Confessions to My Past

My heart pounded hard and fast against my ribs.
I hadn’t been hunting for four years, I wasn’t prepared for evil lurking behind my own doorstep. I wasn’t even sure I could handle it.
“Mommy?”
My son’s voice ripped me back to reality. I had to keep him safe. “Oh, um… Mommy doesn’t have eggs at home, sweetie, we need to go buy them to make waffles.”
I turned, forcing myself to do so slowly and inconspicuously. I strapped Nate back into his seat and slipped onto the driver’s seat.
My hands shook, and it took all my self control not to floor the gas pedal. With trembling fingers, I dialled Dean’s number. No answer.
I tried Amy, then Sam. All to the same result.
“This is all a bad dream.” I whispered to myself, forcing myself to calm down and appear collected for my son.
In sheer despair, I tried reaching Dean again. He picked up this time.
“Dean, thank God.” I almost let out a cry. “They found us, Dean, they’re here, in our house.”
“I know, love.”
The world stopped moving in that second.
“No…” I breathed.
“Josephine, honey, why don’t you and Nate come meet me here in Detroit, we could all take a weekend off.”
My throat was dry. When Dean called me Josephine, that meant something was wrong and I shouldn’t do what he told me to. He was most likely captured.
“I can’t just leave you-“
“Really, sugarbabe, I mean it.”
Sugarbabe was the code word for: Grab Nate and run, do not come save me or try anything equally stupid.
“I love you, Josie.”
Then the line went dead.

*****

“Now, was that so hard?”
Dean glared up at the man he’d believed to be on his side; Fred.
“You’ve got us. Good for you.” Dean spat. “Leave Josie and Nate out of it.”
“I’m afraid that they’re the biggest part of our little problem.” Fred looked at Dean and Sam, then at Amy. “We can’t risk that the Winchester descendants tear our planet apart once again. See, would you’ve chosen any other girl but Amanda Lindschoten, we would have let you be… but now that she added her own heritage into the mix, your son is a threat to world peace. We can’t have another apocalypse.”
“You don’t know that. Nothing’s for sure. You’re really going to kill us all on the vague information that my son might have a special destiny?”
“Better safe than sorry, Dean.” Fred straightened up, then looked at Sam and Amy. “As for you two… well, let’s just say that we really can’t take any risks.”
“Josie’s not going to fall for that.” Amy hissed.
“I think she might not, but then again…we have all the people she loves held capture. If anything draws her out, this will. And if you’re entertaining the thin hope of her saving you all… she hasn’t been a hunter in four years, and even when she had been one, all she had were her Nephilim powers. Those are now gone, and she’s just a vulnerable human again, one who never took great enough of an interest in her lover’s business to pose a threat to us.” Fred nodded back at the ten or so other hunters with him.
“Besides, all she really has to do is open her own front door and someone of us will be waiting there to escort her.” Fred smiled smugly, but that expression was quickly wiped away when Dean said not without a certain leer: “You’re underestimating her, Fred. She already discovered that trap of yours, and she didn’t walk in to it.” Dean leaned forwards, against his restraints. “And she’s warned now. You and your pals better be on the look-out.”

*****

As I drove blindly in a direction that was not Detroit, I went over all the lessons Dean and Sam had taught me about hunting, shooting, self-defense, anything.
“Mom? Where are we going?”
“Nate, sweetheart, we need to get away for a while. Our home isn’t safe.” I hated myself for breaking my son’s trust in the safety of home, but I couldn’t lie to him.
I picked up my phone again and dialled Cass’ number this time. “Cass.”
“Josie. What is it?”
“Someone’s after us. I need your help.”
Cass was quiet for a second too long. I already knew something wasn’t right. “Josie… I can’t. I’m trapped.”
“What?!”
“Demons.”
My mind rattled. Demons didn’t have to break in to houses, and they wouldn’t have gotten far, anyways, as they’d have gotten trapped right in the hallway. Back at our house, that had been a human.
Were hunters working together with demons to get to Dean and me?
“Cass…”
“I’m sorry, Josie.”
“No, don’t be… it’s not your fault.” I swallowed hard, trying to come up with a plan. I stood entirely alone in this, a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time… and it was even worse than I remembered. “What should I do, Cass?”
But the line was already dead.
I punched the steering wheel in frustration. My next impulse would have been to call Bobby and ask him to take care of Nate while I figured something out; but then I remembered just in time that he was well known in the hunters’ community, and as it were hunters that were after us, I couldn’t confide him in. It would lead them straight to us.
“Don’t cry, Mommy.”
I hadn’t been aware of my tears until Nate pointed out to me I was crying.
“It will be okay.”
I smiled at him in the rear-view mirror. “Nate, you have to be strong for me and Dad now, okay? Bad people are after us. Dad and I will make sure nothing happens to you, but you have to do everything I say, okay? And it might be Dad and I will have to go away for a while, but I will make sure that you are going to be safe.”
Nate nodded. “Okay, Mommy.”
“You’re such a brave boy.”
The problem was that I wasn’t brave and that I had no idea of what to do next.

*****

“How are we going to get out of this one?” Sam asked quietly when the hunters had come to stand far away enough from them as they wouldn’t be overheard.
Dean felt despair take him over, black and devouring. “I don’t know, Sammy.”
The only one who could get them out of this would be Josie; and he prayed to God she wouldn’t try, as she would walk into certain death.
“What if Josie calls the police?”
The only advantage was when they were dealing with humans; they could be arrested. The problem was, so could they themselves.
“Josie doesn’t even know where we are, Sam. Besides, we’d get arrested as well.”
“Better than dead.”
“Except for if they shoot us the moment police arrives.”
Sam let his head fall back in a gesture of despair. They were screwed. For good and final this time.

*****

I took a hotel room somewhere in Chicago. I was aware of the threat of getting this close to Detroit, but I also knew I couldn’t just run and leave Dean, Sam and Amy behind. If I’d go try to save them, I would probably die with them, maybe Nate, too.
All in all, it was a hopeless situation.
“Anything else I can do for you?” The young man behind the counter smiled suggestively.
I wasn’t even aware of the fact I was still attractive, despite a child on my arm and a weary look on my face; I hadn’t tried impressing men in three years. Now wasn’t the right time, anyways.
“No, thanks. I’ll be sure to let you know.” I took the key and carried the sleeping Nate up to our room. I dressed him in pyjamas that I had bought at a quick stop in some small town between Chicago and Boston, covered him with a blanket and then went into the bathroom to cry the mascara from my lashes.
Why did my happiness have to be torn away from me over and over? Why couldn’t I hold on to what I had?
Suddenly, small arms snaked around my shoulders. I had crumbled together in the corner of the bathroom, burying my head on my knees and hugging myself.
“It’s going to be okay, Mommy.”
I smiled through my tears and brushed a dark blonde strand of hair out of Nate’s face. “You’re so much like your Dad, Nate.”
“And I’ll hunt monsters like him when I’m grown up.”
As I looked into Nate’s green eyes, I realized that his father wasn’t the only one who hunted monsters; I used to do it, too. And I would again. To save my family.
I’d left it behind me for good, I thought; but as I looked at my and Dean’s son, I realized that I couldn’t just close that chapter of my life and move on. In order to have a future, I would have to embrace my past.