Innocence (Burning Beliefs #1)

Chapter Eighteen *edited*

Chapter Eighteen

GRACIE'S POV

Castiel is sitting on the couch. He's still shaken about what I did. About Mom. About... everything. He was also informed that his daughter was a sex slave. I say "was" because Serena has agreed to quit her job. I mean, if it made me go totally insane, imagine what it would do to other people.

Dad is holding his head in his hands. Sam and Dean are sitting on either side of him, not really saying anything. I can tell, just from body language and facial expression, that Dean is debating whether or not to tell my father about his little epiphany moment with my sister. And Sam is just kind of in shock of everything that's happened. I've realized that there's always this gigantic boiling point at critical moments in their lives when everything is revealed. Every secret. This includes the whole Galilee incident, and the prostitute thing, and quite possibly the Dean and Serena moment. I'm really happy that the truth is coming out. It's the aftermath that I'm worried about.

"Okay," Cas finally says, dragging his hands down his face in exasperation. "Let me see if I understand this. So, we get here and Lucas seduces my daughter. She breaks it off with him, until she seduces him and gets him going. Then he starts compelling her into falling in love with him. Gracie finds out he's only using her for his demon mother's experiments. So she breaks off all ties to him, but is still affected by his devious plans. She starts cutting herself to deal with the pain. And it gets worse and worse and worse until she goes to try and kill herself. That leaves her bloody and broken in my arms, and she somehow has this out-of-body experience and... I don't know, sees Madeleine. Now we're sitting here. And Serena, well, Serena acts cool about me being her father. Until she starts going out at night to work at some strip club. How many men?"

My sister doesn't raise her head. She's sitting on the floor in front of us, playing with the fringing of the carpet.

"I don't know," she says quietly.

"Wow. Great. She doesn't even know how many men," Dad continues, starting to grow more and more dynamic. "So far, I've heard that she went in the back, and danced on the pole, and made house calls. What else have you done? Or, let me rephrase that, what haven't you done, Rena?"

At least he's still using Rena. That means he's not as angry as he's letting on. Serena rolls her guilty eyes towards the ceiling, keeping a tight mouth.

"I haven't slept with Sam or Dean."

My eyes widen immediately. That's a little too close to home, Rena...

Cas catches on. He raises his eyebrows. "Is that relevant?"

Serena takes a deep breath and holds it. "Uh... no," she says after a few moments.

"Really? Because it sounds like it might have some significance in this conversation. Anything to confess, you two?" Dad turns towards the brothers with icy eyes.

Sam raises his hands in defense. His eyes give away the hopelessness for Dean.

"Don't look at me," Sam shrugs.

Cas turns his fiery eyes towards the older brother.

"Dean?" he hisses through clenched teeth.

"We didn't sleep together," Dean says. That is true. "Come on, Cas, she's seventeen. Underage. I'm not going to sleep with her. That's low."

"But?"

Dean holds his breath. "But..."

"We kissed!" Serena blurts out.

Cas faces her, shock resonating in his eyes. "What?"

"We kissed, okay?" she manages to hold his gaze. I can't even imagine the level of shittiness she's experiencing right now. "But it wasn't anything bad. I was at the club, and he came up to me and told me to quit my job because it was an awful thing to be doing, and I went on this whole monologue about why I wanted to be there. And he said if I was so dedicated to my job, I could sleep with anyone. He said that I should try sleeping with him. And I was like, okay. So I took him in the back and he... kissed me... and that's it. That's all that happened. I couldn't go that far, and he couldn't go that far."