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The Impala is parked near a river. The wind makes small waves in the water, ruffling Sam’s hair in the process. He barely feels it, though, as he stares down his brother, trying to process that his dad has practically ordered his execution.
“I’m begging you here,” Dean says, desperation coloring his tone. “Please.”
Sam closes his eyes, shakes his head. “No.”
“No?” Dean’s face is lit in rage, in disbelief. “No? What do you mean, no? I just poured my heart out to you, man! You couldn’t give me a few days to take a breather, figure out our next move?”
“Dean,” Sam says, heart pounding so hard he almost can’t hear his own words. “We already know what our next move should be.”
Dean steps back, eyebrow raised. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”
“We have to find them, Dean,” Sam says, and in that moment, he hasn’t believed in anything more his whole life. “We have to find the others. The other kids like me.”
Dean’s eyes furrow. “What? Why?”
“Look, Dean,” Sam says, shifting on his feet, inching closer towards the car. “You’ve just told me that if we don’t figure this out, you’re going to have to kill me. Dad’s been trying to get to the demon for years, and no dice. The only other option available to us if I’m gonna make it out okay is to find to other kids and figure out what the hell is going on.”
“Sam,” Dean says, shaking his head, but Sam interrupts him before he can continue.
“If you want to save me, Dean,” Sam says. “You’ll help me do this. So, please. Save me.”
Dean looks over to the water and lets the silence hang for a beat. Sam glances down at his feet and prays.
“Okay,” He hears, choked out, and closes his eyes again. Thank you. “Okay, Sam.”
Sam can still smell the sulfer on the air, in his hands. He fumbles in his pocket, pulling out his phone and opening it with shaking hands, elbow banging into the Impala’s window.
“Sam, whoa,” Dean glances at him from the side, decelerating, seemingly on instinct. “You okay? Need me to pull over?”
“Gotta call Andy,” Sam murmurs, wiping his hand on his jeans. “Gotta make sure he’s okay.”
Dean stays silent, nodding in assent, as Sam dials the number and puts the phone to his ear.
“Sam?” He hears Andy’s surprised, tinny, voice, and feels his whole body exhale in relief. “Hey. What’s up?”
Sam swallows, tries to pull himself together. “Hey, Andy,” He says, voice cracking. “Just calling to check in. You doing okay?”
“I’m good, man,” Andy says, sounding slightly amused. “Keeping out of trouble, you know me.”
Sam’s about to stammer out an awkward farewell and hang up, but Ava’s face flashes into his brain and he can’t do it. He just can’t.
“Listen Andy,” He says instead, clutching his phone more tightly to his ear. “I’ve just seen two more of the kids like us, the ones with powers. One died and the other one’s disappeared, and we think she’s been kidnapped by demons,” He doesn’t mention the fiancé, dead in a pool of his own blood. “So, you know. I got worried.”
Dean shoots him a look but doesn’t comment. Sam can see his disapproval in the white-knuckling of his hands on the wheel.
Andy is silent for a beat. “Shit,” He finally says. “That’s a lot.”
“Yeah,” Sam says, chuckling without humor. “Yeah, it is. So, Andy, I really want to make sure nothing like that happens to you. Or me. And I think…I think I need your help for that.”
Dean takes a quick breath—not quite a gasp, but distinct enough to stand out—while Andy takes another beat of silence. Sam ignores this, and just waits.
“Okay,” Andy says, somber. “I get it. I wanna help. What can I do?”
“Great,” Sam says, sitting up straighter. “Thank you, Andy. Really.”
A muscle jumps in Dean’s jaw, but he remains silent.
Sam’s staring at the ketchup bottle. It’s nearly empty, and he can see the bare remnants left against the light of the rising sun.
He hears a cleared throat, breaking his concentration and making him look up. “You, uh, you want some ketchup in your coffee there, Sammy?”
Sam gives a weak chuckle, looking back down at his coffee cup. “No, I’m good.”
“So, what was that?” Dean’s not letting it go, leaning forward over his waffles in an attempt to make eye contact. “You got something on your mind?”
Sam taps his fingers on the table, trying to think. It’s not fair to keep this from Dean, but he knows it won’t get received well. “I’m…trying something,” He hedges, trying to find a way to say it.
“Is that something got to do with ketchup in your coffee?” Dean asks, raising his eyebrows. “Because I don’t see how else that’s relevant to what’s going on right here.”
Sam swallows. Here goes. “I’m, um, I’m trying to move it. You know, with,” He gestures towards his head, haphazard. “With my…thing.”
He feels more than sees Dean stiffen up, leaning back away from the table. He doesn’t say a word, meaning that an explosion is incoming.
Sam suddenly feels the need to explain himself, to make it better. “I’ve been talking with Andy,” He begins, fidgeting. “And the others, the ones we’ve found so far. Lily and them. We decided that we should, you know, work on the abilities that we have so that we have better control over them. To, you know, reduce the chance they’ll hurt someone, or, like, maybe we can use them to our advantage?”
He risks a glance up. Dean is staring him down, face void of all expression. “So, um. I’ve exhibited some telekinesis. So I was thinking…maybe I could work on that.”
Dean leans back, shaking his head. “Are you serious?” He asks, disbelieving. “Do you know how dangerous that is? You of all people should know not to mess around with things like this.”
“I know,” Sam says, shaking off the blow. “But, like, it makes sense? If we’re going to try to understand this, and figure out what’s going on and stopping it, we’ve got to know what we can do as much as possible, right?”
“And what if that makes it worse, Sam? Huh?” Dean’s getting angry now, voice rising in tone but not in pitch. “You know damn well that contact with things like this…it can change you. This is a huge risk you’re taking. I don’t think you’ve thought this through, if at all.”
Sam feels his face start to flush. Embarrassed, he stares back down at his plate. “What else can we do?” He asks, helpless. “I know it’s a risk but we’re looking out for each other, keeping ourselves in check. If we all work together, I think..”
“And who’s we?” Dean interrupts. “Because, Sam? I don’t think I’m we. And anything that you’re doing here, I’m as much part of as you. And I know,” He takes a deep breath. “I know I’m not the one with powers. And I tried to let you do your own thing on that. But, man. We’re a team, here. You’ve got to talk these things through with me so that I can help you.”
So that I can save you. Sam hears, and looks back up. “Okay, Dean,” He says, dry-mouthed. “I’ll let you know. And…” He pauses. “I want to keep practicing. I know I’m taking a risk, I do, but I really think that the potential reward outweighs that. But I promise that I’ll let you know when I do, and you can tell me if you think I went too far.”
Dean hesitates and then nods, leaning back. Sam keeps looking at him and thinks You don’t have to save me if I do it myself.
He feels a sudden heat in his brain and looks down in time to see the ketchup bottle move across the table and into his hand.
“I’ve got someone else,” Andy says.
Sam perks up, sitting up straighter in the motel chair. “Really? Who is it?”
“Guy named Jake,” Andy says, as Dean opens the bathroom door. “Fits the criteria. Twenty three, house fire, dead mom. His friends said he was getting squirrely a year ago.”
“Perfect,” Sam says, holding his phone closer to his ear, like he could hide what he was doing from his brother. “Have you managed to reach out to him?”
Dean’s stopped right outside the bathroom now, pinning Sam with a disbelieving look. “Lily’s closest,” Andy continues. “But we’ve got a problem. Jake’s active duty military and he’s in Afghanistan right now.”
Sam closes his eyes “Shit.”
“But,” Andy says, much too giddy for the occasion. “I think I can help with that. You know how I’ve been experimenting with my power, right, and I can broadcast messages and stuff directly to people’s minds now?”
“Yeah,” Sam says. “But, isn’t the distance…?”
“Not if I’m close by someone else, someone like us,” Andy interrupts. “I’ve noticed that, like, if I’m around any one of the super squad, my powers get stronger. And I can broadcast further. We just gotta find something that belongs to someone in his unit and we’re golden. I can get someone to tell him that way.”
Sam’s mind reels. “Are we the super squad now?” He asks, trying to process that new bit of information.
“We should be,” Andy says, laughing. “I’m actually testing this out with Ryan right now. I can project further and he can run even faster. It’s nuts. I think we’d be crazy strong if we ever all got to meet each other in person.”
That feels…significant. Sam just can’t quite put his finger on why. “Let me know how that goes,” Sam responds, remembering Dean listening in right beside him. “And tell Ryan I say hi.”
“Will do, chief,” Andy says and hangs up.
Sam turns to Dean, who waits expectantly. “So, what was all that about?”
“We found another guy,” Sam says. “And, apparently, our powers get stronger in proximity to each other.”
“Huh,” Dean says, sitting down at the table with him. “Ain’t that something?”
In the middle of a hunt in Texas, Sam unlocks a new ability.
They’re walking through town, trying to work through the murder of a young woman, when a chill runs down Sam’s spine. It grows and grows until it becomes physically uncomfortable, and he stops in place, grimacing.
Dean halts mid conversation. “Sam? What is it?”
Sam tries to speak, but the chill is too strong. He looks around, trying to figure out what’s going on, when his eyes lock on a café across the street. A girl sits there, typing on shiny laptop and the feeling grows when he looks at her. She must notice something because she looks up and makes eye contact, and the iciness shoots all the way up to his chest.
Ignoring Dean’s hissed Sam behind him, Sam starts forward, crossing the street at a determined pace. As he approaches the café, he plays on a hunch and tosses a whispered Christo as he strides by the girl. He can see her flinch, hiss, and he carries on quickly, ducking behind the closest block and closing his eyes.
Dean arrives shortly after. “Dude, what was that?”
Sam breathes out slowly. “That girl. She’s a demon.”
Dean glances back. “How’d you know?”
“I just did,” Sam says, waiting for the chilliness to abate.
He gets back to the Impala that night after the exorcism with 36 missed calls and 52 text messages from what feels like all the other kids like him…Andy, Lily Baker, Ryan, Jasmine from Philly, Loretta from Tulsa, Jake in Afghanistan, Mike from Burlington, all relaying to him the same story in panicked tones and hushed reverence. It seems, almost overnight, they have all acquired the ability to sense demons where they stand. And, it seems, there are demons close by to just about everybody.
Sam turns to his brother. “I think something’s about to happen.”
Soon, people start disappearing.
At their largest, the network of special children that had developed had easily numbered forty-five strong. A smaller number of these were the active ones, the ones who replied to the email chains and kept in touch regularly, numbered closer to twenty-seven. So, when people started to vanish, it took them longer to notice than it should have.
But, when Loretta stopped responding to calls and texts and was shortly followed by Bill, then Mike, it was clear that it was time to panic.
“Ryan’s gone now,” Andy informs him, panic clearly shining through the phone. “He’s not picking up. I’ve projected to a couple of his family members, and they don’t know where he is. I think…I think he’s disappeared, too.”
Sam runs a shaking hand through his hair. Dean looks on, stone-faced. “Okay,” He says, coming to a decision. “Okay, I think we should contact everyone else ASAP, find a middle ground, and all meet up in person, okay? They can’t get all of us if we’re together.”
“Okay,” Andy says shakily. “Send us the location on the email chain. I’ll text everyone to tell them about this.”
Sam nods. “I’ll talk to you soon,” He says, and hangs up. Taking a shaky breath, he grabs his laptop and starts to quickly research locations.
Dean taps his fingers on the table. “We shouldn’t have involved them,” He says, finally. “We shouldn’t have put them in the firing line.”
Sam takes another shaky breath. “I know,” He whispers, fingers trembling on the keyboard. “I think…it’s all happening now. I don’t know how to stop it.”
This confession snaps Dean right out of his stupor. “We’ll stop it,” He says, grimly determined. “Just stay where I can see you until we get to wherever you need us to go. We’ll all come together, we’ll figure this out. Strength in numbers. We’re gonna end this now.”
Sam chuckles weakly, eyeing a potential option on the screen. “We will,” He says, trying to absorb his brother’s confidence.
“Hey,” Dean says, eyeing the destination over his shoulder. “If we go that way, I know a great place we can stop for some pie.”