Christmas is Cancelled

chapter Nine





Tilly jumped away from Dean, her body reacting before her head could overrule, but she’d done nothing wrong. With nothing to be ashamed of, she scurried back to him and felt a surge of relief when he pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her. Together they turned to face the stocky man that stalked toward them.

The air positively hummed around the three of them, growing in intensity the closer Phil got. She’d seen the same look in his eyes many times before, mostly when they were kids and arguing about something, but she didn’t like where this showdown was heading. Nobody spoke, nobody moved. The mounting tension finally got to her.

“Merry Christmas, Phil,” she blurted. The jaunty tone she’d gone for didn’t quite work; there was a definite maniacal edge to her voice. “So what brings you out here? I thought I was coming to you for New Year instead?” For all the response she got, she might as well have been invisible.

“I said...put her down.”

Strike one. Nobody treated her like she didn’t exist. She’d had enough of that at the hands of their parents. “It’s okay, Phil. Better than okay, in fact.”

“What’s this? Hiding behind my little sister now?”

Strike two. Her words had fallen on deaf ears. He hadn’t even extended the courtesy of looking at her. It was staggering to see how stupid and blinkered Phil could really be.

“Sweetheart, I think your brother wants a quiet word with me.” Dean’s voice in her ear pulled her out of her thoughts, his voice so calm, so polite, so at ease. “Would you mind stepping aside for a moment?”

A quiet word? “No, he doesn’t,” she squeaked. Like hell did Phil want a quiet word. “He wants to punch your lights out!”

“It’ll be okay.”

She managed to tear her gaze off Phil to look at the man rubbing his hands up and down her arms in a soothing rhythm. His control over his emotions bordered on bizarre. While Phil’s face was full of sneer and menace, Dean’s face matched his tone: calm, controlled, polite. The only hint of stress was a slight tightness in his jaw, which she was fast beginning to recognize. It was still nothing in comparison to what she’d expected to see.

“But—”

“Trust me.” His eyes bored into hers. There was nothing more she could say. All she could do was believe in him and trust he knew what he was doing.

“Yeah, be a good little sister and let the men talk.” Strike three.

“Get stuffed, Phil.” Tilly forced the words past her gritted teeth and rounded to look at him. The fire built in her belly. She was going to swing for him herself. Shame there wasn’t a baseball bat handy. This particular Carter wasn’t a natural redhead for nothing, and no amount of brown hair dye was going to save Phil now.

Dean preempted her charge and restrained her, his hands stepping up their soothing stroking. “Go on, it’ll be okay,” he whispered in her ear, urging her to step aside.

“You’d better be right,” she grumbled, earning herself a playful slap on the backside.

Mentally counting out fifteen strides as she stalked away, she tried not to picture the ludicrous image of two grown men dueling with swords over her honor. She turned around to watch at the very same moment Phil’s fist connected with Dean’s jaw. The sound reached her ears with a sickening thump, and she couldn’t stop the scream from ripping out of her throat.

Dean hadn’t even tried to block him; he took the punch and swayed on his feet, but otherwise stood firm. Why would he do that? She started to run back to them, but Dean’s eyes caught hers, begging her to stay where she was. Distracted, he didn’t see Phil getting ready to try again, pulling his arm back ready to strike, but she saw it all it in stomach-churning slow motion. “Dean, watch out!”

As quick as lightning, his hand flashed out and caught Phil’s hand in his, absorbing all of the blow. Phil might as well have hit a brick wall, and the panic that flickered over his face conveyed the same thoughts. Dean didn’t even look at him, his gaze fixed on her the whole time.

“Now now, Phil,” Dean’s voice carried over to her. “I let you get one punch in because in a sick and twisted way, I reckon I deserved it.” Say what? “But I’m not going to stand here and let you beat the shit out of me either. I thought you of all people would remember that.”

What the hell did that mean? Her head was starting to spin with all the secrets between the two guys currently butting heads. Phil blanched, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. He didn’t respond, but he didn’t try anything else either so Dean let him go. He gave her a wink with his good eye, the other one closing rapidly, puffing like a balloon, and started walking toward her.

She ran to meet him and barreled into his chest. “Oh God, your eye. We need to get some ice on it.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve had worse,” he said, planting a kiss on the top of her head. He put his arm around her shoulders, making a clear statement of intent as he addressed Phil. “Are you coming? I, for one, don’t like airing my dirty laundry in public, so if you want to talk, you’d better come inside.”

Phil’s face was sour enough to turn milk as they walked past him, but he followed them begrudgingly back to the house. Dean headed straight to the kitchen to get a cold compress, then popped back with a couple of chunks of leftover baguette and tossed one to her. She tore her teeth into it; in all the drama, she’d forgotten how hungry was until she saw food. It wasn’t the most orthodox of Christmas dinners; however, her stomach was past caring.

When he left the room again, she stalked up to Phil, shoving him in the chest. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”

“Me?” Phil’s face crumbled as if she’d wounded him. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at? Years I’ve tried to keep him away from you.”

“Why, for crying out loud?”

Phil’s eyes darted left and right. “He’s not who you think he is, Tilly. He’s always been sweet as candy to you, but there’s another side to him, a dark side.”

“A dark side?” She struggled to keep her voice down. “Get a grip, Phil, this isn’t bloody Star Wars. This is Dean we’re talking about.”

“Damn right it’s him we’re talking about,” Phil said, waving his hands wildly to make up for having to whisper. “Do you think I’d have raced up here for nothing, god dammit? I don’t want to see anything bad happen to you.”

If he was trying to freak her out, he was doing a damn good job. The way he was looking at her, the way he was talking, had the hairs on the back of her neck and arms standing on end. Her mind drifted back to the visitor’s book and Dean’s desperate reaction. Just how well did she really know him? Why should she trust him so implicitly over her own brother, whose only crime was being overprotective?

“So what’s he supposed to have done?” she whispered.

Phil’s expression looked frantic now; he kept checking the shadows to make sure Dean wasn’t lurking anywhere. “He’s a murderer, Tilly, a cold-hearted murdered. And a con artist too.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” She stared at Phil, daring him to take it back or laugh it off as a joke, but his expression didn’t change. He’d never been any good at acting, always given something to do backstage at school when it came to putting on a show, yet he looked genuinely scared and truly believed what he was saying.

“Just be careful, yeah? I’m not ready to lose another sister.” Whoa! Did Dean have something to do with Sam’s overdose?

“You really think he’s a murderer?” She sensed Dean’s presence before she saw him but not in time to shut up. His expression alone told her he’d overheard them. The shadows grew deeper in his eyes until he looked haunted and the bag of peas he’d been pressing against his face fell to the floor. It burst open, the peas spilling out like molten lava.

Tilly had known he was hiding something, but she would never have pegged him as a killer. It was all getting too much. The room began to spin, the tension squeezing her throat, suffocating her. Her instincts screamed at her to get out of there. Adrenaline fired in her veins giving her an extra injection of speed. In one fluid move, she grabbed her handbag off the sofa and bolted for the front door, snatching Dean’s keys off the side table on her way out.

“Matilda, no! Please let me explain.”

The fresh air hit her, and she keened, her stomach in knots—she didn’t have time to be sick. Tears formed in her eyes as her fingers fumbled with the keys until she found a car key. She pressed the button and prayed his car was nearby, sending up silent thanks when flashing lights heralded her escape vehicle. She threw herself into the driver’s seat, locking the doors behind her.

Dean’s scent permeated the entire car, assaulting her senses and making her heart ache for him, but there was only so much a girl could handle at once. After everything she’d been through over the past couple of days, she had every reason to freak out, but right now, she needed to get a grip. And fast. She’d have plenty of time to break down later. Tilly dragged the seat forward and started the ignition.

Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, but she wiped them away with her sleeve and took deep, gulping breaths before hammering the accelerator and launching the car into the darkness. The throaty roar of the engine went some way to blotting out the memory of his frantic voice, begging her to listen, but still it rang in her ears.

For the second time in twenty-four hours, she was on the run, and she still didn’t have a single clue about where to go. And she was right first time. Christmas was categorically cancelled.



***



“Get out of my way!” roared Dean.

Phil was blocking Dean’s way on purpose, stopping him from getting to the front door to go after Tilly. Phil stared back defiantly and jutted out his jaw to stand his ground. “Make me.”

Dean didn’t have time to be messing around. He shoved Phil into the waiting sofa and sprinted out to the road. He ran hard and fast, trying to chase her down, but she was drawing farther away. His lungs were ready to give up, but he had to keep going. He couldn’t lose her. Not like this.

He dug deep, calling on all his strength and found another gear, pushing his body to the absolute limit. It worked though; he got close enough to call out her name. She had to have heard him—the whole village must have heard him—but she didn’t stop. She didn’t even slow down. His legs gave way as the familiar taillights of his own car disappeared out of sight.

He crawled to the gutter and heaved, getting rid of the lactic acid pumping throughout his body. His muscles and lungs were on fire. When there was nothing left, he sank down on the curb and pulled his knees into his chest, dropping his head onto his arms. Tilly was gone.

The sound of crunching footsteps pulled him from his stupor. Dean listened to the steps getting closer, as if someone was heading toward him. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there, long enough for his backside to go numb on the cold concrete. Long enough for the cracks to reappear in his soul.

“Dean, is that you?”

Phil! “What are you still doing here?” Adrenaline kicked in, and Dean’s hands curled into fists. He’d always been against using violence, but Phil was challenging his principles to the extreme, and Dean’s patience had long run out. “Come to stick the knife in even more?” He tried to convince his legs to stand—he couldn’t risk Phil having the advantage—except they might as well have been made from jelly.

Phil put a hand on his shoulder and sank down next to him. “She’s better off without you, mate.”

“Know that for a fact, do you?” Dean reached across and grabbed Phil by the front of his coat, startling him and wiping the self-satisfied smile of his face. “And I am not your ‘mate’.”

“So where do you think she’s headed?”

“You what?”

“Just wondering.”

Dean’s legs finally worked. He pushed off the ground and dragged Phil with him, nose to nose. “I’d have caught up with her if it hadn’t been for you. What the hell did you tell her?” Phil eyes widened, and he swallowed. “Oh, forget it, I can probably guess. Who am I supposed to have killed this time?”

Dean had always been labeled as a “bad lad” growing up. He was the scruffy kid off the worst estate who missed a lot of school thanks to his alcoholic single mom. Father unknown, it was no wonder mud stuck to Dean whether he deserved it or not. Nothing he ever did was good enough to change opinion, so he did his own thing and got used to being alone, self-sufficient.

“But what about—”

“How many fights have I gotten in to in all the time you’ve known me?” Dean let go and stepped away to put some space between them.

“What?”

“How many?”

“I can’t think of any...”

“One, Phil—one—and that was to save your ass.”

Phil shuffled awkwardly, scuffing his shoes on the edge of the curbstone.

“So why, when push came to shove, did you choose to believe the bullshit? If you had a problem with me, you should have come to me direct.”

“Ah, shit.” Phil stopped shuffling and looked at him.

“Not even close, Phil, not even close...” Dean balled his hands into fists. “You’ve done what you came to do, now f*ck off, get the hell out of here before I do something else I regret.” He started walking before he was tempted to do anything stupid with them.

“Where are you going?” Phil called after him.

“Home.”

“Home? Is that it?”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“I can’t lose her too.”

Phil’s softly spoken words penetrated the red mist swirling inside Dean’s brain and brought him up short. On any other day, he’d probably feel sorry for the son of a bitch—Phil was only trying to be a hero, the protective big brother on a rescue mission to save his little sister from the big, bad Dean—but not today. He’d never forget the look on her face as she ran out the door for as long as he lived.

“You’re the one that’s driven her away, and not just from me but from both of us. Tilly isn’t Sam, she’s smart and sensible, but she’s feisty too and strong. She doesn’t take crap from anybody, especially not from me.” Dean’s voice cracked. “Believe it or not, we’re on the same side, we both want the best for her, but thanks to you, she’s out there, running scared. She’s all alone, and she’s got nobody left to turn to.”

“A*shole,” muttered Phil, visibly flinching.

“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” Dean was too raw, too volatile to be around anyone. His emotions were simmering just beneath the surface, ready to explode. He tried not to think of it as running away when he broke into a jog, it was self-preservation; he didn’t trust himself not to lash out.

Only one other sight would have been more welcome than the sight of his own front door. He slammed it shut behind him and flattened against it. Alone at last. The Christmas tree loomed in the corner, mocking him. Had it really only been a day since Tilly had burst back into his life? His home was no longer his own without her there; it was cold and empty. Soulless.

She was already as necessary as breathing, and by leaving, she’d ripped him in to shreds and taken his heart with her. If only he’d told her everything right from the start. No more holding back, that’s what they’d said. It was up to him to make it right, but there was no way he could search for her until he felt clean. He pushed away from the door and headed for the shower.

Half an hour under scalding hot water, scrubbing at his skin until it was red raw, and he still felt dirty. Evil and dishonor tainted him, the thick black sludge of rumor and distrust clung to him, coating his skin, suffocating him. Lathering up again, he heard the front door open and close and his heart leaped. He burst out of the shower, still covered in suds, and wrenched the bathroom door open.

“Tilly, is that you?”