Chapter Text
The bell above the shop door chimes, delicate and crisp, like the sound of fine china tapping against porcelain. The kind of sound that makes you feel like you shouldn’t be here unless you're wearing gloves and walking softly. I step inside, instinctively lowering my shoulders and keeping my hands tucked deep in my coat pockets.
It smells like cedar and lavender, with a trace of something older beneath it—dust and old books and history too stubborn to forget itself. The light filters in through narrow front windows dressed in lace curtains, casting soft, gold-tinted shadows on rows of cluttered shelves.
“Be right with you!” a voice calls from somewhere beyond a curtain of hanging beads, followed by the muffled shuffle of slippered feet and the creak of aged floorboards.
I take a slow look around while I wait. The shop is small but packed—an organized chaos of trinkets, glass cases, and velvet-lined drawers. Everything feels like it has a story. There’s a porcelain doll with a cracked cheek staring blankly from behind a locked cabinet. A Victorian mourning brooch shaped like a weeping willow glints under the overhead lamp. My fingers twitch in my pocket. Don’t touch anything, Millie. You came here for a job, not a hunt.
The bead curtain parts with a jingle, and she steps through.
Ruth Abernathy is exactly the kind of woman I expected to own a place like this. White hair swept up in a tidy bun, thick-framed reading glasses on a chain, floral blouse under a well-worn cardigan. But her eyes, sharp as flint behind all that softness, land on me like she already knows my measurements.
“Well, Miss Tyler,” she says, smiling gently. “You’re early.”
I blink. It takes me half a second to remember I gave her the name Liv Tyler —first thing that came to mind. It was a little on the nose, but I couldn’t think of anything else in the moment. Besides, it’s a pretty common name—and I think only Dean might know who Liv Tyler is anyway.
I nod and offer a smile that I hope reads as ‘normal girl looking for normal work.’
She crosses the room faster than I expect, extending a hand that’s cool and dry and stronger than it looks. “Well, Miss Tyler, come on back. I like to talk where the spirits are quieter.”
I pause, unsure if she’s joking, but follow her through the beads anyway.
The back room is cozier, less museum-like and more parlor-like. A small desk, a few stacks of ledgers, a well-loved tea set still steaming from a recent pour. Ruth gestures for me to sit in the opposite chair and takes her own with a groan that seems more habit than pain.
“I read your resume.” She folds her hands over one knee. “You’ve moved around a lot.”
“I have,” I say, because it’s the easiest truth I can give.
“No references.”
I hesitate. “I’ve worked odd jobs. Nothing long enough to matter.”
Her gaze flicks over me again—my worn boots, my calloused hands, the frayed cuff on my sleeve. “You ever steal anything?”
I blink. “No.”
“Ever see something you shouldn’t have and kept your mouth shut?”
That one’s trickier. My pause is short, but it’s there. “Maybe.”
She smiles faintly, like she was waiting for that answer. “Good. Liars don’t last long in this business. Or this town.”
Before I can wonder if she means retail or something else, she stands up and smooths her skirt. “You’re hired.”
“…Wait, really?”
“Your eyes are too tired to be dishonest,” she says simply. “And I need someone who won’t break the china.”
I stare at her, waiting for the punchline, but she’s already halfway back to the front.
“You can start today if you’ve got the time. You any good at dusting?”
I blink the surprise off my face and stand. “Yeah. I can dust.”
“Good. Start with the top shelves. If you fall off the ladder, try not to bleed on the textiles. I hate having to wash the silk.”
I spend the next few hours with a feather duster in one hand. It’s not exactly a thrill ride, but it’s quiet. The morning has moved slowly, in that easy, timeless way old places like this always seem to have.
Dust motes dance in slanted shafts of sunlight. Jazz crackles softly from a radio tucked behind the counter, the same few notes skipping now and then like the song itself is tired. I sort through boxes of costume jewelry and polish glass display cases filled with everything from Civil War bullets to someone’s grandmother’s old night gown. A shelf in the back holds antique dolls, and I do my best not to look directly at them.
And yet, there’s something meditative about wiping down old shelves and lining up crystal figurines just so. Every time the doorbell chimes, I glance up out of habit, cataloging faces.
The customers are mostly quiet folks—tourists, collectors, a mother with a curious toddler who tries to run off with a rusted compass. There’s a couple of antique collectors, a woman with three rings on every finger who spends ten minutes talking to the doll cabinet, and one kid who just wants to know if the weird swords are real. They’re not, made of aluminum. Still sharp, though.
I nod to each person. Watch them leave. File it all away.
Ruth watches me, too, from behind the counter. Not in a nosy way. Just… aware. I think she likes seeing someone take care of her things the way she does. I think she’s letting herself trust me.
And for a second, I let myself feel okay.
Then the bell chimes again.
It’s the same sound as always—delicate and crisp—but this time, it cuts through the room like a sliver of cold steel. My shoulders tense without thinking. I look up.
At first glance, there’s nothing unusual about him. Tall. Mid-thirties, maybe. Sandy hair neatly combed but too still, like a wig pressed flat. Sharp-dressed, tan coat over everything. Shoes too nice for this side of town.
He walks in like he owns the air, like it should bend around him. He moves like someone not used to being noticed. He keeps his head down, shoulders slightly hunched. His coat has one sleeve torn just above the elbow, like it caught on a nail, and he never bothered to fix it.
He wanders through the shop slowly, fingers grazing items without picking them up. He pretends to browse, picking up a brass telescope. He puts it down and traces his fingers over the face of a cracked porcelain doll with glassy, staring eyes. He doesn’t blink.
Ruth is in the back, going over inventory. I’m alone at the front, my palms starting to sweat against the glass counter.
He looks normal. I shouldn’t be worried. I haven’t even seen anything yet. Not that I want to. I don’t want to. But then, the moment our eyes meet, I see past it.
I wish I didn’t.
Because, there it is.
It’s not in any way that most people would notice. Not on the surface. But my vision flickers—like something beneath reality pulls taut for half a second—and I see it—I see him. His face isn’t a face. It’s a mask. The skin is stretched too tight, like it’s been nailed down over something bigger, darker, hateful —like a funhouse mirror catching the light just wrong.
I glance away and move behind the register. It’s not any safer, but it gives me some peace of mind.
Turning back towards the front, he’s standing right there. My heart stutters.
“Afternoon,” he says pleasantly.
I force my mouth into a polite smile. “Afternoon,” I echo, my voice steadier than I expected.
He sets a small brass box on the counter. Ornate, etched with curling floral patterns and little suns on each side. It clicks lightly against the glass.
“How much for this?” he asks, voice calm and smooth. Too smooth. Like velvet stretched over broken glass.
I glance down at the box, then up at him. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes—those stay flat and wrong, like glass beads pretending to be human.
I clear my throat. “Twenty-five.”
He tilts his head, as if considering it. Then he nods, reaches into the pocket of that pristine coat, and pulls out a crisp twenty and a crumpled five. He presses them into my hand like he’s done this a thousand times.
“Keep the change,” he says with a smirk that twists just a little too far at the corners.
“Thanks,” I murmur.
He picks up the box. Doesn’t look at it. Doesn’t say anything else. Just turns on his heel and walks toward the door.
The bell chimes as he exits. The door shuts gently behind him, like he didn’t weigh anything at all.
I stand there a full thirty seconds before I let myself breathe again. My hands shake as I count the bills. They’re real. Everything about the exchange was real. But something about him wasn’t.
I don’t relax the rest of the day. Not even when Ruth comes back and hums as she re-shelves a tray of old keys. Not when she offers me a shortbread cookie with my tea break and says I did ‘good work.’ I manage a smile, nod, and make small talk. But my skin itches with nerves that won’t settle.
By the time my shift ends and I step back into the cool evening air, I feel like I’ve run a marathon with my teeth clenched the whole way. The clouds have rolled in—low and thick, smothering the sunset in dull gray. The wind picks up. It smells like rain and ozone and something metallic, sharp on the tongue.
I walk fast. Head down. One hand wrapped tight around the little iron nail I keep on a cord in my coat pocket.
By the time I reach the little rental I call home—two rooms, creaky floors, a secondhand couch that smells faintly of patchouli—I’m bone-tired. But I don’t sit. I don’t rest.
I go straight to the front door and check every line of salt across the threshold. I scrub out the one by the kitchen and lay it again, straighter, cleaner. I run a line of holy water along every windowsill. I hammer another iron nail into the frame above my bedroom window—just to be safe.
I reach into the drawer beside my bed and pull out a little tin of chalk, then kneel and draw a devil’s trap under the rug. It's already worn there, but I make it fresh. Strong. Lines crisp. I press a hand to the floor when I’m done, muttering the old Latin under my breath.
When I finally finish, it’s well past dark. The wind claws at the windows now. Somewhere down the street, a dog starts barking and doesn’t stop.
I sit on the bed, hands in my lap, heart finally beginning to slow. I stare at the wall. Then, at the photo stuck in the corner of the mirror—me, Dean, Sam, all on our father’s lap while he sits on the hood of the Impala. I look away.
I don’t pray often.
But tonight, I do.
I close my eyes and whisper—not out loud, just in the quiet space behind my thoughts.
Gabriel. If you can hear me… I don’t know where you are. I haven’t seen you in years. I don’t need saving, not yet… I see them everywhere, and it’s not just monsters anymore—it’s demons.
A pause. My throat tightens.
And I-I’m scared.
I open my eyes. The room is still. No thunder. No flash of wings. No cheeky angel popping in, leaning against the wall with a lollipop.
Just the AC.
Just me.
Just the shadows dancing on my walls.
—
It’s been a couple of weeks. No sign of the man with the too-perfect smile and dead eyes. No flicker of wrongness in the corners of mirrors, no smell of sulfur, no footsteps just outside my front door.
I should be relieved. Maybe I am. But that kind of quiet settles into my bones wrong. It’s the kind of calm that comes before something breaks.
Still, I’ve been trying. Getting up early. Drinking coffee in the morning sun like a normal person instead of chugging it cold in the dark while checking salt lines. Ruth says I’m settling in nicely. She lets me restock the display cases on my own now, lets me pick the jazz station. I think she even smiled when I reorganized the entire shelf of candle holders by decade.
It’s… nice. Quiet. Normal. Or close enough to fake it.
Tonight, I’m home early. The air’s warm for November, and I leave the window cracked as I kick off my boots and dump my bag on the couch. The place smells like the lavender sachets Ruth tucked into my coat pockets last week. She said they were ‘for peace.’ I think it was her way of saying she saw the tension in my shoulders and didn’t want to ask why.
I don’t blame her.
I’m halfway through heating some leftover soup when I remember I have a loaf of bread in the freezer.
I open the door, and something falls out—light, papery. It flutters to the floor.
I bend to pick it up.
It’s a note. Just a scrap of white paper, folded once. No name. No handwriting I recognize. Just two words, scrawled in uneven ink like it was written with a hotel pen in a moving car: You’ll be okay.
My breath catches.
I look up. There’s a chocolate bar sitting in the door shelf. Brand new. One of the nice ones, dark and bitter with sea salt, wrapped in fancy paper that makes me feel like I have my life together.
I stare at it for a long moment. My pulse hums low and steady in my ears.
There’s no sigil carved into my windows. No sound of wings. No glittering trickster reveal. But I know. I know.
Gabriel.
I close the freezer slowly and lean back against the counter, the note still pinched between my fingers.
“You always did have a flair for the dramatic,” I murmur to the empty room.
I don’t smile. Not exactly. But something in my chest eases, just a little.
The soup simmers gently behind me, the soft burble of bubbles the only sound in the apartment now. I set the note down on the counter like it might break if I fold it again. The paper’s already curling at the corners from the chill of the freezer, or maybe just from whatever kind of magic clung to it.
You’ll be okay.
A simple sentence. There are no cryptic riddles, no smirk hiding too much knowledge behind it. Just those words. Three little words—technically four—but who’s counting? And the chocolate—dark, sea-salted, and indulgent in that very Gabriel kind of way. He always did have a taste for sweetness and irony.
I used to hate his little note stuff in places at random, but they’ve grown on me. Especially tonight, the gesture doesn’t feel like a tease. It feels like comfort. Like a lighthouse in a fog that hasn’t rolled in yet.
I carry the chocolate and the note to the table and sit with them while the soup finishes. I don’t light candles, don’t dim the lights. I just sit, legs tucked under me, back pressed against the cool wood of the chair. Waiting for something to feel less temporary.
Maybe it’s the magic. Maybe it’s the lavender. Maybe it’s just the fact that someone saw the shadows starting to crowd in again—and said something.
Eventually, I eat. I dip bread in the soup and let the quiet wrap around me.
But I don’t relax, not fully. My eyes keep flicking toward the windows. The back door. The hallway beyond the kitchen.
The note says I’ll be okay. But it doesn’t say why.
Or for how long.
After dinner, I move through the apartment like I always do—checking every latch, every seal. I reinforce the sigils above the doors with chalk. I smear a thin line of salt along the windowsills, watching the grains catch the glow of the streetlamp outside like they’re holding a line against the dark.
I tuck iron nails into the corners. Add rosemary bundles to the vents. When I’m done, I step back, the faint tang of herbs and salt thick in the air. It smells like safety, or the closest thing I can get to it.
I press a hand against the doorframe and close my eyes.
I lift my head toward the ceiling—toward whatever corner of the universe Gabriel might be drifting in—and send a quiet, silent thanks into the space between us. No words. Just feeling. A heartbeat passed through the veil.
Maybe he hears me. Maybe he doesn’t.
Maybe he already knew I’d say it.
I exhale slowly. Long. Measured. The kind of breath you only take when you’ve held too many of them in.
Then I go to bed with the note under my pillow and the chocolate on the nightstand.
Because just in case the storm is coming, I want to remember what peace felt like before the first crack of thunder.
—
The next day, work is uneventful. Ruth has me restocking jewelry boxes and cataloging postcards from the 1920s. I spend half an hour deciphering old cursive and the rest pretending not to notice the way one of the older brooches hums when I get too close. Ruth says nothing, but her gaze lingers on me a little longer than usual when I clock out.
It’s dusk by the time I’m heading home, that strange in-between light where everything’s a little too blue and the shadows stretch long across the pavement. I walk with my hands tucked in my pockets, head low, eyes sharp. Habit. Always habit.
I round the corner onto my street and enter my apartment building. I climb the stairs and stop. My door. It’s not open. But it’s not locked either.
I know because I always lock it. Three times. Always. I don’t even think about it anymore. Click, click, click. Muscle memory and paranoia. There’s no way I forgot. Not after everything.
A chill prickles across my skin.
I move slow, careful, listening. The street’s quiet. No footsteps. No shadows moving behind curtains. But the lights are on. From the thin sliver beneath the door, I can see it—too bright, too warm. I didn’t leave them on. I never leave them on.
I slide my hand into my coat, fingers curling around the hilt of the silver switchblade I keep tucked in the inner lining. A gift from Dean, the blade’s solid, blessed, and sharp enough to end a nightmare.
I don’t kick the door open. Just twist the knob and let it swing slowly.
I step inside, knife ready, every sense alert. My boots make almost no sound on the worn floorboards as I move from the entryway to the kitchen.
I shut the door without a sound.
I glance around. No visible damage. No sulfur stench. No blood.
Still—something’s wrong.
I cross to the nearest light switch and flick it off. The room plunges into shadow. Better that way. I’m the only one other than maybe my landlord who has the floorplan memorized.
I let my body go loose, quiet. Years of training. Years of surviving. Whoever’s in here, they don’t know who they’re dealing with.
I catch the faintest whisper of movement in the hallway. A shift in weight. The creak of wood.
I dart forward, fast, low—blade flashing in the dim light—and slam into a tall figure that has just entered the kitchen. They grunt as I drive my shoulder into their center mass and sweep their legs out from under them. The body hits the floor with a heavy thud, breath leaving them in a startled gasp.
I dart down the hall. Where there’s one, there’s always a second… at least.
The second shape moves faster than I expect—he’s shorter, but still tall—but I’m already pivoting, using momentum and the narrow hallway to my advantage. I duck under a reaching arm, twist, and slam the butt of my knife against their side. Not enough to do damage. Just enough to stagger them. Throw them off balance.
He land’s face down and drops his knife. He tries to reach for it. But I stomp my boot between his shoulder blades and jam my other knee into his spine.
“Try it,” I growl, “See how that ends for you.”
He goes still.
“Mill—Millie?”
The voice stops me cold.
Rough, disbelieving. Familiar.
I blink.
“Dean?”
The other figure I took down groans, hand braced against the floor. I step off Dean.
“Sam?”
Light glints off the edge of something not too far away. It’s not a knife.
It’s a notebook—no, a journal.
My journal.
The black leather cover is worn smooth at the edges, and the binding is cracked from years of use. Pages peek out like brittle teeth. I know that book like I know my own heartbeat—because it holds them. My dreams. Nightmares. The things I see and don’t tell anyone about.
And now it’s on the floor, in the open.
Dean groans, rolling halfway to his side. “Son of a bitch.”
I flick on the hallway lights and stare down at my brother.
Dean looks like hell. His lip’s split, his hair’s a mess, and there’s a smear of something—dirt? blood?—smudged along his cheek. He squints against the sudden light like it’s trying to punch him.
Sam’s not much better. He’s still half-winded, blinking up at me from the floor like he can’t decide whether to laugh or apologize. His jacket’s scuffed at the elbow, and I’m pretty sure I just knocked the wind out of him.
I don’t move. Not yet. My heart’s hammering in my chest like it’s still mid-fight, but my brain is starting to catch up to my eyes. To their eyes.
To the fact that both my older and younger brothers have just broken into my apartment.
“You’ve gotten slower,” I say, cool and even, as I flip the blade in my hand and slide it back into the hidden sheath in my coat.
Dean props himself up on one elbow, giving me a look that’s all older-brother wounded pride. “You broke my ribs,” he grits out.
“You’ll live,” I say, already crouching beside him. I press a hand to his side, gentle but firm, and he hisses between his teeth. Okay, maybe a little bruised. I glance towards the kitchen, “You okay, Sam-Sam?”
“I’m fine,” he calls back, struggling to find his feet.
I wince, “Sorry. You guys scared the ever-living daylights outta me.”
Dean stands and brushes some non-existent dust off his jacket. “We scared you?”
“I didn’t know who was in my apartment, jackass,” I glance between the two of them, jaw tight. I brush past him, back towards the kitchen, and yank open my fridge.
“You didn’t?”
“No,” I grimace, grabbing a few beers, “Why would I? I didn’t even know you were in town.”
I pop the caps off the bottles on the edge of the counter and hand a beer to each of my brothers. Dean takes his with a grunt that’s half pain, half appreciation. Sam mutters a thanks, a little breathless, still recovering from the takedown. I keep the third for myself and take a long swig, letting the cool bitterness settle my nerves.
I lean against the counter and look at them—really look. Dean’s favoring his left side. Sam keeps rubbing at his ribs. There’s road dust on their jeans and tension knotted in their shoulders. Neither one of them has said a damn word about why they’re here yet.
I raise an eyebrow and tilt the bottle toward them. “All right. Spill. Why the hell are you here?”
Dean’s the one who answers first, of course. He leans a hip against the counter and takes a long pull from his beer like it might give him the courage to start talking. His jaw twitches. That’s how I know it’s serious. Dean Winchester doesn’t fidget unless something’s digging at him hard.
“Millie,” he begins, tone soft, “What the hell is going on with you? It seems like you never stay in one place for more than a couple of years—maybe even months.”
I raise a brow, “You break into my apartment, rifle through my stuff, and I’m the one with explaining to do?”
Dean doesn’t flinch. Not really. But something flickers behind his eyes—guilt, maybe. Or regret. Or just the hard edges of worry worn too long without a place to rest. He shrugs a shoulder like he can toss it off, but it sticks to him anyway.
He moves to the couch and sits down, ribs still aching. “Nice place.”
“Thanks.” I huff, wanting to laugh, but not quite reaching it. I can’t slip back into the same, loose-feeling I used to have with my brothers. I feel like I don’t know them. “Rent’s cheap ‘cause the old lady upstairs thinks the place is cursed.”
Dean snorts. “Is it?”
“Not anymore.”
Dean gives me a look like he’s not sure if I’m joking. I don’t clarify. Let him stew on it.
I move back to the kitchen and lean against the counter again, arms folded tight across my chest. I still haven’t made eye contact with either of them. I don’t plan to. Not yet.
The mug I left this morning is still there, resting on the windowsill behind the couch. Steamless now. A faint coffee ring stains the ceramic where I must’ve forgotten it in the sun, distracted by something—probably birds, or clouds, or the quiet ticking of normalcy I was trying too hard to pretend was mine.
It’s stupid, but the sight of it jars me more than it should.
How out of it was I? The morning was a blur, so I don’t remember what I did and didn’t do, but it’s odd. I’m usually so careful. That mug is supposed to mean safe. Routine. Mine.
But nothing feels like mine anymore with Dean and Sam standing in the middle of my apartment like they never left. Like I never left.
Sam sets his beer down and grabs the broom I stuck halfway behind my fridge. He glances at Dean, then at me, and begins sweeping up the glass from a broken picture frame. The photo is still lying face down on the floor, but I know which one it is—me, Frankie, and a couple of our other friends from back in Albuquerque. It’s a nice memory. We were celebrating her twenty-fifth birthday. Good times.
Dean sets his beer on the coffee table—no coaster, of course—and fixes me with that same look Dad used to wear when he was gearing up to lecture. Except with Dean, it’s softer around the edges. No bark. Just… that heavy, weighted worry I remember from years ago. The kind that feels like chains.
“So,” he asks, “what’s with the journal?”
I turn away from him and pull out a roll of paper towels. I pretend not to have heard him and tear off a few sheets with every intention to pick up the broken frame. I wipe the puddle of water beside the sink absently instead. But I don’t get very far. The words slip out faster than I can think to bite my tongue. “Just… stuff… It helps me clear my head—sort through the noise with everything we’ve seen and heard.”
“Those sketches are of monsters we’ve never seen before. There’s so many cryptic notes, I don’t know what to think. Are you tracking something big?”
I stop wiping and sigh. “I see things, sometimes—stuff I don’t always understand. The drawings help me keep track. That’s all.”
“That’s not all,” he presses, worried—concerned… something. “What’s really going on, Millie?”
I glance at him, making sure to keep my expression cool. “Something I never asked for. I didn’t ask to see the crap we’ve had to grow up with. Okay? This is just how I cope, alright? It’s the same way you and John throw yourselves into hunts and the way Sam studies law textbooks. We all got our ways.”
Dean opens his mouth, then closes it again. “What about the charms? They’re everywhere.”
“You don’t know?” I ask, leaning against the counter.
“Would I be asking if I did?” He snips.
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “They help me block out… everything. They work most of the time, but my translations and research are a little sketch at best. Most of the time, they keep the nightmares out—but I also don’t have a dream catcher—”
“What the hell does that mean?” Dean cuts me off.
I pause. The words hang in the air like dust caught in a sunbeam, too heavy to float, too light to fall. My fingers tighten around the neck of the beer bottle, the cool glass anchoring me, just barely. I look away—past Sam, past Dean, past the wall of books and protective charms and quiet, lived-in clutter that’s come to mean mine.
A million things race through my mind—all the horrors I’ve seen, people I’ve lost, and the people I’ve left. I see their faces. The ones I couldn’t save. The ones I ran from.
That boy who tried to help me once... he thought I was some kind of hero. His blood soaked through the cuff of my sleeve. He smiled at me when he died. He thanked me.
The woman in Santa Fe who saw something in me that I didn’t want anyone else to see. Her voice in the dark, telling me to rest. I didn’t. I left the next morning. Didn’t leave a note.
Then there’s Ruth—kind, quiet Ruth—who gave me a job without questions, who tucked lavender in my coat pockets and never pried. What would she think if she saw the kind of world I’ve really lived in?
I think of Dad. His shouting. His orders. His silence.
And I think of the two men in front of me. Sam, all sharp lines and soft eyes, trying to read me like a textbook he doesn’t have the translation for. Dean, who looks like he’s waiting for me to throw another punch, and might even let me.
I used to think they were my anchors. But anchors can drag you under, too.
My throat feels tight. I swallow it down. Hard.
“I don’t sleep well. Haven’t for a long time.” I say, finally. My voice is low, and it doesn’t shake, but it feels like it should. “I draw, I write, I protect. It’s the only thing I can do.”
I still don’t look at them. I’m not ready. Instead, I glance toward the window. The evening has gone navy blue, stars faint in the sky above the streetlight glow. My forgotten coffee mug is still sitting there on the sill, cold and full, the ring of it staining the old wood like a little ghost of morning.
I walk to it, quietly, and pick it up with both hands.
There’s a dead fly floating in the middle.
I dump it into the sink, rinse it out, and set it gently on the drying rack. It feels like a ritual. Like drawing a line between then and now.
The silence behind me stretches, taut as a tripwire. I can feel them both trying to decide what to say. How to fix it. If they even can.
But some things aren’t puzzles. Some things are just broken.
Dean shifts on the couch, it creaks, and the metal squeals slightly. His breath, sharp and frustrated, perhaps even distressed. “What’s keeping you up, Mills? What are you even fighting?”
“Myself, mostly,” I mumble, fidgeting with my sleeves.
Silence stretches for a beat longer than the last.
Sam breaks the silence this time, his voice lower, gentler. Like if he speaks too loudly, the moment might shatter. “We thought something happened to you.”
I glance up. Just for a second.
His face is earnest, all soft edges and bruised kindness. He’s always been the one with the heart too open for his own good. It used to drive me crazy. Still does, a little.
“Nothing happened,” I say. “Not to me.”
He doesn’t believe me. I can see it in the furrow between his brows, the tension in his jaw. But he nods anyway, like he’s accepting it just to keep the peace.
I hate that. That he’s used to making peace with things that don’t make sense. That he’s used to people lying to him just to make him feel better.
“I never wanted to be found,” I add. My voice is quiet, but steady.
Sam winces like I slapped him. “We weren’t trying to… I mean—Millie, you kind of disappeared. We thought you were in trouble.”
“I was all over the states.” I mutter, “Not the goddamn Bermuda Triangle.”
“The last time anyone heard from you directly was almost eight years ago.”
Dean, from the couch: “And it was just a cryptic note telling no one to look for you. Then, Sam and I find our sigil all over Albuquerque and now here in Eureka Springs.”
I’ve left it in other places too. Everywhere I’ve stayed more than a month, I left a mark—a trail—for someone to eventually find me. It was always a ‘just in case.’ It was never meant for me to be found while I’m still kicking—
Sam clears his throat. “We were worried. That’s all. You just… you don’t leave like that.”
“Sure I do,” I say. “I left before.”
“That was different,” Dean says, his voice low now, almost hesitant. “Back then, you always came back.”
“That was before—”
“Before what, Millie?”
“Before he hurt you, Dean!”
Our father.
That silence returns, thicker this time. Like smoke in the lungs. It lingers in the corners of the room, and no one tries to break it for a long minute.
The last time I saw him, he shoved my big brother. He probably yelled at Sam. I couldn’t stay to protect them. For my own sanity—I couldn’t. I couldn’t.
Then Dean leans forward, elbows on his knees, bottle dangling from one hand. “Millie, um… Dad’s missing.”
The words hit like a sucker punch. Not a shout, not a cry—just simple, quiet truth.
I stare at him, then at Sam. My voice drops to barely above a whisper. “Missing?”
I hate that I still care.
Dean nods once. “He went on a hunting trip. Couple weeks back. We haven’t heard from him since.”
I set my beer down slowly. “So you’re telling me you broke into my apartment because Dad ghosted you?”
“Don’t be like that,” Dean says. “We’re telling you because you’re family. Because if something happened—if something got him—then we need you.”
There’s a pause. A breath I don’t take.
And then Sam speaks again, soft. “We didn’t come here to drag you back, Millie. We just wanted to know you were okay.”
That does it. That breaks something small and brittle behind my ribs.
Because I was okay. Kind of. Mostly. I was trying. I had soup and jazz and lavender sachets. I had a job and peace and… silence.
And now they’re here.
And the silence is gone.