Previous chapters can be found here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3011743/1/

Chapter Twenty Five
The Amulet


Dean’s eyes were intent on Lauren as he glanced from the laptop screen to her face. The newspaper headline read, “Baby Orphaned After Home Fire”.

Lauren sighed, “You guys will think I’m crazy.”

Sam looked at her sympathetically, “Lauren, in this line of work, nothing’s crazy anymore.”

Lauren ran her fingers through her hair and began to slowly pace the floor. “After Angel died, I started having these nightmares all the time. First, they were just about what happened to Angel: Meg, the knife, the fire, that sort of thing. But then the dreams changed. There was still a fire, but it wasn’t in the stable, it was somewhere else.”

“Where?” Sam asked.

“I wasn’t sure,” Lauren answered. And there were other people, but I didn’t recognize them. I thought it was just because of everything that was going on, my brain’s way of reacting to it all. Then Dean found me here, and later said that I was saying Mom and Dad in my sleep. It didn’t make sense to me, because my parents didn’t die in a fire.”

“Your adoptive parents didn’t die in a fire,” Dean reminded her.

“Exactly,” Lauren said. “My biological parents had given me up for adoption. I’d tried to find them years ago, but all the records were sealed. I got nowhere then, so I’d given up. It wasn’t until now that I really thought I should pursue it again. I just want all of this to be over, and the nightmares to stop. They’re getting more intense and I don’t know what they mean.”

“What happens in your dreams Lauren?” Sam asked.

“Well, it’s like when the demon came for Angel when she was a baby,” she said quietly. “There’s a baby in this crib and the baby’s mother comes in and gets pinned to the ceiling, the dad comes in to see what’s going on, the whole place catches fire and they all die. Except now I’m not so sure.”

“Not so sure about what?” Dean asked.

“That they all die. Because the baby in that picture? It’s me,” she said finally. “Apparently, my parents, my real parents didn’t put me up for adoption. They were killed in a fire. A fire that I apparently survived. I was six months old, to the day,” she said, her eyes settling on Dean, knowing that it was significant.

“But, you don’t have…” Sam began.

“Apparently, I had an older brother,” she continued. “He would have been four or five when our parents died if he had survived the fire that happened on his own six month birthday. I’m still trying to piece it all together really. I think the demon assumed I had abilities too and came for me. Maybe he spared me when he realized I didn’t have any, but why would he kill my parents then?” she wondered out loud, turning to stare out the window.

“What else have you found out?” Dean asked.

“The best I can figure out is that my parents saw something that night that led them to believe it wasn’t your typical fire. Kind of like what your Dad did when your Mom died. They found out the truth and became hunters themselves. They must have given me the amulet for protection after I was born.”

“So the amulet in the picture, it’s the same one that you gave me?” Dean asked. Sam looked at him curiously.

“Lauren’s the one who gave me this, after you went to college, right before Dad managed to split us up,” Dean told his brother. Now I know why he wears that thing all the time; it was from her. He had first noticed it when Dean picked him up from school to try to find Dad. Dean showered in it, slept in it and he never, ever took it off. The shape shifter had taken it from him when he assumed Dean’s form and Dean took it back after he killed him. What a chick-flick thing to do, keeping it all this time he thought to himself and smiled briefly, then looked up at Lauren again.

“It was in a box of things my adoptive parents had given me when I graduated from high school and moved into my own place. I didn’t know I had ever worn it until I found that newspaper article in my research the other day, but it looked kind of cool, so I started wearing it. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, but I had gone to a psychic with some friends one day and she started muttering all this stuff about how it was meant to protect whoever was wearing it from evil and things like that. I didn’t believe in this stuff then and it kind of creeped me out after that, so I stopped wearing it. After what your dad told me when he was trying to split us up, then seeing what that thing had done to you Dean, I realized that it was probably true, and that’s why I gave it to you, for protection. According to what the psychic told me, it also protects the wearer from being possessed.”

“That would explain why Ellicott wasn’t able to get to you when he attacked you at the asylum Dean,” Sam said then, still feeling awful about what had happened there that night.

“Yeah,” Dean said quietly.

“Look guys, I don’t know what this all means, but now you know as much as I do,” Lauren said then.

“I’m sorry Lauren, about your parents. This has to have been tough for you to dig up,” Sam said, getting up now.

“Thanks Sam,” Lauren replied.

“I’m going to hit the shower,” Sam said, leaving the room.

“Why didn’t you tell me what was going on Lauren?” Dean asked after Sam had left. “With everything we’ve been through together, don’t you know you can tell me anything? Didn’t you think you could trust me?”

“Because I was afraid of the truth Dean. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find out,” Lauren admitted.

“Whatever it is, we can face it together,” he said then, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t keep secrets from me, ok? I can’t keep you safe if I don’t know what I’m dealing with.” He headed into the bathroom for his own shower.

“I’m not the one who needs to be kept safe Dean,” Lauren said almost silently after he’d closed the door. She looked at her cell phone sitting on the nightstand about fifteen feet away, bringing it to her hand without moving from where she stood. “You are.”