Fic: Trust Doesn't Rust (2/9)
Part Two
I would give my soul to carry your burden
I would give my soul ’cause I know you still grieve
Where will we go to hide from their blindness?
Where will we go if we don’t both believe?
Bad blood rains down; we’ve got to take cover.
Cold blood rains down; who can find any peace?
Kansas, Desperate Times
Hoyt’s Bar, Garber, Oklahoma
Hoyt’s Bar was almost empty when the girl walked in. The lunchtime crowd was long gone, but the evening drinkers weren’t yet around, so there was only the staff and Old Tom. Old Tom was on his eighth whiskey, slumped over the end of the bar. He raised his head as the door creaked open, bringing a gust of cold air into the saloon, but Sam would have bet long odds the man couldn’t focus enough to see her. Sam was tending bar alone while Lindsay was in the cellar, taking inventory. This was just as well, because even she would have seen that this chick was trouble.
The girl looked eighteen years old, perhaps younger. Her hair was blonde, a cascade of curls any model would have envied. She wore no makeup, but she had the kind of complexion that needed no such enhancement: creamy skin with a hint of rose in her cheeks, lovely lips and sparkling blue eyes. But her eyes caught Sam’s attention for more than their beauty. She had the look of someone who had been through Hell. Maybe not literally. Her clothing was a jumpsuit in that shade of orange that screams “prison” and a dark grey hoodie torn open at the front, revealing more orange beneath it. The fabric was dirty, stained with mud and what Sam thought may have been blood, though he couldn’t be sure. She seemed awfully young to be on the lam. She looked around the bar warily.
Sam walked toward her, offering a welcoming smile. “Hey. What can I get you?”
She flinched at the question. “I don’t have much money,” she announced, a trace of defiance in her voice.
“You don’t look twenty one, either,” Sam answered, keeping his tone neutral. No judgement, just fact.
“I just need to eat. They chased me out of the diner. Do you do food?”
Sam nodded. “Sandwiches. Pizza. Peanuts and pretzels at the bar. You’re better off trying in town. There’s a pie house a couple of miles - ”
“I can’t,” she interrupted. “I’ll have pizza. I don’t care what kind.”
Sam looked at her more closely. Maggie might well have kicked her out of the diner; she would have taken one look at this girl and assumed she couldn’t pay. But Sam suspected the girl hadn’t tried there. If she’d gone into town in broad daylight looking like this, someone would have called the cops. Sam knew he shouldn’t get involved, but he was who he was, and it was clear she needed help. Wasn’t that what he was supposed to do? He couldn’t hunt, but helping some kid in trouble wasn’t hunting.
“I’ll get you that pizza.” Sam nodded toward a corner booth. “If you sit over there, you’ll be out of sight.”
Her blue eyes narrowed, but she nodded. “Thanks.”
Sam checked the bar’s tiny kitchen and found the pizza left over from lunch. It was cold, but he piled a few slices into the microwave to heat it. He had a hunch this girl wouldn’t be paying for her food anyway. While it heated, he rummaged through the lost and found box under the bar. He pulled out a man’s shirt that had been there for a long time. It smelled musty from the box, but it was reasonably clean. Then he poured a Coke and carried it, the shirt and the pizza over to the girl’s table.
She grabbed the pizza before he even set it on the table, stuffing a slice into her mouth with an eagerness that Dean would have found impressive.
“The Coke’s on me. And, here - ” Sam offered her the shirt. “It’ll help you look a little less…” like a jailbird “…conspicuous.”
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“Because I know what it’s like to be in trouble,” Sam answered honestly. “I’m not going to ask questions and I don’t want anything from you.”
“Why?” she asked again.
He smiled. “You look like you could use a friend.”
Something flashed across her face; a look Sam recognised. His words had reminded her of something she didn’t need to remember. When she looked up again, her eyes were like stone. “You don’t want to be my friend,” she said icily.
Sam figured it was best to take her at her word. “Okay. I’ll get out of your way.”
Turned out he was right about her: she skipped out without paying. By the time the evening crowd started appearing, Sam had put the girl out of his mind. He didn’t expect to see her again.
*
Knoxville, Iowa
Three Weeks Later
The motel was the cheapest in town, and looked like it. The parking lot was overgrown with weeds. The paint on the walls was dull and peeling in places and the handrail on the stairway to the upper floor had been broken for a long time. Sam registered as John Smith and paid cash for one night’s stay. The motel owner didn’t even blink at the obvious alias as he handed over a key.
The room matched the exterior of the motel. There was a distinctive smell of damp and mildew. The carpet was threadbare and the faded wallpaper peeled away from the walls near the cracked ceiling. Sam didn’t care. He and Dean had squatted in far worse places and he planned to stay here only one night. It was three nights since his little dream-chat with Lucifer, and since then Sam had kept moving. A different direction every day, a different place every night. He couldn’t risk being found.
Once inside the room, Sam locked the door, hefted his duffel onto the bed and set about making the room fit for him to sleep in. He rolled back the carpet and painted a devil’s trap on the concrete beneath it, covering the ground inside the door. The threadbare carpet covered the sigil, but it would still trap anything that tried to enter through the door. Sam laid down salt on every window ledge and across the threshold. He drew sigils on each window pane. It was the best protection he had learned from his father and from Bobby. Finally, he checked the hex-bag he wore on a thong around his neck; that was a spell he had learned from Ruby, to hide himself from demons and angels alike. With all that, and the Enochian sigils Castiel carved into his very bones, Sam was as safe as he could make himself.
Next, Sam checked his weapons. When he parted ways with his brother, his intention had been to avoid the hunting world entirely, so he left almost everything in the Impala. But he had his .45, and a small supply of bullets - lead, iron and silver - just in case something found him. He loaded the gun, using regular lead bullets since the gun was useless anyway against what was now hunting him, and slid the gun through his belt. There was also a stainless steel hunting knife with a sheath. Sam dipped the sharp blade in holy water and buckled the sheath to his right calf; it wasn’t the most efficient place to keep it, but it would do. Satisfied, Sam pulled on his jacket and headed out into the night, locking the door behind him.
Sam ate at the nearest diner. He ate without really tasting the food, but he dawdled over the cherry pie to delay his return to the room. He took out his phone, checking for missed calls even though he knew he had missed nothing. Dean still hadn’t called. It was three days since they last spoke. Three days since he’d called his brother in the early hours of the morning, with the news that Lucifer had found him.
Sam wasn’t sure what he’d expected from Dean. Comfort? There was no comfort for this. Help or reassurance? Perhaps only the strength he’d always drawn from the simple knowledge of Dean’s love. But even that was denied him. Dean didn’t trust him any longer. Hell, Sam didn’t trust himself. Why should he expect more from Dean?
When he got tired of gazing at his silent phone and pushing the last piece of cherry pie around his plate, Sam paid for his meal and left the diner. Outside, the night was cold and his breath hung whitely on the air as he walked. Sam drew the jacket close around his body. At least the bed would be warm.
The neon motel sign was only half-lit as Sam walked beneath it, the gravel crunching beneath his boots. He felt nervous, even paranoid. Though, when you have the Devil himself on your tail, a little paranoia is justified. Leaping out of a dark corner wasn’t Lucifer’s style, so Sam wasn’t sure why he took such care crossing the parking lot, surreptitiously searching the shadows around him. When a small movement caught his eye, Sam’s tension went up several notches. He could feel the eyes watching him now. Not Lucifer. Something else.
Sam unlocked the motel room door but didn’t open it. Making the movement obvious, he looked back over his shoulder as if he’d heard a sound, but didn’t look in the direction of the watcher. He stared into the empty darkness for a moment, then shrugged to himself and began to turn back toward the door.
The figure streaked out of the shadows. Sam caught a glimpse of pale hair and skin and the flash of a knife blade before he twisted and ducked, grabbing for the attacker’s clothing and using the momentum of her charge to flip her over his shoulders. She crashed into the door, which flew open under the impact. She ended up on her back, right in the middle of Sam’s devil’s trap.
Instantly she was up, the knife in her hand. She came at him again and the devil’s trap didn’t stop her. Sam recognised the girl from Hoyt’s Bar but had no time to consider the implications. He spun to avoid the thrust of her knife. He grabbed her wrist, jerking viciously to force her to drop the knife. She cried out and he kicked the blade out of reach, then shoved the door closed, trapping her in the room. He still had hold of her wrist and tried to pull her around so he could get her into an arm-lock, but she kicked out, narrowly missing his nuts.
She fought dirty! But Sam could fight just as dirty. The next time she kicked, he was ready. He grabbed her leg and pulled sharply to unbalance her. She crashed to the floor. Sam was on top of her at once, pinning her down. She fought like a wildcat, but Sam was bigger, stronger and trained for this. Once he had the advantage, he had her.
It was a pity she didn’t realise that. Even as Sam grasped both of her wrists above her head with one of his hands, even as he straddled her thighs so she couldn’t move, she still struggled against him.
Sam pulled the gun with his free hand. He cocked it to fire - not necessary, but he wanted her to hear it - and aimed it right between her eyes. “Stop it!” he ordered.
She stilled, her blue eyes going wide.
Sam didn’t let go of her wrists. “Right. Now who are you, what are you, and why the fuck are you attacking me?”
*
Her name was Anita (“Everyone calls me Needy”) Lesnicki. He got that much out of her before she attacked him again.
Needy struggled the whole time Sam was tying her to the chair, and she was a lot stronger than she looked. The whole thing took much longer than it should have and Sam almost gave it up as a bad idea. But he really felt he had no choice. She had intended to kill him. He couldn’t keep her around without restraining her, and he couldn’t let her go until he understood why she’d come after him.
“You’re just like them,” Needy snarled as Sam secured the last knot.
He stood back and looked at her. “I’m like what now?”
“Them. The Devil-worshipping losers who murdered my best friend!”
Devil worshipping? She had Sam’s attention with those words. He sat down on the end of the bed, which placed his eyes level with hers. “You believe I worship the Devil?” he asked mildly. He wondered if she knew just how real the Devil was these days.
“I think,” she spat, “you’re a murderer.” Sam could see her muscles bunch beneath her clothing as she kept working at the ropes.
He couldn’t truthfully deny her charge. Unwillingly, he remembered the young nurse he killed…no, sacrificed…to get the power to kill Lilith. Which set Lucifer free. Which started the apocalypse. Which was supposed to end with him becoming Lucifer’s meat-suit. Sam shuddered. Don’t go there.
He did his best to keep his voice neutral. “Who is it you think I murdered?” he asked her, almost afraid of the answer. How much did she know about him?
Needy hesitated. “I…I don’t know,” she admitted, but then her eyes narrowed. “But I see it. There’s blood all over you.”
Since Sam’s clothing was freshly laundered, he knew the blood she saw wasn’t visible to normal sight. She was a psychic. She had to be. “If that’s true, why did you attack me? Shouldn’t you be afraid of me?”
“I’m not afraid.” She continued to work at the rope, but Sam wasn’t worried. It would have taken Dean at least a couple of hours to work free of those knots; this girl wasn’t going anywhere.
“Why did you attack me, Needy?” Sam persisted. When she turned her head away, clearly refusing to answer, he added, “You’re going to stay in that chair until you explain this to me, so you may as well start talking. This could be a very long night. Or a long week.” He hoped she wouldn’t force him to make her talk. He could…but that would lead him back to a place he was trying to leave far behind him.
She looked at him again. “I was going to slice you open and drink your blood,” she answered, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
In spite of the sarcastic tone, Sam thought she was telling the plain truth. “Why do you want blood? You’re not a vampire.”
“Stop humouring me!” she flared. “There’s no such thing!”
“Yes, there is,” Sam corrected. “There aren’t too many of them left these days, but vampires are real. So are werewolves, and witches, and spirits, and cupacabras, and wendigos and a whole lot of other things you’ve only seen in horror movies. But you’re not a vampire. So what’s with the bloodlust?”
She snarled. “Untie me and I’ll show you!”
“Nice try. Talk.”
Needy looked down then, avoiding his gaze, but not in the defiant way she did earlier. When she spoke, her voice betrayed her trepidation. “I think…I think I’m part demon.”
Sam couldn’t help it. He laughed.
Her blonde head jerked up, her eyes flashed with anger. “I’m not crazy!”
“Honey, I’m no shrink. But whatever you are, you’re not a demon.”
“How would you know?”
“Trust me, I know.”
Sam reached under the bed for his duffel and pulled out a bottle of holy water. He took a sip to demonstrate it was harmless and then offered the bottle to her. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she nodded. Sam held the bottle to her lips, letting her drink. He sat down on the bed again as he screwed the cap back on the bottle.
“I’ve been hunting demons since I was a kid. I know a demon when I see one,” Sam told her.
Her eyes went wide. “Is that true?”
“It’s true. Do you know what a hunter is?”
“Only if we’re talking bear.”
Sam smiled. “Not bear. Not Bambi, either. Supernatural creatures.”
“Well…okay.” Needy had quit trying to work the ropes loose. “So what makes you so sure I’m not a demon? It’s not like they all wear t-shirts saying ‘Go To Hell, Ask Me How’.”
Sam answered seriously. “Three reasons. First, demons don’t doubt or question what they are. If you were a demon, Needy, or possessed by one, you’d know it. But you said I think. Second, if you were a demon, you wouldn’t be able to enter this room.”
“You threw me into this room!” she protested.
“I know I did, but that doesn’t matter. I’ve got protections all around this place. When I shoved you through the door, you should have been caught in the devil’s trap. You went right through it. No demon could have done that.”
She looked toward the door. “What’s a devil’s trap?”
“It’s a circle of power. I painted it under the carpet.”
“You said three reasons,” she prompted.
“Yeah. Reason three…” he held up the bottle, “this is holy water.” He dropped the bottle back into the duffel. “So. Tell me why you thought you might be a demon.”
She was staring at the bottle poking out of Sam’s duffel as if she’d never seen one before. “I’m not? Really not?”
Sam nodded. “Really not a demon.”
“Then why can I…?” she began, then clamped her lips together as if forcing herself not to finish that sentence.
“We’ll get to that,” Sam answered, as if he’d understood her, though he didn’t. “First tell me why you believed you were a demon.”
“I was bitten. And it won’t heal. Ever since then I…I’m different.”
“Bitten?” Sam frowned. He knew of several things that could leave a bite that wouldn’t heal, but none of them could be mistaken for a demon. There were other things that could infect a human through their bite, but those bite wounds always healed. Needy Lesnicki really was a mystery.
“If you untie me, I’ll show you,” she offered.
Sam hadn’t forgotten how this conversation started. “Not gonna happen,” he said firmly. “Where is this bite?”
“My shoulder,” she answered sullenly, tilting her head to indicate which one.
Sam approached her warily. He didn’t exactly ask permission, but he gave her a chance to object before he reached for her clothing. Needy sat there, stiffly silent, while he unzipped her hoodie and opened the first three fasteners of the top she wore beneath it. He was careful not to touch her breasts or to expose more of her chest than was necessary. Then he drew the material to one side, revealing the pale strap of her bra and the flesh of her shoulder.
The bite mark looked like nothing he had ever seen before. If pushed, Sam would have guessed it was a vampire bite, from the size and shape, but it wasn’t close enough to any major vein or artery to be a vampire bite. The fang scars formed a clear elliptical ring of punctures, each puncture wound with a clear groove in the flesh leading up to it, as if the teeth or fangs had sharp edges like an arrowhead. Or as if whatever bit her had several rows of teeth. Sam knew of only one thing that had fangs like that, and it wasn’t supernatural: sharks had multiple rows of teeth.
For a moment, he simply stared at the wound. He could see why she said it wouldn’t heal. It had healed in one way: it wasn’t bleeding. But the flesh around the bite was pink and swollen as if infected and the puncture wounds were open, not scarred or scabbed over.
Sam pulled out the holy water. “May I try this?” he asked her.
“What will it do to me?”
“Probably just get you wet. But if that bite really is demonic, the holy water might help.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
Sam poured the water onto his fingers and then carefully dripped a little onto the wound.
Immediately, her body tensed and she flinched away. He heard her breath whistle through her clenched teeth. The wound began to smoke, exactly the way a demon’s skin reacted to holy water.
And Sam knew that whether he was ready or not, he was back in the game now.
*
“That’s breaking and entering!” Needy hissed.
Sam grinned at her. “Yeah, it is. What’s your point?” He felt the click as the window lock came open and slid his fingers beneath the frame. He pulled the window open, propped it with his knife, and turned to her. “Do you need a boost?”
Needy raised her hood and tucked the loose strands of her hair underneath the fabric. She looked up to the window; the bottom of the frame was about level with her eyes. For a moment, she simply looked at it. Then, with no apparent effort, she rose up from the ground, floated level with the window, grabbed the frame and wriggled through. Sam heard a thump as she hit the ground on the other side, then her face appeared on the other side of the glass. “What are you waiting for?”
Sam closed his mouth. She’d said something about having demonic abilities but he didn’t expect a demonstration quite that spectacular. No wonder she thought she wasn’t human. What else could she do? He tabled those questions and the hundred or so more crowding into his brain. He would interrogate her later. Sam reached up and clambered through the clinic window, somewhat less gracefully than Needy.
Once inside the clinic, it didn’t take them long to find the lab. The lab itself had no windows, so Sam flipped the light switch and opened cupboards, picking locks where necessary, until he found everything he wanted: needles and syringes, a microscope, slides. He offered her a rubber tie. “Are you still happy with this?” he asked. He was having second thoughts himself, mostly because he couldn’t figure out how she would react if they got a result she didn’t like.
“Don’t be so squeamish,” she accused, wrapping the rubber around her bared upper arm.
Sam turned on a desk lamp and angled the beam toward her arm. He felt more nervous than he should. They could have drawn her blood some other way, but Needy really wasn’t accustomed to the Winchester method of improvisation and Sam didn’t want to scare her off. He’d sold this idea to her by making it sound scientific and logical; if he’d suggested slitting her wrist to draw some blood it would have ruined his whole pitch. But his only experience of drawing blood the professional way was watching re-runs of ER. He could see the vein clearly, though, and got the needle in on his first try. Beginners luck? Needy didn’t even wince. Slowly, he drew back the plunger on the syringe and it filled with dark blood. When he pulled the needle out, a small flow of blood followed it. He’d forgotten to look for iodine, but Needy simply wiped it off with a piece of gauze.
Dropping a little blood onto a glass slide, Sam carefully placed another on top, smearing the sample. Not the most professional job, but Biology 101 had been a few years ago. He was out of practice. This should be enough. He popped the slide underneath the microscope and leaned over it. Sam adjusted the magnification and focus. He took his time, straining to remember what the Croatoan-infected blood had looked like.
Finally he raised his head and passed the microscope to Needy. “It looks normal to me.”
She grabbed it and looked for herself. “What would it look like if I were infected?” she demanded with her eye glued to the microscope.
“I’ve only seen one demonic virus and with that, there were visible traces of sulphur in the blood. Yours just looks like blood. I can’t say for sure, Needy, but it seems okay to me.”
She was still bent over the microscope. Sam watched her adjust it and look again. “I guess so,” she admitted eventually.
“You don’t sound happy about that,” Sam observed.
“No, I am. It’s just…what does it mean? What am I?”
The syringe filled with Needy’s blood lay on the table between them. Sam looked at it, suddenly aware that there was another way he could test her blood for demonic traces. The moment it occurred to him, he had to stop himself reaching for the syringe. He took a deep breath, forcing his gaze away. Blood. Demon blood.
“I think,” he answered, finding it difficult to get the words out, “you’re the same kind of thing I am.”
*
“Heads!” Needy called.
Sam caught the quarter, slapped it on the back of his hand and held it out so they could both see. “Tails. You first.”
She gave him a dirty look. “Best of three?”
Sam pocketed his quarter. “We had a deal, Needy.”
She claimed a carton of noodles and a pair of chopsticks then reached for a bottle of beer. “Are you gonna make a fuss about my age?”
“Why would I?” Sam shrugged. He’d pointed out she was under-age in Hoyt’s bar because he worked there. He hadn’t cared. If she’d offered ID he would have served her, no matter how fake it was. He opened his bottle of whiskey.
“Good.” Needy drank some beer and pulled a face. “Tastes terrible.”
While they ate Chinese food, Needy told Sam everything that happened in Devil’s Kettle. She explained how the local music venue, Melody Lane, burned down the night Low Shoulder were playing there. How she’d told the singer that her best friend, Jennifer, was a virgin, because she’d overheard him disrespecting her. How they’d kidnapped Jennifer in the confusion after the fire and used her in some Satanic ritual. She talked about Jennifer showing up at her home that night, covered in blood and behaving like a completely different person. Then she talked about the murders, and Jennifer’s peculiar confession that she was the one responsible…and why.
“I’d already started to put some of it together,” Needy explained. “Right after each murder, when everyone else was depressed or at least sad, she was…” she hesitated, searching for the right word. “Jennifer was sparkling,” she said eventually. “She was always gorgeous, but right after the fire she was amazing. Then, a few weeks later, it was like she was sick or something. Her hair was dull, and there was no colour in her face.”
“The power, or the high, she got from killing didn’t last,” Sam said.
“That’s what I thought. She said something about ‘it’ wearing off. I figured I needed to find out what really happened to her in the woods, so I started reading everything I could find about witchcraft and Devil worship. I found a book in the occult section of the school library…”
Sam choked on his whiskey. “Your high school library has an occult section?” He was sitting on the floor of their motel room, leaning back against the king-sized bed.
“Well, the town is called Devil’s Kettle.” Needy was sprawled on the bed, dangling a bottle over the side between her fingers. She was on her third beer, but she was kind of a lightweight. Three seemed to be enough.
Sam twisted around so he could see her face. “Still, if you found it in a school library that explains why you got so much wrong.”
She was on it at once. “What did I get wrong?”
“I’ll explain when it’s my turn. Keep going.”
Needy made a frustrated sound and reached for another beer. Sam got there first, moving the nearest bottle out of her reach.
“Hey!”
“You’ve had three, Needy. Switch to soda unless you think you’ll enjoy your first hangover.”
“Whatever, sugar daddy.”
Sam winced: he wasn’t that much older than her! “You found a book…” he prompted.
Needy picked up her story. “It said that if you try to sacrifice a virgin to Satan, but she’s not an actual virgin, the ritual kind of opens a door. She becomes possessed and has to feed on human flesh to sustain the demon inside.”
Sam nodded. “Okay. That confirmed your friend’s story.”
“But I didn’t really believe it! I mean, that night when she told me, she was so…strange. Like she was high or something. She kissed me, Sam! And not just a little, either. It was full on - ”
“Needy!” Sam cut her off. “Spare me the details of the girl-on-girl action, willya?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You got a problem with it?” she challenged.
Sam laughed. “You don’t know much about men, do you?”
“I’m not a lesbian!”
“That’s not what I meant. Let’s just say I don’t need that visual in my head when we’re sharing a room with only one bed.”
“Oh.” She nodded, then made a face. “Ew! That’s gross.”
Sam shrugged. “Forgive me for being a guy. What finally convinced you it was real?”
“When Chip started talking about the prom. Somehow I knew that he was going to be next and it would happen at the prom. I tried to warn him but…he wouldn’t listen. I guess I sounded crazy. At the dance I was watching for her, but…I was too late.”
“Jennifer killed Chip?” Sam guessed. She’d just known what would happen, and she spoke as if that, at least, was entirely natural to her. She was definitely a psychic.
Needy nodded. “I realised no one would ever believe me. The only way she would ever stop was if I stopped her. The book said a blade to the heart would kill the demon.”
The book was very wrong, but Sam didn’t say so. “Is that when she bit you? When you tried to kill her?”
“Yes.” Needy rubbed her shoulder self-consciously. “When she killed Chip, I think I stopped her getting whatever it was she needed from him. She was still weak. When we fought she levitated us both and bit me. She was going to eat me…for a moment I really thought I was gonna die like the others. Then we both fell, and I stabbed her. I think…no, I know…that bite gave me some of her powers.”
“That’s probably true,” Sam agreed, remembering Ruby and what her blood did to him. Thinking of Ruby made him reach for the whiskey again.
“Okay, then!” Needy rolled over onto her back. Her head hung over the side of the bed, her long blonde hair almost touching Sam’s shoulder. “Your turn to tell me what the Hell you are.”
Sam looked at her. In spite of everything she had been through, she wasn’t really part of his world. Not yet. If he told her what was really going on out there, she wouldn’t be able to go back.
I’m the one who started the apocalypse.
I’m a demon-blood junkie who murdered a woman for my fix.
I’m the anti-Christ.
“I’m Sam Winchester,” he began, because he hadn’t told her his full name before. He didn’t expect her to react, but her eyes went wide for an instant, as if the name meant something to her. “What?” he asked. If she mentioned those damned books of Chuck’s he might just lose it…
“Winchester,” she repeated. “As in, ‘Winchesters suck ass’?”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “Come again?”
Needy smirked. “It was on a website. When I was looking for a way to stop Jennifer I researched everywhere I could. These two guys made home videos about how to kill ghosts and stuff…”
Sam’s frown smoothed out. “Are you talking about the Ghostfacers?”
“Yes! That’s the website name.”
He snorted. “Yeah. Those douchebags don’t like me and my brother much.” He was quiet for a moment, wondering how to continue.
“So, Sam Winchester,” Needy prompted. “You hunt demons and kill ghosts. Didn’t you ever want a normal life?” Needy’s expression was expectant, and he could see the little girl she must have been once, eager for a story.
Sam screwed the top back onto the whiskey bottle and set it aside. “That’s all I ever wanted, but I never had a chance. My mom died in a fire when I was six months old…”
Part Three
I would give my soul to carry your burden
I would give my soul ’cause I know you still grieve
Where will we go to hide from their blindness?
Where will we go if we don’t both believe?
Bad blood rains down; we’ve got to take cover.
Cold blood rains down; who can find any peace?
Kansas, Desperate Times
Hoyt’s Bar, Garber, Oklahoma
Hoyt’s Bar was almost empty when the girl walked in. The lunchtime crowd was long gone, but the evening drinkers weren’t yet around, so there was only the staff and Old Tom. Old Tom was on his eighth whiskey, slumped over the end of the bar. He raised his head as the door creaked open, bringing a gust of cold air into the saloon, but Sam would have bet long odds the man couldn’t focus enough to see her. Sam was tending bar alone while Lindsay was in the cellar, taking inventory. This was just as well, because even she would have seen that this chick was trouble.
The girl looked eighteen years old, perhaps younger. Her hair was blonde, a cascade of curls any model would have envied. She wore no makeup, but she had the kind of complexion that needed no such enhancement: creamy skin with a hint of rose in her cheeks, lovely lips and sparkling blue eyes. But her eyes caught Sam’s attention for more than their beauty. She had the look of someone who had been through Hell. Maybe not literally. Her clothing was a jumpsuit in that shade of orange that screams “prison” and a dark grey hoodie torn open at the front, revealing more orange beneath it. The fabric was dirty, stained with mud and what Sam thought may have been blood, though he couldn’t be sure. She seemed awfully young to be on the lam. She looked around the bar warily.
Sam walked toward her, offering a welcoming smile. “Hey. What can I get you?”
She flinched at the question. “I don’t have much money,” she announced, a trace of defiance in her voice.
“You don’t look twenty one, either,” Sam answered, keeping his tone neutral. No judgement, just fact.
“I just need to eat. They chased me out of the diner. Do you do food?”
Sam nodded. “Sandwiches. Pizza. Peanuts and pretzels at the bar. You’re better off trying in town. There’s a pie house a couple of miles - ”
“I can’t,” she interrupted. “I’ll have pizza. I don’t care what kind.”
Sam looked at her more closely. Maggie might well have kicked her out of the diner; she would have taken one look at this girl and assumed she couldn’t pay. But Sam suspected the girl hadn’t tried there. If she’d gone into town in broad daylight looking like this, someone would have called the cops. Sam knew he shouldn’t get involved, but he was who he was, and it was clear she needed help. Wasn’t that what he was supposed to do? He couldn’t hunt, but helping some kid in trouble wasn’t hunting.
“I’ll get you that pizza.” Sam nodded toward a corner booth. “If you sit over there, you’ll be out of sight.”
Her blue eyes narrowed, but she nodded. “Thanks.”
Sam checked the bar’s tiny kitchen and found the pizza left over from lunch. It was cold, but he piled a few slices into the microwave to heat it. He had a hunch this girl wouldn’t be paying for her food anyway. While it heated, he rummaged through the lost and found box under the bar. He pulled out a man’s shirt that had been there for a long time. It smelled musty from the box, but it was reasonably clean. Then he poured a Coke and carried it, the shirt and the pizza over to the girl’s table.
She grabbed the pizza before he even set it on the table, stuffing a slice into her mouth with an eagerness that Dean would have found impressive.
“The Coke’s on me. And, here - ” Sam offered her the shirt. “It’ll help you look a little less…” like a jailbird “…conspicuous.”
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“Because I know what it’s like to be in trouble,” Sam answered honestly. “I’m not going to ask questions and I don’t want anything from you.”
“Why?” she asked again.
He smiled. “You look like you could use a friend.”
Something flashed across her face; a look Sam recognised. His words had reminded her of something she didn’t need to remember. When she looked up again, her eyes were like stone. “You don’t want to be my friend,” she said icily.
Sam figured it was best to take her at her word. “Okay. I’ll get out of your way.”
Turned out he was right about her: she skipped out without paying. By the time the evening crowd started appearing, Sam had put the girl out of his mind. He didn’t expect to see her again.
*
Knoxville, Iowa
Three Weeks Later
The motel was the cheapest in town, and looked like it. The parking lot was overgrown with weeds. The paint on the walls was dull and peeling in places and the handrail on the stairway to the upper floor had been broken for a long time. Sam registered as John Smith and paid cash for one night’s stay. The motel owner didn’t even blink at the obvious alias as he handed over a key.
The room matched the exterior of the motel. There was a distinctive smell of damp and mildew. The carpet was threadbare and the faded wallpaper peeled away from the walls near the cracked ceiling. Sam didn’t care. He and Dean had squatted in far worse places and he planned to stay here only one night. It was three nights since his little dream-chat with Lucifer, and since then Sam had kept moving. A different direction every day, a different place every night. He couldn’t risk being found.
Once inside the room, Sam locked the door, hefted his duffel onto the bed and set about making the room fit for him to sleep in. He rolled back the carpet and painted a devil’s trap on the concrete beneath it, covering the ground inside the door. The threadbare carpet covered the sigil, but it would still trap anything that tried to enter through the door. Sam laid down salt on every window ledge and across the threshold. He drew sigils on each window pane. It was the best protection he had learned from his father and from Bobby. Finally, he checked the hex-bag he wore on a thong around his neck; that was a spell he had learned from Ruby, to hide himself from demons and angels alike. With all that, and the Enochian sigils Castiel carved into his very bones, Sam was as safe as he could make himself.
Next, Sam checked his weapons. When he parted ways with his brother, his intention had been to avoid the hunting world entirely, so he left almost everything in the Impala. But he had his .45, and a small supply of bullets - lead, iron and silver - just in case something found him. He loaded the gun, using regular lead bullets since the gun was useless anyway against what was now hunting him, and slid the gun through his belt. There was also a stainless steel hunting knife with a sheath. Sam dipped the sharp blade in holy water and buckled the sheath to his right calf; it wasn’t the most efficient place to keep it, but it would do. Satisfied, Sam pulled on his jacket and headed out into the night, locking the door behind him.
Sam ate at the nearest diner. He ate without really tasting the food, but he dawdled over the cherry pie to delay his return to the room. He took out his phone, checking for missed calls even though he knew he had missed nothing. Dean still hadn’t called. It was three days since they last spoke. Three days since he’d called his brother in the early hours of the morning, with the news that Lucifer had found him.
Sam wasn’t sure what he’d expected from Dean. Comfort? There was no comfort for this. Help or reassurance? Perhaps only the strength he’d always drawn from the simple knowledge of Dean’s love. But even that was denied him. Dean didn’t trust him any longer. Hell, Sam didn’t trust himself. Why should he expect more from Dean?
When he got tired of gazing at his silent phone and pushing the last piece of cherry pie around his plate, Sam paid for his meal and left the diner. Outside, the night was cold and his breath hung whitely on the air as he walked. Sam drew the jacket close around his body. At least the bed would be warm.
The neon motel sign was only half-lit as Sam walked beneath it, the gravel crunching beneath his boots. He felt nervous, even paranoid. Though, when you have the Devil himself on your tail, a little paranoia is justified. Leaping out of a dark corner wasn’t Lucifer’s style, so Sam wasn’t sure why he took such care crossing the parking lot, surreptitiously searching the shadows around him. When a small movement caught his eye, Sam’s tension went up several notches. He could feel the eyes watching him now. Not Lucifer. Something else.
Sam unlocked the motel room door but didn’t open it. Making the movement obvious, he looked back over his shoulder as if he’d heard a sound, but didn’t look in the direction of the watcher. He stared into the empty darkness for a moment, then shrugged to himself and began to turn back toward the door.
The figure streaked out of the shadows. Sam caught a glimpse of pale hair and skin and the flash of a knife blade before he twisted and ducked, grabbing for the attacker’s clothing and using the momentum of her charge to flip her over his shoulders. She crashed into the door, which flew open under the impact. She ended up on her back, right in the middle of Sam’s devil’s trap.
Instantly she was up, the knife in her hand. She came at him again and the devil’s trap didn’t stop her. Sam recognised the girl from Hoyt’s Bar but had no time to consider the implications. He spun to avoid the thrust of her knife. He grabbed her wrist, jerking viciously to force her to drop the knife. She cried out and he kicked the blade out of reach, then shoved the door closed, trapping her in the room. He still had hold of her wrist and tried to pull her around so he could get her into an arm-lock, but she kicked out, narrowly missing his nuts.
She fought dirty! But Sam could fight just as dirty. The next time she kicked, he was ready. He grabbed her leg and pulled sharply to unbalance her. She crashed to the floor. Sam was on top of her at once, pinning her down. She fought like a wildcat, but Sam was bigger, stronger and trained for this. Once he had the advantage, he had her.
It was a pity she didn’t realise that. Even as Sam grasped both of her wrists above her head with one of his hands, even as he straddled her thighs so she couldn’t move, she still struggled against him.
Sam pulled the gun with his free hand. He cocked it to fire - not necessary, but he wanted her to hear it - and aimed it right between her eyes. “Stop it!” he ordered.
She stilled, her blue eyes going wide.
Sam didn’t let go of her wrists. “Right. Now who are you, what are you, and why the fuck are you attacking me?”
*
Her name was Anita (“Everyone calls me Needy”) Lesnicki. He got that much out of her before she attacked him again.
Needy struggled the whole time Sam was tying her to the chair, and she was a lot stronger than she looked. The whole thing took much longer than it should have and Sam almost gave it up as a bad idea. But he really felt he had no choice. She had intended to kill him. He couldn’t keep her around without restraining her, and he couldn’t let her go until he understood why she’d come after him.
“You’re just like them,” Needy snarled as Sam secured the last knot.
He stood back and looked at her. “I’m like what now?”
“Them. The Devil-worshipping losers who murdered my best friend!”
Devil worshipping? She had Sam’s attention with those words. He sat down on the end of the bed, which placed his eyes level with hers. “You believe I worship the Devil?” he asked mildly. He wondered if she knew just how real the Devil was these days.
“I think,” she spat, “you’re a murderer.” Sam could see her muscles bunch beneath her clothing as she kept working at the ropes.
He couldn’t truthfully deny her charge. Unwillingly, he remembered the young nurse he killed…no, sacrificed…to get the power to kill Lilith. Which set Lucifer free. Which started the apocalypse. Which was supposed to end with him becoming Lucifer’s meat-suit. Sam shuddered. Don’t go there.
He did his best to keep his voice neutral. “Who is it you think I murdered?” he asked her, almost afraid of the answer. How much did she know about him?
Needy hesitated. “I…I don’t know,” she admitted, but then her eyes narrowed. “But I see it. There’s blood all over you.”
Since Sam’s clothing was freshly laundered, he knew the blood she saw wasn’t visible to normal sight. She was a psychic. She had to be. “If that’s true, why did you attack me? Shouldn’t you be afraid of me?”
“I’m not afraid.” She continued to work at the rope, but Sam wasn’t worried. It would have taken Dean at least a couple of hours to work free of those knots; this girl wasn’t going anywhere.
“Why did you attack me, Needy?” Sam persisted. When she turned her head away, clearly refusing to answer, he added, “You’re going to stay in that chair until you explain this to me, so you may as well start talking. This could be a very long night. Or a long week.” He hoped she wouldn’t force him to make her talk. He could…but that would lead him back to a place he was trying to leave far behind him.
She looked at him again. “I was going to slice you open and drink your blood,” she answered, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
In spite of the sarcastic tone, Sam thought she was telling the plain truth. “Why do you want blood? You’re not a vampire.”
“Stop humouring me!” she flared. “There’s no such thing!”
“Yes, there is,” Sam corrected. “There aren’t too many of them left these days, but vampires are real. So are werewolves, and witches, and spirits, and cupacabras, and wendigos and a whole lot of other things you’ve only seen in horror movies. But you’re not a vampire. So what’s with the bloodlust?”
She snarled. “Untie me and I’ll show you!”
“Nice try. Talk.”
Needy looked down then, avoiding his gaze, but not in the defiant way she did earlier. When she spoke, her voice betrayed her trepidation. “I think…I think I’m part demon.”
Sam couldn’t help it. He laughed.
Her blonde head jerked up, her eyes flashed with anger. “I’m not crazy!”
“Honey, I’m no shrink. But whatever you are, you’re not a demon.”
“How would you know?”
“Trust me, I know.”
Sam reached under the bed for his duffel and pulled out a bottle of holy water. He took a sip to demonstrate it was harmless and then offered the bottle to her. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she nodded. Sam held the bottle to her lips, letting her drink. He sat down on the bed again as he screwed the cap back on the bottle.
“I’ve been hunting demons since I was a kid. I know a demon when I see one,” Sam told her.
Her eyes went wide. “Is that true?”
“It’s true. Do you know what a hunter is?”
“Only if we’re talking bear.”
Sam smiled. “Not bear. Not Bambi, either. Supernatural creatures.”
“Well…okay.” Needy had quit trying to work the ropes loose. “So what makes you so sure I’m not a demon? It’s not like they all wear t-shirts saying ‘Go To Hell, Ask Me How’.”
Sam answered seriously. “Three reasons. First, demons don’t doubt or question what they are. If you were a demon, Needy, or possessed by one, you’d know it. But you said I think. Second, if you were a demon, you wouldn’t be able to enter this room.”
“You threw me into this room!” she protested.
“I know I did, but that doesn’t matter. I’ve got protections all around this place. When I shoved you through the door, you should have been caught in the devil’s trap. You went right through it. No demon could have done that.”
She looked toward the door. “What’s a devil’s trap?”
“It’s a circle of power. I painted it under the carpet.”
“You said three reasons,” she prompted.
“Yeah. Reason three…” he held up the bottle, “this is holy water.” He dropped the bottle back into the duffel. “So. Tell me why you thought you might be a demon.”
She was staring at the bottle poking out of Sam’s duffel as if she’d never seen one before. “I’m not? Really not?”
Sam nodded. “Really not a demon.”
“Then why can I…?” she began, then clamped her lips together as if forcing herself not to finish that sentence.
“We’ll get to that,” Sam answered, as if he’d understood her, though he didn’t. “First tell me why you believed you were a demon.”
“I was bitten. And it won’t heal. Ever since then I…I’m different.”
“Bitten?” Sam frowned. He knew of several things that could leave a bite that wouldn’t heal, but none of them could be mistaken for a demon. There were other things that could infect a human through their bite, but those bite wounds always healed. Needy Lesnicki really was a mystery.
“If you untie me, I’ll show you,” she offered.
Sam hadn’t forgotten how this conversation started. “Not gonna happen,” he said firmly. “Where is this bite?”
“My shoulder,” she answered sullenly, tilting her head to indicate which one.
Sam approached her warily. He didn’t exactly ask permission, but he gave her a chance to object before he reached for her clothing. Needy sat there, stiffly silent, while he unzipped her hoodie and opened the first three fasteners of the top she wore beneath it. He was careful not to touch her breasts or to expose more of her chest than was necessary. Then he drew the material to one side, revealing the pale strap of her bra and the flesh of her shoulder.
The bite mark looked like nothing he had ever seen before. If pushed, Sam would have guessed it was a vampire bite, from the size and shape, but it wasn’t close enough to any major vein or artery to be a vampire bite. The fang scars formed a clear elliptical ring of punctures, each puncture wound with a clear groove in the flesh leading up to it, as if the teeth or fangs had sharp edges like an arrowhead. Or as if whatever bit her had several rows of teeth. Sam knew of only one thing that had fangs like that, and it wasn’t supernatural: sharks had multiple rows of teeth.
For a moment, he simply stared at the wound. He could see why she said it wouldn’t heal. It had healed in one way: it wasn’t bleeding. But the flesh around the bite was pink and swollen as if infected and the puncture wounds were open, not scarred or scabbed over.
Sam pulled out the holy water. “May I try this?” he asked her.
“What will it do to me?”
“Probably just get you wet. But if that bite really is demonic, the holy water might help.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
Sam poured the water onto his fingers and then carefully dripped a little onto the wound.
Immediately, her body tensed and she flinched away. He heard her breath whistle through her clenched teeth. The wound began to smoke, exactly the way a demon’s skin reacted to holy water.
And Sam knew that whether he was ready or not, he was back in the game now.
*
“That’s breaking and entering!” Needy hissed.
Sam grinned at her. “Yeah, it is. What’s your point?” He felt the click as the window lock came open and slid his fingers beneath the frame. He pulled the window open, propped it with his knife, and turned to her. “Do you need a boost?”
Needy raised her hood and tucked the loose strands of her hair underneath the fabric. She looked up to the window; the bottom of the frame was about level with her eyes. For a moment, she simply looked at it. Then, with no apparent effort, she rose up from the ground, floated level with the window, grabbed the frame and wriggled through. Sam heard a thump as she hit the ground on the other side, then her face appeared on the other side of the glass. “What are you waiting for?”
Sam closed his mouth. She’d said something about having demonic abilities but he didn’t expect a demonstration quite that spectacular. No wonder she thought she wasn’t human. What else could she do? He tabled those questions and the hundred or so more crowding into his brain. He would interrogate her later. Sam reached up and clambered through the clinic window, somewhat less gracefully than Needy.
Once inside the clinic, it didn’t take them long to find the lab. The lab itself had no windows, so Sam flipped the light switch and opened cupboards, picking locks where necessary, until he found everything he wanted: needles and syringes, a microscope, slides. He offered her a rubber tie. “Are you still happy with this?” he asked. He was having second thoughts himself, mostly because he couldn’t figure out how she would react if they got a result she didn’t like.
“Don’t be so squeamish,” she accused, wrapping the rubber around her bared upper arm.
Sam turned on a desk lamp and angled the beam toward her arm. He felt more nervous than he should. They could have drawn her blood some other way, but Needy really wasn’t accustomed to the Winchester method of improvisation and Sam didn’t want to scare her off. He’d sold this idea to her by making it sound scientific and logical; if he’d suggested slitting her wrist to draw some blood it would have ruined his whole pitch. But his only experience of drawing blood the professional way was watching re-runs of ER. He could see the vein clearly, though, and got the needle in on his first try. Beginners luck? Needy didn’t even wince. Slowly, he drew back the plunger on the syringe and it filled with dark blood. When he pulled the needle out, a small flow of blood followed it. He’d forgotten to look for iodine, but Needy simply wiped it off with a piece of gauze.
Dropping a little blood onto a glass slide, Sam carefully placed another on top, smearing the sample. Not the most professional job, but Biology 101 had been a few years ago. He was out of practice. This should be enough. He popped the slide underneath the microscope and leaned over it. Sam adjusted the magnification and focus. He took his time, straining to remember what the Croatoan-infected blood had looked like.
Finally he raised his head and passed the microscope to Needy. “It looks normal to me.”
She grabbed it and looked for herself. “What would it look like if I were infected?” she demanded with her eye glued to the microscope.
“I’ve only seen one demonic virus and with that, there were visible traces of sulphur in the blood. Yours just looks like blood. I can’t say for sure, Needy, but it seems okay to me.”
She was still bent over the microscope. Sam watched her adjust it and look again. “I guess so,” she admitted eventually.
“You don’t sound happy about that,” Sam observed.
“No, I am. It’s just…what does it mean? What am I?”
The syringe filled with Needy’s blood lay on the table between them. Sam looked at it, suddenly aware that there was another way he could test her blood for demonic traces. The moment it occurred to him, he had to stop himself reaching for the syringe. He took a deep breath, forcing his gaze away. Blood. Demon blood.
“I think,” he answered, finding it difficult to get the words out, “you’re the same kind of thing I am.”
*
“Heads!” Needy called.
Sam caught the quarter, slapped it on the back of his hand and held it out so they could both see. “Tails. You first.”
She gave him a dirty look. “Best of three?”
Sam pocketed his quarter. “We had a deal, Needy.”
She claimed a carton of noodles and a pair of chopsticks then reached for a bottle of beer. “Are you gonna make a fuss about my age?”
“Why would I?” Sam shrugged. He’d pointed out she was under-age in Hoyt’s bar because he worked there. He hadn’t cared. If she’d offered ID he would have served her, no matter how fake it was. He opened his bottle of whiskey.
“Good.” Needy drank some beer and pulled a face. “Tastes terrible.”
While they ate Chinese food, Needy told Sam everything that happened in Devil’s Kettle. She explained how the local music venue, Melody Lane, burned down the night Low Shoulder were playing there. How she’d told the singer that her best friend, Jennifer, was a virgin, because she’d overheard him disrespecting her. How they’d kidnapped Jennifer in the confusion after the fire and used her in some Satanic ritual. She talked about Jennifer showing up at her home that night, covered in blood and behaving like a completely different person. Then she talked about the murders, and Jennifer’s peculiar confession that she was the one responsible…and why.
“I’d already started to put some of it together,” Needy explained. “Right after each murder, when everyone else was depressed or at least sad, she was…” she hesitated, searching for the right word. “Jennifer was sparkling,” she said eventually. “She was always gorgeous, but right after the fire she was amazing. Then, a few weeks later, it was like she was sick or something. Her hair was dull, and there was no colour in her face.”
“The power, or the high, she got from killing didn’t last,” Sam said.
“That’s what I thought. She said something about ‘it’ wearing off. I figured I needed to find out what really happened to her in the woods, so I started reading everything I could find about witchcraft and Devil worship. I found a book in the occult section of the school library…”
Sam choked on his whiskey. “Your high school library has an occult section?” He was sitting on the floor of their motel room, leaning back against the king-sized bed.
“Well, the town is called Devil’s Kettle.” Needy was sprawled on the bed, dangling a bottle over the side between her fingers. She was on her third beer, but she was kind of a lightweight. Three seemed to be enough.
Sam twisted around so he could see her face. “Still, if you found it in a school library that explains why you got so much wrong.”
She was on it at once. “What did I get wrong?”
“I’ll explain when it’s my turn. Keep going.”
Needy made a frustrated sound and reached for another beer. Sam got there first, moving the nearest bottle out of her reach.
“Hey!”
“You’ve had three, Needy. Switch to soda unless you think you’ll enjoy your first hangover.”
“Whatever, sugar daddy.”
Sam winced: he wasn’t that much older than her! “You found a book…” he prompted.
Needy picked up her story. “It said that if you try to sacrifice a virgin to Satan, but she’s not an actual virgin, the ritual kind of opens a door. She becomes possessed and has to feed on human flesh to sustain the demon inside.”
Sam nodded. “Okay. That confirmed your friend’s story.”
“But I didn’t really believe it! I mean, that night when she told me, she was so…strange. Like she was high or something. She kissed me, Sam! And not just a little, either. It was full on - ”
“Needy!” Sam cut her off. “Spare me the details of the girl-on-girl action, willya?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You got a problem with it?” she challenged.
Sam laughed. “You don’t know much about men, do you?”
“I’m not a lesbian!”
“That’s not what I meant. Let’s just say I don’t need that visual in my head when we’re sharing a room with only one bed.”
“Oh.” She nodded, then made a face. “Ew! That’s gross.”
Sam shrugged. “Forgive me for being a guy. What finally convinced you it was real?”
“When Chip started talking about the prom. Somehow I knew that he was going to be next and it would happen at the prom. I tried to warn him but…he wouldn’t listen. I guess I sounded crazy. At the dance I was watching for her, but…I was too late.”
“Jennifer killed Chip?” Sam guessed. She’d just known what would happen, and she spoke as if that, at least, was entirely natural to her. She was definitely a psychic.
Needy nodded. “I realised no one would ever believe me. The only way she would ever stop was if I stopped her. The book said a blade to the heart would kill the demon.”
The book was very wrong, but Sam didn’t say so. “Is that when she bit you? When you tried to kill her?”
“Yes.” Needy rubbed her shoulder self-consciously. “When she killed Chip, I think I stopped her getting whatever it was she needed from him. She was still weak. When we fought she levitated us both and bit me. She was going to eat me…for a moment I really thought I was gonna die like the others. Then we both fell, and I stabbed her. I think…no, I know…that bite gave me some of her powers.”
“That’s probably true,” Sam agreed, remembering Ruby and what her blood did to him. Thinking of Ruby made him reach for the whiskey again.
“Okay, then!” Needy rolled over onto her back. Her head hung over the side of the bed, her long blonde hair almost touching Sam’s shoulder. “Your turn to tell me what the Hell you are.”
Sam looked at her. In spite of everything she had been through, she wasn’t really part of his world. Not yet. If he told her what was really going on out there, she wouldn’t be able to go back.
I’m the one who started the apocalypse.
I’m a demon-blood junkie who murdered a woman for my fix.
I’m the anti-Christ.
“I’m Sam Winchester,” he began, because he hadn’t told her his full name before. He didn’t expect her to react, but her eyes went wide for an instant, as if the name meant something to her. “What?” he asked. If she mentioned those damned books of Chuck’s he might just lose it…
“Winchester,” she repeated. “As in, ‘Winchesters suck ass’?”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “Come again?”
Needy smirked. “It was on a website. When I was looking for a way to stop Jennifer I researched everywhere I could. These two guys made home videos about how to kill ghosts and stuff…”
Sam’s frown smoothed out. “Are you talking about the Ghostfacers?”
“Yes! That’s the website name.”
He snorted. “Yeah. Those douchebags don’t like me and my brother much.” He was quiet for a moment, wondering how to continue.
“So, Sam Winchester,” Needy prompted. “You hunt demons and kill ghosts. Didn’t you ever want a normal life?” Needy’s expression was expectant, and he could see the little girl she must have been once, eager for a story.
Sam screwed the top back onto the whiskey bottle and set it aside. “That’s all I ever wanted, but I never had a chance. My mom died in a fire when I was six months old…”
Part Three