Make Angels of Us All (2/3)
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CHAPTER 2
1998 (April)- Sioux Falls, South Dakota
It's unusually warm for April. At least that's what Bobby'd said earlier when Sam had come back from school.
Sam's stripped down to a t-shirt, studying for his chemistry test. He's got the periodic table memorized perfectly now, but goes over the mnemonic trick twice more just in case.
Rumsfeld, Bobby's dog, starts barking, as two-no three-jeeps pull into the salvage yard.
Bobby's already at the door, Colt in hand. He opens it, whistles for Rumsfeld as the jeeps come to a stop.
Sam closes his book and gets up on his tiptoes to look out the open kitchen window.
There’s four men outside, and Sam doesn’t recognize any of them, but he doesn’t have to. Two of them have guns pointed at Bobby.
“Give us the kid and nobody gets hurt,” the man to Bobby’s right says. He’s got a goatee and a big hunting knife strapped to his belt.
“I don’t have any kids, Carl,” Bobby says, “you know that.”
“Cut the crap, Singer. You’re hiding little Sammy Winchester in there. You’re gonna bring him out, or we’re gonna take him. Either way, we’re not leaving without him.”
“Still as stupid as you are ugly?” Bobby blusters.
Sam’s mouth has gone dry. They’re here for him. Maybe because of what he did at the motel- maybe they’re police or bounty hunters. Dean talked about them once, but made it sound like none of them knew what they were doing. Maybe Sam can get Bobby out of this one. He takes a hesitant step towards the door.
Carl fires off a shot at Bobby's leg and Bobby goes down, clutching at his calf. “Last chance, Singer,” Carl says, aiming the gun at Bobby's head.
“No!” Sam shouts, stepping out through the door. “I’m here, okay?”
“Sam!” Dad’s voice shouts from somewhere further back in the junkyard.
“Dad?” Sam asks, and his heart’s pounding even harder now.
Another of Carl’s men walks out from behind the rusted van, with a gun pointed at Dad’s head.
Carl laughs, cold and sharp. “Smart kid, John. You were right.”
Sam takes another step out into the yard and Bobby lets out a muttered curse. “I-what do you want from me?” Sam asks.
“Your daddy told us all about what you can do. Said that you’d help us out with a few things.”
“Like what?” Sam asks. He looks at Bobby, whose leg is dripping red onto the dusty ground. Bobby sees him looking and tries to give him an encouraging smile, even then. Sam's gut lurches. This is his fault. They came here, hurt Bobby, because of him. "What do you want me to do?"
“Don’t worry about it kid, we’ll tell you when you need to know.”
Sam looks at Dad, but Dad won’t meet his eyes, which makes the sinking feeling in Sam’s gut that much worse. Dad made a deal with them. And he wouldn’t, unless- “Where’s my brother?”
“He’s fine.”
“I want to see him. Right now.”
“Sam, don’t-“ Dad starts, but the man guarding him knees him in the stomach, and Dad doubles over coughing.
“He’s not here,” Carl says, ignoring Dad.
Despite his thundering heart, Sam keeps his voice mostly steady. “I won’t help you unless Dean says it’s okay.”
Carl cocks an eyebrow, annoyed, and nods his chin at the man to his left, who heads for one of their jeeps. He ducks inside, and comes out a few minutes later with a bound and gagged Dean.
Sam wonders why Dean is gagged and Dad isn’t for just a moment before his thoughts melt into pure panic. “If I help you, will you let them both go?”
“Sure thing,” Carl says. “But first I’m gonna need some proof you can do what he says you can.”
“What?”
“Whole thing seems pretty far-fetched if you ask me. And John, well-“ Carl spits in the direction of Dad’s shoes. “He’s not exactly playing with a full deck these days, you know?”
Dean struggles, drawing Sam’s attention for a moment. The man holding Dean gets thrown slightly off balance and stumbles, but catches himself, grabs Dean tighter and yanks on the bonds until Dean lets out a muffled growl through the gag. He slams his head back, there’s a loud cracking sound, and the guy holding Dean shouts a curse as blood pours from his nose.
“For fuck’s sake, Frank!” Carl says.
But Frank's already let go of Dean, who doesn’t waste a second. He kicks the side of Frank’s knee and Frank goes down, head slamming against the dirt with a fleshy thump. Two of Carl’s other men aim their guns at Dean, and John holds up his hands and shouts,“Wait! Stop!”
The angel’s got her hands on Sam’s shoulders, keeping him calm, or trying to. But Sam’s too full of terror to be calm. His heart’s pounding, fire's building in his chest, big as the sun, and he can’t take his eyes off of those guns pointed at Dean. He wants nothing more than for those men to drop them, he wants it so badly that his body and brain flood with heat, strong enough that his back starts to open, strong enough that the angel’s grip loosens.
His wings shove their way out, and a wave of energy rushes from him. It collides with a stack of old auto-carcasses and sets them rattling. The guns Carl's men are holding glow like red, heated ore. One man targeting Dean makes a pained stifled yelp and another drops his gun. The third pulls the trigger.
Time slows, and Sam sees the bullet fly towards Dean, straight for his head. “No!” He thinks desperately, and it veers off course, striking a car behind him. Another shot goes off and Dean jerks back, as blood wells up from his shoulder. The gag muffles his screams, but he’s in pain, he’s bleeding.
Sam watches the red soak into Dean’s shirt and dribble down his arm into the dusty ground, and that red spreads, snaking out like pulsing, living veins, threading into his vision until everything is stained with a blood-colored haze. He shoves the angel the rest of the way off of him as more pressure builds in his chest and then bursts outwards in a shockwave of force. The stacks of cars all around them shake violently, and some of the newer models’ fuel tanks burst into flame, including an old Honda truck right next to Dean’s shooter. The fire grows monstrous with the kerosene of Sam’s rage, and the Honda explodes, taking the shooter with it. Pieces of him fly across the yard, scattering grotesquely on the dusty ground.
Carl takes a few steps back, but the fire reaches for him, with long, thick tendrils and sets him aflame. Screaming, Carl tries to put out the flames, throwing himself on the ground and rolling, but it only grows stronger-his clothing burns away and his skin bubbles and blisters until he’s not screaming anymore. He stops struggling and falls still with his mouth open, teeth stark white against the smoke.
Dad takes advantage of the distraction, grabs one of the guns on the ground, climbs to his feet and shoots-one, two, three. The rest of Carl’s men go down, each with a neat hole between the eyes.
Only Sam, Dean, Dad and Bobby are left alive. And Dad's looking at Sam with wide eyes, but he doesn't look mad, not even a little. He looks awed. Impressed.
On the far side of the lot, the last pile of cars collapses, and the fire starts to die down, shrinking as Sam comes back to himself. He rushes to Dean's side, throws his arms around him, only afterwards remembering that he's bleeding.
"It’s okay, Sam," Dean says. "It's gonna be okay."
Dad drops to his knees besides the two of them. He tears a strip from his shirt, pushing it against Dean's wound. "Go check on Bobby, Sam," he says, but before Sam can get to his feet, he adds, "I'm proud of you, son."
Sam doesn't feel proud. He's too numb with shock to feel much of anything at all.
#
After Bobby and Dean are patched up, and Dad's finished “cleaning” the junkyard, they all find a place to lay down, close to collapsing. Dean crashes on the bed in Bobby’s upstairs guest bedroom. Sam should be exhausted too, but instead he’s full of restless energy; the adrenaline hasn’t faded, even a little. He keeps hearing Carl’s scream and his burned body.
His shirt snags when he pulls it up over his shoulders, but Sam yanks it off the rest of the way angrily, ignoring the pulling pain in his back. Clenching his eyes shut, he steels himself before he forces them open again and turns his back halfway to the mirror so he can see.
The bones are larger, stronger than last time. There’s nothing spindly about them anymore. The two curved claws at the crested bend of each wing are thicker, and needle sharp at their points. He concentrates and lifts the wings up, stretching them out gingerly, as wide as they’ll go in the tight confines of the little bathroom. They’re longer than his arms, and as he watches, feathers sprout from them, like time-lapse footage of a tree budding. The feathers shimmer oddly in the light and he can’t quite tell what color they are. So he reaches a hand back and yanks one out, wincing slightly at the prickle of pain. He holds the feather up, turns it slowly in front of the mirror, watching as it shifts from white to yellow to red to black and how its mirror image disappears from view at certain angles. He pinches it between his thumb and forefinger-it feels warm and pulses like a heartbeat, glistens like a carapace; He squints to examine it more closely: there are veins running through it and he can almost hear a sound trapped inside, like a distorted scream. It sounds like Carl.
There’s something sticking out from his hair too, and when he moves closer to the mirror and pushes his bangs out of the way he can see two sharp grey points sticking out of his skin, just by his hairline. Horns. He pushes his thumb against the right one, equally horrified and curious, and the horn pushes back, growing as he watches. “No,” he says. “Not this too.”
Voices from downstairs disrupt his thoughts and he turns to stare at the door. Dad’s shouting.
Desperate, Sam turns to the mirror and stares at his horns, at the wings sticking out of his back-nearly whole now, with only a few empty patches and glinting like daylight. Like fire. He has to open the door, but can’t, looking like this. That’ll just set off a whole different conversation he’s not ready to have. He closes his eyes, grinds his teeth, and with pure force of will, contracts the bones, folds them together, scaly feathers and all, shoves them back inside of him. He pushes his thumbs against the tips of the horns and forces those down too, ignoring the pain of them piercing his skin; he doesn’t care if they make him bleed as long as they go away. He’s not sure how he knows what to do, but when he opens his eyes again, the horns are gone, and his back is sealed shut, with little more than two long faint slits over his shoulder blades. His thumb-beds have two deep red marks in their center, but they fade as he watches.
He opens the door, careful not to makes a sound. Sam turns his head to the left and sees Dean’s foot dangling off the edge of the bed in the guest room. Good, he’s still upstairs, maybe even still asleep.
“-always put up with your crap, John,” Bobby’s saying, “- because of what you did for me, but I’m not gonna let you keep putting your boys in danger like this.”
Sam moves over the creaky floorboards as silently as he can, pausing at the top of the stairs.
“Putting them in-I’m protecting them!” Dad says, his voice climbing.
“Protecting them?” Bobby says, voice getting louder. “That’s what you call today?”
“No, today-today wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“It’s never supposed to happen, but it keeps happening, don’t it? How many times this year did you nearly get your sons killed?”
“Bobby-you saw what Sam did-what he can do-“ Dad doesn’t sound mad anymore, he sounds excited-happy. “It’s proof!”
“Proof? He’s not proof, he’s your son, damn it!” Bobby’s shouting too, now, and it sends Sam’s stomach into knots. He’s known Uncle Bobby his whole life, and he’s never heard him this mad.
“Bobby-he took them all out, and we’re fine.”
“I got shot! Dean got shot! Or do you not remember stitching us back together an hour ago?”
Dad’s voice has gone down, and Sam climbs a few steps lower so he can hear the rest.
“...all true. What happened today was a miracle.”
“Winchester, the only miracle that happened today is that I haven’t called the cops on you yet. And the day’s still young.” Bobby gets even quieter, adding. “Leave them here with me tonight or I swear you’ll lose them for good.”
Certain that he shouldn’t have overheard any of what was just said, Sam turns to head back up and nearly slams into Dean, who's standing at the top of the stairs, jaw agape. Sam takes the last few steps, and waits for Dean to move aside, which he does, turning to follow Sam back to the bedroom.
Sam can’t help but stare at the bandage on Dean’s shoulder. It doesn’t look too bad from the back, but when he lays back down on the bed, Sam can see its red-soaked center.
“Are you okay?” Sam asks, climbing in the other bed opposite him.
The door slams downstairs, and a few seconds late they hear the unmistakable sound of Dad’s car, leaving.
“I’m fine. Get some sleep, Sam,” Dean says, turning his back towards him. He doesn’t sound angry, just tired.
Sam turns off the light and climbs into bed. He keeps thinking of the fire, of that awful feeling after he let his power loose. The dread of what it would do was terrible, but the way it fed into itself and left him feeling afterwards is even worse. Because he should’ve been repulsed by what he did and he was, but he also stopped those men. They hurt Dean and Bobby and now they won’t hurt anyone ever again.
Sam’s frightened by the turmoil in his mind, too upset to think clearly, but when he reaches for the angel, there’s no answer. So instead he recites the periodic table of elements in his head until exhaustion pulls him under.
#
“Oh come on, not you too!” Dean shouts.
Sam wakes with a start. He’s alone in Uncle Bobby’s guest-room and the door’s open a crack. There’s voices downstairs-Dean, and Bobby. They’re quieter now, but only by a little. Dean still sounds upset.
Barefoot, Sam heads out of the bedroom and back to the top of the stairs.
“-and the gas line at the motel three months back,” Bobby’s saying. “I’m the last one to buy into your Dad’s crazy theories, but it’s more than just a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“What?” Dean snapped. “Us having shit luck and getting hunted by lunatics?”
“You know what I mean.” Bobby sighs, sounding exasperated. “Twice now you three have gotten out of a death trap. Twice now, everybody that attacked you died.”
“That’s what usually happens when people get shot in the head,” Dean says.
“I’m talking about the other ones. The way that fire burned. I mean come on, you know me-most of those tanks were bone dry. That much fire-it’s just not possible.”
“So since it’s not possible, you think it’s Sam?” Dean asks.
Sam’s mouth goes dry and when he swallows it feels tight.
“I don’t know what to think." Bobby sounds tired. "I’m just saying, maybe there really is something else going on here.”
“What’s going on is that crazy is contagious,” Dean’s voice is climbing again. “Trust me. Sam’s just a kid. A normal kid.”
“Would it matter if he wasn’t?” Bobby asks.
And Sam desperately needs to know the answer. He can’t help himself, runs down the stairs and stops on the last step, unable to cross the threshold, and repeats, "Would it matter?"
Dean and Bobby both turn to look at him.
Dean looks guilt-stricken and so tired. “You're my brother,” he says. Immediate relief floods Sam and he takes that last step down, heads towards Dean. “Not some kinda freak,” Dean adds.
Sam can feel his face start to crumple.
Regret fills Dean's face, and he opens his mouth, maybe to apologize.
“But I am a freak,” Sam says, head down.
“No, Sammy, you're not-“
“I am and I don't care! They shot Bobby and they shot you!” The last words come out as a sob and he hates himself for that. Hates crying and the way Dean always teases him when it happens. The tips of his ears flush with heat and he wants to disappear. He wants to sink down through the floorboards and hide in the basement and not come out ever again.
Dean steps closer, wraps his arms around Sam. “Everything’s gonna be okay. I swear.”
“No, it’s not,” Sam insists.
“Kid’s got that right,” Bobby says. He puts a hand on Sam’s shoulder and gives him a pitying smile. “It’s four thirty. Practically morning. How about some breakfast?”
#
“This is your life, Sam,” Bobby says gently. “You get a say in it, too.”
Sam stirs at the sugar-flavored milk left behind in his cereal bowl. Bobby’s explained the plan twice now, but Dean hasn’t said a word. Bobby wants them both to go stay with an old friend, who’ll watch them until Sam’s done school. She’s trustworthy and she can keep them safer than Bobby can. Or so he says.
“But you gotta know that you, both of you, have a real chance at a future-a good one. You don’t have to stay on the road with your old man forever.”
Sam looks to Dean, who’s got his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face. "I want to stay with Dean.”
Dean meets his eyes then. “Sammy, you gotta think about your own life, okay? Where do you want to go? What do you want to be?”
Sam swallows and admits. “I want to go to college. I like school.”
“Yeah, you do, you little weirdo,” Dean says, giving him a smile that turns to sorrow when it reaches his eyes.
“But, can I see Pastor Jim first?” Sam asks. “I really need to talk to him."
Dean looks to Bobby and they have a silent conversation. Bobby nods assuringly at Dean.
“Sure,” Dean says. “Let’s go see Jim. We can figure things out from there.”
But Sam can hear the unspoken words beneath that. Dean wants Sam to have a choice, but he’s going back to Dad either way. Sam knows it, with a certainty that weighs heavy in his chest, too heavy for him to call Dean out on it.
#
1998 - Blue Earth, Minnesota
Pastor Jim greets them with a smile that barely hides his concern. “You’re welcome to stay too, son,” he tells Dean, but Dean shakes his head. He takes a step in, makes an abortive move like he’s reaching for Sam but then changes his mind and holds his hand up in a forced casual wave instead. “Call me when you get there, okay?”
“Okay,” Sam says, and it’s all he can do to add, “bye, Dean,” while still keeping his voice steady.
“Let’s get you to your room,” Pastor Jim says.
“Actually, there’s something I need to do first,” Sam says, steeling himself. “Can we go to the church?”
“Of course,” Pastor Jim says. He takes the keys from the hook and Sam follows him out the door.
Sam avoids looking at the stained glass when he enters the church, doesn’t want to risk seeing the angels move and lose his nerve. He heads straight for the confessional, waits as Pastor Jim takes his seat in the section across from him and slides the window partition open.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been three years since my last confession.”
“What troubles you, my son?”
“There’s something wrong with me. I-I can do things-awful things, and yesterday there were these people-they hurt Dean and Bobby and Dad.” Sam cuts himself off, chewing on his lip. He knows he has to do this, but that doesn’t make it easier. What if Pastor Jim kicks him out? What if he turns him in to the police? What if he tells him he’s evil?
“Did you do something to these people?”
Sam nods. “I just wanted them to go away. I wanted them to stop following us, to stop hurting Dean.” As Sam says the words, and the memory of that moment bubbles up, he can feel the heat building in his chest. “I got angry,” Sam spits out, “really angry and it felt like there was this fire inside of me so I pushed it out-and then everything was burning, the cars, and-“ he hears Carl’s last scream again, hears the echo of the gunshots. “And now all of those people are dead. Because of me.”
Pastor Jim doesn’t answer. The moments drag on, and Sam starts to cry, resigns himself to his fate. Pastor Jim was one of the last people that believed in him, but how can he after this?
“You are forgiven,” Pastor Jim says, and then he opens the door to the confessional.
Sam freezes, taken aback. Pastor Jim was supposed to tell him how to atone first. But maybe he’s beyond redemption.
“Come on out, son.”
Swallowing back his fear, Sam exits the confessional, goes to stand in front of Pastor Jim and looks down at the floor, awaiting his fate.
Pastor Jim puts his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault.”
Confused, Sam looks up at him.
The Pastor’s eyes are glassy and he sounds like he’s telling the truth. “Robert-your Uncle Bobby told me what really happened. Whatever your father might believe, whatever he’s convinced you of-it’s not true.”
Sam pulls out of his hold, shakes his head. “No it’s-Dad didn’t tell me what I did, I saw what I did-I made everything burn, and-“
“Sam,” the Pastor puts a firm hand on his shoulder. “That’s not possible.”
“Why don’t you believe me?” Sam asks. “That’s your job, isn’t it? To believe in miracles and-and in evil.”
“I have faith. In God. That’s not the same thing.”
“Then what is it?” He watches Pastor Jim’s Adam’s apple bob up and down. Adam’s apple; the Garden of Eden; the first sin committed by man, memorialized in anatomy. He wonders if they can ever learn to cough the sin back up. “What’s wrong?” Sam asks as it bobs again.
“Nothing, son.” Nothing you need to worry about, you have enough on your plate.”
“Please tell me,” Sam says. “It’s important, or you wouldn’t be trying to hide it so hard.”
Pastor Jim stutters out a surprised, nervous laugh. “You’re a very perceptive young man.”
“My mother died when I was a baby, people have been trying to kill me my whole life. My father thinks I’m a monster. There’s not a whole lot you can say that would upset me.”
This would, the pastor thinks.
Sam heard it, just like that. He focuses harder, pushing intentionally into his mind now, until his forehead aches, and the pastor notices, meets Sam’s gaze with another bobbing swallow. “Tell me,” Sam says again, no please this time. He pushes his wings out, unfurls them, waits for a reaction, but there isn’t one. The pastor doesn’t see them, but that doesn’t make them any less real. Sam lets them fill with light until it glints back at him from the pastor’s dilated pupils. Pastor Jim winces, and grits out, “Your father is delusional. There are no demons. The only evil in your life is the evil of men.”
"There's no demons?" Sam asks, and he can’t stop his voice from quavering. "Does that mean there's no angels? No God?"
Pastor Jim doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to-his eyes say it all: that rock-solid faith of his is nothing more than a paper-thin veneer and it flakes away as Sam watches, leaving him nothing more than a frightened and vulnerable, old human man. He isn’t holy after all. Nothing is. "I-I don't know," Jim says, voice cracking.
Sam crumples in on himself, a stab of pain shoots through his heart, spreading outwards into his wings until they start to crumble back into the nothingness from which they come. It’s not real, none of it is real, and if it isn’t real then-
Pastor Jim takes Sam's hands in his and looks him in the eyes. "Sam, you are special. You are unique. But you're not the Devil. You're not evil. Whatever is happening around you, it's not your fault, understand?" He pulls Sam carefully into a gentle hug, and his hands pause by his shoulder blades briefly. “Are you hurt?”
Sam pulls out of his hold, rolling his shoulders back. There’s a familiar tug on his shirt, a bone sticking out of his back. “I’m fine,” he says.
Pastor Jim squeezes the bridge of his nose, clenching his eyes shut, like he’s chasing away a headache.
Pushing down twin pulses of guilt and self-loathing at what he’s done to this man who’s shown him nothing but kindness, Sam is about to apologize, but there’s a knock at the door, and a man pokes his head inside. “Pastor?”
“Rufus,” Pastor Jim says, turning towards the door. “Thank you for coming. This is Sam. Sam, this is Rufus. He’s going to bring you to your new home.”
Rufus gives him a wave and a smile that makes his eyes crinkle. "Hey there, little man."
“Hi,” Sam says, and he doesn’t know whether to feel even more nervous or relieved.
“Take this,” Pastor Jim says, handing him the key to the church. “And know that you are always welcome here.”
Sam slips the cord over his head and the key hangs like a leaden weight from his neck. As he follows Rufus out the door, he pauses to look at the statue of Michael and the crack running down its chest.
#
It starts raining twenty minutes into their drive. Through the passenger side window, the lights from the highway refract in the raindrops and Sam lets his eyes unfocus until they look like stars. He holds his breath long enough to feel weightless and pretends he’s floating in space. He lets the breath out again, sinks back into the present and focuses on the metronome of the windshield wipers. He pointedly ignores looking at the side mirror, knows what he might see sticking out through his bangs. “You know my Dad, right?” Sam asks.
“Yup. Served with him, lifetimes ago.” Rufus shrugs his shoulder. “Well, not with him. Adjacent, you could say.” He glances over at Sam, looks back at the road. “He was a good man, your dad. Just got a little lost. More than a little.”
“Do you-“ Sam pauses, trying to phrase his question right. He’s been shot down too many times before. “Do you know what happened to my Mom?”
Rufus nods, mouth set in a grim, tight line.
“Will you tell me? Dean and Dad won’t tell me-Uncle Bobby won’t. All I know is that Dad thinks she died because of me-because I’m cursed.”
“Nah.” Rufus scoffs. “No such thing as curses.” He lets a breath out through his mouth. “You sure you want to know, kid?”
“Yes. I deserve to know.”
“Well, it’s not about what you deserve. Sometimes what really happened is way worse than the stories people make up.”
“Worse than me being cursed? Worse than me being the reason Mom died?” Sam nearly shouts. “Sorry.”
“Okay, you really want to know? Here’s what I know: your dad was a sharpshooter. Damn good one, too. After Vietnam, he left the service. Set himself up as a mechanic. Worked with Bobby for a bit, but it didn’t quite pay the bills, you know? So he starts getting other kinds of ‘job’ offers from guys that needed his other skills.”
“He was a hitman?”
“Something like that. He knows how to find people.”
“What does that have to do with Mom?”
“Not a damn thing. Your Mom died because some jackass decided to rob your place. Came in while everybody was sleeping. Except she woke up, went in to check on you, and the jackass panicked and shot her.”
“But there was a fire.”
“Yeah. Still not sure how that happened. The fire department found traces of turpentine in what was left of your nursery. They think John torched the place himself.”
“What? Why would he-“
“‘Cause he snapped. And he did snap. Whether or not he set the fire. Your house burns down and instead of trying to find a new home, he takes you two and goes off grid. Disappears completely. Two months later, the guy who shot your Mom turns up at the Lawrence police station with a bullet in his head and a confession in his hands.”
Sam’s jaw drops. He’s not sure whether to be upset or not. Dad killed somebody. Probably a lot of somebodies. But if he killed the guy that shot mom- the angel squeezes his shoulder and he feels a sobering wave of sorrow. “But then why did he think-“
“That you were cursed?” Rufus huffs. “That thief was part of this doomsday cult. Think preppers-you know those people that build bunkers ‘just in case,’ only fifty times as crazy. So they start coming after John, and after you kids.” Rufus growls out the last few words, anger threading through them. “And John-he was looking for explanations where there weren't any. A greater reason to explain the tragedy, I guess-something he was powerless against, and-I don’t know...maybe they were just the right kind of crazy, or maybe he was just that damaged from all the shit he’d been through, but he starts buying into their bull. Thinks the world really is gonna end. Gets it in his head that Mary dying, the fire, and you surviving-that all of it was a sign.”
“Of what?”
“Hell if I know.” Rufus shakes his head. “I don’t want to know. What I do know is that he ain’t fit to raise kids.”
“But Dean-“
“Yeah. Can’t talk him out of it. We’ve tried.” Rufus cracks a wry smile. “Bobby’s been trying for years now. But Dean won’t budge.”
Sam swallows, thinks on everything he’s learned. It’s a lot to take in. “You’re not gonna tell Dad where you’re taking me?”
“Nope.”
“What about Dean?”
“You want them to know, you tell them yourself. Bobby asked me to help get you out of a bad situation, so that’s what I’m doing.”
“Bad situation,” Sam repeats. It’s not untrue, but after what he did to the pastor, he wonders if the bad situation won’t just follow him around-wonders if these strangers that have decided to take him in will end up being in danger because of him. “You know the people you’re bringing me to?”
Rufus smiles. “The Harvelles? Yeah, Ellen’s good people. And her daughter Jo’s a little spitfire. You’re gonna love it there.” He tosses him a smile. “Nebraska’s nice this time of year.”
#
on to chapter 3
CHAPTER 2
1998 (April)- Sioux Falls, South Dakota
It's unusually warm for April. At least that's what Bobby'd said earlier when Sam had come back from school.
Sam's stripped down to a t-shirt, studying for his chemistry test. He's got the periodic table memorized perfectly now, but goes over the mnemonic trick twice more just in case.
Rumsfeld, Bobby's dog, starts barking, as two-no three-jeeps pull into the salvage yard.
Bobby's already at the door, Colt in hand. He opens it, whistles for Rumsfeld as the jeeps come to a stop.
Sam closes his book and gets up on his tiptoes to look out the open kitchen window.
There’s four men outside, and Sam doesn’t recognize any of them, but he doesn’t have to. Two of them have guns pointed at Bobby.
“Give us the kid and nobody gets hurt,” the man to Bobby’s right says. He’s got a goatee and a big hunting knife strapped to his belt.
“I don’t have any kids, Carl,” Bobby says, “you know that.”
“Cut the crap, Singer. You’re hiding little Sammy Winchester in there. You’re gonna bring him out, or we’re gonna take him. Either way, we’re not leaving without him.”
“Still as stupid as you are ugly?” Bobby blusters.
Sam’s mouth has gone dry. They’re here for him. Maybe because of what he did at the motel- maybe they’re police or bounty hunters. Dean talked about them once, but made it sound like none of them knew what they were doing. Maybe Sam can get Bobby out of this one. He takes a hesitant step towards the door.
Carl fires off a shot at Bobby's leg and Bobby goes down, clutching at his calf. “Last chance, Singer,” Carl says, aiming the gun at Bobby's head.
“No!” Sam shouts, stepping out through the door. “I’m here, okay?”
“Sam!” Dad’s voice shouts from somewhere further back in the junkyard.
“Dad?” Sam asks, and his heart’s pounding even harder now.
Another of Carl’s men walks out from behind the rusted van, with a gun pointed at Dad’s head.
Carl laughs, cold and sharp. “Smart kid, John. You were right.”
Sam takes another step out into the yard and Bobby lets out a muttered curse. “I-what do you want from me?” Sam asks.
“Your daddy told us all about what you can do. Said that you’d help us out with a few things.”
“Like what?” Sam asks. He looks at Bobby, whose leg is dripping red onto the dusty ground. Bobby sees him looking and tries to give him an encouraging smile, even then. Sam's gut lurches. This is his fault. They came here, hurt Bobby, because of him. "What do you want me to do?"
“Don’t worry about it kid, we’ll tell you when you need to know.”
Sam looks at Dad, but Dad won’t meet his eyes, which makes the sinking feeling in Sam’s gut that much worse. Dad made a deal with them. And he wouldn’t, unless- “Where’s my brother?”
“He’s fine.”
“I want to see him. Right now.”
“Sam, don’t-“ Dad starts, but the man guarding him knees him in the stomach, and Dad doubles over coughing.
“He’s not here,” Carl says, ignoring Dad.
Despite his thundering heart, Sam keeps his voice mostly steady. “I won’t help you unless Dean says it’s okay.”
Carl cocks an eyebrow, annoyed, and nods his chin at the man to his left, who heads for one of their jeeps. He ducks inside, and comes out a few minutes later with a bound and gagged Dean.
Sam wonders why Dean is gagged and Dad isn’t for just a moment before his thoughts melt into pure panic. “If I help you, will you let them both go?”
“Sure thing,” Carl says. “But first I’m gonna need some proof you can do what he says you can.”
“What?”
“Whole thing seems pretty far-fetched if you ask me. And John, well-“ Carl spits in the direction of Dad’s shoes. “He’s not exactly playing with a full deck these days, you know?”
Dean struggles, drawing Sam’s attention for a moment. The man holding Dean gets thrown slightly off balance and stumbles, but catches himself, grabs Dean tighter and yanks on the bonds until Dean lets out a muffled growl through the gag. He slams his head back, there’s a loud cracking sound, and the guy holding Dean shouts a curse as blood pours from his nose.
“For fuck’s sake, Frank!” Carl says.
But Frank's already let go of Dean, who doesn’t waste a second. He kicks the side of Frank’s knee and Frank goes down, head slamming against the dirt with a fleshy thump. Two of Carl’s other men aim their guns at Dean, and John holds up his hands and shouts,“Wait! Stop!”
The angel’s got her hands on Sam’s shoulders, keeping him calm, or trying to. But Sam’s too full of terror to be calm. His heart’s pounding, fire's building in his chest, big as the sun, and he can’t take his eyes off of those guns pointed at Dean. He wants nothing more than for those men to drop them, he wants it so badly that his body and brain flood with heat, strong enough that his back starts to open, strong enough that the angel’s grip loosens.
His wings shove their way out, and a wave of energy rushes from him. It collides with a stack of old auto-carcasses and sets them rattling. The guns Carl's men are holding glow like red, heated ore. One man targeting Dean makes a pained stifled yelp and another drops his gun. The third pulls the trigger.
Time slows, and Sam sees the bullet fly towards Dean, straight for his head. “No!” He thinks desperately, and it veers off course, striking a car behind him. Another shot goes off and Dean jerks back, as blood wells up from his shoulder. The gag muffles his screams, but he’s in pain, he’s bleeding.
Sam watches the red soak into Dean’s shirt and dribble down his arm into the dusty ground, and that red spreads, snaking out like pulsing, living veins, threading into his vision until everything is stained with a blood-colored haze. He shoves the angel the rest of the way off of him as more pressure builds in his chest and then bursts outwards in a shockwave of force. The stacks of cars all around them shake violently, and some of the newer models’ fuel tanks burst into flame, including an old Honda truck right next to Dean’s shooter. The fire grows monstrous with the kerosene of Sam’s rage, and the Honda explodes, taking the shooter with it. Pieces of him fly across the yard, scattering grotesquely on the dusty ground.
Carl takes a few steps back, but the fire reaches for him, with long, thick tendrils and sets him aflame. Screaming, Carl tries to put out the flames, throwing himself on the ground and rolling, but it only grows stronger-his clothing burns away and his skin bubbles and blisters until he’s not screaming anymore. He stops struggling and falls still with his mouth open, teeth stark white against the smoke.
Dad takes advantage of the distraction, grabs one of the guns on the ground, climbs to his feet and shoots-one, two, three. The rest of Carl’s men go down, each with a neat hole between the eyes.
Only Sam, Dean, Dad and Bobby are left alive. And Dad's looking at Sam with wide eyes, but he doesn't look mad, not even a little. He looks awed. Impressed.
On the far side of the lot, the last pile of cars collapses, and the fire starts to die down, shrinking as Sam comes back to himself. He rushes to Dean's side, throws his arms around him, only afterwards remembering that he's bleeding.
"It’s okay, Sam," Dean says. "It's gonna be okay."
Dad drops to his knees besides the two of them. He tears a strip from his shirt, pushing it against Dean's wound. "Go check on Bobby, Sam," he says, but before Sam can get to his feet, he adds, "I'm proud of you, son."
Sam doesn't feel proud. He's too numb with shock to feel much of anything at all.
#
After Bobby and Dean are patched up, and Dad's finished “cleaning” the junkyard, they all find a place to lay down, close to collapsing. Dean crashes on the bed in Bobby’s upstairs guest bedroom. Sam should be exhausted too, but instead he’s full of restless energy; the adrenaline hasn’t faded, even a little. He keeps hearing Carl’s scream and his burned body.
His shirt snags when he pulls it up over his shoulders, but Sam yanks it off the rest of the way angrily, ignoring the pulling pain in his back. Clenching his eyes shut, he steels himself before he forces them open again and turns his back halfway to the mirror so he can see.
The bones are larger, stronger than last time. There’s nothing spindly about them anymore. The two curved claws at the crested bend of each wing are thicker, and needle sharp at their points. He concentrates and lifts the wings up, stretching them out gingerly, as wide as they’ll go in the tight confines of the little bathroom. They’re longer than his arms, and as he watches, feathers sprout from them, like time-lapse footage of a tree budding. The feathers shimmer oddly in the light and he can’t quite tell what color they are. So he reaches a hand back and yanks one out, wincing slightly at the prickle of pain. He holds the feather up, turns it slowly in front of the mirror, watching as it shifts from white to yellow to red to black and how its mirror image disappears from view at certain angles. He pinches it between his thumb and forefinger-it feels warm and pulses like a heartbeat, glistens like a carapace; He squints to examine it more closely: there are veins running through it and he can almost hear a sound trapped inside, like a distorted scream. It sounds like Carl.
There’s something sticking out from his hair too, and when he moves closer to the mirror and pushes his bangs out of the way he can see two sharp grey points sticking out of his skin, just by his hairline. Horns. He pushes his thumb against the right one, equally horrified and curious, and the horn pushes back, growing as he watches. “No,” he says. “Not this too.”
Voices from downstairs disrupt his thoughts and he turns to stare at the door. Dad’s shouting.
Desperate, Sam turns to the mirror and stares at his horns, at the wings sticking out of his back-nearly whole now, with only a few empty patches and glinting like daylight. Like fire. He has to open the door, but can’t, looking like this. That’ll just set off a whole different conversation he’s not ready to have. He closes his eyes, grinds his teeth, and with pure force of will, contracts the bones, folds them together, scaly feathers and all, shoves them back inside of him. He pushes his thumbs against the tips of the horns and forces those down too, ignoring the pain of them piercing his skin; he doesn’t care if they make him bleed as long as they go away. He’s not sure how he knows what to do, but when he opens his eyes again, the horns are gone, and his back is sealed shut, with little more than two long faint slits over his shoulder blades. His thumb-beds have two deep red marks in their center, but they fade as he watches.
He opens the door, careful not to makes a sound. Sam turns his head to the left and sees Dean’s foot dangling off the edge of the bed in the guest room. Good, he’s still upstairs, maybe even still asleep.
“-always put up with your crap, John,” Bobby’s saying, “- because of what you did for me, but I’m not gonna let you keep putting your boys in danger like this.”
Sam moves over the creaky floorboards as silently as he can, pausing at the top of the stairs.
“Putting them in-I’m protecting them!” Dad says, his voice climbing.
“Protecting them?” Bobby says, voice getting louder. “That’s what you call today?”
“No, today-today wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“It’s never supposed to happen, but it keeps happening, don’t it? How many times this year did you nearly get your sons killed?”
“Bobby-you saw what Sam did-what he can do-“ Dad doesn’t sound mad anymore, he sounds excited-happy. “It’s proof!”
“Proof? He’s not proof, he’s your son, damn it!” Bobby’s shouting too, now, and it sends Sam’s stomach into knots. He’s known Uncle Bobby his whole life, and he’s never heard him this mad.
“Bobby-he took them all out, and we’re fine.”
“I got shot! Dean got shot! Or do you not remember stitching us back together an hour ago?”
Dad’s voice has gone down, and Sam climbs a few steps lower so he can hear the rest.
“...all true. What happened today was a miracle.”
“Winchester, the only miracle that happened today is that I haven’t called the cops on you yet. And the day’s still young.” Bobby gets even quieter, adding. “Leave them here with me tonight or I swear you’ll lose them for good.”
Certain that he shouldn’t have overheard any of what was just said, Sam turns to head back up and nearly slams into Dean, who's standing at the top of the stairs, jaw agape. Sam takes the last few steps, and waits for Dean to move aside, which he does, turning to follow Sam back to the bedroom.
Sam can’t help but stare at the bandage on Dean’s shoulder. It doesn’t look too bad from the back, but when he lays back down on the bed, Sam can see its red-soaked center.
“Are you okay?” Sam asks, climbing in the other bed opposite him.
The door slams downstairs, and a few seconds late they hear the unmistakable sound of Dad’s car, leaving.
“I’m fine. Get some sleep, Sam,” Dean says, turning his back towards him. He doesn’t sound angry, just tired.
Sam turns off the light and climbs into bed. He keeps thinking of the fire, of that awful feeling after he let his power loose. The dread of what it would do was terrible, but the way it fed into itself and left him feeling afterwards is even worse. Because he should’ve been repulsed by what he did and he was, but he also stopped those men. They hurt Dean and Bobby and now they won’t hurt anyone ever again.
Sam’s frightened by the turmoil in his mind, too upset to think clearly, but when he reaches for the angel, there’s no answer. So instead he recites the periodic table of elements in his head until exhaustion pulls him under.
#
“Oh come on, not you too!” Dean shouts.
Sam wakes with a start. He’s alone in Uncle Bobby’s guest-room and the door’s open a crack. There’s voices downstairs-Dean, and Bobby. They’re quieter now, but only by a little. Dean still sounds upset.
Barefoot, Sam heads out of the bedroom and back to the top of the stairs.
“-and the gas line at the motel three months back,” Bobby’s saying. “I’m the last one to buy into your Dad’s crazy theories, but it’s more than just a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“What?” Dean snapped. “Us having shit luck and getting hunted by lunatics?”
“You know what I mean.” Bobby sighs, sounding exasperated. “Twice now you three have gotten out of a death trap. Twice now, everybody that attacked you died.”
“That’s what usually happens when people get shot in the head,” Dean says.
“I’m talking about the other ones. The way that fire burned. I mean come on, you know me-most of those tanks were bone dry. That much fire-it’s just not possible.”
“So since it’s not possible, you think it’s Sam?” Dean asks.
Sam’s mouth goes dry and when he swallows it feels tight.
“I don’t know what to think." Bobby sounds tired. "I’m just saying, maybe there really is something else going on here.”
“What’s going on is that crazy is contagious,” Dean’s voice is climbing again. “Trust me. Sam’s just a kid. A normal kid.”
“Would it matter if he wasn’t?” Bobby asks.
And Sam desperately needs to know the answer. He can’t help himself, runs down the stairs and stops on the last step, unable to cross the threshold, and repeats, "Would it matter?"
Dean and Bobby both turn to look at him.
Dean looks guilt-stricken and so tired. “You're my brother,” he says. Immediate relief floods Sam and he takes that last step down, heads towards Dean. “Not some kinda freak,” Dean adds.
Sam can feel his face start to crumple.
Regret fills Dean's face, and he opens his mouth, maybe to apologize.
“But I am a freak,” Sam says, head down.
“No, Sammy, you're not-“
“I am and I don't care! They shot Bobby and they shot you!” The last words come out as a sob and he hates himself for that. Hates crying and the way Dean always teases him when it happens. The tips of his ears flush with heat and he wants to disappear. He wants to sink down through the floorboards and hide in the basement and not come out ever again.
Dean steps closer, wraps his arms around Sam. “Everything’s gonna be okay. I swear.”
“No, it’s not,” Sam insists.
“Kid’s got that right,” Bobby says. He puts a hand on Sam’s shoulder and gives him a pitying smile. “It’s four thirty. Practically morning. How about some breakfast?”
#
“This is your life, Sam,” Bobby says gently. “You get a say in it, too.”
Sam stirs at the sugar-flavored milk left behind in his cereal bowl. Bobby’s explained the plan twice now, but Dean hasn’t said a word. Bobby wants them both to go stay with an old friend, who’ll watch them until Sam’s done school. She’s trustworthy and she can keep them safer than Bobby can. Or so he says.
“But you gotta know that you, both of you, have a real chance at a future-a good one. You don’t have to stay on the road with your old man forever.”
Sam looks to Dean, who’s got his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face. "I want to stay with Dean.”
Dean meets his eyes then. “Sammy, you gotta think about your own life, okay? Where do you want to go? What do you want to be?”
Sam swallows and admits. “I want to go to college. I like school.”
“Yeah, you do, you little weirdo,” Dean says, giving him a smile that turns to sorrow when it reaches his eyes.
“But, can I see Pastor Jim first?” Sam asks. “I really need to talk to him."
Dean looks to Bobby and they have a silent conversation. Bobby nods assuringly at Dean.
“Sure,” Dean says. “Let’s go see Jim. We can figure things out from there.”
But Sam can hear the unspoken words beneath that. Dean wants Sam to have a choice, but he’s going back to Dad either way. Sam knows it, with a certainty that weighs heavy in his chest, too heavy for him to call Dean out on it.
#
1998 - Blue Earth, Minnesota
Pastor Jim greets them with a smile that barely hides his concern. “You’re welcome to stay too, son,” he tells Dean, but Dean shakes his head. He takes a step in, makes an abortive move like he’s reaching for Sam but then changes his mind and holds his hand up in a forced casual wave instead. “Call me when you get there, okay?”
“Okay,” Sam says, and it’s all he can do to add, “bye, Dean,” while still keeping his voice steady.
“Let’s get you to your room,” Pastor Jim says.
“Actually, there’s something I need to do first,” Sam says, steeling himself. “Can we go to the church?”
“Of course,” Pastor Jim says. He takes the keys from the hook and Sam follows him out the door.
Sam avoids looking at the stained glass when he enters the church, doesn’t want to risk seeing the angels move and lose his nerve. He heads straight for the confessional, waits as Pastor Jim takes his seat in the section across from him and slides the window partition open.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been three years since my last confession.”
“What troubles you, my son?”
“There’s something wrong with me. I-I can do things-awful things, and yesterday there were these people-they hurt Dean and Bobby and Dad.” Sam cuts himself off, chewing on his lip. He knows he has to do this, but that doesn’t make it easier. What if Pastor Jim kicks him out? What if he turns him in to the police? What if he tells him he’s evil?
“Did you do something to these people?”
Sam nods. “I just wanted them to go away. I wanted them to stop following us, to stop hurting Dean.” As Sam says the words, and the memory of that moment bubbles up, he can feel the heat building in his chest. “I got angry,” Sam spits out, “really angry and it felt like there was this fire inside of me so I pushed it out-and then everything was burning, the cars, and-“ he hears Carl’s last scream again, hears the echo of the gunshots. “And now all of those people are dead. Because of me.”
Pastor Jim doesn’t answer. The moments drag on, and Sam starts to cry, resigns himself to his fate. Pastor Jim was one of the last people that believed in him, but how can he after this?
“You are forgiven,” Pastor Jim says, and then he opens the door to the confessional.
Sam freezes, taken aback. Pastor Jim was supposed to tell him how to atone first. But maybe he’s beyond redemption.
“Come on out, son.”
Swallowing back his fear, Sam exits the confessional, goes to stand in front of Pastor Jim and looks down at the floor, awaiting his fate.
Pastor Jim puts his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault.”
Confused, Sam looks up at him.
The Pastor’s eyes are glassy and he sounds like he’s telling the truth. “Robert-your Uncle Bobby told me what really happened. Whatever your father might believe, whatever he’s convinced you of-it’s not true.”
Sam pulls out of his hold, shakes his head. “No it’s-Dad didn’t tell me what I did, I saw what I did-I made everything burn, and-“
“Sam,” the Pastor puts a firm hand on his shoulder. “That’s not possible.”
“Why don’t you believe me?” Sam asks. “That’s your job, isn’t it? To believe in miracles and-and in evil.”
“I have faith. In God. That’s not the same thing.”
“Then what is it?” He watches Pastor Jim’s Adam’s apple bob up and down. Adam’s apple; the Garden of Eden; the first sin committed by man, memorialized in anatomy. He wonders if they can ever learn to cough the sin back up. “What’s wrong?” Sam asks as it bobs again.
“Nothing, son.” Nothing you need to worry about, you have enough on your plate.”
“Please tell me,” Sam says. “It’s important, or you wouldn’t be trying to hide it so hard.”
Pastor Jim stutters out a surprised, nervous laugh. “You’re a very perceptive young man.”
“My mother died when I was a baby, people have been trying to kill me my whole life. My father thinks I’m a monster. There’s not a whole lot you can say that would upset me.”
This would, the pastor thinks.
Sam heard it, just like that. He focuses harder, pushing intentionally into his mind now, until his forehead aches, and the pastor notices, meets Sam’s gaze with another bobbing swallow. “Tell me,” Sam says again, no please this time. He pushes his wings out, unfurls them, waits for a reaction, but there isn’t one. The pastor doesn’t see them, but that doesn’t make them any less real. Sam lets them fill with light until it glints back at him from the pastor’s dilated pupils. Pastor Jim winces, and grits out, “Your father is delusional. There are no demons. The only evil in your life is the evil of men.”
"There's no demons?" Sam asks, and he can’t stop his voice from quavering. "Does that mean there's no angels? No God?"
Pastor Jim doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to-his eyes say it all: that rock-solid faith of his is nothing more than a paper-thin veneer and it flakes away as Sam watches, leaving him nothing more than a frightened and vulnerable, old human man. He isn’t holy after all. Nothing is. "I-I don't know," Jim says, voice cracking.
Sam crumples in on himself, a stab of pain shoots through his heart, spreading outwards into his wings until they start to crumble back into the nothingness from which they come. It’s not real, none of it is real, and if it isn’t real then-
Pastor Jim takes Sam's hands in his and looks him in the eyes. "Sam, you are special. You are unique. But you're not the Devil. You're not evil. Whatever is happening around you, it's not your fault, understand?" He pulls Sam carefully into a gentle hug, and his hands pause by his shoulder blades briefly. “Are you hurt?”
Sam pulls out of his hold, rolling his shoulders back. There’s a familiar tug on his shirt, a bone sticking out of his back. “I’m fine,” he says.
Pastor Jim squeezes the bridge of his nose, clenching his eyes shut, like he’s chasing away a headache.
Pushing down twin pulses of guilt and self-loathing at what he’s done to this man who’s shown him nothing but kindness, Sam is about to apologize, but there’s a knock at the door, and a man pokes his head inside. “Pastor?”
“Rufus,” Pastor Jim says, turning towards the door. “Thank you for coming. This is Sam. Sam, this is Rufus. He’s going to bring you to your new home.”
Rufus gives him a wave and a smile that makes his eyes crinkle. "Hey there, little man."
“Hi,” Sam says, and he doesn’t know whether to feel even more nervous or relieved.
“Take this,” Pastor Jim says, handing him the key to the church. “And know that you are always welcome here.”
Sam slips the cord over his head and the key hangs like a leaden weight from his neck. As he follows Rufus out the door, he pauses to look at the statue of Michael and the crack running down its chest.
#
It starts raining twenty minutes into their drive. Through the passenger side window, the lights from the highway refract in the raindrops and Sam lets his eyes unfocus until they look like stars. He holds his breath long enough to feel weightless and pretends he’s floating in space. He lets the breath out again, sinks back into the present and focuses on the metronome of the windshield wipers. He pointedly ignores looking at the side mirror, knows what he might see sticking out through his bangs. “You know my Dad, right?” Sam asks.
“Yup. Served with him, lifetimes ago.” Rufus shrugs his shoulder. “Well, not with him. Adjacent, you could say.” He glances over at Sam, looks back at the road. “He was a good man, your dad. Just got a little lost. More than a little.”
“Do you-“ Sam pauses, trying to phrase his question right. He’s been shot down too many times before. “Do you know what happened to my Mom?”
Rufus nods, mouth set in a grim, tight line.
“Will you tell me? Dean and Dad won’t tell me-Uncle Bobby won’t. All I know is that Dad thinks she died because of me-because I’m cursed.”
“Nah.” Rufus scoffs. “No such thing as curses.” He lets a breath out through his mouth. “You sure you want to know, kid?”
“Yes. I deserve to know.”
“Well, it’s not about what you deserve. Sometimes what really happened is way worse than the stories people make up.”
“Worse than me being cursed? Worse than me being the reason Mom died?” Sam nearly shouts. “Sorry.”
“Okay, you really want to know? Here’s what I know: your dad was a sharpshooter. Damn good one, too. After Vietnam, he left the service. Set himself up as a mechanic. Worked with Bobby for a bit, but it didn’t quite pay the bills, you know? So he starts getting other kinds of ‘job’ offers from guys that needed his other skills.”
“He was a hitman?”
“Something like that. He knows how to find people.”
“What does that have to do with Mom?”
“Not a damn thing. Your Mom died because some jackass decided to rob your place. Came in while everybody was sleeping. Except she woke up, went in to check on you, and the jackass panicked and shot her.”
“But there was a fire.”
“Yeah. Still not sure how that happened. The fire department found traces of turpentine in what was left of your nursery. They think John torched the place himself.”
“What? Why would he-“
“‘Cause he snapped. And he did snap. Whether or not he set the fire. Your house burns down and instead of trying to find a new home, he takes you two and goes off grid. Disappears completely. Two months later, the guy who shot your Mom turns up at the Lawrence police station with a bullet in his head and a confession in his hands.”
Sam’s jaw drops. He’s not sure whether to be upset or not. Dad killed somebody. Probably a lot of somebodies. But if he killed the guy that shot mom- the angel squeezes his shoulder and he feels a sobering wave of sorrow. “But then why did he think-“
“That you were cursed?” Rufus huffs. “That thief was part of this doomsday cult. Think preppers-you know those people that build bunkers ‘just in case,’ only fifty times as crazy. So they start coming after John, and after you kids.” Rufus growls out the last few words, anger threading through them. “And John-he was looking for explanations where there weren't any. A greater reason to explain the tragedy, I guess-something he was powerless against, and-I don’t know...maybe they were just the right kind of crazy, or maybe he was just that damaged from all the shit he’d been through, but he starts buying into their bull. Thinks the world really is gonna end. Gets it in his head that Mary dying, the fire, and you surviving-that all of it was a sign.”
“Of what?”
“Hell if I know.” Rufus shakes his head. “I don’t want to know. What I do know is that he ain’t fit to raise kids.”
“But Dean-“
“Yeah. Can’t talk him out of it. We’ve tried.” Rufus cracks a wry smile. “Bobby’s been trying for years now. But Dean won’t budge.”
Sam swallows, thinks on everything he’s learned. It’s a lot to take in. “You’re not gonna tell Dad where you’re taking me?”
“Nope.”
“What about Dean?”
“You want them to know, you tell them yourself. Bobby asked me to help get you out of a bad situation, so that’s what I’m doing.”
“Bad situation,” Sam repeats. It’s not untrue, but after what he did to the pastor, he wonders if the bad situation won’t just follow him around-wonders if these strangers that have decided to take him in will end up being in danger because of him. “You know the people you’re bringing me to?”
Rufus smiles. “The Harvelles? Yeah, Ellen’s good people. And her daughter Jo’s a little spitfire. You’re gonna love it there.” He tosses him a smile. “Nebraska’s nice this time of year.”
#
on to chapter 3