"He could have stayed far away from these damned monsters!"
"You were the one who dragged him back onto this damned road. You were the one who turned him into what he is now." Dean's voice was full of accusation. Compared to other children, they had indeed endured far too much pressure.
No one liked risking their life every day dealing with evil spirits and demons.
It was because John could never let go of their mother, constantly filling their heads with revenge and even training them, that he had led them down this path.
Dean did not care about his own injuries, but he cared about Sam. His younger brother should have had a life of his own. It was as if he wanted to pour out everything he had kept bottled up over the years all at once:
"Now he's lying in there, dying. Are you satisfied? Is this what you wanted, Dad?!"
John's entire body trembled at his son's words. His lips quivered, yet he could not say a single word.
He looked at Dean's twisted face, contorted with emotion, then through the crack in the emergency room doors at Sam, covered in tubes and utterly motionless. An immense, indescribable guilt and pain nearly drowned him.
Every word Dean said was like a knife, striking precisely at the deepest wound in his heart.
But he could not refute him.
Because that was the truth.
Other families had loved ones killed by demons too—Kyle's family, for example—but none had been like him, taking up the path of a demon hunter solely to track down the murderer, Azazel, and persisting for over twenty years for revenge.
He had even dragged along two children who should have lived normal lives.
Not only had he failed to give them the fatherly