## Johanna
**Fourteen years old. The bunker. Bathroom. Night.**
It happened for the first time after the Shtriga case.
Not because the case had been bad. Not worse than any other. Dean had a gash on his forehead, Sam a tear in his forearm, and I had patched them both up, as always, needle and thread and antiseptic and the sound Sam made when the alcohol burned—that hiss through his teeth, the one he tried to suppress because he thought I wouldn't hear it.
I always heard it.
Afterward, I washed my hands. For a long time. Too long. Sam's blood under my nails, Dean's blood on my fingers, and the water kept running and running, and I scrubbed and scrubbed, and it wouldn't go away. Not the blood—that came off. But the feeling. The feeling of flesh beneath the needle. Of skin giving way. Of my brothers flinching beneath my hands and pretending it didn't hurt.
I went to my room. String lights on. Glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Moose, dog, lump bear on the bed. Impala under the pillow. Everything there. Everything safe. Everything normal.
But I couldn't sleep.
I lay there staring at the stars and thought about Dean's forehead, how the blood had run into his eye, and Sam's arm, how the flesh had been left open, pink and wet, and my hands, which hadn't shaken. Not once. No shaking. No hesitation. Stitch, pull, knot. Like a machine.
I was fourteen. And my hands didn't shake anymore when I sewed my brothers back together.
That was the problem. Not the shaking. The lack of it. The fact that it had become normal. That I could sew flesh without feeling. That I could see blood without reacting. That I functioned.
I functioned. Always. For everyone. For Dean, who looked at me like I was his anchor. For Sam, who looked at me like I was proof that something in this world was good. For both of them, who needed me—not as a sister, not as a child, but as the person who patched them back together when the monsters tore them apart.
I got up. Went to the bathroom. Locked the door. Quietly. Not because I was planning something. Not because I had a plan. I just wanted—I don't know. To feel something. Anything. Because in there, where fear and grief and anger used to be, there was nothing now. Just emptiness. Just functioning.
My eyes fell on the razor blade. Dean's. On the edge of the sink. Beside his toothbrush and shaving cream and aftershave that smelled like leather and whiskey.
I picked it up. Not quickly. Slowly. Turned it between my fingers. The metal was cold. Thin. Light.
I pushed up my sleeve. Left arm. Underside. Where the skin was thin and soft and pale because the sun never reached it.
And then—
It wasn't deep. Barely a scratch. A thin red line that slowly filled with blood. Tiny drops emerging from the skin like sweat. Not much. Almost nothing.
But it burned. And the burning was—there. Real. Tangible. Not like the emptiness. Not like the nothing. The burning was something I could feel, something that belonged to me, something I controlled. I had decided when. I had decided where. I had decided how deep.
Me.
Not the monsters. Not the hunt. Not Dean, deciding when we left. Not Sam, deciding which case we took. Not the world, deciding who bled and who didn't.
Me.
I sat on the bathroom floor. Back against the wall. The blade in my right hand. My left arm across my knees. And I watched as the blood filled the line and ran over my skin, slowly, a thin red thread finding its way along.
And for the first time in weeks, I could breathe.
## Dean
**Fourteen years old. Somewhere in Nebraska. Motel. Night.**
The Wendigo was finished. Burned. Ashes.
I sat on the motel bed, holding my side. Three ribs. At least cracked, probably broken. Sam lay on the other bed, an ice pack on his knee, quietly cursing to himself, which in Sam's case meant it really hurt, because Sam only cursed when he thought no one was listening.
Johanna sat at the table. Laptop open. Homework. As if nothing had happened. As if she hadn't taped my ribs and splinted Sam's knee two hours earlier and hauled us both into the car because neither of us could drive.
She had driven. Fourteen. No license. Thirty miles down a country road in Nebraska, at night, in the rain. And she hadn't shaken. Not once.
“Jojo.”
“Hmm.” Without looking up.
“Thanks. For driving.”
“Hmm.”
“And for—you know.”
“Patching you up?”
“Yeah.”
She kept typing. Click, click, click. And I watched her—her profile in the laptop light, hair falling across her face, Dean's flannel shirt over a long-sleeved shirt even though the room was warm—and thought: She's fourteen. She should be doing homework and getting worked up over boys and hanging out with Mark and—not this. Not patching us up. Not driving because her brothers were too busted up.
“Jojo.”
“What, Dean?”
“You okay?”
She looked at me. Briefly. That smile. The smile that didn't reach her eyes. “I'm fine.”
I'm fine. She said it a lot now. I'm fine, Dean. I'm fine, Sam. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. Like a mantra. Like a wall.
I believed her. Because I wanted to believe her.
## Johanna
**Fourteen years, two months. The bunker. My room. Afternoon.**
Mark sat on my bed and talked about Lucas.
“He looked at me, Jojo. Really looked at me. Not like—not like the others. Different.”
I lay on the floor. Back on the carpet. Legs up the wall. Headphones around my neck, music off because Mark was talking and Mark was more important than music.
“Different how?”
“Different like—I don't know. Like in the movies. When someone looks at someone and the music gets louder and everything slows down.”
“That's a movie, Mark. In real life, nothing slows down.”
“It does for me.” He pulled his knees up and hugged them. His dinosaur backpack lay beside him, and he looked thirteen even though he was fourteen, because Mark always looked younger than he was. Thin. Glasses. Eyes too big behind lenses that were too big. “Do you think this is—normal?”
I knew what he meant. I knew before he said it. Because I knew Mark. Because I knew Mark better than anyone except Dean and Sam. Because Mark was the only person in the world who knew me—not the hunter, not a Winchester, just me. Johanna. The girl with glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling and a toy Impala under her pillow.
“That you're into boys?”
Silence. Mark turned red. Slowly. Starting at the ears. Like always.
“I didn't say that I—”
“Mark. You've been talking about Lucas's eyes for three weeks. You told me his hair smells like coconut. You know what shoes he wears. You know what shoes he wears, Mark.”
He buried his face in his knees. “Oh God.”
“It's okay.”
“It is not okay. My dad—”
“Your dad's an idiot.”
“Jojo—”
“Your dad's an idiot, and you're into boys, and that's okay. More than okay. Lucas is lucky.”
Mark looked at me. Over his knees. His eyes were wet. Not crying. But close.
“How do you know it's okay?”
I sat up. Looked at him. “Because I live in a family where people hunt demons and burn ghosts and—” I stopped. Bit my tongue. “Where people do weird things. Historian things. And if that's okay, then being into boys is okay too.”
Mark laughed. Wet. Shaky. But real. “You're so weird, Jojo.”
“I know.”
He leaned against me. Shoulder to shoulder. And I rested my head on top of his. And we sat there, on my bed, beneath the glow-in-the-dark stars, and said nothing. And it was good. It was the only thing that was good.
Later, after Mark had left—through the side entrance, as always, quietly, as always—I went to the bathroom. Locked the door. And pulled out the blade I now hid beneath the sink, behind the pipes, where no one looked.
Two lines. Thin. Parallel. Left arm. Beneath the long-sleeved shirt I always wore, even when it was warm, even in the bunker, even in summer.
It burned. And I breathed.
## Sam
**Fourteen years, three months. The bunker. Kitchen. Morning.**
Johanna wasn't eating.
I didn't notice right away. Not as a pattern. Individual moments—a plate that came back fuller than when it left. A breakfast consisting of black coffee. An “I ate at school” that came too quickly, too smoothly, too practiced.
But I wrote it down. In my notebook. Not as an alarm. As an observation. Because I was Sam, and Sam wrote everything down.
*Monday: Coffee. No breakfast. “Not hungry.”* *Tuesday: Half an apple. The rest in the trash.* *Wednesday: Mark was here. Ordered pizza. Johanna ate one slice. Slowly. Too slowly.* *Thursday: Coffee. No breakfast. No lunch. Noodles for dinner—three bites, then “I'm full.”*
I looked at the list. And thought: This is nothing. Teenagers eat weird. Teenagers go through phases. This is normal.
But another voice in my head—the voice that was always right, the voice I hated because it was always right—said: Since when has anything about us been normal?
I said nothing. Not yet. Because the list was too short. Because I needed more data. Because I was Sam, and Sam didn't talk until he was sure.
And because I was afraid I was right.
## Johanna
**Fourteen years, four months. The bunker. Bathroom. After the Rugaru.**
Sam's back was open.
Four tears. Diagonal. From his shoulder to his hip. The flesh was exposed—not a little, really exposed. Layers I didn't want to see, but saw because I always saw, because I couldn't look away, because looking away meant no one would do it.
Dean sat on the edge of the bathtub. His face was gray. He held his side—broken ribs, again, for the third time in two months—and watched me thread the needle.
“Jojo, I can do this—”
“No.” My voice. Calm. Flat. The voice I used when I sewed. The voice that didn't belong to me. The machine's voice. “You can barely breathe. Sit still.”
Sam sat in front of me. Shirtless. He gripped the sink. His knuckles were white.
I set the needle down. First stitch. Sam hissed. That sound. Always that sound.
“Sorry,” I said.
“It's okay, Jojo. Keep going.”
I kept going. Stitch, pull, knot. Stitch, pull, knot. My hands were steady. My breathing was even. My face was—nothing. Empty. I knew it was empty because I'd practiced it. In front of the mirror. At night. The empty face. The face that said: I'm okay. I can do this. I'm not here.
Twenty-seven stitches. Four cuts. Twenty-seven stitches.
When I was finished, I put the bandages on. Washed my hands. The water ran. Sam's blood. Pink. Then clear. Then pink. Then clear.
“Thanks, Jojo,” Sam said.
I nodded. Went out. To my room. Door closed. Quietly.
And then I sat on the bed and looked at my hands. Steady. Clean. No shaking. Twenty-seven stitches, and my hands were steady.
I hated my hands.
I got the blade. Not Dean's—I had bought my own at the drugstore when I was shopping for school supplies with Mark. Small. Sharp. Mine.
Three lines. Deeper than usual. Not by much. But deeper. Because the thin ones weren't enough anymore. Because the burning faded faster. Because I needed more to feel.
The blood ran. Warm. Slowly. Down my arm, over my wrist, into my palm. And I watched. And breathed. And thought: This is mine. This belongs to me. This is the only thing that belongs to me.
Not Dean's blood. Not Sam's blood. Mine.
I wiped it away. Put on a Band-Aid. Pulled down my sleeve. Long-sleeved shirt. Flannel shirt. Two layers. Always two layers.
Then I went to the kitchen and said, “Are you guys hungry? I can make noodles.”
## Dean
**Fourteen years, four months. The bunker. Kitchen. Night.**
She made noodles.
For us. Not for herself. She cooked, set the plates down, sat with us, and pushed the noodles from left to right while Sam and I ate. Slowly. Methodically. The fork rose, fell, rose, fell. But nothing reached her mouth.
“Jojo. Eat.”
“I am eating.”
“You're pushing penne in circles. That's not eating.”
She looked at me. That smile. “I'm not that hungry. I had something earlier.”
Earlier. Something. When. I didn't ask. Because I was tired. Because my ribs hurt. Because I'd just been patched up by my fourteen-year-old sister and I couldn't get the image of Sam's open back out of my head.
Sam looked at me. Across the table. That look. The Sam look that said: I noticed something. I'll tell you later.
But later never came. Because I fell asleep. Because I always fell asleep when the pain eased and the whiskey kicked in and the bunker went quiet. And the next morning Johanna's plate had been washed and put away, and I didn't know whether she'd eaten or not, and I didn't ask, because asking meant looking, and looking meant—
I didn't ask.
## Johanna
**Fourteen years, five months. The bunker. Dean's room. Night.**
I couldn't sleep.
The string lights were on. The glow-in-the-dark stars were shining. The moose lay beside me, the dog on the other side, the lump bear on my chest. The Impala under the pillow.
But I couldn't sleep. Because the silence was too loud. Because I couldn't hear Dean breathing. Because I couldn't hear Sam breathing. Because the walls between us were too thick and the door was too far away and the night was too long.
I stood up. Barefoot. Hoodie—Dean's, too big, down to my knees. And walked.
Dean's door was ajar. Always. Ever since I was little. Ever since I was five and crawled to him at night because the world was too big. He left the door ajar so I could come in without knocking. So I knew the way was open. Always.
“Dean?”
He was awake. Of course he was awake. Dean never really slept. Not since Purgatory. Not since—ever.
“Come here, Jojo.”
I climbed into bed. Lay down beside him. Head on his chest. Ear over his heart. Hand at his throat, where his pulse was. Double-checked. Hearing and feeling. Both.
His arm around me. Heavy. Warm. Safe.
“Can't sleep?”
“No.”
“Bad dream?”
“No. Just—” I pressed closer. “Just because.”
He said nothing. Just held me. And his heart beat beneath my ear, steady, strong, there, and I counted the beats, as I always had, since I was five, since the night I'd seen them both bleeding.
One. Two. Three. Four.
There. There. There. There.
And I thought: Maybe I'll sew again tomorrow. Maybe I'll wash blood from my hands again tomorrow. Maybe I'll function again tomorrow, empty and calm and perfect, like a machine that doesn't feel.
But now—now I lay on Dean's chest and listened to his heart and was fourteen and had scars beneath my sleeve and stars on the ceiling and a brother who held me without asking.
And that had to be enough.
For today.