Episode 21: Strange Dreams and Sober Revelations

Aubrey Lance, S.S. (Supernatural Sleuth) -- Season 1, Episode 21: Strange Dreams & Sober Revelations

My Dad’s eyes immediately locked on mine, expectant. “You can tell me anything.” 

My parents clearly already knew this, by now… but I still needed to say it. “I’ve discovered my gift, too.” I’d come to terms with that pretty quickly in the past day, but saying it out loud to my dad felt like I was finally allowing myself to believe it. “I’d suspected for a while that my dreams were more than dreams, but you and Mom had told me—” 

I stopped, staring at my dad as all the details connected. My parents knew supernatural gifts ran in our family. They knew Emery had developed a gift and that I would likely get one, too… yet when my strange dreams started, they had convinced me my dreams were just nightmares, that I was grieving and not in my right mind. They’d sent me to a therapist.

A fresh flash of anger hit me square in the chest as I gaped at him. “Wait. You knew. Not just recently, but, ever since Emery—you knew! Not just about Emery not drowning, but about me, too. You knew my dreams weren’t just stress-induced nightmares!” 

He stepped toward me with a sad expression. “Yes, but after what happened to Emery…” He sighed. “I’m so sorry, Aubrey. We were trying to protect you, and we just thought—” 

“You sided with the therapist.” I interrupted him. “You convinced me my nightmares were from grief. Do you know how much stress that caused me, thinking I was trapped in a spiral where my gut was screaming the dreams meant more? You knew I could receive messages from Emery in my dreams, but you let me think I was crazy!” 

“I’m so sorry, Aub—” He stared at me. “Wait, is that all you think your gift is? Just receiving messages from Emery?” 

I stared back. “... Yes?” I mean, the cheer hawks had implied it was more, but I hadn’t had a chance to really process that, yet. 

Dad’s eyes locked on mine. “Aubrey, your gift is so much more than that. Yes, you may have received some messages Emery tried to send… and believe me, every dream you’ve mentioned, I’ve done my best to follow up on. But your mom and I—and Marshall—we all believe your gift is more than that. There’s a very good chance your gift isn’t limited to the dreams Emery sent as messages. Your other dreams may also carry meanings. Marshall’s research was a little fuzzy on the scope of the gifts in our family lineage, so without really testing yours—which wasn’t possible without putting you at risk—we aren’t sure… but it’s feasible your dreams might even border on the prophetic.”

“As in, she really can predict the future?” Collin asked with a squeak in his tone. 

I glanced at him long enough to catch his expression of wide-eyed shock—a mirror of how I was feeling myself. 

l turned back to Dad and Trenchcoat Man, staring them down for an answer.

My dad nodded at Collin. “Visions of the present, of the past, of the near future—it’s all possible. We just aren’t sure.” 

I gaped at him. “And you never told me this?” I thought of all the dreams I’d shrugged off and never even mentioned to my parents because they were just crazy dreams. Dreams about Emery… and about Chloe. 

My chest tightened. “I had some of my dreams before things happened. We could’ve been there, or changed things… We may have been able to save them.”

Trenchcoat Man stepped toward me. “To save Emery, you mean? Or do you mean Chloe?” He studied my face. “Are you saying you had dreams about both of them that were enough ahead of time to intervene?” 

I looked at him, my temper flaring. “Yes! I had these bizarre, symbolic dreams about Emery and about Chloe… and I don’t entirely know what they meant, but I know there’s a message there. I had both dreams while things were happening, or maybe just before. There might have been time to stop what was happening, if I’d known to take the dreams seriously and figure them out.” I turned my glare on my father. “But now I’ll never know for sure, will I? Because I was told they were nothing but dreams!”  

Dad’s expression fell. “Aubrey, I–” 

I forced out an exhale. “I know. You were trying to protect me.” 

Trenchcoat Man looked right at me. “He had reason to believe he needed to. When Emery contacted my junior investigators at the cheerleading competition, I’d already begun watching for anyone who might have been showing an undue interest in Emery or her gifts. Unfortunately, our realization that she had, in fact, been targeted came a step too late. Once we realized what must have happened to her, our efforts became twofold: to find and rescue Emery, and to ensure—by any means necessary—that you didn’t suffer the same fate.” 

“No,” I said with a bit of vitriol, “Chloe got taken instead, because nobody ever told me what was actually going on.” 

Trenchcoat Man sighed. “We’ve been watching you ever since Emery disappeared, Aubrey, to be sure the enemy hadn’t also set their sights on you… but we never anticipated them targeting your friend. Had we realized you were having dreams that may have predicted danger, we would’ve brought you into the loop, but none of the dreams you told your parents seemed to contain new revelations.”

“So now it’s my fault?” 

“No, not at all,” Dad said quickly. 

Trenchcoat Man chimed in. “Knowing only what we did, and given the inherent dangers, your parents felt it was best not to draw attention to your potential gift. There was too large a risk of others watching.”

Dad’s voice cracked as he added, “Your mother and I couldn’t handle losing you both.” 

As I stared at him, my anger softened a bit. Yes, they’d deceived me and kept things from me… important things. But I’d kept my secrets from my parents, too—in a twisted attempt to protect them, when in reality they’d already been protecting me. They’d been living a secret life this whole time, trying to find Emery while also keeping me shielded from danger. As frustrating as it was to find all this out now, I understood why they did it. 

I understood, and I’d done it too—to a different degree, but still. It didn't make sense to be angry at them for that when I’d done the same to them. 

It didn’t make sense to be angry… but I kind of still was.

I glanced away. “I get it, I do, but it didn’t keep me safe, Dad. It just made me confused and scared.” I looked up at him. “I felt so alone, this whole time. I wish you had just told me the truth.”

My dad looked crestfallen. “I can see now that we did the wrong thing. I’m truly sorry, Aubrey. But your mom and I—we never had gifts. We didn’t know what to expect, or whether the people who had come after me were still watching our family. And after what happened to Emery…” He swallowed. “We thought you would be safer if we convinced you not to use it, suppressed it if possible… anything to keep you from drawing attention.” His mouth drooped. “Your gift is incredible, Aubrey, and maybe it could have made a difference. You’re right. Because of your mother and me, we’ll never know for sure. But I need you to know—I’m so sorry we tried to keep you from your gifts. Your mother and I second-guessed our choice so many times, but we just…” His voice cracked. “We didn’t want those people to come for you, too.”

I crossed my arms and stared at him, still simmering with anger… but I could see the sorrow in his face. And the fear. 

My anger cooled a bit more. “I don’t want any more lies,” I said firmly, meeting his eyes. 

“Neither do we, Aubrey,” my dad said—and I could see he was sincere. “Lying to you was never the right choice. We’ve always raised you to be truthful, and then there we were…” He sighed. “We let our fear drive us, but we should’ve been honest with you, then found a way to keep you safe together.” 

I stared at him. “I thought I was crazy, you know,” I muttered.  

“I’m so sorry, Aubs. Your mother and I both are. We never meant to hurt you, and your gift—taking that from you, even temporarily—I’m so sorry. We didn’t think carefully enough about how it would impact you.”  

We stood like that, him an arms-length away as I glared at him with my arms crossed… and then I sighed and dropped my arms. “I know you were trying to protect me.” 

“That doesn’t excuse our failure,” Dad said, glancing at Trenchcoat Man. “There were better ways.” 

Trenchcoat Man looked as though he agreed, but didn’t interject. 

I met my dad’s eyes. “Okay, no more lies… and please, no more secrets,” I said. “Whatever you know about my gifts, I want to know. Whatever information you’ve got about Emery, I want to know. I deserve better than being tricked and kept in the dark.” 

My dad nodded. “You do deserve better. No more secrets—your mother and I already agreed on that before I came here. I came tonight intending to tell you everything.”

“Where is Mom?” I asked. “Why didn’t she come?” 

“We still have to take precautions,” my dad said. “We don’t know who might be watching us, and me leaving for meetings or staying late at ‘work’ has become pretty normal, but your mother heading off in the middle of making dinner might have seemed odd. We’ve tried very hard to make it appear we suspect nothing regarding Emery’s death and that you have no gifts of your own. In tonight’s case, your mother and I had to try to keep up appearances, in the hopes whoever might be watching would assume you really were going to a study group and I was just working late again. Thankfully, Marshall and these girls also took precautions to make sure his use of magic to travel the vehicle here would not be detected.”  

I let that sink in a moment, pondering all the precautions my parents must’ve been taking for years just to give the semblance of a normal family grieving the loss of one of their own… including putting their teenage daughter with weird dreams into grief therapy. 

My dad leveled his gaze on me. “No more secrets, Aubrey, but that goes both ways, okay? No more chasing leads without telling us. It’s just too dangerous. You and me, kid, we’ve always been working the same cases. From now on, we do it together.”

“Okay.” I said, then my dad’s phrasing struck me. “Wait… cases?” I asked, emphasizing the plural.

My dad nodded. “I know you don’t believe Chloe ran away, and I don’t, either. There are too many questions the police’s theories don’t answer. I think Marshall and his junior investigators here might be right—that Chloe’s disappearance might be connected to Emery’s. From now on, no going rogue, Aubrey. We work both cases together, okay?” 

Tears pricked my eyes as I nodded. 

I was still upset at how my parents had handled things, but my dad’s apology was sincere, and since none of this was actually a secret from my parents, I didn’t have to hide things from them anymore. That alone was a massive weight lifted off of me. 

I hadn’t realized how heavy those secrets had been until I was suddenly free of them.

The fact that my parents already knew about all of this and agreed Emery might truly still be out there, somewhere, and that my dad was also helping look for Chloe… it was a lot to take in, but in a good way.

My dad stepped closer. “So far, none of our hunches about Emery or Chloe have led where we expected. Chloe seems to have no hint of magic herself, but given the bizarre circumstances of her disappearance, we still don’t believe it to be a run-of-the-mill kidnapping. We’re operating under the assumption that her abduction was related to Emery’s, somehow. We even thought, at first, that her resemblance to Emery might have been a factor.” 

So had I, once the cheer hawks had suggested it.

“Unfortunately,” my dad continued, “that’s been a dead end. Both disappearances involve deviations from Emery’s and Chloe’s usual behavior, but other than that, hardly anything connects. There’s only one other common factor we can find between Emery and Chloe.”  

I stared at him. “What is it?”  

His eyes locked on mine with a look of sorrow. “You.” 

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