Song Remains the Same

Chapter 46: The Silent Year

"Every hand let me go that I tried to hold.
Every warm-hearted love left me freezing cold."
- Owl City

Great Smoky Mountain Range
November 1995

At thirteen years old, Alex was supposed to be braver than she actually felt that day. Thirteen was supposed to have been the year she felt like a teenager, an almost-grownup, but as she huddled against a massive oak trunk, she instead felt like a scared little kid.

Her heart raced and her breathing was unsteady as paranoia spiked sickened adrenaline throughout her body. He was out there somewhere. He was going to get the jump on her any minute. He was going to be one step ahead of her like always, and no matter how ready she felt, he'd get her.

Hyper-vigilant, she was exhausted from how far she'd run into the woods—a couple miles at least, then she'd cut a quarter of a mile over and then doubled back in the direction she'd come from, hoping to throw him off and possibly get the jump on him this time. She hated this.

Every little sound made her jolt—every little breeze that rustled the trees terrified her, and every snap of a twig or rustle in the underbrush made her heart flop around like a dying fish. She'd found a fist-sized rock and had stuck it in one of her socks as a makeshift weapon and that was now in her jacket pocket—she also had a tree branch she'd snapped in half in her hand. Two measly weapons, but weapons all the same. Maybe he was watching her from somewhere, maybe she was going to get attacked any second—there was a steep ridge to her left and a sloping embankment behind her, she'd picked the most defensible position, but it never seemed to matter. He always got her, he always said she needed to stop taking the defensive, but she didn't know how to take the offensive all by herself like this. That's why she hated these training runs, because she couldn't fall back on her brothers for help. It was all her.

"How many times have I told you?" his voice suddenly said right behind her.

Shit shit shit!

If she could have screamed in startled fear, she would have. Instead, she just scrambled, trying to get away. He grabbed her easily and she gasped, panicking as she floundered for her weapons—she'd dropped the branch and the rock sock was uselessly in the pocket of her jacket—dammit! She was tackled forward, face-first into the dry leaf-covered ground. It knocked the wind out of her, it hurt. She could hear how agitated and disappointed he was, his voice was rising fast. She'd made him good and mad, as usual. "You have got to watch your back, Alex, come on!"

She fought to breathe under his heavy weight. "Your brothers aren't always gonna be there to do it for you," he barked. "And I could hear you breathing a goddamn mile away, you have got to control yourself better or you're as good as dead!" John Winchester held his daughter on the ground firmly. She was thrashing uselessly, teeth gritted, kicking herself for getting ambushed as usual—how the hell did Dad always stay so quiet?! She heard him take a steadying breath. He stopped shouting now.

"Mistake number one, not taking the offensive," he said, carrying on with the lesson in that familiar gruff, demanding tone of his. "Okay, now this guy has you, now what Alex, how do you get away from him?" Her hands were pressed flat against the ground, some roots poked into her skin painfully. He was too heavy to just lift off. Alex resorted to dirty fighting, as usual, and her hand darted up behind herself, grabbing a handful of her dad's hair. She yanked hard, knowing Dad wouldn't react unless it really did hurt like hell. So she made sure it did.

When he yelped, she used the temporary reprieve to wiggle out from under him and frantically army-drag herself a few feet forward before trying to scramble up to her feet, but he was already recovering and lunging over her again. She flipped over awkwardly, pinned underneath him again. He grabbed at her wrists, slamming them to the ground on either side of her head and she gave up, pissed but pretty sure he'd won again. When he saw that she wasn't trying, his face screwed up in anger. He smelled like alcohol.