"Sam, Dean," I bark out as I enter the unlocked motel room. Sam head jumps up at he looks at me questionably. "I just saw some FEDS…Where's Dean?" I ask, taking in the surroundings and realizing Dean isn't in the room. Sam shrugs before wiping his face, as if trying to brush away the exhaustion.
"He hasn't called or answered my calls. I was waiting for you to get here until I left to look for him." Sighing, I close the door and walk over to Sam's open laptop sitting on the desk.
"Did you check police records?" Telling by Sam's expression, he hasn't wanted to think about him getting caught.
"I'll take that as a no, let me just-" But I don't get to finish. Because then over the distinct talking of other customers in the motel, a gallery of soft footsteps can be heard coming up the stairs. We both pale.
"I'll hide the papers." You get the guns. Is unsaid but clearly Sam understands as we both hurry to gather the items in a panic before stuffing them both in places that only a hunter would think of to look. Such as, Sam climbs on the chair opening the vent, that we unscrewed just in case this happens, and stuffing the guns in there before I hide the stack of hunting papers in a flannel shirt tossed on the ground and stuffing it in my bag under the bed. As I stand back up I can see Sam stepping off the chair, the vent screwed back in a record amount of time, before the door gets kicked in and both of our hands are up in surrender.
"Going somewhere Sam? Samantha?" Sam and I share a look clearly reading, How the hell does she know me? My eyes linger on the gun in her hands though.
"Oi. We've been caught trying to watch some classic TV. Wonder how much time we can get locked up for this?" Sam rolls his eyes at my sarcasm. C'mon, Sam. I'm just trying desperately not to have a panic attack right now. Ghosts? Shapeshifters? I can handle those. Cops? I'm more scared of the law then a supernatural being for some unknown reason. All while I'm thinking this, our hands are getting handcuffed and escorted outside.
"Joke all you want. But we've currently got all three of you on a murder case." I gulp. Then panic as Sam gets pushed towards a different car.
"No. No, hey how about I ride with Sam huh? It'll keep both of us calm." I all but plead. I'm ignored. Sam looks at me with apologizing eyes.
"No! Let me-" I catch my breath, "Let me ride with my brother! Please!" As I say the word brother I can practically feel Sam smiling from where I am. And oddly enough the word rolls off my tongue, I don't hesitate or wince. In fact, I almost want to say it again. But I don't because now since I'm in the back of a police car, a panicked tear running down my face as Sam gets shoved into the other car.
Okay. Deep breath. In, out, in, out. Close your eyes, imagine you're in the Impala with Sam and Dean. You're listening to Led Zepplin and Dean and you are annoying Sam with your off-key singing. Dean constantly glances at you in the mirror, grinning, because he knows that you're only doing that to make Sam smile after getting over his annoyed faze.
I have a small, almost panic free, smile all the way to the police station. The heavy set police officer hastily opens the door and jerks me out of the car, the cut on my arm throbbing in disagreement.
"Hey, asshole. Simmer down with the jerking." I growl before looking to the right of me as the other cars pull in. Sam gets, gently, taken out of the car and I instinctively start to walk to him. Then, I get jerked harshly in front of the cop again.
"You like this, don't you? Me being handcuffed. Does it turn yo-" The guys face turns red with anger.
"Samantha!" The shrill voice of the woman cop who was pointing the gun at us earlier barks out at me.
"Well, if he would stop manhandling me!" I yell back and she rolls her eyes before telling the cop to calm down. He listens. Mostly. And for the rest of the walk to the police station, we're silent. Sam and I share looks. He mouths words. John's friend. Moral support. Sam stops as the woman looks at him then we're in the building, getting pushed in separate directions. I don't get to think about the mouthed words as I'm shoved into a room.
-000-
Dean's POV
"Look. I didn't murder anyone. I didn't torture anyone. Can I just see my brother?" Detective Dickbag scoffs. I roll my eyes and lean back as far in my chair as the handcuffs allow. The door opens then.
"What about your sister? She's been screaming for you and Sam." The lady cop says as she comes in, the door closing behind her. I almost pale as the words sink in but accomplish to keep my composure. Dammit, Samantha. You were supposed to stay at the library.
"Where is she?" I all but growl.
"You confess and I'll even let you see her." She tries to negotiate. Please, please let have Sam told her to cover story.
"Naw, I'm good. She can handle herself."
-000-
Sam's POV
Pacing. And pacing. For thirty minutes. Nobody has even came in the room yet.
"I can see you, you know! The fucking window is open!" I hear Samantha's loud screaming all the way from across the hall. She's been yelling for the past twenty minutes. First ten were "Sam! Dean! You idiots! Answer me!" Next five were "I'm fucking drying of caffeine deprivation! Get me some coffee!" And now it's apparently yelling at the cops observing her through one of the windows. She's probably in someone's office, since I'm in a questioning room and it has no window. I just hope she knows what I meant by those words. The door opens and the woman from earlier walks in with some coffee.
-000-
Samantha's POV
An hour and a half after we got brought into the station, the lady cop from earlier comes in the room.
"Done yelling?" Her voice is gentle enough. She must be playing the good cop for now.
"For now." She nods as if expecting that answer before placing a Styrofoam cup on the table. Leaning over in my chair I can see that it's coffee. Oh thank god. I take the hot cup in my hand and gulp down a mouthful of luke-warm liquid before meeting eyes with the female again.
"So, why are we here?" I finally ask.
"Dean's being held on murder." I feel like this won't be the last time.
"Murder? Wow. The academy definitely has lowered its standards in education. Where would you get that from?" I ask, all while a huge sarcastic smile is on my face.
"We got over a dozen possible hits for his fingerprints in crime scenes." I tilt my head forward, raising my eyebrows.
"Possible hits. In other words, you're willing to take down an innocent man to feel like you brought 'justice' to mankind, right?" I scoff. "Damn. This is exactly the crap work I expect of the law." I mumble before a quiet chuckle can be heard coming from the woman.
"Sam said the same thing…well in different words." I don't reply and a beat later she decides to get down to business.
"You're nineteen years old. Unknown parents, unknown address, unknown education. The only thing we know about you is that you have a brother in prison, a sister in rehab, and the other two are in Canada somewhere." Two? What the hell does other two mean? And why'd she say I'm nineteen? "Oh that's right. You disappeared out of the hospital before you two were introduced. You're brother has a fiancée. With a kid. And another on the way. She's been trying to get in contact with you. Name's Rachel. Anyway, for some reason it also says that Sam and Dean have had legal custody of you since you were three." What the hell is going on? I keep my face passive the whole time, the only sign of emotion is a lip twitch when she talked about my brother's life.
"Yeah. And, why's that weird?" As I ask this, a thousand different questions are screaming in my head.
"Well, for one. When you were three, the boys wouldn't have even been ten." Shit.
"You ever heard of temporary custody until eighteen? It's where the birth parent wants someone to be their kids godparent but they're not eighteen yet so the kid just goes to the family of the godparent until they're old enough to raise 'em. John raised me until they were eighteen. It was just written in the boys name's because they were the godparents." I completely lie out of my ass at this statement. Is that even a real thing? Can that even happen. I almost faint when the woman mutters a 'forgot about that'.
Isn't there a quote or something like 'Give off the air of confidence and people will believe' or some shit like that. Well, if there is…I just lived it.
"Okay. What about your parents, home, and school?" Aren't we here for murder or something? I'm really not into rehashing my life story. Again.
"I don't know what happened with my parents. I lived with my brothers. And I dropped out of school. Now, can we talk about what we're really here for?" She pauses.
"How about you tell us what happened. From the beginning." John's friend. Moral support. What the…oh. Oh!
"John and Tony Giles were friends. Not sure how but we visited him a few times. He bought me my first book." I lie. Please let me get this story right.
"We were at some Café somewhere and I decided to buy a newspaper. We saw his name. The story and completely freaked out. He was pretty much our uncle, you know? I-" I clear my throat. "I can't believe Karen didn't call us. We missed the damned funeral." I take another drink from the now cold coffee, almost wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans but thinking it might look suspicious.
"We drove the hour there and went to go see Karen, you know give her moral support. I mean she just lost her husband. We talked for a while, I guess Tony was having nightmares before his death. It freaked her out. And after a few hours she said she was tired so we decided to leave. That's all really."
"Samantha, I am trying to help you here. But you have got to be honest with me. Now we have an eyewitness. Someone who saw two men and a girl fitting your and your brothers' description breaking into Giles' office." The female cop says. Isn't she supposed to tell me her name?
"Karen gave us the key to his office. Said she wanted some of the pictures left behind. I felt bad, we, we felt bad and decided it wouldn't hurt to do it." We never found out what Dana Shulps meant…dammit! I think back to finding the finger smears on the table and on the office papers all reading the word 'Dana Shulps'.
"While Sam and I stayed behind to gather all the stuff Karen wanted, Dean went back to her house. She was pretty out of it earlier, just wanted to check up on her." Before I'm even finishing the sentence the woman is out of her chair and opening the door, shaking her head. Good? Bad? Fuck. I hope I didn't just give us up.
-000-
Fifty one…Fifty two….Fifty two and half. Fifty four minutes since lady cop left. And my coffee is gone and nobody has been in here since the girl left. Fuck. My. Life.
-000-
Sam's POV –40 minutes earlier.
HILTS —
IT'S A STREET
ASHLAND.
-MCQUEEN
I smiles at the use of Dean addressing me as "Hilts" and signing off as "McQueen". I pretty much forgot about that code meaning.
-000-
"Alright, Sammy. If we get caught in a situation again where we're both captured and one of us can get free, we'll address eachother as McQueen and Hilts." 17 year old Dean states to me as we're both driving far away from an angry shapeshifer, me holding my bleeding shoulder from where the long knife cut me.
"Isn't that the guys from The Great Escape?" Dean glances over at me, worry and anger still clear in his expression.
"Yeah. That's why I chose the names. When we use those names we'll know that one of us will stall the attacker as the other makes the 'great escape'." I laugh at his reference, impressed with his thinking.
"Gotcha."
-000-
I got to move fast, only so much stalling can be done in a holding area. Samantha. I need to get her. I glance at the door, I already tried it. It's locked. From the outside. She's in a police station. She'll be fine. I go back to the window, forgetting the not on the table, and opening it before climbing onto the sill. Now or never.
-000-
Dean's POV—25 minutes earlier
"Because Karen had the same bruises on her wrists. And I'm willing to bet that if you look at Giles' autopsy photos he's got 'em too, it's got something to do with this spirit, I... I don't know what." I stammer, not liking the fact that I don't know why it happened. The lady cop, Ballard, I learned, turns away from me and looks at herself in the one way mirror. "I know. You think you're going crazy. But let's skip that part, shall we? Because the last two people who saw this thing? Died, pretty soon after. You hear me?" She turns back around.
"You think I'm going to die." I don't answer. I can't answer.
"You need to go to Sam. He'll help." I answer instead. She looks surprised at that. Maybe even realizing how serious it is if I'm giving his location up.
"You're giving your brother up."
"Go to the first motel listed in the yellow pages. Look for Jim Rockford - it's how we find each other when we're separated. Now you can arrest him if you want. Or you can let him save your life." She considers it only for a second before turning to leave.
"Wait," She turns back around, her expression annoyed as if I'm going to ask her to let me go.
"Do you know if Samantha is with him?" I desperately try not to think of her rotting away in a cell or something right now.
"No. She's in the sheriff's locked office." I nod, it's better than this room at least.
-000-
Sam's POV—12 minutes earlier
I grab my handgun from my waistband and walk towards the door that was just knocked on. I open it quickly, relaxing slightly when I only see it's the lady cop. I take one look at her and open the door wider, stuffing the gun back where it was. "C'mon."
-000-
I look down to her bruised wrists.
"These showed up after you saw it?" She nods.
"Yeah, I guess." Yes or no. it's not I guess. I shake away my bitter thoughts, my lack of sleep and overstock of stress recently have really been catching up with me.
"All right. You're going to have to tell me exactly what you saw."
-000-
Samantha's POV—An hour later.
"SAM!"
"DEAN!"
"Sam! Look out!"
"NO!"
-000-
I wake up as the office door slams open. That was a weird dream. I look up as the asshole male cop that yelled at me to shut up comes into the room. That dream felt way too real. But, it wasn't a vision. It couldn't have been. My head doesn't hurt and I didn't see anything except for old buildings, tipped sideways. I shake my head focused back on the cop as he walks over to me.
"Let's go." I'm too tired to argue. So I stand up and let him hand cuff me again. What time is it? I look out the window right before he leads me out of the room. Wait, where are we going? I sigh. Fuck it. I'm too tired. Then we're walking out the back door and oh god, this isn't good. A police van comes into view and I relax again as I can hear Dean's familiar mumbling of a classic rock song. I don't even care that I'm shoved into the back, landing on my shoulder, before I'm smiling at Dean as the doors slammed close.
"Long time, no see." Dean rolls his eyes as I push myself up against the seats and sitting next to Dean.
"So. You think he's going to drive us off a cliff or take us out back and shoot us like dogs?" I ask seriously this time as I see the cop's crazy eyes.
-000-
Sam's POV
Turns out I was wrong. Samantha was not safe at the police station because now I'm speeding down back roads with a cop in the passenger seat, trying to stop her psycho boyfriend from killing my family.
-000-
Samantha's POV
Dean and I look at each other with unmasked worry as the van pulls off the road and stops, getting out of the driver's seat.
"Pee break? So soon? You might want to get your prostate checked." I feel a smile tug at the corners but I feel worry overtake me as the cop ignores Dean and circles to the back.
"Son of a bitch." Dean starts scooting over, making me scoot over too since I'm next to him, away from the door.
"Hey, we're cool in the van, you go do what you gotta do." The cop jumps into the van and places a hand on both of our arms, even though I'm wiggling so much I'm not even sure how he can touch me, and throws us out on the ground.
"Fucking hell. Hey! My arm here is cu-" A kick to the gut and the air gets knocked out of me as I almost gag from the force.
"Sonuva. Hey!" Dean shouts but then the click of a gun is heard and the cop steps a few feet away, pointing the gun at Dean.
"You're a cocky son of a bitch. You think those people in St. Louis are gonna buy that crap you're peddling? Here's the thing. You're not gonna make it to St. Louis. You're gonna die trying to escape" The cop threatens and during his speech, I've managed to crawl over to Dean. I sit next to Dean so I'm almost between him and the gun. I lean over for support, our arms and legs touching as I huddle in around myself, making my forehead touch my knees.
"Wait! Wait. Let's, let's talk about this. I mean, you don't want to do something that you're gonna regret later." The gun cocks. "Or maybe you do." Dean adds. I'm going to die. I'm never going to get to hunt with my uncle. I'm never going to talk to Wade again. I'll never get to see my brother and his kids.
"Pete! Put the gun down!" The scream of Ballard makes its way into my mind, hope. Ah…Pete's the guys name.
"Diana? How'd you find me?" Dean shifts and I decide to look up, meeting Sam's eyes behind Ballard.
"I know about Claire." Pete hesitates for a split second.
"I don't know what you're talking about." I don't know what she's talking about buddy, but I sure as hell know you do.
"Put the gun down!" She yells again, eyeing the gun still trained at Dean and I.
"Oh, I don't think so. You're fast. I'm pretty sure I'm faster." He says cockily. The gun moves from us to Sam and Diana. This is a shitty situation all around.
"Why are you doing this?" Diana tries for a different tactic. That doesn't work.
"I didn't do anything, Diana." Very convincing. Seriously. Give the man an Oscar. I shift so I can look at Dean before rolling my eyes at him. He sends me a 'now's not the time' look and watches the fight carefully, ready to jump in at any moment. We start to move subtly.
"It's a little late for that." My handcuffs snap open from the paperclip Dean found somewhere before I make Dean turn around and I start to pick that lock. It takes some time.
"It wasn't my fault. Claire was trying to turn me in, I had no choice." I feel the subtle shift of the first notch moving up just for the point to move to the second notch.
"And Tony? Karen?" The second one happens slightly faster, the third in under ten seconds.
"Same thing! Tony scrubbed the money, he got skittish, and then he wanted to come clean. I'm sure he told Karen everything." The fourth happens, and the fifth notch moves up. The handcuffs fall away from Dean's hands. He rubs his wrists as we both start to stand up slowly. I see Sam and Dean share a 'how do we get out of the look'. Dean shakes his head and Sam grits his teeth.
"It was a mess; I had to clean it up. I just panicked." Pete explains.
"How many more people are gonna die over this, Pete?" Dean moves to the edge as Diana's grip on the gun tightens. He motions for me to do the same.
"There's a way out. Dean kid's a friggin' gift. We could pin the whole thing on him. Right? No trial, nothing. Just, just two more dead scumbags." I start to move over to Dean.
"Hey!" We both protest pathetically. Pete swings the gun around and we both back away, not wanting to get shot just for defending our ruined 'honor'.
"No one will question it. Diana, please. I still love you." Diana lowers the gun and I almost scream at her, if it weren't for the way her eyes are shining with disgust. "Thank you. Thank you." Pete turns back around and brings his gun up to my head. Oh god, please, please, please. A gunshot rings out and I flinch, waiting for the bullet to make it's connection with my skin. Instead I hear a grunt of pain and somebody crashes into me, rolling us off to the side.
I open my eyes and find Dean's relieved face before he jumps up quickly and starts walking towards the scene, me following after blinking away the dizziness.
"Then why don't you buy me another necklace, you ass?" Diana's grunts out, I almost want to keel over and sob into my arms as I realize that maybe, just maybe…I can see my brother and meet his family. Though the action is over yet as Pete tackles Diana's legs, making her fall and lose her gun. Sam goes for it. Pete gets it first.
"Don't do it! Don't do it!" Pete screams, flailing the gun around between the three off us. The air turns cold and the air smells a little more…dead. I look over to see a spirit. A smiling spirit. And Diana's staring at it before grabbing Pete's gun he dropped when he was shot by Diana and she just….ends the battle. Pete's dead. The spirit is gone.
-000-
Diana lets us go. I hug her. She smiles and tells us not to get the Impala. Dean doesn't listen. I call in a fake 911 call as far as the police will go and then Dean quickly makes his move and within minutes we're riding in the Impala. Led Zepplin playing and Dean and I singing very badly. Sam has a smile on his face