Embedded Files
Sometimes the danger isn’t in the hunt. It’s in the stillness afterward, when the people around you stop feeling like strangers—and start feeling like something you could lose.
Word Count: 10.7k
TW: fluff with light angst. brief description of bleeding (nose bleeds). use of mild language
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The kitchen lights hum softly overhead, warm and steady in contrast to the cold tile beneath Eileen’s feet. She moves on autopilot, pouring coffee into two mugs while the quiet tick of the old wall clock echoes through the stillness. Sam is already sitting at the table, a research journal open beside his untouched cup, eyes flicking up every few seconds toward the hallway.
He glances at the clock again. “She usually comes in by now.”
Eileen doesn’t look up. “You think she had another nightmare?”
Sam exhales slowly through his nose. “Maybe. Or she decided to sleep in for once.”
Before either can say more, the soft pad of socked feet approaches.
Nellie enters the kitchen, moving like a ghost of herself. Her hoodie sleeves are tugged low, and her hair looks sleep-tousled but not in the usual just-woke-up kind of way. She looks like she’d been somewhere far away and only just found her way back.
Eileen offers a small, encouraging smile. “Morning.”
“Morning,” Nellie murmurs, voice hoarse. She moves straight to the table, avoiding eye contact, and sinks into the chair like her bones ache.
Sam leans forward slightly. “You okay? You look like you didn’t sleep.”
She gives a vague shrug. “Didn’t. Nightmares, I think. Just... didn’t rest.”
There is something off in her tone. Flat, but not in the guarded way they are used to. More like something had gotten under her skin. Or broken through it.
Eileen slides a mug across the table to her. “Same dream? The break-in?”
Nellie pauses, then shakes her head. “No. Just... different. All jumbled now.”
Neither of them pushes. But both catch the way her eyes stay downcast, how her shoulders remain tense even in the comfort of the bunker kitchen.
“She’s folding in on herself again,” Sam signs low across the table.
Eileen nods subtly, worry flickering behind her eyes.
Just then, small footsteps approaches, followed by the proud sound of paper flapping. Dean trots in holding a drawing, face lit with excitement, Miracle following close behind. “Oh good, you’re awake! Look! I made you something.”
He plops the picture in front of Nellie. A stick figure (roughly her), wearing what looks like a giant sweater, next to a smaller figure holding her hand.
“That’s me,” he explains, tapping the smaller one. “I drew us together. And I gave you a blanket, ‘cause you like blankets.”
Nellie blinks down at the picture, stunned for a moment—then a quiet laugh slips out, soft and sincere.
“Thanks, bud,” she says, hugging him as he climbs up into her lap like he belongs there. “It’s perfect.”
Sam and Eileen share a glance. Whatever has been weighing on her, their son has just chipped a piece off. Still, the way Nellie clings to Dean, her fingers threading gently through his hair, tells them enough. Something has shaken her. Something she isn’t ready to say out loud yet. They don’t push.
Instead, Eileen gently touches Sam’s arm as she sits beside him. “She’s safe. And she’s here. That’s enough for today.”
He nods, eyes never quite leaving Nellie. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Everybody has their off days.”
• • •
It has been days since she’d last seen Dean. Since she’d screamed and sobbed and watched his spirit retreat with a wounded look in his eyes. And he hasn’t come back. His room feels emptier than ever before. It was full of energy and preserved memories. Now its walls are hollow, feeling too large and simultaneously too small. All because she yelled at Dean; the man who showed up, who didn’t have to visit her beyond the grave, who stopped her from killing herself in that shelter. He is truly her guardian angel and now so much more. He became her father when he didn’t have to. He could have continued enjoying Heaven uninterrupted, unburdened. But he chose to be there for her. If it wasn’t for Dean, she would’ve been a mess for some poor volunteer to have to deal with. She wouldn’t have met Sam, Eileen, the little boy named after her own father.
Looking back at his reappearance, Nellie isn’t really mad at Dean. Sure, he lied about who re really is to her. But unlike other people in her past, he did it for her benefit and safety. Considering what he did for a living, she understands his secrecy. She hadn’t really thought about him visiting again after this revelation, not after everything she went through for the past two months. Not that she forgot his visits but rather didn’t full grasp it until he came back. It was like all that anger she was supposed to feel against her mother, the woman who hated her, who held her hostage and attempted to murder her, went onto Dean. It wasn’t his fault, nor was it her’s.
Nellie realizes how much she needed him the last couple of months. She wishes he was there to comfort her in the hospital, when she couldn’t see and had a machine filtering medicine into her lungs. Or when she dreamed about her failing to save Sam or reliving the motel fire and Roger’s death. Hell, even sitting in his own damn car while Sam drove to the bunker, after some witch-or conduit-tried to kill her and her cousin. But he wasn’t. Nellie is sure that he had his reason that.
She recalls the last time she saw him. It was about a month before she received her test results. She was so excited to him about it, how Roger encouraged her to look for her father, how she worked extra shifts at the diner and even took a couple odd jobs just to afford it. She wonders how Dean was feeling about this news. In the moment, he looked happy for her and even a bit excited. But how much of that was an act? Did he even want her to find out? Did he not know how to break the news to her?
Honestly, she is surprised at that she didn’t put the pieces together that Dean was the same Dean on the DNA paperwork. Sure, it’s a relatively common name and she never knew his last name. Maybe her excitement over finally having a name for the man that was absent her whole life blinded her from logic. If she had known about the hunting world earlier, maybe she would have come to that conclusion a lot faster. No. Nellie can’t be mad at him. Both are still learning on how to be father and daughter, how to be a family. But does he want that? He hasn’t been since that night. Maybe she drove him away.
She unfurls herself from the bed, slowly walking over to the closet. It is still relatively bare, only a couple outfit pieces hanging in a calming haze of the lavender detergent that Eileen uses. She reaches up, pulling a worn flannel off the hanger. The one she found hanging on the desk chair. After Dean left that night, she couldn’t bear looking at it without guilt flooding her chest. But now, this maybe the only way to connect with him. She doesn’t put it on this time. She just curls back on the bed, holding it close to her chest, like how the little Dean holds his favorite stuffed animal when he sleeps. Tears slip down her cheeks, wetting the shirt she holds like a lifeline. There are faints notes of whiskey, gunpowder, and earth with undertones of wood and motor oil. Something about these scents is strangely comforting. They make her feel safe, feel seen. And that breaks her more. She doesn’t even realize how tightly she holds it until the fabric creases hard in her fists, her knuckles aching with the pressure. She buries her face in it. Her chest hurt. Her throat burns.
“I didn’t mean to yell,” she whispers, her voice barely audible.
Silence.
“I didn’t mean to send you away.”
The shadows do not stir. No cold breeze. No flicker of light. No presence.
Nellie curls tighter into herself, her body trembling. “I’m so sorry, Dean,” she cries, lungs already burning. “I’m sorry for failing you. For not being a good daughter.”
She gasps on a sob. The words come like a trickle first, then a flood. “I’m sorry,” she says, over and over again. Her voice cracking, then starts again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” The flannel absorbs her tears, her grip never loosening.
“I miss you,” she whispers through a tight throat. “I thought I’d never see you again. I thought you were gone for good. I thought…”
The air shifts.
She freezes.
A warmth—gentle and strange—settles in the room. No wind, no dramatic light show. Just… a presence. Familiar. Steady. Unmistakable. Then—
“You know,” a low voice drawls from behind her, a little rough, a little amused, “for someone who thinks I’m not coming back… you sure know how to summon me.”
Her breath catches.
She slowly lifts her head. The flannel slides from her fingers.
Her heart beats like thunder in her ears.
Nellie turns toward the voice so fast her vision blurs. He stands near the edge of the room, soft in the way spirits are, his edges a little hazy, but unmistakably Dean. Leather jacket, boots, that same smirk that had tried to lighten the worst nights of her life.
She stares at him, wide-eyed and breathless. Her body moves before her mind can catch up, scrambling up off the bed. “You—” she starts, but her throat closes again.
Dean gives her a look, gentle, almost sheepish. “Hey, kid.”
That breaks her.
Nellie stumbles forward, more of a lurch than a step, and then stops just short of him, realizing she can’t hug him, can’t touch him like she wants to. Instead, she just stands there, shoulders trembling, the flannel clutched in her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, voice cracking. “I didn’t mean, when you showed up, I was so mad, I just—”
He shakes his head. “No. Don’t do that. Don’t apologize for feeling what you felt. Hell, I had it coming.”
Her eyes search his face, blurred and swimming with tears. “I thought you were gone. For good.”
“I figured maybe you needed time,” he replies, quieter now. “Didn’t wanna push it.”
“I’m glad you came back,” she says, voice wobbling.
Dean offers a small smile. “Me too.”
Silence stretches, warm, but fragile.
Nellie looks down, voice softer now. “I… I think I understand now. Why you didn’t tell me who you were. That night. In the shelter.”
His smile fades into something sadder, deeper. “Yeah?”
She nods. “You didn’t want to hurt me. Not when I was already falling apart.”
He exhales slowly, like the weight of that truth has settled in his chest too. “It wasn’t my place to drop that on you. Not then.”
“I don’t think I would’ve believed you anyway,” she admits. “Or maybe I would’ve, and it would’ve broken me worse.”
He looks at her, proud and pained all at once. “But you didn’t break.”
She lets out a shaky laugh, brushing a tear from her cheek. “Not completely, anyway.”
“You got stronger,” he says. “Even after everything. That’s… that’s something.”
She gives him a sad little smile, eyes glinting with tears. “I only got stronger because I thought someone out there actually cared.”
Dean's eyes flick to the flannel still clenched in her hand. “Guess I wasn’t very subtle.”
Nellie hugs the shirt to her chest again. “You were just enough.”
His voice lowers. “I never stopped watching over you, Nellie. Even when you didn’t know. Even when you were pissed at me. I ain’t going anywhere.”
His eyes wander across the room, his old room. It still smells faintly of leather and motor oil, the ghost of classic rock lingering like a memory in the walls. His gaze lands on the familiar details: the worn dresser, the old cassette player, the cluttered nightstand now with Nellie’s hairbrush resting on it like it had always been there.
“You picked the best room in the bunker,” Dean says, lips tugging upward.
Nellie raises a brow, half-smirking. “So says the original occupant.”
He shoots her a quick wink.
Her expression softens, a mix of curiosity and realization flickering in her eyes. “You were the one who unlocked the door, weren’t you?”
He hesitates for half a second, just long enough to confirm it without needing words. “Figured it oughta be open for the right person.”
Her eyes scan the room. “I felt… pulled to it. I didn’t know why.”
He gives a small nod. “You were always gonna end up here, one way or another.”
There is a moment of quiet, heavy with the unspoken layers of fate, blood, and belonging.
Nellie takes a breath, the question sitting heavy on her chest. “Do you… know what’s happened since I saw you last?”
Dean’s jaw ticks faintly. His posture changes just a little, still relaxed, but more braced now. “Yeah,” he answers after a pause. “I’ve seen some of it.”
Her voice comes out hushed. “All of it?”
He looks at her, eyes suddenly older than they had been a second ago. “I saw the motel fire. I saw what your mother did. I saw Sam find you.”
Her expression falters, just slightly.
“I saw you keep going when you could’ve quit,” he adds, voice rough. “When you should’ve, probably. But you didn’t.”
She steps closer to him, brow furrowing with something between awe and grief. “So… the break-in? The one at Sam and Eileen’s? You saw that?”
He nods. “I couldn’t do much. But I saw enough to know that you saved that little guy.”
She looks away at that, guilt flashing in her eyes. “I couldn’t stop the intruder. Not really.”
Dean's voice drops, steady and sure. “You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You protected him. You fought. You stayed on your feet longer than most hunters I’ve known would’ve.”
Nellie looks up at him again, her eyes glassy. “I’ve been trying to understand it all—why it happened, what I’m supposed to do next.”
He gives a small shrug. “Sometimes there’s no clean reason. Sometimes the world’s just cruel. But you’re still here. And that means something.”
She smiles faintly, eyes still rimmed with red. “You sound like you’ve given that speech before.”
“Too many times,” he mutters, then gave a small grin. “Usually to myself.”
She lets out a soft laugh through her nose, just enough to ease the air.
He looks at her then—really looks. “But I’m proud of you. You know that, right?”
She blinks, startled. “Even after everything?”
“Especially after everything.”
Nellie’s throat tightens, and she nods slowly, barely able to hold his gaze. “Thanks,” she whispers.
The silence that settles this time isn’t heavy. It isn’t filled with grief or uncertainty. It is warm. Tentative, but whole.
Dean shifts his stance; hands tucked in his jacket pockets as he glances toward her. “So… how’s the vision? You still walkin’ into walls or is it all just blurry edges now?”
A faint laugh escapes Nellie’s lips. “I can see that stupid smirk on your face, if that’s what you’re wondering. I still trip over Dean’s toys like… hourly.”
“Yeah, well,” he says with a half-grin, “Welcome to the family tradition of bodily injury. Though most of mine were more beer-fueled.”
She rolls her eyes fondly, then grows a little more serious. “Did you know?” she asks. “About… the abilities?”
His grin fades. He shakes his head. “No. I didn’t. I mean… I knew you had somethin’ special in you. You always had that kinda… spark. But those psychic flash-bangs? That was news to me too.”
She studies him, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “It’s just—it scares me. I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know what it means. What if it turns me into someone I don’t want to be?”
Dean steps closer, voice lower now. “Hey. Listen to me. That thing inside you? It doesn’t define you. It’s not good or bad—it’s just power. What you do with it? That’s what matters.”
Nellie hesitates. “You make it sound easy.”
He gives a lopsided smile. “It’s not. But you’ve got Sam. And Eileen. And that little dude who thinks you hung the moon. You’re not in this alone.”
She looks down, her voice a notch softer. “I’ve always felt like a freak, Dean. Even before the abilities. I was never normal. Grew up in a house that hated silence but never listened. Got used to being invisible, until I was a problem. People either ignored me or hurt me. That was normal.”
His jaw tenses. His eyes don’t leave her. “You’re not a freak.”
She looks up, skeptical.
“I mean it,” he says, stepping closer. “You’re not some mistake or monster. You’re Nellie Winchester. My kid. And I am so damn proud of you.”
Her breath catches. Did he just… call her a Winchester? Her throat tightens with tears she doesn’t want to cry.
Dean sees it but doesn’t call it out. He just adds quietly, “You’re here. After everything. Still standing. That makes you a hell of a lot stronger than most people I’ve known.”
Nellie nods, swallowing the lump in her throat. “You really think so?”
His voice cracks the faintest bit. “I know so.”
The moment stretches; quiet, full, and real.
“You’ve got this, kiddo,” he says sweetly. “And when the time comes, you’ll figure out what that power of yours is for.”
She blinks fast, smiling a little. “That’s kinda corny.”
He smirks. “Yeah, well. You get the flannel; you get the life advice.”
Nellie tucks her legs beneath her on the bed, looking up at him. “So… how’d you find out about me? I mean, Heaven’s not exactly the kind of place I imagined surprise family announcements happening.”
Dean chuckles, just once. “You’d be surprised. Not long after I got topside—Heaven-side, I mean—Cas came to me. Said there was somethin’ I needed to know. Looked like he was bracing for me to lose it.”
She tilts her head, recognizing the name. “Cas… Like Castiel? Sam mentioned him. Your angel friend?”
“The one and only,” he says with a fond huff. “Apparently, there was this small group of angels that knew about you, kept you off the radar. Protected you without anyone else knowing. They didn’t trust Heaven’s higher-ups. With good reason, back then.”
She absorbs that quietly, brows knitting. “So, I really was forgotten.”
His face softens. “No. You were hidden. From the people who would’ve used you or twisted you into somethin’ you’re not. But maybe that’s what kept you safe so far.”
She nods slowly, letting that sink in. “And when Castiel told you…”
He shrugs, almost sheepish. “I asked to see you.”
There is a pause. Then Nellie’s voice drops, trembling just slightly. “What did you think… when you saw me?”
Dean’s smile fades, gaze heavy with memory. “I thought… Hell, I don’t even know. Shock, mostly. It was like staring down a mirror and not. You looked like me. It scared the hell outta me… but it wasn’t just that.”
She doesn’t interrupt. She waits.
“You were alone,” he says finally. “Hurting. I could see it, even if I didn’t know the whole story. And Cas said I shouldn’t interfere, just observe. But I couldn’t. Not when I saw you.”
Her eyes shimmer. “You didn’t have to stay. You could’ve gone back. You were in Heaven.”
“I know,” he replies simply. “But you were down here. And… I didn’t want to be like my old man.”
That catches her off guard.
He continues, quieter now. “John Winchester was a lot of things. Some good. Some bad. But he left more than he should’ve. And when I found out I had a daughter—Hell, even after I died—I couldn’t stomach the idea of not trying. I didn’t want to be another ghost you never knew haunted you.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Besides, it’s not every day your best angel buddy tells you that you have a kid. I was curious. And I stayed because… because you needed someone. And you didn’t even know it.”
Nellie’s voice is small. “I did.”
Dean gives a half-smile. “Yeah. And the way you looked at me when I showed up the first time—like maybe you didn’t believe it, but you wanted to… that hit me harder than I thought. I didn’t want to break you more than you already were. You were hangin’ by a thread, Nell. And if I’d told you who I was… that might’ve shattered somethin’ you couldn’t put back together yet.”
Silence falls again, full of unspoken things.
After a beat, Nellie asks, tears threating to spill, “Do you regret it? Meeting me like that?”
“Not even for a second.”
She hesitates, her voice quiet against the hum of the room. Silence filling the space awkwardly.
“I told Sam I want to be a hunter.”
Dean doesn’t react right away. He just looks at her for a long moment, reading her face like a page he isn’t quite ready to turn. Then finally, he gives a small sigh, raking a hand down his jaw.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “I figured that was comin’.”
His voice isn’t disappointed, but it isn’t exactly thrilled, either. It is something else. Heavy. Protective. Familiar.
“You’re not mad?” she asks carefully.
“Nah,” he says. “Not mad. You? You’d make a damn good one. I can already tell.”
“But?” she prompts.
He chuckles under his breath. “There’s always a ‘but,’ sweetheart.”
He moves across the room, resting one hand on the corner of the desk, facing her more directly now. “You remember that night we first met?” he asks. “That moment… you were gonna give up. You didn’t. You fought your way back from it. And then the world didn’t get easier after that. If anything, it kept throwin’ crap at you. You kept surviving.” He pauses, eyes meeting hers, a father’s love stitched in every glance. “And that’s why I know you’ve got it in you. The grit. The fire. The stubborn-ass backbone that every decent hunter needs.”
Nellie waits, sensing the weight that hasn’t dropped yet.
“But?” she repeats, softer.
Dean exhales, slow and steady. “But I already almost lost you once.”
Her expression flickers.
His voice drops. “I still see that night sometimes—your hands shaking, your eyes red. That kid sitting alone in a shelter, thinking she was better off gone.” His throat bobs. “And now, knowing what I know, knowing you’re mine? That almost breaks me all over again.”
She opens her mouth, but he raises a hand gently.
“I get it. You’re grown. You get to make your own choices. And I won’t be the guy who tells you not to live your life. But hunting… hunting is a full-throttle, no-brakes kind of life. You give it everything, and sometimes it still takes more than it gives. It’s bloody. It’s lonely. And it ends badly more often than not.”
“But it can save people,” Nellie says. “That has to count for something.”
Dean nods. “It does. It counts for everything. Just…” He pauses again, visibly struggling for the right words. “I don’t want you to run headfirst into this because it’s the first time something’s felt right. I want you to do it because you know it’s right. Because you’re ready for what it’ll take from you.”
She straightens a little, jaw tight, but not defensive. “I do know. I’ve been drifting my whole life. Always just… going with it. Surviving, like you said. But now? Now I want to live. I want to fight for people. For the ones who can’t. For Dean, for Sam, for Eileen. For the version of me that thought she didn’t matter. This matters.”
He swallows, clearly fighting emotion.
“You sound like your uncle,” he says. “And, hell, you sound like me.”
She cracks a small, shy smile. “Is that a compliment?”
“The highest kind,” he says, voice thick. “Doesn’t mean I’m not scared outta my damn mind.”
“But?”
He gives a lopsided grin. “But I’m proud of you anyway.”
His gaze softens as he took her in: his daughter, full of pain and power and fight and fire, sitting cross-legged in a bed he used to crash into after hunts. In a room that used to carry the smell of leather and oil and gunpowder, now laced with soft shampoo and the faintest trace of lavender.
Dean straightens a little, his voice lower now. “Listen, kid… I might not be able to pop in all the time. And sometimes you won’t see me. Might not even feel me. But I’ll be here. I’ll always be around. Watching out.”
Nellie blinks hard, trying to breathe past the emotion clogging her chest. “Promise?”
He gives her a small, sure nod. “Yeah. I promise. I’ll keep checking in on you. And if things ever get bad—like really bad—you just call out, alright? Doesn’t have to be loud. Doesn’t even have to be out loud. I’ll hear it.”
She swallows the lump in her throat. “You’re gonna keep haunting me, huh?”
He flashes a crooked smile. “Only the cool kind of haunting.”
She laughs, watery but real. That sound alone nearly wrecks him.
Dean takes a breath, more serious again. “I do have one favor to ask though.”
Nellie looks up. “Anything.”
He hesitates. “Don’t tell Sam I’m coming around.”
Her brow furrows. “Why not?”
He shifts where he stands, suddenly seeming heavier with a different kind of grief. “Sam… he mourned me. Buried me. Burned the bones. Did the whole goodbye thing. He’s got a life now. He’s happy—or trying to be. And I don’t wanna shake that up. You know how he is. If he knew I was around, even just like this, he’d start lookin’ for ways to talk to me, bring me back, fix it somehow. That’s not what I want for him.”
“You miss him.”
“Every damn day,” he admits. “But he’s living his life. Raising that boy. Loving Eileen. Researching lore like it’s a second language. He’s where he’s supposed to be.”
Nellie holds his eyes. “So are you.”
That quiet hits hard.
Dean looks down, lips twitching into the smallest, proudest smile. “Yeah. Guess I am.”
“I won’t tell,” she says softly. “I promise.”
“Thanks, sweetheart.”
He lingers a second longer, reluctant.
“Try to get some sleep,” he says finally. “Big day tomorrow, probably full of lore and coffee and a little boy demanding Goldfish crackers.”
“Sounds about right.”
Dean nods, stepping back into the dark just slightly.
“I love you, Nellie.”
It slips out quiet. Almost like a breath.
Nellie blinks, stunned for a beat. Then whispers, voice trembling, “I love you too.”
And just like that, he is gone.
The air shifts. The room stills.
She sits in the quiet, blanket drawn up over her legs, Dean’s flannel now wrapped tightly around her shoulders like a promise she can wear. She lays back against the pillows, the weight of grief easing for the first time in a long while and lets herself sleep.
• • •
The warm, amber light of the bunker’s reading lamps pool on the long wooden table. Books are stacked in organized chaos; leather-bound volumes on psychic phenomena, ancient symbols, and yellowing journals annotated in Sam's steady hand. Somewhere deeper in the bunker, the faint echo of Eileen's voice calling softly to Dean can be heard, then fades into silence.
Nellie steps into the library, her footsteps soft but certain. Her vision has improved. Blurry edges now mostly faded into clarity, but she still blinks often, wary of betraying how new everything still feels. She pauses near the entrance, running her hand along the doorframe as if tethering herself to something solid.
Sam is buried in a tome the size of a small tombstone, his brows furrowed.
“You need a research assistant?” Nellie asks lightly, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice.
He looks up, surprised but smiling. “Sure. You offering, or just bored?”
She shrugs, stepping closer. “A little of both.”
He shuts the book gently, exhaling. “Actually… I’ve been thinking. It might be time we try to figure out what your abilities are, what we’re really dealing with.”
She tilts her head. “You mean like… tests?”
“Yeah,” he nods, pulling a smaller journal closer to him, one with a Men of Letters insignia burned into the leather. “The Men of Letters compiled all kinds of experimental trials, lore records, and psychic profiles. Some are outdated, but it’s a start. You’ve already shown reflex-based telekinesis, and some kind of repelling force. But we need to understand your range. Triggers. Burnout. Control.”
Nellie’s gaze drifts to the books around them, to the solemn stillness of the library, to the way his voice softens when he isn’t trying to scare her with all this but guide her through it.
“I… I don’t really know how to start,” she admits. “It’s not like I flip a switch. Every time I’ve done anything, it just… happened. Like muscle memory I didn’t know I had.”
Sam nods. “Instinctual response. That’s how a lot of early psychics operated. That doesn’t mean it can’t be refined.”
He stands, gathering a few notes and one of the smaller field manuals. “I’ll take you down to the warded room. We’ll keep it controlled. Eileen’s with Dean and I already swept the perimeter earlier, so it’s just us.”
He pauses. “Can we… not do it around Dean? Just in case.”
“Already taken care of,” he reassures gently. “I wouldn’t risk him either.”
She nods, drawing in a breath and squaring her shoulders. “Alright. Let’s see what kind of freak I really am.”
He gives her a look. “You’re not a freak, Nellie.”
She smiles thinly. “I know. Still feels like it sometimes.”
He holds her gaze for a moment before turning toward the hallway. “Come on. Let’s go find out what makes you tick.”
The warded room is colder than the rest of the bunker, both in temperature and in feeling. The stone walls are etched with protective sigils. Metal shelves line the far wall, housing a variety of supernatural tools and artifacts under protective casing. A long table has been cleared in the center of the room. A few wooden chairs. Nothing overtly threatening, but it feels clinical. Controlled.
Nellie steps in hesitantly, her boots scuffing against the stone floor. She looks up at the markings with curiosity and something just shy of apprehension. Sam comes in behind her, his hands full with a notebook, a small EMF reader, a glass of water, and what looked like a homemade psychic amplifier: a palm-sized crystal orb wired to copper coils.
Nellie eyes it. “That thing better not electrocute me.”
He cracks a small smile. “It won’t. It’s just a focus tool. Most psychics don’t need it, but some say it helps with centering attention.”
She folds her arms across her chest, looking around. “So… how does this work? I’m supposed to just… bend spoons with my mind?”
“Not unless you really want to,” he replies. He sets the items on a nearby table, then turns to face her more fully, softening his posture. “You don’t have to be afraid. I know this looks like something out of a sci-fi experiment, but this isn’t about forcing something out of you. It’s about understanding it, so you’re not caught off guard again.”
She gives him a tight nod, clearly nervous.
Seeing it, Sam leans against the edge of the table and offers her something steadier. “Back when I was around your age, I started showing signs. Headaches. Nightmares that came true. Visions. And eventually… things I could do. Things I didn’t ask for. I hated it.”
Nellie looks at him, surprised. “You didn’t want it?”
“I didn’t know what it was,” he answers. “And when I found out what caused it—what was in my blood, it scared the hell out of me. I didn’t trust it. And I didn’t trust myself.” He lets that hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “But I also learned that not all powers are curses. They’re tools. Just like anything else. The difference is how you use them—and whether you let them control you.”
She swallows hard. “What if they’re dangerous? What if I’m dangerous?”
He steps closer, lowering his voice. “Then we learn how to control it. Together. You’re not alone in this, Nell. You never will be again.”
That cracks something inside her. The knot of tension in her chest loosens slightly.
She nods again, firmer this time. “Okay. What’s first?”
He smiles a little and flipped open his journal. “We’ll start small. Focus. Awareness. Let’s see what your instincts want to show us.”
Nellie sits down in one of the wooden chairs, her palms resting on her knees. Her back is straight, posture tense but trying not to be. Sam stands a few feet away, pen in hand. The copper-and-crystal focus device sits quietly on the table beside her, inert.
“Okay,” he says gently. “We’ll start with something simple—sensory reading. It’s one of the first abilities to show up in psychics. Doesn’t require touch or sight, just attention.”
She gives a skeptical look. “You want me to close my eyes and feel the Force or something?”
He smirks. “If that helps, go for it.”
She huffs a quiet laugh, then closes her eyes.
“Just breathe,” he says, keeping his voice calm. “In through your nose… out through your mouth. Good. Now… there’s an object on the table in front of you. I want you to tell me anything you sense from it. Don’t try to force it. Just listen. If you feel anything… temperature, energy, emotion… say it.”
Silence.
Nellie’s fingers curl slightly on her lap, tension pressing against her knuckles.
“I don’t feel anything,” she murmurs.
“That’s okay. Keep breathing. Let your mind wander. Don’t reach for something. Wait for it to come to you.”
Another long pause.
And then—
“…It’s… cold,” she says softly.
Sam’s head lifts.
She doesn’t open her eyes. “Not cold like ice. Cold like… the way a basement feels. Or a hospital. It’s sterile. Empty.”
He scribbles a note. “Any emotion attached?”
Nellie tilts her head as if tuning a radio station.
“…Lonely,” she says. “Like… someone held it who was scared. Or left alone with it. It’s small. Metal. Kind of sharp.”
She opens her eyes. Her gaze drifts to the item, her expression telling Sam she isn’t entirely surprised by what she sees. It is a surgical scalpel sealed in a protective case.
“Good,” he says, voice calm but visibly impressed. “That’s really good. You picked up on emotional residue.”
She exhales shakily, not sure whether to smile or panic. “It just sort of… came to me.”
“That’s what we want. Recognition. You didn’t force it.”
“That wasn’t as terrifying as I thought.”
“We’re just getting started,” he replies, but with a reassuring tone. “Want to try something stronger?”
Nellie pauses, swallowed, then nods. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
Sam marks the next test in his notes, stepping over to a locked cabinet. As he unlocks it, Nellie glances around the room again; sigils that litter the entire room, the stone beneath her solid and unmoving, and for the first time in a long time, she doesn’t feel powerless. He pulls something out of the cabinet and sets the next item on the table between them: an old iron candlestick holder, heavy and cracked near the base. She eyes it uncertainly.
Sam flips to a new page in the notebook. “So far, your abilities have surfaced in high-stress, high-emotion moments. That’s not uncommon.”
Nellie’s hands twitch in her lap. “You mean, like when I thought I was going to die? Or when someone was trying to hurt Dean?”
“Exactly,” Sam says carefully. “It’s instinct. Your power is defensive, reactive. Which means we might be able to coax it out by accessing that same emotional space—but in a safe, controlled way.”
She raises an eyebrow. “And how do you plan on doing that?”
He hesitates, then says, “I’m going to say a few things that might upset you.”
Her expression immediately shuts down.
“Not cruel,” he adds quickly, “just… enough to agitate the surface. Think of it like kindling. We’re not lighting a fire; we’re just warming the air.”
She gives a dry huff. “You’re really bad at metaphors.”
He smiles faintly. “Dean used to say the same thing.”
That sobers them both for a beat.
Finally, Nellie nods. “Alright. Let’s try.”
She sits up a little straighter, grounding her feet to the floor. The iron candlestick still sitting untouched on the table, inert and perfectly mundane. For now.
Sam takes a breath. “Close your eyes again.”
She does.
He speaks slowly, deliberately. “You’re back in the motel. The room is on fire. Smoke is pouring in. You can’t see. Your ears are ringing. You hear a child crying—Dean—but you can’t reach him. You can’t move.”
Her breathing hitches.
“You know something is coming for him. You feel it in your gut. You have seconds.”
Nellie’s hands clench.
“You hear your mother’s voice. You smell her perfume. You feel her hand on your shoulder, pulling you back.”
The air in the room shifts, barely perceptible, like static.
“Dean screams. You try to move but you can’t. You’re blind. You’re helpless.”
The candlestick trembles slightly on the table.
Sam leans forward. “What do you do?”
Nellie’s voice comes out tight. “I stop it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
There is a pause.
Then, without warning, the candlestick jerks forward, as if shoved by an invisible hand, skittering an inch across the table before slamming to a stop.
Nellie’s eyes fly open. She looks down, stunned. Her hands haven’t moved.
Sam blinks. “You just pushed that. Telekinetically.”
She stares at the candlestick like it might jump again. “I didn’t… try. It just happened.”
“That’s what we wanted,” he states, voice low with awe. “Triggered by instinct. The beginning of control.”
She looks up at him, breath still shaky. “So what now?”
“Now,” he says, “we help you learn how to do that on purpose.”
He scribbles a few notes, occasionally glancing over at his niece. She leans back in the chair now, hands in her lap, eyes watching the table with a mixture of exhaustion and apprehension.
“You okay?” he asks, not for the first time.
Nellie nods, but her voice is quieter than before. “A little tired. Like I’ve been running uphill in my head.”
Sam’s brows knit in concern. “Good to know. You’re not dizzy? No ringing in your ears? No nausea?”
“Nope.” She gives him a half-smile. “But if I start levitating, I’m blaming you.”
He huffs out a quiet laugh. “Fair. But let’s keep things grounded for now.” He reaches down and picks up the candlestick again, setting it back in the center of the table. “So far, everything you’ve done has been instinctual. The next step is to focus. Not on emotion, but intent.”
“Like, will it to happen?”
“Exactly,” he says. “We’re not trying to scare you into using it. I want to see if you can access the ability by aiming your concentration at an object.”
She nods slowly. “Alright. I can try.”
“Pick a target,” he says, tapping the candlestick gently. “Then try to push it again. Don’t rush. Just… breathe and focus.”
Nellie shifts forward, sitting upright again. Her fingers curl around the edges of the seat, grounding herself. Sam stands quietly off to the side, watching closely. She stares at the candlestick.
The room feels still, heavier, even, and though the silence stretches, she doesn’t break it. Her eyes lock onto the object, and a crease forming in her brow.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Then—
The candlestick wobbles slightly. Not from a sudden force, but a subtle, sustained tremor. It shivers in place, as though caught in a low hum of energy. She breathes sharply through her nose, trying to steady it—
—and the movement stops.
Nellie’s shoulders slump. “I lost it,” she mutters.
“No,” Sam tells her gently, stepping closer. “You held it. That wasn’t instinct. That was you.”
She blinks, then looks at the object again.
“Can we try something smaller?” she asks. “That thing’s like five pounds.”
He smiles faintly. “Sure.” He pulls a penny from his pocket and sets it in front of her. “Let’s scale it down.”
She nods and leans forward again. The coin begins to vibrate after only a few seconds. Then it slides, almost imperceptibly, across the table. Not far. But intentional.
She gasps softly. “Okay. That felt different.”
His voice is calm but energized. “You’re doing great. We’ll stop soon, I promise. But one more thing before we wrap—” He hands her a new object: a pencil. “Try lifting it.”
Her eyes widen. “Lift it?”
“You don’t have to succeed,” he says quickly. “Just try. It’ll help us see how far this goes.”
Nellie stares at the pencil, more uncertain now. But she takes a breath, eyes narrowing.
Seconds passed.
The pencil twitches. Wobbles.
And then, slowly, unsteadily, it raises maybe half an inch off the table.
She gasps. The pencil drops.
Sam lets out a stunned breath. “Okay. That’s… big.”
Nellie leans back in her chair, panting a little now.
He frowns, watching her face. “You good?”
She nods again. “Yeah. But that… that took a lot.”
“You’ve already pushed yourself pretty hard,” he says gently. “We can pick this up another time.”
Nellie shakes her head. Her muscles ache, her brain is already foggy from the earlier rounds, but she isn’t done. She can’t be done yet. “No. I want to keep going.”
Sam studies her for a long moment. That look he gives her—equal parts brother, uncle, and hunter—cuts deeper than any word could. But he doesn’t fight her on it. He just sighs and gestures towards the last object on the table: an old, leather-bound journal.
“Just this one,” he says. “Then we stop.”
She nods once and approaches it slowly, each step echoing in the silence. The leather is worn smooth from years of use, familiar in a way she can’t explain. Her fingers hover over the cover. Her heartbeat tapping nervously in her ears.
Focus, she tells herself. Just like before.
Her fingertips meet the leather.
The air snaps.
Something surges, cold and electric. The sigils on the walls flared, white-hot and blinding, and a low, unnatural hum rises from the corners of the room like a growl made of static.
“Sam?” Her voice barely makes it out before the journal lifts off the table and flies backward, slamming into the wall with a sickening thud. Lightbulbs burst. And the table cracks down the middle.
And then comes the pain.
Like something inside her skull has burst.
Nellie drops to her knees with a strangled cry, clutching her head as a stabbing, icepick-sharp headache tears through her. Her nose is bleeding, warm and metallic against her upper lip.
“I didn’t mean to,” she gasps. “It just—it just happened—”
Sam is beside her in seconds, kneeling in the fallout of broken lights and scorched floor. He pulls her close, steadying her shaking frame with both arms.
“I know. I know. You’re okay.”
But she isn’t. The pressure behind her eyes, the tingling burn in her veins, it all feels too much, like her body isn’t meant to carry what is inside it. She curls into herself, hiding her face in Sam’s shirt as blood smears across her hand and temple.
The bunker lights flicker. Somewhere, deep in the wiring, the system groans.
Sam doesn’t let go. He peels off his flannel and wipes her face, soft and careful. His other hand anchors between her shoulder blades, solid and steady.
“You’re alright,” he murmurs, voice low like a prayer. “You’re safe. It’s over now.”
She doesn’t answer. Can’t. Her body is still trembling, the aftershock of whatever that had been echoing through her bones. She has touched something—something deep. And it has answered.
Footsteps echo from down the hall, urgent. The bunker lights still flicker faintly, buzzing overhead like an old neon sign on the fritz.
“Sam?” Eileen’s voice cuts through the static-laced quiet. She steps into view, eyes sharp and scanning, hunter instincts on full display. One hand brushing the grip of a knife tucked at her side. Her gaze sweeps over the mess: the cracked table, the scorched edges of the floor, the air still heavy with ozone and something else, something charged. Then she sees Nellie, collapsed
into Sam’s chest, nose still streaking with blood, her knuckles scraped from the earlier recoil of psychic force. Eileen’s expression shifts instantly. She crosses the room in a heartbeat.
“Is she—?”
“She’s okay,” Sam says gently, helping Nellie sit up straighter. “We’re done for today.”
Nellie blinks blearily at Eileen, tears still wet on her lashes, but she tries to nod.
Eileen kneels beside them, her hand on her niece’s knee, grounding. Her eyes soften. “You scared us, kiddo.”
“I didn’t mean to,” the girl murmurs. “It just happened so fast. I touched the journal and…” Her words trail off as she glances over Eileen’s shoulder and sees the walls. The warded sigils still pulse. Not weakly. Brightly. Lit from within, like someone had carved power directly into the bunker’s bones and then set it on fire.
Eileen follows her gaze and stands slowly, tension creeping back into her spine. “Sam.”
He is already rising, crossing to one of the etched walls. His fingers hover above the nearest sigil. “They’re… stronger,” he says, half to himself. “I don’t know how, but these wards… they’ve been recharged.”
Eileen glances back at Nellie. She looks small, still sitting cross-legged on the floor, face pale beneath her bruises, but something deeper flickers in her eyes; fear, confusion, exhaustion… and something else. Something electric.
“Is that supposed to happen?” she asks quietly.
“No,” Sam answers honestly. “Not like this.”
He turns back toward the two women, brushing his hand through his hair. “That journal… it belonged to my dad, John Winchester. He kept everything in it—lore, symbols, patterns, tracking notes. It’s not magical in and of itself, but it’s steeped in everything he was. All the lives we saved. All the monsters we fought.”
Nellie looks down at her hands. “So… I touched legacy.”
Sam’s mouth tightens. “Yeah. And your powers responded to it.”
Eileen kneels again, gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind her niece’s ear. “That doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you, okay? It means your abilities are tied into this world deeper than we thought.”
“It felt like it wanted something from me,” Nellie whispers.
“Or maybe it was answering you,” Sam says softly. “Maybe it just… recognized something.”
She presses her pounding forehead into her hands, eyes squeezing shut, trying to breathe through the storm inside her.
“I can’t control it,” she whispers, voice cracking.
He exhales slowly. “You will. We just have to take it slow.”
She stares down at her trembling hands. Her pulse pounds in her ears louder than the flickering lights overhead. Her voice barely comes out above a whisper.
“Am I even safe to be around?”
Sam blinks at her, the question sinking in like a rock thrown into deep water. He looks at her, not just the girl who’s lit up the wardings like a lightning rod, not just the psychic anomaly he can’t yet fully understand, but the young woman who’s read bedtime stories to Dean, who flinches at the idea of hurting anyone, who’d carries more guilt than most people twice her age.
“Nellie,” he says gently. “You are not dangerous. Not to Dean, not to Eileen. Not to anyone here.”
Her head dips as a fresh wave of dizziness hit her, and she winces, gripping her temple. “It’s just… you saw what happened. The lights, the walls—what if something like that happens again and I—I can’t stop it?”
Eileen is beside her in a heartbeat, wrapping an arm around the girl’s shoulders and drawing her in. “Then we help you figure it out. That’s what we’re doing here.”
Nellie swallows hard, curling into her aunt’s touch, the adrenaline crash leaving her shaky and cold. She hates that her first instinct had been to distance herself. To pull away from the one place she finally started to think of as home.
“I don’t want to hurt him,” she says, voice thick. “I don’t want to hurt any of you.”
“You won’t,” Sam says, firm now. Not as the worried uncle or even the cautious hunter. This is the voice of someone who has walked through fire and remembers what it is like to doubt the blood in your veins. “I promise, Nellie. What happened today? That wasn’t you losing control. That was power responding to a trigger. The same way my powers used to. You’re not broken. You’re learning.”
Eileen leans her cheek against Nellie’s hair. “And if you need to rest for a couple days, that’s okay too. Your powers don’t run this place. You do.”
That breaks something in her. Her breath hitches, and she lets herself fold into Eileen’s arms, letting the headache, the nausea, the overwhelming pressure of the last hour bleed into tears.
They stay like this for a while, Sam quietly extinguishing the remaining candles in the room, double-checking the wards even though they now glow steadier than ever. When he finally returns, Nellie is calm, her skin still pale, her brow damp with exertion, but her breathing even again.
“We’ll run more tests when you’re ready,” Sam says softly. “Not before.”
Nellie nods weakly, her voice small but sincere. “Okay.”
He offers a hand. “Let’s get you out of here.”
With Eileen’s help, Nellie stands, legs shaky beneath her. They walk down the hallway, silent, towards Nellie’s room. Once there, Eileen gently helps the young woman lie back on the bed, fluffing one of the pillows and adjusting the throw blanket pulled over her. Her hand lingers on Nellie’s forehead, brushing a strand of hair away.
“You okay?” she asks softly.
Nellie gives a faint nod, her voice hoarse. “Yeah. Just… really tired.”
“You need anything?”
“Just… just a minute. I’ll be okay.” Her eyes drift close, and Eileen sits beside her for a moment longer, watching the rise and fall of her chest. Even now, Nellie clutches the edge of the comforter like a safety line. When the older woman stands, she leaves the door cracked just slightly, like a silent reassurance: You’re not alone.
Sam sits hunched over the same open book he’d been referencing earlier that day—an aged Men of Letters journal on psychic anomalies—but his eyes aren’t moving over the text anymore. They are distant, unfocused. His hand rubs the back of his neck, thumb digging into tense muscle.
He looks up when he hears Eileen’s steps.
“She’s resting,” she says, taking the seat across from him. “Headache, mostly. I left her with water and that heating pad she likes.”
He nods slowly. “Thanks.”
A quiet moment passes. The only sound is the soft hum of the bunker’s lights and the occasional turning of an old page as he absently flips to the next one.
Then Eileen folds her hands on the table.
“So,” she says carefully, “do you want to talk about what just happened in that room?”
Sam lets out a sigh and finally closes the book, laying it flat. “I’ve never seen psychic energy light up a warded space like that. Not even when I was at my strongest.”
“She practically recharged the entire room.”
“I know,” he sighs. “Which means her baseline power level isn’t just high—it’s volatile. Untapped, maybe even untrained, sure, but… there’s a depth there we haven’t seen the bottom of yet.”
Her brows pull together. “You’re worried.”
“Of course I’m worried.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “That journal belonged to Dad. It’s soaked in hunter energy—rituals, blood magic, monster lore. I had no idea it would provoke such a… reaction.”
“It was instinct,” Eileen offers gently. “That was her trying to connect to something. Or someone.”
“I know. That’s what scares me.” Sam’s voice drops, quieter now. “She doesn’t even know what she’s reaching for yet. That kind of power… It can either save people, or it can destroy her.”
She reaches over and rests her hand over his. “She’s not you.”
He meets her eyes, and something in his jaw clenches. “No,” he agrees, “but she’s Winchester.”
That sits between them, heavy and true.
“She’s also herself,” Eileen says, with quiet strength. “Kind. Brave. Stubborn as hell. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone, Sam. That matters.”
“It does,” he replies, after a beat. “But if someone—or something—is after her because of this? We’re going to need to figure it out. Fast.”
She gives a nod. “Then we start tomorrow. You and me. We’ll go through every Men of Letters record, every psychic file we’ve got.”
“And Nellie?”
“She rests. At least for a little while.”
Sam nods slowly, but his eyes drifted toward the hallway.
Towards the room that used to belong to his brother.
Towards the young woman who now lays inside it, caught between the past and something bigger than any of them yet understood.
• • •
Sleep pulls Nellie under not gently, but like a tide that doesn’t ask permission. One minute, her eyelids droop, heavy with the ache behind them. The next, she is sinking. No warmth, no peace. Just that strange, weighted feeling of knowing you are dreaming… but not in control of it.
Nellie walks.
Or rather, her body walks. She doesn’t remember standing up. She doesn’t want to move. But her limbs follow an invisible thread, as if tethered to some distant point she can’t see. Her bare feet creak across the wooden floors of the Winchester home. The air is chilled, unusually still. Even the bunker never feels this quiet.
The living room is awash in moonlight, casting stark shadows across the furniture, like long, reaching arms. Her breath hitches, but she can’t slow. Her legs move with that same slow deliberateness from before, like when she’d sleepwalked to the window. Like her soul has stepped aside and something else is driving the vessel of her body forward.
Ahead, the window.
The glass pane shimmers like a frozen lake beneath the pale light. She can’t see anything yet, but she felt the pull, deep in her gut, in her teeth, in the marrow of her bones. There is something outside. Something waiting.
Then, above the frame. There it is.
The sigil.
The one Sam had told her about. The one he said was meant for scrying. It pulses now, not white, not red. But black. An inky, liquid shadow throbbing faintly within its grooves, like it has awoken just for her.
She tries to look away.
She can’t.
Something shifts beyond the window, her eyes snapping to it before her mind can prepare.
The intruder. Tall. Hooded. Cloaked in shadows that don’t quite belong to this plane. Its face is hidden, but its presence rings through the air like a deep bell underwater. Still. Silent. Watching her.
Only the glass separates them.
No sound. No breath. Just the slow-burning knowledge that it isn’t just looking at her. It sees her. Beneath skin, beneath bone. Down to the very piece of her that had been touched by something unnatural.
Nellie’s heart beats fast. Her breath comes in sharp tugs. But she couldn’t move.
Then—like a whisper on the edge of her consciousness—one thought surfaced, clear and cold:
Not welcome.
The moment the thought struck, the sigil above her burst into a brighter glow. No longer pulsing, now blazing. The ink-dark energy bleeds from the grooves like fire in reverse, drawing in rather than pushing out.
The figure doesn’t run.
It shatters.
No sound. Just a burst of ash, like burnt paper curling in invisible wind, lifting from the porch. And in its wake, runes. Burning. Hanging midair like embers. Symbols she doesn’t recognize, but that she feels. In her chest. In the space behind her eyes.
She blinks.
The ash vanishes.
And just like that, her body is hers again.
Nellie stumbles backward from the window, gasping like she’d been held underwater and suddenly let go.
But when she turns—
The living room is gone.
She stands in the middle of thick, silent woods. The trees rise tall and close, their trunks bare of leaves but marked with… symbols.
Eyes.
Carved into bark, drawn in chalk, burned into the wood itself. Every tree bears one. Watching her. Unblinking. Each eye slightly different, but all the same cold shape.
Except one.
Her attention snaps to it before she could blink. The half-closed eye is etched deeper than the others. Blacker, older. Encircled in a twisting crown of thorns. Something about it feels alive, like it breathes in tandem with the darkness.
It pulses once.
A soundless heartbeat.
And then—
Nothing.
Nellie wakes with a jolt.
Her body snaps upright like someone has yanked her from deep water. Her breath comes fast and sharp. Cold sweat clings to her back. For a moment, she can’t tell where she is, until her hands grip the edge of the familiar quilt.
Her room. Dean’s room.
But the heavy thrum of her pulse hasn’t settled. And something warm slides down her lip.
She touches her nose, and her fingers come away red.
Blood. Again.
The room spins slightly when she stands, but she doesn’t stop. The images burned into her brain won’t fade. That symbol—that eye—it is still glowing behind her eyes.
Her bare feet pad quickly down the hallway. The cool tile of the bunker beneath her steps does little to ground her. She doesn’t bother wiping the blood. Her breath is shallow by the time she reached the library, where warm lamplight spills over towers of books and notes. Sam and Eileen sit side-by-side at the large oak table, combing through another round of lore. Sam’s head snaps up the second he hears her stumble in.
“Nellie?”
She doesn’t answer at first. Her eyes are wide, unfocused. A strange kind of electricity follows her into the room, heavy and silent. Eileen pushes back from the table, already halfway to her feet.
“Are you okay?” he asks, rising quickly when he sees the blood under her nose.
Nellie doesn’t stop walking. She moves toward the table, hands shaking slightly, and grabs the legal pad sitting beside Sam’s notes. She drops into the empty chair across from him, flipping to a blank page, and starts to draw with the stub of a pencil. Her fingers are fast but precise. Not frantic but driven.
Sam leans in, watching as she sketches the shape. A single half-closed eye. Thorns—meticulously winding around it in a rough circle. The lines are simple but carry a weight. An echo of something old.
She sets the pencil down only when it slips from her grip.
“I saw this,” she whispers, voice hoarse. “In my dream. It wasn’t like the others. I wasn’t just seeing it—I felt it. Like it knew me.”
Eileen kneels beside her, worry creasing deep in her brow. “You're bleeding again—Nellie, what happened?”
“I was back at your house,” Nellie murmurs, looking past both of them, like she isn’t fully rooted in the present. “Sleepwalking again… only not really. I couldn’t move my body. It was like something was guiding me. I saw the intruder outside the window. But this time, when I thought not welcome, it vanished. Disintegrated. And then—then I was somewhere else. In woods
I didn’t recognize. Trees covered in eyes. And one of them… this symbol. It stood out. It felt real. Important.”
Sam has gone very still; his gaze fixed on the drawing.
“You’re sure this was different from your usual dreams?”
She nods. “I felt stuck inside myself. And I’ve never had that happen before.”
Eileen gently presses a tissue to Nellie’s nose, tilting her chin to slow the bleeding. “Your head still hurt?”
Nellie gives a tight nod.
Sam sits back slowly, eyes now heavy with thought. “It could be the tests we ran earlier… maybe we stirred something up. Opened a channel that hadn’t fully closed.”
Eileen frowns. “Or this was waiting to get through, and her powers were just the key.”
The young woman looks at the sketch, then up at her uncle. “You said the people after me—they used runes. Symbols. Could this be connected?”
“I think it might be more than connected,” Sam says. “This might be the first real lead we’ve had.”
He looks again at the eye. Old. Watching. Thorn-crowned and half-lidded. A warning… or a signature. Something about it feels too deliberate to be random.
“This might be what we’ve been missing,” he adds, almost to himself. “And it may be the key to identifying who is after you.”
“What kind of sigil is that?” Nellie asks, her voice low and shaky.
He rubs his jaw, not answering right away. “It’s not a ritual sigil,” he finally says. “Not the kind you’d use to summon or bind something.”
“Then what is it?” Her eyes flick from him to the pad, then back. She can still feel the sensation of walking in her dream, of being trapped in her own limbs. Of staring out that living room window and seeing it… waiting.
“It’s a mark,” Sam answers quietly. “Of a group. A coven, probably.”
Nellie’s stomach twists. “So, it’s theirs?”
“I think so,” he says. “A lot of groups use symbolic branding—runes, glyphs, or sigils to mark territory or members. But this…” He trails off, flipping through one of the open lore books on the table. “This is different. It’s old. And obscure.”
“But it’s something,” she presses. “It’s a lead, right?”
He nods. “Yeah. You saw it in your dream before we ever came across it in our research. That means you tapped into something—maybe a connection to whatever’s targeting you.”
“It felt different,” she murmurs, her hand brushing over the back of her neck. “The dream. I wasn’t just seeing it. I was there. I could feel the air. The weight of the figure on the other side of the glass.”
Eileen looks at Sam. “It might’ve been a psychic echo. Triggered by how drained she was after the tests.”
“Or…” he adds, eyes narrowing on the drawn sigil, “maybe it was something more deliberate.”
Nellie sits down heavily at the edge of the nearest chair. “So now what?”
Sam lets out a breath and leans on the table with both hands. “Now we use this symbol to figure out who they are and how to stop them. That means more research, digging through whatever the Men of Letters kept on covens, particularly ancient ones. We’ll get there.”
“But in the meantime,” Eileen adds softly, “we need to make sure you're ready.”
Nellie’s brow furrows. “Ready?”
Sam glances toward her, his expression torn—half protectiveness, half reluctant acceptance. “If they come for you again—and I think they will—I want to make sure you can handle yourself.”
She blinks. “You’re saying you’ll train me?”
“I’m saying…” He looks down, then back at her. “I’d rather you be prepared than helpless. I can’t lose anyone else.”
Eileen gently places a hand on his back. He doesn’t shake it off.
“Training’s not easy,” he adds. “It’s long, and exhausting. But you’re strong, Nellie. And smart. And… you’ve got something. Maybe this power, maybe something else. But it’s worth preparing you.”
Nellie gives a small, weary nod, her fingers still lightly curling over the edge of the table. “Okay.”
“You sure?” Eileen asks, stepping beside her.
“I am,” she replies. “If something’s coming for me, I’m not just going to sit around and wait for it to strike.”
There is a beat of silence.
Then Sam straightens, determination settling in his face. “Alright. One day of recovery, and then, we start.”
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