Chapter 15: There Are Some Things I Don't Understand

The car ride is tense and for a while I think it's about what I did to the motel room or because I was covered in blood but I quickly find out that I'm off the hook when Dean mentions Sam's relationship with Ruby. I guess she's back in the picture. I'm bored of their bickering so I tune them out. I don't care about Ruby or what she's done for Sam after he abandoned me over the summer. An image flashes in my mind of a knife stabbing her right through the chest and it makes me smile. Then I see my mother on a floor, eyes open, bleeding from her torso and mouth. I gasp out loud.

"You alright back there?" Dean asks worriedly

"Yeah, I just, my hand hurts" I stammer

"What kind of monster was it again, Evan?" Sam asks

"Uh, you know just a… it was attacking the girl so I went in"

"You left all your stuff at home. Your gun, knife, everything" Dean says

"Yeah"

"You… punched a monster to death?" Sam says skeptically

"Yeah"

"Sit up, let me take a look" Sam orders and I scoot up and hold my hands over the edge of the front seat. Sam flicks a flashlight over them and I see that they're both at least twice their normal size. I can't bend my giant fingers; they're red, purple, and splotchy. The knuckles hare caked with wet, dried and drying blood. Sam gives me a look that tells me that he doesn't buy my monster story in the least. He pulls open the glove compartment and takes out a first aid kit. Most of the blood he cleans off of my hands isn't mine but there's one gash in between the knuckles of my pointer and middle finger that's still gushing. Sam wipes it down again and I wince. It hurts so badly.

"It looks like there's something lodged in there" He says and pulls out the tweezers.

"No. Sam. Please" I say in horror

"Dean, pull over"

"What is it?"

"I need you to hold him"

I snatch my hands away from him and Dean pulls the car over. The engine stops I jump out of the car and start running.

"Hey!" Sam shouts. I can hear their feet thumping after me. I run fast but I couldn't out run my brothers on a good day. Sam's legs alone are almost half of the length of my body and his strides are enormous. Even so, it's Dean who grabs me and we both tumble to the ground hard.

"I got him!"

"Hold him" Sam yells and opens the kit again.

"Guys, please. Please! Whatever it is, it'll come out on it's own. Please!" I beg them but they aren't listening.

"If you stop moving, I'll give you my flask for the pain" Dean says

Sam flashes his light on my gash and touches the tweezers to it. A rush of pain shoots through my body and I start to buck. Within seconds Dean's changed his position and pinned me with one of my arms held tightly behind my back and the other stretched out towards Sam. I grunt and whine but it's hard to breathe under my brother's weight. I can't see what's going on but it feels like Sam is slicing my hand open with a blade. Dean uses his knee to keep the arm behind my back in place and then holds his flask to my lips. I take a few gulps and some dribbles down my chin, then the flask is gone and my hand is wet. It feels like it's on fire.

"Almost" Sam says as he rips at my hand. I scream and then I hear "Got it!"

Dean lets me go and walks over to see what Sam was holding.

"Is that a… tooth?"

Sam flashes his light on it and they both inspect it.

"Oh my God"

"It looks human"

They really think I'm crazy now. They think I'm nuts. They're going to hate me now and I know it. I pull my knees into my chest, wrap my arms around them and start to cry.

"I had to! I had to! He was hurting her! Dean, Sam, he was going to hurt her so bad if I didn't stop him!"

Dean comes over to me and wraps an arm around my shoulders; Sam crouches in front of me and strokes the fallen hair from my face.

"Hey, hey, come on it's okay. What are you talking about? I thought you killed a monster" Dean says

"He was a monster," I say, "so I killed him"

"Okay. So he deserved it" Sam says, "That's okay. Sometimes you've got to do what's right, Evan. No matter what your conscience says. Don't feel guilty, you did what you had to"

I don't feel guilty. I never had, but I don't say anything. I was just afraid that my brothers were going to be mad at me but they aren't so I'm feeling better already. I smile.

"Let's get you patched up" Dean stands up but he's still looking at me kind of strange. He extends a hand for me, and then helps me to my feet. "It's a three day drive to the hospital where Anna is and we're already behind"

Six stitches in my hand, bandages, frozen peas for the swelling, and tequila for the pain; I sit this one out in the car as my brothers do the leg work finding Anna which I'm sure they'll easily do. That is until they jumped out of the window of the church they were in leaving Sam with a gash in his arm and Dean with a dislocated shoulder. They say Ruby is with Anna, Dean is skeptical but Sam says he trusts her because over the summer she saved his life. When he tells his story, his graphic story about how he was drunken and depressed until Ruby came along and started banging him; I'm biting back anger. He's acting as though she did something for him I couldn't have done. I would've had his back when demons came, I could've helped him track down Lilith. Granted, I wouldn't have banged his brains out or told him to use his powers out of respect for Dean, but it should've been the two of us together but he never even considered that. He tells this story about how he was alone and desperate, but he left out the part when he pushed away the only family he had left in favor of being with a demon lady. He looks over at me like he's reading my thoughts, but I guess he's just reading my face, and then says "I just needed someone to help me take down Lilith and make me stronger. She knew how to help me"

"Well lucky you" I say bitterly

There's a knock at the door "Housekeeping" A woman calls

"Not now" Dean shouts back at her

"I've got clean towels. " She says

Dean opens the door "Couldn't you just leave them at the door?"

The maid walks in and it's Ruby with an address where to find Anna and Sam leaves to go pack the car. Dean asks me to stay behind to talk as I move to help Sam.

"What's up, Dean?"

"Have a seat" Dean says and gestures towards the bed. I obey. Dean takes out his cell and starts texting.

"I'm sending Sam for a cup of coffee from the lobby, you want one?"

"Now? Shouldn't we be after that girl?"

"Yeah, we will be in a minute. I just want to talk first. Coffee?"

"No thanks" I say and wait apprehensively as Dean shuts his phone and pulls up a seat across from me. "What's the matter, Dean?"

"I've been meaning to talk to you for a while about what happened a few nights ago."

I look down at my bandaged hands and shrug; "my hands don't hurt as much anymore". Dean and Sam have been redressing my wounds like clockwork. I'm lucky to have brothers who care so much.

"No, I don't mean about your hands." He says. His face is very serious, like when he's about to give me a lecture when I've done something wrong.

"What's wrong?" I ask

"What happened that night at the motel?"

"I needed some space" I frown at him. I hadn't planned on telling him about my conversation with Castiel, but then again I never really expected Dean to bring it up again. "I asked Castiel to help me find out the real story on my mom and he told me to look it up on my own. I just went on a walk to clear my head"

Dean nodded understandingly but then squinted "And that's how you ended up with a chunk of tooth lodged in your hand?"

"I thought we weren't going to talk about my hands" I smirk but he doesn't. His eyes are warning me not to be a smartass, a look he perfected by watching Dad.

"I told you, Dean, the guy was going after that little girl. I had to stop him"

"No, I get that. I'm not doubting that the son of a bitch deserved it…" He squinted again "but you had a tooth jammed inside of your fist. You hit him so hard that you didn't just knock his teeth in; you knocked it inside of your hand."

"I was just seeing red, I guess. I didn't even feel it." I say

"Well, that's kind of my point."

I give my brother a quizzical look. What point?

"Look" he says, "it's great that you're saving people, and that you saved that little girl, but those are the ends. What you need to focus on, is the way you're doing it."

"I really don't understand"

"For example. When you torched that rougarou, you saved our lives, but the way you did it was down right… scary. That day with the witnesses? That girl that Meg possessed came after us but before you even knew that she was a threat, you blasted her away, and I can only imagine what that bastard you pulverized the other night looks like now."

"Not good" I smirk before I can catch myself. Dean's face is void of all humor. He almost looks angry now.

"Just because you think something is right, that doesn't give you the right to handle it however you want to. That's how mistakes are made and that's how people get hurt."

"I haven't hurt anyone, Dean" I smile gently. I don't know what I've done wrong but I don't like it when he's mad at me and I've clearly angered him. He sighs deeply, closes his eyes, and rubs at the bridge of his nose.

"I know you haven't. Just be careful, okay?" He says and stands. I stand too and Dean grabs my gun from the table, and puts it heavily into my hands. "I don't want to hear about you punching people to death again. You have weapons, use them."

"Okay, Dean" I smile again but I can tell how his eyes flick away that he isn't satisfied with our conversation. I love my brother but some days I feel like I couldn't figure him out if he came with an instruction manual.

When I meet Anna, I'm disappointed. She's not what I expected at all for someone who is being so heavily pursued. Anna is small, not in height, but in a feeble and dependent way. She reminds me of a small child who got caught with her hand in dessert before dinner. When she talks, she sounds tiny. It's strange watching someone older than me speaking with so much noticeable innocence in her voice. Dean thanks Ruby for watching out for Sam…kind of… he can't really make out the words. After their "moment" is over, I approach her.

"Ruby" I sigh

"How're you doing kid?" She smirks

"I just wanted to say..." I lean in closer and whisper "One day, I'm going to skin you alive, bitch"

Ruby moves back and grins, "Well, you've grown up. Now can we save the love session for later? Because we're kind of in the middle of something."

Anna asks to speak to her parents and finds out the hard way that they're already dead. That may have been something to lead with don't you think guys? Anna's hysterical now.

"Why is this happening to me?" She cries

"I don't know" Sam says.

"They're coming" Anna says. She's terrified. I thought "they" were demons so I was pretty sure that we were screwed without Ruby's knife. That's when the doors bust open and two angels walk in. Castiel and another one I haven't met yet. Dean is so relieved.

"Please tell me you're here to help. We've been having demon issues all day"

"Well, I can see that. You want to explain why you have that stain in the room?" says. He's looking right at Ruby.

"We're here for Anna." Castiel says

Dean squints, "Here for her like... here for her?"

"Stop talking" The other angel says. He's kind of rude. I don't like him. "Give her to us"

Sam looks skeptical. "Are you gonna help her?"

"No" Castiel says, "She has to die"

There's a lot of chatter back and forth about this girl, but to be honest, I'm not into it. I don't understand what the big deal is. If the angels want her dead, it's probably for a good reason, right? Plus, we just met her, for all we know; she can be a mass murderer or some kind of creature fresh out of hell. She does have some freaky powers and she knows a lot about us. Or maybe that's just the punishment for spying on heaven. Whatever it is, I don't think it's any of our business, and I definitely don't think that this lady is worth risking our lives for… Unless she's really as innocent as she's trying to look.

"She is far from innocent." Castiel says as though he's reading my mind. Can he read minds?

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam snarls

"It means she's worse than this abomination you've been screwing. Now give us the girl." The other angel says.

"What did she do?" I ask

"Doesn't matter" Dean says defiantly at the angels, "Guess you're going to have to get yourselves another one. Try JDate"

What the hell is JDate? And why doesn't it matter? Shouldn't it? I want to ask him out loud but I can tell that my brothers genuinely don't care why we're here. They just want to prove a point so these jerks know that we're not going to be pushed around. This isn't about the girl at all. At this point they could be guarding a ham sandwich with this much conviction for all they care as long as it pissed these guys off in the process.

"Who's going to stop us?" The angel whose name I should probably figure out grins patronizingly "you two and the runt? Or this demon whore?"

I'm not a runt but I know he must be talking about me since I'm smaller than both of my brothers, but not by that much. I mean, sure, they're bulkier than I am but I'm filling out. I'm almost as tall as Castiel and I still have some growing to do. I have lean muscles but I think it's because I have such a fast metabolism. Something's going down because I see Ruby on the ground and Dean running at the nameless angel. I really need to stop getting lost in my thoughts. I fire a few pointless shots at the invincible creature just as Dean reaches him and then I'm flying across the room and into a wall. The hard surface punches the air out of my lungs and I gasp for air. Castiel touches Sam on the forehead and he falls unconscious to the ground. The other angel punches Dean. I scramble to my feet and pick up my gun again but Castiel and that other guy disappear in a bright white light. I run over to Sam and check his neck for a pulse but the throbbing pain in my hand makes it hard to feel anything. I must have torn the stitches because the bandages around my hand are soaked in blood. Sam is breathing though so he's okay.

"Dean, what happened?" I ask

"I don't know. Anna?" He calls out and disappears into the back room

Sam opens his eyes drearily as Ruby kneels down next to him

"What happened?" He asks

"They just disappeared. I don't know what happened. Sam who was that other angel with Castiel?"

"Uriel" Sam gets to his feet, so do Ruby and I just as Dean emerges from the back room with Anna. She's bleeding.

"What happened?" Sam asks hurrying over

"I sent them away. I don't know how. I just knew." She says