This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race - Part Four
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, Dean, John, Bobby, YED, various Special Children
Disclaimer: Supernatural is not mine.
Warnings: kidnapping, emotional and physical trauma, profanity, twisting of canonical events, very little happy parts, minor character death
FOUR
"So where're the others?" asked Sam a short time later as he trudged alongside Jake. The other boy led them through the trees and thick undergrowth that seemed to be everywhere as they moved continuously further away from the Winchesters' motel room and into the forest surrounding it.
"Gone," said Jake. "Everybody split off into smaller groups. Some wanted to find their families, see how much of what they were told was true and how much were lies ... Others just wanted to leave. Speaking of which -"
"What?"
Jake turned around, halting their small group, of which only Ava, Andy, Ansem, and Max remained. "There's a big road to the east," Jake announced loudly and pointed over his shoulder to indicate the direction. "I'm going to take it into the nearest town and see what's left. It could be dangerous: Boss has always warned us about the rogues and betrayers that run the streets now. I suspect it's all lies; and those of you who are willing are welcome to join me."
"Wait, what? No, you can't leave. We should all stick together!"
"Sam ..." Andy pleaded quietly beside him.
But Sam turned towards him, inexplicably hurt. "Andy, you're not thinking of going with him, are you?"
"No," Andy shook his head, "No, of course not. Me and Ans are hanging around. But you can't stop him if he wants to go."
Max stepped forward then. "I'm going too." He looked at Sam and his eyes were sad. "I'm sorry, Sam, but the whole point of this thing was to find out who we really are. And now that we know you're safe ..." He shrugged. "I'm with Jake on this one."
"Well I'm staying," said Ava fiercely. "All of you are crazy if you think anything is actually over. Getting away was just the beginning."
"And that's your choice to make," said Jake. "It'll be okay." He pulled Sam in for a quick hug. "And hey, this doesn't have to be it. We'll see each other again." Max hugged him too and moved beside Jake. The two boys waved a final time and then turned east, where a glow of bright amber light line the far away hills. They walked towards it, turning into shadows long before they were actually gone. Sam watched them go until they were mere specks in the distance.
Like Ava, he had a feeling the fight was just beginning.
They went to sleep that night with their backs to the campfire. It was cold - they'd used up the last of their blankets saying goodby to Lily - and the night was loud; the moon too bright in the black sky. Sam awoke the next morning with a gasp, shivering in the early morning chill. He tended to the fire, weaving between the lumbering forms of Ava and the twins as he picked out sticks and leaves with which he could fuel the flames.
His dreams that night had been filled with confusion and pain: sharp yellow eyes peering at him from every corner; armies of darkness bowing before his command, marching across a stark landscape that was almost as beautiful as it was terrifying; and visions of John and Dean Winchester looking down at an infant Sam in his crib in hatred and disgust while Sam cried.
He leaned against a tree with protruding roots so large they were nearly as tall as him and slid down into a sitting position against it. The forest seemed to go on forever all around him, and Sam was small. Sam was so small and the world was so large and he was afraid that he wouldn't know how to fit within it without disappearing completely.
Soon enough he heard the others stirring behind him and he stood back up. They were laughing and excited, pleased at their recent successes as they started packing up for the long day ahead, and Sam allowed himself one more minute to himself before he joined them.
-
Brittney and Kelly reached the city limits a little more than two days after the escape, just as the sun was ascending the sky and just as barely a dozen miles away, Max and Jake were watching the same light as they walked in the opposite direction. After living in the crowded basement room for most of their lives, where the ceilings had just barely grazed the tops of their heads and having no more than half a dozen feet between you and the another person at any time was always a given, just the simple ... enormity of the place was more than enough to ignite any buried doubts the two girls might have had on whether or not they'd done the right thing.
But it was not just the size - the city was simply bursting. It bustled with life around every corner, from the lowest ground of the white place where the people walked, to the daredevil heads sticking out of mile high windows shouting to each other through the air. More of those large metal box contraptions - like what the hunters came in - hurried down the black strip; hundreds it seemed like. Every two steps, they found themselves in the way of something else, and it was a dubious trap when all they seemed able to do was to stare up at the sky, and the towers, and every other impossible thing that caught their eyes.
"I ... don't understand," Brittney said, and Kelly tore her gaze away from a man selling finger-shaped meat on the corner to look at her. "Is this how you pictured it looking? This is not how I pictured it looking."
A tall man wearing a suit jacket and talking into a strange little rectangle held up to his ear rammed into her shoulder and some of the hot drink he was carrying splashed across Kelly's white shirt. He stopped just long enough to mutter a distracted, "Sorry, ma'am, terribly sorry," before he rushed away.
"It's all so ..." she started, and then found that she didn't have the words to finish the thought.
"Where are all the fires?" asked Brittney suddenly. "Where're the street fights, and the half-destroyed buildings, and the armies patrolling the streets? Where is all of the fighting? Don't they know there's a war going on?" Her eyes were wild, flitting around at her surroundings, crazy-like; Kelly knew she probably didn't look much better herself.
She looked closer into the faces of the humans going innocently about their daily lives. Shouldn't the end of the world create more panic than this? Some fear? Boss had always told it like the world outside of them was, at most, a world of savages and chaos, thieving and hatred; total and devastating and all-consuming madness. What she saw now was ... well, normality, she guessed.
"Brit," she said, "I don't think they do."
-
"Okay, Andy, now just feel the stick in your mind. Imagine you can already see it floating in the air; you can feel the wood, the bark around it, every groove and knob -"
There was a loud snort and the whack of a hand softly on the back of Andy's head. Sam watched and smiled softly at his friends' antics from his spot against a nearby tree.
"Sis, you know I don't swing that way."
"Andy, you've never swung any way. You don't even know what that means."
"Sure I do, Meg told me, and I've always wanted to say it. I'm not sure where she heard it though ..."
Ava glared and Andy threw his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay ... seriously now." He closed his eyes. "Feel the stick. Feel the stick."
Sam laughed, rolling around on the dirty leaf-strewn floor. Ava rolled her eyes, but she was smiling too. There was a beat of silence while they all waited anxiously. But the stick remained stubbornly on the ground, not even a twitch of movement, and Andy let out the large breath he'd been holding before opening his eyes. "There! Nothing. Again!"
Ava frowned delicately. "You're not trying hard enough," she scolded.
"I am so!" he exclaimed at the same moment that Ansem, leaving the warmth of the fire, stood and moved to stand beside his twin.
"Good," was his quiet response.
There was a long beat of silence during which Ansem and Ava stared at each other. Sam stood up too, using his hands to lift himself off of the ground. A line had suddenly been drawn, and Sam was standing literally in the middle of it. "You have something you wish to say, Ansem?" Ava snapped.
"Actually," Ansem took another step forward so that now he was directly facing her as he shuffled Andy aside, "I do."
"Well, don't let me stop you, what's your problem? Spit it out." The amused look she had dealt when speaking to Andy had gone.
"What's my problem? What's my problem, Ava? What the hell are you doing, teaching him that?" He pointed to the stick lying on the ground. "I thought we wanted to get away from all of that?"
"Ansem," said Sam carefully, "What's wrong?"
"This! Everything!" Ansem shouted, rounding on him. "Our entire, screwed up, effing lives is what's wrong, brother! What did using our powers ever actually do for us, exactly, besides appease him? Do you honestly still think that you're going to fight in this war? That this - what you're doing now - that's it's going to mean anything to him? I can't ... shit, man, I ..."
"Ans?" Ava asked, looking suddenly frightened. The younger boy looked back at her through hooded, bloodshot eyes. Sweat was collecting in thin pools between the creases in his forehead. The three of them stepped closer towards him at the same time. "Ans, you look sick. Please, just calm down. Here, sit." She started to reach towards him but he flinched, backing frantically away from her outstretched hand.
"I'm not sick!" he yelled as Andy tried to use the back of his hand to feel against Ansem's sweating brow. "I just can't figure it out. What was the point? What the hell did Lily die for, if the second we're free you go back to doing what he wanted you to do all along - the same shit we spent our entire lives hating? What? Are you still his mindless puppets, following orders in the hopes of getting one less beating tonight? Maybe a gold fucking star?"
"No, Ans, of course not."
"Then what are you?" He grabbed Ava by the shoulders and began to shake her viciously. "What are you? What are you! WHAT ARE YOU?" he shouted.
"Ansem, that's enough!" Sam wedged himself between them and tried to push the other boy off. "I said that's enough! You're hurting her!" Ansem finally let go, but he wrapped his hands around Sam's neck instead, using his arm to slam Sam's back against the rough bark of the tree. Ansem's eyes were deadly as he pushed against Sam, leaning in close to his face, his hot breath mingling with Sam's own.
"Don't you start telling me what to do now, Sammy," he hissed. "I'm not your soldier anymore. I'm through with that life." And he shoved Sam once more before stalking away.
-
Jake had hit the jackpot this time.
It really was amazing what some people threw away. Just one bin, not even half full, and he was feasting on a buffet the size of which he could never have imagined before.
It all tasted a little bit ... off, but food was food, however he could get it. And he couldn't exactly afford to be picky; he had come too far, given up far too much, to suddenly become squeamish about a little dumpster diving when he needed it.
This world was nothing like Jake had expected it to be, whenever he had taken the time before to think about it. Which hadn't been often; Jake was all about the here and now.
His eyes caught on a slab of meat sandwiched between two rolls of bread and he lurched towards it, covering his old shirt with grease and only the Devil knew what other delicacies. He devoured it before washing it down with a handful of warm rain water from the ground. It was dirty and bland and made his stomach roll over unpleasantly, but it was wet, and he took a second mouthful and then a third, until he was on his knees in the cold, using his mouth like an animal to slurp it from the ground in a thirst-induced frenzy.
A door in the wall behind him banged open and Jake stiffened instinctively. He crouched behind the bin and tried to stay hidden as two men in blue costumes walked right past him, talking loudly and sharing a bottle of amber drink between them. When they were gone, he stood from his hiding place and climbed back into the bin. He didn't hear the footsteps of the men turn around and head back in his direction. Didn't see the flashing blue and red lights blocking the exit of the alley, and even if he had, what would he have done? He didn't know what those lights might mean.
He heard one of them shout, "Hey, kid, you can't do that!" and whipped around. A hand fell on his shoulder and pulled him onto the soaked ground. They were trying to push him onto his stomach and that's when Jake finally reacted, his head clearing, and he swept one foot beneath them so that they fell beside him as he scrambled back to his own feet. He kicked the first man in the sternum, shattering his ribcage, and then he pulled the second man up by the collar and punched him square in the nose. His blood spurted all over Jake but Jake didn't waste the time to wipe it from his face before he was hightailing away from the alley.
He ran for as long as he could, heart pounding erractically against his chest. The white walking ground flew beneath his feet. His head hurt, his arms and legs had ached since morning; he had never felt so out of control of himself before. He was the strong one, the fighter, so why did he suddenly feel so weak, so out of control? It wasn't a sensation he was accustomed to feeling.
He couldn't count the number of irritated people that he pushed out of his way, and he didn't slow down until he was as far away as he could get, on a street with houses that all looked the same, small gardens dotting the grass. Kids played freely out on the streets games Jake didn't even recognize. They pushed loud, obnoxious machines over their perfectly trimmed lawns and they each possessed at least one of those outlandish metal boxes with the wheels that everybody seemed to have. It was quite possibly the strangest sight Jake had ever seen.
He was panting harshly now. The bright exploding pains in his skull made it hard to concentrate and he fell, his knees collapsing as his bloated stomach heaved, onto the grass in front of one of those strange identical houses. The sun burned behind his eyes. He closed them, welcoming the darkness, and didn't open them again for a long time.
When he finally came to sometime later, the world was a green blurry canvas covered by shadow. Somebody was standing over him - Jake could sense the quiet presence - but he didn't have the energy even to lift his head to see. Then strong, sure hands were gripping his shoulders and he was being dragged away.
-
In another world, Yellow Eyes' kids would be picked off like flies while they slept. Defenceless; ignorant. And for most of them, the true nature of the world that they lived in would be nothing but a B-rated horror flick; a child's nightmare, a cheap thrill ... anything but the dark truth they would not know until the moment that life departed from their bodies. Sometimes, it was just happenstance - the cruel twist of fate, luck, whatever it needed to be called. The others, those who lasted long enough, they fought. They killed and manipulated each other and were manipulated, because of a deal made that had never been about them at the same time that it was for them. And was that way any better?
In this world, it doesn't happen like that, with an ending of love and pain, kneeling in the mud with the feeling of a brother's arms around you even as everything else disappears. The world is a cruel place when you've spent all your formative years living a lie, and in this world, there's nothing so final; nothing that is so cut and clean. In this world, it ends with:
-
A city bus going down a car-lined street. The light is green, those people opting to walk waiting for that little white man telling them it's safe to go. But Scott doesn't understand the meaning behind any of this. He steps out in front of them and doesn't stand a chance.
-
An angry demon, looking for revenge. Paul's been transforming almost non-stop for five days since the escape, and he's tired. All hopes of blending in, of not being predicatable, evaporate with the flick of a wist and the twist of a smile down an alley while is back is turned.
-
The condemnation of a weary old hunter, who can't decide between monster and victim when they cross paths in Colorado Springs.
-
A fever he just can't shake, flinging his seizing body around the walls of the halfway house.
-
A debilitating heroin addiction, years down the line.
-
Another demon.
-
Another hunter.
-
It happens a dozen different ways at a dozen different times. And what way was better? Who's to say?
Smack. Just another fly.
-
Max glanced around himself curiously. Under the too bright lights, surrounded by all of the endless rows of nameless foods, watching the other patrons stroll casually by while they loaded their little carts with whatever they pleased, you wouldn't have guessed that anything was wrong with their wold at that moment; that these calm, unaware people's very existence upon this planet was numbered and the clock was still ticking down. He pushed his own metal cart slowly down an aisle filled with shelf upon shelf of brightly coloured packages proclaiming delicacies such as World's Finest Chocolates and Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum. He put some of these in his cart, on top of the bread loaves, oranges, and something called 'Butter' that was shaped like a foil-wrapped brick. He turned back in the direction of the automatic doors that lead outside, bypassing the long line-ups at the front of the building and walking straight out into the dizzying sunlight. He was still humming contently to himself when he was abruptly tackled to the ground, the handles of his cart slipping away from his sweaty palms and rolling along the walkway. He handed with a heavy thud, the air whooshing out of his lungs in one shocked gasp as his hands were held behind his back, a man's voice shouting quick words above his ear. Max wouldn't discover until much later that something was supposed to have been 'paid' in exchange for the food; that nothing was for free, even when you were in dire need of it. Max didn't much get these people's way of thinking and he still wouldn't understand it thirty minutes later, the next time he found himself in a cage. Or forty minutes, or fifty, or sixty.
-
Sam awoke to the sound of birdsong, trilling and melancholy, in the air, the makeshift blanket of his coat coiled like a snake's skin around his arms and body, and the sweet, pungent scent of smoke and damp logs smouldering nearby.
"It was him again, wasn't it?" a tired voice said to his right. A long,thin stick entered Sam's line of sight, poking a mushy clump of leaves further into a softly glowing campfire. Ansem was sitting on a large rock, staring intently into the flames. "Your dream," he elaborated, without turning away.
Sam sat up, brushing the remainders of a night spent on the forest floor from his clothes. He didn't ask how Ansem knew, just nodded, but Ansem wasn't looking at him, and Sam crossed his arms over his knees while he followed the other boy's gaze.
"I get them too," said Ansem, using the stick again. "The others as well." His head tilted to where Ava and Andy still slept beneath their jackets soundly. He was talking more kindly than Sam had ever heard him speak, except to Andy. "He tells me to come to him, that everything'll be okay again if I just re-join him. That I have work to do and the lives of my brothers and sisters depend on it. Sometimes he stares at me," he whispered, "just stares all night ..." Finally, he looked at Sam. "Those are the worst.
"So I get it, I do, why you don't want to stop using your powers. It'd be a helluva lot easier. Sometimes I even think about ..." He shook his head, laughing wildly, and it sounded like glass shattering coming up his throat. "Well."
They were both quiet for a long time, and then Sam replied in a barely audible voice, "I don't want to kill him."
Ansem stared at Sam like he was seeing him for the very first time; and maybe he was. He was infinitely calmer now than he had been during the incident with the stick only the day before. "Well, I guess that's where we part ways." He prodded a final time at the fire and then threw the twig he was using onto the ground, leaning back with his hands behind his head and his eyes closed peacefully. "Not that I would, of course, but it's a thought." He paused, seeming to mull his next words over carefully. "Me and you, we've never really gotten along, have we?"
"I think," answered Sam slowly, "that the two of us have always been more concerned with others that needed us more." He thought about Ava, and Lily, how he'd always felt sort of responsible for them growing up; he watched as Ansem opened his eyes to gaze at Andy, curled against Ava's spine, and knew that this was the one thing upon which they both agreed. "You're leaving, aren't you? Both of you?"
"It's time, I think," said Ansem. He paused again, then: "I've always kind of resented you, y'know, what with being Yellow Eyes' favourite and all. But now that I've had time to think ... you have never once acted like our superior, Sam, like you were better than the rest of us, and I respect that about you. Always have."
He stared at Ansem in shocked silence while he digested this. "Wow, Ans, I ... thanks." The other boy just nodded. "I've never like them either," said Sam finally. "The powers, I mean. It's just ... not using them won't just make them go away, right? Might as well find a use for them that's good. And in the meantime, well, what else are we going to do?"
"Hmm, I don't know, get a life?" Ansem said lightly, spreading his arms widely. "The world is our playground, so I say let's play!" He laughed again and this time the sound was bright and clear, reminding Sam of two mischievous boys with identical grins long before lessons and darkness had changed them. He smiled happily at Sam and then turned away to go wake up his brother. "You do deserve happiness, Sam," Ansem called just before he disappeared with Andy into the dense shadows of the forest and didn't look back.
-
"What's your name, kid?"
He kept his eyes focused on the hands of the man pouring coffee into the two white cups in front of him before one of them was pushed towards him across the tabletop.
"Jake."
"Just Jake? Or have you a last name too?" The man raised a thick eyebrow questioningly. He reached out his arm again and Jake pushed further into the back of his seat wearily. At the sudden movement the man looked up, dark hand still extended halfway over the table, before he raised his fingers in a placating gestured and slowly lowered them, stopping only to scoop a spoonful of fine white crystals from a small bowl into his cup as he stayed a cautionary eye on Jake.
"Talley," said Jake, watching the crystals dissolved as the man swirled them through the brown liquid. "Jake ... Talley."
"Well, Jake Talley," the man exclaimed, "are ya gonna tell me how ya came about to collapsing on my front lawn at -" he looked at the watch on his wrist, "just after 14:00 on a Sunday afternoon? And of heat exhaustion, I don't doubt."
Jake explained - in a much abbreviated tale - of the events leading up to the last couple of days: how he, and a handful of other boys and girls, had been kidnapped as babies and raised in isolation with their captors; how a week ago, they had finally decided to make their escape; and then how they'd split off, continuing on in smaller groups wherever the road took them. As Jake talked, he watched as the expression on the man's face evolved from mildly curious, to confused, until it finally settled on aghast; but not at Jake, and it was that distincting which at last allowed Jake to relax fully in the older man's presence.
"So you've got no clue who your family is ... where it is you came from?" he asked and ran one massive palm over his buzzed scalp.
"Are you a hunter?" The question left Jake's mouth before he could stop himself. The man was wearing a dark green shirt and dress pants with polished brass buttons and a collection of medals arranged over his breast; he carried himself proudly, like Jake imagined a hunter would, but otherwise he looked nothing like the three men who had taken Sam from outside of the house.
"Hunter? Like for game? Gods, no." He shook his head. "Name's Major Sid Daniels, of the U. S. Army. And I can help you find your family: got some contacts with the F. B. I. I could call up ... maybe pull up some old missing person reports and the like. That is, if ya want."
Jake thought about what the man was offering: the chance to see those whom brought him into the world; the knowledge of who he was. And this man, looking just as out of place as Jake, like he belonged on the front lines and not in some crappy house on a street lined with a million of them, could get it for him; the whole reason for everything he had gone to, to finally get to this point. And he realized that he really had nothing to think about: of course he wanted it. He smiled and the man smiled back.
And that's how six months later, Jake will find himself standing at the front of a house in the suburbs of upstate New York, watching as the family of three inside sits down to their dinner through the large bay window - chocolate-skinned, smiling together in the role of a happy, picture-perfect family. The daughter will make a gesture through the air with the hand not holding her fork, and the mother and father will nod and laugh knowingly. And Jake - he'll have been sick for a while but you wouldn't know it know by looking at him; fever and hallucinations, and seizures that tossed him round Major Daniels' guest room like a marionette doll, only to awak four days later with the memory of that mausoleum in his head and the feeling that he was needed, needed right now - will watch them from the lawn beside the mailbox that reads his own last name on its side, and wonder just where family begins and where it ends. When do you start being somebody's everything and how much distance and time between does it take before you stop?
He'll start to make his way back to Sid's the very same day, and he still won't be sure of the answer but he'll think that he's getting closer to figuring it out. He will not see the small wistful glances the mother gives to the framed portrait of a smiling baby boy set in the place of honour upon the mantel. When he turns eighteen, he'll enlist in the army with Sid's help and do a few tours overseas, finally putting some of his strength to good use - although, never where anybody else will see. He will still think about that family in New York sometimes, wondering how different things could have turned out had he knocked upon that door; but it won't be where he truly wants to be, where he feels he belongs. After all, there are many definitions of family.
-
Andy watched the shimmering sunlight stream in through the diner's window as Ansem tried to read the single page laminated menu the server had handed them. The car that he had used his powers to get them here with was parked out front, its dazed driver still stationed behind the wheel. And beyond that stretched a long, thin highway which could take them anywhere they wanted to go. On the cracked bench seat across from him, Ansem muttered under his breath in frustration as he ran his eyes down along the printed items on the menu.
"S-sooop, saaand-wich with," he hunched closer over the menu, trying to will the odd symbols into make some kind of sense, "grilled chick ... check - goddamn it!" he exclaimed, thrusting the offending thing in Andy's face. "What does that say?" he pointed somewhere almost halfway down the page.
Andy squinted at the words for a minute. "I think it's chicken," he answered. "Yeah ... that definitely says chicken." He handed the menu back over and Ansem slumped grumpily in his seat.
"Why is this so hard? If it was Latin, I'd have no trouble at all!"
"That's because you're not used to it." The only books they'd been allowed to read were old spell books and lore written in Latin or some other obscure forgotten tongue, although they'd hardly spoken the ancient language outside of training. Their demon guards usually spoke English around them but had never cared to give any of their charges much in the way of formal reading lessons. "Do you think we did the right thing, leaving Sam and Ava?" Andy asked. "'Cause I don't know, Ans ... it doesn't feel right."
The server returned then and asked for their order. Ansem stared into her eyes without speaking and Andy knew what she was seeing, what Ansem was making her see: a picture of the grilled chicken sandwich and probably the thought not to make up a bill for the two poor, dirty teenage boys at the table by the window. And then Ansem shifted his gaze and the spell was broken.
"Look," he said after the server had walked away, "After what we did, what do you think Yellow Eyes will do to us when he finds us? Anybody who isn't Sam? How long do you think we would survive? My guess is not very long. So we're not deserting them, we're just helping from a ... distance." He waited for Andy to look at him. "You've got the map of the area, yeah?"
"What if your plan doesn't work?"
"Then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But it's at least worth the shot."
Andy handed the folded map over. "The mausoleum, right? In the cemetary he took us to when we were fifteen?"
Ansem nodded. "If we're right - and I think we are - that's where he'll take Sam to once he's found him. We've just got to hang around long enough for them to show up." But Andy still looked doubtful. Ansem saw and leaned forward, his gaze staring intently. "You love me, don't you, Andy?"
"You know I do." It was the only thing he could be sure of anymore.
His eyes pierced Andy's, blue and riveting. "Do you trust me?"
"I trust you."
Ansem put a hand on Andy's shoulder across the table, warm and comforting, the only assurance either of them would ever need again. "Then trust me when I tell you that it's gonna be okay, little brother. Everything'll work out, just wait and see. It'll be okay - we'll be okay."
-
"You just let him go?" John stared at his eldest son disbelievingly. "What in the hell were you thinking, Dean?"
"John," Bobby started.
But the Winchester patriarch cut him off. "No, Singer. I want to know exactly what possessed him to let his brother run off in the middle of the night like that! And after we only just ..." Only just got him back.
"I was thinking that it was what he wanted! You didn't see him, Dad. I begged him to stay but he wouldn't listen to me! And why the hell should he? To him, we're the enemy!"
"We're his family! You're his brother!"
"John -"
Dean shook his head, letting out a quiet hysterical laugh. "He may be blood, Dad, but he hasn't been family in a long time. He's got another one - those kids - and I don't think those feelings are just gonna fade overnight."
"John!" called Bobby loudly, and finally John turned around.
"What, Singer?"
But the older hunter was looking at the map of Colt's churches again, the local news playing on the television in the background, where a bored-looking newscaster was talking about the freak electrical storms that were sighted in the southern Wyoming area. Bobby looked at the map, glanced at the TV, and then turned his gaze back to the two Winchester men. "I think I know where we can look."
Part Five