⌜ chapter sixteen ⌟

"You're sure that you don't want us to come with you?" Sam asks as he looks down at Isla; they're standing in the parking lot of the motel, and she offers him a small smile.

"I'll be alright." She tells him, and he nods.

"Call if you need anything." He says as he hugs her.

The younger boy then heads back into his and Dean's motel room, and the oldest walks over to her as Isla's arranging her things in the cab of her truck. "Don't wanna forget this." He gets her attention, and she turns to see him holding up her Selena CD that Sam took the day before.

"Thanks." The blonde says as she reaches out and takes it from him.

"Be careful on the roads, alright? Especially at night." He tells her, and she nods as she looks up at him again.

"I always am."

Dean nods as he looks down at the pavement under their feet. "Look, I'm sorry about before — saying that you don't care about... I was just being an ass."

"Forget about it." She shakes her head. "It's water under the bridge."

"Check in every now and then, huh? So we know that you're alright." He says, and she nods. "I'll see you when you get back." He leans down and kisses the top of her head before turning and heading back to his room.

Isla watches him walk away, but Minx's meows from inside her carrier in the truck regain her attention. "Yes, sweetness, I'm coming." The blonde climbs up into the truck before shutting the door behind her.

The next day, Isla's talking to Sam about the case that she left in Texas. Apparently, not long after she took off, they heard about another dead girl in the basement of the house — with actual proof of a body this time. So, they went to check it out after nightfall, and had an encounter of their own with the murderous ghost of Mordechai Murdoch.

The spirit tried to kill them with an ax, which is weird in itself because the legend says that he only kills women by hanging them. Ghosts generally follow the same pattern, never straying or changing their methods as it usually has to do with their own deaths. Sam also told her that when Mordechai was going after him, he saw slits on his wrists, which doesn't fit the story of him hanging himself after killing his six daughters. Not that they've found any evidence of these seven people ever actually being alive.

"What'd he say?" Isla asks after she hears Dean in the background; Sam has her on speaker.

"He's obsessing over a symbol that he saw on the wall of the house."

"Which one? Do you have a picture?"

"Dean, send her a picture of the symbol." His brother tells him.

"Isn't she driving?" The older boy questions, and she smiles as she looks down at the table in front of her.

"I stopped for lunch." Isla says. "Send it over."

"Alright, hang on."

About a minute later, her phone beeps and she pulls it away from her ear to look at the image that just came through. It's a drawing that Dean did in blue pen on the notepad that's supplied by the motel. There's a dot at the center with three lines coming off of it — one going up, one going to the left, and one going to the right — and an upside-down hook underneath it.

"This was in the house?" The blonde asks as she puts her phone back to her ear, the confusion clear in her voice.

"Yeah. Why, you know what it means?" Dean asks as he gets up off of his bed and walks over toward his brother so that he can hear her better.

"It doesn't mean anything. Er, actually, I don't know — it could mean anything. It's just a logo for the band Blue Oyster Cult." She tells him.

"What?" His eyebrows furrow.

"Yeah, it's on one of their album covers."

"Angel face, you have got a brilliant mind." Dean says, smiling as he goes to get his jacket. "Sam, come on, I know who we gotta talk to."

"Thanks, Isla." Sam says, and she smiles.

"Hey, it's what I'm here for. I'll talk to you guys later."

"Alright, bye." He then hangs up the phone.

—

Isla chuckles as she listens to the boys bickering over the phone. They were pulling pranks on each other during their hunt in Texas, and it's supposed to have stopped, but apparently Dean doesn't know when enough is enough.

"As if putting itching powder in my underwear wasn't bad enough!" Sam yells, and the blonde laughs as she watches what's going on yards ahead of where she's standing.

"That's classic." She tells him.

"Yeah, and then you super-glued my hand to my beer bottle!" Dean retorts.

"Oh, shit." Isla shakes her head. "You know, those are both great, but I gotta say, I think I have you guys beat."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know those guys that we ran into at the Murdoch House?"

"Yeah."

"I called and told them that I was a producer in Hollywood, and that I saw their website online and wanted to make a movie about their experience there." She tells them, and they both start busting up laughing.

"That was you?!" Sam asks.

"You guys said you wanted them out of Richardson so they couldn't make the tulpa situation worse." She shrugs. "I figured California would distract them for awhile."

"That's hilarious." Dean chuckles.

"Alright, guys, I gotta go. I'll talk to you later." She tells them, and the boys say goodbye before hanging up the phone.

Isla sticks her phone in the back pocket of her jeans as she watches the graduation ceremony that's taking place on the football field of her old high school. The principal's currently calling the names of the graduating students, and he's on E at the moment.

She glances behind her to look at where she parked the truck on the side of the road. She left the window cracked because Minx is asleep on the seat, but it gets hot in California in June. The kitten should be fine for the time being — she has a bowl of water by the carrier for her.

The principal's making his way through the J's when someone walks up beside Isla. The blonde chuckles as she shakes her head. "Barely made it, as usual. You know, it's actually kinda refreshing to see that some things never change." She says as she glances at the brunette man to her right.

"But I see you've changed a bit more." He says, his hazel eyes on the kids in the graduation caps and gowns. "What happened to the red?"

"Bleach."

"Not quite back to natural, but closer." He nods. "I like it. I always thought something like this would suit you better than that fire truck color you kept killing your hair with."

"Fire..." She chuckles. "You're a dumbass."

"That's not very nice, Janie." He says, and she takes a deep breath.

"So, you gonna rat me out?"

"You think I'm going in there?" He scoffs, and she looks over at him. "They don't want anything to do with me. Guess I did it to myself — becoming an asshole to support my habit."

"You don't see them anymore?" She asks, and he shakes his head.

"Nope."

It's quiet between them as they watch the graduation, waiting for the only name that either of them actually cares about. It's almost her turn to walk up on stage to get her diploma, and the anticipation is starting to get on both of their nerves. It isn't just her name that they're waiting to hear, it's what they know will follow immediately after — the same sound that they heard at their own high school graduations.

"Natalia Katz." The principal announces.

Both pairs of hazel eyes fall closed as they listen to the cheers that erupt from the bleachers on the side of the football field. An arm wraps around Isla then, and her older brother pulls her into his side as they both look at their sister on the collapsible stage that was brought out onto the field for the occasion.

The two siblings both have teary-eyed smiles on their faces as they look at the brunette who's shaking her principal's hand. This is the second graduation that they've watched together like this, but he was still on speaking terms with most of their family at this time last year.

"The outcast and the black sheep." Mateo muses as he raises his hand to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

"Watching the baby of the family do her graduation walk."

"I never understood that saying before, but I get it now." He says, and she nods.

"You can never go home again." Isla takes a deep breath. "Come on, you have a card to sign."

"When did you get a cat?" He asks as he follows her back to her truck; he saw Minx's stuff before he made his way over to watch with her.

"Uh... She's ten weeks old. Or is it eleven?" She shakes her head. "April first."

"Rescue?" There's teasing in his voice, and she laughs as she flips him off, holding her hand over her shoulder. "Is she okay?" He asks when he sees that Minx is in the back of her carrier.

"She's mad at me." Isla says as she sits in the driver's seat of her truck. "She really likes a friend of mine, and hates it whenever I take her away from him for too long. Plus, I took her to the vet a couple days ago to have her spayed, so she's still recovering."

"Poor girl." He says as he looks at the black kitten. "And who's this him that she's attached to?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" She muses as she hands him the card that she bought to go with their younger sister's graduation present.

Instead of taking the card, Mateo grabs her arm and pulls her right hand closer so that he can look at the tattoo on her wrist. "I'm assuming the man she misses is the same person that this is referring to." His hazel eyes move from the crowned initials to her own hazel eyes.

"He might be." She smirks.

"What's his name?" He asks as he takes the card — with the pen attached — and goes to use the hood of her truck to write in the card.

"Dean." Isla tells him as she leans back, looking at her brother through the open window.

After writing his short letter to their youngest sister, he rounds the open door and hands the card back to the blonde. "Who is he?" He asks as she sticks the card inside the envelope, and then she hands it to him with a small smile, making him roll his eyes because he knows that she doesn't want to lick the seal to keep it closed.

"He's a friend." She says as he closes up the card. "I got into some trouble a few years back, and his dad helped me out of it. It was pretty recent that we started spending any real time together though. And this—" She looks down at the ink on her arm. "This was a drunken..."

"Mistake?"

"No." She shakes her head. "No, I don't think I'd go so far as to call that night a mistake."

"Is the tattoo not all that happened?" He raises his eyebrows, and she fights back a smile as she looks away from him. "Are you blushing?" He laughs.

"So, uh... You look good, Matty — better than last time I saw you." She says, and he nods.

"Six months." He tells her. "About a week over."

"That's great." Isla smiles. "I'm proud of you."

"Thank you." He nods as he looks down. "So, no graduation next year."

"Nope, but Tiago's girls the year after." She says, and he nods, taking a deep breath. "You wanna take my number?"

"You sure you wanna offer that up?" He asks as he looks back at his younger sister.

"I'm doing good now, and I want to be there if you need someone." She nods. "I took the time that I needed, and I know that diving back in with everyone... I think you and I could use each other." She tells him, and he nods.

The two exchange numbers, and then he looks back at her. "How much do I owe you?"

"Mateo, I got it. It's no—"

"No." He shakes his head. "My name's on the card, so I'm chipping in on the gift. How much?"

Isla takes a deep breath as she looks at him. "Twenty."

"You only spent forty on Natty?" He shakes his head. "I don't believe that for a minute."

"Money's tight this year. It's not cheap feeding another mouth." She says, and he narrows his eyes as he looks at Minx again.

Mateo nods, taking out his wallet. "What'd you get her?"

"A necklace with her birthstone." The blonde tells him. "It's kinda hard to shop for someone that you haven't seen or spoken to since they were twelve."

"Yeah." He nods. "I'll see you around, Janie. Sometime soon, I hope."

"Yeah, I'd really like that." She smiles as she drops out of the truck so that she can hug him. "I love you, Matty."

"I love you too, Janie." He pulls back and then looks down at her again. "Take care of yourself, kid."

"You too." She smiles, and he lightly taps the knuckle of his index finger under her chin before turning around and walking over to his car, which he parked behind her truck.