My father was restless. Always looking back, and always being twice as careful as he usually was, that was really careful. We were abandoning a hunt in Jericho. A previous one in Connecticut had cost me a broken nose, a black eye and a few cuts on my face. John was no different.
"Dad, is everything okay?" I asked, a little cautiously. John Winchester wasn't the easiest person to deal with, on the contrary. Sometimes, an opinion contrary to his own, no matter how small, would lead to an outburst of anger and a huge argument.
"Mary-Jane, I'm going to need you to do something for me…" said my father, with concern reflected in his eyes.
"Whatever you need…" I said, taking a sip of my beer.
"Get out of the car and call Dean. He'll pick you up and, whatever happens, don't look for me.", he said, stopping the car on the roadside, handing me my gun, a phone and twenty dollars.
"Dad, what-"
"GO NOW!", he shouted. I got angry, but got out of the car, watching my father drive away, while I tried to throw my beer bottle at the car.
"SON OF A BITCH!", I shouted, then pulled my hair. I forced myself to stop, took a deep breath and picked up the phone, dialing Dean's number.
"Hello?" his voice brought me enormous relief.
"Thank God. What's up, asshole?" I said, making my brother laugh on the other end of the line.
"Good to see you, loser. How was the hunt? Are they coming back?" he asked. I bit my lip.
"Can you pick me up? Dad abandoned me and went off on his own." I said, hugging my own body as I was feeling cold.
"What's up? Where are you?" he said. As if I knew.
"Somewhere... In the middle of nowhere. Good luck finding me."
Watching my older brother, Dean, pacing back and forth in the hotel room was driving me crazy. All the time he was calling John, our father, on the phone and not once did he get an answer. It had been three weeks since my father had abandoned me on the side of a road to be rescued by Dean.
"It keeps getting voicemail." he said impatiently, and I knew that nothing I could say would assuage his concern.
"It's not the first time he's done that…" I said, changing the bandage on a wound caused by hunting a vengeful spirit.
"Yeah, but he's never gone this long without sending news... we have to do something." he said, sitting down and putting on his boots.
"What are you doing?" I asked, frowning.
"We're going to hit the road... We're going after Sammy."
"Are you crazy?" I said, exasperated. "Sam had been gone for years and his last words weren't very friendly."
"What choice do we have, MJ?" said the older man, putting his things in a backpack. "Dad's missing and, in case you hadn't noticed, our search party is very limited."
"Fuck you.", I grumbled, receiving a roll of the eyes from Dean and a pat on the shoulder.
"After you.", he said, and then I slapped him on the arm, laughing.
"You're ridiculous, you know that?", I said, giggling, picking up my backpack. "Stanford, here we come! And maybe we'll find a case on the way"
We both left the motel room, went downstairs and got into the Impala.
"Pick a tape there." Dean said.
"Metallica or Lynyrd Skynyrd?" I asked, holding two tapes.
"Metallica."
"Again?" I asked, surprised. Dean always wanted Metallica and I couldn't stand it any longer.
"Driver picks up the music, shotgun...
"shuts her cakehole, I know!" I interrupted him, putting the tape into the impala's radio. "You suck."
"Stop complaining! Next pitstop, we will buy something to eat, it's going to be a long trip." and it really was. We arrived in Stanford at dawn and Dean looked at me with a grin.
"Oh no, no breaking into his house." I said, denying it.
"Too late!" and he got out of the car, starting to break down the door with his little kit. Soon the door was open. "Come on! And be quiet…"
And I did, bursting like a cat burglar into my twin brother's house.
"Could Sam be asleep?" I whispered, almost completely silent. Dean shrugged. It was completely and utterly pitch black and I could barely see an inch in front of me, so I put my ears to the ground.
And that's when Dean was attacked by... Sam?
Gosh, Sammy was rusty. With a sigh, I kicked him in the back between the thigh and the calf, knocking him off balance. Dean finished knocking him down.
"Easy, tiger!" said Dean, laughing.
"Dean?" Sam said, surprised.
"Hey, asshole!" I said, giggling, appearing in his field of vision.
"Mary-Jane?" he said, even more surprised. "You scared me!"
"It's because it's rusty!" After Dean's comment, Sam reversed positions, leaving Dean on the floor. "Or not! Now get off me."
"What are you doing here?" Sam said, frowning.
"Oh, you know... We're here for a beer, a chat…" said Dean, pacing back and forth. Liar!
"Sam, what's going on?" a blonde girl appeared in the doorway, sleepy and looking confused at the situation. Sam stepped forward.
"Jess, this is Dean, my older brother, and Mary-Jane, my twin sister." Sam introduced us to his possible girlfriend, who looked more uncomfortable than ever.
"Smurfs? I like it!" said Dean, regarding the girl's pyjamas. "But what do you say about leaving so that Mary-Jane, Sam and I can talk alone?
"No, whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of Jess." said Sam. I rolled my eyes.
"Dad hasn't been home for days." I said, crossing my arms.
"This has happened before. He must have been drunk and fallen over in a bar, it's not an emergency." said Sam and his coldness was shocking. How could he care so little about our father?
"Dad's on a hunting trip…" Dean said seriously, which was a miracle.
"And he hasn't been home for days."
That was enough to arouse Sam's curiosity and concern, and he asked Jessica to leave.
"You can't just barge in in the middle of the night and expect me to drive off with you." Sam said, still following us as we went down the stairs.
"You're not listening to me, Sammy. Dad's gone." said Dean, as I followed silently. We need your help.
"Remember the poltergeist in Amherst? Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton?" he said, making me roll my eyes. "He'd disappeared too. He always disappears and he's always fine."
"Yeah, he always disappears, but not for so long. Are you coming with us or not?" I said, crossing my arms and looking at my twin brother.
"I'm not."
"Why not?"
"I swore I wouldn't hunt anymore. For good."
"Come on, it wasn't easy, but it wasn't so bad." I said, turning my back on them both.
"Yeah? When I told Dad I was afraid of the thing in the closet, he gave me a gun."
"What could he do?"
"I was nine years old!" he said angrily. "He should say, 'Don't be afraid of the dark'."
" 'Don't be afraid of the dark'? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's there." said Dean, exasperated.
"Yeah. But how we grew up, after Mom was killed... and Dad's obsession with finding what killed her... And we still haven't found it!" he said. Dean and I rolled our eyes. So we killed everything we found.
"We saved a lot of people with that." I said, interrupting Sam's speech.
"Do you think Mom would want us to do that?" he said. Dean opened the door angrily, leaving the apartment where Sam lived. "Weapons training? Casting silver to make bullets? We were raised as warriors."
"And what are you going to do? Live a normal life? Is that it?" said Dean, ironically.
"No. Not normal. Safe."
"And that's why you ran away."
"I just wanted to go to college. Dad said that if I was going to go, I should go forever." said Sam, with a certain look of pity directed at us. That's what I'm doing.
"Well, Dad's in trouble. I'm not his biggest fan either, but he's still Dad." I said, approaching Sam. "He's really in trouble, if he's not dead. I can feel it."
"We can't do this alone." said Dean, appealingly.
"Yes, you can."
"But we don't want to." and it was thanks to my lost puppy eyes that we convinced Sam.
"What was he hunting?" he asked. We went to the impala, where Dean opened the trunk full of weapons.
"Okay. Let's see. Where did I put that?"
"Why didn't you go with Dad?"
"I was dealing with a case of my own. A voodoo case in New Orleans."
"Dad left you alone on a case?"
"I'm 26, man. I found it! Dad was investigating a road in Jericho, California. MJ was with him."
"We didn't get to finish the case, the guy freaked out saying they were after him and that he needed to keep me safe. We drove to a place in the middle of nowhere and he left me there with only half a bottle of beer, 20 dollars, my gun and a phone." I said, making Sam
laugh weakly.
"Continuing... About a month ago, this guy." Dean showed Sam a news report. They found his car but he's gone.
"Maybe he's been kidnapped."
"Yup… Another one in April. Another in December 2004, 2003, 1998, 1992. Ten in the last 20 years. All men, all on the same 8km stretch of road." Dean said, stacking up the reports on the cases. "It started happening more and more, so Dad and MJ went to investigate. That was three weeks ago. We didn't hear from him again. Then I got this message yesterday."
"Dean. Something's starting to happen. I think it's serious. I need to try and find out what's going on... Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger."
"The voice has changed, you know?"
"Not bad, Sammy. It's like riding a bike, isn't it? MJ, do the honors!" said Dean, and I smiled. I may have been the exact replica of my older brother, but unlike him, I was a computer monster.
I picked up my laptop, lifted the display, turned it on and opened a program.
"I slowed down the recording and ran it through Goldwave. I removed the hiss and I got… this." I played the audio, and the three of us listened carefully.
"I can never go home"
"I can never go home." said Sam, reflectively.
"In almost two years, I've never asked you anything." Dean said, leaning against the impala.
"Okay, I'll go." said Sam, convinced. "But I have to be back on Monday."
"What's on Monday?" I asked, curious.
"I have an interview."
"A job interview? Miss it." Dean said. Typical.
"It's for law school, my whole future in the balance."
"Law school?" mocked Dean, making Sam roll his eyes.
"Do we have a deal?"