The Leaving Hour

Adeline had always known her father wasn't like other men. He didn't work a conventional job, and he raised her with strange lessons on how to speak Latin, how to keep a knife under her pillow, and never, under any circumstance, to whistle at night. She grew up half in shadow, obeying rules without knowing why, trusting in the unspoken danger her father seemed to prepare her for. But it wasn't until a trip to her late father's remote cabin with her friends that those lessons were truly tested and failed her. Something ancient and violent awakened in the woods, and Adeline found herself outmatched, her father's old warnings no longer enough. Salvation came not from anything she knew, but from two strangers: the Winchesters. Their name was one she'd heard only in passing, either from her father's mutterings or drunken ramblings at the bar. But when they appeared, guns drawn and eyes sharp, she realized the stories hadn't been exaggerated. The Winchesters weren't just men; they were the kind of myth her father had raised her to survive. And now, survival meant trusting them.