It had been over a month since Mackenzie had joined Dean and Sam on the road. They had several successful hunts while working together, but unfortunately, the brothers were no closer to finding John and Mackenzie was no closer to finding her sister Quinn, which left everyone on edge lately.
The only bright side was that Mackenzie didn't have to deal with Dean much. They went on hunts together but kept it completely profession, and the times they had to be in the same room they kept the conversation centered around the case they were working on- meaning they never once talked about their make-out session or when she dumped ice down his pants.
At least once a day she had to hold back a laugh when she thought about that night- mostly whenever Dean would flinch anytime she reached out to grab her drink or come in contact with any ice. She knew she should probably apologize to him but always felt awkward bringing it up.
She hoped since he never said anything maybe that meant he just didn't remember much about it. It was obvious to her that he was drunk that night so she knew it was a possibility, but what she didn't know was, he did remember it. He remembered every moment; the feel of her lips against his, the way she breathed out his name and the feel of her pressed against him.
During that moment, feelings he had pushed away for the last two years were threatening to spill out, then the next thing he knew she was pushing him away, words were exchanged, then he felt freezing water and ice hitting his most sensitive area, quickly sobering him up and ending the intense moment they were having.
A part of him wanted to be pissed at her about it, but deep down he knew he deserved it for the way he acted. He never should have chased after her that night while intoxicated, which he made a future note to himself about- that and, stay away from her when she has ice.
In the meantime, he figured the best thing he could do was avoid her as much as he could in their downtime- which meant she spent all of her spare time with Sam and he had to watch the two get closer the more time passed. Something he still wasn't sure if he liked or not, but he refused to think about, or he would have to own up to some truths that he was feeling and he wasn't ready to do that yet.
It had been close to a week since their last hunt, Mackenzie and Sam were in her motel room as they searched for a new case, while Dean was in the other room sleeping.
"Find anything yet?" Mackenzie tossed the newspaper she had been reading onto the bed.
"Nope, you?" Sam looked over his laptop to look at her. He was sitting at the small table that was located off to the side near the bathroom, while she was sitting in the middle of the full bed.
"Nope, nothing at all." She was anxious to start a new case, she was hopeful that each one would bring her closer to finding Quinn. Reaching out, she grabbed another newspaper and glanced over it silently for a few minutes, before lowered it to look over at Sam. "Have you heard anything from John?"
Looking up from the laptop again, he said, "No, not since he text Dean that address."
"I still wonder why he sent you there. 'Cause there was no way in hell he would send you to help me," she pointed out.
"I dunno, maybe he sent us to stop you?" he suggested. She still haven't told him about her past with Dean, but she did tell him about John's hatred for her and her father- still leaving out Michael's death though. She wasn't ready to revisit that day yet.
"Could be." She went back to reading the newspaper. After a few more minutes, she sat the paper down with a groan. "Why is this so hard? It shouldn't be this hard to find someone, I feel like we're going in circles."
"I know what you mean." He sighed. "I feel like every time we are close to finding Dad or Quinn, we hit a dead end, then have to start all over again."
"And Dean is no help," she complained. She had noticed in the last few weeks that while Sam helped a lot in trying to find Quinn and John in their spare time. Dean hardly did anything to find them. He only worried about whatever case they were on at the time.
"That's because Dad told him not to try to find him and to only worry about saving people. Keep up with the family business," he explained. "And once Dad gives him an order, he has to follow it. He never goes against Dad."
Nodding her head, she remembered her talks with Dean two years ago- it was obvious he looked up to his father. In Dean's eyes, John could do no wrong; he felt like John had a good reason for everything he did, which was something Sam didn't agree with.
"Speaking of Dean, I haven't heard any screaming or seen any claw marks lately; does that mean you two are getting along now?" Sam leaned back in his chair, waiting for her answer.
Thinking of how to respond, she made a face and tilted her head back and forth for a moment. "Hm, I wouldn't say getting along...more like we tolerate each other."
Nodding his head at the answer, he was silent for a minute. "Hey, I have another question."
"Okay, shoot," she said.
"Why does Dean walk in the other direction anytime you're holding anything with ice in it?" he asked with an amused look on his face.
Mackenzie threw her head back, letting out a loud laugh at his question. With her dimpled smile still in place, she opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, there was a light knock at the door. Standing up, she walked over to the door, then after glancing in the peephole, she opened the door to let Dean in.
"Hey." Dean walked into the room and made his way over to the table, then plopped down in a chair across from his brother. "Find a case yet?"
"No, we're still looking." Sam turned his attention back to the laptop.
"You got anything to drink in here?" Dean asked, his voice a bit groggy from sleep. When there was no answer, he turned his head to look at Mackenzie, finding her staring at him while deep in thought.
She didn't know what came over her, but seeing him in his wrinkled clothes, bed head and hearing the sleep still evident in his voice, she couldn't stop her thoughts from going back to two years ago when she woke up beside his sleeping form in the bed.
She remembered watching him sleep for a bit and feeling like she was on cloud nine, then her mood quickly vanished as she worried what them sleeping together meant to him. She was worried it was nothing but a fling to him- just another notch on his belt. A frown appeared on her face as she thought that maybe she was right back then, maybe she was just a one night stand to him.
Hearing him call out her name, she blinked her eyes, coming out of a daze and seeing both of them looking at her. She lowered her eyebrows in confusion, wondering what she missed. "Huh? What?"
"I asked if you had anything to drink," Dean repeated himself.
"Oh! Uh, yeah, I have water, beer, coke-"
"I guess I'll take a coke." With all the weirdness between them, what he really needed was a beer, but figured Sam would give him a hard time for having one so early in the day.
Nodding her head, Mackenzie stood up and walked over to the mini refrigerator to pull out a bottle of coke. Making her way across the room, she held out the bottle to Dean.
"Thanks." Dean grabbed the bottle with one hand while running his other hand through his unruly hair.
Watching him for a moment, she bit her bottom lip, her fingers itching to brush through his soft hair. When he cut his eyes up to look at her, a smug smile on his face, it brought her out of the trance he had her under.
Needing to get back some control and put him in his place, she shot him a smile back, a devilish gleam in her eyes. "Would you like some ice with that, Dean?"
Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, Dean shook his head. "Nah, I'm good."
"Good," Mackenzie repeated, then spun around and walked back over to the bed to sit down.
Sam looked between the two with a confused look on his face, he had so many questions but knew neither one would answer any. Shaking his head, he turned back to the laptop and began to look around to find them another case. He saw Dean reach forward to grab a newspaper from the bed, while Mackenzie picked up the one she was reading earlier.
The trio worked quietly for the next twenty minutes or so, only stopping when Dean's cell phone went off, letting him know he had a new text message.
"Hey, Sammy, I need to borrow your laptop," Dean said after he read the message.
"Why?" Sam questioned as Dean grabbed the laptop and turned it toward him and began to type.
"What's going on?" Mackenzie stood up from the bed and walked toward the table.
"I just got a text of coordinates to somewhere," Dean answered.
"You think Dad was texting us?" Sam stood up from the table to stand beside Mackenzie as they both stood behind Dean and looked at the screen together.
"Could be, he has texted us an address before," Dean answered.
"Was there a number on the caller ID?" Sam questioned.
"No, it said unknown." Dean shook his head.
"So where are the coordinates to?" Mackenzie looked at the map on the screen.
"That's the interesting part." Dean pulled up another window and began to type again. "Rockford, Illinois."
"How is that interesting?" Mackenzie asked confused.
"I just checked the local Rockford paper. Take a look at this." Dean pointed to an article on the screen. "This cop, Walter Kelly, comes home from his shift, shoots his wife, then puts the gun in his mouth, blows his brains out. And earlier that night, Kelly and his partner responded to a call at the Roosevelt Asylum."
"I don't understand." Mackenzie stood up after leaning over his shoulder to read the article while he was reading it out loud.
"Me either. What does this have to do with us?" Sam asked.
"Dad earmarked the same asylum in the journal. Let's see..." Dean's voice trailed off as he reached inside his leather jacket to grab the journal out of the pocket. Sitting the book down on the table, he flipped through some pages until he found the page he was looking for.
"Here. Seven unconfirmed sightings, two deaths- til last week at least." He looked back at the other two. "I think this is where he wants us to go."
Sam scoffed. "This is a job, Dad wants us to work a job."
"Well, maybe we'll meet up with him? Maybe he's there?" Dean suggested.
"Maybe he's not? I mean, he could be sending us there, by ourselves, to hunt this thing," Sam pointed out.
"Who cares! If he wants us there, it's good enough for me!" Dean exclaimed.
"So that's it? You get a text and we go...no questions asked?" Mackenzie questioned, after the brothers' little argument.
"Yeah, of course," Dean stated matter-of-fact- as if it made all the sense in the world to him.
Sam shot Mackenzie a look, this was exactly the type of thing he was telling her about before. "Well, I guess we're going then."
"Fine." Mackenzie sighed. "But you boys need to leave so I can get a shower and change."
"No problem, meet you in the parking lot." Sam closed the laptop and slipped it into his bag.
As he walked toward the door, Dean paused to stand beside Mackenzie for a moment. Remembering the way she was looking at him earlier, he decided to get under her skin a bit.
He leaned forward to whisper in her ear, "Or I could stay, not like I haven't seen it before."
"Don't make grab another bucket, Dean," Mackenzie hissed as she snapped her head to the side to glare at him.
Flashing her a smirk, he began to walk away. "Meet you outside."
In a weird way, he loved getting her all riled up- he loved seeing the fire in her eyes before she narrowed them at him. He just had to make sure he ignored the urge that wanted to toss her onto a bed and have his way with her when she looked at him that way.
Once alone, she grabbed some clean clothes, then went into the bathroom to take a quick shower. Even though she had been hunting alone for the last two years, she had to admit she was starting to enjoy hunting with them. It was nice to have someone to share the research with and having back up while going into a bad situation.
As much as she hated to admit it, she was even maybe, sorta, starting to like being around Dean again. Not that she had any plans of telling him that, she would not give him that satisfaction.
•••
After driving for most of the day, Mackenzie and the brothers finally made it to Rockford, Illinois. While Mackenzie checked them into two motel rooms and began to research on Sam's laptop; Sam and Dean went to find the cop, Daniel Gunderson, to ask him questions about his partner.
Close to an hour later, Sam and Dean returned to fill her in. According to Daniel, Walter Kelly was a good cop with a bright future and a normal home life. He and his wife had problems from time to time like any regular couple, but nothing out of the ordinary.
It made them believe something was wrong at the asylum, which was why they were now outside of the building about to break in.
"So apparently the cops chased the kids here, into the south wing," Sam said to Dean and Mackenzie as he pointed toward a door.
"South wing, huh? Wait a second." Dean grabbed the journal and began to flip through it. When he found what he was looking for, he began to read out loud, "1972. Three kids broke into the south wing, only one survived. Way he tells it, one of his friends went nuts and started lighting up the place."
"I don't understand. If kids are breaking in here and going crazy, why are there not more deaths?" Mackenzie questioned.
Sam glanced around and noticed a broken chain near the door. He nodded toward it, then said, "Looks like the doors are usually chained. Could've been chained up for years."
"Yeah to keep people out," Dean stated. As another thought hit him, he added, "Or to keep something in."
Mackenzie, Dean, and Sam all looked at each other for a moment, all three sharing the same thought- they were gonna have to search the south wing. It was obvious to them that is where something bad was hidden.
Taking a step toward the door, Sam pushed it open, then walked inside with Mackenzie and Dean walking in behind him. The three walked down a hallway, Sam and Dean broke off to go into a room to search it, while Mackenzie walked into another room nearby. She glanced around and could faintly hear the brothers arguing in the room they were in.
Rolling her eyes, she sighed and walked further into the room to dig around through all the junk- hoping something would catch her eye. After a few minutes, she came across a sign with the name 'Sandford Ellicott'.
"Hey, guys!" She walked out into the hall to show them what she found.
"Yeah?" Sam questioned as he and Dean fled the room they were in to join her in the hall.
"I found this." Mackenzie handed them the sign.
"We gotta find out more about the south wing. See if something happened here." Dean turned around and left the hall, leaving Sam and Mackenzie behind.
"Is everything okay?" Mackenzie looked over at Sam.
"Yeah, everything's fine, Kenzie." Sam blew out a breath. "Just Dean being Dean. I wished for once he would do something because he wanted to, not because Dad ordered him too."
"I know what it's like to always do what you're told. But I finally broke free and I'm sure one day Dean will too," she sadly said as she thought back to the last conversation she had with Michael.
She had finally become brave and told him how she felt and what she was going to do with her life, and even though she was proud of herself for taking a stand, she did regret how she left things between them, but it was too late to make things right.
"I hope so," he mumbled.
"Alright let's go, we got research to do." She sighed, then lightly grabbed his arm to lead him down the hallway, a task in mind.
•••
A/N; As you can tell I'm following along with an episode from season one. I will be doing that more as the story goes on, but I will be changing things around to fit my storyline.
Big thanks to everyone reading!
Happy reading!
xx