CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Gary Bryman was an eight year old boy. Two years ago, he was killed in a hit and run accident." Nyx tells​ the other three as she walks​ over to them. "The car was described as a black Toyota Camry, but nobody got the plates or saw the driver."

Dean called her earlier and asked her to do some research for him. They found this little boy's name on the back of the dead girl's mirror in the room that she died in.

"Oh my God." Charlie — the girl who called Sam before — says suddenly.

"What?" The younger of the two boys asks.

"Jill drove that car." She tells them.

"We need to get back to your friend Donna's house." Dean says.

They get there and the brothers go straight upstairs to check the back of the mirror for a name just like they found the last one. When they make their way back downstairs, they ask Donna about a woman named​ Linda Shoemaker.

"Why are you asking me this?" The teenage girl questions.

"Look, we're sorry, but it's important." Sam tells her.

"Yeah. Linda's my mom, okay?" Donna says. "She overdosed on sleeping pills. It was an accident and that's it. I think you should leave."

"Donna, just listen—"

"Get out of my house!" She cuts Dean off, and Nyx looks​ up at him as the angry teenager walks past them.

"Oh my God." Charlie mutters. "Do you think her dad could've actually killed her mom?"

"Maybe." Sam sighs.

"I think I should stick around."

"Alright, whatever you do, don't—" Dean starts, but she cuts him off.

"Believe me, I won't say it." She tells them.

—

"Wait, wait, wait." Sam gets his brother's attention, pulling it from the laptop in front of him where he's working at the table. "You're doing a nationwide search?"

"Yep." Dean nods. "The NCIC, the FBI database — any Mary in the country who died in front of a mirror is good enough for me."

"But if she's haunting the town, she should've died in the town." He argues.

"There's nothing local."

"He's right." Nyx interjects. "I triple checked everything, there's nothing."

"Unless you've got a better idea." Dean says, looking at his younger brother.

"It seems like there's a pattern." Sam says.

"I was thinking the same thing."

"With Mr. Shoemaker, and Jill's hit and run—"

"Both had secrets where people died."

"Right. There's a lot of folklore about mirrors — that they reveal your lies, your secrets, that they're a true reflection of your soul, which is why it's bad luck to break them." Sam says.

"Yeah. So, maybe if you've got a secret, like a really nasty one where someone died, then Mary sees it and punishes you for it." Dean theorizes, and Nyx sighs.

"Whether you summoned her or not."

"Take a look at this."

The older boy prints out pictures of a crime scene and shows them to the other two. They're of a girl, dead, in front of a mirror. And there's a handprint in blood on it.

"Looks like the same handprint." Sam says as he goes through the pictures.

"Her name was Mary Worthington. An unsolved murder in Fort Wayne, Indiana." Dean tells them, and Nyx raises her eyebrows as she looks at the pictures.

The three of them start to leave to talk to the officer who was in charge of that case, but Nyx's phone rings before she's out the door. She then opts for talking to her sister for a while rather than going with them. She hasn't talked to anyone since she left Mystic Falls, and she knows that she can't avoid them forever.

The next morning, Sam calls her and tells her that Charlie's on her way over to their motel room because something's wrong. She hears​ a knock on the door not long after and then finds the distraught blonde standing outside.

"What happened?" Nyx asks, not having any idea what's going on.

"Donna said it. I told her not to, but she did it anyway." Charlie tells her, and she sighs.

"Are you seeing her?"

"Only in reflection​s." The blonde says, and Nyx looks around the room.

She freezes​ when she sees a person in the mirror that definitely isn't her or Charlie. The brunette quickly turns​ back to face the other teenager, who looks confused by the panicked expression on her face.

"Dark figure, hair over her face?" Nyx asks, and she nods.

"How'd you know?"

"We have a problem." She sighs as she then steps outside and closes the door to the motel room behind her.

"You see her too?" Charlie asks.

"Uh, yeah."

The two girls stay outside, away from any mirrors or windows — basically away from anything with the possibility of a reflection. Sam and Dean pull up a while later, and the girls see​ Mary in the Impala's windshield. Charlie starts to panic, and Nycole tries to comfort her. They turn away from the car, and the guys quickly walk over to the two teenage girls.

"You were supposed to take Charlie inside and cover anything with a reflection." Dean says, not understanding why they're still outside, and Nyx looks up at him.

"Yeah, we sorta hit a bump in the road... A big one." The brunette tells him, still hugging Charlie, who has her face buried in Nyx's shoulder.

He and Sam exchange a concerned look and then go into the room to cover anything and everything that the girls could possibly see themselves in. Charlie cautiously walks into the room and curls up on one of the beds, burying her face in her knees, and Nyx is sitting on the end of the bed, looking down at the floor.

Once they've got everything hidden, Sam walks over and sits on the bed beside Charlie, knowing that she's more shaken up than Nyx is from seeing this spirit. "You two are gonna stay right here on this bed." He tells the terrified teenager. "You're not gonna look at glass or anything else that has a reflection, okay? And as long as you do that, she cannot get either of you."

"But we can't keep that up forever." The blonde says, and Nyx looks​ up at Dean. She wants to know his thoughts on all of this. "We're gonna die, aren't we?" Charlie asks.

"No." Sam shakes his head. "No. Not anytime soon."

"Alright, we need to know what happened." Dean says, and Nyx clenches​ her teeth as she looks​ away from him.

"We were in the bathroom. Donna said it." Charlie tells him. "Then I get here, and she says that she can see it too."

"That's not what we're talking about." He shakes his head, and Nyx closes her eyes, knowing exactly where this is going next. "Something happened, didn't it — in your life? A secret...where someone got hurt? Can you tell us about it?"

"I had this boyfriend." The blonde starts as she looks between the two boys. "I loved him. But he kind of scared me too, you know? And one night at his house, we got in this fight. Then I broke up with him, and he got upset. He said he needed me and he loved me. And he said... Charlie, if you walk out that door right now, I'm gonna kill myself. And you know what I said? I said, go ahead. And I left." She tells them. "How could I say that? How could I leave him like that? I just... I didn't believe him, you know? I should've." She's crying by the end of her story.

There's a long pause, and Sam rests his hand on Charlie's arm. He has no idea what he can possibly say to bring her any sort of comfort.

Dean takes a deep breath before walking over to sit down beside the brunette. "Nyx?"

Her eyes are still closed as she thinks about what he's asking. "You know how I... I told you that my parents drowned after our car went off Wickery Bridge?" She asks him.

"Yeah."

"I didn't tell you everything​."

"What happened?"

"There was this party, and I convinced Elena to go with me because Tyler wanted me there. It was family night, and Jenna was in town... I was supposed to leave for college right after graduation, and I wanted​ one last party with Elena and our friends. So, our parents let us go out."

She wipes​ tears from her cheeks before tucking her dark hair behind her ear, and Dean rests his hand on her knee, wanting to bring her some form of comfort. He wants to tell her that everything's​ going to be okay, that she'll be fine, but he knows that it won't help.

"We were there, and Elena got into a fight with her boyfriend...and I was fighting with Tyler about leaving. Me and my sister — we both wanted to go home." She continues. "So, I called my house, and our parents came to pick us up. There was a storm, and the roads were...

"I didn't want to be mad anymore so I started messing with Elena. She got mad and yelled at me to leave her alone. My dad told​ me to stop, but my mom said that it was just innocent bickering, that it was what siblings did. I unbuckled and leaned forward in my seat to hug my mom and make a joke about her finally being on my side. My dad turned to yell at me to put my seatbelt back on. When he turned back... I think there might've been something in the road. I-I don't know, but he swerved, and the car went off the bridge...and we sunk into the water.

"Stefan showed up and he managed to save me and Elena... He told us that my dad was still awake when he got to us in the water, but he- he wouldn't​ let Stefan help him until Elena and I were out... They're dead, and it's all my fault."

Dean wraps his arm around Nyx and pulls her into his side, hugging her to him. She cries as she turns to face him, burying her head in his chest, and he stays with her for a few minutes longer.

—

Dean stops the Impala outside of Charlie's house and then he turns around in his seat to look at the girls in the back. "So, this is really over?" The blonde asks.

"Yeah, it's over." Dean tells her.

"Thank you." She says and then looks at Nyx. "I'm gonna miss you. Sitting in that room all night by ourselves was a real bonding experience."

Nycole smiles. "You have my number. Call if you ever need anything." She tells her.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope I never call you." She says, and the brunette laughs.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope I never hear from you." She says, and Charlie smiles before getting out of the car.

"Charlie." Sam calls after her, and she turns back around. "Your boyfriend's death — you really should try to forgive yourself. No matter what you did, you probably couldn't have stopped it. Sometimes bad things just happen." He tells her, and she smiles before heading to her house.

"And sometimes those bad things are our fault." Nyx says, and Dean looks at her.

"It was an accident." The older boy says.

"If I had stayed in my seat—"

"Whatever was in the road that night still would've been there, and the roads still would've been slick from the storm." He argues, and she just looks at him. "Sam had some good advice. You should both take it."

He then turns around in his seat and starts down the road. Nyx just looks out the window as he drives away from Charlie's house. Logically speaking, she knows that he's right, but that doesn't change the guilt that she feels.