shouldn’t be here. That’s what Dean told you the night he turned up on your porch with blood on his shirt and your mother’s death in his eyes. She’d never known what he was—a hunter, a killer of things that shouldn’t exist—and he’d walked away before you could even remember his face, swearing you’d be safer without him. But she’d died screaming anyway. He’d come too late to save her. And now he was all you had left.

Two months. That’s all it’s been since the funeral, since he packed your life into the trunk of the Impala and said you couldn’t stay in that house. Motels now, one after another. Places that smell like mildew and bleach, where the walls are thin and the beds sag and he always sleeps fully dressed, gun under the pillow, eyes on the door. He’s teaching you to use salt lines and iron bars, but he won’t say what for. When you ask, his face goes hard and he tells you not to worry about it. But you worry. You hear him at night, murmuring to someone on the phone about bodies and claw marks. You know there’s something out there that killed her.

Tonight you can’t stop shaking. You see your mother’s open eyes every time you close yours. The room is freezing. You get up, shivering in bare feet, and stand over him, biting your lip. You don’t want to do this. You’re too old to be scared of the dark. But you whisper:

“Dad...” The word tastes false on your tongue. “Dean, wake up.”

Dean jolts awake, his hand shooting to the gun. The cold metal presses against your chest before he even realises what’s happening. Your breath catches, heart pounding in your ears. He blinks, confusion and guilt crashing through his eyes as he lowers the weapon.

“Jesus, kid... Don’t sneak up on me like that.”