Note: After I posted last week's chapter, this story flew past 100 votes within a few days! Thank you to everyone who reads, votes, and comments. Your support is invaluable. It means the world.

So, this is another of those chapters where you get little snapshots of Anna at all different ages and they're connected by a theme. In order by section, Anna is two, five, seven, nine, twelve, and then seventeen.

I did some quick edits on this today, so if you got an update notification, that's why <3

The Ace Up Your Sleeve

"She's very cute," Sean Rant remarked when John and Dean Winchester showed up at his front door in cheap suits with a two year old Anna sucking her thumb in John's arms. "Who knew a fed could be a family man?"

John cleared his throat and bounced Anna on his hip once. Perhaps it hadn't been such a good idea to bring his little girl with them to speak to a family grieving the loss of their three year old daughter. But Anna made a happy sound, pulling her thumb out of her mouth and reaching for her brother, standing beside them. "De!" she chirped in a sweet voice, and the man holding the door open smiled very sadly as he stepped aside to let them in.

"Yeah, she's a sweetheart, alright," John allowed and bounced the toddler again, distracting her from reaching for her brother. Once they were all inside, Sean closed the door and seemed to be waiting for them to speak first. "About your wife, Mr Rant..."

"Well, she..." The young man's face had gone somber, and he seemed to be gathering himself. He met John's serious gaze and said, "Look, she wouldn't talk to the police. I guess they just couldn't get through to her. She's beside herself. I mean, so am I... I just can't believe..." he trailed off and stared absently at Anna's little blonde curls. "She was just a baby."

"I am very very sorry for your loss, Mr Rant. I can't imagine," John said honestly. Subconsciously, he held Anna just a little bit tighter. "If we could ask you and your wife a few questions?"

"I wasn't here. I worked late that night," Sean explained shortly and gestured toward a short hallway. "She's in Laura's room. Has been since... You can talk to her, but I doubt she'll say anything to you."

"Thank you," Dean piped up from beside his father. "We'll find whoever did this, Sir. They won't get away with it."

Sean turned around, looking close to tears as his face crumpled a little. He didn't speak, probably because he refused to cry in front of two FBI agents. He just walked away down another hallway and a door could be heard creaking shut.

"Take your sister and talk to the mother. I'm goin' upstairs with the EMF reader," John said distinctly, no room for argument. He handed Anna to Dean, and she went willingly, babbling about nothing they could understand as Dean answered with a succinct yes, sir.

Anna's little hands patted her brother's clean-shaven face as they entered the deceased child's bedroom. It was like something out of a nightmare, entering a room full of zoo animal bed sheets, dolls, games, and soft, pastel colored everything to see a woman in her mid-twenties clutching a little stuffed rabbit in both hands and staring dead-eyed at its furry yellow ears. "Mrs Rant?" Dean called gently. He wished his geek brother hadn't had to go to school that morning, because Sam was really a hundred times better at having heart to hearts with grieving witnesses. "Your name is Adriannah?" The woman looked vaguely over her shoulder, but she said nothing, not even turning her head far enough to actually see Dean or the toddler he was holding.

Dean was actually really nervous about how this grieving mother would respond to seeing a toddler right now anyway, so he was grateful she had yet to lay eyes on Anna. That gratitude went right out the window when Anna suddenly started to hiccup and then sob where she was resting on Dean's hip.

"Hey, hey. What's the matter?" Dean asked gently and in a lighter tone of voice. He had a feeling Anna had picked up on the dark mood of the house and its inhabitants. "You're alright, Rugrat," he promised delicately, backing out of the room so as not to upset the stranger nearby.

"Wait," Adriannah suddenly said, her voice tight but also genuine. She stood up, looking just a little shaky, and took a couple steps toward them. There was so much pain in her eyes, it was hard to look at her. It was rare, for most people, to see a stranger when they were so vulnerable, with eyes stripped of the usual disguise of indifference or contentment. For Dean, it wasn't so unusual. They faced people like this nearly every day, people who'd lost so much so recently that they just couldn't spend the energy necessary to look okay. "Could I... Could I hold your daughter?" she requested evenly, though she looked like she might cry at any second.

Dean hesitated, one hand on the back of Anna's head as she sniffled and hiccuped into his shoulder. She was calming, though, and that was a good sign. Whatever had bothered her seemed to be passing. "Are you sure you...?" He wasn't really sure what he was trying to ask, but Adriannah seemed to understand.

"I'm alright," she insisted, then huffed a sad little laugh. "Well, actually, I'm as far from alright as I've ever been. But I'm balanced. I would never hurt her."

Dean smiled, a polite, uncomfortable little thing. He eased Anna away from his shoulder, and she looked up at him with watery green eyes that melted his heart. "She's pretty shy," he warned the woman, then looked back at his sister. "This is Adriannah, kiddo. You wanna say hi?"

Adriannah offered a sweet smile that gave away none of her heartbreak as she reached out both hands for the toddler Dean was holding. Anna seemed to take to her easily and allowed the woman to take her from Dean without a fuss. "Hi Adana," she greeted in a soft voice and stuck her thumb in her mouth.

Adriannah smiled a little wider, but it was obvious to Dean that it was only as a way of keeping herself from crying. "Hi, Angel." She smoothed back Anna's curly hair and let out a sad sigh. Dean noticed she'd started to sway a little, like it was an automatic response to having a child in her arms to make soothing motions. It broke his heart and he didn't even know this woman. He just couldn't help but wonder what she would do without a child in her arms.

"Adriannah..."

"She doesn't look anything like Ayla, but it still... she still reminds me of her."

"I'm so sorry," was all Dean could think to say.

"Just cherish every moment with her," Adriannah said, eyes welling with tears as she looked at Anna who was watching her with innocently curious eyes. "Don't take anything for granted." She nodded a few times as if confirming that she'd given good advice. She sniffled and smiled a tight, apologetic smile, then handed Anna back to Dean as if it physically pained her to do so.

Dean caught sight of a box of tissues on a bureau to his left and he quickly reached out with his free hand so he could pass them to Adriannah. It was about as minimal a gesture as there was considering the circumstances, but he couldn't just stand there, especially when he was there for information. "I'm sorry to be asking but... Monday night?" He couldn't make his tone all business, but he did manage to keep himself from sounding as wholly sympathetic as he was. There was just enough empathy in his voice to make it clear he wasn't heartless.

Adriannah looked down and pulled several tissues out of the box before sitting back on the edge of the twin bed with zoo animal sheets. She looked at Anna, at her wispy baby curls so blonde they were nearly white. She looked at the toddler's curious and wonder-filled green eyes. Maybe Anna reminded her that there were other children in the neighborhood that could be in danger. Whatever it was, Adriannah seemed to draw strength as she watched the baby suck her thumb and twist her little fingers in the hair at the nape of Dean's neck. "Sean worked late," the grieving mother started quietly.

()()()

"I'm so sorry about this," the sheriff said for what had to be the fifth time. "Marc is usually so well-behaved, really."

Running in circles around them was a little boy, maybe a year or so younger than Anna. He kept making faces at the curly-haired little girl he didn't recognize, and then he would hide behind his mother or ask her a question, effectively interrupting her conversation with John.

"Trust me, I've been there," John said with a slight smile. He gave Anna a pat on the head. He could practically feel all the pent up energy in her, but she wouldn't run around and make noise while her father was working. Not even when there was a kid around her age who was eager to play with her. She knew better. "You know, it might be a happy coincidence that the bureau and your department happened to line up on bring your kid to work day."

The sheriff smiled back. "There's a side room they could play in while I show you the case files, if that's alright with you," she offered, tilting her head to indicate a doorway to her right.

John nodded his consent and crouched down to Anna's level. Immediately, her green eyes focused on him. "Hey, Peanut. You're gonna go play with Marc for a little while in there," he pointed to the room the sheriff had indicated. "I need to talk to the sheriff some more."

"Okay, Daddy."

"Good girl," John praised briefly. He turned her in the right direction and gave her a little nudge. Anna happily hugged her stuffed frog to her chest and raced into the little room with Marc.

"She's a sweet kid," the sheriff complimented as she watched the kids go.

"You should see her when she misses a nap," John joked, making her laugh out loud.

"Tell me about it." The sheriff let out a heavy breath then moved to her desk a few feet away and picked up a stack of papers. Underneath them all was a manila folder. "So, here's the file for the Whitney murder. There were no eye witnesses, but..."

()()()

When they pulled open the closet door, not knowing what to expect, Sam and Dean were greeted by a shriek of terror. A little girl of about seven or eight years was huddled in the corner of the closet, blocking her face with her arms as she looked up at them in fear, knees up against her chest protectively. Her lip was bleeding, but she otherwise appeared unharmed, just terrified.

Immediately, both boys lowered their guns. Dean crouched down and Sam backed up a few steps, both trying to appear less threatening to the frightened kid.

"Hey, kiddo. No one's gonna hurt you," Dean promised. "We're here to help, okay? Can you come out and we'll get you somewhere safe?"

The little girl shook her head adamantly and hugged her knees closer to herself, still curled up in her little safe haven.

"Did something hurt you?" Dean asked gently. "If you tell us where it went, we can get rid of it. It's never gonna hurt you again. I promise."

The little girl said nothing, and the boys exchanged a look. Neither of them were sure what else to do. They certainly couldn't leave this little kid unprotected while they went about hunting the ghost that had freaked her out so badly.

Behind them, the spirit they were hunting made an appearance, all the air in the room going cold. Sam's reaction was immediate. He turned and fired off a round of rock salt, effectively dissipating the ghost. "Silver locket?" he asked his brother. Dean nodded once and stood with his back to the closet, ready to defend the child that hid inside.

He listened as Sam's footsteps echoed down the hallway, and then there was some yelling. Apparently, Sam had found another person in the house, hopefully one or both of the kid's parents. For the life of him, though, Dean couldn't think of a reason that any parent would leave there child in a closet while a ghost was attacking their house. It took a couple minutes for the spirit to appear again, and when it did, it looked positively livid. Dean popped off a salt shell at it before it had the chance to throw him or his gun across the room. It dissipated, but it took only half a minute for the damn thing to make its comeback.

By the time Sam had burned the locket, sending the spirit up in flames, Dean had used five salt shells on it. Sam came back into the room looking pale and breathing heavily. "It knocked her dad out," he said, nodding once at the closet Dean had stepped away from. "Dean, we should really call an ambulance for him. I couldn't wake him up."

"This looks bad for us, though, huh?"

"Really bad," Sam agreed. "Unless one of these people is gonna defend us, and I don't see that happening. We're gonna have to do this anonymously, one way or another."

Dean seemed to think for a second. He glanced over his shoulder toward the closet where the little girl was hiding. "Get Anna from the car and bring her in here."

"What?" Sam asked, looking at Dean as if he'd grown a second head. "Why?!"

"Just do it, Sam."

Sam hurried out of the room to do as he'd asked, though he still seemed to think Dean was crazy.

Dean knelt in front of the open closet door again. "Hi, kiddo. Didn't get your name before. You want to tell me what it is?"

The little girl swallowed, but she seemed to trust Dean a little bit more now because he'd protected her. "Jade."

"Jade. That's a pretty name. I have a little sister that's about your age. She's gonna come up and say 'hi.' You wanna come out and meet her?"

Jade shook her head, and when Dean reached in, prepared to pick her up, she scrambled back further into the closet. Immediately, he raised his hands in surrender and backed off. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, kiddo. Nobody's gonna hurt you. I promise."

The little girl seemed to relax, assured that he wouldn't move her unless she was okay with it. But she still refused to leave the closet, and that was going to be a problem. If the paramedics showed up to see two men with shotguns, a kid hiding in the closet and her father knocked out in another room... well, that would look very bad for the Winchester clan. Similarly, if the kid's father woke up before they'd gotten out of dodge, that could end equally badly.

When he heard his siblings outside the door, Dean stood up and headed that way, stopping both of them just outside the bedroom door. "Hey, Rugrat. I've got a job for you. You up for it?"

Anna's eyes lit up and she nodded eagerly.

"Alright. Listen, there's a little girl in their hiding because she's scared to come out. I need you to get her to come out so we can call an ambulance for her dad and get outta here. It's really important. Think you can handle it?"

Anna frowned a little bit, but she nodded.

"Atta girl. Go on, then. We'll wait out here."

"'S she scared of you?"

"Hard to say," Dean answered. "You need to hurry, Munchkin." He gave her a gentle nudge through the doorway, and Anna scurried over to the closet.

"Hi," she started shyly but sweetly. She remembered Dean's advice that she hurry up, and she stepped inside the closet, sitting down next to the little girl. "I'm Anna," she introduced and smiled. "What's your name?"

The little girl smiled back, almost like it was automatic. "Jade."

"I like that name," Anna said cheerfully. "Why are you inside here?"

"My Daddy told me to wait here," Jade answered, looking down at her feet, knees no longer pulled protectively against her chest. She picked at a hole in the knee of her grass-stained jeans. "Mommy came back. He said she went away forever, but then she came back."

"But she wasn't like before?" Anna asked knowingly and sympathetically.

"How did you know?"

Anna looked seriously at the kid next to her. "I've seen other people come back wrong. My family helped your Mom go back to where she's supposed to be."

"I know. She burned up."

"That's just what it looks like. She had to go back to sleep."

Sam had told her that once a few months ago when she asked what happened to the ghosts they put to rest. He said it was like they couldn't forget something and it was making them restless, so burning their bones or the item they were attached to just helped them go back to sleep. It gave them peace.

"I saw her go away, but... Daddy told me to wait for him."

"He said that because it was dangerous before, but now it's not."

"But he might get mad if I don't wait for him," Jade insisted, peeking outside of the closet as if looking for her father. Both girls got on their hands and knees to look outside.

"No. My brother says he got hurt a little. Not real bad. But he can't come get you."

Jade looked at her, frightened. "Is he okay?" she asked urgently.

"Yeah. The doctors can't come until you're with him, though."

"Are you sure he won't be mad that I didn't wait?"

"Even if he's mad, you did it to help him. That's more important."

Jade took a moment to think, but she seemed to decide she agreed with Anna's statement. The girls held hands and both stood up to walk out of the closet together.

()()()

"I can't believe I'm saying this right now, but... I don't think we can do this hunt without the kid."

Sam bobbed his eyebrows in agreement beside Dean. "Look, I know you don't like getting her involved in this stuff."

"Give an inch, she'll take a damn mile."

"More like, ask her to climb into an attic, she'll beg you to let her hunt the monster too," Sam corrected.

"Exactly. Which she ain't doin'."

"No argument here," Sam agreed wholeheartedly, hands raised in mock surrender.

"Alright, I'll go get her and lay down some ground rules. See if you can wedge that door open anymore." Knowing Sam would follow his instructions without his sticking around, Dean jogged outside and to the car where Anna was curled up against the back driver's side door.

Before he'd closed half the distance between himself and the car, he could see Anna frowning at his swift return. The boys had only been inside for ten or fifteen minutes, scoping the place out. They usually spent nearly an hour, and sometimes much longer, on operations like this one. Her job, as always, was to stay in the car and not get into any trouble.

At nine years old, Anna was suddenly so eager to jump right into the hunt alongside them. It was difficult as all hell getting her to understand that she was still too young to be anywhere near the constant violence that made up hunting. True, she was often dragged into fights they didn't want her near... but only when it was unpreventable, and she always seemed to be getting hurt. Any pain they could spare her-- physically or emotionally-- they would do everything in their power to protect her from.

Anna didn't like it. In fact, she hated it, and sometimes she got downright offended. During one week she'd spent at Bobby's waiting for them to finish a hunt, Anna had gotten it in her head that they thought of her as being "in the way." She'd become withdrawn and quiet, and she'd basically stopped acting like her usual self. They'd talked about it, and the reasons they had for keeping her out of the hunt had been a huge part of that discussion. But Anna still got mad at them constantly for making her wait in the car and refusing to even train her more than twice a week. She just couldn't get it through her head how very small and vulnerable she was, even knowing how to shoot, fight, and speak latin-- all three of which she was still working on.

They were delaying the inevitable. Winchesters were born with hunting in their blood. Anna could list the ways to take down a shapeshifter before she was six years old. She could field strip their father's hand gun by her seventh birthday. But with the last few years having been such a whirlwind, her training had been intermittent at best. That wasn't really the issue, though. They could train her more intensely now if they so wished. Nobody was in a hurry to see Anna swept up completely into the world of hunting before she knew better than to think it was the only and the best option. She was naively determined that hunting was the right path for her. But she wasn't old enough to understand just what kind of commitment the life was-- the kind you couldn't turn back on because it would find and hurt you if you tried.

Anna's face brightened immediately when Dean opened the back door and waved her out onto the sidewalk. "I get to help?" she asked hopefully, eyes brimming with excitement.

Dean took a deep breath and crouched to her level, exhaling as he took her chin in his hand. Their eyes met and his intense gaze instantly got through to Anna. Some of her eagerness faded into seriousness. "You're small enough to fit into the attic of this place, and we're pretty sure the creepy-ass spell book we're looking for is up there."

Anna grinned. They needed her.

"Hey." She snapped back into focus. "That's your only job. Understand? You stay right by me while we're inside in case we got any unwanted company, and you do exactly what we tell you. No funny business, or shit could hit the fan."

She could barely contain her excitement as she bit down on her smile and nodded compliantly. "I'll be perfectly good. Pinky swear."

"Put the damn pinky away, kid. I believe you," Dean said, nerves making him speak harshly.

Her excitement, her innocence... she was a nine year old kid and that was enough to make Dean hate that he was bringing her inside to a potentially dangerous location. But the book they were looking for contained the only possible means of taking out the ancient curse laid upon the town, and without it, a lot of people could end up dead.

He grabbed Anna's hand and they walked back to the house, moving more cautiously once inside.

When they got back to Sam, Dean noticed he was still trying to pry the entrance to the attic a little wider. "Think there must be some kind of supernatural lockdown on this bolt," Sam said as he climbed down the ladder and dropped the crowbar he'd been using. "You know what you're lookin' for, Ladybug?"

"Yep. A 'creepy-ass spell book'."

Sam shot Dean a bitch face and then crouched down and pulled a flashlight out of his inside coat pocket. "It's gonna be dark, so here you go. The book will be old and have a red emblem on it, and it'll probably be covered in dust."

Anna nodded to signify that she understood, then paused. "What's a emblem?"

"An emblem is like a logo or a symbol. A little picture that represents something."

"Okay," Anna chirped. "Up there?" she asked and pointed at the little opening in the ceiling. No light shone through the gap, and she was glad to have the flashlight.

"Yeah," Dean answered and grabbed her around the waist to lift her onto the fourth rung of the ladder on the wall. "Be careful goin' in and out. If you see anything freaky, get the hell outta there and ask questions later. Got it?"

"Okay," Anna said again and climbed the ladder with surprising speed. She slipped through the opening without issue, and mumbled, "Ew," as her palms hit a floor covered in layers of dust. It was worse than Bobby's store room. She would know. She'd helped him clean it when she was staying with him last year and got in trouble. She'd gotten a spider on her and refused to go back in no matter how many promises he made that the nasty arachnid was dead.

Anna stood up and flicked on the flashlight. The ceiling was less than a foot above her head. Sam would have been brained if he'd tried to stand up in here. She directed the beam all around and saw that there were a few boxes on one side of the room and a tiny table on the other side. All over the floor, odds and ends were scattered, a few articles of clothing and a few knick knacks. She crossed the fingers of her left hand in a silent wish for no spiders to appear and try to eat her as she wandered toward the group of boxes. The first was empty save for a framed black and white photograph of a young woman with wavy hair.

"You okay up there, Rugrat?" Anna flinched a little at the echo of Dean's voice from downstairs.

"Yeah," she called back. "I haven't even seen any spiders!"

"Cause that's the worst thing that could happen," she thought she heard Dean say, but he wasn't yelling to her anymore, so it was difficult to hear him well.

Anna examined the second box, in which several books were stuffed. All of them were thin, and she pulled them out to examine them, but none of them looked like a 'creepy-ass spell book,' so she moved on to the third box. It was taped shut, unlike the other two, and Anna immediately decided this had to be it. She didn't have a knife, so she scraped at the tape with her fingernails, but it didn't do any good. She wasn't strong enough to break the tape. She put the flashlight down and glanced secretively toward the entrance she'd come through. She needn't have been paranoid, because neither of her brothers had any hope of fitting through that little opening, but she still had to check that they weren't looking before she pulled from her boot the knife she shouldn't have had. She sliced through the tape easily, grateful when it barely made a sound. She eased the knife back into her boot and pushed the flaps of the box open.

When she aimed the flashlight at the contents of the box, Anna could see that inside, covered in a thick blanket of gray-brown dust, lay a book of at least one thousand pages. She reached in and pushed dirt off the cover with the hand not holding the flashlight. A red symbol on the front, which Anna assumed was the 'emblem' Sam had mentioned, confirmed for her that she had the right book. She tried to pull it out with one hand, but it was really heavy, so Anna had to use both hands to heave it out of the box, the flashlight held between her teeth like she'd seen Dean do a couple times. She staggered toward the opening she'd climbed through.

She set it heavily just beside the opening. "I got it," she called down. Immediately, Sam could be seen coming up the ladder. He reached up and maneuvered the book through the hole with one hand. Anna had to admit to herself that it was impressive how strong Sam was if he could lift that thing with one hand.

She only got halfway down the ladder before Dean plucked her off it and set her on the floor. "Let's get the hell outta here," he said, the words directed at Sam. He nudged Anna to follow their brother out of the building, but Anna looked up over her shoulder at him.

"I did good?"

Dean wanted to be mad about this. He really did. It was his job to keep her away from hunting because it was his job to keep her safe. But damn it if seeing that hopeful little smile inching its way across Anna's face didn't make his heart swell just a little. "Yeah, kiddo," he said and ruffled her unruly blonde curls. "Couldn't have done it without you."

()()()

"Uh, Dean."

The we're screwed quality to Anna's voice caught both her brother's attention. She was keeping watch, after all. "What?" Dean asked urgently.

"We got company."

"Shit," Dean cursed. They were arms deep in a corpse in the basement of the local precinct, which acted as a morgue. There was no way for them to get out without being seen. Unless they had a distraction.

Anna suddenly raced up the stairs.

"Anna!" Sam whisper-yelled after her.

"Dammit," Dean cursed under his breath.

Anna heard them both, but she kept to her path. Upstairs, she took a second to get into character. She'd met a few of the officers earlier when the boys came in as FBI agents to get some basic information for the case, so they would probably recognize her as Agent Plant's daughter. She could work with that.

Summoning fear and panic, Anna managed to get herself crying by the time the door opened and two police officers walked in. She looked up, pretending to be startled at their sudden entrance. One of them was blonde, the other a brunette, and they both looked young. She recognized only one of them from earlier. But, fortunately, she remembered his name.

"Oh my god. You're Mr. Officer Brook, right?" she asked, playing up the naivety on purpose. "Thank God you're here. I was looking for my Dad, but I think I got lost. I-"

She was pleased to see that both the officers looked extremely uncomfortable at being faced with an emotional young girl. "You were- Um... this is one of the FBI guys' kid," the blonde officer told the brunette. "You were... You were lookin' for your dad here? He ain't been here since this morning, kid."

Anna sobbed more loudly, hoping her brothers would get the signal that she had these two distracted and get the hell out of the basement and to the Impala a couple blocks away. The brown-haired officer took his hat off and wrung it in his hands awkwardly. "You... need help finding him?"

"I don't know," Anna sniffled. "He just... He goes sometimes in the middle of the night, but he usually leaves a note if it's for work. But I woke up and he was gone and there was no note and..." She managed to work herself into hysterics, and she started bawling again. She hadn't expected to be able to pull the act off this well, but it seemed to be working.

"Hey. Shh. Don't- Don't cry. Uh... Hahns, find that Agent's card on the Sheriff's desk," the blonde officer told the other one. "We're gonna call your Dad for you, okay? He'll come get you," he told Anna.

Anna almost felt bad for messing with this guy. He was trying so hard to be nice and helpful. "I- I feel like such an idiot. I don't really know this town good, though, and- and I-" She was saved from her own failing improv skills by the text tone on her phone. "Maybe that's him!" she said eagerly, her tears slowing considerably. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and saw a text from Sam reading simply, Pulling the car around. Nice work.

"It's my Dad!" she chirped, then sighed massively in relief. She typed a quick got it, and stuffed her phone in her sweater pocket again. She used the palms of both hands to scrub away the tear tracks on her face and smiled an embarrassed sort of smile. "I'm so sorry I bothered you guys. My Dad says he tracked my phone. He's gonna pick me up out front any second now. He's probably so mad at me for leaving without saying anything. I should hurry." She practically ran out the door, but the two officers were caught off guard enough that they didn't question her at all.

()()()

"Guys like that are chill for all of a week or two, you know?" Erin asked as if she believed wholeheartedly that Anna would completely understand what she was talking about. "They're nice, and they treat you good enough. But they're in it for the points and then it's over. At least I gave everyone the tea, unlike Kris."

"I mean, keeping it on the DL is totally shitty. Like she wanted you to fall for him," Anna agreed.

Dean and Sam exchanged a baffled look, then went back to watching the interaction between their sister and this red-haired cheerleader.

"Exactly!" Erin said, hitting the table with one hand. "So, like, of course when A.J. asked Meghan out I told her not to go. But she didn't listen. She says I'm toxic, but, like, she's the one who tells me I look bad in crop tops and then turns around and buys them herself. Like she thinks my appearance is second to hers."

"Talk about a hypocrite," Anna said, sounding like she believed what she was saying. "Are you sure you shouldn't have let her go out with A.J.? He woulda knocked her on her ass."

Erin laughed out loud. "People tell me I'm too nice all the time, but I couldn't just let her walk into A.J.'s game so..."

"So, what'd you do?" Anna asked seriously, leaning in a little when Erin did. She'd watched her brothers run in circles talking to this eighteen year old girl for almost thirty minutes before she stepped in. It'd only been about five minutes since they started talking, and Anna had to fight to keep the grin off her face knowing she was already about to get the information they were looking for.

"Well, when I told her what he did and she didn't believe me, I kind of snapped. I mean, she literally said A.J. only did that to me because I'm not as pretty as her, so... I pretended I changed my mind and she was right, and I let her borrow my favorite lip gloss and I told her she should take him to the old drive-in movie theater on Spring Street. I said it would be fun. Quirky, you know?"

"The drive-in? Sorry, I like just got here a couple days ago," Anna said lightheartedly and gave a little eye roll to go along with it. "What's so weird about the drive-in?"

"No, I get it. A lot of people don't even know it's there 'cause it's so old," Erin said, bobbing her eyebrows once and speaking a little more quietly as she explained, "But it's totally haunted."

"Haunted?" Anna asked, feigning surprise and alarm. "That's insane. Who would haunt a drive-in movie?"

"I get it sounds like a stupid middle school joke. I mean, I used to think that too. But this kid last year- He was a freshman, I think- He took a dare to spend an hour at the drive-in, and they found his body there the next morning."

Anna tilted her head. "Was that the first time someone went missing there?"

"Yeah. He was all beat up. The kids he was with- They said they heard noises. They saw a ghost. They tried to keep it quiet, but..."

"But you heard," Anna finished for her. She nodded a little to herself. That kid who'd been killed... more than likely, he'd been killed by his so-called friends, and now he was haunting any kid who set foot on the grounds of the drive-in. Either that, or he had been killed be a ghost. Regardless, it was a starting point, and it was a lot more than the boys had been getting before she'd stepped in.

Anna smirked and turned the desk chair she sat in around so she could cross her arms over her chest and grin smugly at her brothers. She could be damn handy to have around, and she would be reminding them of how awesome she was for the next week at least.

La fin