Legacy (Supernatural) [Rogue Trilogy] {3}

6. "I'm Not Okay."

"Look at you," the mirror hisses. "Worthless. Useless. No wonder Dad hated you. All you do is destroy things. What help are you to the world when all you do is hurt?"

I turn away from the mirror, pinching the bridge of my nose. This has got to stop. I can't handle this. I haven't slept. I've barely eaten. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I'm...I'm...

Done. I want to say that I'm done. That I'm tired of fighting the thoughts in my brain, repeatedly telling me over and over again that I'm a worthless piece of shit who has no place in this world. But I think of Cas, who's in a room someplace in this bunker, who's watching over me, even if it's from a distance. The small light in the cloud of dark.

He can't fix you. You're broken beyond repair. You're not top priority. You're not to your brothers, you're not to Cas. If you were priority, they'd be waiting on you, hand and feet, making sure you're okay.

I buckle to the floor, trembling, hunched over. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of it. But it won't stop. It won't go away. It won't quiet, the voice telling me that I'm no good in this world.

You should've goaded Castiel into killing you if you want it to stop, Franco's voice says. You nearly got him to kill you before the cure was complete. You missed out on another chance yet again, Josette. Tisk-tisk.

I feel the disappointment tsunami take the air out of my lungs. I feel like I can't breathe, like I'm suffocating. Like someone has my lungs in their hands and is squeezing the life out of them. Wretched sobs bubble out of my throat, so horrible that they scare me.

"Josette?"

I shake my head, holding the towel tighter around my body. I yelp, jumping away from the hands that touch me. "Get away!"

"Josette, what's wrong?" Cas is kneeling on the bathroom floor.

"W-why didn't you do it, Cas?" I blubber.

"Do what?"

"End me? Kill me?" I sniffle. "You had plenty of chances to! Why didn't you just kill me?!"

"Where is this coming from?"

"I—I can't do this, Cas." I cry harder. "I can't."

"Whoa, hey, hey."

"Stop it! Stop!" I screech as Cas pulls me against his chest. I cry into his clothes. "Why didn't you kill me, Cas? Why didn't you?!"

"Shh, shh, shh. Where is this coming from, Josette?"

"I'm not okay, Cas. I'm not okay."

"I understand that," he says cautiously. "But you need to tell me what's going on."

"Why did you save me?" I pick my head up, puffy red eyes demanding an answer. "Huh? Why was I even worth saving? Why did this happen?!"

"Shh."

"My brothers don't care! They've written me off as a lost cause, again. Why haven't you?"

"Because you're not a lost cause, Josette," he says tenderly. "When you left...it hurt. I wanted to come look for you, but we had other matters. And then unfortunate circumstances happened, which have put me here in the bunker." He looks at me worriedly. "You don't believe you're worthy of being saved?"

"Cas, look at what I've done. I let your vessel's wife get murdered, Claire's mother. I let a freak of nature kill Charlie, someone who loved my brothers like they were her own! I have murdered without remorse, without a second thought, without hesitation. I let myself become something that's a remorseless killer. I let a demon manipulate me into thinking that I belonged with him. How is something like that worthy of getting chance after chance of a redo?"