LILITH | DEAN WINCHESTER [ ✓ ]

13. crybaby

Tears streamed down her face as the hands of the clock under the warm bedside lamp ticked to three in the morning, but it wasn't enough to stop her reading and go to sleep. Not yet, she could push for another hour and then wake up at seven. Yes, that sounded better, or at least it kept Lilith going with some energy for a few more days. The truth was, after finishing the book, she was back at the same point, having more knowledge but not finding a way to get back to her mother. She checked the portfolio with all the data for the eighteenth time as if the solution would suddenly appear before her eyes, praying to find a piece of information she had overlooked, a hidden clue between the lines. An hour later, she collapsed onto the bed with bitter saliva accumulating in her mouth. She felt sick, tired... damn it! She wanted to scream until she was hoarse, completely angry but exhausted enough to cause a scene and curse for hours.

Lilith wasn't the type of person to give up easily. None of her visions ended in a colossal disaster. She was meticulous, calculating, and very clever. She wished that those qualities would finally squeeze out the needed answer and not stay half-potential. The routine progressed to a near-zombie state. Sleep hours became fewer and the liters of coffee exceeded those consumed during her first year at university - and that was saying something, considering she was admitted to one of the toughest universities to get into - while maintaining grades no lower than an A. It was impossible to fight against insecurity, and it brought her to the brink of despair, to thoughts she had never had before. What if she continued with her life? Could she do it? She was only nineteen years old, a bright future awaited her, and she could surely figure out how to manage with the money her mother had saved her whole life to attend Harvard and the inheritance left by her maternal grandparents. Money wasn't a problem, her mental stability - on the other hand - was not so easy to control, and she didn't trust herself.

Totally desperate, she decided to rest for one night, just one night, to evaluate her performance alone, the last with the Arduenn surname; and it was damn funny - no, it wasn't - that she had dared to think in such magnitudes murmuring a Britney Spears song going through something similar.

It was too hot to be an August night, or maybe it was her nerves taking over her body. It was definitely the latter. A strange feeling wouldn't let her move forward, always taking a few steps back. She pulled out a loose, dark hoodie from her closet, made of a lightweight material, and paired it with a pleated skirt. She did herself a favor with just a touch of makeup on her face and added vitality with a hint of blush on her cheeks and lips. Without looking at herself too much in the mirror, she walked downstairs to Bobby's study.

"You can't go anywhere, you know that," he said as soon as he saw her ready to leave. He would be surprised, of course. He hadn't even taken off his pajamas when the witch hunters came.

"I know," she said understandingly and in a calm tone. "I just want to go to a party for a while and distract myself. It's not good for me to be locked up all day reading books that don't give me answers, looking for something that doesn't want to be found. I know it's dangerous, but can't we find a way for me to go out for a few hours? I can keep my cellphone's GPS on all the time, you can give me a gun with witch-killing bullets, or we can agree to check in every half hour: I can name objects in the house and where they are so you know it's me and not someone impersonating me. Pleaseeee."

With just one look, Lilith realized that she wouldn't get it easily. Bobby wouldn't let her go. She glanced at a pile of books behind the hunter to avoid eye contact; she needed to think, but instead of making a plan to convince him, all she did was wonder if she really wanted to go to a party. Was that what she needed? Would that tell her if she was ready to return to normal life, to college? Damn it! She had two weeks left to officially make that decision.

"Forget it," she said, waving her hands as if she were shooing away a fly. "It was a stupid idea now that I think about it. It was something sudden, in the moment, not what I want...I mean, it was stupid. I'd better go back to bed," what she said was true. There were no tricks that could get a look of pity from Bobby. "I'd have gotten bored anyway."