memento vivere - supernatural & criminal minds

chapter 29

Chapter 29
Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing

Sam Winchester was missing. It took a week for Dean to call Jude for help. She berated him over the phone for waiting so long even as she packed her bag and barged out the door. Sam was at a motel in Duluth, Minnesota when they found him, void of a week of memories and covered in blood. This was made all the worse when they realized the blood was not his.

With a receipt they found in his pocket, they retraced his steps to a gas station where he had apparently stolen liquor and cigarettes. They had to bribe the attendant to get any further, which brought them to a darkened house. On the top floor lay a man with a slit throat. His blood pooled around his head in a macabre halo. The closet behind him was open, the padlock broken on the ground. Inside was an arsenal of weapons they all recognized. Sam had killed a hunter.

He rubbed his hands together as they trudged back into his motel room as if trying to purge the blood from his skin. Jude locked their door, propped a chair beneath the knob, and drew the curtains. The murder of this hunter - Steve Wandell - would make Sam a target if his victim’s friends found out. Hunters were excellent executioners.

Dean tossed his duffel bag on one of the beds. “Alright, we get a couple hours of sleep and then we put this place in our rearview mirror.” Sam stayed quiet. He paced the length of the room, wearing a path in the already threadbare carpet. “Look, I know this is bad, but you gotta snap out of it.” Still nothing. “Sam, say something.”

Sam stopped short and threw up his hands. “Just get some sleep and leave in the morning? Murder, Dean. That’s what I did. That’s the kind of thing Jude locks people up for.”

“That wasn’t you, Sam. It couldn’t have been,” Jude insisted. She dropped onto the empty bed and Sam joined her. “You may have been influenced somehow. A spell, or…or a possession. That would explain the memory loss. If you were in full control, you wouldn’t do something like this.”

“I think I did.” Sam lowered his head. “For the last few weeks I’ve been…I’ve been having these feelings. Rage, hate. And I can’t stop it. It just gets worse, day by day.”

Dean took the opposite bed. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“I didn’t wanna scare you.”

“Well, bang-up job on that,” Dean slapped his knee, already standing again.

“We know the yellow-eyed demon has plans for me,” Sam said to his brother’s back. Beside him, Jude stiffened. She hadn’t known that he’d found out about his father’s parting words. “And he’s turned other children like me into killers before.”

“No one can control you but you,” Dean turned around, jabbing a finger at Sam’s chest.

“It sure doesn’t seem like it, Dean. It feels like no matter what I do, slowly but surely I’m becoming…I don’t know, who I’m meant to be. Who the demon wants me to be.”

Jude waved a hand as if swatting the words away. “Okay, pull back a second. We don’t know nearly enough to be throwing that around.”

“Dad did,” Sam pushed on, rising from the bed. “That’s why he told you two, if it ever came down to this-”

Jude shot up. “Absolutely not.”

“Shut up, Sam.”

“Dean, you promised him.” Sam dropped his eyes to Jude, for whom he knew this statement did not hold the same weight. “You promised me.”

“We made that promise as a worst-case-scenario,” she managed to whisper. “We’re not there yet.”

“Yes, we are.” Sam pulled something from his bag and offered it to them. A handgun. A permanent solution to a problem they barely understood. “I don’t wanna hurt anyone else. I don’t wanna hurt you.”