"You know what, screw you, Ruby," I snapped. "I don't have to do what you say."

Ruby threw her hands up in the air and stalked away from me. "Sam, deal with her so we can get on to more important things, will you?"

I rolled my eyes and turned towards Sam, who was coming in the door with his hands full of takeout Chinese. She always said that when I was being what she considered annoying.

"Ruby, don't talk to her like that," Sam said, irritated. "She's important, too." He set the Chinese food down on the table of the motel room we were staying in. It was our third motel room in three days and I'd stopped even noticing the names of the motels we were staying in. "What's going on?"

"Ruby says I can't come on your hunt tonight," I said. "She said that I can't even stay in the car while you guys do the hunt."

Sam sighed and looked at me regretfully. "I'm sorry, honey, but she's right."

I stomped my foot. "Come on, Sam! I haven't barely seen you in a week! You get up and go out hunting and don't come back until waaaay late, and then sleep half the day. All I do is watch you sleep! It's not fair."

"Jessie," Sam said, "it's temporary. Just until we get rid of this pile of demons. There's a whole group of them. We have to pick them off one by one."

"I don't see why I can't just stay in the car while you do the hunt. Then I can at least spend the time with you!"

"Because there's a group of them," Sam explained. He came over to me, pulled out a chair, and sat in it so he could look me in the eyes. He tilted my head up so I'd meet his gaze. "What happens if we're taking out one and the others find you in the car?" I frowned and didn't answer. "You need to stay here, honey."

I sighed in defeat and threw myself into his arms and buried my face in his shoulder. "It's not fair. I miss you."

"At least someone can talk some sense into her," Ruby muttered from where she was leaning against the wall.

"Screw you, Ruby," I snapped again, pulling my head off Sam's shoulder and glaring at her.

"Jessie," Sam said warningly. I sighed. We were supposed to be nice to each other, but it was hard. She mostly left me alone, and while I was glad about that, it also confused me. She'd tied herself to Sam, but had no stake or relationship with me at all. I was a thing to be mostly ignored unless annoying.

"Sorry, Ruby," I muttered unrepentantly as I let Sam go and threw myself on my rollaway bed. Ruby never left anymore and there were two beds in the room besides mine, but she never slept in hers. I didn't really understand what was going on with Ruby and I was a little afraid to ask. She acted like she was Sam's girlfriend and the way he treated her was really confusing to me. Sometimes I thought he hated her and other times, I thought he might be falling in love with her.

"Jessie, come over here and eat. I got you your favorite," Sam said, setting a little tray of Peking duck in front of the chair to his right. Ruby was already sitting at his left. I glared at her, but since she'd gotten her way, she was ignoring me again.

I rolled off the bed and stomped over to sit down next to him. She was grating on me. All she cared about was what she wanted and what she wanted Sam to do. I was nothing to her, and it both hurt and angered me. Sam knew there was conflict, but didn't seem to know what to do about it. She and I never screamed at each other. The tension was more just there, like we were competing for him or something. I sometimes felt like she was only reasonable about me because if she wasn't, he'd tell her to get lost.

I didn't think he would. He wanted Lilith dead too much for that. I opened the little plastic container of duck and slammed the lid down on the table.

Sam put his hand on my arm. "Jessie, lose the attitude. Throwing a temper tantrum isn't going to get you anything but a trip over my knee. You understand me?"

There was no anger or annoyance in his tone, but I knew he meant it. "Yes, Sam," I whispered, not meeting his eyes. He kept his hand on me for another second and then let my arm go. I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to let my thoughts about Ruby go. I picked up my fork.

Ruby and Sam started discussing details about their hunt in a vague way, if that makes any sense, almost like they were talking in code. I ignored them and concentrated on my food, putting my elbow on the table and resting my head on one hand while I ate.

The thing was that Sam was more and more dependent on her all the time, even while acting like he didn't much care for her. They did things together. I didn't know what those things were because I was either in bed or they were out when it happened. Sam was really careful not to expose me to what they were doing, although I did know that he was trying to strengthen his psychic abilities to take out Lilith. I just didn't really know how or what he was doing to accomplish it.

"Jessie, have you heard a word I've said?" Sam asked.

I blinked and looked up at him. My food was about half gone but both of them had finished eating. "Uh, no," I said. "I was thinking."

"I'm sending your homeschooling application in this week. We need to send back your books, too, and ask them to send us the next set. Once we have those, I'm going to have you start working on schoolwork again."

Ugh, schoolwork. It had been a while since I'd even looked at a schoolbook. The events of the last several months had kind of run school right out of my mind. "Can't I just get my GED?" I asked, poking my fork hard into a piece of Peking duck.

Ruby laughed unexpectedly, and not scornfully, like she was actually amused by me. I looked at her in surprise. "Sorry," she said, waving her hand and getting up from the table to dump her empty cartons in the trash.

Sam stared after her for a second, and then looked back to me. "No," Sam said.

"I can get into college with a GED," I offered.

"Jessie," he sighed. "No. Now go get your books and we'll go down and send them back."

"I'm not done eating," I said, picking my fork up and sort of mouthing the piece of chicken.

He scoffed. "You've been picking at that for the last ten minutes. You're done. I can tell. If you're still hungry when we get back, you can eat then." He stood up, picked up the lid to the container, and stuck it back on. I looked at him mournfully while he put it in the tiny fridge that was in the room. He laughed when he saw the expression on my face.

"Go on, get your books. Let's go," he said. I got up from the table slowly. Then, he asked, "You coming, Ruby?"

"No, I'm going to stay here and prep," she said. A weight lifted from me and I tried not to move more quickly now that I knew she wasn't coming. I didn't want to be that obvious.

Within moments, I had dug the books out of my butterfly backpack. It wilted sadly without the extra books, but I still had the novels in there, and that book with the information about pyrokinesis.

It had come in handy while I worked on my own abilities.

I carried the books to the door and waited for Sam to get his keys and find the homeschooling application. He took half the books from me and then opened the door for me. I went out the door and heard him say goodbye to Ruby before he joined me in the hall.

On the way down to the car, I said, "We don't have a permanent address. How are they going to ship us the new books?"

"I'll give them a post office box number and we'll come back through and pick them up when they're delivered," Sam said. We reached the car. I opened the door and dropped the books on the seat, pushing them over to get in.

"Wouldn't it just be easier to drop the application and books off at the place in South Dakota? We could pick up the new books and visit Bobby," I suggested, pulling on the seatbelt.

"There's a timeline on this stuff," Sam said. "And I'm hunting demons right now. We can't lose them."

"Come on, Sam," I said. "We haven't seen or called Bobby in months. It's two birds."

"I can't right now, Jessie. I'm sorry," Sam said.

"Sam," I whined.

"No," he said, and that hard tone entered his voice. I relented. Pushing against that tone had gotten me in a lot of trouble in the past few months. He hadn't let me get away with anything, that he knew about, since that day in July.

We dropped off the books and the application to be sent back to Sioux Falls. Then I talked Sam into taking me out for ice cream cones before we went back to the room. Ruby was annoyed by how long it had taken us, but Sam didn't care, and neither did I. Before they left for the evening, Sam took me out to a woodpile behind the motel we were staying in to burn off my excess.

He didn't know that I didn't need to do that every day any longer. Gabby had seen to that. I set the pile on fire anyway, nice and big so that he wouldn't think anything weird was going on. When I was done, he took me back to the room.

"Go to bed by nine," he told me. "Text me when you do."

"Yes, Sam," I said, settling down on my rollaway and using the remote to turn on the television.

"No sneaking out," Sam warned, stepping in front of me and making me look at him.

"I won't," I said, blushing and looking down. Two weeks ago, I'd left the room without permission after dark to go to the gas station down the road for some cookies. I'd done it before, but this time, they'd gotten back to the room before I had. My excuse that I wasn't in any danger and that nothing had ever happened to me before had opened up a whole can of whoop-ass, and I mean that literally. Now every time he left, he reminded me. I knew eventually he'd stop, but it might be a while yet. It was just embarrassing.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet before pulling me into his embrace and kissing me on the top of my head. "Be good," he said.

I hugged him back hard. "I will," I said. I watched him and Ruby leave. After the door shut, I waited ten minutes before I flipped the television back off and dialed Bobby's number.

"Singer Salvage Yard," said Bobby's gruff voice. I smiled.

"Hi, Bobby!" I said cheerfully.

There was a pause, and then he said, "Jessie?"

"Yeah, it's me," I said.

"Girl, it's been forever," Bobby said. "What have you been doing? How's Sam?"

I shrugged but realized he couldn't see me. "Ok, I guess," I said. I didn't want to divulge any of what Sam was doing, not even to Bobby. "Bobby, can I come visit you?"

"Yeah, of course. What's wrong?" he asked, sounding worried.

"Nothing's wrong. I just need to get new schoolbooks and I thought it might be nice to see you."

"You can always come visit, darlin'. You bringing Sam?"

"I'm trying to," I said. "I'll talk to him now that you said yes, and see if he'll bring me."

"Call me and let me know, girl," he said. We said our goodbyes and hung up. Now I just had to ask Sam.

I didn't get a chance until the next afternoon, and Sam wasn't too happy about it. "Sam, come on, he said yes. He wants to see us."

"Jessie, I told you, we're in the middle of a fight here. We got one of them last night, but there are several more. I can't leave now."

"I want to see Bobby," I whined. I also wanted to get the hell away from Ruby, and I knew she couldn't follow us to Bobby's. Maybe I'd get some time with just Sam for a change.

Sam sighed. "How about I send you there on a bus?" he asked, clearly wanting to make me happy. "Bobby can take you to get your schoolbooks. You can stay with him for a couple of weeks, and then I'll come pick you up when we're done with these demons."

I caught a look at Ruby's face. She looked pleased and smug. I'd painted myself into a corner. Sam was trying to make me happy by giving me a visit to Bobby, but he couldn't go with me, and so Ruby was going to get what she wanted, time alone with Sam. "I wanted you to come, too," I whispered.

"I can't, Jessie," Sam said, looking regretful. "Now do you want to stay here with me or do you want to go to Bobby's?"

"Can I come with you when you kill them?" I asked with fading hope.

"We already talked about how unsafe that is. No," Sam said kindly.

I thought for only a second. My choices were to stay here mostly alone while Sam and Ruby go off to fight demons without me, or go to Bobby's and spend some time with him until they're done and things can go back to normal. Much as I loved Sam, I was tired of being alone and I was tired as hell of Ruby.

"Go to Bobby's," I said, defeat settling over me like a cloak. "I'll call him and let him know."

Sam hugged me. "I'll look up bus times," he said. "I'm going to miss you, honey."

I buried my head against his stomach. "Miss you, too," I said.