As promised, a real chapter! And it's a longer one too!
Enjoy!
~Christianne
Nikki POV
I was leaning on the side of Bobby's pickup (I was going to give it back, eventually) in a motel parking lot. Sam had called a few minutes ago, saying they were close. It was getting late; the sun was just starting to set over Lake Michigan and my room had a crappy view. I just thought I'd wait for Sam and Dean outside so I could see the beautiful colors that painted the sky.
I heard the Impala before I saw it.
I smiled as the brothers got out of the black car parked a spot away from me.
"What the hell where you thinking?" Where the first words out of Dean's mouth.
"Hi, nice to see you too! How've you been?" I asked sarcastically.
"Ha ha very funny." Dean snapped. "What the hell where you thinking? Goin' off without lettin' anyone know?"
Intimidated, I looked over his shoulder at Sam. "Hi." I said weakly.
"He's right you know." Sam said after giving me one of those brief, genuine smiles. He walked around from the passenger's side of the Impala. "You should have let Bobby or us know."
"That I was going to see my family?" I asked, laughing a little. "Last time I checked you guys aren't my keepers."
"That's not the point Nik," Dean snapped at me. "If you wanna drive half way across the damn country, you let us know."
I was taken back from his tone and slightly terrifying expression. "Ok, next time I will." I said slowly, quietly.
"Good." He said, nodding once. Sam looked a little relieved too.
"So…" I trailed off. "What now?"
Dean shrugged. "You said you wanted to see your family. Wanna lift?" he asked. I glanced at the truck I was leaning on, then back to Dean, but the sharp look in his eyes told me he wasn't really asking. I sighed as I got into the backseat.
I gave Dean directions to my house now and then, but I mostly just stared out the window as the first few houses passed; the same houses that I passed the first time I went to the Peterson home.
I looked out the windows of the car from the back seat. It looked so…Nice. Not the sort of place I'd fit in. All these places had nice lawns, pretty flowers in the flower box and swings in the back yard.
"This is our street," the man driving, I think his name was Greg, Greg something.
"What do you think Nicolette?" Mindy, my social worker asked me. I sent her a glare and looked back out the window.
I give it three months before they call Mindy to try and get rid of me.
"Nicolette," Greg Something repeated. "Pretty name." He looked at me in the rearview mirror, I glanced at him briefly before looking back out the window.
"Kind of a mouthful," he said a moment later.
"Nikki." I said, the first words I'd spoken in a long time. Mindy turned around and looked at me with wide, shocked eyes. Greg Something looked at me in the rearview mirror again. "I-I like to be called Nikki."
"Nikki," Greg Something repeated. "Pretty name." He repeated with a wry smile. I tried my best not to smile, I bit the inside of my cheek, but I smiled a little.
"Mindy tell you I have a son?" Greg Something asked me. I shook my head no.
"Oh!" Mindy pouted. "I knew I forgot something!" I rolled my eyes at her. She hated when I did that, that's why I did it.
"It's the blue one." I said, realizing Dean was on the right block. He let out a small grunt as he pulled into the large driveway of the blue-gray Victorian house. I got out of the backseat and took a deep breath; taking in the smell of the lake and the perfectly manicured grass and flowers.
I stayed in the back seat, seeing a few kids across the street watching. I looked down at my lap, frowning at the perfectly pressed and clean jean's I'd been given. They were normal and perfect and clean, just like the gray zip-up sweatshirt, the white t-shirt and the white sneakers.
I tried to fix my hair. It was curlier than it had been, which meant it was bigger. The place I had been in didn't have any good conditioner, so they were coarse and hard to control. I slowly got out, keeping my gaze down and shoved my hands in my pockets.
"C'mon mom! I wanna meet her!" I heard a boy complain. I peeked up through my bangs and saw a boy, in his early teens, with floppy blonde hair trailing after a woman in a floral print dress.
"Christopher!" She said in a hushed voice. "I told you not to be so-"
"I know," he groaned, crossing his arms and falling back to lean on a tree. "Don't be pushy."
I smiled a little.
"See?" The boy, Christopher apparently, said, gesturing to me. "See, she thinks I'm funny!"
"Nice place." Dean commented as he got out of the car.
"Yeah." I agreed quietly. The setting sun was lighting the house perfectly. The small spire on the third floor still had the faded US Army flag fluttering in the breeze on top, the white shutters where clean, and the large stained glass window above the front door was shining.
"You guys wanna come in?" I asked, walking up the cobbled stone sidewalk to the porch.
"Uh…Well, you-you said you haven't seen them in a while…We don't wanna intrude." Sam put in, jamming his hands awkwardly in his pockets. I swear I saw his eyes flicker to the stain glass window above the door and the similar ones on the second and third floors, then back down to his and Dean's dirty, worn out jeans and jackets.
"You won't be intruding." I said honestly, bending down to take the key out from under the large flower pot.
"And, going by the smell, Olivia made one of her famous blackberry pies." I added, pushing the key into the lock and turning the ornate knob. I looked over my shoulder as I pushed one of the heavy oak doors open. Dean's eyebrows had risen significantly, and Sam was shaking his head at his brother.
"Well, maybe for just a few minutes." Dean said, jogging up the steps to stand behind me.
"Sam?" I asked, peeking around Dean. The younger brother sighed and made his way up the porch steps.
When I walked into the foyer of the house, smiling at the large oak staircase, the inlayed compass in the oak floor made of varying shades wood. The plaster walls where still painted a dark forest green, and the large crystal chandelier was still hanging. The house was silent, save for the quiet dripping coming from the back of the house. Probably a leaky faucet.
"Nice place." Sam said, repeating Dean's words from earlier.
"Make yourself at home." I said as I walked further into the house. "Olivia! Greg! I'm home!" I called as I started to walk through the house. The living room still looked comfortable and cozy, the kitchen homey and warm. And, sure enough, the sink was dripping. The house was one of the only ones not destroyed in the fire (back in 1871, on the same day as the Chicago fire there was a fire in Peshtigo that killed over three thousand people and reduced most of the town to ash), and the pipes were from the forties. Things creaked, sinks dripped, and I loved each and every sound.
I kept walking until I got to the large bay window in the back of the house. I leaned on the sill and smiled.
Three days. I'd been here for three days.
For most to them I'd been sitting in the window in the back of the house. It was a pretty view. You could see Lake Michigan. There was just a big green lawn and a few hundred feet of rocky sand separating the house from the water.
"Hey! Nikki! C'mon!" I heard Chris say. He was really nice, and sorta annoying. He kept trying to get me to go out to the beach with him, play board games…It was like he was trying to treat me like I was his real sister.
I wasn't. I'd be gone soon. They'd get rid of me soon enough when they realized I wasn't going to talk.
I heard Chris walk over to me and lean next to me on the sill. He was 14, five years older than me. "You know, you don't have to talk to me."
I looked at him oddly. Mindy and other people tried everything to get me to talk. Why did this kid say I didn't have to?
"I want you too, sure. But you don't have too." He added, looking out the window. "I mean, I hope you do. I'd like to get to know my new sister."
"I'm not your sister." I said quietly. "I'm not gonna be, so…Just ignore me."
"Nope. Not gonna happen." Chris chuckled. "And why aren't you gonna be my lil' sis?"
"Your parents are gonna get rid'a me in a few months. And I'll never see you guys again." I said simply, shrugging. "That's how it works."
"Uh-uh, nope, wrong, not gonna happen Nix," Chris laughed. "You're gonna stay here until you wanna go, and you're always gonna me my little sister."
Little sister.
The words made me sad. My bottom lip trembled as I looked down at my hands.
Chris must have seen that I was sad, because he cleared his throat and stood up. "Wanna go play Life? You can have the purple car." He offered. He knew purple was my favorite color, his too.
I smiled a little bit, standing up next to him as we went to the living room and got the game out.
I won.
When Chris got here, we definitely had to play Life. And Clue. We used to play Monopoly, but after the great fight of '99 Olivia threw the game out.
"You grew up here?" I heard Sam say. I turned around and saw him looking at one of Greg's the ships in a bottle on a shelf.
"Yeah, came here when I was nine." I said, looking around the hall lovingly.
"Whoa." I heard Dean say. I quickly went over to make sure he didn't break anything, but he'd just opened the door to the spare-room-turned-gym. "Nice set up." He said once I got there, admiring the vast array of exercise equipment, the beat up punching bag hanging over a thick mat, and the large stereo system off to the side.
"C'mon! You're not gonna hurt me Nik! Just hit me!" Chris laughed, standing in front of me chuckling a little.
I just frowned at him, getting more and more annoyed. As he started teasing me, I broke and did what he showed me.
Stomp on the foot. Hit in the groin when the double over. Last, the nose.
I substituted the jaw for the nose, I didn't wanna hurt him that bad.
As Chris groaned on the floor, Greg came rushing in. "What the hell is going on here?" He said loudly. I'd been with Olivia, Greg and Chris for almost two years, and yelling still made my heart breat out in a sprint.
"Dad! It's fine! It's fine!" Christ said, getting up quickly and putting a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Just showing Nix a few self-defense moves." He explained.
Greg looked between me and his son a few times, then noticed how I was hugging the right side of my ribcage. He eyed me warily and I looked down, pulling my shirt up a little to show the purple bruise. I yanked it back down.
"Nikki," Greg sighed. "Nikki you were supposed to tell us if this kept happening."
"Last time she did all you could do was get a meeting with the school councilor!" Chris said suddenly. "They can't stop it!-Besides, I'm only teaching her the defensive, stuff, and she promised not to start any fights, right?" He looked at me at the end.
"Yeah, I promised." I said, nodding quickly.
"Oh." Greg said, looking between us. "In that case, you have to hit the instep of the foot, not the top…"
"You know, I learned how to throw a punch in here." I said idly, frowning at the dust on the punching bag. Chris was always protective of me. He got in more fights than I can count standing up for me. When he joined the Army, he always made sure I could take care of myself, even taught me how to shoot a gun. His unit where like my cousins; a bunch of boys with big muscles and thick skulls who offered to beat up Percy when he ditched me at prom.
Dean nodded approvingly before his nose twitched and he asked where the kitchen was. I rolled my eyes and gave him directions before jogging up to the third floor. I pushed open the third door on the left, and grinned.
They'd kept my room the same. The walls where still a pale purple, the outdated movie and band posters on the walls, a few large cork boards filled with random teenage stuff. My mahogany four-poster bed was still clad in the tie-dye duvet cover I made when I was 16.
I stopped in front of the matching mahogany dresser, frowning as I bent down to pick up the folded sheets on my floor, like someone dropped them. It was odd. Olivia was a very neat, tidy person; she wouldn't just toss clean sheets on my floor. She'd put them neatly at the foot of my bed and teasingly nag me until I put them on my bed.
I pulled my duvet cover off my bed and started to unfold the fitted sheet. I paused to use the mirror over my desk to redo my braid, pulling my dark brown hair into a tight fishtail so the strands wouldn't stick to my neck. I grabbed the fitted sheet again and tucked it around the top right corner of the mattress, then walked around to the bottom left to do the same; just like Olivia showed me.
I felt something drip on the back of my neck. I absentmindedly wiped the wet skin with my hand and went back to pulling my sheets on. A red smear appeared on the stark white sheets.
Another drip on my neck.
I wiped it off and looked at my fingers. They were red, and going by the coppery-metallic smell, it was blood.
Another drip. This one on my cheek.
I slowly looked up, and then I screamed.