"Mom! We're heading out now!" Ben yelled, his hand on the front door knob. I stood behind him, looking back at the stairs. Lisa was up there doing something in her and Dean's room.

"Where are you going?" came the shouted reply from above.

Ben looked at me for help, so I yelled, "The cul-de-sac on Mentmore!"

"Be home in time for dinner!" she yelled back down. Ben grinned at me and we hurried out the door. Ben was a lot more outgoing than I was, so while I'd been basically trapped in the house because I was grounded from my skateboard, he'd been riding around and found a group of kids. They were a range of ages because there were a bunch of families on that street and all the kids came out to play there.

I still had a couple days left on my grounding, so Ben pushed his bike around the corner and then told me to get on his handlebars.

I gave him a look. "I'm not riding on your handlebars. You won't be able to see and we'll get run over by some dickwad."

Ben scoffed at my response. "I'm not walking all the way there or leaving you behind to walk there while I ride ahead."

He was being overprotective, but I kind of agreed. Even though Dean had satisfied himself that the white van we'd seen a few days ago had been an actual service van, neither of us was convinced. I personally thought that he would have looked into it harder if he hadn't been feeling so miserable and trapped. Plus, he probably really did believe we were safer without him here drawing the evil to us. And if the white van were a monster hunting him, they probably would've followed him out of town anyway.

"Just leave me here, then," I said. "I can just go upstairs and read."

"Come on, Jessie…" he whined at me.

I sighed and looked at his bike. "Okay, what if I sit on the seat with my legs hanging down and you stand and pedal. Or since I'm bigger, we do it the other way around."

Ben snorted this time. "Yeah, like I'm gonna show up with a girl driving my bike while I ride bitch."

Offended, I snapped. "That's sexist and stupid, and you can just go on your own then." I turned to head back to the house, but Ben grabbed my arm.

"No, I'm sorry," he said, his expression pleading when I turned to look at him. "Please, Jessie? What if they grab me and use me as bait?"

"You were fine going off on your own before," I pointed out, but then I realized it wasn't the white van he was nervous about; it was hanging out with a new group of kids. "Ugh, fine," I muttered. "But you better not call me fat."

He held the bike still as I climbed onto the seat. "No one would ever call you fat," Ben said. "You're like a stick."

"Shut up," I said, a little stung because he was right. I was getting too thin again because now that Dean was gone I wasn't eating enough. And I dropped weight quick when I didn't eat. Stupid furnace.

Ben laughed anyway and started pedaling.

We spent a couple of hours on Mentmore circle. A bunch of girls my age were sitting off to the side talking to each other, but they looked kinda close and I wasn't in the mood to be social, so I joined a bunch of the other kids playing street soccer. They were mostly younger than I was, but at least there were a few girls there too. When that game died down, the kids with bikes started teaching each other how to do bike tricks. Bored and uninterested in joining the kids without bikes who were playing tag now, I sat on the curb for a while watching the biker kids, wishing there were some kids here with skateboards. Then the teenage girls got up, walked up the street, and crossed to the side I was on to go into one of the houses.

That's when I saw a white van go by on the cross street, slower than the speed limit. My stomach plummeted and bile rose into my throat. Was this the first time the van had gone by or had it crossed by multiple times, checking to see if me and Ben were still here?

But there were tons of white vans in the world, and as I thought about it, I hadn't seen the rust spot, even though the side that passed by had been the side the rust spot would have been on if it was the same van. I also didn't remember seeing a name on the side of the van this time.

I glanced back at Ben, who was trying to learn how to hop his bike up and down on the back wheel. I shook my head. He was wearing a helmet, so I guessed he was relatively safe but his mom would kill him if she knew. I wasn't ratting on him though, especially since I could sneak away and check down the street without him noticing this way.

And that's what I did. I strode up the street but then slowed as I reached the house that was on the side of the same direction the van had been driving in. I crossed the lawn to the edge of the house and poked my head around the corner to look down the street with only one eye, not daring to expose my whole head in case they were watching.

The van was sitting there on the side of the street. I thought I could see two silhouettes in the front seats. Shit. I went to get Ben.

As soon as he saw me waving him over, he set down his bike and came immediately. "What's up? I saw you going up the street."

I guessed I was wrong about how distracted he was. "The van is back, I think."

His eyebrows drew together in worry. "You sure?"

I dropped my head, shaking it. "I didn't see the rust spot, and there wasn't a sign with a business name."

Despite my assurance that I wasn't sure, Ben swallowed, his face pale. "I wanna go home."

"Me too," I said. I glanced back towards the cross street. My heart was pounding in my chest, especially now that Ben was scared too. It meant I wasn't being unreasonable. I wasn't sure how to keep us safe though, and it scared me. "Should we have your mom come get us in Dad's truck, or should we risk riding back on our own?" I asked.

Ben glanced back at the other kids. "What about them?"

"Who cares about them?" I said, derisive.

Ben sighed. "Jessie, you don't get it, do you? We're the new kids. If we don't fit in, then school this year is gonna suck."

Oh yeah, he'd moved more than I had, switching schools at least three times, and he was eleven. I'd gone to one school until I'd burned my house down, and then I'd been homeschooled by Sam. But still…

"Why would they care if your mom picks us up?" I asked.

"It's just… it's not cool. When we showed up, you were riding on the back of my bike. That was cool. Mom coming to get us isn't," Ben explained with almost no patience.

"Okay, I guess," I gave in. It did make sense, a little, sort of. "Blame it on me, then. Tell them I don't feel good. I don't care if I make friends."

Ben scoffed, "You'll care if someone starts picking on you."

"Nuh uh," I huffed. "I'd like to see someone try." I turned him then and pushed him towards the kids. "I'm calling your mom to come get us. You go complain about your annoying older stepsister to those kids."

Ben chuckled, but then fought his expression into annoyance before going back over to the bike kids. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and made the call.

It took ten long minutes for Lisa to get to us. I was sure it was because she had to put shoes on and find her keys and her purse and blah blah blah, but it felt like too long. I sat on the curb twisting my ankle in circles and chewing on my thumbnail, my eyes glued to the cross street. Every so often, I would glance over at Ben, who was joking around with the other kids, making sure he fit in. A couple times, though, his eyes met mine and I could see the fear in them.

As soon as Lisa turned the corner, I got to my feet and shouted, "Ben, come on!"

He groaned and rolled his eyes for the sake of the other kids, but then grabbed his bike from the sidewalk and pushed it over to the truck as it pulled up in front of me. I helped him load it into the back and then we both slid into the front seat.

"What is going on?" Lisa asked once we had our seatbelts on, her voice sharp. All I'd told her on the phone was that I needed her to come get us as soon as she could and that I'd explain later.

"The white van is back, I think," I told her immediately. "Did you see it parked on the side of the road before you turned in?"

Lisa pulled into an empty driveway to turn around. "No, I wasn't paying that much attention," she said, maneuvering the truck back onto the road and driving towards the cross street. "Where was the van?"

I pointed to the left when we got to the stop sign at the cross street, but I could already see it was gone. "It's not there anymore."

Lisa turned right towards home. "Okay, we're calling your dad when we get home."

"Okay," I agreed, and I looked down every street we passed on the way home. Ben did too.

"Dad, I swear, it had to be the same van," I said towards my phone. It was on speaker and the three of us were gathered around it on the kitchen counter. Dean and Sam were on speaker on the other end. The call wasn't going well for me.

"Jessie, there are a lot of white vans," Dean tried for the third time.

"I know!" I said. "But what are the odds that yet another white van is trailing me and Ben?"

"You said yourself that you didn't see the rust mark on it," Dean said.

"Hold on, Dean," Sam said and his voice got louder as he got closer to the phone. "Jessie, have you ever heard of confirmation bias?"

"No, but who cares? There's a van hunting us…" I glanced up at Lisa, who was standing with her hip leaning against the stove watching Ben and me talk. She looked worried.

Sam continued like I hadn't said anything. "It basically means that once you have a belief, you tend to find evidence to back it up. So now that you noticed a white van in the neighborhood that looked like the one you saw back in Indiana, you're noticing all the other white vans, even if they aren't the same one."

"It might be the same one," I argued. "I don't know for sure, but aren't you even a little bit worried that I might be right?"

"No," Dean said. "Because I looked into the last two and they were both actual service vans…"

"You're not listening to me at all!" I shouted into the phone. Lisa touched my arms and pulled me towards her. I turned immediately and buried myself against her shoulder, struggling not to cry.

"Dean, I think she's right," Ben said and gratefulness washed over me. Ben had my back at least.

"Did you see this new one?" Dean asked.

"No," Ben admitted slowly, drawing out the word.

I jerked away from Lisa and turned back to the phone. "Oh great, so first you abandon me and now you don't believe me? I'm not lying, damn it!"

"Watch your tone, little girl," Dean warned. "And your language. No one accused you of lying."

"Yeah? Well, I don't hear a whole lot of you believing me here," I snapped back.

"Jessie," Lisa said quietly, putting her hand back on my shoulder.

"You have a history of doing everything you possibly can to hunt with us," Sam said, sounding completely at ease. "How can we be sure this isn't just more of the same?"

"Argh!" I spat out in frustration. His calmness was infuriating. He didn't even sound annoyed that I might be trying to get back on the road with them by lying. Like it didn't really matter either way. It was almost worse than Dean's insistence that it wasn't the same van.

"Because I don't want to hunt with you. I told Dad that! I like living a normal life! That's not what this is!" I slammed my fists down onto the countertop and the phone jumped up a little before clattering back down on the counter.

"I'm going to hang up and let you calm down," Dean said, clearly fed up with me. "You can call me back…"

"No! Dad, please…" I said, trying to wrangle my tone into something more reasonable. "I'm scared."

Dean sighed. "Jessie, we called the companies. We know those other two vans were actual service vans. You were in the truck with me when I called them. This is just another white van, and it was gone when Lisa came to get you. Why do you think it's following you?"

I wanted to have a rational reason, something that would convince him, but nothing came to mind. "I… it's just a feeling I have. There's all these white vans showing up and then you call about it and mention the rust mark and now another white van shows up and it doesn't have a rust mark… It's just weird and usually when something's weird, something's wrong. You taught me that. Everything in my head is screaming that there's something wrong!"

"Confirmation bias," Sam said again, dismissing my feelings..

"No it's not! Shut up about that!" I snapped.

"That's enough," Dean cut in. "I know you're upset but I have had it up to here with the disrespect." I could imagine him lifting his hand up to the top of his chest. "So cut it out."

"Sorry," I said, blushing. Ben looked at me with concern.

"You're scared, but we have no reason to believe that this is anything to worry about," Dean added. "And I'm inclined to go along with Sam on the idea that this is actually one of your schemes to come on the road with us again."

I dropped my chin to my chest, closed my eyes, and muttered to myself, "Of course you are." Tears pricked the back of my lids and I fought against them.

"But if it's not, you need some more evidence," Sam said.

"So I need all three of you to keep your eyes out for any more white vans, and if you can, get the license plate number next time," Dean said. "And neither of you should go out without your phone or alone..."

I couldn't believe it. Nothing I said mattered. I turned on my heel and left the room, listening to Dean's voice fade away as I ran up the stairs to my room.

I shut the door very carefully behind me, because god forbid I slam it, and then stood in the middle of my room with my eyes closed and my fists clenched, trying very hard to take deep breaths and trying very, very hard not to cry.

He'd left, hit the road, his excuse that we were safer without him here. He didn't stay here with me and he didn't take me with him. He'd abandoned me with the reasoning that it was better for me to live a normal life, and I'd accepted it. I didn't argue with him. I'd let him go without a fuss. I'd even tried to tell him that I preferred a normal life, because it was true. I liked school, a stable place to live, kids my own age, and a family.

But I guess he didn't believe me when I told him, and now he was accusing me of lying, of trying to get back on the road with him when I hadn't done or said anything to even suggest that's what I wanted. I'd just cried when he was gone. I talked to him every night on the phone and I never said anything that would make him think that I wanted to come join him, because I didn't.

And now, I was scared to pieces. This white van thing was not something I was making up. It wasn't! But it didn't matter. He didn't believe me.

I gave up fighting the tears and lay down on my bed, clutching my snowman to me and sobbing into my pillow. It wasn't fair!

Except there was a little voice in my head that told me it was fair because Sam was right. Before I'd lived with Lisa and Ben, I had done everything in my power to go on hunts with them, be a hunter. It was the thing I got into the most trouble over, aside from my "attitude."

But another little voice in my head told me that he'd abandoned me and that this was just his way of keeping me away because he didn't want me anymore, just like Sam hadn't that one summer. Just like the time Dean abandoned me to go turn himself into a Michael-suit. Just like the time Bobby, Sam, and Dean had all decided to run off on almost certain death hunts right to stop people from dying in Chicago and to stop the Croatoan virus from being spread.

I cried harder. Was I never the priority? I mean, when there's an apocalypse, that's one thing. But that summer with Sam? And now, where Dean had run off to hunt with Sam? I mean, once Lisa had told him that he didn't need to choose, that he could just come back and be with her when he could, that I could stay with her… After that, there had been a few times when I saw actual joy on his face for the first time since Sam had died.

Was that because he was hunting again? Because he was hunting with Sam again? Or because he was hunting with Sam again without me?

My head hurt from crying and all the possibilities. If he'd been here now, he'd already be up here chewing me out for walking away in the middle of him talking to me, or he'd be comforting me and making me feel better, telling me that of course he loved me and that he didn't abandon me. And he'd make me believe it.

Someone knocked softly on the door. "Jessie, I've got your phone here," Lisa said.

"Is Dean on it?" I asked, raising my voice so she could hear me.

"No, sweetie. I told him to give you some time to calm down and that you'd call him back when you went to bed, like normal. Can I come in?"

"Yeah."

Lisa opened the door and I rolled over on the bed. She handed me my phone and sat down next to me on the bed. "You okay?"

I shook my head. "I'm not lying, Lisa. And I don't think I'm wrong. And he won't even consider what I'm saying."

She brushed my bangs back from my face and ran her hand down my hair. "I don't know what to tell you. He must think there's at least some reason to worry if he doesn't want you or Ben running off alone."

I shrugged in defeat. That wasn't a whole lot of proof considering we almost always ended up at the same place together anyway, but there was no point in arguing with her. She had at least acted like she believed me and Ben. Although maybe that was more because of Ben than because of me.

She sighed and tugged on me until I sat up. Then she pulled me into a comforting hug, and I really did feel better. As she held me, I came up with a new plan.

If Dean wanted proof, then I'd damn sure get it for him.