JustAnna

Supernatural - After The End

Dean Winchester

Dean rolled his eyes and smiled, “You’re right…He’s so possessive.”

He laughed, and kissed her back, quickly wrapping his arms around her and pulling her on top of him, while pulling the covers up over their heads, still ignoring Sam’s texts, and the call that followed.

Madison

Madison sat on the floor of the safe house, running her finger along a line in the hardwood floor. She hadn’t slept, as she was quickly finding that as human as she felt, she didn’t have the same needs as Sam, or other humans she had watched on the small tv in front of her.

She picked up a piece of cereal out of the bowl in front of her, and popped it into her mouth, taking in every bit of the flavor in the sugary treat. She sighed happily, pulling her legs up to her chest and glancing over at Sam, who seemed agitated and was messing with his phone.

Castiel sat opposite to her, watching her intently, which caused her to raise an eyebrow. She hadn’t noticed him staring, until now.

“What are you thinking about?”, she asked him, and he sighed.

“So, you can’t hear my thoughts.”, he asked back, causing her to shake her head lightly mid chew, “But if I project them, it hurts.”

A nod.

“Okay. Well that’s something. How does eating the enjoyable sugary treat make you feel?”, he asked innocently.

Madison stopped chewing again, and swallowed the cereal in her mouth, while she thought about the answer, and then smiled brightly, “Happy. I like it.”

“Good. Good.”, Castiel smiled in relief, “Then the next time that you’re not with Sam, I would like for you to think about the cereal, and how it made you feel. Breathe and just focus on that. You have to control your powers, or people are going to get hurt. Sam could even get hurt.”

Madison looked down at the bowl sadly, glancing back over at Sam with a nod.

Supernatural-My Battle (FuriePhoenix+AnnaBeth)

Dean was thankful to see her smile, but was surprised that she thought he gave good hugs. He hated hugs. Sure, he gave them to Bobby and Sam, every now and then, but for girls it was usually a waste of time. And it made you look soft, to the ones that preferred the more rough around the edges look. Maybe the reason he gave her such good hugs, was because he used the time she was pressed against him to take in the little details about her, things that were intoxicating.

The smell of her hair. The way her hair brushed against his face, as he nuzzled it against her ear. He took in the feeling of her hands against the back of his neck, running down his back, and at times to his hips. He took in the way that her eyes brightened in the sun, when he was holding her, and trying to convince her that the girls at school were idiots, and she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Most of those moments ended with her punching him in the chest, but even that…was specifically Mika.

“I’m just good at hugging you…”, he muttered, not realizing how bright his green eyes were in the moonlight. But as she introduced the movie, he smiled, and the smile went all the way to his eyes, causing them to dilate with the pang of love in his gut. He didn’t know what that feeling was. In fact, he barely noticed it at all, but it showed in his eyes.

After he was laying on the bed, he watched her as she stepped over to the TV, his mind not wandering anymore. This was her night, and he was here to cater to her, which made him shiver a bit at how soft it sounded. He left his boots on, trying to keep them reserved for the base of the bed, in case he had to run. For these first few times they would be together, he did this, until he started to learn the schedule of her parents, a bit better.

Raising his hand from his chest, he let her in as she laid down, wrapping his arm tightly around her shoulders and kissing the top of her head.

“This is going to be super sappy, isn’t it?”, he muttered with a smirk, seeing Kevin Costner on the tv. He then shrugged a bit, “I don’t mind sappy. It’s gotten me lai-…um…I mean, I um. That came out wonderfully wrong, and I would never try to…”

He finally broke off his words with a deep sigh, deciding to just shut his mouth and watch the movie as he pulled her closer to him.

Supernatural - After The End

Dean Winchester

Dean smirked, deciding to close his eyes for a few more minutes and enjoy his situation. He snuggled back up to Esme, tangling his legs up with hers as he felt her nose against his jaw, causing his heart to flutter again in familiarity, “Mm. Keep doing that and I might never get out of bed…”

He gave a quiet laugh tilting his head to the side to brush her nose with his, before planting a tiny kiss on her lips. His mind played over them getting back to the room, nearly breaking down the door because he was drunk off his ass and couldn’t find the keyhole. Luckily, Esme had managed to open it for him, before he destroyed the doorframe. And how did he thank her? By helping her out of her pants.

Dean laughed at the thought, leaving his face close to hers as his phone buzzed on the table. He ignored the first text, brushing his fingers down her jaw, “I don’t think Sam’s going to let us be alone much longer. He’s probably pissed, but…if he wants me, he can come to find me.”

He scoffed against her lips with a wide smile.

Supernatural - Hell On The Horizon

Cason and Bobby

Cason took a deep breath as he saw Esme finally overrun, gritting his teeth and looking down as her arm was snapped. He growled in frustration. It was over. There was no way to survive this, especially with Alastair showing up any second. The demon holding him wrenched his face up to watch as the the demon holding Esme tight to her body. He struggled briefly, the demon knife searing against his skin, causing it to blink and flicker as his eyes turned black. But it was no use trying to get away. He was no good to Esme, dead.

“Esme…look at me. You’re going to be fine. LOOK AT ME!”, he screamed across the room to her as she began to lose control. He knew the look and could already feel the heat radiating off of her as her eyes rolled back in her head, “Esme, listen to me!”

It was too late. A fire washed over the room, taking every demon in the room with it. The demons outside smoked out, waves of screams still echoing after the blast had calmed. Cason hadn’t even realized that Sarah had tackled him almost instantly, protecting him with her body as the demon holding him turned to ash.

When she stepped back from him, whining at the state he was in, his body felt numb. He attempted to push himself off the ground, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. Lifting his hand from the floor, he took a look at it and gasped. His skin was flaking from the bone in spots, others were badly burned and charred, causing him to groan loudly as Sarah laid her head at his side.

“Esme…hey, are you okay?”, he groaned out, beginning to shake from what would be temporary but intense pain. He could see her, not far from him, cradling her arm and was helpless to do anything about it. He let out another groan, concentrating his energy to healing his wounds.

He then saw a familiar face looming over his, barely paying attention to the Hellhound he had just nudged with his leg. Bobby Singer leaned down, clearly dazed and in shock at what had just happened. He grabbed Cason by one of his badly burned arms, pulling him up high enough to wrap his arm around his neck as Cason screamed out in pain.

“How you survived that blast, I don’t know…but you’ll heal, right?”, Bobby asked as he helped Cason limp over to the couch. He threw him roughly into the cushions as Cason laughed and groaned, “Think about it. It’s only half your body. That’s half the healin’. Get to it. We’re gonna need ya’.”

Bobby stepped away from the couch, running to Dean’s side to feel for his heartbeat. He shook his head, “No. No no no. Don’t do this to me again, boy. Not again!”

He turned Dean’s head over to look at the wound to the side of his head, pressing his fingers against it to find a deep hole from the neck of the crowbar penetrating his skull. As tears forced their way to his eyes, he bowed his head.

“Dammit…”

Annabeth

As soon as Sam’s eyes reluctantly closed, Annabeth let her hand fall from his face slowly, trailing down his neck and onto his chest, before she stepped away completely. With a flutter of wings, she and the angel were gone, with them went the demons outside, and everything in the house went silent, apart from Cason’s screams.

She landed roughly on her feet, being shoved away from the angel and straight into a set of arms. The man she fell onto laughed brightly as he pulled her away from him, holding her arms roughly and turning her side to side to make sure she was safe. It was then that she recognized him from the junk yard.

“Alastair…”, Annabeth whispered as she looked up at him. He smiled even brighter, brushing her hair away from her face, and let go of her. The angel that had brought her to the warehouse smiled brightly as Alastair stepped over to him.

“I killed a Winchester…”, he quipped, and Alastair’s eyes went huge at the same time Annabeth’s did.

“WHAT?! You told me you were going to fix things! I did what you asked!”, Annabeth suddenly screamed, causing the lights above them to blast out of existence, and every window cracked. Alastair became concerned for his safety as he turned to her and placed a finger over her lips, before turning back to the angel.

“Which…one..?” He asked, hoping for all their sakes that it was Dean.

“Dean…Winchester.”

“NO! NO!”, the windows shattered, as if a bomb went off in the building and every demon guarding the doors began to choke as she held her hands in fists at her sides. Alastair smiled, coughing a bit of smoke, before wiping his mouth and clapping his hands together with a laugh.

Back at the house, Dean lay dead on the floor as Bobby mourned him. Bobby had no idea how to tell Sam. He had no idea what was even happening.

At the warehouse, Annabeth picked up a large shard of glass, holding it to her throat with sobs screaming from her throat, “I will kill myself…right now.”

Alastair sighed sadly, “Don’t do that, my sweet girl. Sam’s still okay! See?! We all win today!”

“He’ll come for me, you know. And now…you’ve killed his brother?! You’re all going to die! FIX HIM NOW! Or you can explain to Sam Winchester why you killed us both…”, Annabeth snapped, slicing her skin a bit to show she was serious.

“Okay! Alright calm down. Calm…down…I know you’re upset. I know you love them. So, I’ll make a compromise…”, Alastair held a hand out to her, reaching into his jacket with the other hand. He pulled out a glass bottle full of what looked like blood, and held it out to her.

“I didn’t say I was negotiating. FIX HIM OR I DO IT!”

“Drink this.”, Alastair said with his eyes fixated on her throat that was now dripping blood onto her white t-shirt, “Drink this, and I’ll send him back, right now…to fix your boy. Kill yourself, and I’ll have him fix you, and this freedom you have now. It goes poof, into the sky…you’ll spend the rest of your days in chains until you’re no longer of use to me. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!”

Alastair’s sudden scream caused Annabeth to flinch heavily as tears streamed down her cheeks, mixing with the blood on the front of her shirt. She snatched the bottle from his hand, dropping the piece of glass with a sigh. She slowly unscrewed the lid of the bottle, and took a long drink of the thick liquid inside.

“Go. Go to them, but go slow. I want to make sure she swallows the whole thing, before I hold up my end of the bargain…”, Alastair muttered to the angel, sending him off.

“What did you do to get an angel working for you?”, Annabeth asked Alastair as she choked down another gulp of the blood.

“There’s an entire faction of angels, in heaven that believe in Lucifer’s cause. Say you know the guy, and they come running.”, Alastair laughed, signaling for her to finish drinking the bottle of blood.

1 hour later

The angel landed in Bobby’s living room, undetected and unseen, other than a slight wind from his wings. He stepped up to Esme, briefly touching her forehead, her arm suddenly repairing itself. He then stepped carefully over to Dean Winchester’s body, weaving in between his pathetic mourners and laying his finger tips against the man’s temples.
Within a few seconds, Dean gasped loudly, his eyes shooting open.

Supernatural - After The End

Dean Winchester

The sun peeked into the window, assaulting Dean's face with its brightness. He squinted, trying to stay asleep, despite his retinas burning behind his eyelids. He was so comfortable, and his head was already pounding.

Dean opened his eyes with some effort, blinking away the sleep from them as he woke up. He raised a hand to his forehead, realizing one arm was pinned down and that he had gone back for a few extra drinks between his overexcited ‘relaxation time’ with Esme pretty much all over the bar, judging by the slightly drunk feeling he still suffered.

He was determined, throughout the night, and had been vocal about not going back to Sam, at that time. He needed a break, from the angels, the demons, his brother, and everything that came with being a Winchester. It was a break that he didn’t have time to take, but he had to, or he would go insane.

He smirked, remembering that the bartender cut him off out of pure annoyance, and he had come to get this room, with Esme, who he assumed…

Glancing down at his chest, he smirked seeing her blonde hair and realizing she was the weight against his right arm. Despite the massive hangover, he would likely be nursing all day, he felt well-rested for the first time in a long time. Really, for the first time since he had come back from Hell. He snuggled her closer to his bare chest and sighed, closing his eyes and just existing for a moment.

But as if his mind had it out for him, the situations surrounding him popped into his head, causing his eyes to pop open. He brought the hand that had been resting on Esme’s shoulder up to stroke her hair, not really wanting to wake her up, but knowing they needed to check in on Sam.

Supernatural-My Battle (FuriePhoenix+AnnaBeth)

Dean took in her sigh of relief, breathing his own tired sigh as she explained her father’s reasoning for not fighting him. He still felt guilty that he didn’t lay the first blow on him. He deserved it, and he was always good for a fight. What was one more scar?

When she pulled away from him, just asking him to simply stay with her, he nodded, his eyes a bit confused as to how he would help by simply existing. He didn’t find himself that calming. He was chaotic, irrational, and full of rage. It was the most confusing thing about Mika, was how she seemed so chill. She seemed like she genuinely enjoyed being near him, despite all of those things. He hadn’t told her what he did or even the things he had seen and done, yet. When that conversation came up, he would have a lot to explain, and a lot of things would likely go south for him, quickly.

But he nodded, wiping an odd tear from her face with one of his fingers, “I don’t know that I’m the best cuddler. I’m a bit…not cuddly. But I can do my best.”

He gave a small smile, looking into her dark brown eyes as he softened his gaze. He then glanced down, and glanced back up, the green of his eyes catching the moon that was coming in through the window, “What are you in the mood to watch? A girl like you? I’m sure you have a chick flick or two to make us cry…”

He laughed softly, standing from the floor after a few moments and crawling onto it, all the way to her pillows, where he flopped down and brought his hands up to rest behind his head.

Supernatural - Hell On The Horizon

Dean Winchester

Dean scrambled from the floor, groaning a bit with how hard he had fallen down the stairs. He shook himself and looked up the stairs to where Cason had run with his knife, “DAMMIT!”

After yelling, he looked to Mika as she shouted for him to take the shotgun, his hand instinctively coming out to grab it, and open it in front of him. He took the shells from the table, and slipped them into the gun one by one as she ran away from him. It wasn’t the best weapon to have against a hoard of demons, but it would be better than nothing.

He turned the gun toward the back door of the basement, planning to shoot anything that stepped through, but the demons at the top of the stairs caught his attention as they focused on Mika. He saw red pretty instantly, stepping up to the base of the stairs and pointing the shotgun at them just as Mika was flung, “Mika! You good?”, he yelled across the room. Her gunfire told him his answer, and he fired a salt round into one of the demons chest.

Through the back door, another five demons came through, all running for Dean as he fired blasts at them, and eventually emptied the shotgun with a groan. Throwing it to the side, he bent down, pulling a punch knife from his boot and squared up on the demons with the knife between his fingers.

As they rushed him, he stabbed at random points, a couple of them in the eye to slow them down, another in the throat, fighting with every ounce of energy he had left in him to make sure they stayed away from Mika. He wasn’t concerned about the door behind him, as the demons couldn’t cross the threshold of the panic room. But he could protect what was his.

However, even though he fought valiantly, a demon stepped forward with the crowbar Mika had dropped near the stairs, and with one swing to the face, took Dean down. It made a ‘crunch’ as it connected with his ear, causing him to see stars, before everything went black, and he crumpled to the floor. The demons around him laughed, turning their attention toward the panic room.

All of them sneered at Sam through the open door, knowing they couldn’t get in, but knowing he would eventually have to leave the room. Everyone was fair game tonight.

Cason

Esme grunted when she connected with the floor after being thrown through the door. When Cason appeared at her side, she had to admit she was glad to see him at that moment. She ached all over from the beating she received outside. She slightly rolled to her side with a groan to look at him.

“I’m okay.” she told him, forcing herself to sit up as Bobby splashed the demon with holy water. She then looked around for her knife, finally spotting it a couple of feet away from her. She was thankful that it actually made it inside the house. She crawled over to the knife. Once it was in her hand, she forced herself to her feet. Once on her feet, she staggered a bit, but it was clear she could still hold her own.

Cason sighed in relief when Esme answered him, picking up his knife he shoved her up onto her feet and pushed her forward toward the demons she was fighting. He turned and stabbed a demon through the chin, watching it spark out before removing the knife and turning to another.

The demon punched him in the face with a force he wasn’t used to, grabbing his hand as he tried to slash her in the face. She squeezed at his wrist, his bones starting to crack, and ripped the knife from his grip, turning him around to face Esme with the knife pressed against his throat, “STOP! All of you…stop…”

Sarah attempted to come to his rescue, running toward him, but he held a hand out to her, nodding toward Esme, to keep her focused.

It was then that Cason peered over and noticed that Bobby had been taken as well, during the chaos, a large knife pressed to the side of his neck as the demon held him, despite his protesting.
As he glared around the room at demons who were his lessers, winning, he heard steps coming up from the basement and turned his head to see something that made his stomach lurch. A large male demon was carrying Dean Winchester’s body, or what seemed to be his dead body into the room. The demon tossed Dean onto the floor in front of all of them, and stood over him proudly.

“Good. Now…we have one more to gather down stairs, the feisty cutie this one is canoodling with. Once our boss has the tiny one in the vault, we’ll be out of your hair, and everything can go back to sunshine and rainbows…well…maybe not for him.”, she quipped, giving a fake sad look to Dean, whose head was now bleeding a nice puddle on the hardwood from his ear.

Annabeth

Annabeth didn’t want to stay back. She wanted to kill the demons, which she knew she and Sam were both extremely capable of doing. She stepped forward, raising her hand at the demon fighting Dean, before Sam pulled her behind him and Dean went down hard.

“DEAN! We have to help them. Sam…we have to…”, she complained, fighting against his arm a bit. She was cut off however, by an unfamiliar voice and a gust of wind.

“Sam Winchester…you’re just as cute as I thought you would be.”, a tall male angel with black hair and blue eyes, similar to Castiel’s stepped in front of both of them, causing Annabeth to flinch as he interrupted her, “Lucky for you, I’ve been instructed not to harm a hair on your head. Well…maybe one or two.”

“What do you want?”, Annabeth calmly asked, stepping around to Sam’s side. The angel laughed, echoing inside the large room, and pointed straight at her face.

“Demons can’t come in here and I show up in the heat of the battle. Who do you think I am? Castiel? That pathetic, weak, attached excuse for an angel. No…I’m…”

“I didn’t ask who you are. I asked you what you want!”, Annabeth snapped at him, her eyes starting to fade to white. The angel laughed again, stepping forward and looking closer at his eyes, before raising his hands in front of him to feign being scared.

“Are you going to go nuclear in the room with your boy toy? Or do you even know what you’re capable of? We’re going to make you a soldier for Lucifer! You should be grateful! You’re coming with me…one way or another.”

Annabeth sneered at him, before giving up and dropping her shoulders. She knew what he would do, if she didn’t go with him. She knew that he would hurt Sam as badly as he was able, without killing him, and wouldn’t stop from hurting her just as badly. He would probably kill everyone in this house.

“I know…”, she whispered.

“Then say your goodbyes and lets go. I’ll call everything off, and your friends get to live. But right now, Dean Winchester is dying. The others are subdued…or will be, and there’s only one way out. It’s you, or them…”, the angel explained, holding his hand out to her.

She turned to Sam, a sad smile on her face as she stared at him, knowing that he was going to be devastated, but she couldn’t let his brother die. Not to mention this was going to end the same way, only on one hand it would end with them all dead and the other hand would end with her going, and they could survive.

“Sam…”, she whispered, almost flinching at her own voice, “I have to go. I have to. Don’t…please don’t argue.”

She broke off, and reached a hand up to his cheek, playing with his sideburns for a few seconds before standing on her tiptoes and giving him a lingering, deep kiss. She pulled away, pressing her forehead against his briefly, “Close your eyes. Sam…close your eyes.”

Supernatural-My Battle (FuriePhoenix+AnnaBeth)

Dean hugged her to him tightly as she pulled away from the kiss and buried her face in his shoulder. He didn’t know what to say, as he didn’t take John’s physical anger badly, anymore. He kinda just took it. But for her, he never wanted that. No one should ever have laid a hand on her. This was Mika Chambers. She was the most non-confrontational, kind person he had ever met in his entire life, and for someone to hurt her over nothing?

He stroked her hair gently, letting her cry and get things out of her system, asking questions he didn’t have the answer for, “Shhh. I know. He takes it out on you because he’s a coward. There is nothing…nothing you could do that will ever make it okay for someone to put their hands on you like that.”

As he finished trying to answer the question that bothered him the most, she continued and his heart hurt for not knowing about all of this. How had he missed the signs, if they were there? It could have been because the only person he had noticed her dad being aggressive toward was himself, when the man would threaten him. But if he had known about this?

He sighed at her asking him not to leave her alone, which wasn’t something he was planning to do. From the second she invited him over, he had planned to stay until at least they left for school the next morning, if not just hide in her closet until she could run away.

“I’m not going anywhere…”, he whispered against her ear, kissing her neck just below, “I shouldn’t have let you go back there. I could have taken him, if he had just been man enough to fight me…but I’m sorry I didn’t stop him.”

He let his own floodgates open a little. Seeing like this broke pieces off his soul, little by little, and made him feel as if he was having a heart attack from the sheer gut wrenching pain. He also didn’t know how to deal with people who were upset. His method was typically to pat them on the back, and tell them they were okay. However, he wanted to fix every problem in her life, even the big ones.

“What do you need me to do?”, he asked, still petting her hair as he hugged her.

Supernatural-My Battle (FuriePhoenix+AnnaBeth)

As Dean waited for her to turn around, offering a small smile that quickly dropped as he caught on to the swelling of her eye. As she opened the window, he watched her face intently, his eyebrows stitched together in worry as he reached out for her. He crawled through the window carefully, being as quiet as he could, and closed it behind him.

He could hear her mother downstairs, and was thankful that she was at least distracting Mika’s father from coming up the stairs and bothering her. He wanted her to be able to rest, tonight, and he didn’t want to have to potentially kill her father. He turned his eyes from the door, to her face, and sighed.

“Is that from…”, he started to speak as he stepped up in front of her and hit his knees, placing his hands on her knees. But he stopped himself, knowing the answer, “Mika, I’m so sorry…”

He croaked the words out, gently wiping a tear away from her black eye. He stared at her face, wanting to find that same glimmer of happiness or hope that he loved seeing, but he found none. She was broken. She seemed nervous around him. He didn’t want to make her flinch, or for her to think that any of this was on her.

He leaned back from her, pulling his jacket from his arms, and spread her legs slightly to situate himself close to her body as he wrapped her back up in her leather safety net. After the jacket was there, he kissed her nose, whispering to her, “I’m here, now. Alright? You’re okay…”, before leaning in and kissing her carefully.

Supernatural-My Battle (FuriePhoenix+AnnaBeth)

Dean walked down the road, his head hung low as he kicked every rock on his feet came across. He was half tempted to storm into her house, right at this moment and steal her away. Who was going to go up against Bobby Singer to bring her back home? But the more he thought about it, the more his mind went back to the punch he had seen smash her jaw. He clinched his own jaw, shrugging his arms into his jacket with a growl and kicked the ground a little harder.

He could feel his anger issues boiling up again. It was something he had worked on, since being arrested and spending time at a ranch for those same issues. He was calm, and reserved most of the time, save the odd fight with his dad, which is what had brought him to Sioux Falls semi permanently, in the first place.

In fact, Bobby had taken him in, with one condition: No outbursts or breaking things.

It was something that hadn’t been that hard to keep under control, since he had met Mika. She calmed him, made him feel human, and most days, made him feel relatively normal. But her dad not wanting to fight him, punching her in the face after refusing was touching a chord that he had suppressed for a long time.

He approached the junkyard gate, shrugging through it aggressively, and up the steps of the tattered house. He opened the door to the house, and aggressively slammed it behind him, which perked Bobby’s head up, as he sat at his desk.

“Dean-o?”, he called, standing carefully as Dean stomped toward the stairs, not saying a word. He ascended the stairwell, stomping the entire way, “Dammit boy, what have you gotten into, this time?”

Bobby noticed there wasn’t any blood on his face. He didn’t look roughed up and as far as he could tell, the skin on his knuckles was a normal color. So, he made the decision to not follow him. Instead, he sat down at his desk, and let him have his space, something he did, while Dean worked through his rage.

Dean entered the bedroom at the top of the stairs, slamming the door behind him and tossing himself into the small rolling chair in the corner. He wanted to send her a message, hoping that she wasn’t banned from her computer or anything, and when he moved the mouse, he noticed her message and sighed with relief.

“Don’t worry about it.
I’ll be there as soon as I can get out of here.
I promised.
-Dean

He pushed away from the computer, and practically sprinted for his bedroom door, before barreling down the stairs and through the living room. As he passed Bobby again, he raised a hand, “I’ll be back in a bit. Don’t wait up!”

Bobby didn’t have time to respond, before Dean was out the door. He just shook his head, rubbing his eyebrow at the whiplash, and took a drink.

Dean practically ran to Mika’s house, sneaking around the side, and stepping in behind the bushes below her bedroom window. There was still a ladder there, from the roofing work. Her father wasn’t the best at getting anything done, other than being an angry bastard. Dean was oddly thankful for that. He carefully pressed himself against the wall, to get to the ladder without being seen through the living room window, and then started to climb the ladder, carefully stepping onto the eve beneath her window, once he reached the top.

He reached a hand out, squatting by her window, and tapped on the glass gently with his silver ring.