, "But I will if you don't listen."
Carrie Ann, her ivory complexion now the colour of spoiled milk, nodded and unlatched the screen door.
"Thank you," John said and grabbed the side of the door with his free hand, releasing his hold on Dean.
Before the hunter could step inside though, the heavy red door was pushed towards him and the hunter's fingers were jammed in between the two doors and the doorjamb.
John swore out loud but pressed onward, using his bulk to shove the storm door out of the way and push back on the red door.
From inside the house, Dean heard Carrie Ann cry out but he didn't know if it was from fear or pain.
Forcing his way into the house, John lifted the hand with the gun and struck the woman across the face, sending her to the floor.
"Dad!" Dean gasped and hurried forward toward the injured woman, "What are you doing?"
"I warned her, Dean," John told him.
The sixteen-year old peered down at Carrie Ann, her blue eyes wide and wet, one hand pressed to the side of her face.
"Get her up," John instructed and Dean helped the young woman carefully to her feet, apologizing to her for his father's actions.
"What do you want?" the young woman asked, blood dripping down her face from a gash in her cheek, the skin around it already beginning to swell and turn black.
"If you want money, take it," she told them, "Jewelry too."
John shook his head, "We don't want any of that."
Carrie Ann swallowed and Dean could see fear in her eyes.
"Bring her in here, Dean," John instructed and the sixteen-year old led the woman into a small windowless room off of the kitchen that looked as though it was Carrie Ann's office.
The elder Winchester pulled out the desk chair and told the woman to sit in it. She did, mopping the side of her face with her hand.
"We don't really want you," John told Carrie Ann, keeping the gun in his hand trained on her chest, "But I have some business with your father and I know he won't be very cooperative."
"So you're going to use me to get to him," the young woman finished.
John nodded, "Exactly."
He handed the gun to Dean, "Keep it pointed at her at all times. If she tries to get away or scream for help, shoot her."
The sixteen-year old took the gun and only stared at his father in disbelief, his eyes as wide and round as Carrie Ann's.
"If everything goes as planned," John told her, "We'll be out of your lives in a matter of hours and you'll never see us again."
The young woman didn't look convinced but nodded grimly.
"I just have one favour to ask," the elder Winchester asked, "Where do you keep your car keys?"
Carrie Ann set her jaw and didn't speak for a moment. Then her gaze traveled to the gun pointed at her and she answered: "I keep them in the bowl on the kitchen table."
"Thank you," John replied and grinned.
"Remember Dean," he turned to his son, "If she tries anything-"
"I got it, Dad," the sixteen-year old replied stiffly, recoiling at the thought of shooting an innocent woman.
Before leaving the room, John lifted his uninjured hand to his son's shoulder and squeezed.
SPN
John gripped the steering wheel of the little silver Toyota so tightly his knuckles were white.
Everything was going to plan. In just a few hours that little monster would be heading into his trap.
The hunter smiled, lips pulling away from teeth in a sardonic sneer.
He'd finally get revenge on the monster that had killed his wife. And this time, he wouldn't hesitate. There would be no mistakes.
John's heart began to pound in his chest at the thought of finally knowing that his wife's killer was dead.
"Soon Mary," he murmured, "Soon…"
SPN
Minutes ticked by in silence. The only sound was the ticking of the 'Felix the Cat' clock on the wall above the desk and the sound of the boy and woman breathing.
Dean, confused and stunned by his father's actions, felt he had to show Carrie Ann that they weren't bad people. That they were killers or robbers or rapists.
"I didn't know he was going to do that," he told her.
"Do what?" Carrie Ann asked, "Force his way into my house or pistol whip me?"
Dean cringed, "Both. He didn't even tell me who you were or anything. I'm sorry he did that to you. He's normally not like that. He doesn't hurt civilians."
Carrie Ann gave him a cynical look but said nothing.
"What does he want with my Dad?"
Dean shrugged, "He didn't tell me that either."
The two lapsed into silence for a moment, neither daring to take their eyes off the other.
"Bobby Singer really is your father?" Dean asked and the young woman nodded.
"Unfortunately," she commented, gently pressing her fingers experimentally against the swelling on her face.
"He never said anything about having a kid," Dean told her, "I always thought he was on his own."
Carrie Ann let out a humourless laugh.
"He is on his own," she told him, "I haven't talked to him in years."
Carefully, Dean ventured, "Not since your Mom died?"
The woman nodded, "Yeah."
"You know it wasn't really her, right?" Dean asked, "Your Mom was possessed by a demon."
Carrie Ann narrowed her eyes, "You believe him too?"
"You don't?" the sixteen-year old asked.
She shook her head slightly, "He always had a weakness for booze. I always thought it'd get him into trouble and look what happened. I was at school that day. Dad came home early from work and got shitfaced and then shot Mom."
Dean's eyes were wide, "That's wrong. Your Mom was possessed by a demon. Bobby didn't know how to get rid of it and he..."
Carrie Ann laughed coldly.
"How would you know? You weren't there," she asked.
"Neither were you," Dean snapped. He felt as though he needed to defend Bobby's honour, even if it was from his own daughter.
"That's right," Carrie Ann agreed, "I wasn't. But I did come home and find her. She was lying in the hallway, covered in blood. At first I thought someone had robbed the place but then I found Dad in the living room, drinking beer. With the gun sitting on the coffee table."
"I was so scared," she continued, "I thought he was going to kill me too. So I ran. I ran all the way back into town and told anyone who would listen what I'd found."
Dean couldn't imagine what that must have been like, to find your mother dead.
"So the Sheriff's department took my father into custody and he kept saying that he had only killed Mom in self-defense, said she'd gone crazy and that there had been something inside her that was making her attack him."
Dean listened in silence.
"They finally let him off on self-defense," Carrie Ann continued, "But things were never the same after that."
"What do you mean?" the sixteen-year old asked.
"Dad kept drinking," the woman told him, "And he was always talking about the 'thing' that had been inside Mom. My friends didn't want to hang out with me anymore and I became the girl whose dad was a murderer. Once I left high school I knew I couldn't stay in Sioux Falls anymore. I left and ended up here. Where no one knew who I was, or more importantly, who my father was."
"I'm sorry," Dean murmured, sincerely.
"What do you have to be sorry for?" Carrie Ann asked, "You didn't do anything."
The sixteen-year old lifted his green eyes to the young woman's blue ones, "I'm sorry you've blinded yourself to the truth."
SPN
"Where are we going, Josh?" Mouse asked, his hazel eyes wide and questioning.
The hunter smiled, "We're going on a little break, son. Just the two of us. How does that sound?"
The boy, instead of returning his uncle's smile, frowned.
"Is something wrong? Are we in danger? You have to tell me!"
The hunter sighed and pulled the pickup truck onto the gravel shoulder, aware that they were not safe but needing to pay attention to talk to the boy.
"Yes, Mouse," Josh said, "We are in danger."
"What?" the twelve-year old exclaimed, "Why?"
"I can't explain it right now," Josh told him, "But I want to know that I will do everything I can to protect you. Okay? I won't let you get hurt. I promise you."
Mouse, his eyes welling with tears, nodded and didn't ask his uncle anymore questions as they headed out of Sioux Falls as though the Devil himself were chasing them.
SPN
Josh wondered if he'd done the right thing by not telling the boy about his father.
No, he had. Telling Mouse about John Winchester would only confuse and terrify him more. Maybe once they reached Rufus' cabin he'd tell the boy the truth, but right now he couldn't.
Glancing to his right, he saw the boy curled up on the bench seat, staring out the window.
"It's pretty quiet in here," Josh said, "Would you like some music?"
Mouse didn't respond.
The hunter reached out and turned on the radio, turning the dial to find a station that wasn't just static.
Smiling grimly, Josh paused in his search when he heard the beginning guitar chords of Led Zeppelin's 'Ramble On' and left the station where it was.
SPN
"Mouse? Wake up, son," Josh's voice drew the boy up from the embrace of sleep.
"We're here," his uncle told him and the child sat up in his seat, peering through the pickup's windshield at the hulking cabin sitting in front of them, surrounded by trees.
It had been a long drive; the only stops made for gas, bathroom breaks, trips past drive-thru windows and a grocery store to gather supplies for the cabin.
"Cool," Mouse said, and meant it. The cabin was a construction of wood beams for walls and a corrugated tin roof. There was a wrap-around porch and a stone well in front of the building.
"It's rustic," Josh told him, "No running water, no TV, or electricity. Hopefully we won't have to stay for long."
"It'll be like camping," Mouse spoke up and climbed out of the truck, shuffling his sneaker-clad feet through the leaf litter on the ground.
"Yeah, I guess it will," Josh agreed and picked up Mouse's duffle bag. In his hurry to go help Bobby, he hadn't thought about bringing his own piece of luggage with him but that didn't matter. They could stay here for a few days before moving on.
Mouse followed his uncle into the cabin and took in the kitchen with a wood burning stove, two large metal basins for washing dishes and small table. There was no refrigerator, microwave or oven.
"This'll be your room," Josh was saying from down the hall and the boy followed the sound of his uncle's voice to a tiny nice where a pinewood bunk bed had been crammed and a narrow wardrobe. Both the top and bottom bunks had thick woolen blankets draped over the mattresses to keep the cold out at night. A window showed a view of the forest pressed right up against the back of the cabin, a maple tree's bright green leaves plastered against the thick glass.
"Where are you going to sleep?" Mouse asked.
"Oh, I'll just hunker down on the couch in the den," Josh commented, dropping his nephew's duffle onto the lower bunk.
Beside the small bedroom was an equally small bathroom with an ancient claw foot bathtub and another large metal basin.
"Um, Josh, if there's no running water, how are we supposed to bathe?" the twelve-year old asked, eyeing the tub and noticing a lack of toilet.
"We boil water on the stove and dump it into the tub," Josh told him, "Pretty medieval, right?"
"Yeah," Mouse agreed, "Is there an outhouse here?"
The hunter scratched his stubbly chin, "Should be behind the house. Though the woods have probably taken over it by now."
Mouse's eyes widened.
"Don't worry, Kiddo," Josh smiled, "We'll be all right."
No wonder Rufus didn't come here all that often anymore, the hunter thought, before asking Mouse to help him unload the groceries from the back of the pickup truck.
SPN
"Dad, would you please tell me what's going on now?" Dean almost begged his father as they pulled away from Bobby's house in the Impala; John insisting on driving this time.
"We're chasing a monster," the elder Winchester replied.
"Okay," Dean said; that wasn't a completely unheard of answer, "But what does that monster have to do with Bobby or his daughter?"
"Bobby knew about it and didn't tell me," John ground out, "He knew all along and never said anything."
Dean's eyes widened in surprise. As a hunter, surely Bobby would alert others if a monster were nearby.
"What do you mean 'all along'? How long has he known about this monster?"
"It's the bastard that killed your mother, son," John told him, "The one that took Mary away from us."
The sixteen-year old's mouth dropped open in shock.
Dean hadn't heard his father talk about the creature that had killed his wife in years, not since he was a little kid, anyway.
Not since Sammy had been snatched.
After the fire destroyed the upper levels of the Winchester house and killed its matriarch, John had wandered aimlessly for a year, dragging his two sons along with him. Dean recalled his father talking about a monster that had killed Mary, and how he was going to get his revenge.
Nearly a year after the fire that had changed the Winchesters' lives forever, John and his sons had gone into a small gas station in Ohio to pick up some snacks and pay for fuel for the car. John let his youngest son, Sam- almost a year old at the time- out of his sight for no more than a minute when he'd turned to look at the potato chips the store offered. Turning back, the father had been shocked and frightened to find his young son was no longer where he had left him. The infant, starting to walk though not quite steady on his feet yet, may have wandered away and John and Dean searched the remaining aisles of the store frantically. Realizing his son was nowhere to be found, John had asked the cashier to call the police and within hours every available cop in the area was on a lookout for the baby.
Sam Winchester was never found.
As the hours grew into days grew into weeks, the search for the missing boy became more frantic and less promising.
After two weeks of searching, the police called an end to the investigation and told the grief-stricken father that there was no chance of finding his son, let alone finding him alive.
Dean had been devastated. Crying nonstop for hours after his father told him Sammy was never coming back, moping for weeks, refusing to engage in the activities he'd previously enjoyed.
Until John had shown him how to shoot a gun, exorcise a demon, and defend himself from physical attacks.
John had stopped talking about the monster that had killed Mary after Sam had disappeared and Dean decided it was because the search for his missing son had taken priority over finding his wife's killer.
But, as Dean thought back, he couldn't recall his father ever mentioning again, the creature that had taken Mary's life that fateful night in early November.
"What is it?" Dean asked now, glancing at his father from the corner of his eye, "What killed Mom?"
John, without taking his gaze from the road ahead, answered, "It looks human but it isn't. You need to know that. It is not human and never was. It started the fire that killed your mother all those years ago."
"Is it a demon?" Dean asked, "A shapeshifter? Skinwalker?"
John shook his head, "There's no name for it. It's an abomination."
SPN
"Can I go explore the woods?" Mouse asked once all the groceries had been put away, mainly cans and jars because of the lack of refrigeration.
"I don't know, Mouse," Josh hesitated, "I'd like to be able to keep an eye on you."
"I won't go far," the twelve-year old told his uncle, his hazel eyes wide and moist, "Please."
The hunter smiled, unable to resist the boy's 'puppy-dog eyes'.
"All right," he said, "But stay within sight of the cabin."
"I will!" Mouse exclaimed, "Thanks!"
"An' come back right away if I call you!" Josh called to the boy who was already out the door and running down the porch steps.
W
Feet hitting the leaf-strewn driveway, Mouse looked around, wondering where he should explore first.
Although he knew Josh had said they were in some sort of danger, the twelve-year old didn't want to be cooped up in the cabin all day, especially when it had no TV or radio, so he told himself that he'd play outside, near the building so he could run back to Josh if anything happened and still have a sense of freedom.
Deciding that he wanted to find the outhouse before he had an emergency, Mouse walked around to the back of the cabin, kicking pine cones out of his way as he did so.
The forest had certainly taken over the cabin's backyard in the years Rufus' had left the structure empty- if the cabin had even had a backyard in the first place- and Mouse found himself squeezing between closely growing trees, stepping over vines and roots, listening to the chirping of birds and the buzzing of insects.
It didn't take Mouse long to find the outhouse. Or what was left of it. The narrow wooden structure had been taken over by saplings, its door hanging off rusted hinges, a young oak tree poking out through the crescent-shaped window in the cracked wood. The twelve-year old approached the outhouse and peered inside. There was a wooden seat with a round hole cut into the middle of it, saplings sprouting from inside the reservoir, nourished by the natural manure found there.
The boy smirked; there was no way he was going to go to the bathroom in that. With his luck, he'd end up wiping with poison ivy.
A sudden scratching sound from inside the outhouse startled the boy after listening to the quiet of the forest and Mouse took a step back. A grey squirrel jumped out of the hole and bound past the boy, chittering.
Relieved, Mouse laughed at the momentary fear he'd felt.
The twelve-year old looked up sharply at the sound of car tires crushing leaves and the growl of approaching engines.
Who was coming to the cabin? Mouse wondered, his heart beating quickly in his narrow chest; was it Rufus?
Car doors slammed and unfamiliar voices shouted.
"Joseph Trapp! We know you're in there! This is the Whitefish Police Department! Come out with your hands up!"
SPN
"Stay in the car," John instructed his son, peering at the sixteen-year old through the window.
"Dad, we've been driving for hours," Dean argued, "Can't I just stretch my legs?"
"I'll only be a moment," John told him, "Stay in the car, Dean."
The sixteen-year old nodded and sighed, telling himself his dad wouldn't tell him what to do like a child if it wasn't important.
Leaning forward, Dean glanced momentarily at the building that housed the Whitefish Police Department, before searching for a radio station with classic rock music.
SPN
"Josh," Mouse breathed and crashed through the trees towards the front of the cabin, "Josh!"
In his rush to get to his uncle, the boy tripped and fell, scraping his chin on the ground and causing it to bleed. Wiping a hand over the wound, Mouse stood and peered down at the red streak across his knuckles for a moment before he continued on, calling his uncle's name.
The police continued yelling at the hunter, clearly not happy at being ignored and their demands began more threatening.
"Joshua Trapp! Come out now or we will be forced to come in and bring you out!"
Mouse shouted his uncle's name and rounded the side of the cabin, taking in the cruisers and four officers, two standing on the porch in front of the door, two remaining in the driveway.
"JOSH!" the boy cried and tried to run past the police officers but strong hands grabbed him and held him.
"No! Let me go! Josh! Josh!"
"It's all right, son," a police officer with a blond handlebar moustache and light brown eyes spoke to him.
"Josh! Let me go! He's my uncle! Josh!"
The hunter finally exited the cabin; hands held high, a sad look on his face.
"Joshua Trapp," one of the cops on the porch said, "You're under arrest on suspicion of kidnapping and unlawful confinement."
"No! No!" Mouse cried and struggled against the officer's hold as his uncle was handcuffed.
"Josh!" the boy called, "Let him go! He didn't do anything!"
The cop with the handlebar moustache began tugging on Mouse's arm and the boy flailed frantically, trying to get to his uncle.
The second police officer who had been standing on the driveway pulled out his handcuffs and closed them around Mouse's wrists, cuffing his hands in front of him.
"Josh! Don't go!" the boy cried.
"It'll be okay, Kiddo," his uncle told him before he was made to sit in the back of a police cruiser.
Mouse watched in shock as the cops climbed into their car, started the engine and headed down the driveway.
Tears welled up in the boy's eyes and streamed down his cheeks.
"C'mon son," the cop with the handlebar moustache said and guided the boy towards the back of his own police car, "Watch your head. There, just like that."
Mouse sat in the backseat of the cruiser, staring at the backs of the cops' heads as they too began to move down the driveway.
"He didn't do anything," the boy muttered, "He didn't hurt anybody."
The cops didn't hear him.
Author's Note:
Chapter title comes from a song by Daughter.
Thanks to brihun2388, Shannon Makayla Smith, lenail124, mckydstarlight, oooPENNYWISEooo, need2no, ktdog1, StyxxsOmega, Sallyannerenee, QueenBea93, whimsicalbarwench, SamDeanLover28, jensensgirl3, babyreaper, Trucklady53, reannablue, SPN Mum, SUPERNATANGEL67, Anissia, erimoon, and Ruby for reviewing.
Carrie Ann, the name I chose for Bobby's estranged daughter, is the first name of the actress who played Karen Singer in S.5, E.15 (Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid) and S.7, E. 10 (Death's Door).
Please review and I'll send you each a freshly-baked cake of your choice!