◖𓈈﹗﹙chapter eight﹚
❛ ▬▬ bobby singer . . . ❜
At noon the brothers took her to Bobby Singer's house. Lilith had packed a suitcase with everything she needed for the rest of the summer vacation. Although no deadline had been agreed upon, she assumed she would not be left alone again until the matter of the witches and demons was cleared up.
This was not the first vacation in the junkyard. As she dragged the suitcase along the dirt path between cars she remembered old times spent together with Sam and Dean as a child. The feelings that were blooming as a result of pleasant memories did not match the mood reflected on her face: staying at Bobby's house was an adventure. Usually her mother had to go on a work trip, and since she didn't trust any babysitter —Lilith had taken care of that— she decided to leave her in the hunter's care. If it was already fun to be left alone, it was even better when the brothers were there too.
She played all day long with Sam, they built shelters with sheets and wood where Dean was forbidden to enter because at that time he left them aside for girls and television. Suddenly she remembered how one night Dean had promised to join them for their anniversary dinner, but ended up blowing them off by going to the movies with a girl. They had been so angry that they had enjoyed an entire pizza making fun of him and saying very rude things. The anger had lasted them all week: they didn't speak to him, ignored him and pretended he didn't exist; they only forgave him when Dean brought a dinosaur book for Sam and Lilith a rose with chocolates, which she then shared with Sam while reading amazing facts about dinosaurs. Lilith was sorry to lose that innocent excitement, she would give anything to go back to that time.
She knocked three times on the door and seconds later it opened revealing the grumpy hunter. Bobby held her in his arms, and no matter how much time passed, she always wondered if this was what it felt like to be hugged by a father.
"How are you, girl? And the boys?" He asked, peeking his head from behind her shoulders, and when he realized that no one else was there, he made an almost imperceptible grimace of sadness. "Leave your suitcase in your room. There's some coffee made if you want some, I think you need to reheat it."
"I'm fine. The boys are after a werewolf, they told me it's a full moon today, they ran off," Her suitcase knocked over a pile of books and in a futile attempt to avoid it, her head hit some wooden protection symbols hanging from the walls by a thread. "I'm going to leave my stuff."
"Okay, but hurry up, the guys told me a lot about what happened, I want to hear your side."
Lilith nodded as she struggled to carry the suitcase up stairs that seemed about to collapse. Bobby's junkyard was a large house, inherited from his parents, which inside seemed to be much smaller due to the abysmal amount of books scattered everywhere, from the bathroom to the kitchen and from the attic to the basement. There were many curious and frightening objects, it was a museum of the supernatural. Upstairs were the bedrooms and the second bathroom. As in her house, he also had a room for the Winchesters and, of course, for Lilith as well. Bobby had never had children or plans to adopt any, but his house made it clear that it didn't just belong to a lonely, grumpy old man.
The room designated for Lilith had some of her personality in it: the corners of the walls still had pictures she'd drawn as a child, the closet had forgotten clothes, the bedspread and pillows were Lilith's favorite color. On one side of the bed rested a small antique wooden table with a pretty and lovely nightstand, and Lilith once added a standing mirror. She felt at home; this was her second home.
Somehow she managed to take less than twenty minutes to disassemble the suitcase and set it up. When she came downstairs again, Bobby was waiting for her in his usual office, behind a few empty whiskey bottles and a plate of freshly finished food. The hunter nodded toward the free chair and there was a little space for a cup of hot coffee among a pile of sheets and manuscripts.
"So," Bobby said with a sigh that hid a certain scolding, "what happened in Massachusetts?"
The young woman omitted no detail, prolonging the conversation as long as necessary to cover every event. The hunter listened to her attentively and with few interruptions apart from reproachful glances and some other expression that hid the true opinion. Narrating everything that had happened served to put some order in his head and observe with more logical analysis, or at least she tried to regardless of the supernatural context: first the way mom disappeared and then the arrival of a letter that turned her life upside down; Vanessa Smith, that name was never going to escape her mind as well as the way she died, and finally a damned kidnapping by witches. With all the information gathered, Lilith felt there must be something connecting them to each other and to her mom.
"We're certainly missing part of the circus," Bobby determined after Lilith asked what he was thinking. "We didn't investigate your mom properly."
"What do you mean?"
"We figured she'd never get into these things, but she did. You don't play games with letters like that," she held up the letter that had arrived at her house in the night and changed her life with just twenty words. "That lady confirmed it to you. It's no longer a motive from work, nothing mundane. I went through every book and found nothing remotely similar to the seal, it's like it's lost in history."
Bobby's expression was still hiding thoughts.
"Lost in history?" She asked, "So it's more serious than we thought?"
"Or no, it may be so recent that my books don't have it documented. What doesn't make sense to me are those witches who kidnapped you, why you?"
"It could be related to mom, couldn't it?" Lilith had tried to get Pierre to confirm that part, but she didn't succeed, he only told her that it wasn't the first time they did it.
"Yes," she affirmed, "Also, I would confirm it after what you heard. They were going to take you somewhere else, someone wants you. What do they want?" he said to no one specifically.
Lilith kept quiet and took the opportunity to drink some of the coffee. It was bitter, too bitter for her taste, but she still managed to swallow it. She felt totally distressed, as if submerged in the middle of the ocean and that was already a terrible scenario because she didn't know how to swim. She barely knew some basic things about the world of hunters and monsters, where did she start? She had searched and found every piece of information necessary for a professional to do the job, and now nothing was of any use because new information came to light that —although it cancelled half of her theories— opened up a whole world of possibilities.
"What do we do now Bobby?" said Lilith, discouraged and lost.
"We investigate about the witches who kidnapped you, are you sure none of them still alive?"
"Dean killed them all, shot in the head with some witch-killer bullets," she answered immediately swallowing some more coffee to forget about the blood and the choking sensation that still haunted her from time to time. "I remember the factory they took me to, I should have told Dean to investigate. I was a moron! I should have checked!"
"... Dean kills before he asks," Bobby scratched his head, thinking, "he's a smart boy, but sometimes he's really stupid. Let me think... I think I can ask someone to go," he walked over to the wall of phones and opened a worn brown leather phonebook, read a number and then dialed.
Over the next week Lilith's mood suffered from a downturn. Her mother's investigation was not moving forward. Bobby sent a trusted hunter named Rufus Turner to track down leads on those witches, but as they had expected, Dean made sure they were left for dead. After that, Bobby's countenance became more serious and as the days went by, distant. He began to have phone calls that ended when Lilith approached or simply stopped and forced her to leave the room. Lilith was a young girl with a lot of respect for the job of hunter, it wasn't for everyone and she definitely couldn't pretend to go head first after knowing all the danger it meant. She wasn't stupid, she knew it wasn't her place; however, she had a right to know about her mother and she was feeling left out.
"Come here a moment Lilith," Bobby called to her from his office. The girl came down the stairs almost running in the hope that she would have some progress. "Listen to me, you're going away with the Winchesters for a few weeks, okay? They are in Maryland right now, buy yourself a ticket and tell them to pick you up at the airport."
"Why do I have to go?" She asked, crossing her arms and letting her pent-up anger show.
"Because I'm leaving and I can't take you with me or leave you here alone."
"And where are you going?"
"It's none of your business."
At first, heat invaded her face. She was feeling like a dynamite about to explode: a great amount of emotions were fighting to get out of her body and cause a disaster. Lilith restrained herself by taking a deep breath and allowing her head to analyze what was the best option and, without a doubt, obeying Bobby would comply with her wishes to find mom. It was obvious why the old hunter was acting under secrecy, it must be because of her mother's case. Lilith was convinced that he knew something or that he had made a breakthrough without telling her. Good! She would play that game because it was convenient and she would find out what he was hiding.
"Okay, when do I have to leave?" She agreed, feigning annoyance as she climbed the stairs.
"If you can leave this afternoon it would be better."
💬 ！▬ @strxapose
( author's note )
i love bobby, i miss him so much and i'm always happy to write him
please vote and comment, i appreciate it a lot <3