Chapter 1
The rain in Kansas didn’t just fall; it screamed.
It lashed against the windshield of the 1967 Chevy Impala in rhythmic, violent bursts, nearly drowning out the low, gravelly hum of Kansas’s Carry On Wayward Song Vibrating through the speakers. To anyone else, the storm was a reason to pull over. To me, it was just another Tuesday night. I sat in the passenger seat, my head resting against the cold glass of the window, watching the world outside turn into a blurred, ink-black smudge.
I glanced to my left. Dean Winchester had his hands glued to the steering wheel at ten and two, his knuckles white enough to glow in the dark. The green light from the dashboard caught the sharp, dangerous angles of his face, casting deep shadows under his eyes that made him look like a ghost haunting his own skin. He hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. I knew that because I’d spent every one of those hours watching him, tracing the way his jaw tightened every time lightning split the sky.
“Dean,” I said, my voice sounding small and brittle over the thunder. “You’re drifting.”
He didn’t blink. His gaze was fixed on the road ahead, or maybe on a version of the road that only he could see. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Just looking for the turn-off.”
“You’re doing sixty-five in a deluge and you’ve missed the last three exits,” I countered, reaching out to turn the volume knob down. The sudden drop in music made the cabin feel suffocatingly small. “Pull over. We’re no good to anyone if we end up wrapped around a telephone pole.”
From the backseat, a sleepy groan signaled that Sam was finally returning to the land of the living. He shifted his massive frame, his knees knocking against the back of my seat.
“She’s right, Dean,” Sam muttered, his voice thick with sleep. He rubbed his face, his long hair a tangled mess. “We’re still three hours from the nest. If we don’t get a few hours of shut-eye, we’re gonna walk into that cellar and get ourselves served for dinner.”
Dean let out a sharp, frustrated breath. I could see the “soldier” in him wanting to push through, to hunt until he bled, because if he stopped moving, he had to think. And Dean Winchester hated thinking. He lived in the space between the roar of the engine and the kick of a shotgun.
But then, he looked at me.
For a split second, the hardened hunter mask slipped. He saw the way I was shivering, despite the heater being on full blast. He saw the faint purple bruise on my temple—a souvenir from a shapeshifter in St. Louis that had nearly ended me. His gaze softened, just a fraction, a look so fleeting I might have imagined it, before he jerked the wheel toward a flickering neon sign in the distance.
The Blue Moon Motel was a relic of a time when people actually enjoyed road trips. Now, it was a peeling, salt-stained wreck. The “No Vacancy” sign buzzed with a rhythmic, dying hum, flickering like a heartbeat about to stop.
Dean pulled the Impala under the small overhang of the office. He didn’t move for a long moment, his hands still fused to the wheel. The engine rumbled beneath us, a familiar, comforting growl that felt like the only steady thing in my life. Three months ago, I was a girl with a job, a cat, and a normal apartment. Now, my “home” was a 3,000-pound piece of Detroit steel and a duffel bag full of rock salt and silver.
“I’ll go in,” I offered, reaching for my door handle.
“No,” Dean said, his voice dropping into that protective, low register that always made my heart do a traitorous little skip. “Stay in the car. Keep the engine running. Sam, watch the perimeter.”
“Dean, it’s a motel office, not a demon portal,” Sam sighed, but he already had his hand on the silver blade tucked into his waistband.
I watched through the rain-streaked glass as Dean jogged into the office. He looked like a shadow in his leather jacket, a man who carried the weight of the literal apocalypse on his shoulders. I remembered the first time I’d seen him—blood-splattered and swearing in your kitchen after a poltergeist had tried to paint the walls with your remains. He was supposed to be a one-time save.
Instead, I had become the thing he couldn’t leave behind. And he had become the only thing I had left.
Dean emerged a few minutes later, holding a single brass key. He looked pissed. He hopped back into the driver’s seat, the scent of rain, gunpowder, and cold air clinging to him.
“One room,” he grunted, throwing the car into gear to crawl toward the back of the lot. “One bed. One sofa that looks like it was harvested from a crime scene.”
“I’ll take the floor,” I said immediately.
“Like hell you will,” Dean snapped, then cleared his throat, his eyes darting to mine before looking away. “I mean... nobody’s sleeping on the floor. Not tonight. We’ll figure it out.”
The door to the room groaned as Sam shoved it open. The smell hit me immediately: stale cigarettes, industrial-strength bleach, and the faint, metallic tang of old pipes. It was the “Winchester Special.”
Sam immediately claimed the small circular table in the corner, flipping open his laptop and spreading out a dozen crumbling pages of lore. “I’m gonna keep digging on this Pishacha. If it’s as old as the diary says, salt might just annoy it. We need something more... permanent.”
Dean, meanwhile, was doing a sweep. It was muscle memory for him now. He checked the closet. He checked behind the moth-eaten curtains. Only when he was satisfied that the only thing in the room was the three of us did he finally drop his duffel bag.
He looked at the bed—the only bed—and then at me.
“Go on,” he said, nodding toward the mattress. “Get some sleep. I’m gonna go get the rest of the bags and check the salt lines on the car.”
“Dean, wait,” I said, catching his sleeve as he turned to head back into the rain.
He stopped. He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t look at me either. He just stood there, his arm tensed under my touch. The fabric of his jacket was cold and damp, but I could feel the heat of him underneath.
“You’re exhausted,” I whispered. “Sam’s right. This thing feeds on pain. It feeds on memories. You’re... you’re a walking buffet for this creature, Dean. You need to be sharp.”
“I’m always sharp,” he lied. He finally met my eyes, and the sheer exhaustion there broke my heart. “I’ve survived worse than a memory-eater. I’ve been to Hell, remember? Literally. A few bad dreams aren’t gonna break me.”
“That’s exactly why you’re at risk!” my voice rose, thick with an emotion I wasn’t ready to name. “It doesn’t care how tough you are. It cares how much you’ve suffered. And you... you’ve suffered more than anyone I know. If it gets inside your head, Dean...”
The silence that followed was heavy. Dean leaned in, his face inches from mine. I could smell the peppermint he used to mask the coffee, and the faint, earthy scent of the road.
“Then maybe I don’t have any good memories left for it to take,” he whispered, his voice cracking just enough to let the pain through. “Ever think of that?”
He pulled his arm away and walked out the door, the bell on the motel handle jingling mockingly behind him.
Two hours later, the room was dark. Sam had finally passed out at the table, his head resting on his keyboard.
I was lying on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling, listening to the rain turn into a dull roar. I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the Pishacha—a shadow with too many teeth, reaching for the people I loved.
The door clicked open. Dean walked in, moving like a ghost. He didn’t turn on the light. He just sat heavily on the edge of the bed, the mattress sinking under his weight. He didn’t think I was awake. He put his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking just a fraction. It was the only time Dean Winchester let the weight show—when the world was dark and he thought he was the only one left standing.
“Dean?” I murmured.
He stiffened, his back going rigid. “Thought you were out.”
“Can’t sleep.” I sat up, the springs of the bed groaning. The room was cold, the heater having given up an hour ago. “Come here. Get some rest.”
“I’m fine on the chair—”
“Dean. Shut up and get in the bed. I’m not losing my partner to pneumonia because he’s too stubborn to share a mattress.”
He hesitated, then slowly kicked off his boots. He didn’t take off the leather jacket. He didn’t take off the flannel. He just lay down on top of the covers, as far to the edge as he could get. I watched him for a moment, then reached out to grab his hand. His fingers were ice-cold, scarred and rough.
“I’m not gonna let it get you,” I said into the darkness. “The Pishacha. I won’t let it take anything from you. Not while I’m breathing.”
Dean’s grip on my hand tightened—a sudden, desperate pressure. He turned his head toward me, his eyes shimmering like broken glass in the dark.
“You’re the only good memory I have left that’s worth protecting,” he rasped.
Before I could respond, he closed his eyes, his breathing finally evening out as he fell into a fitful, haunted sleep. I stayed awake for a long time after that, watching the door, holding his hand, and wondering how I ended up loving a man who was already half-dead.
Outside, the rain kept falling. And somewhere in the dark, the Pishacha was waiting.
