Roy didn't believe in going easy.
"Again," he barked, tossing a rubber training knife at Adam.
Adam caught it—midair, without looking. His hand just seemed to know where the blade would be, fingers closing around the handle with perfect timing.
Roy stared. "You been sneaking Adderall or something?"
Adam shrugged. "Just focused."
But it wasn't just focus. Something deeper was happening, something that made Adam's skin prickle with unease even as his body performed beyond his expectations.
It had been a week since their training started in earnest. They met out at a half-collapsed barn outside Windom, far enough from town for noise and mistakes. The weathered structure leaned slightly to one side, red paint peeling like sunburned skin, but the foundation was solid. Inside, Roy had set up a makeshift training ground—mats for sparring, targets for knife throwing, a blackboard for lore lessons.
Roy drilled him daily—combat, weapons handling, monster lore, field dressing wounds. The works.
"A cut artery doesn't give you time to Google," Roy explained, watching Adam practice a tourniquet on a mannequin leg. "You've got three minutes, maybe less, before your partner bleeds out. So you'd better get it right the first time."
Adam nodded, tightening the makeshift tourniquet with practiced efficiency.
"Faster," Roy ordered. "Your friend's going into shock. His heart's racing, pumping blood faster. Clock's ticking down."
Adam's hands moved with sudden, fluid precision. The tourniquet was secure in seconds.
Roy raised an eyebrow. "Where'd you learn that?"
"You just showed me," Adam replied, avoiding eye contact.
"I showed you the basics. That—" Roy gestured to Adam's handiwork, "—that's field medic level. Military training."
Adam didn't have an answer for that.
And every day, Adam was faster.
Not just improving—leaping forward. He could run farther than he used to. He lifted heavy gear with less effort. Bruises vanished overnight. He didn't just learn moves—his body absorbed them, moved like it already knew.
On Tuesday, Roy taught him a complex knife disarm. By Wednesday, Adam could execute it flawlessly, adding his own modifications that made the technique even more effective.
"Most people train for months to get that right," Roy said, rubbing his wrist where Adam had twisted the blade away. "You got it in a day."
"Quick learner?" Adam offered weakly.
Roy's eyes narrowed. "Uh-huh."
During one sparring match, Adam knocked him down hard enough to leave a dent in the dirt.
Roy coughed, winded, then let out a dry laugh. "Jesus, kid. You sure you're not a damn werewolf?"
Adam stiffened. "I don't think so."
"Silver doesn't burn you," Roy acknowledged, climbing to his feet with a grunt. "But that doesn't mean you're not... something."
The words hung in the air between them, heavy with implication.
That evening, as dusk settled over the barn, painting shadows in long, purple streaks across the floor, Roy approached with a small kit. Inside were vials, needles, a small book with worn edges.
"What's that?" Adam asked, though he already suspected.
"Hunter's test kit." Roy laid out the items methodically. "Nothing invasive. Just checking a few boxes."
"You think I'm a monster." It wasn't a question.
Roy's weathered face softened slightly. "Kid, in this line of work, you don't take chances. Not with your life, not with others'." He gestured to the makeshift cot they used for first aid practice. "Sit."
Adam did, watching warily as Roy assembled his tools.
"I'm going to check for a few things," Roy explained, pulling on latex gloves. "Standard protocol when someone shows... unusual abilities."
"I don't have abilities," Adam protested. "I'm just...learning fast."
"Inhumanly fast," Roy corrected. "Now hold still."
Roy did a quick check that night. No bite marks. No sulfur traces. No signs of infection, possession, or mutation. Holy water didn't burn. Silver didn't irritate his skin. A small cut healed normally—quickly, but not instantaneously.
Just a healthy, too-healthy, twelve-year-old kid with instincts sharper than they should be.
"You're not turning," Roy said, eyeing him suspiciously as he packed away his kit. "But something's up. Puberty doesn't hit like this."
Adam laughed it off, but inside he wasn't so sure.
Something was off. His reflexes were unnatural. His strength was growing faster than made sense. He healed like he'd been through some mild version of the super soldier serum.
And the thing that really bugged him?
This wasn't in the show. None of the Winchesters had powers like this. Not Sam, not Dean. Not even him.
So where the hell was it coming from?
"Your form is good," Roy admitted as they wrapped up for the day. "But you're overthinking. In a real fight, there's no time to analyze. You react or you die."
Adam nodded, toweling sweat from his face. The setting sun cast long shadows through the barn's broken slats, striping the dirt floor with gold and black.
"How long have you been hunting?" Adam asked, changing the subject.
Roy's face closed slightly, the way it always did when personal questions arose. "Long enough."
"But how did you start to trully focus on hunting..." Adam trailed off, seeing the warning in Roy's eyes.
"We're not here to talk about me," Roy said flatly. "We're here to make sure you don't end up dead in a ditch somewhere."
"Right." Adam stepped back, hands raised in mock surrender. "Just curious."
Roy sighed, his expression softening a fraction. "Look, kid. Everyone has their reasons for getting into this life. Most of them involve blood and heartbreak. The specifics don't really matter."
"They matter to me."
Roy studied him for a long moment. "You're obsessed with origins. With how things start." He shouldered his duffel bag. "Sometimes it's more important to focus on how things end."
Adam thought about that as they walked to Roy's truck.
"Same time tomorrow?" he asked as Roy unlocked the door.
"Can't. Got a lead on a potential vamp nest two counties over." Roy tossed his bag into the passenger seat. "Might be gone a few days."
Adam felt a surge of excitement. "I could help. I'm ready for—"
"No." Roy's tone left no room for argument. "You're not ready for a real hunt. Not yet."
"But I—"
"Kid," Roy cut him off, "you're fast. You're strong. But you're still green. And vamps don't care how quick you catch a rubber knife." He climbed into the truck, then leaned out the window. "Keep practicing the basics. I'll check in when I get back."
Adam watched the truck disappear down the rural road, frustration burning in his chest. He was ready. He could feel it in his bones—this new strength, this strange certainty that hummed beneath his skin like electricity.
That night, back home, Adam waited until his mom left for her night shift. The moment the door clicked shut, he headed for the hallway closet.
Inside was a shoebox labeled "Family Photos" in his mom's handwriting.
He'd looked through them before. Birthday parties, baby pictures, old black-and-white photos from before Kate moved to Windom. But he'd never paid much attention to the oldest ones, the sepia-toned images of relatives he'd never met.
But now, he was looking with a new lens—searching for clues.
Adam sat cross-legged on his bedroom floor, spreading the photos out in chronological order. His mother as a child, gap-toothed and smiling. His grandparents on their wedding day. Great-uncles and distant cousins at family reunions.
Normal. Mundane. Nothing that hinted at anything supernatural.
Until he reached deeper into the box.
Near the bottom, he found it: a faded photo, stiff and old, with curled corners.
A woman in early 20 stood beside a weathered man. Her posture was sharp, chin high, eyes cold and focused. She stared straight at the camera like she knew something it didn't. There was something... predatory in her stillness.
The man beside her looked ordinary enough—plain suit, neatly trimmed beard, the slightly uncomfortable expression of someone unused to being photographed. But the woman... there was something in her eyes that made Adam's skin prickle.
Recognition, of a sort. Not of her face, but of that look. He'd seen it before, in his own reflection when he prepared for a hunt. In Roy's eyes when he scanned a perimeter. In John Winchester's gaze when he thought no one was watching.
It was the look of someone who had seen the darkness and learned to navigate it.
On the back, in fading ink: " Elizabeth with the beasts of Black Forest, 1924."
Adam squinted at the background.
This should be his great grandmother
On the wall behind the couple hung a row of mounted animal heads. At first glance, hunting trophies.
But something wasn't right. The teeth were too long. One had six eyes. Another had no visible mouth. None of the heads matched any real species Adam knew from the TV Show.
"Beasts of Black Forest," he muttered. "What the hell were you hunting?"
The Black Forest was in Germany. Old folklore central. Witches, monsters, shapeshifters. Had his great-grandmother been... a hunter?
Or something else?
Adam dug deeper into the box, searching for more photos of Elizabeth. He found three more—one of her alone, standing beside a massive black dog that looked more wolf than domestic pet. Another with a group of stern-faced men and women, all carrying rifles and wearing what looked like ceremonial medallions. The last showed her older, silver-streaked hair pulled back severely, holding an infant that must have been Adam's grandmother.
In every photo, that same predatory stillness. That same knowing gaze.
And in the group photo, partially visible on her wrist, a tattoo or mark that Adam couldn't quite make out.
Adam went to his desk and pulled out his journal, flipping to a blank page. He sketched what he could see of the mark—a circular design with what might have been a claw or talon at its center.
He'd never seen it before in any of his research or memories. It wasn't one of the typical hunter symbols he remembered from his "other life." It wasn't demonic or angelic, as far as he could tell.
It was something else entirely.
Adam sat back, the photo trembling slightly in his hand.
He thought he'd known the rules of the game. The bloodline. The enemies. The fate.
But maybe he'd only known half the story.
Winchester blood ran through his veins—that much he knew. Men of Letter blood later on Hunter blood, marked by tragedy and sacrifice.
But what if that wasn't all? What if his mother's lineage carried its own secrets, its own inheritance?
Adam carefully returned the photos to their box, except for the one of Elizabeth with the mounted beasts. That one he slipped into his journal, a clue to a mystery he hadn't known existed until now.
The rugaru had recognized something in him. "It's youuuu," it had said, with a strange mix of fear and recognition.
Now Adam was beginning to wonder if it had seen something even he hadn't known was there.
Something in his blood. Something in his bones.