Chapter 390 — "Azazel"
"So you actually got out," Frank said while pulling open a drawer. "Then why come back?"
"Because Dean came looking for me," Sam replied as he searched through the room. "He said Dad had disappeared."
"At first, I didn't want to get involved. Dad vanishing for a while wasn't exactly unusual."
"But Dean kept pushing me to help."
Sam sighed.
"And the timing couldn't have been worse. I'd just passed my entrance exams."
"Entrance exams?" Frank looked over in surprise. "What school?"
"Law school."
Frank paused.
"You must've had incredible grades."
"Not really…" Sam answered modestly.
But Frank knew that was nonsense.
Getting into law school wasn't easy—especially a prestigious one.
The entrance exams alone were brutal.
Even someone as smart as Lip would've needed months of nonstop studying to have a chance.
But once you got accepted into a real law school, it basically meant one foot was already inside the upper class.
This wasn't some third-rate diploma mill like the one Saul Goodman had gone through after barely scraping together a law license.
A proper law school—especially a famous one—was filled with future elite lawyers, judges, politicians, and wealthy heirs.
The connections alone were worth a fortune.
With that kind of network behind you, worrying about money in the future was almost laughable.
"Law school tuition isn't cheap," Frank said. "Did John actually have enough money to send you there?"
Because of Lip's college situation, Frank had specifically researched university tuition before.
The costs were outrageous.
Far beyond what ordinary families could handle.
Back then, the pressure of providing for his own kids had nearly driven him into desperation—which was part of the reason he eventually walked the path he was on now.
As for John Winchester…
The man didn't even have a normal job.
He spent his life hunting monsters, doing unpaid public service for society while surviving off stolen credit cards.
Frank seriously doubted John had ever seen that kind of money.
"I never used Dad's money," Sam replied.
"One of the conditions for leaving was that I'd handle everything myself."
"After I passed the exams, I got an interview opportunity. If it went well, I could qualify for a full scholarship."
Sam was the kind of genius student who didn't really need to worry about tuition.
Frank couldn't help shaking his head.
"You really should go back to school."
In Frank's eyes, becoming a hunter—a man who spent every day risking death in obscurity—was a terrible future.
At any moment, they could end up dying alone in some forgotten corner of the country, killed by a monster no one would ever know existed.
Compared to that life…
Sam becoming a successful lawyer—or even a judge someday—was infinitely better.
Luxury cars. Mansions. Expensive watches. Respect wherever you went.
Wasn't that life infinitely better than fighting monsters every day?
At the very least, lawyers didn't wake up wondering whether they'd survive until morning.
From a father's perspective, Frank genuinely felt Sam should go back to school.
Talent like his was too valuable to waste.
"I actually did go back," Sam said quietly, his mood suddenly darkening. "But…"
"But what?" Frank asked.
"The night I returned… my girlfriend died."
Sam paused.
"She died the exact same way my mother did."
Frank froze.
"…"
"The thing that killed my mother," Sam continued after a long silence, "is probably the same thing that killed my girlfriend."
"So you gave up law school and came back to hunting because you wanted revenge," Frank said.
Sam nodded.
"Yeah."
Frank looked at him and didn't know what to say.
From a man's perspective, Sam's decision was admirable.
Stubborn. Fearless. Masculine.
But from the perspective of a father…
Throwing away a brilliant future over a woman—a girlfriend, not even a wife—was painfully irrational.
There were countless women in the world.
Especially in college, relationships came and went constantly. Some people changed partners as casually as changing clothes.
Yet when Frank looked at Sam, he suddenly saw traces of Jesse Pinkman in him.
Both of them were deeply emotional people.
People who loved with everything they had.
And suddenly Frank understood why Sam had always felt strangely familiar to him.
There was a certain fire inside him.
The same fire Jesse had.
A force that pushed them forward, tempered them, forced them to grow.
Creak…
As Sam walked out of the kitchen after checking the area, the floorboard beneath his foot suddenly groaned oddly.
He stopped immediately.
Then stepped back and deliberately stomped the nearby floor several times before returning to the same spot.
"What is it?" Frank asked, noticing his reaction.
"This part's hollow."
Sam crouched down and brushed aside leaves and dirt covering the floorboards, revealing a hidden wooden panel with a metal pull ring attached.
"There's something underneath."
The two opened the hatch.
Below was a basement—more like a storage cellar—filled with old junk.
But after decades of abandonment, the place was covered in spiderwebs and crawling with insects that thrived in darkness.
"There's definitely something here!" Sam said.
Holding flashlights and covering their noses against the stale air, they searched through the basement.
Soon, Sam found something.
"Two books."
He brushed off the dust and flipped through them briefly.
They appeared to be theology books.
Inside one of them, he discovered an old photograph.
Written on the back was a single word:
"Look."
"The place in this photo…" Frank narrowed his eyes. "It looks like this basement."
The two scanned the room carefully with their flashlights.
Eventually, they found the matching section of wall.
But the wall itself had been smeared black, as if someone had deliberately painted over something.
"He must've hidden information here," Sam said while comparing the wall to the photograph. "Then covered it up so the creature wouldn't discover what he found."
The two searched for tools and eventually scraped away the black coating.
Underneath, carved directly into the wall, was a single name:
AZAZEL
After searching the cabin one final time and finding nothing else useful, Frank and Sam returned to the hotel.
Meanwhile, while the two investigated the cabin in the woods, several important developments occurred at the police station with Dean and Officer Hobbes.
"The translation's finished!" Hobbes said excitedly after hanging up the phone. "They finally translated those strange words Reese was saying!"
"That's great. I'm going to pick up the results right now!"
For the first time in days, Hobbes had finally received some good news.
"Still nothing?" Hobbes asked after setting the phone down.
His partner—a heavyset detective with a broad build—had also been making calls nonstop.
"No luck," the man replied while hanging up another call. "Are we even sure there was another murder?"
"There definitely was," Hobbes said firmly. "It happened early this morning."
"Because the creature called me again."
"The phone company already confirmed it—every time it calls me, it's immediately after another killing."
His partner rubbed the back of his head with a pen and sighed.
"Reese really is obsessed with you, huh…"
"Honestly, I still can't decide whether this is some accomplice copying Reese's methods…"
"…or if Reese's ghost is actually out there killing people."