"Is anything that comes out of your mouth the truth?"
"You wouldn't believe me, even if I answered that honestly."
•
As soon as you learn that the things that go bump in the night are real, the line between truth and fiction begins to blur.
That's t...
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Chapter 12
"Ali, Sam's dead."
She couldn't stop replaying those words over and over in her mind. Even days after that phone call. She could hear every word Bobby had spoken echoing through her head.
"He was stabbed."
"It was another one of those psychic kids."
Even when she had broken down in tears in her car, clutching her phone in her shaking hands, she hadn't believed it, not at first.
"I saw it happen, Ali."
"Ali, I'm so sorry."
She believed it now, however many days later, still holed up in her motel room in Missouri, her throat raw from sobbing and the burn of cheap whiskey. She rarely drank spirits, she had no idea how she'd got herself to a liquor store to buy it, but she had needed to feel numb. Time didn't seem to matter. She slept only when she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer, when they burned from crying and staring blankly at the TV or the swaying walls of the room. None of it mattered.
Bobby had kept calling, checking in on her even though his wavering voice betrayed the equal measure of pain he felt. Most of the time she let it go to voicemail, unable to trust herself to speak to anyone.
"Just checking in, kid. I'm heading back to Sioux Falls if you need somewhere to stay. Dean is still... He's still with Sam. Won't leave him. I uh... You know where I am if you need anything."
She knew she shouldn't be letting herself wallow in this misery. Hunters die all the time. Something like this was bound to happen eventually, she just hadn't been betting on being around to see it. Still, she couldn't pull herself out of the pit of utterly consuming grief that she had let herself fall into. She couldn't stop herself thinking that she might have been able to help. She might have been able to prevent this if she hadn't spent so much time trying to pull away from him.
It was another few days, maybe a week, before the guilt finally wore through the smoky haze of whiskey and the stale air of her motel room. Ali knew she shouldn't have left Bobby alone for so long. She couldn't help Sam now, and she probably couldn't help Dean, but Bobby was like a second father to those boys. As much as she was hurting, Bobby and Dean would have it worse.
She didn't even know what time of the day it was when she finally checked out of the motel, satisfied that she had sobered up enough after running out of drink the night before. She didn't even balk at the massive room bill she had racked up, even if the bored clerk at the counter raised an eyebrow at her as she slapped down her credit card. It didn't matter, all that mattered right now was getting to Bobby and making sure her friend was alright. If things had been the other way around, he'd have been at her side within the hour.
She didn't take the time to call and let him know she was on her way, instead forcing her thoughts to only focus on the road ahead. Winding down the windows of her Jeep and cranking the stereo up to a deafening volume, she tried to let the cold wind of the highway tear away the grief that still clung to her like a parasite, half-listening to the crackling radio news report about unusual black clouds hanging over major cities.
