CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Hey, are you sure that you're alright?" Dean asks, and Nyx nods.

"Yeah, I'm good." She says as she looks at him from across the table that they're both sitting at in their motel room. "Any jobs?" She asks him.

"Are you sure you don't want to go back and check on them? I mean, with Elena getting kidnapped, Jeremy going into the tomb, Stefan getting stuck in there with Katherine, everything that Elena told you about Klaus..." He asks, and she motions toward the stuff he's been writing down for the past hour or so.

"I don't wanna think about it right now." She tells him, and he nods.

"Alright, uh..." He looks down at the paper he has in his hand. "A fishing trawler found off the coast of Cali — its crew vanished. And we got some cattle mutilations in West Texas." He says, and she makes a face. "What about you? Hey!"

"Sam?" Nyx asks, and he looks at them.

"Are we boring you with this hunting evil stuff?" Dean questions.

"No, I'm listening. Keep going." Sam tells them.

"And here, a Sacramento man shot himself in the head."

"That doesn't sound like our kind of problem." Nycole says, confused.

"He shot himself three times." He tells her, and she raises her eyebrows.

"Oh. Okay, yeah, that's weird." She says, and he nods.

"Any of these things blowing up your skirt, pal?" He asks Sam.

"Wait, I've seen this." Sam says suddenly.

"Seen what?" His brother asks, but he gets up and walks over to a duffle bag instead of answering him.

"What are you doing?" Nyx asks.

He grabs their dad's​ old journal and starts flipping through it. "I know where we have to go next." Sam says as he turns to face them.

"Where?" Dean asks.

"Back home. Back to Kansas." He says.

"Okay, random. Where'd that come from?"

"Alright, um... This photo was taken in front of our old house, right?" He asks as he walks over to his older brother and shows it to him. "The house where Mom died?"

"Yeah."

"It didn't burn down completely. I mean, they rebuilt it, right?" Sam asks.

"I guess so, yeah. What the hell are you talking about?"

"Okay, look, this is gonna sound crazy, but the people who live in our old house, I think they might be in danger."

"Why would you think that?" Nyx asks.

"Uh... Just, um..." He stammers. "Look, just— You guys gotta trust me on this, okay?"

"This one isn't my call." She says. "This is between you two."

"Trust you?" Dean questions.

"Yeah." Sam says.

"You gotta give me a little bit more than that." He says as he gets up.

"I can't really explain it is all."

"Well, tough. We're not going anywhere until you do." His brother tells him.

Sam sighs as he looks at the oldest. Nyx gets up and walks over to them. "I have these nightmares." Sam says as he looks​ between the two of them.

"We've noticed."

"And sometimes​ they come true." Sam tells them.

"Come again?" Dean questions.

"Look... I dreamt about Jessica's death for days before it happened."

"Sane people have weird dreams, man." Dean says as he goes to sit on the bed. "I'm sure it's just a coincidence."

"No, I dreamt about the blood dripping, her on the ceiling, the fire, everything. I didn't​ do anything 'cause I didn't believe it." He says. "Now, I'm dreaming about that tree, our house, and some woman inside screaming for help. I mean, that's where it all started. This has to mean something, right?"

"I don't​ know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" He asks and then looks at Nycole. "Nyx, you believe me, right?"

"It's not that I don't​ believe you, Sam. I mean, you've seen my life." She says. "I just— How could you possibly know?"

"Come on, this woman might be in danger." He says as he looks between the two of them. "This might be the thing that killed Mom and Jessica."

"Alright, just slow down, would you?" Dean says as he stands up and walks past Nyx. "I mean, first you're​ telling me that you've got The Shining... And then you tell me that I've got to go back home, especially when..."

"When what?" Sam asks.

"When I swore to myself that I would never go back there." He turns away from them.

"Look, Dean, we have to check this out." Sam says. "Just to make sure."

He looks back at his brother and nods. "I know we do."

—

The hunters pull up outside of their old house and they look up at it through the Impala's windows. "You gonna be alright, man?" Sam asks his brother.

"Let me get back to you on that." Dean says, and they get out of the car.

Nyx knocks on the door, and a woman answers. "Yes?"

"Sorry to bother you, ma'am, we're with the federal—"

"I'm Sam Winchester and this is my brother, Dean, and our friend, Nycole." Sam cuts his brother off. "Um... Dean and I used to live here. You know, we were just driving by, and we were wondering if we could see the old place." He tells her.

"This is so funny." She says as she looks between the brothers. "I think I found some of your old photos the other night."

"You did?" Dean asks.

She smiles. "Okay, come on in." She says, and they walk inside.

They go into the kitchen and there's a little boy bouncing up and down repeating the word juice over and over again.

"That's Richie. He's kind of a juice junkie." She says as she walks over to their fridge. "But, hey, at least he won't get scurvy." She gives her son the juice and turns back to them. "Sari, this is Sam, Dean, and Nycole. The boys used to live here." She tells her daughter who's sitting at the table.

"Hi." The little girl smiles at them.

"Hey, Sari." They all greet her with a smile.

"So, you just moved in?" Dean asks, and Nyx can tell he's a little uneasy being​ in here.

"Uh, yeah, from Wichita." The mom says.

"You got any family here?"

"No, I just, uh... Needed a fresh start."

"I get that." Nyx mumbles to herself.

"So, new town, new job. I mean, as soon as I find one." She says. "New house."

"So, how you liking it so far?" Sam asks.

"Well, uh, all due respect to your childhood home — I mean, I'm sure you have lots of happy memories here — but this place has its issues."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's just getting old. Like, the wiring, you know?" She says. "We've got flickering lights almost hourly."

"Oh, that's too bad. What else?" Dean asks.

"Um... Sinks backed up. There's rats in the basement." She says, and the boys nod. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to complain."

"No." He shakes his head. "Have you seen the rats or just heard scratching?"

"Just the scratching, actually."

"Mom?" Sari gets her attention, and she walks over to her. "Ask them if​ it was here when they lived here." She says.

"What, Sari?" Sam asks.

"The thing in my closet."

"Oh, no, baby, there was nothing in their closet." Her mom says. "Right?" She asks them.

"Right, no." Sam says. "No, of course not."

"She had a nightmare the other night."

"I wasn't dreaming." Sari says. "It came into my bedroom, and it was on fire."

The three hunters leave shortly after that.

"A figure on fire." Sam says as they walk toward the car.

"And that woman, Jenny, was the woman in your dreams?" Dean asks.

"Yeah. And you hear what she was talking about? Scratching​, flickering lights?" He says. "Both signs of a malevolent spirit."

"I'm just freaked out your weirdo visions are coming true."

"Forget about that. The thing in the house — do you think it's the thing that killed Mom and Jessica?"

"I don't know." The older boy says.

"Has it come back or has it been there the whole time?"

"Maybe it's something else entirely, Sam. We don't know yet." Dean tells him.

"Those people are in danger. We have to get them out of that house."

"And we will." He says as he starts walking toward the car again.

"No, I mean now." Sam says.

"How? You got a story she's gonna believe?" Dean questions.

"Then what are we supposed to do?"

"Stop!" Nyx yells suddenly, and the boys look at her. "You need to take a step back and calm down. Get in the car. We'll figure this out, just like we always do."

They then head to a gas station to fuel up, and the boys are trying to wrap their heads around everything that's going on. "We just gotta chill out, that's all." Dean says, leaning against the car as he pumps the gas. "If this was any other job, what would we do?"

Sam sighs. "We'd try to figure out what we're dealing with. We'd dig into the history of the house."

"Exactly, except this time we already know what happened."

"Yeah, but how much do we know? How much do you remember?"

"About that night, you mean?" Dean asks.

"Yeah."

"Not much. I remember the fire... The heat." He tells him. "Then I carried you out the front door."

"You did?" Sam looks at him, surprised.

"Yeah. What, you never knew that?"

He shakes his head. "No."

"Well, you know Dad's story as well as I do. Mom was... On the ceiling, and whatever put her there was long gone by the time Dad found her." Dean says.

"And he never had a theory about what did it?" Sam asks.

"If he did, he kept it to himself. God knows we asked him enough times."

"So, if we're gonna figure out what's going on now, we have to figure out what happened back then, see if it's the same thing." Sam says.

"Yeah. Talk to Dad's friends, neighbors, people who were there at the time."

"Does this feel like just another job to you?"

Dean looks away and doesn't answer his brother's question. "I'll be right back. I gotta​ use the restroom." He says and then walks away from them.

"I'm gonna grab a drink from inside. Do you want anything?" Nyx asks Sam, and he shakes his head.

"No, I'm good." He says, and she heads into the convenience store.

She goes to where the drinks are and pulls her phone out of her pocket. She takes a deep breath and then calls the boys' dad. She's met him a few times and she liked him. Well, for the most part, anyway.

It goes to voicemail.

"Hi, John. It's Nycole." She says. "Look, I know I don't really know you, but I've gotten to know the boys pretty well and, uh... They need you right now. We ended up in Kansas, at your old house, and we're working a job here. This one's gonna be hard on them, and I know that it would really help to have you here." She takes a deep breath. "Or at least call them or something." She hangs up and walks back outside.

Sam's still by himself at the car so Nyx goes to find Dean. She sees him outside​ the bathrooms and he's putting his phone back into​ his pocket.

"Hey." She says, his back's to her. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine." He says, but she knows that he's lying.

She walks around him so that she's standing in front of him, and she looks up at his face. He looks away from her, and she takes his hand in hers. He has tears in his eyes, but she can tell that he doesn't​ want to cry.

"Hey, look at me." Nyx rests one of her hands on his cheek, and he looks down at her. "We're gonna get through this one. And we're gonna help these people." She tells him, and he nods.

"I know." He says.

"I really hope this helps you and Sam somehow." She says, and he sighs​. "But no matter what happens, I'm gonna be right here to help with whatever you two need. I'm not going anywhere and we are going to get through this. Together."

He lets go of her hand and then wraps his arms around her. She hugs him back and neither of them says anything else. They don't need to. Somehow, this is enough. She brings him a kind of comfort that no one else ever has.