Six Hundred Years of Bad Luck
"Whether you're the one that summoned her or not." Sam went along with the theory. It made more sense with every passing moment.
"Which explains why it went after Shoemaker upstairs instead of Lily who summoned her. Lily is way to innocent to have knowledge that she'd killed someone before." Chris brushed off lint from the bed clinging to her pants.
"Take a look at this." Dean turned the computer around. On the screen was a woman lying in a puddle of blood in front of a mirror. There was another picture of the same handprint that had been on the mirrors. There were even letters to spell a name: TRE. But it looked like Mary had died before being able to finish spelling it in her own blood.
"Looks like the same handprint." Sam realized, looking closer at the pictures.
"So who was she?" Chris asked, smirking as she snagged the second chair from the table before Sam could. She whistles innocently when he glared at her.
Dean rolled his eyes but went ahead to explaining, "Her name was Mary Worthington, an unsolved murder in Fort Wayne, Indiana."
"Then let's book it and find out." Chris said. They gathered their stuff and tossed it into the trunk before leaving. Fort Wayne was only an hour's drive away from their fact driving.
It wasn't to hard to convince the detective that had been on the case to talk to them. It seemed like he had been simmering for years for someone to listen to his theories. He was getting on in his years now and was more file paperwork boy then the detective he had been. "I was on the job for thirty five years, detective for most of that. Now everybody packs it in with a few loose ends but the Mary Worthington murder...that one still gets to me." He explained, leading them to the back where they kept files of all their cases.
"What exactly happened?" Dean asked as the old ex-detective pulled out the file they had on Mary Worthington.
The detective looked at them confused and suspiciously, "You kids said you were reporters?"
Chris smiled innocently, reporters was just another fake job they had in the long list of fake jobs. "Of course we are, we learned everything we could about Mary and just want to know more."
Sam explained just how much they knew after extensive research during the drive here. "We know Mary was nineteen, lived by herself. We know she won a few local beauty contests, dreamt of getting out of Indiana, being an actress. And we know the night of March twenty ninth, someone broke into her apartment and murdered her. Cut her eyes out with a knife."
The detective slowly nodded, looking resigned as he remembered vividly what they had found of Mary. "That's right."
Chris stepped closer, "What we want to know, is what you think happened to her."
The detective flipped open the folder and admitted, "Technically I'm not supposed to have a copy of this." The three Winchester's smirked, they knew all about not doing or having what they're supposed to, as the detective showed them the picture Dean hacked from the website. "Now you see this TRE?" He pointed out the bloody words on he mirror. "I think Mary was trying to spell out the name of her killer."
"But she never finished." Chris muttered, looking at the unfinished name. The detective nodded sorrowful.
"You know who it was?" Sammy asked.
The detective shook his head, putting the picture down. "Not for sure...but there was a local man. A surgeon named Trevor Sampson." He pulled out an old black and white picture of a man. "And I think he cut her up good."
Chris looked at the picture. The smile the man wore...it was the smile of a man that knew he got away with something unimaginable and was celebrating. "Now why would he do something like that?"
"Her diary mentioned a man that she was seeing. She called him by his initial, 'T'. Well, her last entry, she was gonna tell "T"'s wife about their affair." The detective explained. Yeah, that would do it. No man wanted to come out as a cheater and have their reputation ruined. It was even worse in that time period.
"How do you know it was Sampson who killed her?" Dean asked curiously.
The detective glanced around cautiously as to make sure nobody was around to listen. He leaned in and whispered, "It's hard to say but the way her eyes were cut out...it was almost professional."
"There wasn't any evidence, was there?" Chris asked, not looking from the picture. "He was never convicted." It was a statement, not a question.
"No prints, no witnesses. He was meticulous." The detective said quietly, regretfully.
"Is he still alive?" Dean asked.
"Nope." The detective said, sitting down with a heavy sigh. "If you ask me, Mary spent her last living moments trying to expose this guy's secrets. But she never could." It was sorrowful to think of this happening to anyone.
"Where's she buried?" Sam asked. That was the one thing they couldn't dig up.
The detective didn't even have to think to remember. "She wasn't. She was cremated." Well that made things harder. If her bones weren't keeping her spirit grounded to the earth then there had to be something else holding her here.
Chris' eyes wondered from Mary and up her blood tipped covered hand slumped against the glass of the mirror... "What about the mirror? You wouldn't happen to know where they put it?"
"No, it was returned to Mary's family a long time ago." The detective said.
Sam raised an eyebrow, "You have the names of her family by any chance?"
Meanwhile, at the local high school, Charlie and Donna were walking into the empty girls' bathroom. Donna was clearly pissed and complaining loudly. "I mean, you bring these strangers into my house and they ask me things like that?"
"They were only trying to help." Charlie protested. She was hesitant to say another thing about Bloody Mary as they were now in a bathroom. "Please Donna, you have to believe me."
Donna scoffed like what she had been trying to explain was absolutely ridiculous. "What? About Bloody Mary?"
Charlie glanced worriedly at the mirror. "Please, I know it sounds crazy-"
"Crazy doesn't even begin to cover it." Donna interrupted. "I mean it's one thing for my sister to believe this crap, she's twelve. But you?"
Charlie begged for her to listen, clinging helplessly to the strap of her bag across her chest. "Think about the way your dad died, the way Jill died."
"Okay." Donna turned to the mirror looking purposeful. "Bloody Mary."
"No!" Charlie cried in a desperate scream.
But her cry went ignored. Donna finished off purposeful and without hesitation. "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary." When nothing happened, Donna faced Charlie with a smirk believing she'd proven herself. "See, nothing happened."
Charlie looked wide eyed with clear horror etched into her face. Like her worse nightmare had just come true. "Why would you do that?"
"Oh my God." Donna said, not even trying to hide her disgust. "There really is something wrong with you."
After leaving the bathroom, Charlie never noticed a woman with bare feet, matted hair, and tattered old dress seem to follow her through the reflections. In science class, her teacher was explaining electrons. Charlie wasn't paying attention. Instead, she opened her compact mirror to see her makeup. Instead, she saw Bloody Mary standing behind her. Charlie screamed, making the whole class jump panicking as she threw her compact down. Charlie stood and ran around the room screaming like a chicken with his head cut off. Then she saw Bloody Mary in the reflection of the windows, picked up a stool, and the window shattered as she threw it as hard as she could.
The teacher grasped her by her shoulders trying to calm her. This was more than teenage rebellion or vandalism, this was pure undeniable panic in her eyes. "Charlie, what's wrong! Just calm down." But that just seemed to make it worse.
He didn't realize Charlie was seeing Bloody Mary in the reflection his glasses. She screamed again, ignoring her teacher's screaming after her as she fed the classroom.
Heading back towards town, Chris was casually sucking on another lollipop listening to Sam who had been decided as their designated caller. He hung up after goodbyes with Mary's younger brother. "The mirror was in the family for years. Until he sold it one week ago to a store called Estate Antiques. A store in Toledo."
Chris pulled the sucker from her mouth with a pop. "Well that explains why Mary's here haunting this town of all towns."
"Mary must be following the mirror." Dean concluded as they drove into the Toledo town line.
"Her spirits definitely tied up with it somehow." Sam agreed, tucking his phone back into his jacket pocket.
"Which means we should probably...what, burn the mirror?" Chris guessed.
Dean thought for a minute, relaxed as he used only one hand to steer. "Isn't there an old superstition that says mirrors can capture spirits?"
Chris thought for a minute. There was, she looked it up for her friend Brooke who had taken a class on myths and legends. "Yeah," Sam answered. "When someone would die in a house, people would cover my the mirrors so the ghost wouldn't get trapped."
"And who knows how long she was slumped on to that mirror before they found her." Chris said. It was information that wasn't told. It could have been morning or two weeks later when neighbors would start reporting a strange smell.
"So the mirror drew in her spirit after she died." Dean clarified.
"Yeah." Sam bit his lip. "But how could she be moving through like a hundred different mirrors?"
Chris flopped back into her seat. "Who knows? Maybe there's some weird mirror dimension that connects all the mirrors together?"
"O...Kay." Dean said slowly. "Maybe we should just find this mirror and smash it."
"Maybe," Sam was cut off from telling another theory when his phone rung. "Hello? Charlie?"
In the Motel room, Chris carefully slung a blanket over the cabinet that had glass for doors so the reflection of Bloody Mary couldn't be seen. Dean pulled the curtains shut while Sam slung a sheet over the window. Charlie sat on the bed with her head buried in her knees to prevent looking when she knew she shouldn't. Charlie had been cursed with Bloody Mary now following her. It was an amazement she made it to the motel looking for them. Chris leaned against the wall, an iron knife in her hand just in case. Her fingers tightened ever so slightly as Sam sat beside Charlie on the bed, coaxing her out cautiously. "Now listen, you're gonna stay right here on this bed. You're not gonna look at glass or anything else that has a reflection, okay? And as long as you do that, she cannot get you."
Charlie whimpered pathetically. "But I can't keep that up forever. I'm gonna die, aren't I?"
"Course not." Chris scoffed like it was a ridiculous notion. She twirled her knife around her fingers with expert movements although she didn't have to think or concentrate on doing so. She was Christina Mary Winchester and would be damned if she was going to use another victim like Charlie to the forces of Bloody Mary. Because honestly, her patience was waning thin when it came to this ghost.
Dean sat on the other side of her. "Aright Charlie, we need to know what happened." He was talking about the secret Charlie had that somebody had died and now Bloody Mary was taking an interest in her.
Charlie swallowed hard and started to explain. "We were in the bathroom. Donna said it."
Chris scoffed, taking a seat at the motel table and propping her feet up. "That's not what we're talking about."
Dean clarified what Charlie didn't want to hear. "Something happened, didn't it? In your life...a secret...where someone got hurt. Can you tell us about it?" Charlie didn't seem the type to hurt someone bad enough to kill them.
Charlie swallowed hard, holding tighter onto her jeans to stop her shaking hands. And then she explained, "I had this boyfriend. I loved him. But he kind of scared me too, you know? And one night, at his house, we got in this fight. Then I broke up with him," which she should have done. Chris would never submit herself to being with a guy she couldn't trust with her life, probably why she hasn't had a steady boyfriend since senior year. "And he got upset, and he said he needed me and he loved me, and he said 'Charlie, if you walk out that door right now, I'm gonna kill myself.' And you know what I said? I said 'Go ahead.' And I left. How could I say that? How could I leave him like that? I just...I didn't believe him, you know? I should have." She put her face in her hands and started to cry. Chris looked at her sympathetic. She usually didn't feel sorry like this but Charlie could die because her boyfriend killed himself and her best friend was an idiot to say those dreaded words three times in a bathroom mirror.
Outside, Chris sat in the backseat, knife back where it belonged on her body as Sam, and Dean sat in the front seat. They were heading to finish this case once and for all. Dean started off their conversation. "You know her boyfriend killing himself, that's not really Charlie's fault.
Sam sighed, looking out the window where it was raining heavily. "You know as well as I do spirits don't exactly see shades of grey."
Charlie squeezed rain droplets out the ends of her hair. "Boys, it doesn't matter. The boyfriend killed himself and Charlie never told anyone why. That's a secret so it's good enough for Mary."
Sam tapped his finger in thought. "You know, I've been thinking. It might not be enough to just smash that mirror."
Chris leaned over the seat, looking at him confused. Dean glanced over. "What do you mean?" Dean finally asked.
Sam voiced his theory. "Mary's hard to pin down, right?8 mean she moves around from mirror to mirror so whose to say that she's not just gonna keep hiding in them forever? So maybe we should try to pin her down, summon her to her mirror and then smash it."
Chris flopped back into her seat. "Yeah, because that'll be easy."
"And for all we know, it won't even work." Dean said, trying to see reason and not get them all killed.
"I don't know, not for sure." Sam admitted.
"And we have another problem." Chris said. "Who exactly are we planning to summon her?"
Sam took a deep breath. "I will. She'll come after me."
Chris felt herself bristle up in anger. Her nails dug into the calloused palms of her hands, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed as they flashed. Sam needed a serious taking to over this guilt trip he was doing to himself which had lasted long enough. Dean decided he would be the man to step up and do so. "You know what, that's it?" Dean pulled off the road and parked. Sam looked startled and confused but Chris moved to the edge of the seat, crossing her arms over the seat bench in front of her with a scowl on her face. "This is about Jessica, isn't it? You think that's your dirty little secret. That you killed her somehow? This has got to stop, man. I mean the nightmares,"
"And calling her name in the middle of the night." Chris added. She'd been woken multiple times in the passed four months to him crying out her name.
"It's going to kill you." Dean continued on like he was never interrupted. "Now listen to me, it wasn't your fault. If you wanna blame something, then blame the thing that killed her. Or hell, why don't you take a swig at me? I mean I'm the one that dragged you away from her in the first plane."
"He can even take a swing at me. I was there to convince him to come." Chris said, never one to turn away from the few she considered family.
Dean glanced at her scowling, "He's not hitting you."
Chris huffed, cheeks puffing out a little as she straightened up and put a hand to her hip. "And why not? So help me Dean Winchester, if you say it's because I'm a girl!"
"No!" Dean denied. "It's because your my little sister!"
Chris glowered, "There's no differen-"
"Hey!" Sam shouted, quieting his arguing older siblings. "It doesn't matter because I'm not hitting anyone. I don't blame either of you."
"Well blaming yourself surely isn't going to help!" Chris barked, still riled up from the monitors fight. All her life she had been told she couldn't do anything because she was a girl or treated like a delegate princess who couldn't lift a finger. So she did the opposite of what people told her to do, always working just to prove some jackass wrong. Just because she was a girl or Dean's little sister didn't mean she couldn't take a punch.
"There is nothing you could've done." Dean said, feeling like he had done said it a million times but Sammy couldn't get it through his thick head.
Sam looked sullen. "I could've warn her."
"Are you an idiot or blind?!" Chris snarled. And he was supposed to be the smart one.
"You didn't know it was going to happen!" Dean shouted seconds after her. "And besides, this isn't a secret. We know all about it."
"We were with you." Chris said quietly. "Mary wouldn't acknowledge that as a secret."
"You don't know everything." Sam said softly, seemingly unable to look at his siblings. Chris looked at her youngest brother in wonder. What on earth was he talking about? Dean asked this and Sam said back, "Well it wouldn't really be a secret if I told you, would it."
"I don't like it." Dean said without hesitation. Chris didn't as well. "It's not gonna happen."
Sam twisted in his seat to look at them. "Look, that girl back there is gonna die unless we do something about it? And you know what? Who knows how many more people are gonna die after that? Now we're doing this. You've got to let me do this." He left no room for argument.
At the shop, Chris stepped back after unlocking the door to the antique shot the mirror was sold to. She used Dean's shoulder to hold herself up as she slid her small lock picking handheld kit into the sole of her shoe. "Well that's great." Dean said as they entered the shop. Forget antique shop, this was more of a mirror shop than anything.
Chris let out a low whistle at the sight. "This might take a while."
"Well then we better get started." Dean pulled out a picture of Mary's mirror. Sticking close, they explored for a solid five minutes not seeing anything. "Maybe they've already sold it?"
Sammy shined a flashlight at something behind Chris. "I don't think so." Chris turned around, jumping as she came face to face with her reflection of the large decades old mirror.
"Easy there, sweetheart." Dean put a hand on her shoulder and reached into his pocket, pulling out the old photograph of the mirror. "That's it." He sighed apprehensive. "You sure about this."
"I think he's sure." Chris bit her lip. She had to push down the urge to just leave. Her older sister urges was rearing its head inside of her telling her this is wrong. That they shouldn't be risking Sammy like this.
Sam answered by looking at his reflection. "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary." Dean looked unsure if he should stop him. Chris looked pissed that they had to do this. He finished, "Bloody Mary."
At that moment, the lights flashed on. Chris jumped with her heart racing before they realized it was headlights from a car pulling up. "I'll go check that out. Stay here and be careful. Smash anything that moves." Sam readjusted his grip on the crowbar he held.
"Maybe you should go with him?" Sam suggested.
Chris narrowed her eyes, "And why is that?" Like hell she was leaving her baby brother to possibly be killed.
"Nothing's happening. She's probably won't come until I'm alone. Just go with Dean." Sam tried to reason with her.
Chris huffed and scowled clearly not pleased but nodded. "If I hear something, don't expect me to stay there." Then she trailed after where Dean had disappeared past the mirrors. She left not knowing Bloody Mary had appeared in another mirror near Sam.
Chris stuck to the shadows, barely peeking out to see Dean walking with his hands up to the two police cars that had pulled up. "Whoa guys, false alarm. I tripped the system." Good, Chris thought. Make them believe you actually belong here.
"Who are you?" One of the policemen questioned. Couldn't they just agree and go along with what a Winchester said. Although their little bunch of rebels didn't always look the most trustworthy with their large jackets and biker boots.
"I'm the boss's kid." Dean lied on the spot. Chris smirked. Dean may be a bad liar but at times like this, he was one of the best she saw. They had to leave him alone now that he was officially suppose to be there.
The other guy raised an eyebrow looking skeptical. "You're Mister Yamashiro's kid?" Chris slapped her forehead. Idiot. That was some kind of Japanese name. Dean could pretend to be a lot of things and get away with it but he couldn't pretend to be Japanese and get away with it. There clearly wasn't any of the heritage in him being that he was a full blooded American. She didn't even think he could speak a word of the language. Idiot. Dean seemed stumped by this change of things as well. Double idiot. Make up something before she had to go out there and talk they're way out of getting arrested...again. She had a record for grave robbery, destruction of property, and breaking an entering.
Dean stuttered on, quickly going with the only thing that would possible make sense. "I was adopted." Chris resisted banging her head on the wall. He could have at least made it somewhat more convincing. "You know, I just really don't have time for this right now." Before Chris could blink, Dean had done punched one cop and then the other before they could even reach for their guns. It would have been funny at any other moment. And these guys had been trained to protect this town, got beat by one guy who knocked them out with a single hit to the face. Damn, that was just embarrassing. At that moment, there was the sound of shattering glass.
Chris couldn't hear exactly what Mary was saying but it had to be something awful from the way Sam was withering on the ground, eyes starting to bleed. Dean was the one that broke Mary's mirror with her reflection in it with his crowbar. "Sammy?!" Chris asked, trying not to panic as she pulled him up sitting.
"It's Sam," he corrected, one hand blindly holding onto hers as she had her other arm around his shoulders. His other hand was being used to wipe the blood from his eyes.
"God, are you okay." Dean asked, kneeling down on the other side to help his sister support their heavy younger little brother. Sam grunted but nodded. Dean slung Sam's arm around his shoulder and tugged him to his feet. Chris stood hovering beside him, one arm on Sam's elbow. But there was a feeling in her that said this wasn't over.
She was proven right when Mary literally climbed out of the shattered mirror and waked towards them. She didn't flinch or even seem to notice as glass slid across the soles of her feet. Chris shook and felt her legs give way. She fell to the door with her brothers. Dean in his fall forced a mirror to move, showing Mary's reflection. Now it was Mary's turn for her secrets to be revealed in the face of her own reflection. "You kill them! All those people! You killed them!" Mary started to spasm, chocking on her own blood before she melted into a puddle on the floor, never to be seen or heard from again outside of kids playing Bloody Mary. But at least she would no longer be killing the gamers.
Dean kicked the mirror over and the pieces shattered into thousands of unfixable pieces. Chris felt herself breathe easier, as if Bloody Mary's presence had been the reason her throat closed up. "Hey, Sam? Chris?" Dean had to add his two cents. "That has to be like...what? Six hundred years of bad luck."
Sam chuckled weakly. Chris scoffed, "Because that's what we need right now." But even she couldn't stop the grin that formed on her face.
The next morning, Chris pulled her hair into a forced ponytail, pushing bangs out of her eyes. "So this is really over?" Charlie asked cautiously as they were dropping her off at home.
"You'll never have to worry about Bloody Mary again. And we don't have to be worry about saying it." Chris smirked proudly, half distracted with searching through her bag. She really wanted candy right now but it looked like she needed to make a supply run.
Charlie never felt more relieved as she shook Dean's hand and climbed out of the car. "Charlie?" Sam called after her before she could make it to the house. Your boyfriend's death...you really should try to forgive yourself. No matter what you did, you probably couldn't have stopped it. Sometimes bad things just happen." Charlie smiled and made her way inside. Chris leaned over the seat, a small smile on her lips.
"That's some good advice." Dean said subtly as they started their drive throughout town.
"Maybe you'll listen to it yourself." Chris commented, less subtle as she leaned back in her seat.
"Sam?" Dean said as they stopped at the towns redlining. "Now that this is all over. I want to know what that secret was." That got Chris' attention and she looked at him curiously. What was so bad he needed to keep secret from family?
Sam looked out the window in thought before saying, "Look, both of you." Already knowing Chris was listening hard instead of looking for that candy she claimed she was doing seconds ago. "You're family and I would die for either of you." Chris made the shocking realization at that moment, like lightening striking her, that she would do the same. "But there are some things I need to keep to myself." Chris turned her gaze back to the window. That sounded...ominous.
How could she know that Sam was also looking out his window, eyes widening in shock as he saw his dead girlfriend Jess in a long white dress. As they passed a pole, she vanished.
They left Toledo Ohio without a glance back.
A week and a few days later and unknown miles away, a police officer was trying to soothe a young woman as he untied her from what kept her bound to the chair. "In there, in there." She whispered desperately, pointing out the room her attacker had disappeared through when police arrived.
The SWAT team had even been called and cautiously moved into the room. "Freeze! Don't move!" One of the men shouted at the man trying to escape through the window. The man froze, half hidden by the shadows of the night. In his hand was a silver knife. "Drop the knife!" The man slowly turned. Seeing his face...he would later be identified as Dean Winchester.
One week earlier at another rundown old gas station, Chris once again found herself laying back on the hood of the car. She was happily sucking on her latest candy, kicking her legs like a child as she waited for Dean to gas up the car. She had just came back from her bathroom break. Dean was going on about what they're plans should be. "I figure we'd hit Tucumcari by lunch, then head sound, hit Bisbee by midnight...Sam wears women's underwear."
Chris came up chocking and sputtering on her candy. "Dean! There are some things I can live with without imaging that. Ugh, now that image is in my head."
Dean grinned cockily and Sam rolled his eyes, half hanging out the door as he sat on the edge of his seat. "Well you don't ever have to worry about finding women's underwear in my bag. I've been listening, I'm just busy." He said, looking down at his phone.
"Busy doing what?" Dean asked nosily.
"Just please tell me it had nothing to do with your underclothes." Chris called, hopping off the car as Dean finished.
"Emails from my friends at Stanford." Sam said distractedly. Chris' head came back around with her hair falling over her shoulder looking at him in surprise. She never thought he'd left behind people at his school. She's been from place to place and never really left anybody she'd want to stay in contact with.
Even Dean looked surprised. "You're kidding. You still keep in touch with your college buddies?" He seemed to find that funny.
"Why not?" Sam asked defensively.
Chris tossed her trash away. "Let me ask you this? What do they think you've gone after all this time?" It had been four months and two weeks since the three siblings reconnected and started to travel again.
Sam told the truth...sort of. "I tell them I'm on a road trip with my big brother and older sister. I tell them I needed some time off after Jess."
Chris shrugged, leaning against her car door. "Alright, believable lie."
Sam made his standard bitch face. "No, I didn't lie. I just didn't tell them...everything."
"Yeah, that's called lying." Dean said, taking the gas nozzle out of the car. "I mean, hey man, I get it. Telling the truth is far worse."
Chris leaned her elbow on the car and her chin into her hand. "At least they'll be fine now that whatever it was is clearly not there anymore."
"Well what do you expect?" Sam huffed, waving hands. "I couldn't just cut everybody out of my life." That's exactly what you're supposed to do in a life like this.
Dean said, "Looks, it sucks. But in a job like this, you can't get close to people, period." She learned that ages ago. You couldn't get close in normal or a supernatural life. Either way, people died. They just die sooner and more people than the normal life style.
"But don't be to depressed. That's what families for, right? We're all we need." Chris said, picking at her nails with a bored expression.
Sam shook his head with an almost ghost like fond smile. "Both of you, separated for over twenty years and both end up anti-social." Makes Chris wonder what happened to Sam to make him not the same as them. Sam made a horrified sound while looking at his phone. That got they're attention. "In this email from this girl Rebecca Warren. One of those friends of mine."
"Is she hot?" Dean asked. Sam ignored Dean's yelp as Chris hit his shoulder.
Rolling her eyes, Chris asked the bigger question. "What happened to Rebecca."
"I went to school with her and her brother, Zack. She says Zack's been arrested for killing his girlfriend. Rebecca says he didn't do it but it sounds like the cops have a pretty good case." Chris' felt her eyes widen. Damn, what kind of people was this kid hanging around? Dean felt the same which he proved by voicing this seconds after the thought passed her mind.
"Some people hide their true nature, Sammy." Chris said, remembering all to well all the foster families she had growing up. They would fool her social worker and then...it was to painful to remember sometimes. "You just don't realize it until hey snap."
"Maybe you know this Zack as well as he knows you." Dean suggested. After all, no one at Stanford knew what Sam did for the first eighteen or so years of his life before he left it behind.
"They're in St. Louis. We're going." Sam said, not bothering to actually ask.
Chris thought back on her geography. "Didn't we go around that place like five hundred miles ago or something?" Sam hadn't wanted to go through it since there was a possibility of running into someone he knew and the truth coming out.
"Four hundred. This doesn't even sound like our kind of problem. There's no reason to go." Dean insisted. Really, they were hunters. They couldn't stop every time someone needed they're help that wasn't supernaturally inflicted.
"It is our problem. They my friends." Sam protested. Chris understood, she really did. After all, she'd once flown halfway across the country just to move in with Brooke. The Winchester's looked at each other. Security cameras would show them turning around and going the way they came instead of confusing on.
Rebecca's house was really fancy. Huge actually, with a wide porch. Rebecca, a blonde about her size squealed in excitement as she hugged Sam. "Well if it isn't little Becky." Chris shifted awkwardly on her feet. This was just a glimpse into the life Sam once had and had given up.
Becky shook her head grinning. "You know what you can do with that little Becky crap." She was just to perky for Chris' taste.
"I got your email." Sam explained why they were here. Rebecca seemed to only have eyes for Sam, not paying the two behind him any attention.
"I didn't think you would come here." Rebecca said. That seemed to just be the Winchester way, going anywhere you were needed in the country.
Dean was clearly tired of being ignored and shoved himself between them. He flashed that smile women went nuts for and shook her hand. "Dean, older brother."
Well Chris couldn't have that. So she pushed between them. "Ignore the stud. Names Chris, Christina but call me Chris. Older sister and middle child."
Rebecca grinned, shaking her hand. "It's nice to meet you. It's nice to meet Sam's family actually. Jess mentioned he had a brother but I didn't know anything about a sister." Chris smiled forcefully. Wasn't exactly Sam's fault he wasn't able to tell.
"We're here to help. Whatever we can do." Sam interrupted. Good thing to, this was getting to be too much of an apple pie life, meeting friends of the brother. She half expected to go in and have thanksgiving dinner or something.
Rebecca led them into the house. Chris was almost to scared to touch anything. Like she'd break something and they'd try to make her pay a debt before she skipped town. "Nice place." Dean said, looking out of place himself in his leather jacket and biker boots.
"It's my parents." Rebecca explained, leading them into the kitchen. "I was just crashing here for the long weekend when everything happened. I decided to take the semester off. I'm gonna stay until Zack's free." Chris wouldn't have been able to focus on school either if her friend was in jail. That actually happened once when her foster sister was framed for shoplifting candy bars. Turns out it was their foster dad's biological daughter trying to get rid of them and be bad.
"Where are your folks?" Sam asked. There didn't seem to be anybody in the house but you never knew.
"They live in Paris for half the year so they're on their way home for the trial." Rebecca said. Chris whistler, damn. She'd never been to Paris. "Do any of you want a beer or something?"
Dean grinned excited but Sam quickly turned it down. "So Rebecca, right? What can you tell us that happened?" Chris cut to the chase. She didn't want to be here any longer than she had to.
Rebecca explained. "Zack came home and he found Emily tied to a chair. And she was beaten up and bloody and she wasn't breathing." Great, here comes the water works. Rebecca was starting to cry. Chris understood, after all, this Zack was Rebecca's friend but there was only so many times she could be around a weeping woman which she was practically every few weeks. "So he called nine one one and the police, they showed up and arrested him. But the thing is, the only way Zack could've killed Emily is if he was in two places at the same time. The police, they have a video. It's from the security tape across the street. It showed Zack coming home at ten thirty. Emily was killed just after that but I swear, he was here with me having a few beers until at least after midnight." Chris raised an eyebrow. Two places at once? Where had she heard of that before.
"You know." Sam started cautiously. "Maybe we could see the crime scene at Zack's house?" Chris looked at him in disbelief. It wasn't often they told someone that was what they were planning on doing unless they introduced themselves as FBI. Actually, they never did, now that she thought about it.
"We could?" Dean asked. Apparently he was just as surprised as Chris.
"Of course we could." Chris plastered on a smile. She patted Sam's shoulder a little harder than necessary. She only hoped he knew what he was doing before they were arrested. It only wasted they're time when that happens.
Rebecca looked startled. "Why? I mean, what could you do?" Good questioned. What could a guy who hadn't even finished lawyer college do at a crime scene?
Sam leaned in. "Well me, not much. But Dean's a cop." Well that made sense. Nobody would know Dean was technically unemployed.
Dean laughed, stepping into his role with practiced ease. "Detective actually. And, can't do anything without my partner, sweetheart here." Dean clapped a heavy hand on Chris' shoulder.
Chris smiled pleased and straightened up. "Best damn detectives in Bisbee, Arizona." She had finally been updated from intern to detective since Sam was out of commission for this one. Couldn't pretend to be a cop with someone you knew but didn't know the real you around. Bisbee had been the town they were in before turning around to come here.
Rebecca seemed hesitant for a moment. "It's so nice to offer but, I don't know." People, always had to make everything so damn more difficult than it had to be.
Sam grabbed her attention. "Bec, look. I know Zak didn't do this. Now we have to find a way to prove he's innocent." And doing that may just break a few laws along the way.
"And like I said, we are the best." Chris added, laying it on thick. "If there's anything that can prove Zack didn't do this, we'll find it.
That seemed to clear Rebecca's concerns and she nodded. "Okay, I'm gonna go get the keys." She left them alone in the kitchen. Rookie mistake. Leaving the Winchester's unattended in your house for any amount of time gave them time to talk, discuss, plan, or search.
On cue, as soon as Rebecca disappeared around the corner, Dean turned to Sam. "Oh yeah man, you're a real straight shooter with your friends." Sam still refused to admit he was lying to his friends.
Sam scowled. "Look, Zack and Becky need our help." A lot of people needed help, didn't mean they should grab the first one they hear trouble from.
Chris pushed between them. "Boys, let stop long enough to find out if this is our kind of case or not."
"Two places at once? We've looked into less." Sam said. He had a point.
Zack's house was only a few blocks over so it only took a few minutes. Chris slammed her door as she climbed out. Zack was a rich kid to seeing the size of his house. "You're sure this is okay?" Rebecca asked worriedly, quickly following the Winchester's up the drive. Couldn't people just go along with what thy said? Would be so much easier but then she'd remember, they were Winchester's. When had anything been easy.
"Yeah, I am an officer of the law." Dean said awkwardly. Way to hold strong, Dean.
Chris plowed ahead. "Come on bitches, let's just get this party started." They better hurry before neighbors start showing up and questioning them. Then it'd be just one huge mess after the other.
Inside Zack's house was just as upper class as the outside looked. Chris let her eyes scan everywhere they could see, mentally cataloging every thing that could be of help. All noticeable exits like windows and doors. All possible second made weapons like the iron pokers by the fireplace. Anything that looked out of place shiv seemed to be everywhere. Blood was splattered across the walls and in large puddles on the floor. She was careful not to step in any. Last thing she needed was police tracking a boot print that wasn't there before to her. Rebecca hesitated on her front porch in the doorway.
Sam, ever the helper and comforter, turned to Rebecca. "Beck, you wanna wait outside?"
Rebecca swallowed hard but shook her head. "No, I wanna help." She ducked under the police tape taped across the doorway. Had to admit, girl had guts for a civilian to enter the bloodshed that was this house.
"Tell us what else the police said." Sam demanded. Chris knelt down by an abandoned wooden baseball bat with the faintest blood speckles on it but nothing that would be supernatural indicated.
Rebecca took a shuddering breath, averting her eyes as if to not see the blood that lay everywhere. "Well there's. I sign of a break in. They say that Emily let her attacker in. The lawyers, they're already talking about plea bargain." She started to cry again.
Sam put a hand to her shoulder. "Look Beck, if Zack didn't do anything, it means someone else did. Any idea who?"
Rebecca predictably shook her head before remembering something. "Um, there was something about a week before. Somebody broke in here and stole some clothes, Zack's clothes. The police-they don't think it's anything. We're not that far from downtown. Sometimes people get robbed." Yeah, like jewels or expensive antiques or stray money lying around. But clothes? And so soon before after all of this happening. If this turned out to be their kind of case then it had to be connected somehow.
"Does anyone hear that...really annoying sound?" Chris suddenly asked. It sounded like a pathetic whining. She followed Dean to the back door and looked around him. That yelping turned out to be the little dog behind a fence of the neighbors, glaring at them.
Rebecca came up beside her. "That used to be the sweetest dog." It just looked like a giant rat to Chris.
"Used to?" Chris scoffed. That thing they called a dog looked like it couldn't be around people with that annoying whine in its back.
"What happened?" Dean asked, not looking from the dog. Animas were more sensitive to the paranormal and supernatural than people.
Rebecca shrugged, "He just changed." Not much help.
Chris tried another tactic. "You wouldn't happen to know exactly when he changed?"
Rebecca thought for a moment. "I guess around the time of the murder." Chris and Dean looked at each other with similar expressions. If you hadn't thought they were siblings before, it was a lot easier to tell now.
They found Sam in the kitchen. Dean explained about the psychotic yelping dog while Chris distracted herself with looking at the picture on the fridge. It was clearly Sam taken within a year ago grinning madly into the camera. With him was Rebecca and someone she'd assumed was Zack. Chris snapped out of it as Dean suggested, "Maybe Fido saw something." Talking about the dog next door.
"So we agree? This is our kind of problem?" Chris asked, clapping her hands together.
Dean seemed hesitant to agree. "Let's just look at the security tape you know, just to make sure." That was when Rebecca found them. Dean quickly stepped back into his role of small town cop off duty. "Do you think your lawyers would let us see the security footage-we don't have that kind of jurisdiction." He explained to Rebecca.
"I've already got it. I didn't want to say anything in front of the cops." Rebecca admitted. Sam looked shocked that she had it but not disapproved. Dean laughed pleased. Chris smirked, maybe this girl wasn't so bad after all. "I stole it off the lawyers desk. I just had to see it for myself."
At Rebecca's house, Chris sat in the armchair. Her legs were spread and she leaned over, her elbows on her knees to watch the scream more closely. "Here he comes." Zack was entering the house. Everything seemed normal, nothing that would raise supernatural hunter alarms.
"Twenty two oh four." Dean noticed the time on the bottom of the screen. "That's just after ten. You said time of death was ten thirty?" Which gave half an hour of time to beat someone to death.
"Our lawyers hired some kind of video expert. He says the tape's authentic. It wasn't tampered with." Well it wouldn't be the first time someone screwed up completely.
Sam didn't look up from the screen, sounding distracted. "Hey Bec, can we take those beers now?" Chris looked at him curiously. Was he trying to make her leave on purpose? Had he noticed something that her and Dean hadn't. He did pay more attention to certain details. Like that Wendigo in that guys video a couple months ago. Rebecca nodded and stood up. She made it to the doorway before Sam stopped her. "Maybe some sandwiches too?" That would take her even longer to get back leading them to have longer to talk.
Rebecca laughed. "What do you think this is, Hooters?" Then she went into the kitchen.
"I wish." Dean said, getting hit in the face with a throw pillow due to Chris. "Stop throwing things!" Dean whispered screamed, pushing the pillow beside him huffing my.
Chris shook her head hiding a smirk. She hadn't been on the 'boys' baseball team one foster home in middle school because she had a sucky arm. Then she turned serious. "Did you see something, Sammy?"
Sam was to busy rewinding the tape a few seconds to give her a bitch face about the nickname. "Check this out." He replayed the video slower. At one part, Zack had looked straight into the camera. But where his dark eyes should be, they shined silver, like little beacons of light. Sam paused the tape where it was.
"Well maybe it's just a camera flare." Dean suggested. It sounded like he would say anything just to prove his point that there was no case here and they'd come all this way for nothing. But the evidence would just keep stacking against him in the long run.
Chris scoffed. "Since when has anything we've seen been nothing more than...a coincidence? I've never seen a camera flare act like that, focused on just the eyes in that way."
"You know," Sam interrupted them. "A lot of cultures believe that a photograph can catch a glimpse of the soul. Remember that dog that was freaking out? Maybe he saw the thing. Maybe this is some kind of dark double of Zack's, something that looks like him but isn't him." He got more excited at the possibility.
"Like a doppelgänger." Dean said. Which basically meant someone identical but not actually the same as the original.
"An evil twin." Chris said. She remembered this one case she did back when she was fifteen. She thought this girl at school who acted like a little angel was a witch and going around killing people. Turned out it was the girl's identical twin sister who was like a punk rock gothic chick. With their different styles, she had never realized how much they looked alike till she broke in their house in the middle of the night. Angel like girl had to help kill gothic chick who wouldn't give up the magic. Magic was one thing but she was using devil magic to kill people she felt wronged her. Even for simple things like not letting her borrow a pencil in class even though you didn't have another one.
At least they got a free lunch from Rebecca.
The next morning, "Get up, Chris." Sam shook her. Chris groaned, glaring up at the sunlight as Sam held open the car door. She'd fallen back asleep after leaving the motel so early to come back to Zack's house. Muttering curses at Sam who made them come, Chris crawled out of the car. Her clothes were wrinkled but mostly covered with her multi-pocket jacket. Chris leaned against the car, slowly pulling her hair that was everywhere into a tight ponytail.
"What are we doing here at five thirty in the morning?" Dean complained loudly. He glared as Chris swiped his coffee cup and took a long sip. It sucked but coffee did wake her up some.
"I realized something." Sam said, leaning against the car beside Chris. "The videotape shows the killer going in but never coming out."
"So he came out the back door." Dean guessed. Not like there was anywhere else it could have gone
Chris looked up at the house curious, her tired mine waking and focusing on the case now. "Wouldn't that mean they'd be another trail leading out the back."
"Exactly." Sam grinned excited. "A trail the police would never pursue." A trail they would never even think was there to begin with, Chris thought, resting the mouth of the styrofoam coffee cup.
"Cause they think the killer next left. And they caught your friend Zack inside." Dean finished, scowling. He ran a hand through his short hair. "I still don't know what we're doing here at five thirty in the morning."
Chris rolled her eyes and straightened up. "Come on bitches, let's just go see if we can find anything." Chris said. And they moved around out back. Nobody would notice they were there due to the six and a half foot high wooden fences surrounding back yards.
Sam was the first to notice a telephone pole had blood smeared on one side. As if someone came running by and grabbed onto the pool to stop from falling forward. "Blood. Someone came this way." Sam exclaimed, excited his theory was looking more and more right as time past.
"But the trail ends." Dean said, bursting his brother's bubble. "I don't see anything over here." And he was right. Other then the blood smear on the telephone pole, there was nothing else that would lead them to wherever this monster was hiding out.
"Not unless it knows how to fly? What monsters can look like someone else and fly?" Chris asked curiously. She raised one hand to the sky and glare into the sunlight but it wasn't like what they wanted to kill would just drop out of the sky at the moment. It may work in cartoons but not real life. At that moment, an ambulance wailing drove past. Chris lowered her head and shared a look with her brothers.
It wasn't hard to follow the ambulance since it stopped just down the road and a few houses. Chris watched standing between Sam and Dean as a handcuffed man was led into a police car. "What happened?" Dean asked a nearby woman. It seemed like all the neighbors had ventured from their homes to see what was going on.
How'd she know because nobody else seemed to be talking, Chris would never know. But the woman answered, "He tried to kill his wife. Tied her up and beat her." Two men trying to beat they're wife's to death in the same neighborhood within the same month. That couldn't be normal.
"Really?" Sam asked, glancing at the woman and back again. Chris narrowed her eyes. The man had been shaken, looking like he was crying heavily with a few clear injuries on his person. That didn't look like someone who would beat up they're wife.
The woman was clearly a gossip and continued on talking. "I used to see him going to work in the morning. He'd wave, say hello. He seemed like such a nice guy." Everyone seems nice when you first meet them. That didn't mean they always stayed that way. People change everyday. But Chris couldn't get the look of that shaken guy out of mind.
They watched sullenly as the man was driven away in the back of a police car.