Author's Note: ( CONTENT WARNING: non-graphic discussions of child/parent incest, child sexual abuse, past rape/non-con, underage rape/non-con, child abuse, murder ) if you find these topics triggering or aren't in the right mental space to read this fanfic, please turn away. your mental health matters.
Bela's heart was beating so loud, she thought Dean Winchester could hear it down the phone line. Its heavy, quick thumps seemed to vibrate her bones, each slam a reminder of just how little—how precious—time she had left. Of how much of her life she'd spent running.
"Would you like to know?" she whispered into the phone, squeezing it until her fingertips went bloodless.
Peering out the hotel window only revealed the dimly-lit parking lot, the sprawl of shadows that made her skin crawl and belly swoop. And the rain—the rain fell in relentless sheets, pelting the glass separating her and the monsters that were going to drag her to hell, running down the window in long, thin trails.
Goosebumps erupted along the length of her arms underneath her jacket sleeves, puckering every inch of skin.
A heartbeat, silence, and then, "Know what?"
There was no kindness in Dean's voice, only a roughness that did little to comfort her. She supposed that was how it went when it came to him. He wasn't the kind of man one could expect comfort from or kind words or even basic human compassion for anyone outside his brother.
There was the burn of bile at the back of her throat as she swallowed hard, tried to ground herself in some way.
Her heartbeat hammered against her ribcage as she inhaled, held it until her eyes watered. She'd never told anyone what had happened to her as a girl, and now she was saying the words out loud for the first time in her entire life. To some man who couldn't care less about the whys, branding her an awful person without any context.
To him, it was cut and dry, a clear case of a bad decision and her running from the consequences.
"Why—why I made the deal." She wet her lips, cast a quick, nervous glance out the window. There was nothing there, but her skin was tight all the same. "I did it because I wanted a way out." Her throat squeezed tight with a swell of emotion, her words coming out strangled and tight. "I was desperate."
A snort. "Oh, sure. What were you so desperate for? Mommy and Daddy to notice you?"
For Daddy not to.
The derision in his voice was enough to make her sink onto the mattress, wondering why she'd bothered. He didn't care about her reasoning.
But these were her last hours, and she'd be damned if she didn't tell at least one person her story.
The inhale she sucked in was shaking, wobbly, as an overwhelming onslaught of hot tears stabbed behind her eyes, overflowed and rolled down her face. She didn't bother to try to wipe them away.
"In Sea Pine," she started quietly, "you asked me who it was I killed." Her pulse thudded in her ears, and she almost backed out. But the idea of dying without ever telling a single soul why she made the deal—well, that was a far more terrifying thought. "I told you that you wouldn't understand, that no one did."
The briefest of pauses. Then he pressed impatiently, "Yeah, well, who was it?"
As he asked, her chin wobbled as she fought to keep her breathing steady. The phone in her hand shook so hard, she had to steady it with her free one, pushing her thumb into the quick rabbiting of her frantic pulse. Any moisture in her mouth wicked away under the immense pressure of saying the words out loud for the first time ever. Her vision blurred with tears as she inhaled shakily.
"It was my father."
Silence.
"And you want to know why?" Even though she tried to keep her voice even, to not let any of her pain show, it cracked on the words. On the question she knew was rattling in his brain. "He'd been—been…raping me. Since I was eight. Eight-years-old, Dean, and he—well, I was the thing he wanted."
And, like the stopper on a drain being lifted, out came the torrent, all of it rushing out of her in a great flood that she couldn't—and didn't want to—stop.
"Sea Pine was the kind of place where nobody thinks any father would do anything as awful. And even if I told, I knew no one would believe me. They'd blame me. That was how it was. Nevermind I was eight and a child and he should've protected me from the same thing he was doing to me. I was wicked, a temptress, a seductress." A dry, hurt laugh that clawed her throat raw on the way out. "And even worse…my mother knew it. Knew it and she did nothing because she didn't want to get her hands dirty. She said that to me, you know. After he was done with me and I was curled up in my bed, wishing for death, she stood in my doorway and just…looked at me with this—this coldness. Like I was an adult woman, not her little girl. And she said to me, 'I don't want to get involved. It'll ruin me—ruin us.' And then she walked away from me, and I realized…the one person who should've protected me didn't—didn't care."
Dean's breathing crackled down the line.
"So yes, I made a deal. Just to make it stop. I was eight, Dean. What could I do? No one was coming to save me and, even worse I think, no one wanted to. No even my own mother."
She wiped at her eyes and watched the numerals switch from eleven fifty-seven to eleven fifty-eight. The wind howled outside, a stark reminder of the little time she had.
"It kept going until I turned fourteen. That was when I met the crossroads demon. It—it knew. All the thoughts I had, wanting to die, wanting to kill her and him, wanting to run away and never look back. God, it knew every thought I'd had. And I was scared, Dean. So fucking scared. It wasn't going to stop until I left or he killed me. Maybe it was a bad decision, but it was mine. No one else had helped me. No one else even cared. I was a kid, and maybe it wasn't the smartest idea, but it was the only one I had. That demon was the only thing to—to offer me salvation, and fuck everything because I took it. With both hands."
"Why are you telling me this?" Dean asked, his voice low and soft over the patter of rain against the Impala's roof.
Bela heard something shifting—his baby brother, maybe—and stared out the window blindly as the sound of animalistic barking and howls grew closer and closer still. The wind outside howled, but it was drowned out by the pack of beasts coming for her, stalking her. Hunting her down.
The howling grew louder until her ears rang, and her heart skipped a beat while her blood chilled to ice. They'd surrounded her and finally cornered her.
"Because, Dean, I'm going to die tonight, and I wanted to—to tell my story to at least one person. Even if you don't care."
"Bela…" Dean whispered.
"You know, you're the only person I've ever told. I suppose this is goodbye." She laughed dryly, the sound catching in her squeezed throat, and then she began to cry soundless, tears running hot down her cheeks.
"Bela!"
Her smile was sad and wobbly. "Actually, it's Abbie."
The clock chimed as it struck midnight, and her locked motel door shuddered under heavy blows, the deadbolt rattling. Shadows swirled underneath the gap. There was the crack as the wood splintered, the door bowing with the force, and a wild, hungry red eye peered through the split in the wood.
A loud snarl rang out as the hell hound spotted her.
Abbie ended the call as she calmly waited to meet her death. After all, she'd had over ten years to come to terms with it. This was the end, and she would not run from it any longer.