I dreamed that night, as always. 

I was sitting in the chair in Renee's office, when my mum appeared. "Jamie," she said, and reached out to touch my face.

"Mom?" She nodded and smiled, and we talked for a while, about stuipid stuff. We were denoting the merits of The Lord of the Flies when a gunshot wound appeared in the middle of her forehead. 

"Mom!" She smiled, but it was cold. "You did this, Jamie. Fix it." Her body slumped forward onto mine, then my dad's, then Fiona's, then Frankie's, and I was drowning in their mass, their blood was trickling into my mouth, and I was screaming.

                                                                                             *********

I was awakened in a cold sweat, tears streaming down my face, by a knock on my door. I shot straight up in bed, thinking out of habit that I had forgotten to make Fiona breakfast.

I had one leg in a pair of yoga pants and a hand combing through my hair before I realized that didn't make any sense. Fiona would've just barged in. And she was dead.

At least there's that.

Keep it together, Winchester.

Nevertheless, I yelled, "Just a minute!" and elected to throw on a black t shirt and my jacket.

I flung open the door to reveal a tall guy, about Oliver's age, with his hands in his pockets waiting for me. The first thing that I noticed about him were his eyes. They were grey, not blue-grey, a pure grey that fell just a few shades below white. His hair was dark, swept back in a way that conveyed chronic carelessness. 

My appearance at the door shook him out of whatever he had been thinking about, and he smiled at me, not in the trying-to-charm-you way that Oliver smiled, but just in an absentminded way that showed this to be his reaction to everyone.

"Morning. I'm Pete Lancaster," he introduced himself. He was British.

"Jamie Winchester." I immediately cursed myself for giving him my full name before realizing I really couldn't care less  at this point. Like they didn't already know.

"Pleasure to meet you, Jamie. Renee wants to see us downstairs for debriefing," he said and turned to go. He was halfway down the hallway before he realized I hadn't followed. He turned and looked at me quizzically.

"Wait, who said I'm staying?"

"Oh, come on. Once you're in, you're in for good," he laughed, but there was a hint of seriousness behind his eyes. "Don't tell me you're not curious."

"Of course I'm curious, but you can't let curiosity overpower common sense."

"Please. Everyone here is only here because they lack common sense."

"Yourself included?" I teased.

"No, of course not me." His tone was, at first, joking, but then he added, "I'm here on an errand of vengeance."

An awkward silence settled between us as we descended the stairs. 

I felt like this was where I was supposed to say something profound slash comforting, but I couldn't think of anything, because I'm a desensitized twat, and I blurted: "Well, that's rather macabre."

To my enormous relief, and his everlasting credit, Pete nearly busted a gut laughing. "Yes, sorry, I'm terribly introspective without coffee." We were both laughing now, at Renee's door. We made a valiant effort to compose ourselves, and were actually looking rather solemn. Then Pete let out a little snort and ruined the whole thing. We stopped laughing within a minute or two, and Pete opened the door before we could get started again.