❝ stanford!   ❞

Sam hated Halloween. He hated it before and he hated it now.
The only difference earlier was that Deanna would bring a bucket of candy and now his girlfriend, Jessica would demand him to dress up. After a good night at a party, he closed all the doors and snuggled inside his room with his girlfriend.
Creak!

Sam's eyes opened.

He cautiously went out of the room, trying not to wake Jess and trying not to alert the imposter. He paused for a brief moment and noticed a closed window now open. Another floorboard creak. Shadows were moving; he took another step forward. He lunges forward and grabs the imposters shoulder.

She knocks Sam's arm away and aims a strike at Sam, who ducks. She grabs Sam's arm, swings him around and pushes him into another room. If she hadn't seen Sam's face before, she certainly did now.

Smirking, she elbowed Sam in the face and ducks when he tries to punch her. She finally knocks Sam down and pins him on the floor, all under fifteen seconds. Her one hand was now on Sam's neck and another holding his wrist as she was sitting on top of him.

"Woah! Easy tiger!"

Sam breathes hard, "Deanna?" His voice was hoarse, he smelt like beer.

Deanna grins at a scowling Sam, "you scared the crap out of me!"

"That's 'cause you're out of practice ya giraffe." Sam grabs her hand and yanks her down slamming his heel into Deanna's back and her to the floor.

"Or not," she grunts, "get off me... giant!"
Rolling his eyes and pulled her up.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sam asks, he knew she could try to get him back into hunting, he didn't know anything, it had been too long since they last spoke to each other.

"What, can't I meet my baby brother?" Deanna pouts and went to grab his cheeks only for her hands to be yanked away.

"Don't shit with me Deanna. Why are you here?"

"Okay," Deanna sighs, "look we gotta talk."

"Phone exists," he rolls his eyes.

At this rate, Deanna won't be surprised if those eyeballs just vanished at the back of his eyes.

"Would you have picked up," she retorts.

Sam wanted to say yes, but even he wasn't sure.

Suddenly the lights turn on.

"Sam?" Jessica's eyes furrowed at the brightness of the light.

Sam and Deanna turned their heads in unison.

Giving her a lopsided smile, Sam says, "Jess hey! Dee this is my girlfriend Jessica."

Deanna gives her a light smile and nods, "How you doin'?"

"Wait," Jess grins, "this is Deanna. Like big sister Deanna?"

How could someone be so chirpy in the middle of the night, Deanna wondered.

"That's me. Did you know Sammy used to watch Smurfs when he was a baby," Deanna grins, "oh don't be embarrassed, Sammy. You know, I really got to tell you though, you are completely out of my brother's league."

"Deanna!"

Her smile flatters as she looked back at Sam, "anyway I really gotta borrow your boyfriend here. We need to talk about the family business. But, uh nice meeting you."

He knew it. Why else would she barge in the middle of the night?

Sam shakes his head and pulls Jess by her waist.

"No," says Sam confidently, "whatever you gotta say, say it in front of her"

Sam knew that Deanna would never do that to him. She wouldn't dare to reveal their family business in front of her. What Sam forgot was that she loved playing with words.

"Dad hasn't been home for a few days," her eyes narrowed.

"So he's working overtime on a Miller Timeshift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later." Sam shrugs.

Deanna ducked her head and looked back again, her face straight and serious, "dad's on a hunting trip and he hasn't been home for a few days," her teeth gritted.

Sam's face darkens, "Jess excuse us. We have to go outside."

The two Winchester siblings headed down the fire escape.

"I mean seriously dude!" Sam argued, "you can't just break into my apartment in the middle of the night and expect me to hit the road with you."

"You're not hearing me, Sammy. Dad's missing. I need you to help me find him." She sighs. Why does he always have to be so difficult?

"You remember the poltergeist in Amherst?" Sam states, "or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine."

Deanna stops and turned to look at him, "not for this long. Now, are you gonna come with me or not?"

"I'm not."

"Why not?" Her brows furrow.

"I swore myself I was done hunting Dee. For good."

"Come on Sam," she tilts her head, "it wasn't that bad."

Deanna starts to head down the stairs as Sam followed.

"Yeah?" Sam's voice thickens, "when I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a 0.45."

Deanna stops at the door to the outside. "Well, what was he supposed to do?"

"I was nine years old!" Sam exclaims, "he was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark."

"Don't be afraid of the dark?" Deanna scoffs, "are you kidding me? Of course, you should be afraid of the dark! You know what's out there."

"Yeah, I know," Sam says, "but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her."

Deanna gave him a look which he ignores.

"But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find." Sam states.

"We save a lot of people doing it Sam!"

A pause.

"You think Mom would have wanted this for us?" Sam gives her a puzzled look which she ignores slams the door open.

"The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets?" Sam's voice rises, "Dude we were raised like warriors."

"So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it Sam?"

"No. Not normal. Safe."

"And that's why you just ran away," Deanna mutters looking away.

"I was just going to college," Sam was just so tired, "it was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."

Yeah well didn't you care enough to check up on your sister! Deanna thought as her heart pained.

"Yeah," she clears her throat, "well, dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it."

Silence.

"I can't do this alone," she looked deep into his eyes, a part of her begging for him to join her.

"Yes, you can."

"Yeah, well, I don't want to." Deanna looks down.

Sam sighs and thinks for a moment, "what was he hunting?

Deanna opens the trunk of the Impala, then the spare-tire compartment. She props the compartment open with a shotgun and digs through the clutter.

"Alrighty," huffs Deanna, "let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?"

"So when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?" Sam asks, trying to break the tension.

"I was in New Orleans," says Deanna, "working my own gig. Voodoo Hoodoo."

"Dad let you go on a hunting trip," snorts Sam, "By yourself?"

"I'm twenty-six dude," Deanna defends herself as she pulled out a folder.

"Right here we go. Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop outside Jerico. About a month ago this guy," she hands sam a paper, "so, they found his car but he vanished, like completely MIA."

The paper is a printout of an article from the Jericho Herald, headlined "Centennial Highway Disappearance" and dated Sept. 19th 2005; it has a man's picture, captioned "Andrew Carey MISSING". Sam reads it and glances up.

Andrew Carey: Missing.

"Maybe he was kidnapped," Sam shrugs.

"Yeah well, here's another in April," she tosses another Jericho Herald article, "another one in December '04, '03, '98, '92. Total ten of 'em over the past twenty years."

Taking back the article from Sam, she picks the rest of the stack putting them back into the folder.

"All of them were men, all at the same five-mile stretch of road," says Deanna as she took out another bag.

"It started happening more and more, so dad went to dig around. That was about three weeks ago. Haven't heard from him since, which is bad enough." Deanna takes a tape recorder out, "I got this voicemail from him yesterday."

Pressing the play button, they noticed that the recording was staticky and the signal was breaking up.

"Dean something big is starting to happen. I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may be. Just be careful Deanna. We're all in danger."

As the recording stopped, she paused the recorder.

"You know there's EVP on that?" Sam asks.

"I slowed the message, ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss and this is what we got," Deanna presses the play button again.

I can never go home.

"Never go home," Sam whispers as his eyes meet Deanna's. She drops the recorder, put down the shotgun and shuts the trunk of the Impala.

Leaning onto the Impala, she sighs, "I never bothered you for four years, Sammy. Never asked for a thing. I gave you what you always wanted. Just this once..."

Sam looks away, guilty. He nods and looks back, "alright. I'll go with you. I'll help you find him."

Deanna nods appreciatingly as Sam continues, "but I have to get back first thing Monday. Just wait here."

As Sam turned to go back to his apartment, Deanna asks, "what's first thing Monday?"

"I have this interview," Sam smirks, though nervous from within.

"What, a job interview?" Deanna's brows furrow, "skip it."

"It's a law school interview. My whole future is on a plate. I can't just skip it."

"Law school," smirks Deanna, "do I have to call you 'your honour'?"

"We got a deal or not?" Sam wasn't in the mood for jokes. He knew Deanna was happy for him but he also knew that John Winchester treated her like a puppet.

Saying nothing, she just nods.

Monday.

────────── notes──────────

okay, i know i am late. there are no excuses, i am so sorry!

my focus is mainly on tick tick boom right now. i want to finish at least two acts of it before going on my hiatus. unfortunately, my mocks have started, which means your girl needs to study hard ;)

as you know, this book is on a short hiatus, till march '22. my finals are till may end. therefore this book will have really slow updates. i just hope that you are willing to read it later <33

13. 02. 22