How to Save a Life (Book Two/The Life Series/Supernatural)

Dream a Little Dream of Me

"You okay?" Sam asked.

"I'm just trying to save my dad," I told him. "How about you?"

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"Any leads on trying to save Dean?" I asked.

Sam sighed, shaking his head. "No. None. He, uh... When he made the deal, the conditions were that if we try to find a way out of it, then I die instead of Dean."

I raised my eyebrows. "What?"

"Yeah," Sam answered. "So, if I try to save him, and it breeches the deal, then I die, and Dean stays alive."

"And he still made the deal, and you are still trying to save him even if you end up dying yourself," I told him. "Wow. You two... I don't even know where to begin."

I turned to the closet.

~~

I sat at Dad's beside in the hospital, looking at him thoughtfully, hearing footsteps come in, turning to see Sam and Dean walking in.

We looked at each other for a moment.

They walked further into the room.

"How is he?" Sam asked.

I rubbed my hand over my chin, turning back to Dad, looking at the files in my other hand. "No change."

"What you got?" Dean asked.

I stood, walking toward them at the foot of the bed, taking a picture of a plant from the folder. "This plant, Silene Capensis, is also known as African Dream Root. It's been used by shaman and medicine men for centuries."

"Let me guess," Dean told me. "They dose up, bust out the didjeridus, start kicking around the hackey."

"Not quite," I told them. "If you believe the legends, it's used for dreamwalking. I mean, entering another person's dreams, poking around in their heads."

"I take it we believe the legends," Dean told me.

"When don't we?" I replied. "But dreamwalking is just the tip of the iceberg."

Sam picked up a paper from the folder that contained info on the root and a drawing of it. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, this Dream Root is some serious mojo," I answered. "You take enough of it, with practice, you can become a regular Freddy Krueger. You can control anything. You could turn bad dreams good, you could turn good dreams bad."

"And killing people in their sleep?" Sam asked.

I nodded. "For example."

Sam sighed. "So, let's say, uh, let's say this doc was testing this stuff on his patients, Tim Leary-style."

"Somebody gets pissed at him, decides to give him a little dream visit, he goes nighty-night," Dean told us.

"But what about Bobby?" Sam asked. He looked at Dad. "I mean, if the killer came after him..." He looked at me. "Why didn't they come after you?"

I looked at Dad, shaking my head, crossing my arms over my chest. "We split up to take different ends of the job, but other than that... I don't know."

~~

We walked out into the hallway.

"So how do we find our homicidal sandman?" Dean asked.

"Could be anyone who knew the doctor, had access to his dream shrooms," I told them.