Dean knew he was sleeping, and in fact he was too engrossed in catching up with his sleep until a soft creaking sound woke him up. He did not move or even tried to move fearing a fatal move could endanger Sam who was still sleeping on the other bed. Since his face was hidden under his arm and both his hands were always underneath the pillow holding tight to a weapon, he was using his guts feelings and his sixth sense in getting ready as to when and how to pounce on whoever or whatever it was in the room with them.
Remember Dean… shoot first and ask later. His father’s words kept playing in his head.
Then he felt a weight at the edge of the bed. He wondered if he should slide the weapon out right there and then or wait. He took the latter suggestion and waited. No further movement from whoever or whatever it was on his bed. Then the moment he felt a hand or something trying to reach for his shoulder, he forgot all about the weapon and grabbed whatever he could to make a sudden counter-attack.
“Ouch! Dean! My arm!” Groaned the voice as Dean pushed him down and twisted his left arm to the back.
“Sam?” Realizing that it was Sam, Dean released the grip and helped his brother up.
“What the hell was that about?” Shouted Sam as he stood back on his feet and pulled his arm away from Dean who looked totally apologetic.
“Sorry… I thought it was-”
“What? Demon?” Snapped Sam as he massaged his own arms and sat on his own bed.
“Fine… I’m sorry alright… but where the hell did you go? Sneaking in like that… you can’t blame me for… for that you know…” Dean said as he sat back on his bed and rubbed both his eyes.
“That was indeed a nice thank you from you.” Sam said sarcastically. “Here, I got this for you.” He continued as he reached for the paper bag and handed over a cup of hot drink and a small bag of muffins for breakfast.
“Hmmm… what’s this?” Dean asked as he took a sip of the hot drink. He was not sure if he liked the taste but its definitely tasted weirdly nice.
“Local speciality… that’s what they called it… Hot Blended Mocca I think. Here… muffin for you and guess what?”
“What?”
“Benny’s body is going to be buried this morning and not sure if now is the best time for us to get to Annie.”
“How did you know that?” Dean asked as he licked his lips in enjoying the drink.
“I asked around and they said Annie requested for the body to be buried today because she wanted to leave this town before giving birth to her first child.”
“Well… whether its appropriate or not, we still have to do it Sam… you know that. Its either we ask and save a life or we wait and someone else get killed.”
“I know that Dean but you saw what happen to her yesterday.”
“Look Sammie… I know its hard on her Sammie but we don’t much choice either… we have to do what we have to do.”
Sam nodded his head without looking at Dean. That was the one thing about Sam that Dean worried most. He was too soft-hearted and because of that he often ended up being the target of those flirting demons out there. Not that he was jealous of his brother, not with the demons of course but sometimes he wished he had that sense of sensitivity like Sam.
“Well… enjoy your breakfast, I’ll go and take my shower first… then we’ll go and visit Annie.” Dean said as he walked towards the bathroom with a towel draped on his shoulder.
Sam switched on his laptop and began to search for any newspaper articles on the raped and murdered trial mentioned by Professor White on the net. While waiting for the results to show, Sam took several sips of his drink. It took a while for the browser to finally came up with thousands of such cases around the world and Sam narrowed it down by giving a country name and the number of search results became smaller until Sam tracked it down specifically down to Saint Town.
There were fifteen search results and Sam scrolled down until he came upon the last search on page two.
“The rape and murder trial of Sabrina Ash began today…” Sam clicked on the said article posted by one of the local residents. The link brought Sam to a personal site where the poster put up newspaper articles of the said trial from day one till the end of the verdict.
As he scrolled down and clicked on various links, he finally came upon a page where it showed a clear picture of Sabrina Ash in her favourite white gown as stated on the papers.
“This can’t be…” Sam whispered as he leaned forward closely to the screen. Those clear blue eyes looked familiar as he tried to find a sense of recognition in them.
“Sam? Sammie? Hey Sammie!” Dean’s voice broke into Sam’s deep thought. Sam gave Dean a shocking look as if he saw something flying out of the monitor screen. “What?” Dean asked again.
“I saw HER the other day.” Sam said, pointing to the screen in front of him.
“What?” Dean asked as he walked over to Sam. “This girl? Who is she? Is she a nurse?” Dean asked and walked back to his bed to look for a pair of new shirt from his bag. Sam looked away from the monitor and turned to his brother who only had a towel around his waist, baring his chest and six-abs. Though the abs were not as firm as the ones he had, still he had to admit that his brother was looking good for someone who hardly had the time to do any workout.
While trying to get the right words out from his mouth, Sam sub-consciously engaged in deep thoughts again as a picture of the same girl on the screen came flashing back in his mind.
“Sammie? Sammie!”
“What?”
“I should be asking you that! What are you looking at?” Dean asked warily as he raised his eyebrow.
“Eeerr…. nothing…”
“Nothing? You were looking at me without a blink dude… now you are freaky me out!” Continued Dean as he put the shirt on followed by his faded jeans.
“Remember the other day… outside Benny’s house… I told you to wait for me in the car… I saw this girl standing behind the tree and I swear Dean… I saw THIS girl!” Sam continued as he pointed to the Sabrina Ash on the screen.
“Okay… so is she a nurse?”
“She’s dead Dean… she is Sabrina Ash, the girl whom Professor White told us about…”
“Wait a second… you mean the raped and murdered case that happened four years ago?” Sam nodded his head. “Okay… and you said you saw HER the other day.”
“Ditto that!”
“Does that mean…” Dean turned to Sam and without any further explanation, they both seemed to understand what went through in each other’s minds.
“I don’t know… but if she IS really the one who has been raped and killed… then we definitely have to find her before she starts killing again.”
“You know what… this reminds me of this one case in dad’s journal… the only way to kill such bad spirit or soul from wandering and disturbing the livings is by burning their dead bodies into ashes… so I guess, you know what to do right?” Dean said.
“No wonder she said ITS not meant to be caught.” Sam said softly recalling those words from their first encounter the other day.
“What did you say?”
“Huh? Nothing…”
“You ready to go?” Dean asked as he put on his jacket and slipped in a small bottle of Holy Water in his jeans pocket.
“Yeah.” Sam said as he grabbed his jacket from the chair and followed Dean out of the room.
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That morning was filled up with silence and grieves lingering in the air. Occasionally it was broke by the cries and wails of some of the visitors at the burial ground. The place that used to be empty by the presence of visitors recently seemed to be attracting a lot of attention locally and from other towns as well due to its mysterious killing news. Dean and Sam did not join the crowd for the burial ceremony, instead they waited till the whole procedure was over before they walked over to extend their condolences as well as to get the information from the anguish widow.
“Hi Annie…” Annie looked up and saw Dean approaching her with someone whom she recognized as Father Chris.
“Oh Fathers… thanks for coming.” Annie said as the brothers stood in front of them to give their condolences and a short hug.
“We are sorry for your loss Annie… on behalf of everyone from the welfare and church, we extend our deepest condolences to you.” Said Dean as other guests keep coming and leaving, giving their short condolences and warmth-wishes to the widow at the same time.
“Thank you… this is just so unbelievable… it seems like only yesterday we were so happy when he found out about my pregnancy. We were supposed to buy a new crib for the baby… but now…” Annie tried to control herself from breaking down as she kept clearing her throat to get her voice out without much shaking in them. Once a while she would cover her nose with a piece of tissue and wiped the tears away from her eyes.
“I’m sorry Annie… but you’ve got to be strong… at least for your baby…” Sam said as he gave her a short hug again.
“Thanks Father.”
“Annie… I know this is not the right time yet but… we need to ask you a couple of questions about… about Benny’s death.” Annie gave Dean a peculiar look. How much insensitive could he be, she thought as she shook her head and looked down at the ground. “Please Annie… we need to know a few things from you…” Dean insisted again.
“What do you mean? I… I don’t get it.”
“We need to ask you about Benny’s death and… and…”
“And what?”
“And we believe that his death is related to the other deaths before him and if we can get your help… then we believe that we can stop the next death.”
“What? What do you mean by the next death? You mean… there is going to be another death?” Annie asked in deep curiosity wondering how much further can she absorb the news.
“Well… that provided that we are right and that you can help us with few crucial information that we need from you.”
“Hey Annie! Are you coming?” Called a lady from afar who was waving at Annie. They notice it was the same lady who stood next to her throughout the entire ceremony but was told to leave first when they requested to talk to her in private.
“Coming!” Annie replied but still did not budge at all. Seeing Annie was with some guests, the lady continued walking to the black Mercedes.
“Annie? Please?”
“I don’t know…”
“Please Annie… we really need your help. We promise we won’t come and disturb you ever again once we get these information from you.” Said Sam.
“But why me?”
“Because we believe Benny did tell you something or that you do know something about what is going on right?” Dean continued.
“Please Annie, we need to know what is it that he told you or at least what is it that you know.”
Annie heard the persistence in Sam’s voice and the determination on Dean’s face that she felt she could no longer keep the secret. Perhaps the two gentlemen who stood before her were fated to be her saviours or someone whom she can entrusted the secret to.
“Annie?” Dean’s voice got into her head like a jab.
“That night… before Simon’s death, he came to our house looking for Benny. His face was pale and white as if… as if he has seen a ghost or something. I woke Benny up and they both went into the study room. They were talking so loud… more like arguing and I overheard them saying that Tim and Andy had died and Simon keeps on mentioning about his nightmare and Benny told him… not to worry, they will be alright… but ever since that day, Benny had a recurring nightmares about someone chasing after him and wanted to kill him.” Annie then stopped to catch her breath.
“Then what happen?”
“I thought he was just being too pressurized with work and imagining things… so I suggested him to go and see a psychiatrics.”
“Did that work?” Asked Sam again.
“The psychiatrics did not mention anything wrong except that he told me Benny needs to rest from work and he’s emotion is badly affected though I have no idea why.”
“Did Benny ever tell you anything about his past?” Dean’s question caught her by surprise.
“What do you mean his past?” Annie asked feeling a little bit agitated to be pressurized in giving information. She thought she had enough with the policemen coming to her every now and then with various constables every time asking the same old thing. Now she had to deal with the two “fathers” who insisted on knowing about Benny and his past.
“Sorry to pressurize you like this Annie.” Dean said as if he could read her mind. “But we feel there’s a connection to everything that is happening in here right now… and we need to at least get to the bottom of this thing before we can help Benny.”
“Well… I…”
“Annie… we can help you if you be frank with us.” Sam said.
“He did have a bad history… or rather a very horrible one.”
“You mean the raped and murdered trail that happened four years ago?” Annie nodded her head and then shook her head in disbelief as she turned to look at Sam.
“Yeah… it was a famous case in here isn’t it… almost everyone knows about it…”
“What did he tell you about that case?”
“I only got to know about the case two years ago when we got back here in this town… sadly it didn’t come from him but from the neighbours… they said he was involved and ever since they were acquitted, he left the town. When I asked him… he said he was innocent and was framed.”
“Did you believe him?” Sam asked.
“At first I thought yeah… maybe he was framed or else… how would he be able to be freed from the case… but recently… he kept talking in his sleep that made me wonder if he is really the innocent party.”
“What do you mean by that?” Annie turned to Dean and then she massaged her tummy lightly.
“Look I’m really worn out right now… I think I better go-”
“Wait Annie! Benny is already dead and another person’s life is at stake if you don’t help us… at least even if its true Benny had made a mistake in his lifetime… we need to know what is it that he did so that we can make his soul rest in peace and… that he will have no difficulty in the other world… we need to correct what he has done.” Annie stopped again as she turned away from Sam.
“That night… the night before his death, he had that dream again. He screamed a name… and begging for his life. He said he was wrong to do it but he wanted to atone his crimes and sins towards her by taking care of her family… when I woke him up, he was perspiring hard and hardly can breathe… that was when I realized all these while… he lied to me.”
“Do you still remember whose name he called out?” Dean asked.
“Sabrina.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
Hope you like it and yes, as usual reviews are highly appreciated! Thanks!
