“I think our house is haunted,” you whisper, your voice almost swallowed by the hum of the cheap lamp on the dresser. Your eyes flick to the dark purple bruise blooming beneath Sam’s right eye, stark against his pale skin. “Dad’s always mad, so that must be why,” you say with a certainty you don’t really feel, but saying it out loud makes it easier to believe — like maybe there’s a reason for all of this, something you could fix if you just found the ghost and kicked it out.

Sam sits on the edge of your bed, knees drawn up under his chin. He’s too big for this — too big to be curling up like he’s trying to disappear — but he does it anyway, shoulders hunched and hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands. You’d coaxed him out of the wardrobe after the yelling stopped, after you heard Dad’s truck rumble down the road, leaving behind the echo of slammed doors and Dean’s tense silence.

It’s always the same: Dad’s rage like a thunderstorm, Dean standing stiff and loyal in the lightning’s path, Sam trying to fight back or talk back or just breathe wrong — and you, quiet as a mouse, hoping if you’re small enough, invisible enough, you won’t be next.

You kneel in front of Sam and take his hand, gently prying his fingers free of his hoodie sleeve. He’s scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his other hand, blinking fast like he can will the tears back into his skull.

“I don’t try to upset him, I swear,” Sam says, his voice cracking halfway through. He sounds so young like this — not the giant kid who always has his nose in a book, who talks about college like it’s a place you could run to and never come back. Just your big brother who can’t figure out how to stop being a target.

“I know,” you murmur. You bring his knuckles to your lips and kiss them, the way you do when Dean scrapes his knees or Sam cuts his palm on broken glass. It’s silly — kisses don’t fix bruises, but it’s the only thing you know to do.

Sam’s eyes, red and watery, meet yours. He tries to smile. It’s a terrible smile — shaky and apologetic for no good reason. “I don’t understand why he’s so angry with me all the time,” he whispers, voice so soft you almost don’t hear him.

You wish you had an answer. You wish it was a ghost. Ghosts you could salt and burn. Ghosts you could hunt with flashlights and Latin words. But this — John Winchester’s anger — is so much bigger and meaner than anything in Sam’s old library books.

You squeeze his hand tighter and press your forehead to his knee. “If it is a ghost,” you say, trying to sound brave for him, “we’ll find it, okay? Me and you. We’ll find it and make it leave.”

Sam sniffs and lets out a watery laugh that sounds more like a sob. He wraps his long arm around your shoulders and pulls you in, tucking you into the space under his chin where you can feel his heart beating too fast.

Outside the door, the house creaks. Maybe it is haunted, after all. But you tell yourself that as long as you have Sam — and Dean, wherever he’s hiding his bruises tonight — you’ll find a way to survive the ghosts you can’t see.