Two Wolves for monicawoe 1/2

[summergen-mod.livejournal.com]

Title: Two Wolves
Author: quickreaver
Recipient: monicawoe
Rating: R (language, mature themes)
Warnings: spoilers for Season 7
Author’s note: I spun slightly off from canon because hey, sometimes canon doesn’t quite make sense.
Summary: for the prompt “Did Sam, once re-souled, find any new scars and wonder where they came from?”


Sam slowly opened his eyes.

His brain sat in his skull like cold, congealed oatmeal, and his teeth were chattering. He stared at the water stains on the ceiling.

I know those water stains. The way the light fell across the linens was familiar too, the smell of dust and old paper and older cooking even more so. It eventually dawned on him that he must be at Bobby’s, in the ‘guest’ room on the north side of the house, the one he usually took when he stayed over.

He shifted his legs and the joints popped. Cautiously, Sam hauled himself up, breathing through a wave of lightheadedness. His mouth was cotton-dry. The previous day was a blank, and the day before that, and the day before that. Not only did the near-past gape like a black hole, apparently he’d also forgotten to put on clothes. He was wearing nothing more than goosebumps and—looking down at his lap—an adult diaper.

This wasn’t weird at all.

“Dean?” he croaked out, barely audible. “Bobby?”

No one answered, though Sam thought he heard the faint rumble of voices from downstairs.

To his unspeakable relief he discovered he hadn’t yet soiled his diaper, but this spurred the sudden realization that he had to pee with an urgency verging on pain. Sam swung his bare legs over the side of the bed, swaying as the vertigo stubbornly resurfaced. He peeled back the sheet, the threadbare quilt, and felt a sting in the bend of his left arm.

A thin tube snaked from his elbow to a portable IV. Sam had been clocked in the head enough to know he must’ve been unconscious for a fair amount of time. This would certainly explain the liquid diet and Pampers…not the proudest moment in the life of Sam Winchester.

With a wince, he pulled out the needle and pressed his thumb to the hole. He stumbled to the john and urinated a dark yellow stream. It was the best damned piss he’d had in, well, recent memory. Which wasn’t exactly saying much.

After washing his hands, he took a moment to search for clues in the mirror. No contusions or bruises, unsurprisingly he needed a shave, and his hair was marginally different. Longer but less shaggy, and definitely far overdue for a washing. No real answers, though. He shivered and left the offending diaper in the bathroom trash.

Back in the bedroom, bobbling from one bare foot to the other, Sam found the spare clothes he always kept in the dresser. He pulled on his familiar old jeans and a flannel shirt, noting with mounting confusion that things didn’t quite fit right. Too loose in the waist, too tight across the shoulders. And he had no idea where his belt had gotten to. Or his watch. Or his life.

Dean would know. Find Dean.

Sam’s knees threatened to buckle every fourth step, but he made it downstairs thanks in large part to his death-grip on the banister. The more he moved, the more his disused muscles felt like working properly. He followed the low murmur of men talking.

Rounding the corner, he saw the back of Dean’s head and Bobby’s profile as they sat at the kitchen table. He saw the bottle of whiskey they shared, and a stack of old newspapers shoved off to one side. Same ol’ same ol’, but it made Sam’s breath catch in his chest.

His legs turned liquid again and he grabbed the wall. “Dean.”

Two chairs scuffed back. Dean was up and standing in a wild hurry, eyes so round and worried, it terrified Sam—more so than almost fainting or the other unnerving curiosities he’d collected in the past fifteen minutes.

“Sam?”

Sam stepped, maybe fell, forward and clamped his arms around his brother. His heart was pounding crazily against his ribs because he missed Dean so damned much and heaven help him, he didn’t know why. There were too many punctures in his memory where all the facts had leaked out. Regardless, he squeezed his eyes shut and held Dean and buried his nose in the smell of sweat, bourbon and Irish Spring.

Dean caught him when he flagged, coughing little breaths against Sam’s shoulder. Neither of them spoke, and that was fine. Sam didn’t know what to say anyway, except I’m here and you’re here and how is this even happening? He was afraid if he said it, though, he would open his eyes and nothing would be true. Nothing would be happening. There would simply be…nothing.

Gradually, they peeled apart. Dean looked haggard, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes more deeply etched. He’d probably been drinking himself into a stupor in lieu of real sleep, if Sam had to guess. But it was better now because Sam was up and recovering from whatever had knocked him senseless and finally, Dean could catch a break. The relief almost made Sam dizzy again. He saw Bobby over Dean’s shoulder and sidestepped to embrace the old fart. Touchy-feely wasn’t the way they usually did things, but fuck all, Bobby wasn’t supposed to be here either. None of them were supposed to be here.

Sam blinked and held Bobby at arm’s length. “Wait. I saw you…” The events at Stull Cemetery came back in a great wave, flooding his gut with bitter dread. “I felt Lucifer snap your neck.” Sam looked to Dean for confirmation, but Dean’s eyes were decidedly unreadable.

“Cas—” Bobby began.

“Cas is alive?” Sam’s hope swelled. Maybe he was still confused and misremembering that day. Maybe he’d gotten whacked in the head so hard, everything was a tangle of half-truths and imagined fears.

Dean took a single step, almost smiling but not quite. “Yeah, yeah. Cas is fine. Sam, you okay?”

There were too many questions mashed together for Sam to pull one free from the bunch. He’d have to sort through them later; it was a hell of a mess so he deferred to something simple, basic and easily fixed. “Actually, I’m starving.”

Dean’s not-quite smile turned genuine. “Well damn, Bobby. You heard the man; let’s get him a sandwich.”

“You, uh, you wouldn’t happen to have a steak, would you? I could sure go for some red meat.”


xXxXxXx


Bobby fried up the rib-eyes in a cast iron skillet to save time, and Sam set upon the food like a man who hadn’t eaten in…?

“So, how long was I out?” Sam grabbed a palmful of potato chips, Dean’s idea of a vegetable side dish.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Dean countered, sitting back down with two beer bottles threaded through his fingers.

“The field.” When Sam thought on it, his brain itched. “Then I fell.”

“Okay. And then?”

The itch turned into an ache. “What do you mean, and then? That’s it. Then I woke up in the bedroom.” Sam took one of the offered beers and twisted off the cap. Dean still liked the cheap stuff; some things never changed and for that, Sam was so very grateful. The familiarity was a small respite from the migraine that was brewing behind his eyes. “How’d you get me here?”

Bobby had been strangely stoic throughout the meal and ensuing conversation, and now he stood at the stove with his arms crossed over his chest, looking sour. “You really don’t remember—”

“Let’s be glad,” Dean snapped before forcing a more relaxed voice. “Who wants to remember all that Hell? Cas got you here; I couldn’t damn-well cart your gargantuan ass all by myself. We put you in the panic room, but after a week, well, I had him bring you upstairs. Was just easier.”

Sam took a long swallow of beer, working hard to forget the damned diaper. “No, Dean. I mean, how’d you guys spring me…from…?” He didn’t even want to say it. He shouldn’t say it. His brain was swollen with something wrong. “Did Cas—”

“Not exactly,” Dean mumbled.

“Shit, Dean. What did you do?”

Dean cleared his throat and flicked a glance at Bobby, who was still sullen beneath the visor of his ball cap. “I had some leverage against Death—yeah that Death, the Horseman Death—and it worked. It’s done. Slate’s wiped.”

“Well ain’t this just rainbows and lollipops.” Bobby grunted and pushed off the stove.

Dean continued to glower but Bobby clearly didn’t intend to listen to the storytelling any longer. He left the kitchen on a wave of surliness.

Sam pressed the cold bottle to his temple. “Alright. I give. What’s up with him?”

Dean sighed. “I dunno; one part old man, three parts liquor?”

Sam didn’t buy that either. He slid his plate back and reclined in the chair, trying to relax, trying to make his head stop pulsing at the seams, trying to glean some idea as to why Dean was being evasive. He pulled loose one of the newspapers from the pile and absently scanned it. His gaze landed on the date and he sat up too fast. The steak threatened to find its way back up his gullet.

“How long was I gone?” Sam spread the paper open on the table, staring.

“Oh, come on, Sam, just let it—”

“DEAN.”

His brother scrubbed a hand through his hair, lips pressing tightly. Sam had no pity for him, though, not just yet.

“A year and a half, eighteen months. Something like that.”

A spear of pain shot through Sam’s head and he lurched away from the table, his half-empty beer tipping onto the newspaper. He just barely made it out of the front door before the entire contents of his stomach upended and hit the front yard over the porch railing.


xXxXxXx


Sam promised Dean the sudden emptying of his belly was just too much food in too little space, but that wasn’t the whole of it. Not even close.

When one wakes up to discover a sizeable chunk of time vanished and for some reason, it instills a feeling of desperate guilt, there’s a high probability something awful is socked away in the slippery recesses of that defective memory. But the not knowing is far worse. It’s like being a human jack-in-the-box, just waiting for that creepy-ass clown to suddenly pop out. From the middle of your chest. With a wicked smile full of sharp teeth and a semi-automatic hand gun.

Bobby exacerbated the situation by being transparently ticked-off at Sam, just short of openly hostile. If everything was normal, as Dean would have him believe—the Winchester kind of normal, at any rate—Bobby shouldn’t have been such a walking bag of cranky in a stained pair of Wranglers.

Sam just couldn’t be that willfully ignorant. Somehow, in the process of returning to the Here and Now, he’d done something Big and Stupid. Fan-fucking-tastic.

But first things first: he felt like crap and smelled just about as bad. He wanted a shower and time to think. Whatever fresh new drama he’d acquired in the past two years wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

Initially, Dean didn’t seem willing to let Sam out of his sight, but a few strategic wafts of stink in his brother’s direction earned Sam his freedom to bathe. He was mildly surprised to find new-ish towels on the bathroom shelf, but the shower curtain had probably been there since 2005. Sam let the water run as he stripped, smiling at the familiar banging of the plumbing and threadbare bathmat. He caught himself carefully folding his clothes, even though he had no intention of wearing them again until they got washed.

He stared at his hands and for a moment, they didn’t quite feel connected—the palms calloused and knuckles red. He ran his hands over his arms and then looked at those, too. The skin was smooth, no longer nicked with old scars. Guess that made a crooked sort of sense if Castiel had played Florence Nightingale on him after he got topside. His anti-possession tattoo was still intact over his heart, but that was because he and Dean had done them right; they had a mage in San Francisco work the spell with ensorcelled ink. But there shouldn’t have been a fresh bite mark on the inside of Sam’s left wrist. Looked human, too. No way something that mundane was a souvenir from the Cage.

Sam stepped into the hot shower and almost moaned aloud as the water rolled over his shoulders. The showerhead was half-clogged with minerals but worked well enough to plaster his hair to his forehead and soothe his miserable headache. He just stood there, hands splayed on the soap-scummy tiles and mind emptied, until Bobby’s hot water tank gave up the ghost. Sam was forced to lather up quickly and in the middle of it all, it dawned on him that he was using his favorite scent-free body wash. Dean favored Irish Spring but Sam preferred soap that didn’t break him out in hives. If he’d been gone a year or more, why was there a half-full bottle of body wash in the shower? Just in case he showed up on weekend furlough from The Furnace?

The water was turning towards frigid so he rinsed quickly before shutting off the spray. Grabbing a towel and stepping out of the bath, dripping wet, he stared around the shabby room. The same faded curtains that had always been there for as long as Sam could remember still hung across the smudged window. There was a small framed picture on the wall over the commode: a cartoon of a man in plaid with a rifle, the words “I like big racks” written across the bottom in loopy black lettering. It had been a gift from the boys to Bobby when Sam was…ten, maybe? Dean’s electric shaver was wedged into its holder on the back of the toilet, connected by a cord to the wall socket. Beside it sat a package of plastic disposable razors and a striped can of Barbasol. No one used Barbasol but Sam. He picked up the shaving cream. No dust.

No dust. There were cobwebs in the corners of the room but no dust on his shaving cream. Maybe Dean had bought it for him a couple of weeks ago. Right. And maybe Dean gave up pie for Lent, too.

Sam dried off slowly, inspecting his skin again. He hardly recognized it anymore. The old scars were gone, but new ones were in fresh locations. A pale, puckered gunshot wound in his left shoulder. Fading bruises on his ribs, probably punches. A long, superficial scrape that was peeling chunks of scab off his right shin, leaving fresh pink skin underneath. Sam began to shiver. He tucked the towel low on his waist and swiped a hand across the steamy mirror. The face that stared back was foreign, but his. For a heartbeat, he scared the shit out of himself.

The eyes were dead. They were mean and level and broken-glass shiny. And fucking dead.

There was a quick rap at the door. “Hey. You okay in there? Been an hour, Sammy. I mean if you’re taking care of business, that’s cool and all, I just—”

“No, no. Fine. I’m…fine.” Sam blinked and his eyes melted back to life, liquid and human again. “I’m fine.”

He hoped Dean couldn’t hear the lie in his voice.


xXxXxXx


Three days later and Sam was on the precipice of a boredom-laced melt-down. In between the inexplicable scars, Bobby’s thin veil of tolerance and Dean’s artful misdirection (that could fool anyone unless you knew exactly what you were looking for), Sam wanted to claw his own mind apart and let the past spill out. Even if it hurt.

Clearly, he wasn’t going to get any help from Bobby or Dean. They were—well, Dean was—more than happy to talk about all the news and pop culture Sam had missed, but when it edged towards something personal, Dean bobbed and weaved, feigned nonchalance or suddenly remembered the beer or nails or car oil he’d forgotten to pick up from the store. He swore they’d talk about it later, but later never came. He acted as if Sam was made of spun sugar.

Sam briefly considered praying. When he was lying awake in the middle of the night, listening to the house age and Bobby snore, the day’s remnants echoed through his vacant brainspace and he wondered if Cas would respond. Would the angel blip into existence on the papery flutter of invisible wings and offer answers?

But something kept Sam from prayer. Something heavy and treacherous curled in his belly. Something wouldn’t dare let him ask.

After a particularly sleepless turn, Sam found himself on Bobby’s porch come daybreak, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up to keep the dew at bay. His head was still full of fog as he watched the sun turn the shadows from gray to gold, the air warming incrementally. The salvage yard teemed with feral cats that moved through the rusty skeletons as morning broke.

Sam felt a certain fondness for the creatures. He quietly went back into the house and, after putting coffee on to brew, grabbed a large shallow bowl and opened a can of tuna. A breakfast treat for the little predators.

He was just off the front stoop, setting down the oversized saucer, when he heard the screen door open and almost slam. It wasn’t level enough to shut with much authority, catching on the warped planks of the porch.

It was Dean. Of course. “You’re up at the ass-crack of dawn,” he grumped mildly.

“It’s not that early any more,” Sam said, squinting into the sun.

“Yeah, yeah. Coffee?” There was a chipped steaming mug in either hand. He was squinting too, but not at the sun. At his brother.

Sam walked back onto the porch as cats, juveniles from the looks of it, swarmed the bowl. He took the coffee that was light with milk.

“Thanks. Hey, did we ever…hunt gnomes?” The words slipped out before he could so much as consider how stupid they sounded or where they’d come from. The sight of the dish and all the cats had made a strange notion flit through his mind, sudden as a sneeze. A flash of childhood, the story of the cobbler and the elves, except this wasn’t a fairytale. It was too specific, too real. The smell of metal and oil and tick-tock-tick-tock…

Dean, still squinting, tilted his head and fought back a grin. “What? You mean like those concrete dolls old ladies put in their gardens?”

“Um, no?” Sam’s scalp prickled with annoyance and he shoved back his hood.

“The Travelosity guy?”

“No. Nevermind.” He glanced back at the feeding frenzy. “Did Lisa have cats? She seemed like a cat person.”

Dean’s mug paused half-way to his mouth. He snorted and blew breath across the steaming surface. “Smooth, Sammy.”

“Hey, I learned from the best.”

Dean’s eyes shifted to gaze across the tangle of cars but he could’ve been staring a million miles away. “We tried, Sammy. For a year,” he finally admitted, his voice turning resolute and, Sam thought, a little sad. “But Winchesters come with great steamin’ piles of baggage. We just couldn’t make it work.”

Sam sort of wished he hadn’t pried but if Dean wasn’t going to come clean voluntarily, he didn’t leave him with much of a choice. “I’m sorry, man.”

“Hey. It is what it is.” Dean gestured vaguely with his mug.

“Mmm.”

“Mmm?”

“I feel like I’m still missing something,” Sam said.

“You miss hunting?”

Ah, Dean, bobbing and weaving again. “No, that’s not what I—” Sam lifted his chin, thinking. “Yeah, maybe. I guess I do miss it. A little.”

“Take it easy, sparky. You’ve been bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for all of four days. No need to rush back into the business.”

“I feel fine, Dean. In fact, better than fine. For a guy who’s been in Hell for nearly two years, with a little coma on the side, I’m effin’ spectacular.”

“Well, great! Good on ya. But can’t we just take it easy? This once?” He rocked back on his heels, sighing, something weary in his posture even though it was first thing in the morning. “Maybe I’m not ready to go ghost-bustin’ just yet. Maybe I wanna spend a little time with everything bein’ status quo and all. Play poker with someone other than ol’ Crabbypants in there. Hit the Hooters with my kid brother. Do ‘normal’ for a change.”

Sam grunted, stuffing his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie.

“Seriously, Sam, where’s the fire?”

He considered this. There wasn’t any fire, none visible at any rate. The sun was coming up over the salvage yard like it always did, the air calm and cloudless. Winter birds called cheerfully from their phone-line tightropes but Sam smelled smoke and he couldn’t shake it. It clung to his thoughts the way mists hung in windless valleys, his feeling of loss and obfuscation. Dean could’ve told him they’d hit the lottery and every monster on earth had been nuked and it wouldn’t have changed a damned anything.

“I’m not a kid anymore, Dean. Haven’t been for a long time.” Sam worked at keeping his voice even. “You can’t swaddle me in bubble wrap, protect me from hurting. You don’t need to anymore—”

“Says who?”

“Me, dammit. So come on. Spill it.”

Dean opened his mouth, shut it again, and shrugged. “Spill what? Jesus, Sam. There’s nothing to spill.”

Sam flung his arms wide, sloshing coffee. “Really? Then why’s Bobby treating me like a red-headed step-child?”

“What? I don’t even—”

“Why do I have an appendectomy scar, huh? Last I checked, I still had that stupid, useless organ. But now?” Sam took a long step forward and lifted the corner of his sweatshirt, flashing a quick glimpse of belly and a thin, pink line.

“God, do we have to—”

“What are you guys hiding from me, huh? Where’s Cas? What the hell happened when I was ‘downstairs’?”

“Oh, for—” Dean was getting visibly aggravated, rolling his eyes and squaring his shoulders.

“And what really happened with Lisa?” Sam knew that was playing dirty pool, bringing Lisa back up, but it didn’t stop him.

“That’s enough, Sam.”

Sam put a hand on Dean’s forearm so he wouldn’t retreat into the house. This was going to be resolved, one way or another. “It’ll be enough when you tell me the truth.”

“I said enough.” And Dean pushed back, a solid shove right to the center of Sam’s chest.

The world turned gray.

They say when you’re angry, you see red. They’re wrong. Sam saw gray. Or maybe he wasn’t so much angry as motivated into a purposeful response. He didn’t exactly feel angry but he wanted answers and he was going to get them and he knew he could.

Dean pushed and when he did, he leaned forward on his right leg—the left favored, weaker. There was the slightest turning of his arm that indicated a sore shoulder, perhaps still stiff from it being morning and Dean no longer as resilient as he used to be, or one too many dislocations. Probably both. Sam let him push but pivoted left, like a door opening, and Dean followed forward, off-balanced. A simple nudge, and Dean tipped past in a slop of spilled coffee.

“What the fuck, Sam?” Dean spun, a hard scowl on his face.

Sam dropped his mug and his hands curled into fists, one shooting forward to catch Dean on the cheekbone. Because he could. And it would make Dean talk.

Dean swayed but didn’t topple, blinking in clear shock.

Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down, Sam almost smiled. A coffee mug came sailing in a sudden arc, its trajectory aiming for Sam’s head, the coffee already spilt and soaked into the dusty yard. Cats scattered in every direction.

But Dean was stunned enough to not have his feet solidly planted. All it took for Sam to avoid the mug was to shoulder into him, using his height and muscle to send Dean backwards, ass onto the ground and narrowly missing the saucer of tuna. Sam knew it would take his brother a good second to get to his feet again, after which Sam wouldn’t give him time to get his bearings. Sam could put a heel into one of Dean’s knees, most likely the left because that was the one giving him grief, and it would take him down fast and easy—

Sam’s flash strategizing was pummeled to a dead stop by an icy blast of water upside the head.

As suddenly as the world had grayed, it tumbled back to Technicolor and Sam sputtered, snorting water.

Bobby was standing on the porch, garden hose in hand. He had a decidedly pissed look on his face and he kept the water trained on Sam until Dean had clambered to his feet. “This is a God-damned high-class neighborhood, boy. You act respectable.”

Dean stumbled to the porch and sat heavily on the edge. He groaned and gingerly touched what was already becoming a fat purple welt under his eye.

“You quite done?” Bobby shouted.

Sam had turned his back on the spray and was shivering, wet to the skin, his sweatshirt a sodden weight on his shoulders. He managed a nod, nearly blind for all the water and hair in his eyes.

“Yeah, we’re done,” Dean growled.

“Fine.” The water cut off.

Sam stood there, dripping. He had no clue what had just happened, why he’d just gone postal. It wasn’t possession; Sam knew possession. Been there, done that, bought the tattoo. It felt…it felt like righteousness. Somehow pure and purposeful. And unthinkably cruel. But he did know one thing: the guy in the mirror knew. The one with the dead eyes.

He slowly turned around, but couldn’t look at Dean.

“S-s-sorry.”


xXxXxXx


The Friday morning fisticuffs hadn’t done Sam any favors. Bobby was still full of vinegar and now Dean kept looking at Sam sidelong, all the trust leeched from his eyes, replaced by something guarded and occasionally miserable.

Maybe this was what a sabbatical in Hell did to a person: not just change the condemned soul, but also how the whole world looked at them. Sam couldn’t know for certain because that information had inconveniently gone missing. The deal Dean made with Death surely figured into it but damned if Sam was going to ask. At this point, he’d probably get a faceful of fist and he’d certainly earned it.

When word of a hunt trickled down the grapevine, Bobby and Dean were quick to grab it. Sam let them. As much as he was itching to get back in the game, he knew better. He was a poorly reassembled jigsaw puzzle; all the pieces were there but they didn’t fit right, inverted or shoehorned into the wrong spots. He had to figure it all out before the bits got lost or he stayed busted permanently, fused in this badly broken state. He had to try. Fuck Yoda; there was always ‘try’.

Sam watched as the Impala dusted off down the long drive, between the carcasses of cars stacked three deep. Dean stuck a hand out the window. Waved once. They’d made a clumsy sort of peace, he and Sam, but not Bobby. No emotional quarter given, there. He would never kick Sam out of the house that had become their second home, but that was almost worse. Bobby’s ire hung in the air like smoke, palpable and quietly suffocating.

Sam needed to breathe.

As soon as the car was a speck on the horizon, he turned and walked back to the house. He thumped down at the kitchen table and filtered through the piles of newspaper and mail. He dumped out the junk drawers where all the scraps of daily living landed, waiting to become useful. There was a mess of weird stuff, but nothing that wasn’t already familiar. Bits of bone, charms, screws in every conceivable size, tiny empty vials with corks in their necks, a small fortune in Bic lighters. Nothing that pinged with significance.

Upstairs, he searched underneath the mattress, the dresser, the back of the closet, but it wasn’t until he turned out the pockets of his navy coat that he hit pay dirt. He’d washed most of the laundry yesterday in a jag of boredom, but not the coats. Unless they got bled on or chewed up, the coats didn’t get much attention.

It was just a corner of an envelope in a corner of a pocket: a scrap postmarked Fedora, South Dakota. When Sam turned it over in his fingers, ‘Holly’ and a phone number were written in blue ballpoint pen. The handwriting was so similar to his, but not quite. Fractionally neater.

It pinged.

For a moment, Sam wished Dean was there to give him shit for having a girl’s number in his pocket. Predictably, Dean would be waggling his brows wolfishly and taking credit for training his little brother like a champ, even though Sam could get his own damned date without taking a single page from The Dean Winchester Playbook.

Sam fished his cell phone from his jeans. His finger briefly hovered over the screen before punching the numbers.

It was funny…the sort of anticipation that twisted in his belly. Like dread, but hungrier. Another misplaced feeling that didn’t make sense in the world as he knew it. Maybe he didn’t know the world so well after all.

When the woman answered, Sam’s skin jumped.

“Who’s this?” she bit out. Not the expected hello, but a snark that slid slightly Southern.

Sam filtered through options in the habitual blink of an eye—reporter, federal marshal, some spin on the truth—but a little voice coaxed him towards the ol’ cat-n-mouse game. “Holly?”

“Maybe.”

“I…I’m in your neck of the woods again and I thought maybe we could, you know, talk.”

There was a pause, and he heard her huff. “Talk.”

“Yeah. Talk.”

“Is this Johnny?”

Johnny? Sure, why not. “Yeah, yeah it’s me.”

Dead air, except for the dim strains of a radio in the background. Molly Hatchett, if Sam wasn’t mistaken. She sighed again. “You’re damned lucky my husband isn’t home…” Her tone was considerably warmer now.

Part 2