Chapter 11: Secrets
Oh, got no reason, got no shame.
Got no family I can blame.
Just don't let me disappear,
I'ma tell you everything.
-One Republic
Shelby and Dean picked at their food in the 80's themed diner Sam had picked for breakfast. They were making faces at Sam while he talked behind his laptop screen. It had been a few weeks since they'd had a hunt and while Shelby and Dean seemed perfectly fine with the little vacation they had been on, Sam was itching for a hunt. It was six o'clock in the morning on a Sunday. The couple had been out at the local bar the night before. Sam had to come pick them up and take them back to the hotel.
"I'm just saying, we should at least check it out and see if it's our kinda thing." Sam shut his laptop in annoyance. He rolled his eyes when he met Dean and Shelby's contorted faces. Shelby put her fork down and rubbed her face.
"Fine. But you have to drive us there. I need sleep." Sam's face lit up and he grabbed his laptop and zoomed out the door. Shelby ate the last bite of her waffle and threw some cash down on the table. Dean hadn't said a word since they entered the diner. He still had his sunglasses on. Shelby turned towards him and nudged him.
"Come on grumpy gus, let's humor your brother for a couple of days." Dean grumbled at her nickname for him but got up and followed her out the diner doors. He had been enjoying his vacation with Shelby more than she probably was with him; he had been wondering when she would push him back into a hunt. Well, he tried to pull her out of it. No such luck.
Later that night, Shelby, Sam, and Dean were having a few beers in a musty pub. Shelby was kicking Sam's ass at darts, while Dean hustled some local rednecks at a game of pool. Sam had lost for the last time. He was tired, they hadn't really found anything that made this case their type of thing and it annoyed him. He really wanted a monster to hunt.
"Alright, we should probably head out. I saw a hotel a few miles back off the highway. I'll pick up our tab." Shelby threw one last dart and nodded her head. She walked over to Dean while Sam paid their bill. A few cat calls were heard as she slid up behind her slightly drunk boyfriend. He threw a few dirty looks to the guys across the pool table from him before turning to Shelby. He placed a sloppy kiss on her lips before turning back to his game.
"Sam's picking up the bill. You almost done?" Shelby honestly was getting tired too. As hard as it was to admit it, she was itching just as bad as Sam was for a hunt. She had noticed Dean having a hard time getting back into the swing of things. He did well in front of everyone else, but after hours, once the lights were out and he was cuddled in close to Shelby, his breath would hitch a little. He wouldn't say anything, but Shelby knew how he was feeling. It had taken him a bit after the ordeal, but coming that close to death had messed with his head. He had been treading carefully ever since. It was kind of bugging Shelby. She needed him back into hunting mode.
"Yeah. Give me a few minutes and I'll meet you guys out at the car." Dean kissed Shelby again. She smiled and headed out the back door. She saw Sam leaning against the Impala. He smiled at Shelby. She returned it with a small smile.
"Dean finishing up his game?"
"Yeah. Listen Sam. I really want this case to work out. Dean needs this. I'm ready to get back into the swing of things just as much as you are but, Dean; He's really shaken up about what happened. He's trying to play tough guy but I can see right through it." Sam nodded his head towards the girl. He had noticed Dean seemed a little off lately but he turned the other cheek. He had bigger things to worry about. Like why he was having visions and all the other kids he had been finding out about recently with same pasts as him.
"Sam, I have something to tell you and I- I need you to keep quiet about it until I know all the facts. I'm scared to tell Dean." Was she pregnant? Sam looked down at her with a slightly concerned face. Shelby ran her fingers through her long brown hair. He watched and waited as she gave herself the courage to tell him whatever was eating at her.
"Remember when we went to your old house and met with that Missouri woman?" Sam nodded.
"Well she said some things to me that have been bothering me and I need your help to figure it out." Shelby hugged herself with her own arms. Sam wanted to move in closer but before he could a dark figure came up behind Shelby with some sort of metal bar in it's grasp. Sam went to move forward to grab her.
"Shelby!" Shelby looked up just in time to see Sam falling towards her. Someone had knocked him out cold. Before she could think to turn around, her vision faded.
Dean had finished his game three hundred dollars richer than he had been when he walked into the bar. He sauntered out the back door and started towards the familiar shine of his baby. He didn't see Shelby or Sam anywhere. After checking the back seat and the parking lot, he walked back inside the bar to see if they had ended up waiting for him in there. Nada. He walked back out the door and started questioning some of the drunken bar flies. No one had seen them. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Shelby's number. He heard her phone ringing some distance off. If they were trying to scare him, they didn't think it through very well.
He followed the ringing past the Impala and to the old, rusty dumpster at the edge of the parking lot by the highway. He looked behind the dumpster and found Shelby's phone lighting up on the ground. His smiling face stared back at him on the screen.
"Real funny guys. I'm not that drunk." Dean turned around, smiling, waiting for the two to come out from hiding. When they didn't, he walked further behind the dumpster. Shining his flashlight on the ground, he came across Sam's phone also, along with both their guns and other small, miscellaneous weapons that were easy to hide. Dean picked up Shelby's mothers pocket knife. She never went anywhere without this thing. Something was wrong.
-TOL-
"Ugh, where are we?" Shelby opened her eyes slowly and looked to her left towards the cage where Sam was. She didn't bother answering because she had no idea. Wherever they were, their captors thought it'd be funny to take all her clothes, save for her bra, panties, and tank top. She was cold but the heat from her anger kept her warm enough not to shiver.
"Country, some farm." Another voice came through the darkness. Shelby could hear Sam moving around slowly in his cage. After a few rustles his voice rang through again.
"Where are my clothes?" Shelby stifled a giggle. This was not the time for that. She moved a bit so she could see into Sam's cage. The only light they had was a sliver of moonlight coming through the rotting roof of the barn they were in.
"I can hear you laughing Shelby. It's not funny. I'm cold." Shelby didn't try to hide her laugh this time. Sam noticed her movement to his right. He maneuvered so he could see into Shelby's cage. His eyes looked worried when her own met his.
"You're bleeding."
"I hadn't noticed." Shelby's voice was dripping with sarcasm, as well as the blood Sam mentioned. Sam moved his gaze down. He was just worried for her. Shelby sighed.
"Sorry Sam. I couldn't get the bleeding to stop. Whatever that was, it got me good. Are you okay? Still got all your body parts?" She could just barely see his smile through the crack.
"Yeah, I'm good. Now how are we gonna get out of here?" Sam started pulling on the wires that he could reach from outside his cage. He pulled some free, but nothing happened.
"No idea, this fruitcake over here said they open the gates to feed with a key and locked switchboard. They come once a day." At the end of her sentence, the other man's gate latch opened. Shelby and Sam turned their attention to him. Sam tried to reason with him to stay here, it had to be a trap. The guy was having none of it. He promised to come back with the police in the morning. Shelby rolled her eyes. The man scrambled frantically to get out of the barn as fast as possible.
"Welp, he's dead." Sam looked hard at Shelby and clenched his jaw. She shrugged her shoulders.
"Sorry, I'm not in the mood for sugarcoating anything right now." Sam leaned back onto the cold metal bars of his cage. Shelby leaned her back against the adjoined walls. There they sat for a couple of hours. Neither of them talked. Sam was thinking of ways to get out of this. Unlike Shelby, he didn't fully trust Dean to get here soon enough. Shelby was thinking about what Missouri had said. She still needed Sam's help. Well, now was as good a time as any. Not like they had any plans anytime soon.
"Sam, about what I was saying earlier. I really need you to keep quiet about this."
"Okay."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
Shelby told Sam everything she knew about what Missouri had told her. Sam hadn't said a word since she had started, not that she had really given him a chance to talk. She was too nervous. When she finished, she took a big breath in and let it out loudly. It had been killing her keeping this from them. She had just been waiting for the right time and she didn't want to worry them until she knew what to do about it.
"Wow. I can see why you don't want to tell Dean. I think we need to find out whatever is going on and then deal with him later." Shelby nodded, then realized that he couldn't see her.
"Yeah. I just, I don't want to keep secrets from him Sam. I promised him I wouldn't."
"Yes, but this isn't really a secret. You don't have anything to really tell him that would affect anything right now. As soon as we know, you can tell him. You won't have time to keep it a real secret." Shelby smiled. Sam was trying so hard to calm her down.
"He will kill me Sam. I'm a monster."
"You don't know that! You could be a Unicorn for all we know!" Shelby laughed out loud at Sam's statement.
"I haven't noticed a horn growing lately." She answered with a laugh. Her brow furrowed. She forgot what Missouri had said about Norse Mythology.
"You know, she did say that I should read up on Norse Mythology. Off the top of my head I can't think of any monsters there. Mostly Gods. Thor, Loki, Odin. Most of the legends have to do with warriors of The Nine Realms."
"I thought I was a nerd."
"You're lucky I can't reach you through these bars." Sam smiled at her remark. Now that she had sat down and thought through this, she had calmed down a bit. If she was right about the Gods and warriors, maybe she wasn't a monster, per say…
"We'll figure it out Shelby. Bobby can help us too."
"No. Sam I don't want anyone else knowing about this. No one. Okay? If word gets out I could be on someone's hit list."
"Okay. You're the boss. My lips are sealed."
"Damn right." Sam heard Shelby slide down the shared wall a bit. All of a sudden he felt a warm hand slide into his. The bottom of the cage's' bars were bigger. Shelby had slid her hand though. He squeezed it tight.
"Everything will be okay. Dean will probably be here before the sun rises."
"That's not what I'm scared about." Shelby tightened her grip on Sam's hand. He thought he knew why she had grabbed his hand. He assumed she was scared of what they might find when they look into what Shelby might be, scared of Dean. They heard blood-curdling screams in the distance.
"Told ya." He didn't have a reply. Instead he slid down into a more comfortable position, still holding onto Shelby's hand. Sooner than he would have thought, he could hear her steady, rhythmic breathing. He wasn't really tired, and had a lot to think about, plus he wanted to be awake if any of these monsters came in.
-TOL-
Shelby was dreaming, Sam could tell. She had moved from her slouching position earlier into a fetal position on the floor, still gripping Sam's hand the best she could. He didn't really know what to do to help her. Usually Dean was the one to calmly wake her up or rock her back and forth until the dream ended. Sam couldn't exactly reach her at the moment. He did the only thing he could do and held onto her hand as tightly as he could.
The sun had started to bleed in through the poorly constructed barn that served as their prison. Sam took this opportunity to look around properly at his surroundings.
-TOL-
Shelby ran as fast as she could through the overgrown bushes to the Impala. Damn her father. He was certain this wasn't a shifter. She should have listened to her gut. She heard more shots coming from the old barn where her father, John, and Dean were holding off the skinwalker. She skidded to a halt and jammed the key into the trunk, flinging it open haphazardly and rummaging around through the random killing devices in the trunk before finding the stash of silver bullets. She jumped when a hand slammed on her shoulder. She turned around almost too quick to register and almost pulled the trigger on her father.
"Damn it dad! I told you it was shifters! Why can't you ever just fucking listen to me!" Shelby didn't look him in the eye, instead she gathered as many guns as she could and loaded them with all their silver bullets. Colt helped her as best he could. He knew Shelby was right and he was regretting not listening to her earlier. Now his best friend and son were in a barn full of skinwalkers without silver.
"I know. It was stupid."
"Well, you shouldn't be so damn proud of yourself all the time. I know what I'm doing! Here, take this. Hopefully Dean and John aren't shifter meat now." Shelby shoved four guns and a few extra clips into Colt's hands and turned around to the trunk again.
"GO! Dad, now." Colt looked down and decided to wait till after the fight to talk to his daughter. She was so much like her mother it scared him. Her mother was a much better hunter than he ever had been. He saw Amelia shining through Shelby every day. He ran, guns blazing into the barn.
Shelby turned quickly when she heard multiple gunshots and lots of screaming coming from the barn. The shots stopped suddenly. The shifter should be gone now. Good, her dad did something right on this hunt, even if he was drunk for half of it. The shot's fired up again after a second and Shelby's stomach dropped. She grabbed her silver knife and ran as fast as she could back to the barn. Twelve seconds. That's how long it took her to get from the car to the open barn doors. Twelve seconds for her to go from hating her father to hating herself. Twelve seconds ago her father had been shooting at a shapeshifter. Twelve seconds ago she had one of two parents that were still alive.
Shelby fell to her knees beside her dad's mutilated torso. Dean and John stepped back a few feet. They both had picked up the guns Colt had dropped when a hidden shifter jumped him. Blood of the shifter and her father soaked into her black jeans. She rocked back and forth over her fathers body. Dean was talking, but she couldn't make any of it out. All she could hear was the blood pumping through her veins, so loud in her ears. Someone grabbed her and turned her red face towards them. She should have seen green eyes that resembled her own, but all she saw was red. Blood running over her hands and her fathers face.
-TOL-
"NO!" Sam jumped rather animatedly when Shelby's loud voice resounded through the empty barn. Shelby jumped up and pulled her hand from Sam's. He had relaxed as much as possible once he realized there was no way of getting out of there. He would just have to wait on Dean. He was much more awake now. He heard Shelby breathing hard on the other side of the bars. He squeezed his larger hands through the hole hers had been through for most of the night and searched for her. After a minute or two, he felt a clammy hand under his own. He grasped hard.
"Shelby, hey it's okay. You're okay." Sam didn't have much else to say, or do for that matter. He didn't know why she was freaking out. He waited until her breathing became steady again before her spoke.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not really."
"Okay." There was a pregnant pause between the prisoners before a soft sigh was heard.
"My dad. He- ah. He died in a barn like this." Sam sucked in a big breath and gripped Shelby's hand even tighter than he was before.
"Shelby, I'm sor-"
"I know Sammy. I know." Sam was curious about how Colt had died. Dean wouldn't tell him and he hadn't had the courage to push Shelby. Colt had been like an uncle to Sam growing up and he was devastated when Shelby broke the news to him almost a year ago. He had gotten this much out of her, why not push for a bit more?
"What, uh, what happened?" He asked softly. He didn't want to ruin this.
"Skin-walker. They had your brother and dad trapped. My dad ran in there and another one came out of hiding and ripped him up. He was gone by the time I made it back in. Dean and John finished the shifter." Shelby finished quite abruptly. Sam could tell there was more.
"And?"
"And. It was my fault. I blame myself. If I would have just persisted a bit longer to convince him to bring silver bullets in we would have been prepared. He wouldn't have died, Sam. I got both of my parents killed. What a fucking track record, huh?" Shelby finished with a laugh. Sam sighed. Shelby had so many great qualities about her, but she blamed herself for everything. She always wanted to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders. He hated that about her.
"Shelby, no. You are not responsible for that. You need to forgive yourself. You always do this to yourself and it's not healthy." Shelby didn't say anything back for a long while. Sam figured the conversation was over. Usually once Shelby put her mind to an idea or action, that was it. He wasn't going to waste his time arguing. Shelby thought about what Sam had said. Dean had a similar attitude towards the situation. She was just following orders, like was expected of Dean and herself. She spoke finally, waking Sam from the short nap he had allowed himself.
"You know when I said I was over it. Well, I am. I've accepted the fact that he's dead. I'm trying to push past the fact that I wasn't prepared for the fight, that ultimately got him killed. But I can never accept the way I left things between us. I mean, the last time I talked to him I was bitching him out for being stupid and not thinking on a hunt. Blaming him for possibly killing Dean or John. I feel so horrible Sam. Dean doesn't know about this. I was pretty messed up for a while after he died. Dean was driving himself and I mad over trying to help me cope. I really didn't want to freak him out even more." Sam smiled ruefully to himself. He felt so special, as elementary as that sounded... Shelby shared something very personal with him that she hadn't told Dean. He shook his head as Shelby continued. So many secrets he was being entrusted with.
"I mean, I didn't even tell him I loved him, or get to say goodbye."
"Shelby, he knew you loved him. I know he did, or he wouldn't have done what he did. There were times I remember before I left, overhearing our dad's talking. Colt would always want to leave the life, start you in college. He wanted to send you to Julliard, you know." At that, Shelby smiled brightly. She didn't even know her dad knew what Julliard was.
"He never could leave the life though, he saw how happy saving the day made you. So he stayed, for you." Sam had gotten a little choked up at that. He was jealous. He knew John loved Dean and him. But he still knew the only reason his dad hunted was to get revenge for his mom. Dean and Sam had made it clear throughout their childhood they wanted a normal life, but John ignored it.
"Thanks Sammy."
"Anytime." Sam could feel Shelby's heat through the small, finger-sized openings in the metal bars dividing their cages. She sniffled a few times, then took a breath in to say something. At that moment, the big barn doors opened and two burly men walked in. The stench of rotting flesh followed them. Shelby feigned sleep and dropped Sam's hand. Sam tried to stay calm and kept his eyes on the men.
Human. They were just humans. Figures. The shorter of the two was carrying a small woman bridal style. His companion pushed a button by the doors and another cage opened. The woman, who was clad in a undershirt and underwear, groaned loudly as she was thrown into the dirt floor cage.
"Police gettin' involved now. Daddy won't be too happy 'bout this. They ain't never got involved before. These new catches must be somethin' special."
"Special or not. They'll be gone by tanight. You heard daddy." Shelby shivered involuntarily as the two men talked back and forth to each other as they walked out. She didn't open her eyes until the barn doors slammed shut. She peeked out of a hole in her cage and came face to face with brown eyes of an older woman.
"You Shelby?" The woman asked.
"Yeah. This is Sam. But something tells me you already know that." The woman blinked long before she answered.
"Yeah. Your husband's looking for you and your brother." Sam rolled his eyes. Shelby smiled to herself. Husband?
"Great, where is he?"
"Oh God. I uh, I handcuffed him to my car."
-TOL-
Let me know what ya'll think! Aren't people cray cray!? Please review so I know I'm doing alright! Have a good night peeps. Gooseygirl