Author's Note: In result of "The Absent Father's Club" reaching over 30 reviews, I'm posting a sort of "prequel" to the fanfic detailing the beginning of the Novaks' backstory. It can be read as a stand-alone, but if you enjoy this much more than you thought you would, you can look up "The Absent Fathers Club" on my profile. For all my fans of the previous fic, I'm so glad you enjoy this story and encourage me to keep it going. This is for all of you-my old fans and even potentially new ones.
It didn't take long to find Gabriel, or "Richard Speight" as he was now known as (knowing Gabriel, which Castiel had the unfortunate luck of accomplishing, he probably only chose the name "Richard" because one of the name's shortened versions was "Dick"). He was in the sunny state of California and in charge of his own candy company (which wasn't much of a surprise either considering the teeth-rotting treats he consumed on a daily basis), so all Castiel had to do was perform a simple image search before old newspaper headlines came pouring in through the search engine.
He didn't usually use Wikipedia as a resource (after all, it's only known to be useful to unexperienced amateurs), but it did prove to be serviceable on this one rare occasion.
Staring long and hard at the neatly printed out address of his estranged brother, Castiel pondered not for the first time if what he was doing was the right course of action. Well, it's not like I have much of a choice, he tried to convince himself grimly, I've spent weeks trying to find him on my own. Maybe he can pick up on clues that I couldn't. Of course, he knew this to be true (despite his ill-feelings towards the man, he couldn't deny that Gabriel was sharp and observant in his unique sort of way), but Cas still had the nagging sense of doubt lingering in the back of his mind. After all, he also knew that Michael would never crawl back to the ones that betrayed him, even if he were at his wits end.
But Castiel wasn't like his eldest brother. No matter how hard he tried to be.
Shaking his head, Castiel set the paper down on one of the rickety in-tables and continued to knot his blue tie. After he was dressed, Castiel grabbed the keys to his stolen vehicle and exited the motel, anxiety and dread stirring in his chest. He'll have to join you, he assured himself with a shaky sense of certainty, he might hate Michael, but he's still family.
And the one lesson Michael preached to them above everything else: family always comes first.
With that encouraging thought, Castiel started up his vehicle and drove to visit one of the many ghosts of his past.
Just Castiel's luck, Gabriel wasn't at his fancy apartment. The doorman, after Castiel showed him his fake FBI badge and informed him he needed to ask Richard a few questions, said he was at a business meeting at some disgustingly expensive restaurant. The flamboyance and luxury of Gabriel's new lifestyle was enough to make Cas sick to his stomach. He traded his family and their trust for a cushy life with shiny new toys, and the fact repulsed Castiel to the point of almost changing his mind and doing this himself. But then he remembered how utterly lost he was without Michael's clear directions, and he gritted his teeth and kept on driving. A thunderstorm was brewing outside, sheets of precipitation slicing through the humid atmosphere. Castiel could barely see the road with all the rain clouding his windshield.
When Cas made it to the restaurant, all courage he once possessed was stripped away from him, leaving the young hunter a bundle of vexation and nerves. He only made it to the edge of the parking lot before he stopped abruptly, staring into the window at Gabriel—older now and happier than he'd ever seen him, dressed in a flashy suit and surrounded by snobby businessmen. The most hurtful part of the image was how much Gabriel fit in with those bastards, blending in effortlessly like he'd been a spoiled rich kid all his life. Gabriel didn't belong in the hunting life, Cas noted with a sharp sting of pain in his chest, he didn't belong with us anymore. He belonged with them, oblivious, greedy mundane humans that spent their money and free time carelessly like they had the whole world in the palm of their hand.
As if feeling eyes on him, Gabriel's gaze swept his perimeter with carefulness, stopping dead when they reached Castiel. He was wearing Michael's trench coat—the only remains Cas found in Michael's trashed, abandoned motel room in Phoenix, Arizona—and he could tell by Gabriel's twisted, almost pained expression upon seeing him that he thought he was their older brother. Castiel watched numbly as Gabriel hid his expression in a mask of indifference and casually excused himself from his friends, rising from his seat and leaving the building. When he was close enough to see it was Cas, relief and confusion reflected on his face. This man—with his professional attire and open expression—was not his brother. Not anymore.
"Cassie," Gabriel mocked with an obviously forced grin, a silent question in his gaze that Cas refused to answer, "You finally get enough sense in that big brain of yours to abandon our pretentious tight-ass of a brother and come over to the real world?" His barbed, spiteful words made Castiel snap.
Before he could control himself, his hand latched on to his brother's throat, cutting off his oxygen in a fit of rage and sorrow. Surprise and startle was evident in his amber eyes at his action, and he was too shocked to tear himself out of Cas' iron grip. Castiel wanted to keep his hand locked on his brother's throat, take out his weeks of angst and guilt on Gabriel and his foul mouth. The thought of killing him wasn't as repulsing as it should be, and it was that realization that made him release his grip. He waited patiently for Gabriel to get his breath back, and Castiel couldn't help but think that this was a big mistake, that he should just leave now before he's pushed off the edge and did something he'd regret in the morning.
"Missed you too, Cas," Gabriel finally grumbled hoarsely before he continued in a much more loud, bitter voice, "Now what the hell does Michael want with me this time? Why'd he send his last devoted soldier to fetch little ole me?"
"Michael was following a lead on Father's disappearance," He said in a flat, control voice that he'd rehearsed on the drive over here, "And now he's missing, Gabriel. I don't know where he is." A gleam of alarm flickered in Gabriel's amber eyes, and Cas let himself hope for a second that he still cared. But in an instant, the glint was gone and replaced with stoniness and indifference.
"He's probably on a hunt and won't pick up his phone—"
"His motel room was trashed," Castiel said stronger this time, his heart beating faster, "It looked like he'd been in a sparring match with a hoard of monsters. There was blood splattered on the walls. I doubt he did all that just for kicks."
Gabriel sighed and ran a hand through his hair, snapping, "Well, what do you want me to do about it? You're smart enough to figure this out by yourself."
"You're intelligent, Gabe," Cas admitted with a shred of reluctance in his voice, "You're able to pick up on things that everyone else—even Michael sometimes—would barely glance at. You're a good tracker, and you can take down a small nest of vampires with just a rusted pipe and a pint of Deadman's Blood—"
"Thanks for the ego boost," Gabriel said sarcastically with a roll of his eyes.
"I have no one else to turn to," Cas admitted, detachment in his expression and voice but his vulnerable eyes betrayed his mask of nonchalance, "I know you don't care about him, Gabriel, but I do..."
"Where are you going with this, Cassie?" Gabriel gritted out, his hoarse voice becoming thick with varying shades of emotion.
"Something took Michael, Gabriel," He said steely, "I believe it's the same thing that took Father—"
"Dad ran away," Gabriel corrected cruelly, his cold and hard voice pouring salt into Castiel's open wound on his bleeding heart, "Nobody took away that bastard. He left on this own—"
"Listen to me!" Castiel exclaimed, teeth clenching and heart racing, "There's something going on, Gabriel. Something bigger than we could've ever imagined. Now tell me one thing, Gabriel—one thing, that's all I ask and then I'll never bother you again," He let his explosive anger slip away, leaving just a young, vulnerable little brother that Gabriel once knew—a little brother Castiel never allowed himself to be ever again since the two people he loved most made damn sure to show him that his devotion and loyalty wasn't mutual, "Are you with me on tracking this thing down?" There was hesitation in Gabriel's closed off expression, enough hesitation that Castiel thought he actually still cared about the family he left behind enough to help his desperate little brother.
But then it was gone as the stern, icy words left Gabriel's mouth, "No." Without even a goddamn goodbye, Gabriel spun around and went back into the restaurant, back to his life filled with superficial objects and shallow friends.
After Anna's heartbreaking departure, Castiel promised himself that he would be the soldier Michael wanted him to be, that he would never be weak enough to acknowledge his misery nor shed a single tear no matter how horrible the circumstances were.
But for the second time since the only person Castiel trusted was ripped away from him, he felt silent tears fall from his sad blue eyes and mingle with the salty raindrops.
He spent the next few days holed up in his motel room with his chaotic, disillusioned thoughts. It wasn't despondency over Gabriel's choice—his brother was always selfish; it would've been foolish of Cas to believe the man would drop everything and help him just for the sake of blood—but instead just plain reluctance to go with his back-up plan: Anna.
Castiel hadn't seen her in years, ever since she left him with nothing more than a sorrowful glance and empty apology. Honestly, her betrayal was even more disheartening than Gabriel's; he trusted Anna with everything he had—hell, for most of his childhood his whole world revolved around her. He took bullets for her; scoldings from Michael for her; he would've carved out his heart and gave it to her if she asked nice enough. But that was before she became bored of hunting, begging to stay at the motel and draw while Michael and Cas did the dirty work. She wasn't as selfish as Gabriel—she cared for Castiel almost as much as he cared for her—but when it came down to it, her own needs were above her responsibilities to her family, to him. He thought Anna's presence in his life would be as infinite and permanent as the Earth's rotation around the sun, but he was rudely awaken from that fantasy when she abandoned him and he began spiraling out of orbit.
The thought of crawling back to her was enough to make Castiel's stomach lurch, but he knew he didn't have much of a choice to do otherwise. He asked so many others in the hunting community to help him, but it was like he was an outsider—even in an environment he'd spent his whole life in. Contacting Anna was his last hope of regaining his missing brother.
With a defeated sigh, Castiel slid his computer onto his lap and searched for Anna's address.
It took him five hours to find her and eleven hours to get to her small, modest town. It was much more rural and laid-back than Gabriel's crowded, smoggy city, but Anna was always appreciative of the smaller things in life.
Her name was Anna Milton now, and she was putting herself through the town's community college by working part-time at the local bar. Cas had forgotten that both of his siblings had left with little to no money (Michael never trusted them with any of their funds; not even Castiel himself), and he almost felt something close to pity at the thought of Anna working herself to exhaustion just for the sake of an education.
Gabriel was smart and charming enough to found his own million dollar business; Anna was forced to make do with the few resources she had.
He paused at the bar's entrance, his hand hovering on the doorknob close enough to faintly feel the warmth of previous people's palms on the heated metal. Castiel was suddenly struck with the realization that this was a mistake; he shouldn't disrupt her life and everything she worked so hard for on her own for so many years. Gabriel was one thing, but this was Anna. He shouldn't—
"Hey Dumbass, forgot how a door worked?" A gruff, slurred man's voice snapped behind him as he reached in front of Castiel and opened the door, pushing the twenty-one year old in with brutal indifference. He turned to glare at the man but just as he moved his gaze, a flash of red hair caught his attention instantly.
Anna. She looked beautiful even with the heavy bags under her eyes. Her ivory skin was slightly flushed at the bar's humid, swampy atmosphere, and she seemed thinner than Castiel remembered her being. But there was something about her that made an unsettling sadness eat at the heavy weight in his chest. Anna's expression showed exhaustion, but her blue eyes—even from the distance Castiel was standing—were lit with a lively, impenetrable fire that he had never seen before. Hell, he'd never even seen it on himself whenever he looked into a mirror. She had a certain grace and saunter in her step, a more relaxed stride that didn't possess tension nor paranoia unlike the stance Michael had drilled into their heads.
Even in this den of obscenity and iniquity, she was happier than she had ever been in the hunting life.
The discovery caused his heart to rupture with emotional turmoil, and Castiel knew he couldn't burden her with his own problems that she'd rid herself of many years ago. But just as he was about to turn around and leave her at her better, blissful life, he saw a drunken bastard grope Anna's ass with his fat, dirty paw.
Castiel saw red, and before he knew it, he was right at the scene and threw the offensive pig against the nearest wall, pushing a sharp dagger to his throat. He could faintly hear many gasps and murmurs behind him, but all he could focus on was his own ragged breathing and the stench of booze and revolting cologne radiating off of the man. The man was staring at him with wide, startled eyes, shock and terror evident on his ugly face.
"I think you owe the waitress an apology for your inappropriate harassment and pathetic lack of impulse control." Castiel growled with a lethal expression, pressing the blade to the man's neck hard enough for it to barely break skin.
"My bad, Fella!" The man shouted, "I didn't know she was your girl."
"I have no ownership of her," He snapped, "Women aren't property nor are they objects you can fondle; especially when your advances are undesired." With a look of disgust, Castiel released him, satisfied as the man stumbled away like his life depended on it.
He only stopped watching the man leave with his tail tucked behind his legs when a sudden burst of applause filled the room. Puzzled, he glanced around and saw most of the patrons (the ones that were still coherent enough to realize what just happened) giving him bright, gracious smiles. He shook his head at their unnecessary admiration and looked over at Anna, who was staring at him with a spooked expression like she was looking at a ghost.
And to an extent, she was. Castiel wasn't the young, impassive brother he used to be. He was a strong, brave, obedient soldier with enough bitterness and bottled up angst to make any normal man slip into a depression or even insanity. He was what Michael always wanted him to be and what Anna always feared he would become.
He wasn't the boy she loved anymore.
"C-Cas?" Anna finally whispered so quietly that if the bar hadn't been completely silent, he wouldn't have heard her.
Castiel nodded, as if she needed confirmation of the fact, and glanced anxiously at their captivated audience, "We should continue our conversation elsewhere." He moved towards the door expecting his sister to follow him, but she seized his arm before he could take a step further.
"My shift ends in thirty minutes," She whispered lowly in his arm before she reached for his hand and took out a pen from her pocket, scribbling on his palm, "Just go to my apartment and wait for me there. You can pick the lock."
She was done within the next second, but her hand lingered on his, squeezing it with a sort of fondness like their bitter years of heartache and separation changed nothing about their once close relationship, "It's so good to see you, Cas." Her soft, sincere words pained him more than Gabriel's malicious jabs, and he jerked his hand out of her tender grasp like he'd been burned. Without another glance at her, he spun around and exited the bar, surprised and slightly hurt blue eyes following him as he left.
Anna's apartment wasn't spacious nor elaborate like Castiel envisioned Gabriel's to be. It was small and slightly disorganized (there were dishes in the sink, clothes and shoes thrown on the floor with obvious haste, college textbooks flooding the counters and tables), but it possessed a certain coziness in its homey appearance that warmed Castiel's cold interior. He swallowed the building lump in his throat and walked deeper into the residence, his eyes analyzing his surroundings with a foreign emotion pooling in his gut. There were pictures hanging on the wall in what seemed to be the living room, most of which were Anna with people he didn't know—her friends, he deduced with a twang of bitterness. His gaze lingered on every photograph, silently noticing how startling different she seemed in the captured moments of normalcy. Anna seemed like a whole new person outside of the hunting life; her smiles brighter, her eyes lighter.
With a shudder of disgust, Castiel ripped his eyes from the pictures, walking quickly down the hallway as if to escape the gnawing emotions of guilt and envy plaguing his heart. There were only two doors in the hall, one leading to the bathroom and the other apparently leading to her bedroom.
It must have been difficult to get used to sleeping in the same room every night, Castiel thought to himself, the hundreds of motel rooms he'd slept over the years flitting across his mind. He twisted the doorknob and opened it, his breath catching as he took in the room.
The bedroom was simple—only a few pieces of furniture taking up most of the mass (a bed with floral sheets and bedspread, a desk piled with papers and assignments, a cheap stereo looking like she'd bought it at a thrift store)—but the décor wasn't what seized his attention. No, it was the framed pictures that decorated her lavender colored walls that made his pulsing heart echo in his eardrums. The pictures were old, one going back to when Castiel was young and still oblivious to the hunting life.
They were pictures of their whole family; of Michael when he still remembered how to smile, and of Gabriel before the life drained from his eyes. Pictures of Anna and Castiel, their bodies always pressed so close to one another like they couldn't be separated even if their lives depended on it. Of Castiel with his bright eyes and optimistic faith, smiling as Anna climbed on his back and took a picture. Some of them even had him in it, but Castiel didn't want to think about those. It still hurt too much.
She kept them, he thought with dampening eyes and shaky hands, she kept all of them. He remembered the clunky, cheap camera their father gave her for her birthday, and how she kept it even after he disappeared (or left them; Castiel wasn't sure anymore). Castiel knew she didn't take the camera with her after she left because he was the one who destroyed it after realizing she really never was coming back. He didn't think she kept the photos; actually, he hadn't even thought about them in so many years.
She even kept her first one—the one that had all six of them in it, their father still around and their sibling bonds still tighter than ever. It wasn't until years later, when their father went missing and their bonds gradually crumbled into nonexistence, did the light and youth start to fade from their faces.
As Castiel focused closer on the picture, he realized his father's face was scratched out, as if Anna couldn't even stomach leaving the remembrance of his presence in their lives. He knew he should have been angry at this discovery, but Castiel only regarded it with resigned sorrow. Anna always hated their father, even when he was still around. He should have known she would—
"Cas?" Anna's sudden voice behind made Castiel jump. He made sure to drain any emotion from his expression before he spun back around, finding Anna leaning in the doorway with a soft smile on her lips.
He cleared his throat, "I was just—"
"Snooping?" She finished teasingly with an arch of her eyebrow, "I hadn't noticed." Her eyes roamed around his body, and Castiel realized that she hadn't seen him since he was seventeen. He'd changed a lot since then, became colder and more guarded. He realized that Anna was just noticing this.
"Three of my co-workers asked for your number," She blurted out suddenly, her matching blue eyes boring into his, "They thought you were brave back there. And pretty hot."
"Well, it's a good thing you don't have my number then." He replied sharply, passing her as he exited the room and went back to the living room. He practically felt Anna hesitate for a few seconds before following him.
"Gabriel called me to say you'd been there to see him," She said after a pause of silence, "He sounded really shaken."
"You're still in contact with him," Castiel said, jealousy clenching his jaw, "I never knew you and him were so close."
"I didn't think the rest of my family wanted me to stay in touch." She replied softly, and Castiel thought back to the last words he'd said to her:
"I hate you, Anna!" He had yelled as she walked away, scorn and pain evident in his thundering voice, "For as long as I live, I'll hate you more than all the monsters combined!"
But it wasn't hate that burned in his heart at the sight of her, no matter how much he wanted it to be. It was desolation and dolor, as if the wound from her abandonment was still fresh.
"If Gabriel told you," Castiel began, shutting down his previous train of thought, "Why'd you seem so surprised when you saw me tonight?"
Anna let out a dry, bitter chuckle, "I didn't think you'd come to me, Cas. After all, we both know you're not my biggest fan."
"I have no one else," He said, a resigned hollowness in his voice as he stared at his sister closely, "Gabriel's still the coward he always was. He wouldn't help me. I don't know what to do, Anna. Please, tell me what to do." He hated living life without clear directions. He couldn't fathom why Anna and Gabriel wanted to escape so bad when Father's and later Michael's commands brought them structure and order in their lives.
"Cas," She said with a sigh, sadness in her expression as she brought a hand up to caress his cheek; he hated himself for closing his eyes and leaning into her touch, "I'm not going to order you around. I'm not like them."
He lingered longer than he was proud of before he pulled away from her touch, turning so his back was facing her because talking to her was easier that way, "Did Gabriel tell you why I came to him?"
"Yes," Anna answered as she walked past him and sat on her couch, patting the spot next to her, "But I want you to tell it to me. Gabriel's version was full of bad jokes and bitter sarcasm."
Cas almost moved to sit next to her, drink in her body warmth like he used to on the cold nights at the latest empty motel room, but he stopped himself at the last minute. He had to be strong. Show no weakness. Like Michael always taught him.
He stood stoically as he relayed all the information to her, how he'd stumbled upon the trashed motel room but no Michael. She listened patiently, never interrupting and instead just drinking in every word that slipped from his lips. After he was done, Cas raked a hand through his hair and hesitated to ask her the one question that'd been on his mind even as he told the story of Michael's disappearance; the one question that Gabriel answered with outright refusal.
He didn't know if he could take it if Anna refused as well. He couldn't do this alone. He wasn't like any of his siblings. He was a soldier; not a leader.
At Castiel's pause, Anna let out a sigh and stood up, asking, "So when do we leave?"
Castiel's body stilled, "What?"
"When do we leave?" Anna repeated slowly, "I mean, it'll take me a few minutes to pack—"
"What about your life here?" Cas asked because he couldn't let her ruin her own future just to humor him and his quest, "You have a job, friends, college—"
"The semester ended a few days ago," Anna answered with a shrug, "I have a few months before the next one starts. And I can always find another job—"
"After all those things I said to you," Castiel breathed, scanning her face for any sort of trickery, "Why would you drop everything to help me?"
Sadness and an ounce of bitter highlighted her beautiful features as she replied, "You're family, Cas. And family always comes first, remember?"
Cas glanced away from her intense gaze and nodded numbly, not trusting himself to speak. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Anna smile before he felt her arms wrap around him. He stiffened at the contact, not entirely sure if he should return the embrace or not. He ended up just standing there with his arms at his sides, waiting awkwardly until Anna sighed and pulled back. She seemed so...sad. Castiel forgot how heartbreaking it was to see her in pain.
Before he could apologize, Anna walked back to her bedroom, "I'm going to go pack. You can stay here if you want, or you can just wait for me in the car. I won't be long."
"I'll wait in the car," Castiel said before adding, "And Anna?"
She stopped and threw a glance over her shoulder, "Yeah, Cas?"
"Thank you." He hoped she noticed the unspoken "I've missed you" hidden in his statement.
She didn't.
Instead Anna just nodded, looking almost disappointed that that was all he had to say, "You're welcome."
Castiel left the apartment with trembling hands and a guilt soaked heart.
Twelve hours later, Anna was taking her shift driving as Cas slept restlessly in the passenger seat. He drove for five hours straight before Anna made a deal with him that at each three hours, they'd switch. It took a lot of bargaining and guilt trips before Cas finally agreed (though she was sure he only did so just to shut her up), but Anna considered it a victory nonetheless.
It was so surreal to look over and find her estranged brother sitting next to her. During her shifts of sleeping, she was always positive that it was all a dream, and that'd she wake up in her small but cozy apartment, drenched in sweat and panting like she'd just finished a marathon. Castiel made a usual occurrence in her nightmares—along with many other ghosts from her past that Anna wished would stay dead—so it wouldn't be implausible for all of this to be just a clever hallucination, her twisted subconscious preying on her guilt and fear to torment her for her past treachery.
Or this was all true—that Michael was missing, and Castiel actually came to her despite his obvious loathing. He must be that desperate, she thought grimly to herself as she glanced over at her brother, his face sheen with sweat and terror of whatever haunted him at night displaying on his hard, stony features. He wasn't the little brother Anna knew him as; after her departure, Michael made sure of that.
If she were honest with herself, she would admit that she secretly thought the bastard deserved it (better him than Cas, she murmured silently to herself but then shook her head to dispel such awful thoughts). But no matter what horrors he committed and what lies he preached, Michael was still her brother, and Anna still loved him. She loved all her brothers; even the ones that didn't deserve it.
The sudden sound of her phone ringing almost made her run off the road, the disturbance of the hours long silence causing her to jump out of her skin. She let out a shuddering sigh of relief once she realized what it was and answered it, "Yeah?"
"Anna," Gabriel's horrified, distraught voice caused panic to coil in her gut, "God, Annie, where are you? You need to get here—"
"Gabe, what happened?" She demanded, "What's wrong?"
"They're all dead," Gabriel exclaimed in a troubling mix between shock and terror, "I came back from my lunch break, and everyone's dead. I don't know—"
Anna's breath sped up as she found herself blurting out, "Where are you?"
"I'm at work. Please, when can you get here?"
"Um," She looked down at the map, her brain racing to find an answer, "Twenty minutes, tops. Just—Just stay there, okay? We'll be right there."
"Hurry, Anna," Gabriel told her worriedly, "Their eyes..." He didn't elaborate further and just hung up, leaving Anna confused and worried for her older brother. What did he mean their eyes, she wondered to herself, lost in thought at the puzzling words.
She didn't notice Castiel awakening until he slowly sat up and groggily asked, "Is it my turn yet?"
"Change of plans, Cas," She said, turning onto the exit towards Gabriel's work, "We're going to get Gabe."
Castiel scoffed, rolling his eyes, "So now he wants to join..." He trailed off when he looked over and saw something off in Anna's expression, body tensing as he asked, "Anna, is he okay?"
"I don't know," She admitted, panic and fear lacing her quivering voice, "He just called and said something happened. I don't know if he's—"
"Anna, calm down," Castiel said soothingly, placing a hand over her knuckle-white grip on the steering wheel, "He's going to be fine."
"Do you think it's connected?" Anna demanded, her eyes flickering over to meet his, "Gabe said that he came back and everyone was dead. Do you think whoever took Michael did this?"
Castiel was silent for a moment before he confessed quietly, "I don't know, Anna, but we'll figure it out." Anna nodded numbly, but the tension didn't leave her body. Not for the whole ride there.
Gabriel couldn't stop staring into his boss' charred, dark void where his eyes used to be. Mr. Parson was a conceited dick, but he didn't deserve the death that was dealt to him. None of them did. But Fate always had a funny way of screwing people over, didn't she? The bitch seemed to get her sick kicks out of killing the innocent in the most painful, grueling way possible. Why she couldn't punish the assholes of the world was beyond him (though if she did only prey on the bad, Gabriel wouldn't be alive right now, would he?).
He hoped Anna would get here soon. It'd been a long time since he fought anything other than a particularly stubborn coffee machine, and he didn't know if he still had it in him. Swindling and lying were one thing—hell, this whole economy was based on those methods!—but killing was something Gabriel swore to himself he would never do again. Even if he were still good at it.
With a shudder, Gabriel ripped his gaze from his boss and glanced around at all the other corpses, their mouths open in shock and eyes as soulless and black as the black abyss that threatened to swallow him up every time he closed his eyes.
"Gabe?" Anna's concerned voice rang throughout the silent building and caused a surge of relief to squeeze his heart.
"Annie," He sighed, leaving the main lobby and running to meet her at the entrance, "Thank Hostess you're here. I thought—" He cut off when he noticed someone hiding in the shadows, his body obscured but presence still noticed.
"Castiel," Gabriel said in shock, looking over to Anna, "Why did you bring him here?"
"He's apart of this, too." Anna told him, a challenge in her gaze as she crossed her arms over her chest, "He knows more about this than both of us combined."
"You think this has something to do with Mikey?" Gabriel laughed bitterly with a hollowness that ached in his chest, "I don't think so, Guys. The uptight bastard probably just followed in Daddy's footsteps—"
"While you wallow in your stubborn denial and cruelty," Castiel cut him off smoothly, blue eyes flashing dangerously like a wild animal threatening to pounce, "Anna and I are going to do our job. Why don't you stop being an obnoxious pest and show us the damage?"
Gabriel glanced away and spun around, leading them to the lobby where all the workers were slaughtered. The lobby was charred with ash and drenched in the scent of some sort of oil, the smell pungent and strong enough to make Anna cough immediately upon entering.
"Their eyes were burned out of their faces," Gabriel said brokenly, his defense mechanism screaming to make a bad pun or malicious joke but his mouth refusing to let the hollow words escape from his throat, "Or that's what I can gather. I wasn't here when it happened."
"You think they were looking for you," Anna asked, looking at Gabriel like he had an answer, "And maybe threw a tantrum when they discovered your absence?"
Gabriel sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face, "Maybe, but what are they? Demons like more bloody means to send a message, and ghosts don't have enough power to do this kind of shit. Vampires and Werewolves are out, as well as Wendigos—"
"I've seen this before," Castiel blurted out, kneeling down and examining his secretary's mutilated face closely, "Michael showed it to me a week after he left to follow his lead."
"What do you mean?" Anna prompted, her and Gabriel walking over to join Castiel's side.
"There was this case in Nebraska," Castiel explained, "The police found charred bodies with their eyes burned out at some popular church. No one heard screams or anything. The only reason they found them was because the victims' relatives reported them missing when they didn't come home from church that Sunday evening. Most of the missing were found, but some were still at large. Michael thought it was some sort of twisted demon ritual. He asked me to look into it while he followed a lead on Father."
"What'd you find?" Gabriel asked.
"Nothing," Castiel said, abruptly standing up, "No one reported smelling sulfur or any of the victims acting strange before they left for church. No cold spots and the EMF didn't even let out a peep. It was...weird. I mean, usually I find something—an odd detail that stands out from the rest—but this case was different. I tried to call Michael for advice, but it always went to voicemail. And when I drove over to check on him..."
"He was missing." Anna finished, earning a nod of confirmation from her younger brother.
"So, what are we dealing with?" Gabriel asked, "And what the hell does it want from me and Mikey?"
"There's only one way to find out," Anna reminded him before she took a step forward and put a hand on Gabriel's tensed shoulder, "Gabe, you're in danger. And what if Cas and I are too? We need to stick together and figure this out."
"I promised myself I wouldn't go back," Gabriel said lowly to her, his jaw clenching, "Anna, I can't get sucked back in. I'll end up never leaving again."
"Michael's in trouble," Anna said softly, and Gabriel wished the fact didn't hurt him so bad, "And chances are we are, too."
"You can't keep running away for the rest of your life," Castiel declared steadily, wiser than his age, "Sometime or another, you have to stand up and fight." But fighting came with sacrifice, and Gabriel didn't know if he could put himself through that again. But when he unglued his gaze from the floor and saw his two siblings staring at him like he alone could make a difference and not just royally screw everything up like Michael always assured him he did, his own automatic response surprised even himself.
"Okay," Gabriel said, feeling himself harden into the soldier he always was underneath those flashy business suits, "Okay, fine. Let's show those twisted son of a bitches what they're dealing with."
The rare sight of hope glinting in Castiel's blue eyes convinced him that he made the right decision.
"What the hell is this pile of junk?" Anna demanded in the parking lot as Gabriel unlocked his mustard colored 1974 Pontiac GTO.
"Hey, me and this car have been through a lot," Gabriel defended the grotesque monstrosity, stroking it like it was a new, expensive sports car, "It was the first thing I bought after I made it to Los Angeles. Some hermit living in the back of the train station gave it to me for forty bucks and the rest of my hotdog."
"And it still works?" Castiel said in astonishment.
"Hells yeah it works," Gabriel confirmed, opening the driver's side door and ducking inside, "The girl runs like a dream."
"And looks like a nightmare." Anna murmured to Cas and made him smile.
Gabriel, however, didn't see the humor in her joke and raised a finger at her, "That crack just earned you a ride in the backseat. C'mon Cassie, you get shotgun."
"Assholes." Anna moped as she piled into the backseat, but her heart wasn't in it.
"What is that smell?" Castiel demanded in disgust as he settled into the passenger seat.
"I left my windows open last month, and it turned into a kitty hotspot." Gabriel explained with a shrug, "It took an hour and twenty scratches, but I finally chased the dozen cats out."
Anna rolled her eyes and looked to Cas, "So where do we go?"
"Omaha, Nebraska," Castiel announced, "We're going to check out that case. Maybe you two can find something I couldn't."
"Awesome Sauce," Gabriel said, starting up the engine and pulling out of the parking lot, "Family road trip!" He switched the radio on, his favorite song blasting from his outdated speakers.
Anna groaned like hearing the song physically hurt her, "Please not Heat of the Moment. Every time I hear Asia, a little part of my soul dies."
"It isn't that bad." Castiel said with a shrug, earning a victorious smirk from Gabriel.
"Thank you, Cassie," His older brother said, "I'm glad someone appreciates genius when he hears it."
"I wouldn't go as far as saying genius—" Castiel began, but Gabriel silenced him by smacking a hand over his mouth.
"Don't ruin our brotherly moment." Gabriel told him as he retracted hand and turned the music up, belting out, "Do you remember when we used to dance..."
And that was when their journey began; a dark, treacherous journey that would only end in tragedy. None knew what they were up against; never even for a second believed that the following series of events were destined to happen since the dawn of time. There was no changing Fate. They would eventually learn this all too well.
The three hunters were entirely different—one was charming yet cowardly; the other was guilt-ridden and too kind for her own good; and the last was bitter and hollow—but they were bound by one thing: blood. And that was the one thing that damned them all.
Author's Note: Reviews and other forms of feedback would be awesome. I hope this was worth the wait and hype. Thank you all for making this series as popular as it is. Your support is truly overwhelming sometimes (but by all means, keep it coming ;) ).