A Fresh Start (Book 6 Arrow/SPN Series)

The Weight

Roy decided to ride with Cougar which left Sam with me. Cougar took one way back to Jim's, I took another just in case anyone decided to try to follow us, Sam kept an eye on his phone from texts from either Roy or Cougar that they had picked up any tails and I kept an eye on my rear view mirror.

It didn't take long for me to see the random looks of wondering if he should talk or not he was giving me while waiting for the phone to ring, "Later Sam, a whole lot later."

It was starting to sink in to both of us just what we'd seen and been a part of. Sam would probably start to get all philosophical or something since most of the times we deal with a pagan anything it's usually killing people and so our job is to kill it. We hadn't talked too much about Native spirits and all that after that vision all those years ago, seeing as how I was on my way to Hell and we were a bit more concerned about that. This was a whole other side of things that we'd never really dealt with before. Sure we know about souls and ghosts but they usually don't wander around doing things while the person they belong to is still alive and kicking. Then there was the fact that my Warrior Spirit had looked like it had been tortured by a psychopathic serial killer. That hit way too close to home. Sure, I'd known how bad I gotten with the Mark and all that, but knowing it and seeing a physical manifestation of it aren't quite the same thing. Especially when what I'd been looking at was me, just in a four legged form. No wonder my nightmares had made Coyote sick to her stomach.

Thankfully Sam decided to leave off asking questions and all I had to listen to was the radio, which worked until Silent Lucidity happened to pop up on the station that was playing. Crap. After everything she'd done for me over the years and taking on the burden of helping with the nightmares I couldn't do a damn thing for her and the reason I couldn't was my stupid choices. If she didn't make it through...

"Dean, stop."

"Stop what?"

Exasperated really didn't cover the look he had on his face, it was closer to disgusted. "You know what. I see it on your face already. You're trying to find some screwed up reason her being hurt is your fault. Stop it. She's tough, Cougar knows what he's doing and I get the distinct feeling that she prepped for this. Notice how quick he knew what to go for in those pouches. Last time I checked he wasn't a shaman. She said she'd had visions about this and she was way too tense for her to not have a clue something was going to go bad. So stop."

"I know. I saw it, right before that last attack. She was scared Sam. You know her, not much scares her. I should have.."

"What? Neither of us really had a clue what was going on out there. We were her warriors, we sure as hell weren't calling the shots on this one. She had to stop Leaping Deer, she made her choice. Just like we do."

"And this is why I hate going in blind on this stuff! If we'd had more time, more info we could have been a lot more useful. She could have called earlier." Even I knew that sounded stupid, I'd been the last person she would have wanted to call.

"Sure, going in to that situation while the Mark was still on you would have been so much better."

"You don't have to be a dick about it."

"When you stop being an idiot, I'll stop being a dick."

Unfortunately I didn't have a good comeback for that one so I just kept my trap shut the rest of the way to Jim's house. Cougar had already gotten there and was waiting for us. We parked and he and Roy got out.

"Any chance he left the place unlocked or we have a key?" I asked.

"Not sure, we just pulled up," Cougar answered.

Roy started walking towards the door, "I'll check it out. If that upstairs window is still open I'll go that way if I have to." He tried the door, it was locked so he jogged around the back.