Forsaken

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

"Mother of God," Bear said, staring across the living room at Jason.

"Hey, Bear," Jason said with a weary smile. Finally dressed in an old T-shirt and sweats, he sat in a spindly, uncomfortable chair. Sam had offered him some of the Chinese food Dean had brought—kung pao chicken, her favorite—and it had occurred to him that his presence that night had interrupted something far more than just a late dinner between friends.

Are you with him now? he wondered, bewildered and hurt, watching as Sam walked past Dean, reaching out unconsciously and brushing her fingers through his hair. It wasn't something new, then, what was between the two. Jason had glimpsed numerous gestures like this, the small, unconscious, seemingly inconsequential interactions that develop over time between two people who share an intimate familiarity and fondness for each other. Like the way Sam had always stroked his arm whenever she'd been sleepy as they'd watched TV. Or the way she'd always reach instinctively for his hand, hooking her finger through his to keep from being separated in a crowd.

Are you in love with him now, Sam?

"Mother of God." Bear crossed the room in wide, heavy strides. Dropping to his knees, he hooked his hand against the back of Jason's neck and pulled him to his shoulder, clasping him in a fierce embrace. "It's you. It's really you."

"It's all right, Bear," Jason said, smiling again, trying to reassure him in spite of the fact that it wasn't all right, not at all. Everything is all wrong, Bear, but unless you have a time machine, it doesn't look like there's anything we can do to fix it.

"How?" Bear whispered. He glanced back over his shoulder toward Sam. "How is this possible?"

"That's the million-dollar question," Dean remarked.

"We don't know," Sam said. "He doesn't remember anything, not even how he wound up back in the alley."

Before Bear's arrival, Sam had dug through one of her boxes and pulled out a heavy scrapbook. In and among the pages inside, she'd tucked newspaper clippings describing Jason's attack. He'd stared down at the grainy black-and-white image of himself that had run in the obituary section, feeling numb inside, shaken and dismayed.

Jason Randall Sullivan, 25, died November 19, it read. He was preceded in death by his father, Jonathan "Jack" Sullivan; mother, Helen (Reynolds) Sullivan; grandparents, Herbert and Jesse (Strouse) Sullivan and Peter and Claire Ellen (Phineas) Reynolds. Jason is survived in spirit through the hearts of those who loved him and called him a friend.

Sam was right. He didn't remember anything. But something had happened to him, that much was clear. And life had gone on without him.

That much is clear too.

"I didn't see anything that looked like a bullet wound on him," Dean told Bear. "No scar, nothing. I was at the hospital when they brought him in, working the ER, so I remember roughly where he'd been shot in the chest. He has a pretty good-sized stab wound, though. Looks like someone ran him through with a butcher knife."

"A sword," Jason murmured as his assailant's name, Nemamiah, and face flashed momentarily through his mind.

You are unmarked.

"It was a sword," he said again, looking up at Bear. "There was a man in the alley. He stabbed me with a sword."

"I didn't see anyone when I got back from the liquor store," Dean said when Bear glanced between him and Sam, his brow arched. "I checked all over downstairs to see if someone might have followed Jason inside. We should take him to the hospital," he added with a pointed look at Jason. "I cleaned the wound out, stitched it up, but he needs X-rays, at the least, to see if there's any nerve damage or—"