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She’s not close enough to hear through the Impala window. Not well positioned to read their lips. But she knows the shape of it. Sees Lucky’s shoulders draw together. Sees Mandy shouting. Sees the door slam. Remembers Liam’s door in her face. You shoved my kid, Deanna. So on, so forth.
She hits the gas before Lucky turns around. Her thigh flexes, and her shirt yanks taut across her stomach. Just big enough to pull at the cloth in a new way. Her Baby’s wheels chew up residential streets, speeding inexorably back towards the motel room and her brother.
-
Sam tosses her a beer.
“I still don’t see why we couldn’t just shoot him. You know he’s gonna keep stalking that girl.”
“We don’t know that. People change.” Now she’s saying shit she doesn’t even believe. Just to disagree with robo-Sammy. Just to defend a dog. But she can’t help picturing him slinking back to that house. Still guarding. Watching that little boy grow up. Seeing Mandy married, maybe with another kid. He deserves to see it. It’s punishment enough.
It’s instinct to pop the beer open. She’s gotten used to using Liam’s can opener, but she can still do it with her ring. The muscle memory’s still there.
It takes all the will she has not to take a sip. Her hand shakes with it. At least she knows that’s just her mind. Just temptation. She won’t be shaking and puking with visions in some hospital bed, like dad had been so many times. Like she’s been once or twice. Like she would’ve been if she’d stopped drinking for Liam’s sake, or Ben’s.
She’s already humiliated herself enough. Fell to her knees in that parking lot, bangs plastered to her forehead, left hand on the neck of the whiskey bottle, right hand still coated in her own piss. Screamed and begged at the pouring sky, far enough away that Sam couldn’t hear her.
And Cas came. Of course Cas came. All Deanna had to do was whistle. Her own personal guardian angel.
She still dropped the bottle on the ground. Watched it shatter on the wet pavement, dull, mute. Watched Cas stick it back together again, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, and look at her so sad. Listened to Cas asked her what was wrong. What she needed. Was it a hunt? Sam? Was it Liam? And Deanna saw something in Cas’ eyes when she asked that last one. Something held back. She didn’t know ‘til then, what she was gonna decide. She thought she was gonna ask Cas to get rid of it. But she saw that spreading sickness in Cas’ gaze. Felt it a moment later, as Cas’ power coursed through her body.
“I need you to dry me out,” she’d gasped. “I can’t do it, not on my own. And I can’t keep drinking this way.” She’d felt her lip quirk unwillingly, let the smirk come. Watched as Cas turned to stone before her eyes. “It’s not good for the baby.”
She let the heat of Cas’ Grace touch every part of her, cleaning her blood and her nerves and the inside of her skull. Turning down the beds and dusting the mantelpieces. She should give Cas one of those little black dresses with a white apron. And she felt the stolen caresses, too. Cas’ heat brushing over her erect nipples, nipping at her earlobe, gripping her ass. Licking its way up her cunt. Watched Cas start to pant, unable to contain herself. Felt where she stopped, too. Right where Liam’s kid rested in Deanna’s belly. It was punishment enough.
She sees Sam watching, and takes a fake sip of her beer.
-
She parks the car outside that house in Battle Creek. Behind the hedge, just where no one could see. She knows they’re safe. Can see Liam untying Ben’s boots in the mudroom. She doesn’t understand how she can feel so empty, given the circumstances. She sits there, standing guard over them, but she doesn’t even bother unlocking the door. She’s not gonna get out. She’s a coward.
She wonders if it knows. Its daddy doesn’t. She won’t tell him. It’s punishment enough.
Somehow, she isn’t surprised to hear wing beats, even though she didn’t call. Lately, Cas can’t seem to keep her eyes off Deanna’s midriff. Nothing’s really visible, yet, but Cas knows what’s there, deeper than any human could. Deanna can see that guilty puppy look. How much she wants to reach out and touch, even if she would get smacked. It makes Deanna smile. Eases the pit in her stomach as she gazes through the foliage.