Chapter 1

Somewhere in Georgia, just outside of a little town named Juliete, a black Chevy truck is driving all alone on the 2-lane highway. The driver hasn't seen another car for nearly a hundred miles but that may have something to do with the fact that it's nearly 3 AM. He's tired and knows he should stop for a few hours, but he doesn't want to wake the girl sleeping next to him. Seems the only time she sleeps at all anymore is when they're on the road.

John Winchester looked over at his daughter. Katie was sitting with her back to the passenger door of his truck, her knees pulled up to her chest and arms wrapped around them. Her head was resting at a strange angle against the seat and he wondered for the thousandth time how she could possibly sleep like that. Of course, he also knows that all he has to do is barely whisper her name or decrease his speed and she'll be wide-awake, ready for anything. Even when she was sleeping, he could still see the tension in her muscles. Another thought crosses his mind for the thousandth time since she joined him; she's almost a perfect hunter.

He tried so hard to keep his daughters from the life he raised his boys in. He left them in Lawrence with his beloved Mary's family, hoping they would be taken care of and forget everything that had happened the night their mother was killed. He read the newspaper articles from the entire state of Kansas that was the result of that decision just before he retrieved them. He could still see the first headline clearly in his mind "Twin 8 year old girls escape from 6 years of torture at the hands of their aunt and uncle." He'd found that article while looking for a job, but didn't think then that it was talking about his girls. He probably would have known if he had read more than just the headline.

It took 4 years after their "escape" for him to come looking for them. Pastor Jim had received a letter from Laura begging him to send her father to rescue her and Katie from foster care in the state of Kansas. Jim had done exactly that. He had barely finished reading Laura's letter when he called John to tell him about his daughters. What made things worse was that Dean had known about everything and said nothing.

That's what he gets for assuming his oldest son had forgotten his sisters. He should have known better. Dean has always been fiercely protective of his family, even at the age of two when the girls were born. Just because Dean had never mentioned the girls after leaving Lawrence didn't mean he had forgotten. On the contrary, Dean had Jim find them for him so he could write to them and let them know the rest of the family was ok.

Instead of taking them home with him, he had left them in Nevada with Caleb, with strict orders that they not be trained as hunters. That didn't work at all. Dean had told them everything about what their father was doing in astonishing detail. Laura came up with the idea that if they could show John they could handle themselves, as hunters, that he would finally reunite the family. That idea had cost Laura her life.

There hasn't been a day since that he didn't regret leaving them at Caleb's. He regretted it more that he had never told Sam about the girls. Dean had done that the day Sam graduated from high school. It had caused a rift between his sons and they hadn't spoken to each other in almost 4 years. Course Sam hadn't spoken to John in all that time either, but for another reason. It took John pulling a disappearing act and the death of Sam's girlfriend to bring his sons back together.

John was completely wrapped up in his thoughts about his children when Katie's cell phone rang in her pocket.

"Hello" she answered

"Oh, hi Dean. How'd the asylum gig go?"

"Is he ok?"

"What about you?"

John sat silently, watching the road and listening to his daughter talk to her brother. It still amazed him how close those two were and how so completely alike. Two years on the road with them after Sam had left for college showed him that, right down to their love of fixing cars and classic rock music. Mary had often commented when they were little that Dean and Katie acted more like twins than Laura and Katie did, he just didn't really understand it until Dean was 22 and Katie nearly 20.

When she laughed at something Dean said, it got him thinking of Mary again. Katie sounded just like her mother when she laughed. He was sure that if the girl quit dying her hair that she'd be the spitting image of her mother, but with his eyes and dimples. Those were the only two differences between his girls, which meant that if Laura were alive now, that girl would look exactly like Mary had when he first met her.

"Earth to John." Katie called, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"What's up Katie girl?" John asked her.

"I said, we need to stop soon. You need sleep and you have a phone call to make later this afternoon." she replied.

"You're still gonna make me do that?" he asked, hoping she'd say no, but knowing she wouldn't

"I already told you, me sending them a text message from you doesn't count. Dean is worried sick and he's suspicious that the message came from me. All I'm asking is that you tell them you're ok. Hell send them on another job for all I care, but you're gonna call them."

"Katie, I know you're just trying to stick up for your brothers and ease their minds a little bit, but I don't want them to know where we are."

"I have that covered, all you gotta do is call them from a payphone. I can hack into the system and reroute the call. They'll think you're calling from a payphone in Sacramento instead of small town Georgia. I did pick up a few tricks from my computer genius sister and sneaky little brother, ya know."

"All right, all right. You really have put some thought into this." John said with an exasperated sigh.

Katie got a big smile on her face and replied with a "yes, sir."