The Monsters In Our Heads (Book 7 Arrow/SPN Crossovers)

Breaking Down

We followed Krissy and Jacob back inside, they'd barely made it down the stairs before Jacob had stopped moving. He was looking around and seemed to be focusing on all the books.

"Jacob?" Krissy asked.

If I hadn't been less than five feet from him I wouldn't have heard it, "Library," he whispered.

Krissy's eyes widened but she didn't show any other reaction, probably didn't want to startle him, "Yes, it does look like a library doesn't it?"

He didn't say anything else but judging from her reaction that was a lot more than she'd expected him to do. "Let's sit down and get some food, been a long time since breakfast," she said as she led him towards the tables. She sat him down and jerked her head towards the kitchen.

I was running through all the books within easy reach trying to remember if there was anything that would be remotely interesting to a ten year old kid that didn't have a ton of pictures of monsters, demons or hell in it.

I could tell Sam was too, he suddenly smiled, "I've got something we can look at while they're getting food. The stuff in here is kind of boring. Hang on." He took off down the hall and came back with a hardcover book that I'd never seen before. "My friend left this for me, he's trying to get me caught up on Batman. I get all confused with all these different story lines. You want to look through it?" He sat next to Jacob, set the book down and opened it up. Apparently comic books come in hardcover now, who knew? Jacob lowered his eyes to look at the pages but didn't do much beyond that. Coyote, Krissy and I took the cue and went into the kitchen.

"Take it he usually doesn't notice his surroundings?" Coyote asked.

"Once when we went to a park he perked up. I never thought of taking him to a library, I never know when he's going to snap into a panic so I didn't want to risk going where there wasn't an easy out. When we went to the park we stayed by the car so if we had to leave we could bail fast."

She looked worn out, I hadn't noticed it at first because I'd been more interested in Jacob, "How many other kids are you helping right now?"

She ran her hand through her hair, "Two, I have some friends helping out while I'm here. They're in a lot better shape than he is so have been trying to help me out with him. One is a hunter's kid who's parents gotten taken out by a witch. He's twelve, the other one is younger, a kid who was being raised by a single mom that got killed by a vamp. Her mom's family wants nothing to do with her so I'm fostering her for now."

"Damn." I never really thought about other hunter's kids much, Krissy had come into our lives by sheer luck really. I'd had my hands full just trying to keep Sam and I alive over the years.

"Sit, rest," Coyote said, "I'll make Jacob a sandwich. What do you want to eat?"

"Sandwich is fine. So do you think you can help him?"

"I'm a bit more optimistic now," Coyote answered, "The fact that he reacted to his surroundings is a good sign. I'm not sure how much about Native practices you know or understand but from what I can sense it wasn't just the killing that has made him like this. I think the power of the blade was far too much for him and destroyed his spirit. It's like trying to run too much current through an outlet, it shorts out the entire system. I may be able to help him but I can't make any promises. I've never really worked with a situation like this before. My teacher did but he's no longer with us. I have his teachings with me and will do what I can."

"I'll take all the help I can get. I brought his stuff. When Clive told me how bad he was I told him to grab pictures of his family and a few things from his room, sometimes that helps. The only time he's seemed to recognize them though is when he's panicking or crying. When he's like this I don't even know if he knows who I am. The pictures just make him feel worse though so I've stopped showing them to him."