Season Three

Episode Eighteen: Caught in the Riddle

By irismay42

Part Two

Winchesters’ apartment
Griffin, GA
January 1992

“Dean and Sam Winchester? You’re going to have to come with us…”

Dean pushed Sam further behind him, and Sam, for once, let him, the older brother scowling ferociously at the guy holding out the little plastic I.D. card while the younger brother just looked on in scared silence.

“Where’s our dad?” Dean demanded, glancing past the two strangers and into their apartment as if, if he wished hard enough, his dad would come striding through that door to stand in front of him the way he was trying to stand in front of Sammy.

“Honey –” The woman stepped forward then, hands outstretched placatingly. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay. We’re here to help –”

Who did she think she was talking to? A five-year-old?

“We don’t need any help,” Dean snapped stubbornly. “Where’s our dad? What were you doing in our apartment?”

His thoughts drifted to the duffle full of munitions under Dad’s bed; the shotgun propped up by his and Sam’s bedroom door; the knife under his pillow; the 9mm in the drawer of the nightstand…

“Dean…?” Sam whispered from behind him. “What’s going on?”

Dean squared his shoulders in some kind of Pavlovian response to his brother’s fear, determined to show none of his own, even if he was freaked all to hell. “Who are you?” he demanded belligerently of the two strangers. “What have you done with our dad?”

“It’s all right,” the woman repeated, her tone soothing and measured. “My name’s Kate, and this is Jerry. We’re with Child Protective Services.”

Dean felt his hand spasm where it gripped Sam’s jacket, his brother sucking in a sharp intake of breath at the dreaded title.

Other kids may have imagined monsters as the boogeyman, but for Sam and Dean the boogeyman was most definitely CPS.

Run, run, run… Dad’s voice in Dean’s head chastised him over and over. Dammit, boy, RUN!

But Dean’s feet wouldn’t seem to co-operate and he just stood there, rooted to the spot, his fist tangled in Sam’s jacket.

“Dean?”

Dean pushed his brother back a step, slowly retreating himself, as if the social workers were rabid dogs and the boys needed to escape – slowly and carefully.

“What – what do you want?” Dean stammered over the hammering of his heart. “Where’s our dad?”

Kate threw a quick glance in Jerry’s direction. “He’s been taken ill, honey,” she told him, sympathy flooding her dark brown eyes. “He’s in the hospital.”

Dean wasn’t sure he heard what the woman said next, the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears pretty much drowning out the rest of the world. He felt suddenly dizzy and nauseous, as if the bottom had just fallen out of his universe and he was free-falling off into oblivion.

It got him, some random thought sparked in his brain. It got him first.

“Is he sick like those other people?” he heard Sam ask from behind him, and wondered whether his kid brother had come to the same conclusion he had. “Is he in a coma?”

Jerry nodded. “I’m afraid so, son.”

“We tried to pick you boys up at school,” Kate explained apologetically, “so it would have been less frightening for you both. But by the time the hospital identified your father, you’d already left.”

“So you tossed our apartment?” Dean accused them angrily, still concerned with what would happen if they saw the weaponry littered about the place.

“The super let us in,” Kate explained. “We didn’t know if you were in there and your dad had told you not to answer the door to strangers.”

“He did,” Sam confirmed, still not quite edging out from behind Dean.

“Well that’s good,” Kate nodded her head encouragingly. “But you see why we had to get inside your apartment now, huh?”

Dean just glowered at her, not giving an inch.

“Look, we know how frightening this must be for you,” Kate continued, obviously trying her best to comfort the boys. “But everything’s going to be okay, I promise. You’ll be looked after until your dad gets better.”

Dean gritted his teeth. “And what if he doesn’t?” he demanded. “None of those other poor bastards in the hospital has gotten better.”

Kate sighed. “Well we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it, honey.”

Flora had warned him. She’d warned him and he’d not done anything about it. How had she known? How could she have known?

And what if his dad didn’t get better? He was all Dean and Sam had. They had nowhere to go….

Dean, get a grip, he told himself, taking a deep breath in an effort to stop himself hyperventilating. That wouldn’t do anyone any good, least of all Sammy, whose insistent tugging on the back of Dean’s jacket suggested he was getting more and more freaked out by the second. He had to get a handle on this situation, control his own fear, if only for Sam’s sake. The CPS dudes weren’t going to respond to him like an adult if he was screaming the place down like a spoiled brat. Although he really really felt like screaming right then.

Taking another deep breath and hooking an arm around Sam’s shoulders, he managed to ask, “Can we go see our dad?” in a voice that sounded way calmer than it did in his head. “Can you take us to the hospital?”

“Of course we will,” Jerry said kindly. “As soon as you’re packed.”

Packed?

Dean’s hand tightened on Sam’s shoulder and the younger boy didn’t try to shrug him off.

“Where are we going?” Sam asked quietly.

“And why do we need to pack?” Dean added, alarm bells the size of the Liberty Bell going off in his head.

Kate again appeared sympathetic. “Well, we got your dad’s emergency contact list from your school.”

Dean nodded. Okay…

“And there were only two names on there – we’ve tried calling them both repeatedly, but got no reply from either. Your uncles, right? Robert Singer and James Murphy?”

Dammit. Bobby and Pastor Jim were working a job together in Alaska….

“Do you have any other relatives?” Kate asked hesitantly. “We couldn’t find any listed in your files.”

This was bad. This was really bad.

We’ve got nowhere to go….

Dean shook his head slowly. “No relatives,” he confirmed, trying to sound stoic and failing miserably when his voice cracked on the last syllable.

Jerry was nodding. “Well, don’t worry,” he said, pretty unconvincingly in Dean’s opinion. “All this means is that you’re going to have to be taken to a place of safety as temporary wards of the county.” He paused. “You know what I mean by that?”

Sam nodded mutely, even as Dean found himself getting more and more annoyed with this situation, his anger beginning to get the better of his fear at last. “We don’t need no ‘place of safety,’” he insisted stubbornly. “We can take care of ourselves.”

“We don’t doubt that, Dean,” Jerry insisted, his voice just the wrong side of patronizing. “But you need adult supervision; you’re too young to be left here by yourselves.”

Sam glanced sideways at Dean, and Dean could read what he was thinking without him having to put it into words. Dad’s been leaving us on our own since you were my age, Dean….

“So where are we going?” Sam asked tentatively, leaning in to Dean a bit more, like he used to when he was little.

“Foster home,” Jerry replied succinctly, and Dean felt as if someone had decided to shove a bunch of rocks in his stomach.

Sam paled visibly and Dean pulled him at little closer.

“You should pack.” Kate’s suggestion wasn’t really a suggestion and Dean knew it.

“How much?”

The social worker managed to keep the smile on her face, but there was a sigh in her eyes. “Enough for a few days,” she said lightly. “We can always come back if you need more.”

They don’t think Dad’s waking up.

Dean just looked at her for a second before slowly nodding. “C’mon, Sam.”

Sam followed him as he pushed past the two social workers and into their strangely empty apartment.

“You think they looked through our stuff?” Sam asked when they were out of earshot, although Dean figured that wasn’t really the question he wanted to ask.

Dean glanced into Dad’s room as they passed the open doorway: there was nothing out of place, and certainly no sign of the weapons bag having been moved from under the bed. “I think we’d be looking at a more permanent stay in a foster home if they had,” he commented.

“So this isn’t?” Sam asked hopefully, following Dean into their bedroom. “Permanent, I mean?” There was a slight tremor in his voice that he was trying manfully to disguise.

Dean smiled tightly as he pulled a couple of duffle bags from their closet. “Dad’s gonna wake up,” he insisted, hoping to hell he sounded more certain of that than he felt. “You’ll see. You think he’d leave us in some friggin’ foster home?”

“Dean.” Sam could see straight through him and he knew it. “What if – what if he doesn’t wake up? What happens to us then? What are we gonna do?”

Dean began stuffing clothes into the duffle bags with little regard for creases, or for rolling them as Dad had always instructed him, snagging a couple of their school books as an afterthought before his fingers crept under his pillow for his knife. Somehow he doubted he’d manage to sneak a 9mm past the social workers, but a knife was a definite possibility, and he quickly hid it at the bottom of the duffle underneath his clothes.

Sam made no comment, although his eyes widened slightly.

“Don’t worry, Sammy,” he said. “It’s gonna be okay.” He hauled his duffle bag up onto his shoulder before passing the lighter one to Sam.

“How is this going to be okay, Dean?” Sam asked plaintively. “Nothing about this is okay!”

“No it’s not,” Dean agreed, a new determination seizing control of his features. “It’s not okay. But I’ll tell you one thing,” he gritted his teeth and squared his shoulders. “We ain’t goin’ to no foster home.”

“Dean – what…?” Sam’s brow crinkled in confusion as he tried to heft the duffle bag, while Dean strode purposefully over to the sash window and threw it open.

“C’mon, Sam,” he said, gesturing urgently at the open window.

Sam hesitated for a second. “But we have nowhere to go.”

“Anywhere’s better than a foster home,” Dean insisted, offering to give Sam a hand up onto the window ledge. “We go to one of those places, we’re never gettin’ out.”

Sam nodded reluctantly, glancing back into the apartment one last time before allowing Dean to help him clamber up onto the sill.

“Going somewhere, boys?”

Both boys froze at the sound of Jerry’s voice drifting up from the street outside.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Busted,” he muttered, peering out through the open window to where the social worker was standing on the sidewalk, hands on his hips and a slightly less-than-surprised expression on his face.

A ridiculously sunny and obviously fake smile instantly replaced the irritated scowl that had previously flashed across Dean’s face, and he blinked large eyes innocently at Jerry, who continued to stare at him levelly. “Uh – the hospital?” he offered meekly.

“Uh-huh,” Jerry didn’t sound very convinced. “Sure you were.”

Spalding Regional Medical Center
Griffin, GA
January 1992

“He looks like he’s sleeping,” Sam observed, running one tremulous finger over the back of his father’s hand, careful to avoid the plastic tube protruding from his vein.

Dean blinked hard, acutely aware of the two CPS workers standing behind them and determined not to let one single tear past his eyelashes, however hard they tried to escape.

Sam hadn’t cried, not once, so Dean sure as hell wasn’t going to.

He considered his father’s insensible form thoughtfully – the placid set of his features, the smoothness of his brow; Dean didn’t think he’d ever seen his dad looks so peaceful before.

He cast a brief glance over his shoulder, at the other comatose patients filling up the beds the length of the hospital ward, before putting a hand on Sam’s shoulder and squeezing gently.

“Yeah, Sammy,” he agreed quietly. “They all do.”

St. John’s Hospital
Springfield, IL
Present day

Bobby had gone for coffee, but Dean wasn’t even sure caffeine was going to do him much good right now.

His dad still wasn’t moving, stretched out on the bed like some barely-breathing statue, the miniscule rise and fall of his chest and the beeping of the heart monitor the only signal that John Winchester hadn’t left the building. Permanently.

The doctors had said it was a good sign he was breathing on his own, but Dean was struggling to see anything “good” about this situation.

“Dammit!”

He startled Sam out of his quiet reverie as he jumped to his feet, causing his chair to scrape noisily on the tiled floor.

“Dean –”

“We can’t just sit here, Sam!” he burst out, eating up the room in long, frantic strides. “We’ve got to do something!”

“There’s nothing we can do, Dean –”

“Yes there is! We can find out what the hell’s wrong with him, what’s doing this to him and – and kill the damn thing!”

Sam sighed heavily, running a tired hand over his face and through his hair. “Dean, we don’t know that anything’s doing this to him!” He turned his attention back to his father’s still form. “He – he just looks like he’s sleeping.”

Dean stopped his pacing. “Yeah,” he said darkly. “That’s what you said last time…”

Griffin, GA
January 1992

The social workers’ car smelt like ass, Dean decided, arms folded sullenly across his chest as the Georgia landscape whipped past them, uncaring that his dad was unconscious in hospital and he and Sam were being driven to their doom by a nice black lady in a woolen suit.

Dean chided himself for being overly dramatic: they weren’t really being driven to their doom at all, just to a foster home, which was no big deal; and the car didn’t really smell like ass, it smelled like oranges.

Still, he was pissed and he was upset and he was damn near terrified out of his mind, so he could think any damn thing he liked in the privacy of his own head. At least his thoughts were his own, no one could take them away from him, not like they’d taken every other damn thing besides Sam.

Sam, for his part, had been eerily quiet since the hospital, scrunched up at Dean’s side as if the two of them shared a couple of ribs.

Dean didn’t remember Sam being this clingy since he was – like – five or something, and he was so wrong-footed by his kid brother’s sudden neediness that he was tempted to yell “Christo!” at him just to be sure.

But he didn’t think Kate and Jerry would appreciate his checking his brother out for demons, so instead he continued to sit in silence, the only sound the hum of the car’s engine and the occasional hitch in Sam’s breathing.

He felt his brother tense next to him as Kate pulled the car to a stop outside a big rambling farmhouse surrounded by birch trees. The farmhouse had certainly seen better days – paint peeling from doors and window frames, shutters hanging at crazy angles, tiles missing from the roof and the front garden looking like a jungle.

“Where are we?” Sam asked tentatively, but Dean was pretty sure the kid already knew the answer.

Kate twisted in her seat so that she was looking at the younger brother, her face still radiating kindness and sympathy. “You’re going to be staying here for a while, Sam,” she said softly.

Sam blinked. “Until Dad gets better?”

Kate and Jerry exchanged a loaded glance, but neither tried to answer.

Instead, Jerry exited the car, coming round to the passenger door nearest Sam and opening it, before bending his head to look back inside at Dean.

“Wait in the car, Dean,” he said authoritatively, before smiling encouragingly at the younger boy. “C’mon, Sam. You’re with me.”

Dean tensed, instantly on the alert as Jerry caught Sam’s arm and started pulling him from the car. “Wait – what’s going on?” he demanded, catching hold of Sam’s other arm and hanging on, as if the poor kid were the rope in a tug of war.

“Dean,” Jerry sighed. “Please. Let’s make this as easy as we can on your brother, huh?”

Dean straightened, his grip on Sam’s arm tightening. “Make what easy?”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Jerry said, and from the tone of his voice and the set of his shoulders, Dean was pretty sure he was telling the truth about that. “Mrs. Vasilyeva’s is the last foster home in town with any space, but she’s already taken in several of the kids whose parents have gotten sick…”

“Flora’s mom?” Sam asked, and Dean shuddered as he remembered the woman with the scarlet nails who wouldn’t leave Dad alone at Sam’s open house.

Jerry nodded. “Her name’s Natasha. She’s a lovely lady – I’m sure you two will get on like a house on fire –”

“‘Two?’” Dean echoed, spine suddenly ramrod straight. “Whaddya mean ‘two,’ dude?”

Jerry shifted awkwardly, his fingers still twisted in the arm of Sam’s jacket and his eyes seemingly unable to make contact with Dean’s. “Look, I’m really sorry, boys, but Mrs. Vasilyeva only has room for one more…”

“Wait, what?” It was Sam’s turn to sound completely freaked, eyes so big they looked like they might pop right out of his head as it swiveled in Dean’s direction. “They can’t – I don’t want to – Dean, don’t let them –” He stopped suddenly, voice choked off in something approaching a sob, and for the first time since they’d arrived home from school that afternoon, Sam looked like he might actually cry.

Dean’s voice was deceptively calm in response – surprisingly so, considering he felt like someone had just poured ice water down his back and was gouging out his chest with a rusty spoon. “Sam, you’re not going anywhere,” he said shortly, eyes never leaving Jerry.

“Dean,” the social worker tried to placate him. “He’ll be well cared for. Natasha has been looking after kids like you for several years now –”

“Kids like us?” Dean repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean? We’re not orphans, we got a dad and an apartment and a life and a family and we’re not getting split up while we wait for our dad to wake up, not for you, not for anybody.”

“Dean, I understand that –”

“No you don’t! You don’t! You couldn’t…” His voice thickened slightly. “We’re all we’ve got.”

Jerry sighed heavily. “It’s just temporary. Soon as another place opens up that can take you both –”

“Where are you taking Dean?” Sam suddenly demanded, obviously trying to match the steel in his big brother’s voice with a little of his own mettle.

Jerry looked a little taken aback, but answered all the same. “Group home. For older kids. It’s only a couple of miles from here –”

Dean’s veneer of forced calm almost threatened to crack a little, but somehow he managed to keep his voice coolly insistent rather than screaming like some punk-ass bitch having a tantrum. “Look, sir?” he said, tone carefully respectful. “I get that you’re trying to help us – I do – but I’m not going anywhere without my brother, and he’s not going anywhere without me. Understand? That’s just the way it’s gotta be. He’s not leaving my sight. Either find us somewhere we can go together, or take us back home and let us look after ourselves.”

“You know we can’t do that, Dean,” Jerry said, sighing. “It’s either this or a family shelter three towns over. You really want that? You’ll have to change schools, and I doubt anyone would be willing to drive you over to the hospital to visit your dad…”

Dean set his jaw, reaffirmed his grip on Sam’s arm and pulled him firmly back into the car next to him. “Then I guess we’ve got a drive ahead of us,” he said flatly, not even looking at Jerry anymore.

He heard Jerry sigh again, and Kate had climbed out of the car and was standing slightly behind him, shaking her head. “There has to be another way…” she murmured, putting her hands on her hips and turning to look behind her at the dilapidated farmhouse.

Dean followed her gaze, to where Mrs. Vasilyeva was just emerging from the front door, Flora trailing behind her looking less than happy.

“Mrs. Bailey, Mr. Markham,” Mrs. Vasilyeva greeted the two CPS workers. “Is everything all right out here?”

She beamed when she caught sight of Sam, still glued to Dean’s side in the backseat of the car.

“Sam, right?” she said cheerfully. “I’m Natasha – I met your father at school yesterday didn’t I?” Her eyes took on a faraway cast. “He was such a nice man –”

“He still is,” Dean snapped, squinting at her as if this was all her fault. “He’s not dead.”

Mrs. Vasilyeva drew back as if slapped and raised her hands apologetically. “I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to upset you…” She trailed off, looking to Kate and Jerry for some sort of explanation as to what was going on.

“Sam and his brother Dean are refusing to be split up,” Jerry informed her. “We told them you only have room for one –”

“Oh, you poor dears!” Mrs. Vasilyeva clapped her hands together, face crumpling in sympathy as she gently cupped a hand to Sam’s cheek. “You know I’d take you both if I could,” she cooed at him. “But I only have the one spare bed…”

Dean fought the urge to slap her hand away from his brother, but Sammy had got that whole puppy dog thing going on and he didn’t want to distract the woman from its mysterious power.

“We could share,” Sam suggested eagerly. “We wouldn’t mind.”

Mrs. Vasilyeva faltered. “Oh I know, sweetie, but my house is already quite crowded –”

“Please, Mrs. Vasilyeva,” Sam pressed, not even stumbling over the woman’s name. “We’ll be really good – you won’t even know we’re here…”

Dean was distracted from the negotiations for a second by Flora, who was peering out from behind her mother, a look of sheer panic on her face as she shook her head at him urgently.

Dean blinked at her, a really bad feeling beginning to gnaw at his gut. “Sammy, maybe we shouldn’t –” he began, but got no further as Mrs. Vasilyeva suddenly broke out into a toothy smile.

“You’re a persuasive one, Sam Winchester,” she said with a little shake of her head. “If you boys really don’t mind sharing –”

“We don’t!” Sam assured her, glancing up at Dean and positively beaming at him. “Really, we don’t.”

“All right then,” the woman finally acquiesced, causing Kate and Jerry to heave twin sighs of relief. “I guess we can make room for a couple of little ones.”

All too easy, Dean thought in his best Darth Vader voice. Sometimes his little brother’s freakish Puppy Dog Power amazed him.

Mrs. Vasilyeva glanced behind her, up at the house, where Dean thought he caught sight of several pale faces pressed to the windows just for an instant; but they were gone again just as suddenly as they’d appeared.

“Besides,” the woman continued, her smile slowly becoming something else entirely that Dean couldn’t quite identify. “I have a feeling one or two of the other children won’t be here much longer anyway…”

Dean wasn’t sure what that meant. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that meant.

And just like that, Mrs. Vasilyeva’s beaming smile was back firmly in place and she was ushering both boys out of the car, Flora seeming almost on the verge of tears behind her.

“Come, come,” Mrs. Vasilyeva said, shooing them up toward the house once they’d hefted their duffle bags up onto their shoulders. “You’re just in time for dinner. I hope you boys like beets.”

Sam wrinkled his nose and began to follow Mrs. Vasilyeva toward the house, but Dean caught hold of his jacket at the shoulder and pulled him back.

“Don’t go running off,” he ordered quietly.

For once, Sam obeyed.

* * * *

Mrs. Vasilyeva’s house was pretty much the same inside as outside, Dean discovered: dark, low-ceilinged rooms in desperate need of a little paint, furniture old and worn, bare wooden floorboards scuffed and uneven.

Low beams criss-crossed the ceilings making the place seem even smaller and darker, and as the boys passed through the large dining room and on into the kitchen, Dean actually felt like he’d stepped back in time a good couple of centuries.

Mrs. Vasilyeva obviously liked to cook, Dean surmised from the various cooking utensils and copper-bottomed pans strewn around the room, jars full of herbs and spices lining up along every available work surface, and several large pots full of a suspicious-looking purple substance almost bubbling over onto the stove.

One wall of the kitchen was completely dominated by a huge old-fashioned cooking range and the biggest oven Dean had ever seen in his life.

A huge wooden spatula almost as big as he was leaned against one wall, and Dean fervently hoped Mrs. Vasilyeva used it to get bread in and out of the cavernous oven rather than for disciplining the children in her care.

Mrs. Vasilyeva tripped on ahead, leading them up a winding, narrow staircase and onto a many-doored landing which somehow seemed far too long to actually fit inside the house. Dean was reminded of those weird optical illusions where the hallway stretches off into infinity, and he shuddered, despite the overly-warm temperature.

Pale faces peered out at them as they approached each door, the same pale faces Dean had seen at the windows earlier. But as they passed by, each face abruptly disappeared from view, the door slamming shut soundlessly, and again Dean was left wondering whether he’d imagined the whole thing.

About halfway down the corridor, Dean noticed a couple of tiny rooms standing with their doors open, beds stripped down to bare mattresses, shelves bare and empty, empty closet doors hanging open.

Dean frowned. “I thought you only had room for one more kid?” he asked suspiciously, and Mrs. Vasilyeva merely laughed, pulling the two doors closed before bundling the boys into a third empty bedroom.

“Little boys shouldn’t ask so many questions.” Her voice tinkled merrily as she threw open dingy curtains, allowing what was left of the cold January sun to illuminated the boys’ tiny new home.

Well, Dean figured, they’d stayed in worse places.

The bed was low and narrow, and Dean knew he’d probably end up on the floor by morning. Sam had a tendency to starfish, especially when required to share, bony limbs sticking out at ridiculous and unnatural angles until he managed to occupy as much space as was humanly possible for an eight-year-old boy.

The bed linen at least looked clean, unlike many a motel room Dad had ditched them in, and the bare wooden floorboards had a brightly-colored rug thrown over them which detracted a little from the dingy off-white walls and the single bare light bulb dangling from the cracked ceiling.

There was barely space for the bed, let alone the lopsided closet squeezed into the far end of the tiny room, but when Dean considered the alternative he figured they should really count themselves lucky. This or a shelter? Yeah, he knew which he’d choose.

“Dinner’s at six sharp,” Mrs. Vasilyeva told them briskly, “so you’ll have a few minutes to settle in.” She patted Sam on the head as she made for the door, and the younger boy didn’t push her away despite everything in his body language screaming out that he wanted to.

Grasping the door handle, she turned back suddenly. “I’m sure you’ll both like it here,” she told them. “I don’t insist on many rules…”

Here we go… Dean thought.

She flashed them that simpering smile again before continuing. “All I ask is that you stay out of the kitchen when I’m cooking – don’t want little fingers getting burnt or scalded, do we?”

Dean narrowly avoided rolling his eyes.

“And stay away from the basement.”

Both boys’ ears pricked up, a meaningful glance shooting between them.

“It’s a little spooky down there and the light doesn’t work too well.”

Telling Winchesters to keep away from a scary basement was like telling a flabby cop to lay off the donuts, Dean instantly adding the basement to his “Things To Do” list even as he and Sam chorused, “Yes ma’am,” obediently.

“Oh, aren’t you boys just adorable?” Mrs. Vasilyeva simpered, pinching both their cheeks, before finally leaving them alone in the room.

Dean grimaced, as soon as the door had closed behind her growling, “Last person who called me ‘adorable’ got a busted nose. And if she pinches my cheek again she loses a finger.”

Sam shrugged, flopping down onto the bed with a sigh as the springs squealed in protest. “She seems okay,” he commented, lying back on the bed and staring up at the cobwebs decorating the ceiling.

“I bet that’s what they said about Jack the Ripper,” Dean returned. “And the Boston Strangler; and Son of Sam…”

“Dean.” Sam sat up. “Don’t be such a drama queen.”

Dean blinked at him. “Says the kid who said we could share a bed so he wouldn’t have to be alone in here.”

“They were gonna put you in a group home, Dean.”

Dean had no response for that.

Sam snorted. “Yeah. You can thank me later.”

“Fruit basket’s in the mail.”

“Fruit basket’s being a drama queen.”

“Shut up, Sam.”

* * * *

Dean could count on the fingers of one hand the times he’d sat down for a family meal at an actual dinner table with his dad and Sam.

So this situation seemed all the more surreal, five subdued, nervous-looking, twitchy kids all staring at the two new arrivals as if they’d landed there fresh off the UFO from Planet Zorg.

Flora, conversely, couldn’t even seem to look at them as her mother bustled about with plates and bowls and cutlery and pots full of more of that weird-looking purple concoction that had been boiling over on the stove earlier.

The chair at the head of the big wooden table was empty, obviously the place where Mrs. Vasilyeva sat, but there were two other empty chairs at the table, place settings not filled, and Dean noticed the way all of the other kids studiously avoided looking in that direction.

Of the five other kids, only one seemed older than Dean, a tall blonde girl with striking blue eyes he vaguely recognized from the grade above him in school. A younger girl of a similar appearance sat very close to her, leaning in to her in the same way Sam was unconsciously leaning in to Dean, and he figured them straight off for sisters.

Another little girl sat next to them, she was maybe six or seven, pale and twitchy, eyes looking rheumy, as if she was permanently on the verge of tears, and Dean’s Big Brother Instinct kicked in forcefully as soon as he laid eyes on her.

The two boys to her left just stared at him as he smiled a little at her and asked, “Hey kiddo, you okay?”

The girl nodded mutely, seemingly even more surprised at Dean speaking to her than the two boys had been.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” he pressed. When she didn’t reply, merely continued to stare at him uncertainly, he winked at her conspiratorially. “Secret identity to protect, huh?” he said, causing her to blink back owlishly at him. “I get it."

“She doesn’t talk –” one of the boys began, but was quickly cut off when the little girl suddenly whispered,

“April.”

Dean continued to smile encouragingly at her. “Hey April,” he said softly. “I’m Dean. This pain in the ass is my little brother Sammy.”

“Sam,” Sam instantly corrected.

“Short for Samantha,” Dean added. “But don’t tell anyone I told you that. He’s kinda touchy about it.”

Sam scowled at him, but April smiled a little shyly.

Dean took a breath before continuing. “So we’re here ’cause our dad got sick,” he informed no one in particular. “What about you guys?”

Every one of the kids glanced toward the kitchen nervously, the sound of Mrs. Vasilyeva rattling pots and pans seeming to give them the courage to speak.

“My daddy’s sick too,” April said quietly. “I don’t have a mommy.”

Dean’s chest tightened a little. “No, we don’t either,” he offered, smiling sympathetically.

“Our mom,” the older girl chimed in. “She was one of the first to get sick.”

“And your dad…?”

She shrugged and ducked her head. “Just me, Mom and Fliss.”

“Fliss?” Sam echoed.

“Felicity,” the younger of the two girls corrected her sister, much as Sam had corrected Dean earlier. “Shannon’s the only one who calls me ‘Fliss.’”

“That’s what big sisters are for,” the older girl pronounced, grinning. “To make your life miserable.”

“What about you two?” Dean asked the two boys at the end of the table.

“Mikey,” the older of the two, a stocky black kid with short dreadlocks, introduced himself. “My mom –”

“Mine too,” the younger boy interrupted, pushing bright red curls out of his eyes. “I’m Cooper.”

“Hey Cooper.”

Dean glanced around the table a little distractedly before his eyes came to rest on Sam, who was looking back at him, quite obviously having had exactly the same thought as he had: there was a pattern here. An obvious pattern. And it was looking more and more likely that Dad had been putting himself out there as bait for whatever this thing was, clearly hoping to catch it in the act and off it before it could hurt anyone else.

Suddenly a thought struck him. “Hey, Flora?”

The girl looked up for the first time since the Winchesters had come to sit at the table.

“Where’s Donny? That jerk who was hassling you at school. I thought he lived here too?”

Six pairs of eyes turned instantly downward before April glanced furtively at one of the empty chairs.

Flora shrugged and shook her head, lips clamped together tightly.

“So – what?” Dean continued to press, despite the fear he could sense coming off these kids in waves. “He don’t live here anymore?”

Shannon risked a quick glance at him, opening her mouth as if to reply but clamping it tightly shut again when her focus shifted beyond his shoulder, her eyes widening. She shook her head at him minutely, and he turned to look behind him, back toward the kitchen, from where Mrs. Vasilyeva was emerging with baskets piled high with what smelled like freshly baked bread.

She placed the baskets down in front of the children and nodded at the purple stuff already congealing in two big bowls in the middle of the table. “All right, children, eat.”

Sam blinked at her and wrinkled his nose as she ladled some of the foul-smelling stuff into the bowl in front of him. “What is it?” he asked uncertainly.

“Borsht,” Mrs. Vasilyeva replied encouragingly. “Beet soup. Just like my mama used to make when I was your age.”

Hesitantly, Sam raised a spoonful to his lips, making such a face at the taste of it that Dean thought the kid might actually hurl.

As the other children began to help themselves quietly to dinner, Mrs. Vasilyeva turned slightly from the table, one hand suddenly digging into Dean’s shoulder hard enough to cause him to wince as she bent down toward him, her mouth right next to his ear.

He fought the urge to flinch, even as her breath clung to his neck hotly.

“I was kind to you,” she whispered right into his ear. “I let you stay here with your brother even though I knew you were going to be trouble.”

Dean tried to turn a little, blinking innocently at her. “I didn’t do anything –” he began to protest, but she silenced him with another painful squeeze of his shoulder.

“Make sure it stays that way,” she warned him, Dean nodding mutely as her voice slipped even lower. “Don’t make me regret my kindness, Dean Winchester.”

Dean swallowed, looking up at her as she pulled away from him, and when she opened her mouth to smile sweetly at him, he swore he saw a metallic glint to her teeth…

* * * *

“Sammy, are you ever going to sleep?”

“I guess not, Dean, how about you?”

“Not with your bony elbow in my face I’m not.”

Dean huffed a deep sigh, tracing one delicate cobweb across the ceiling in the moonlight slanting through the gap in the curtains.

Sam turned over onto his back, eyes straying to the same cobweb. “You think Dad’s okay?” he asked at length, voice sounding tiny and far away.

Dean made sure his own voice was rock steady when he confidently replied, “Sure he is. No friggin’ coma’s gonna keep John Winchester out of the fight for long.”

“I hope you’re right,” Sam said. “I don’t like it here – Flora’s mom gives me the creeps.”

Dean hadn’t shared with Sam what he’d seen – what he thought he’d seen – at dinner, not wanting to freak the kid out any more than he was already freaked. “Me too,” he agreed at length, pausing before adding, “We wouldn’t even have to be here if Bobby and Pastor Jim weren’t both in Alaska right now.”

Sam drew a slow breath. “We don’t have anywhere to go.”

The truth of that statement had never been more terrifying. To either of them.

Dad had few friends – even fewer he’d trust with his boys, and Dean trusted even fewer of those with Sam.

“Dad’s gonna wake up soon,” he promised his brother. “You’ll see. Then he’ll bust us out of here, smoke whatever freaky-ass thing’s doing this, and we’ll be out of this town before you can say ‘chupacabra.’”

Sam sighed. “Yeah. I know…”

Before either of them could add anything further, the midnight quiet was suddenly ripped asunder by a terrified scream, both of them sitting bolt upright as they listened intently to the sound of heavy footsteps on the landing outside, then a loud thud followed by an eerie silence.

Jumping out of bed, Sam on his heels, Dean darted for the door, pulling it open and looking carefully out into the hallway.

April was peering out through the doorjamb of her room opposite, wide-eyed and petrified, and further up the hall Dean could see doors hesitantly cracking open, but closing again almost immediately.

Taking a breath, he stepped out onto the landing, heart pounding wildly as he carefully checked out each of the bedroom doors in turn.

Fliss was standing in the middle of the hallway, shaking and staring at the open door to her sister’s bedroom.

Dean approached her carefully from behind, gently putting a hand on her shoulder as he followed her gaze into Shannon’s empty room. “Fliss?” he said quietly, eyes drifting to the unmade bed. “Where’s your sister?”

Fliss was trembling violently, whole body wracked with sobs. She turned her tear-streaked face up to Dean and shook her head. “She’s gone,” she managed to jerk out. “She’s gone.”

Dean’s eyes slid to the stairwell, and he gently maneuvered Fliss toward her bedroom. “Go back to your room, sweetheart,” he told her. “Close your door and don’t come out till I say it’s okay. Okay?”

Fliss continued to gaze up at him, nodding as he pushed her into the room. She closed the door just as he’d instructed her, and his eyes locked with Sam’s, who was standing on the threshold of their room, just watching him.

Dean inclined his head toward the stairs, and Sam nodded, following behind him closely.

They made their way downstairs slowly and carefully, Dean wishing he’d thought to dig his knife out of his duffle bag as his bare feet hit the cold boards of the kitchen.

A door opened opposite them, a weak light emanating from within, and Dean caught a brief glimpse of lime-covered brick walls and rickety stairs going down to the basement as Mrs. Vasilyeva emerged distractedly.

He pulled Sam back into the stairwell, hoping to hide them both in the shadows as the woman turned to lock the door behind her.

Relieved that she appeared not to have seen them, Dean took a tentative step toward her, trying to work out what she’d done with the key.

Suddenly she paused, back tense and straight, as if sensing the presence behind her.

And then she spun in his direction, growling inhumanly and baring her teeth.

Her iron teeth.

Dean grabbed Sam’s hand and ran.

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The Winchester Chronicles