Nightmare

The next day, we arrived at the Miller house and Dean rung the doorbell. At least Sam's hair was slicked back. My hair was stuffed under this horrid heavy black head dress in the morning sun. Sam sighed, "This has gotta be a whole new low for us."

"I admit, not even I have done anything like this." I said annoyed, following with the new cross necklace Dean made me wear over my black garments. Dean looked at us both with a shit eating smirk.

Mr. Miller opened the door, a permanent looking scowl on his face. Dean started them off. "Good afternoon. I'm Father Simmons, this is Father Frehley and Sister Agnus." Never let Dean pick out my fake names, his always sucked. "We're new junior priests and our nun friend here is mentoring us." Least I wasn't the intern this time. "We're from St. Augustines." The local church. "May we come in?"

The man silently nodded. "Thank you sir." I said in a meek voice, bowing my head respectfully as we entered, my hands folded in front of me. I tried my best to get into this apparent new character I was forced into.

"We're sorry for your loss, Sam, or Father Frehley, said as we entered.

Dean decided to lay it on thick as the door was shut behind us. "It's in difficult times like these when the Lord's guidance is most needed." Many neighbors had come to visit and we're still killing around the house.

The man interrupted Dean with a glare. "Look, you wanna pitch your whole 'Lord has a plan' thing?" He sounded pissed to hell. "Fine; just don't pitch it to me. My brother's dead." And nothing could fix something like that. Not even us, I didn't know anything but crossroad demons being able to bring the dead back to life. And the price was never worth it because ten years down the road, you'll be in hell being tortured for all of eternity.

"Roger, please!" The blonde haired wife of the deceased had shown up. Roger grumbled angrily and stormed off into the crowd of people milling around the house. "I'm sorry about my brother in law." Mrs. Miller stuttered. "He's just so upset about Jim's death."

"Completely understandable." I said in a meekly voice.

"Would you like some coffee?" Mrs. Miller asked politely.

"That would be great." Dean agreed.

Mrs. Miller led us to the living room where we were sat on her couch and passed out coffee. "It was wonderful of you to stop by." Mrs. Miller said, handing me my coffee. "The support of the church means so much right now." She handed a cup to Sam.

"We always need each other during troubled times as these." I said.

"After all," Dean agreed. "We are all God's children." Mrs. Miller left briefly as another guess drew her away. Dean quickly grabbed a few cocktail sausages on the coffee table.

"Give me one." I muttered, grabbing some from him. I stuck it in my mouth, hungry but that was when we noticed Sam staring at us.

"What?" We both asked, mouth full of food.

"Just, tone it down a little bit father, sister." Sam said.

I shrugged. "At least I'm actually a sister."

"A sister," Sam agreed. "Not a nun."

"Not like you're a father either." I muttered to him quietly. We all shushed as Mrs. Miller returned, taking a seat across from us.

"So, Ms. Miller" Dean started us off. "Did your husband have a history of depression?"

Ms. Miller quickly shook her head. "Nothing like that." She looked like she was about to burst into tears at any minute. "We had our ups and downs like everyone but we were happy." She started to cry. "I just don't understand...how Jim could do something like this."

"I'm so sorry you had to find him like that." Sam apologized.

"I couldn't...even imagine the pain of having someone you love in that position." I said awkwardly. I never really loved anybody. Nobody but my brothers at least. It was hard not to grow close after sharing motel rooms and being in a car for practically seven or eight hours a day.

"Actually," Ms. Miller nodded to the kitchen. "Our son Max, he was the one who found him." Max was the man in his early twenties with curly blonde hair and sickly pale skin, heavy bags under his eyes.

"Do you mind if maybe, I go talk to him." Sam was standing.

"I'll go with you." I said quickly before he could leave. I just didn't like being around crying women. I may be a woman myself but the blubbering just wasn't something I could handle at times.

"So what was your dad like?" Sam asked after we introduced ourselves.

Mad shrugged, looking away. "Just a normal dad."

"And you spend a lot of time here?" I asked. "You live at home?" I wouldn't understand staying at the home. Hell, I left my last foster home at seventeen and his from social services till my eighteenth birthday.

"Yeah." Max nodded. "Trying to save up for school but it's hard."

"Isn't getting money always?" Heck, me and the boys have already spent some nights camped out in the impala on the side of the road to sleep because we couldn't pool together enough money for a motel room.

"So when you found your dad..." Sam trailed off.

"I woke up, I heard the engine running." Max paused for a moment. "I don't know why he did it."

"I'm sure he just, wasn't thinking straight at the time." I said awkwardly. How many people died from locking themselves in they're car with the exhaust running? It wasn't common cause I rarely ever heard about it. And most of those were accidents like falling asleep in the car with it running. Not suicides like the police was saying it was.

"I know it's rough, losing a parent." Sam said. That hit a little close to home for me. "Especially when you don't have all the answers." That night twenty two years ago not only took my mother, but my father and two brothers.

"Thank you for your time." I said and Sam and I headed upstairs where I had seen Dean disappear a few minutes ago.

Dean must have heard us coming because he spun around, half stuffing his homemade EMF reader into his priest jacket. "Anything?" Sam asked.

"Zip." Dean sighed.

"So I guess we should leave before our cover ends blown sky high." I muttered. We headed down the stairs and quickly left before anyone could stop us.

At the motel room an hour later, Dean was cleaning his guns. I was sharpening the knife I kept in my combat boot. I put my gear down as Sam walked in, having been at the library doing research on the Miller house. "What do you have?" Dean asked.

I said, "And please tell me it's something." Other than Sam's weirdo dream, we didn't have anything to go on here.

"I wish." Sam huffed, looking annoyed. "Nothing bad has happened in the Miller House since it was built."

"What about the land?" Dean suggested.

Sam dropped onto one of the beds. "No graveyards, battle fields, tribal lands or any other kind of atrocity on or near the property."

"So in other words, we've got nothing." I dropped my chin into the palm of my hand.

"And there wasn't any cold spots or sulfer when I searched that house." Dean said. "Nada." Honestly, I was starting to think there was nothing wrong with this house and Sam just had a freaky accurate dream.

"And the family said everything was normal?" Sam asked. I looked at Dean who had been with Ms. Miller during that conversation while Sam and I were with Max.

Dean ran a tired hand down his face. "Well if there was a demon or poltergeist in there, you think somebody would have noticed it." He leaned back in his chair. "I used the infer-red thermal scanner and there was nothing."

"You'd be surprised by what people will do to ignore that more than they're perfect little lives actually exist." I sighed. I knew first hand how ridiculous people could be when denying the truth. Those that understood it were either survivors, gone crazy, or they became hunters.

Sam turned to us seeking answers we couldn't give. "So what, you think Jim Miller killed himself and my dream was just some sorta freakish coincidence?!"

"I dunno, I'm pretty sure there's nothing supernatural about that house." Dean said, hitting the table annoyed.

Sam rubbed at his temples on either side of his head frustrated. "Well, maybe it has nothing to do with the house?" He paused. "Maybe it's just..." He wasn't willing to give up on this family just because of one bizarro dream he had. "Maybe it's connected to Jim in some other way?"

"Or there's just nothing here." I grumbled. I barely finished before Sam was falling off the bed, crying out in pain as he grabbed his head. Dean and I were up in a flash, falling to either side of him worriedly. He looked like he was in so much pain, more pain than s simple headache could bring. Dean was trying to snap him out of it while I shook his shoulder but neither of us got a response.

Sam was staring at us blankly but he wasn't really seeing us. He could see something, in his head. It was like his dreams, only he was awake and it accompanied a pounding headache. He could see Roger walking into his kitchen with groceries. He could see Roger close the open window and lock it. Then he started unpacking his groceries only to turn around as he heard the window slide open. But there was no one there and the window had been locked. Confused, Roger leaned out the window to try seeing if maybe a screw was loose or something and that was causing his window to act all wonky. He would never know what it was, because his window slid down with a solid snap. His body fell down limp in his kitchen while his head with wide open eyes went bouncing down the fire escape. "It's happening again." Sam whispered, awareness coming back to his eyes. "Something's gunna kill Roger Miller." Dean and I shared a helplessly confused look.

Several minutes later, we were speeding towards Roger's place after looking up the address. "You ok?" Dean asked, glancing over fearfully. He wasn't scared of Sam, he was just scared of what was happening, how he couldn't control or stop it from happening.

"Please don't tell me you're going to be sick." I leaned away from him, trying to diffuse the tension. "I don't do well if you get sick on me.

"I'm fine." Sam said shortly. Dean sighed heavily and I leaned against my window. Finally Sam exploded with everything he'd been trying to hide. "I'm scared!" I jolted up in surprise. "These nightmares weren't bad enough, now I'm seeing things when I'm awake?" It was just one big confusing mess ever since Dean broke into her apartment all those months ago. "And these visions, or whatever, they're getting intense." I gnawed at my lip worriedly. "And painful." I looked down at my lap, hands squeezing into fists. I hated being unable to do anything, feeling totally helpless.

"You'll be alright, it'll be fine." Dean said firmly.

"Saying that every time this is brought up isn't going to make it true, you know." I said scowling. Dean threw me a glare in the rearview mirror.

Sam ignored them, shaking his head. "What is it about the Millers? Why am I connected to them, why am I watching them die? Why the hell is this happening to me?" That was a question I couldn't answer.

"I don't know," Dean said quietly before he turned more firm. Like his word was law or something. "But we'll figure it out, we've faced the unexplainable every day." More than most people in a lifetime. "This is just another thing." But honestly, it wasn't. Because this wasn't just some random monster of the week we could kill. This was our little brother, age wise, not size.

"No, this isn't just another." I said quietly, just loud enough to be heard. The car descended into silence.

Sam finally broke the silence, staring straight ahead. "Tell the truth, doesn't this freak you out?"

Dean paused and glanced over. "This doesn't freak me out." Dean said firmly despite clearly lying.

"Of course I don't." I agreed quietly. I was lying as well. But I wasn't freaked out because this was Sam. I was just scared of how this was happening, what it could mean for our little family. Sam stared straight ahead, unable to look at them after they're clear lies.

It was late at night when we skidded to a stop beside Roger who had just climbed out his car carrying groceries. "Hey Roger." Sam called out the car window.

Roger scoffed looking annoyed. "What are you guys, missionaries? Leave me alone."

"We just wanna talk for a minute!" I climbed out the car. But Roger was already walking inside and locking the door behind him.

Sam banged up the door, "We're not priests, you gotta listen to us!" But Roger ignored him, hurrying up the stairs that would take him to his apartment.

"Let's go this way." We headed around the corner and ran up the fire escape, me trailing in the back. We were one floor below when there was the sound of a sliding window. I turned pale as Roger's decapitated head went rolling past our feet. We had been to late. Several seconds past as we stood there, frozen at what had just happened.

Dean quickly pulled a cloth out his inside coat pocket, wiping the fire escape railing. "We have to wipe off the fingerprints, last thing we need is the cops accusing us of this one. Come on!" Using the cloth, he pried open the window to Roger's kitchen.

"Smart, go through the kitchen window that just snapped some guy's head off." I said, carefully climbing in after Dean.

After we examined the apartment, we quickly left the same way we came. On the way to the car, Dean was once again saying how there was nothing we could find. "No signs either, just like the Miller's house." There was virtual nothing we could find but all these people, members of the same family, weren't just dying out of the blue like this.

"I saw something in the vision." Sam explained as we were leaving the ally. "Like a dark shape." Cause like there wasn't thousands of normal things that could have been. "Something was, something was stalking Roger." And if this was something, it seemed to be targeting the Miller's family for some reason.

"Whatever it was, are you sure it's not connected to their house?" Dean questioned.

"Or the family is just cursed." I said as we stopped at the car.

"So what, you think it could be like, a vengeful spirit?" Sam suggested.

"There has been a few known to latch onto families." Dean agreed. "Follow them for years."

"Angiak, banshees." Sam listed a couple that often follow a certain family till they were all dead before moving onto the next.

"And now it's just going from member to member of this one family for whatever reason." I clarified.

"So maybe Roger and Jim Miller got involved in something heavy, something curse worthy." Dean suggested. Or basically they pissed someone off something terrible.

"And now this something wanting revenge, is killing off the men in the family." Sam said. Possibly, as far as we knew, the only woman was Ms. Miller.

"Isn't there one more guy we're missing?" I was sure there was a third guy we met but I was so out of it from the decapitated head that I couldn't think clearly.

"Max?" Sam asked. "Couldn't he be in danger?"

"Let's figure it out before he is." Dean said. Hopefully we wouldn't lose somebody else in this messed up hunt.

"Well I know one thing I have in common with these people." Sam said looking away. I looked at him curiously.

"And what would that be?" I honestly didn't see anything similar between Sam Winchester and the Miller family.

"Both our families are cursed." Sam said, looking honest as could be. I had to admit, he had a point. Our lives were fucked up.

"Our families not cursed!" Dean protested in clear denial. "We just...had our dark spots." Dark spots? Was that what he wanted to seriously call our lives.

"Our dark spots are pretty dark." Sam said.

"Dark? More like darker than dark." I grumbled, leaning against the car.

"You're...dark." Dean said just because he couldn't think of anything else. I rolled my eyes and we climbed into the car, leaving for the Miller house.

"I hate you both." I grumbled just as Max opened the door to let us in. I was wearing this scalding nun outfit in this heat while the boys didn't have to wear such heavy cloth.

"My mom's resting, she's pretty wrecked." Max explained why she wasn't downstairs to greet us.

"Of course." Dean said. Wouldn't you be if your husband and brother in law mysteriously died within days of each other.

"Completely understandable." I said meekly, trying to act like how I envisioned a nun would as to not give us away. I didn't spend much time with those that worked for a church unless it had a case along with it. I really wanted my jeans, tank top, overfilled jacket, where I knew where all my weapons were.

"All these people kept coming with like, casseroles." Max tucked his hands awkwardly into his pockets. "I finally had to tell them all to go away." I wouldn't want people crowding around me either, saying how it's going to be all okay like they did when Brooklyn died. "You know, cause nothing says I'm sorry like a tune casserole." Max joked weakly. Sam smiled but I couldn't even bring myself to do the same as we all took a seat on the couches.

There was silence as if we didn't know what to say. Finally, Sam was the one to break the silence. "How you holding up?" He asked softly. Max shrugged a little. "You're dad and you're uncle were close?" Not every pair of siblings spent time together like the Winchester's did, nearly eight hours together in a car and sleeping in the same motel rooms when we could afford one.

"They were brothers, they used to hang out all the time when I was little." Max explained.

I looked at his curiously with a little raised eyebrow. "When you were little? So not anymore?"

"No, it's not that." Max stuttered for a minute. "It's just...we used to be neighbors when I was a kid and we lived across town in this house." He paused for a minute before continuing. "Uncle Roger lived next door so he was over all the time."

"So how was it in that house when you were a kid?" Sam asked.

"It was fine." Max said slowly, if a little cautiously. "Why?"

"All good memories?" Dean asked. "Do you remember anything unusual?" Max was our only lead to go off of now. "Something involving your father and uncle maybe?" Two of the other family members were dead and the Mrs. Was to busy being distraught upstairs.

"Something that really sticks out as...weird?" I trailed off as Max shook his head.

"What, why do you ask?" Max questioned.

"Just a question." Dead said quickly as to not arouse suspicion.

"No, there was nothing." Max said firmly. "We were totally normal." He said it more like he was trying to convince himself. "Happy." As if he didn't believe it himself but couldn't bring himself to say what he was really thinking.

"Of course you were." I said, not able to conceal the hint of sarcasm I held in my voice.

"Well you must be exhausted." Dean said quickly. "We should take off." We left quickly and walked in silence until we reached the impala. "No one's family is totally happy and normal." Dean said, which was the God-given trust. "See when he was talking about his old house?"

"He sounded scared." Dean agreed.

"And why would he be so scared if he was so happy?" I didn't believe Max for one second.

"I say we go find the old neighborhood, find out what life was really life for the Millers." Dean decided. After we ditched our outfits for something we'd normally wear, it wasn't as hard to find the old Miller home an hour away.

The neighbors seem to have been there longer than the Miller family themselves were. "Is that poor kid okay?" One neighbor man asked when we explained who we were and looking for any information on the Miller family with a boy named Max.

Dean, Sam, and I shared a look. "What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"Tell us, please." I said when he hesitated.

Then he seemed please that someone was finally listening to what he had to say. "Well in my life I've never seen a child treated like that." I narrowed my eyes a little. "I mean, I'd hear Mr. Miller yelling and throwing things clear across the street, he was a mean drunk." I was dragged back to certain memories growing up. "He used to beat the tar outta Max." The first time I was beaten to a near inch of my life was when I was four and knocked over a glass of milk. "Bruises." By age seven, I was able to masterfully use my foster mother's makeup before school to hide the marks on my face that I received the night before. "Broke his arm two times that I know of." My arm was snapped into two when I was nine because I hadn't had dinner ready on the table before foster dad number six got home from work.

"This was going on regularly?" Sam asked, as if just on occasion wasn't enough.

"Practically every day." The man nosed. "In fact that thug brother of his was just as likely to take a swing at the boy but the worst part was the stepmother." What could she have done that was worse than getting beat up by your own family. "She'd just stand there, checked out, not lifting a finger to protect him." Ooohh, I'd had a few foster sisters that would do the same thing. "I must have called the police seven or eight times." He looked sad that he hadn't been able to do anything else. "Never did any good."

"You did more than most people would." I said. I would know. When I was ten, I dared to only cover half my face in makeup, making me seem inexperienced with the majority of my bruised face shown. My foster mother at the time told the school I got hit in the face with a soccer ball. In reality, she'd slammed my head against the wall.

"Now you said stepmother?" Dean asked. We hadn't known Mrs. Miller wasn't Max's birth mom.

"I think his real mother died." The neighbor shrugged. "Car accident I think." Sam suddenly put a hand to his head, knees buckling. "Are you ok there?" I looked at him worriedly because he'd nearly knocked me over when he stumbled. Sam shakily nodded, although he looked worst for wear.

"Thanks for your time." Dean said quickly. He supported most of Sam's weight while I held onto one of his arms to help out some. Sam could barely keep himself standing as we tried walking him to the impala.

"Sammy!" I exclaimed when he cried out, only Dean and I keeping him from falling over completely. Inside Sam's mind, he was seeing the Miller family kitchen. Mrs. Miller was calmly cutting away at her vegetables with the largest kitchen knife the Miller family owned. "I don't know what you mean by that." She slowly set the knife down on the counter. "You know I never did anything!"

Max stood behind her, "That's right," looking like he was holding back tears. "You didn't do anything!" The knife on the cutting table started to shake on its own. "You didn't stop them, not once!" Mrs. Miller paled as the knife slowly rose before her eyes.

She backed up against the wall, looking horrified. She just knew Max had done this. "How did you..." The knife shakily moved forward, getting close to her face. "Max, please!" The knife started to point towards her eye, not even her fingernail would have been able to get between the knifepoint and her eye. A single tear slid down her cheek.

"For every time you stood there and watched." Max said, voice choking. "Pretending it wasn't happening." He started to get madder as he remembered all these years.

"I'm sorry." Ms. Miller whimpered.

Max sounded resigned, "No, you're not." There wasn't a sound of guilt or remorse in his voice or gestures. "You just don't wanna die." Ms. Miller couldn't even scream as the knife slammed into her eye, piercing through her head and sinking into the wood behind her.

In the real world, Dean was speeding back towards the Miller house. "I don't get it." I said from the backseat. "You say Max is doing all this, but how isn't he getting caught?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't know, I think he's using telekinesis." Basically the power to move things with your mind.

"What, so he's psychic, a spoon bender?" Dean scoffed.

"I didn't even realize it but this whole time he was there." Sam said. "He was outside the garage when his dad died, he was in the apartment when his uncle died." Well who could blame this guy? "These visions, this whole time, I wasn't connecting to the Millers, I was connecting to Max!" There were a few foster families I wanted to go back to and slowly torture at some point in my life or another. "The thing is I don't get why, maybe because we're so alike?"

"The hell you talking about?" I demanded with a scowl, moving to the edge of my seat to glare at him properly.

"This dude is nothing like you." Dean said firmly, glancing over with a guy.

"Well," Sam started listing off they're similarities. "We both have psychic abilities, we both..." He trailed off.

"Both what?" Dean demanded, hand tightening on the steering wheel. "Max is a monster, he's already killed two people and gunning for a third!"

"You've never killed anyone human!" I said in clear protest. Monsters were a different story altogether but one couldn't be blame for killing something killing.

"With what he went through, the beatings, to want revenge on those people?" Sam sounded understanding, sympathetic forMax. "I hate to say it but it's not that insane."

"Yeah, but it doesn't justify murdering your entire family." Dean said. But there was only so much one could take before they completely snapped.

"Hell, I've had foster families try to kill me before. Doesn't mean I go back after all these years to kill them." My hands tucked behind my head. "Then again, I don't have psychic mind powers."

Dean slammed to a stop right as we reached the Miller household. Both Sam and him turned to me, Dean with a pissed off look and Sam with confused sorrow. "What do you mean, try to kill you?" Dean hissed.

I shrugged, gotten over it, not sure what the big deal was. "Let's just say I wasn't in the hospital because I fell down the stairs." I quickly climbed out the car, walking up the drive.

"Chris, wait!" Sam jogged after me.

"We're not done talking about this!" Dean shouted looking pissed, slipping a gun into the back of his pants.

"Well we don't have time." I said, peeking through the curtains where Ms. Miller was pinned to the wall, Max looking pissed in front of her. Dean kicked the door open and we bust through.

"Fathers? Sister?" Ms. Miller asked started.

"What are you doing here?" Max demanded, looking annoyed that we had ended up breaking his little killing spree.

"Ah, sorry to interrupt." Dean said awkwardly. Nothing had happened yet so Ms. Miller wouldn't believe us about her son's spoon bending abilities.

"We just, came across some...sudden information." I said, scanning the room. I saw the kitchen knife still sitting on the table unmoved.

"Can we just, talk to Max for one second outside." Sam said. We had to get him away from his stepmother before he could hurt her.

"About what?" Max demanded, eyes narrowed in suspicion. I smiled weakly, awkward. Damn, couldn't they ever just come without a fight.

"It's...private." Sam stuttered. Real convincing, Sammy.

"We really, don't need your mother around." I said. "It'll just be a bother." Trust me, the mother shouldn't want to be around Max anytime soon during this time. Not with Max going all kill craze the last week or so.

"We won't be long." Sam said. Max slowly nodded. I walked out the kitchen doors into the living room with Sam following. We didn't reach the front door before it was slammed shut by an invisible force in front of my face. The blinds over the windows fell shut, darkening the room.

"You're not priests!" Max shouted madly. How the hell would he know that? Dean yanked the gun out but he couldn't use it before Max used his powers to fling it across the floor. I pulled out the long knife in my combat boot but it was pulled from my hand. It embedded itself into the wood near the kitchen, making Ms. Miller shriek.