Can't Fight This Feeling

When she woke the next morning it was to Sam yanking open her curtains. “Get up. A girl died in the house last night.” she rubbed her eyes groggily. What was he talking about?

“What?” she sat up, running her fingers through her matted hair. She hadn’t been sleeping well, and it was obvious from the look on her face.

“Mordechai, he killed someone, hung her up from the rafters, just like the legend said.” It was real this time; there really was a dead girl. Just then her phone began blasting music.

“That’s it! That’s where I recognise it from!” she exclaimed as she jumped out of bed and dashed to the door.

“What? Where are you going?!” Sam chased after her. She slammed open the door to Sam and Dean’s room. Dean was stood in nothing but his trousers, his chiselled chest showing, but she didn’t bother taking note of that. She was too excited.

“Dean, that symbol yesterday, I know where we’ve seen it before.” Dean had never seen her so excited. She looked like a child about to give her parent a macaroni picture that she’d made on her first day of kindergarten.

“Uh…where?” he asked as he slipped his t-shirt over his head.

“What if I said Blue Oyster Cult?” she smirked, she was so proud she’d figured it out before Dean. Dean looked at her quizzically for a moment, a look of sudden realisation appeared on his face.

“The album cover! So Craig lied to us, but that still doesn’t tell us anything about this guy. If he was making it up what happened to that girl last night.” It was a question that was puzzling all of them.

“I’m not sure, I think we need to go back to that house.” Sam suggested.

“I need to go get dressed.” Nyx said as the blush crept up her face as she realised how little she was wearing. Normally she slept in her clothes, but last night she didn’t see the need. She felt safe, but that didn’t change the fact she wasn’t sleeping. She was still having nightmares from the ‘accident’. That’s what Bobby liked to call it anyway. It was no accident, but that’s not how he saw it.

She ran back to her room to get dressed, she’d showered the night before so she just threw on a pair of skinny jeans and a Metallica tank top. One thing she really did have to thank the brothers for was her taste in music. Without them she’d probably still be stuck listening to mainstream pop music. She still had a soft spot for pop punk, but that was from her teenage years.

She’d managed to be a relatively normal teenager, thanks to Bobby. He didn’t really let her get involved in the hunting side of things, he told her she needed to be a kid for a while. So instead she went to school, got an afterschool job, and went to different concerts every weekend. She’d loved every second of it. As much as she missed her dad, part of her was glad that Bobby had raised her through the last of her teenage years. It gave her the chance to at least attempt to be normal, without Bobby she’d have been raised a hunter. Bobby always made sure she was prepared, and made sure she knew how to deal with anything she came up against; but he also let her be a teenager, something her father never would have. She was able to stay in one place, and she didn’t have to move around, and start a different school every week. For that she was thankful.

“You ready to go?” Dean asked as he leaned against her door frame. She looked over at him, taking him in fully for the first time. He really had changed a lot in ten years. More than she’d realised at first, his eyes were harder. Something had changed in him. He was never like Sammy though; he never had innocence in his eyes. Dean had always made sure Sam kept as much of his innocence as he could. Sacrificing his own happiness to do so. That was something she had always loved and admired about Dean, his willingness to sacrifice everything for others. Not only his family but perfect strangers on the street. Dean was the most selfless person she had ever met, and one thing that had always annoyed her more than anything was the fact that Sam didn’t seem to appreciate or understand what Dean sacrificed for him. He’d always taken it for granted, and she’d never understood how Sam could do that to Dean. Though Dean was physically similar to his 16 year old self, just bulkier and more rugged, there was something different about his persona. He was tougher now, something inside of him was broken, and she recognised it because she saw it in herself too. She wondered what had happened to him in the past ten years to change him so much.

Dean stood, staring at her, waiting for her response. She realised that she hadn’t replied to him, instead she’d been staring at him intently for the past two minutes. “Uh, yeah sorry. I, uh, got distracted.” she forced a smile as she grabbed her duffle from under her bed and followed Dean out to the Impala.

“So, anyone got any ideas as to what we might find?” Sam asked from the passenger seat. Nyx leaned back in the seat. What the hell could this thing be? She thought to herself.

“Maybe he is a real ghost, and the kids just drew the symbols after hearing about the legend?” Dean suggested. Dean wasn’t sure what to make of any of this, and by this he meant her. Nyx was back, and he had a feeling she wasn’t going anywhere. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that; he was still angry at her for everything she had said, and part of him was angry that she never tried to speak to him again. Logically he knew that that was a two way street, he’d never tried to contact her again either, but he’d also never gone out of his way to avoid her. Every time he’d gone to visit Bobby with his dad after her dad had died, she’d skip town for a few days. Clearly she hadn’t wanted to see him. It had hurt for a while, but eventually it just made him angry. How dare she be the one to avoid him after all she had done to him? She was back now though, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted her to be. He’d missed her on some levels, but she wasn’t the thirteen year old little girl he’d left. She was a grown woman now, and she had changed. There was something dark inside of her. Something had changed her, and he wasn’t sure if she was someone he’d want to know. He stared at her through the rear view mirror. Her eyes were sad and broken, something he never thought he’d see in her. Even when her father had died she’d remained strong. After their fight the only time he saw her was at his funeral, but even then she’d been strong, and taken everything in her stride. So what had happened to break her like this?

“Hmm, maybe. Let’s just see what the police have to say.” Nyx suggested. When they pulled up outside the old Mordecai house there were police and civilians everywhere. “We’re not going to get in there today, we’ll need to come back tonight.”

“Let’s just go see what people are saying.” Sam climbed out the car, slamming the door behind him.

“What’s wrong with him, Dean?” Nyx asked nervously. Something was wrong, and she didn’t know what.

Dean hesistated a moment, but decided to tell her the truth. She was hard to lie too, even as a child she had been. “You remember the thing that killed our mom? It killed his girlfriend too, and dad's missing and he wants to find him. I don’t know why he wants to find him so bad, they haven’t spoken in years. I think he thinks dad's hunting for what killed mom, so he wants to help.”

“Is he hunting what killed Mary?” she’d only been a baby when Mary died, only a few months older the Sam, but Dean had told her all about her. He loved his mom, and it was hard for him to talk about her, but Nyx had always made it easy. It was easy to talk to her about anything.

“I think so, but he doesn’t want us to find him, Nyx. I think he just wants us to carry on hunting everything else. Protecting people.” There was sadness in Dean’s voice. He’d always been his dads right hand, so to be excluded from anything, especially his mothers killer, had to be a kick in the teeth.

“Well maybe that is what you should do. John’s not stupid, if he needs help, he’ll ask for it.” But at what cost Nyx didn’t know. Would John risk his children’s lives to catch what killed Mary? He’d done some pretty reckless things before, but would he do that? Nyx wasn’t sure, but she hoped to God he wouldn’t. She knew Dean well enough to know that he would follow John to hell if that is what he wanted him to do. No questions asked.

“Maybe.” Dean sighed. He didn’t say anything else, just climbed out the car and made his way over to Sam who was talking to a man in his mid-thirties. Nyx followed.

“What happened?” Dean asked.

“Apparently she hung herself.” The man replied.

“They think it was suicide?”

“Yeah. She was a straight A student, with a full ride to UT too. It just doesn’t make any sense.” he shook his head and walked away.

“Okay, so what do you guys think? Because something doesn’t seem right about any of this.” Dean commented and Nyx and Sam couldn’t help but agree.

“I think we need to come back later, when it’s dark.” Sam wasn’t sure what was happening, but he knew they needed to get back inside that house and find out.

So that is what they did. They returned after it was dark. There were still two police officers there.

“How are we going to get past them?” Nyx looked worried. There was only one entrance and the police were stood guarding it. Dean heard a whisper coming from the bushes not far away from them. Sam and Nyx turned to see the boys from earlier, Harry and Ed. They were wearing all sorts of weird equipment.

“I got an idea.” Dean smirks. Cupping his hands he shouted over to the police officers, “Who ya gunna call?” Dean ducked back down quickly, and the cops spotted Ed and Harry. The cops began to chase them, leaving the house unguarded. The three of them wasted no time in entering the house. They could be back any second, and they didn’t want to waste whatever time they had inside the house.

“I can’t believe I didn’t recognise that symbol!” Dean sighed. He pulled out the rifles handing one to Sam, and another to Nyx. They made their way down to the basement, where the girl had hung herself the night before.

There was a scratching noise coming from the cabinet at the far end of the basement. They were all alert now as they moved towards it slowly. Nyx could feel her pulse racing, and she was sure her heart was about to jump out of her chest. As much as she hated the fear she was feeling, she loved the feeling of the adrenalin coursing through her veins. Dean nodded to Sam to open the door, rats scrambled out. Nyx tried not to scream, they were her weakness. She hated rats more than anything in the world, and were one of the few things she was scared of.

“Argh! I hate rats.” She scrunched up her nose is dislike.

“Would you rather it was a ghost?” Sam asked.

“Yes.” She and Dean replied at the same time. Earning a mock eye roll from Sam. Nyx felt her heart leap in her chest. Over Sam’s shoulder Mordecai appeared, he was holding an axe. Nyx raised her gun to shoot at him, but Dean was faster than she was. He put two rounds through him, but instead of disappearing like he should have, he was still there. Nyx took one last shot at him and he disappeared.

“What the hell kind of spirit is immune to rock salt?” Sam panted.

“I dunno. Let’s get out of here, come on! Come on!” Dean shouted as he ushered the other two out in front of him.. Mordecai was close behind, he raised his axe again narrowly missing Dean, and bringing the shelves down instead. The three of them managed to escape, crashing through the door; almost slamming into Ed and Harry who had somehow managed to escape the cops.

“Get outta here!” Sam shouted, not stopping to talk to the boys. They didn’t need to, they had both spotted Mordecai lurking in the door and turned to run, however the police had managed to catch up to them at this point and grabbed the boys by their collars.

Back in the motel room Nyx sat on the edge of Sam’s bed, head in hands, still out of breath.

“What the hell just happened? I thought the legend said Mordecai only went after chicks!” Dean protested from his spot on his bed.

“It does.” Sam replied not looking up from his laptop.

“Okay, well that explains why it went after you and Nyx, but why me?” Nyx couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. She’d missed the boys banter.

“Hilarious! The legend also says he hung himself but did you see those slit wrists?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s up with that? And the axe too. I mean, ghosts are usually pretty strict right? Following the same patterns over and over again?” Something about all of this was bugging Sam.

“But this mook keeps changing.” Dean was lost in thought, what was this guy? Something about this seemed familiar to Nyx though.

“Exactly. I’m telling you, the way the story goes…wait a minute.” Sam’s eyes furrowed in confusion as he stared at his laptop screen. Both Dean and Nyx jumped up and made their way over to Sam.

“Someone added a new post to the Hell Hound site. Listen to this. 'They say Mordecai Murdock was really a Satanist who chopped up his victims with an axe before slitting his own wrists. Now he's imprisoned in the house for eternity.” Why had the story changed? What was going on? First the symbols that made no sense, now this? What was wrong with this case?

“Guys, I think I’ve heard of this before, I mean I’m not entirely sure. It could just be something I read somewhere, it might not even be real. Thinking about it, it sounds so stupid…” Dean cut her off before she could ramble any longer.

“Are you going to share with the rest of the class then?”

“A Tulpa. I think we’re dealing with a Tulpa.”