The Runt of the Litter

The Grayest Shade of Evil

Note: I want to actually post on a regular schedule from now on so I don't keep posting either super infrequently or super frequently. I'm going to try to post chapters on a weekly basis, and Saturday just seems like a good day for it since it's my least busy day right now. So that's the plan and we'll see how it goes, I guess. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think. In this chapter, Anna is seventeen.

The Grayest Shade of Evil

Anna read to the end of the page she was on then closed and tossed aside her book in the backseat of the Impala as Dean steered into the parking lot of a gas station. "Thank God," she muttered. "I'm starving."

"I know the feeling," Sam agreed with a meaningful bob of his eyebrows in the front seat. "Do me a favor, Ladybug. Make sure he gets something that isn't drowned in grease, sugar, or both."

Anna smirked at the indignant expression that appeared on Dean's face and gratefully shoved her door open, looking forward to a chance to stretch her legs. "Just for the record," Dean said as he shut the driver's door and walked toward the little storefront, quickly catching up to his little sister. "That rabbit food crap he likes so much? Not enough to sustain life."

Anna laughed and shook her head. It was an old back and forth her brothers had going and she wasn't about to get in the middle of it. It was freezing outside, and as Anna entered the gas station just behind her older brother, Dean, she was immediately relieved by the rush of warm air. She looked down at her jacket, adjusting a cuff around the new charm bracelet she'd been given by a boy in her class who drew her name in secret santa last month. "Hey," she addressed her brother. "Do you think they have-" She was cut off by an arm slamming into her chest. She turned her head up almost fast enough to give herself whiplash, eyes widening, pupils dilating.

Ahead of them was a man with a gun, and he looked crazed with a combination of fear and anger.

In hindsight, Anna wouldn't be able to remember what she had been about to ask her brother. She would see the motion of her wrist as she shifted the cuff of her jacket as if in slow motion. She would remember the sound of her bracelet jingling clearly, as if it hadn't been a barely noticeable bit of background noise when she began speaking to her brother. She would feel the way the wind was knocked out of her as Dean's arm slammed protectively across her chest. These would be her final memories before everything blurred into chaos.

Well... she would certainly remember the sound of the gunshot echoing through the small gas station building for the rest of her life as well.

People were shouting, but it was somehow so quiet compared to the rush of her own blood in her ears as Anna flinched bodily at the discharge of the gun. In the space of mere seconds, Dean had managed to throw himself in front of her, a human shield. She ducked her head against his chest and everything went away for just a second.

The rotation of the planet had seemed to slow to a near stop in the moment the gun was fired. But in the aftermath, there was an almost bloodthirsty normality to the way time passed. Anna's head shot up, and she felt Dean's hands on her face before she realized he was speaking to her.

"-okay?! Anna, are you okay?"

Anna stared over his shoulder at the man holding a gun on the two of them. Her green eyes narrowed for a moment as she realized that she and Dean were perfectly alright which meant that somebody else was not. Horror painted her face a pale shade as she turned her head toward the counter. "Oh god," she muttered from her throat, one hand reflexively gripping the fabric of Dean's jacket even as he turned, his back to her as he maintained a protective stance between his sister and the gunman. There was blood on the cash register, a limp, graying hand visible peeking out from the floor behind the edge of the counter. "Dean-" she started softly, her heart rate picking up as she came to fully realize what they'd just walked into.