The Lightning Strike

The air in the Torino was pretty stifling. I had been sitting in the driver’s seat with the window down, fanning myself with one hand. It was early afternoon and the blue sky stretched on forever above the gas station. Nisha and I were bored, to say the least, but being stuck in the car like this gave me a few moments to reflect I guess. Mine and Nisha’s conversation had dried up, there was only so long you could play “I Spy” before boredom really set in. The last job had been interesting. I don’t think Nisha and I had ever encountered a zombie before, and it hadn’t been anywhere near as bad as I’d expected. Part of me, though I didn’t want to admit it, was kind of glad we were tagging along with these Winchester brothers. We were learning things, and I guess it didn’t make me feel quite so alone. Even though they could be an annoyance (one more so than the other), I guess I had to admit, at least to myself, that it was nice to be around them.

I glanced out of the window to see the Impala parked up ahead. Dean had just gotten out of it to head over to the bathroom. Sam had been in there a while and we were all starting to wonder what was going on. Nothing that would require dynamite and a match I hope, I thought to myself, grinning with true immaturity. Of course, I was made to swallow my stupid joke when Sam and Dean came back out of the bathroom. Sam was holding his head and stumbled a little, Dean was trying to hold him up. I glanced across to Nisha.

“Is he alright?”

Nisha didn’t answer me, she just got out of the car quickly, and she was beside Sam and Dean before I had much time to blink. Rolling my eyes, I muttered to myself and got out of the car too. It wasn’t like I hadn’t got a conscience. Clearly something was up with Sam to the major degree. I opened the door of the Torino and climbed out, letting my shoes hit the dusty desert sand of the floor. I folded my arms about my chest and slowly approached the others. I hadn’t really been that surprised to see Nisha trying to comfort Sam. It was plainly obvious to me, if it wasn’t to anyone else, that she was into him. Not that I blamed her. Sam was obviously a nice guy, and not a bad looker at all. I knew Nisha wanted company, she had told me so. I hadn’t taken her words lightly because part of me felt the same way. We had been a solo act for a year and it probably wasn’t healthy for us to both be trapped in the car with only each other all of the time. I guess what was holding me back and making me a little uneasy about this was the fact that these guys were supposed to be working with us. This was supposed to be professional. I sighed. Getting involved with ‘colleagues’ would end up messy. I didn’t need to be psychic to figure that out.

Speaking of psychic…

“Sammy?” Dean asked desperately, trying to get Sam to look up at him. Sam had crumpled into a heap on the floor. I saw him holding his head like he was having some kind of severe migraine.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked, looking down at the scene.

Dean stood up, trying to look like he wasn’t quite as concerned as he was but he was a terrible liar. I could see it written all over his face. He obviously cared more than anything about Sam, his little brother. So why the hell he insisted on trying to behave like an enormous asshole twenty four seven, I don’t know. In the background I could vaguely make out Nisha crouching beside Sam and touching his shoulder. She kept asking him if he was okay, softly, gently. She could do that part well. I had never been all that gentle I guess. I wasn’t good at dealing with people.

“Sam’s having a vision” Dean explained flatly. We still weren’t on great terms, but were forced to be a little more civil than we were back at Red Lodge. Especially now that Sam and Nisha were forcing us to work together.

I rose an eyebrow, staring back at him expectantly. Visions? Well that was really clear, thanks Dean.

“What do you mean, visions?” I asked.

Dean just tightened his jaw, he was clearly not overly happy about telling me about this stuff but I guess now that we’d seen Sam for ourselves, he didn’t really have much choice.
“He gets these…premonitions. Visions, of people about to die. It’s been happening for a little over a year, on and off.”

My eyes widened. I had tried to keep a neutral expression, since I didn’t want to pry into this too much. Dean was like a hive of bees most of the time. It didn’t matter what I did, I always seemed to be that kid to him. That kid with the stick, hitting the bee hive until it got so irritated it would explode. Although, don’t get me wrong, my contempt for him hadn’t lessened much either. I was still pissed at him for the car comment and the fact that he was so full of himself that it wasn’t even funny. Though, having been on the road with him for a couple of weeks or more now, I had seen something else there in him. Something more than the cocky, smarmy asshole he was most of the time. His protectiveness over Sam said a lot. Clearly, he did have a human side too. But hey, I wasn’t his psychiatrist, it wasn’t my job to find his Mr. Nice Guy under the surface, and frankly, I wasn’t interested in doing that anyway. I just wanted to work.

Soon after that, Sam seemed to get better, and he got up. A relief if ever there was one. He and Dean got back into the Impala and Nisha and I got back into the Torino and the four of us hit the road once again.

A while into the journey Nisha and Sam had been talking on the phone. Ever since they’d exchanged numbers they seemed to spend a lot of time talking on the phone when we were in the car. It was a way for us all to keep in touch and up to date about the jobs we were going on I guess. I glanced over at Nisha occasionally to see her grinning. She had that grin on her face and I knew that this whole resistance deal was futile. Nisha was definitely into Sam and I wasn’t about to stand in her way. It wasn’t any of my business anyway. At last though, Nisha clasped shut her cell phone and looked at me, blinking. I looked back at her expectantly.

“Well?” I asked.

She coughed a little.

“We’re going to some roadhouse. Apparently there’s a guy there that can help figure out what Sam’s vision might mean.”

“Well, that’s amazingly specific,” I replied, rolling my eyes just a little.

I looked back out at the road just in time to see the Impala begin to pull out swiftly. Dean was being a jackass again. I was convinced the guy had the mentality of a four year old, playing games on the road was so ridiculous. Still, if he was trying to yet again take a jab at my car, he was going to get it. So with one slam of my foot on the gas pedal, the Torino roared and quickly pursued the Impala before it could get too far ahead.

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We seemed to be driving for what felt like forever. By the time we hit our destination it was night fall. This was like déjà vu. At least, that’s what my instant thought was as we pulled up outside. It looked practically the same as the bar we’d started out in back at Red Lodge. It was kind of misty outside and damp, the air smelt like gas as it always did around these hunter bars. Oh, and it was a hunter bar by the way. They all had a particular look, and after a year of going to them in various places, me and Nisha were pretty good at figuring out when we had found one.

I shivered as I got out of the car, and zipped up my hoodie, shoving my hands in the pockets of it. Sam and Dean were up ahead and me and Nisha just followed them inside silently. Inside the bar was kind of dingy looking and there were a few rough looking guys sitting at the tables. Sam seemed to be in a hurry to get to somewhere in the bar, where, I don’t know. I raised an eyebrow watching him dodge around some blonde girl in an apron. Probably the bar maid or something, I thought, as me and Nisha stuck with Dean for the time being.

“Just can’t stay away, huh?” the blonde girl said with a grin.

Dean seemed to shift awkwardly, as she looked at both me and Nisha. Obviously this was some previous acquaintance that we hadn’t been told about before. Obviously Mr. Smooth felt we were cramping his style or something because he was taking his sweet time about introducing me and Nisha to whoever this blonde girl was.

“Looks like it” he finally said. “How you doing Jo?”

Nisha looked over at Dean and rose one eyebrow sharply. I watched him look back at her and he coughed again, still standing there awkwardly. Both me and Jo looked on blankly. Dean was such a meat head, he really did have a knack for making something out of nothing. He could turn a perfectly ordinary situation into a really awkward one, like right now. I’d been about to introduce myself, just to put an end to this ridiculous awkward silence, but finally the genius decided to kick himself into gear and he did it for us.

“Oh, Jo, this is Nisha and Misha,” he added, waving one hand at us vaguely. “They’re working a job with Sam and me.”

I rolled my eyes, that couldn’t have been anymore forced if he’d tried. Still, I offered a brief flick of a salute to Jo and smiled a little. She just smiled a little too and nodded back at us.

“Anyway, we’re looking for Ash” Dean went on. “We’re kind of on a tight schedule, so, we’ll catch you later I guess.”

With that said, Dean walked around Jo and me and Nisha followed him. We walked to the back of the bar where Sam seemed to be standing by a door. There was this really crude sign hanging outside of it. It had smeared black paint on it that read: ‘Dr. Badass is in’. I rose my eyebrow at that. Dr. Badass? Really? The life of a hunter was never dull, but never before had I met anyone that liked to go by Dr. Badass. Leaning against the wall by the door I watched as Sam knocked on the door several times. He kept calling for some guy named Ash, who I assumed was ‘Dr. Badass’ but no one ever answered. Finally though, Dean seemed to get irritated and he smacked the door once with his fist.

“HEY. Dr. Badass”

The door opened, and I only caught a quick glance of the guy standing there. That was because he was naked and I got more than enough of a view of him. Like, the kind of view that was probably going to haunt my nightmares for a few nights to come. I quickly turned away, putting one hand against my forehead. I was never coming to this frigging roadhouse again. Ever. Seriously.

“Sam. Dean. Sam and Dean…and ladies?” Ash laughed awkwardly.

“We need your help” Sam said with a sigh.

“Well, then I guess I need my pants.”

We waited for around fifteen minutes for Ash to get ready. I was so relieved when he emerged from that room in pants and a shirt. Before long, we were all seated around a table. The woman who owned the roadhouse, Ellen, had let us all have a few beers on the house. Ash was sitting at a laptop and he typed furiously. During the fifteen minutes we’d spent waiting for him to get dressed, Sam had explained to Nisha and I that apparently Ash was some kind of genius, which kind of shocked me. I mean, I know you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover and everything but seriously, this guy didn’t look like a genius at all. For one, he seemed be trapped in 1985 with that crazy mullet hairdo and he also didn’t sound like a genius, you know? Like I said though, I’d learned not to judge books by their covers, so if Sam said he was a genius then I believed him.

“No, man, this is turning up nothing. No omens, so no demon” Ash said, glancing up from the laptop he’d been furiously typing on. Nisha and I looked at each other at that. I was starting to wonder if Sam was just having weird dreams and whether that’s all it was. Not premonitions like he thought.

“Alright. Try something else for me. See if you can find a record of any house fires. Would have been in 1983 and started in a kid’s nursery on the night of his or her six month birthday,” Sam went on. I found that oddly specific and so did Ash.

“That’s just weird man. Why would I be searching for that?”

“Just do it” Dean interrupted sharply.

I was with Ash on that one. That was really, really specific. Apparently Ash had found out some stuff and he pulled it from his computer for Sam. I felt the need for some air, so Nisha and I told Sam we’d be in the car, whenever they wanted to leave. I headed across the parking lot, it was raining a little and there was only the occasional hoot of an owl that made any noise. Nisha was following me towards the car, we both got in the car and sat there quietly for a moment. I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel and glanced across at Nisha. The silence was kind of awkward and I was now starting to take back what I’d thought about Sam’s premonitions. Maybe they were real. If they were, what did that make Sam? It was all kind of…messy.

“What do you think was the deal with Sam asking Ash to look for that stuff?” I finally piped up, frowning a little. Nisha just shrugged.

“I don’t know, it must have been in his vision” she replied.

“I don’t know. From what he said about what happened in his vision it all sounds kind of weird. That stuff wasn’t in his vision, Nisha.”

“Like I said,” Nisha glanced at me. I don’t think she was appreciating me trying to pry into Sam’s stuff. “I don’t know. We’ll find out though. Sam will tell us what’s going on. It’ll be fine.”

Just after we’d finished talking, the Winchesters emerged from the roadhouse. They got into the Impala and soon enough we were on the road again. We seemed to be spending a lot of time following that stupid car. Petty of me I know but I was still unhappy about this whole deal. I didn’t want to spend my time following some guys around like a puppy. I knew Nisha liked Sam and I knew we couldn’t be alone forever, but what was the issue here was my pride. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an arrogant person by any means, but one of my huge issues was pride. I’d always been a pretty independent person and I liked to do things for myself. I guess I felt somehow incapable or inferior. These guys knew way more about hunting than Nisha and I, we were the rookies and I knew that, but I didn’t like the constant reminder of it. There was also a sense that there was something more about these guys than we had originally thought. There was something more going on than them doing random gigs. It was like they were on a mission, and they hadn’t told us about that yet.

During in the drive to find Sam’s vision. Nisha had been talking to him again. I got a few questions answered in that crucial phone call. For one, Sam had found a guy by the name of Andy Gallagher that had fit the description that he’d been asking Ash to look for in the roadhouse. Then she said something about Andy being like Sam. That they’d both lost parents the same way, the same year, the exact same time. That they both had powers and that Sam had met a guy like Andy before, but he’d turned out to be mildly psychotic. Max or something. I paused. That was definitely disturbing news. I’d sensed there was something more going on here, I guess now I knew for sure.

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The town we drove into was pretty unassuming. In fact, it could have been on a post card or something. For once, it was sunny, and we had pulled up during the day, so I hoped nothing really creepy was on the cards. Up ahead the Impala stopped at the side of the road, so I had the Torino park just behind it. Sam was climbing out of the car, and Nisha followed him in suit. I glanced to the wing mirror for a moment, getting a better look at the town. It was kind of busy, and the main street had all these perfect little shops and things. I watched people cross the street before opening the car door and stepping out onto the street. Dean and Sam and Nisha were already gathered, and so I joined them too.

“Alright, so Andy has no current address or place of employment. All we could dig up was a record of his last employment, but he hasn’t worked there for a while. I guess we should start there and see what we can find out,” Sam instructed us. He seemed desperate to find this guy.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, folding my arms.

“Easy,” Dean snorted, he said it like I was retarded or something and the answer was obvious. I glared at him. “We slap on some suits, and we make like lawyers. We have to go inform Andy of the passing of his great aunt Lita.”

I blinked, and he grinned. I didn’t really like the way he was grinning. It was one of those ‘I’m a sneaky bastard and I’m up to something’ smiles. You know? He did that a lot I’d noticed. Still. His plan was okay I guess. It was worth a try anyway. Nisha and I had some pencil skirts and blazers in the back of the Torino in case we ever needed to look professional to get into anywhere. It was usually hospitals so we could get a look at corpses. I don’t think we’d ever actually done the sneaky interrogation of members of the public before though. We sat at a table, and I watched the girl pour us a cup of coffee each. It smelled good and I immediately took a careful sip. I had been driving for a long time and I was definitely tired. Coffee was absolutely welcome. The girl seemed to think we were debt collectors, but Dean gave her the line about us being lawyers and that we had some kind of inheritance to give Andy. She told us to look for a van with some barbarian queen riding a polar bear. I grinned a little at that, but stopped when I noticed Sam glaring in my direction. I coughed awkwardly glanced elsewhere.

The four of us left the café, getting into a respective rides. We were waiting outside some apartment where we found the van. It was really easy to find. Kind of hard to miss a polar bear and a barbarian queen, right? I glanced across the street to the apartment, frowning when I saw this kind of short guy in a really tacky dressing gown appear. He was waving to some busty blonde chick in the window. The odd thing here was that he sort of lacked anything, you know, serial killer-ish. Sam had said he was convinced this guy was going to have something to do with the man that shot up the gun store in his vision, but somehow I seemed unconvinced. Naturally I didn’t say anything, Sam on a mission was not someone to be messed with. I watched this Andy guy approach some guy, he smiled, patting him on the shoulder and somehow got a free coffee from the guy. That was weird.

I was distracted from Andy though as I saw Sam climb from the car. He quickly came to my window, and I rolled down the window so he could lean in.

“He’s there, that guy” He pointed to a pretty plump man in a suit. He was elderly by the looks of things and he’d just got done talking to Andy. “That’s the guy from my vision. I’m going to follow him. Dean is going to follow Andy, you guys-”

“No, Sam. I’m coming with you,” Nisha interrupted. I glanced at her, frowning a little. She wanted to go and follow crazy shoot ‘em up man? “Don’t argue Sam. You might need some help if this guy really is going to start toting guns around.”

Nisha got out of the car before I could really protest. They told me to stay where I was, and wait, in case the guy made a run for it back this way. I guess I could head either of them off. Andy or the man he’d been talking to. I watched Sam and Nisha disappear after the elderly man and that left me, alone, in the Torino. This job had just stepped into the realms of irritatingly wacky. It wasn’t all that strange, and I wasn’t convinced that this Andy guy was a murderous psychopath. In truth? He just kind of looked like a nerd to me. I’d been sitting in the car for a few minutes, when my phone went off. I paused, and dug around in the pocket of my jacket. The blue screen was flashing and the phone jittered in my hand. It was Nisha calling. I flipped open the phone and placed it to my ear.

“What’s up? Is the honeymoon over already?” I grinned to myself.

“Very funny Misha. Not the time, like, at all. We stopped the guy from going into the gun store, so I think we’re okay for now, but, we just saw Andy drive by in the Impala. Sam called Dean, turns out that Andy has mind control, dude. He just asked Dean for his car and he gave it to him.”

“So?” I said. Somehow I wasn’t really interested. What? He could use the walk anyway.

“Misha. Stop being a petty bitch and go get Dean. Meet us back at the gun store, we’ll figure out how to track Andy down when you get here, okay?”

“Fiiiine. You owe me though for making me go and pick up that asshole,” I sighed and clasped the cell phone shut, but immediately found myself grinning triumphantly. Oh how sweet revenge was. Mr. Smart Ass was going to have to take a ride in my ‘crappy ass rusted up Torino’. It was going to be nice to see him eat his words. I switched on the engine and pulled the car out from it’s parking spot. It didn’t take me long to find Dean. He was waiting on the corner of a street by some traffic lights, and nearby was Andy’s van. Dean had his arms folded, glaring off into the distance. I smirked and pulled up at the corner, leaning the window down. He looked back at me and his jaw immediately tightened. Ah, the satisfaction. Don’t hold it against me. After all this shit this guy had thrown in my face, I was just savouring the fact that I was finally one upping him. Dean pushed himself from the wall with his foot and walked towards me, pointing at me sharply.

“Don’t say a damn thing, Misha.”

“Oh I‘m not saying anything there, baby. I‘m just soaking up sweet revenge,” I replied with a satisfied smirk. “Just get in the car already Dean. We don’t have time for your shit.”

He grumbled and got into the car and I drove us back to the gun store. When we got there though, I felt an immediate uneasy sensation. There was an ambulance parked outside and I could see Sam sitting on the floor with Nisha beside him, comforting him. There was a body bag and cops and paramedics everywhere. I parked the car and me and Dean immediately got out of the Torino and swiftly joined Sam and Nisha.

“I…stopped him from going into the gun store, but, it didn’t matter. He walked right out onto the street. Right in front of that bus. I should have stayed with him.” Sam was clearly shaken up, and feeling guilty. He shouldn’t have. There was nothing he could have done.

“It wasn’t your fault Sam” Nisha told him softly, rubbing his shoulder gently.

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We had been forced to walk around for a while by Dean. He wasn‘t going any further with the case until he found his car apparently. Eventually though we happened upon the Impala. Andy had left it parked by the street and Dean immediately ran up to it. He touched the door and hood, declaring his undying love for it and promised it he‘d never leave it again. I rolled my eyes, I thought I was going to be sick. After that we were all forced to hitch a ride in the Impala. I’d left the Torino parked back at the gun store and we had to find Andy before he did anything else. Or, before Sam thought he was going to do anything. I was still silently unconvinced that this was the guy we were looking for.

“What now?” Nisha asked. “He could be anywhere in this goddamn town.”
She had a point, but I grinned and creepily, at the same time so did Dean. I guess we had the same thought. I was starting to really dig that van of Andy’s. Finding him wasn’t usually a problem when he had such a statement for a vehicle. Swiftly, the Impala pulled out and it wasn’t long before we found Andy’s van again. The four of us all bailed out of the Impala, and glanced across the street to the van. We figured that Andy obviously had to give verbal commands to work whatever magic trick he was capable of. I shrugged a little.

“So?”

Sam glared at me. “So? So the professor had just gotten off the phone when he walked out in front of that bus. Andy had to have called him, Misha.”

“Yeah…maybe” Dean replied.

Sam looked across at him in disbelief. I was starting to get creeped out at how often Dean and I seemed to be agreeing with each other today. It made me feel kind of dirty.

“Maybe? Dean, you had O.J convicted before you even knew all the facts. But you won’t believe that some guy with a mind control trick, the only guy who could possibly have that trick by the way, could have just told some guy to walk in front of a bus?”

“O.J was guilty” Dean replied sharply. “And I just don’t know Sam. This guy just doesn’t seem like the cold blooded killer type.”

“I’m sorry Sam, and I hate to say it. I mean, I really hate to say it, but I have to agree with Dean. So far, Andy just doesn’t seem like the right guy.”

Dean looked at me when I said that. I glanced back at him. For a second he seemed surprised that I was agreeing with him. It was a weird contrast, I have to say. We’d done nothing but argue with each other since we’d been on the road together. I still thought he was an arrogant pig, but I could still accept when he made sense. On this occasion, he made sense. I’d seen Andy for myself. We all had, and he hadn’t shown any signs that he was psychotic. Like I said, he just kind of seemed like an adorable nerd. Did I say adorable? I meant, you know, innocent. Yeah, innocent. Anyway. The moment Dean caught me looking back at him, his expression of surprise turned into a glare. If I had a dollar for every time he glared at me I’d be a rich bitch by now, but alas, no such luck.

“As fascinating as this is,” Nisha interrupted, folding her arms impatiently, she huffed slightly. “Can we just go check out the guy’s ride already?”

We did just that. Inside was philosophy books. I was impressed. When I’d been at school I’d had a liking for that subject. I used to take it when I was at school and my favourite had always been Friedrich Nietzsche, but I digress. The point was, Andy’s van just didn’t seem like the lair of a psychotic murderer. There was nothing to indicate he was behind the murder of Doctor Jennings.

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We were sitting in the Impala. Dean had been gone for a good ten minutes, apparently he needed a snack. Did I mention that was another thing I’d noticed about him? A part from the constant fits of glaring I mean. He ate all the time. More importantly, he ate junk all of the time. Finally he’d appeared with something wrapped in foil that he’d bought from the mini mart down the street. He stuffed it in his mouth like the pig I knew he was, I stared at him. I caught his gaze in the rear view mirror, and he glared at me, tossing the wrappings of the greasy sandwich he’d bought over his shoulder and it hit me in the face.

“You are such a frigging pig” I hissed back at him and he shrugged.

“Sue me.”
“Oh jesus. Will you two stop bickering. It’s getting to be pretty fucking annoying” Nisha interrupted flatly before Dean and I could yell at each other anymore.

A few moments later and Sam and Dean were bickering about Andy again. I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know what Nisha thought about Andy but I kind of figured she didn’t really think he was a serial killer either. Sam was so determined to condemn him though, it was weird, a trait I hadn’t seen in Sam before. Then again, I don’t think me and Nisha had all of the picture here. There was probably more to the story that was the reason for Sam thinking this way. Dean continued to defend Andy, and before it could go any further I jumped in my seat. Andy was leaning in through the driver’s side window, he slammed his hands against the door and glared at us all like a frightened rabbit. Apparently he knew we’d been following him.

“You think I haven’t seen you guys? Why the hell are you all following me?” he snapped.

I kept quiet. I definitely didn’t want to get into this. Sam tried to lie and say we were lawyers but I could see it in Andy’s eyes. He knew it was bullshit.

“Tell. The. Truth” he demanded.

Dean seemed to go rigid all of a sudden, his jaw tightened like he was trying to resist something. Sam tried to tell him that we were telling the truth, but naturally, it didn’t fly. All of a sudden, Dean started spewing all the gruesome details as to why we were there and why we were following Andy.

“Dean! Shut. Up,” Sam hissed at him through gritted teeth.

“I’m trying” Dean replied, he was tense and stiff, like he really was being made to talk against his will. It was no use though, he couldn’t stop himself.

I watched Sam get out of the car, and me and Nisha followed immediately. It was weird, but Andy’s commands didn’t work on Dean. He kept stepping towards Andy, and Andy backed off as soon as Sam came closer to him. The mind control gig didn’t control Sam at all. I frowned. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together here. Clearly this was something to do with Sam’s visions. They were the same, Sam and Andy. They were connected somehow.

Sam and Andy talked. I stayed a little further back because I didn’t want to suffer any mind control like Dean had. Nisha was sitting with Andy and Sam as they talked. It turned out I was right. Sam and Andy had the same history. Their mother’s both died in a nursery fire, and their powers had both started around a year ago.

I was kind of overwhelmed so what happened next is kind of a blur. What I did find out though? Andy was adopted. Yeah, I know. He obviously didn’t feel that was important information. Shortly before that discovery though, Sam had, had another vision. A woman was going to set herself on fire at some gas station. So Nisha, Sam and I stayed with Andy whilst Dean went to investigate the woman. It happened just like Sam saw it happen. Only, it couldn’t have been Andy this time. He’d been sitting with us the whole time. Sam’s theory that Andy was the killer just got disproved. I knew what was coming next. A trip to the town archives. We knew who the woman was who had set herself on fire and with knowing Andy was adopted this was all starting to fall into place.

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“I have an evil twin…” Andy’s voice was shaken and cracked.

I was sitting next to him at the table in the archives. He’d busted us in with no trouble, telling the guard we were supposed to be there and that he should just go get himself a cup of coffee. Sam and Nisha got to work looking up the birth records in the town archives. Turns out the woman who had toasted herself alive had been Andy’s birth mother. Not only that, but she had given birth to twins. Dr. Jennings had been responsible for helping her put them up for adoption and apparently Andy’s brother had been up state somewhere. Until now that was.

“Check this out” Dean added, handing me a piece of paper.

It was of Andy’s brother. My eyebrows both raised in horrified surprise when I saw who it was. It was the guy from the café. We’d been in there earlier, and I vaguely remembered him talking about how awesome he thought Andy was when were asking the girl, Tracy, questions about where Andy was. He’d called himself Webber, but his real name turned out to be Anson Weems. I rose an eyebrow at that. His name even sounded like a serial killer’s name. Creepy, like how he looked. I glanced across at Andy, and sighed hesitantly. This was going to freak him the fuck out.

“I hate to do this Andy, but, take a look at this. We need to know everything you know about this guy.”

Andy took the paper from me and glanced at it. He went rigid seeing the picture, and stared at it for a while in silence before looking back up at us all.

“Andy. C’mon, what do you know about this Weems guy?” Nisha asked softly. She was good at playing the sensitive card. Especially when we needed to do damage control on victims of our cases.

“Er. He showed up around eight months ago, pretending to be my best friend. I thought it was kind of weird, you know?”

Oh we knew. This now all made sense.

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I was back in my beloved car at this stage. Andy had gone with Sam and Dean in the Impala. We were driving down a twisting road on our way back to the café to get to Weems before he did anything else crazy and psychotic. Nisha was sitting beside me, and she looked like she’d been about to say something but we interrupted by the echoing of her cell’s ring tone. She found it quickly and opened it. It was Dean on Sam’s phone. Soon enough she clasped the phone shut and looked at me seriously. Whatever Dean had said, clearly wasn’t good.

“Sam had a vision. We have to get to the dam. Weems is going to kill Tracy, the girl from the café.”

I didn’t say anything, only nodded. The Torino roared as it picked up speed and we charged off into the night furiously. My heart was thumping in my chest at this point. It was weird how I was scared by this. After all, this was no monster. This was a guy, a guy who was ordinary a year ago. I think it was the nature of his powers that scared me so much. He could make us do anything he wanted. Anything. That was like, the power of Gods. How many more people were there like this? It was…it was frightening.

The dam came into view all too soon. I could have used a few more moments of mental preparation but this was how hunting worked. You had to…wing it. I’ve said that before, but, it’s true. I parked the Torino behind the Impala and climbed out. There was a car up ahead. An older, faded red car and somehow I just knew that Weems and Tracy were inside it.

“Alright, I’m going after Weems. Dean, you and the girls lay low and get a clear shot on Weems with the sniper. Just in case.”

Sam snuck off, I watched him go. Dean was getting equipment out of the trunk of the Impala. I was distracted by that for a moment so when I turned around there wasn’t a lot I could do about Nisha running off after Sam. She had been determined to stay beside him the whole day. I guess she wanted to protect him, but this was too much. Way too much.

“Nisha!” I hissed an angered whisper through my teeth. I was about to chase after her, but I felt Dean snag my arm. I looked over my shoulder at him. He was silent and just shook his head, the sniper rifle leaned against one of his shoulders.

“Don’t be stupid. If you go after her, Weems will have more hostages to play with. I’m not thrilled about babysitting you, but it’s our best option right now.”

He was right. I knew he was right, even though I didn’t want to admit it. I followed him to a ledge overlooking the confrontation between Weems, Andy and Sam. I was crouched beside Dean behind some bushes and we just watched and waited. Tracy and Nisha seemed stiff and moved like puppets on strings towards the edge of the dam. I heard Sam yell out Nisha’s name and he’d been about to go and try to grab her but he stopped.

“That’s it. I’m taking this bitch down,” Dean grunted next to me, and I looked at him, watching him click the gun into operation. He held it up, looking through the lens as he aimed it towards where Weems was standing.

I squinted, my eyes focussed on Weems and I could see him. He was looking right at us. Somehow he knew Dean was there. He waved, and my heart caught in my throat. I felt a frigid wave of fear as I looked back at Dean. He was turning the sniper rifle on himself. He couldn’t stop himself. He pressed it to his chin and I leaned forwards, snatching at the barrel of the gun. I tried to wrestle it from him, but Dean was stronger than me, obviously.

“Dean, damn it, stop.”

“I…I can’t.”

My flesh crawled and my bones tensed to stone as I heard a shot go off. For a second I thought Dean had really shot himself, but the shot was too echoed and there was no blood. I felt a weird relief. I mean, I wasn’t his biggest fan, sure, but I didn’t ever want him to go and shoot himself. Both of us looked back sharply to the scene below. Dean put the rifle steadily on the floor by his feet. Weems was on the floor, lifeless and Andy was holding a pistol. I stayed on the ledge for a moment just to collect myself and watched Sam yank Nisha from the dam’s edge, and Andy helped Tracy down too.

Dean and I descended the ledge, back down to the lower level where Andy, Sam, Nisha and Tracy were. I got there in time to hear Sam yelling, well. Sort of yelling. It was more like a gentle chiding. He had Nisha by the shoulders and was looking down at her.

“Nisha, don’t EVER do that again. You could have gotten yourself killed. Jesus.”

Nisha just nodded sheepishly and I rolled my eyes. It was probably a good thing that Sam had gotten a hold of Nisha because if I had, I wouldn’t have been so tender about telling her how stupid it had been to get in the line of fire that Weems had been dishing out.

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The morning had arrived soon after that. The cops showed up and we watched Andy work his magic on them. They all believed Weems had killed himself and that we could all go freely without a hint of suspicion. I was leaning with my arms on the roof of the Torino, glancing across as Andy approached the four of us. Apparently Tracy was frightened of him. I didn’t know until just now, but Andy had used his mind control on her and now she wouldn’t even allow herself to look at him.

“W-what…am I supposed to do now?” Andy asked.

“Be good, or we’ll be back” Dean replied with a shadow of a grin.
I rolled my eyes. Well, that was comforting for the guy after what he’d been through. Pushing myself from the Torino, I smiled a little and patted Andy on the shoulder.

“It’ll be fine. Sam gave you his number right? So if you ever have any problems, call him. We’ll be back to help.”

“That’s a promise Andy” Nisha said with a smile.

I was heading back towards the car at that point, my hands in the pockets of my jeans when I happened to glance to my left. Dean was standing by the Impala. He waved me over, with a sort of reluctant hand gesture. I rose an eyebrow at that and briefly wondered if he was just born without manners or if he was just too retarded to use them. Sighing I headed over to him. Whatever this was would no doubt be stunning. Not. I watched him stuff his hands into his leather jacket and he looked over at me awkwardly, like whatever he was going to say, he really didn’t want to say it.

“Earlier. When me and you were stuck on the ledge and I had the gun pointed on myself…” he began.

“Yeah?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Dean shifted, looking away from me as he kicked a stone, idly, that was by his feet. “Well, thanks I guess. You know, for trying to stop me from blowing my own brains out.”

I blinked, unsure of what to say so I paused awkwardly. “Uh, you’re welcome?”

At that, Dean looked back at me, forcing himself to do that irritated face. He kind of looked like an angry possum when he did it.

“But you’re still an annoying ass chick.”

I clenched my jaw. I knew there would be something like that coming. The guy could never just offer a compliment or a thank you and leave it at that.

“And you’re still an arrogant pig,” I flipped him off and walked off swiftly back to my own car. Despite the aggressive parting words, I guess I was now being forced to really consider what Nisha had said about not getting Dean’s whole picture. That maybe there was something more to him than what I had originally thought. He was annoying. Seriously, really annoying, but after watching him defend Andy, a guy he could have easily condemned and how protective he was of Sam. I guessed I had to concede that there was more to him. I just wished he would drop the attitude.

I watched as Nisha finally got into the car beside me, and she looked at me curiously.

“So, what were you and Mr. Personality talking about?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I huffed. “He was just being a jackass, as usual.”

Nisha didn’t say anything, she just grinned knowingly. I rolled my eyes and had the Torino pull out after the Impala that sped away with impressive speed in front of us. Nisha told me that we were going back to the Roadhouse for a few drinks before we headed on to the next job. I guess I was going to return the Roadhouse after all, having promised myself I wouldn’t go there ever again. I just hoped Ash had some goddamn pants on this time though. It wasn’t a pretty sight. As we cruised along the dark winding road, and I watched rain splatter against the wind shield I realized something. We really were stuck with these two brothers. We really were going to tag along on jobs with them. We were going to be a team and I had to accept it. There was no going back now. This was the deal, now and for the considerable future.