When Dean said he was going to "sleep for about four days", what he meant was that he was tired and wanting to escape into a land of dreams. Maybe even hoping that somehow the issues would resolve themselves by the next morning.

Of course, nightmares were nothing new to Dean, but that didn't mean they got any easier.

…..

Dean's mark was fuelling his whole body, and he didn't even want to hold back. He was owning the power. The raw desire to kill was pumping in his veins. He welcomed this primitive, pure urge, as he darted through the trees, his footfalls crushing the snow beneath him.

He slowed down with deliberation, putting some distance between him and his victim, who wasn't far ahead. Dean was feeling the thrill of the chase, savouring the best part - the kill - till last.

He was already feeling the rush as he imagined watching the light go out in his prey's eyes, and couldn't help but grin with anticipation.

He paused for a minute to look at the ground and study his target's footprints. The snow was making it far too easy for Dean to follow his trail. The prints led him through some snowy undergrowth. Dean sniffed the air like a wolf, focused ahead. He stepped out into a clearing. There he was. On his knees out in the open, trying to catch his breath. Dean again felt his face stretch into a grin.

The other man slowly got to his feet, turning to him with wide, pleading eyes. Dean could sense he was hurting out of sentiment for Dean. He was after all Dean's closest friend once. And Dean remembered this man, everything they'd been through together... But still, Dean no longer held onto these feelings. And he didn't care. He felt so much more free. To him, Castiel was just game to hunt and nothing more.

The angel didn't try defending himself, even though Dean allowed him the opportunity to attack first.

With his old friend refusing to participate, Dean smashed his fist into the angel's jaw, knocking him down into the snow. He walked a few paces to where the dazed man was lying, and then slammed the toe of his boot into his stomach. But he didn't stop there. He kicked his chest next. Castiel tried shielding his chest with his arms, crying out for him to stop. But Dean simply kicked around them until he was satisfied by the crunching sound made by his ribs.

"Please..." the trench-coated figure choked. He still wouldn't fight back. He still cared about him. It made Dean chuckled.

Using the same foot, he rolled Cas onto his back and then he pressed his boot down onto his ribs, hard. His victim spluttered as his already broken ribs were being crushed into his lungs. Dean leant in closer and slowly withdrew the blade he had been concealing in his jacket.

Wielding the blade felt so natural. It completed him. He allowed the angel's eyes to regard it one last time, showcasing it to him.

The next event was mostly a blur, as Dean was so high on primal pleasure. When he next regained lucidity, everything was still slowly spinning to a stop. He collected his senses. There was a bloodied mess before his eyes. flesh and ribs splayed out in a mangled mess. Slowly he dared his eyes to scan upward, and saw those wide blue eyes from before, now lifeless.

It was Castiel. And he was... And he had just done this to him... And the realisation of what he had done had cruelly come to dawn on him just at that moment. He had just murdered the best friend he'd ever had.

Dean wanted to scream, wanted to cry and wanted to vomit all at the same time. Yet he couldn't. There was no release. This curse would never let him. He looked at his right hand to notice it was still tightly clutching the handle of the blade. He loosened his hold of it, letting drop into the snow. He shakily brought both his hand to face. They were red with blood. Castiel's blood.

His feelings were about to erupt at that point, curse or no curse, and he couldn't hold back a scream. It was long and anguished and filled with pain, as if the mark wanted to punish him and give him his feelings back, just as quickly as it had taken them. Just to make him suffer this horrific loss. He felt his body tremor and he bowed his head and his eyes spilled tears. He was a monster.

Dean hadn't had such an intense nightmare in years. Not since hell...

But he wouldn't allow himself to believe that this was some sort of premonition. Not when he hadn't even killed Crowley yet – the first one on the list – according to Cain.

Not that psychic visions happened to him normally anyway.

It was probably just the next greatest worry on his mind, manifesting itself into a nightmare. Nothing new there.

Dean lay there a while, and breathed in a woody, musky smell, reminding him where he was.

With things going the way they were, he needed to protect Sam and Cas from himself. So he had retreated to a small cabin in a place he hoped they wouldn't be able to find him.

There was a case nearby too, which made this location all the more worthwhile.

White movement caught his eye and he glanced out of the small window. It was snowing and windy outside, and the sound of the howling wind filled the silence of the cabin.

The gold Lincoln Continental rumbled through the snow storm on a remote mountainous road in Gunnison, Colorado.

"He's close by," Cas said, with his hands on the wheel and eyes transfixed on the road. He had the window wipers on to help him to see what little he could. It seemed questionable to even be driving in this weather. Castiel's car was not even suited for the snow, but obviously they had not counted on the storm getting this bad.

"The storm's getting worse," Sam observed, looking out the windshield at the road. "How much further is it?"

"Not much further now." The angel replied, his face frowning in concentration.

About a minute later, Cas stopped the car at what seemed to Sam like a completely random spot on the side of the road.

"That way," the angel said. Sam tried to follow Castiel's gaze, but he seemed to be motioning towards some invisible area far off in the distance, or perhaps there was a track there, made invisible by the snow. Sam didn't know, but he tried to prepare himself for the cold that he knew he was about to step into once he got outside the car.

The door to the cabin flew open, and Dean was hit by the shockingly cold gale which blew in.

He shielded his face until he heard the door slam back shut again. When he removed his hands, his face fell.

"Crap..." he said. He'd been found. And much sooner than he could have expected. For standing by the door was Sam. And he looked less than pleased.

"How did you find me?" Dean asked, his face stern.

Sam gave his older brother a hard stare before replying. "Cas can pick up on your yearning."

Yearning? thought Dean. He wouldn't have used that word himself, but he did suppose he had been worried, ever since that stupid dream...

Sam began crossing out the angel warding, which Dean had strategically placed on the walls and door. And as soon as he crossed out the last sigil with a marker pen, he quickly opened the door for Castiel to step in. Dean had to crack a smile when he saw Cas' usually-faultless hair, damp and flattened down over his forehead.

The angel and his brother had caused a slush puddle by the door, where the snow was melting off them. Sam was thankful that Dean had made a nice fire in the fireplace he was sitting by.

Dean shook his head. "You two just can't stay away can you?"

Sam stepped closer, his face looking characteristically bitchy. "Well you can't just always run away and hide whenever it suits you."

Dean avoided their gazes. "I'm not just hiding here you know," he said. "There was a hunt in town." Sam sensed that Dean was trying to change the subject, but he let it slide for now.

In front of Dean on a coffee table was a newspaper, open on a headline, which read: 'Hedge Trimmer Murderer Shot to Death'. Sam glanced at the paper, but it was Cas who picked it up.

Dean continued on about the case; "Apparently, some guy 'chainsaw massacred' his neighbour with a hedge trimmer, right on their lovely suburbia front lawn. Oh and then, he was shot by the guy's wife."

"We know," Sam said. "We knew you were in town, but Cas couldn't find your exact location, so we checked out the local case, hoping you'd be on to it."

Cas put the paper back down and added: "We've already questioned Mr Dimmock's friends and family."

Three hours earlier

The spare FBI apparel Sam had been carrying in his duffel wasn't in the most immaculate condition, but it would have to do. And after he and Cas got togged up, they found themselves in front of the dead murderer's house.

Since it was the middle of winter in Colorado, snow was falling all around them, but this didn't hinder Sam from their task, much less Castiel.

They had caught the murder victim's wife just as she had returned from shopping. And as they approached her, she was still lifting bags of groceries out of the trunk of her car. She had rings around her eyes and Sam could already sense that her husband's sudden homicide-death was an unexpected shock when it happened.

Sam was the first to inquire. "Ma'am, could we just ask you some questions about your husband and the murder of your neighbour, Hugh?"

The woman didn't even give them a chance to ask where they could talk, she just started chuntering nonchalantly then and there.

"I still can't understand why he did it. He was a good person..." her voice was already starting to waver. At that moment, her twelve-year-old daughter opened the passenger car door and stepped out. At first Sam thought she was going to comfort her mother, but instead she stood facing away from them.

Mrs Dimmock continued, "...Obviously Monty was still upset about what happened to his friends, but other than that he was just his usual self. We were in the kitchen, then Monty just took one look at Hugh out of the kitchen window... Hugh was cutting his hedge, and Monty suddenly just left the house, walked right up to him, and grabbed the hedge cutter off him, and..."

She looked away, obviously struggling to hold back tears.

Sam gave a nod of understanding. "Thank you for your help Mrs Dimmock," he said.

But they all stopped in their tracks as the young daughter started crossing the quiet road by herself. The mother, Sam and Cas watched as the girl wandered right into their neighbour's front yard.

"What is she..." Mrs Dimmock trailed off.

There was a man in the yard, attending to his footpath, and using a spray can of sorts on some of the weeds. The girl approached, and grabbed the bottle from the man, who now looked slightly stunned back at her.

"Polly!" her mother warned her, and started to slowly jog across the road towards her and the neighbour. "I'm so sorry, she's usually no trouble..." she tried apologising. "Give that back, Polly!"

But Polly had other intentions, and just as Sam and Cas arrived to see what was going on, the young girl aimed the bottle at the neighbour and sprayed the herbicide into the man's face.

He screamed as the toxic chemical burned his eyes. Sam grabbed the kid and tried to seize the bottle, but she turned to her very left, and sprayed another dose at her own mother's face.

Mr's Dimmock reacted the same way as the man, and there were now two people screaming in pain palming their eyes. Sam and Cas really didn't need to draw this much attention to themselves, so Sam guided the victims towards the man's house. "Let's go inside..." he suggested. "We should rinse your eyes with water." He exchanged a nod with Cas; "Agent Murray is going to watch your daughter."

When the others went in the house, Cas felt very uncomfortable with being left with the little girl. There was something very disturbing about the way she simply stood there, facing away from him.

Cas presumed she wasn't even looking at anything at all. But a minute of silence with her was too awkward, even for Cas, and he decided to try to ask her a couple of questions. But all he could utter was a nervous "Um...", when the girl quickly turned to face him.

Then some kind of light began emitting from the girl's chest. The light became very bright, almost too bright for him to stand. And then something lunged towards him. Something coming from her.

Castiel braced himself for the attack, which was effectively like a pressure wave being cast against him. He strained to see the attacker's true form, and was taken aback sight of a peculiar woman composed of green, earthy tones and branches.

The spirit woman's eyes met his, before she rushed at Cas, and shoved into him, shoulder first, using such force, that the angel was almost knocked off his feet. She was preparing to attack again, but this time Cas was ready. He managed to return the attack by raising his hand, charging it with grace, and effectively casting her back.

The spirit seemed shocked, and in a second or so, vanished. But using his powers took an immediate toll on Castiel's body. He stumbled back, barely managing to remain on two feet.

His grace was getting lower by the day, which made fighting a struggle. He tried his best to stabilize himself. This needn't concern Sam or Dean. They already had more than enough to worry about.

The child's mother came outside, obviously noticing something was going on. She had a damp cloth held against her eyes, but was peeping over one side of it.

"Hello?" she said with uncertainty. "Is everything all right? I thought I heard something."

Sam's head peeped out of the door now, and had caught sight of Cas leaning slightly over and trying to catch his breath.

"E-Everything's fine, Ma'am." Sam informed her. "Just get back inside and take a seat until the ambulance gets here."

Sam exited the house and jogged towards Cas. Slowly, the girl seemed to be gathering some awareness, like she was coming round from a dose of anaesthetic. A good indicator, but also a familiar sign to Sam that she was recovering from a possession.

It was now that Castiel decided to begin questioning the girl. He picked his times...

"When your father killed his neighbour, were you an eye-witness?"

"N-No..." The girl, still overcome from that ordeal, was startled by Castiel's intimidating voice. "I was at school that day."

Mrs Dimmock interrupted. "Excuse me, but what has my daughter got to do with it?" She had ignored Sam's advice to stay at the house, and was no longer holding a cloth to her face. Her eyes still looked red and painful, and she kept blinking from irritation. The poor guy, who'd had it far worse, probably couldn't see well enough to walk around yet.

Castiel explained, "I'm just trying to link the violent actions shown by both your husband and your daughter-"

He was cut off by Sam, who loudly talked over him, "I-It doesn't matter about that, Ma'am, we're just trying to tie some loose ends. But we've troubled you enough. Thank you." He smiled. "Agent." he motioned to Cas, and guided the angel away before he could cause any more upsets. When Cas was facing the other way, Sam turned back around to the family and smiled at them, so that they wouldn't suspect anything was wrong.

As they got to the angel's car, they stopped to talk.

"I recognise that creature, Sam," the angel informed him. "It was a dryad. Specifically a hamadryad. They can-"

Sam interrupted him "What? Slow down! What creature?" Of course, Sam had missed everything while he was in that house.

"A dryad was possessing that young girl," Cas explained. "But..." he paused in thought, before continuing; "Possession is very uncharacteristic for these creatures."

Sam went silent as he considered what Cas had told him. He needed a moment to think. He got into the car's passenger seat as his brain tried to make sense of the information. Cas followed suit and got into the driver's seat. Sam's fingers tapped the dashboard, and he realised this called for some research. He turned around and reached to grab Castiel's laptop from the back seat. He quickly got to typing the word 'dryad' into the search engine.

With his expertise, he easily found a page about dryads in mythology, and read the information aloud:

" 'In Greek mythology, hamadryads protected trees and wildlife. They were so protective that they actually punished any mortals who harmed trees.'"

Cas seemed to acknowledge everything, and Sam read on. " 'They are normally asleep during the winter months, because they're much more powerful when there is abundant plant life around their tree.' Huh..." Thought Sam, "I don't think she picked a good spot for herself then, this is Colorado..."

"Well a sacred tree can be millions of years old," Castiel informed. "So the climate wasn't always necessarily cold when the dryad first connected with it."

Sam closed the laptop and thought again. "So, this sacred tree..." he pondered, "Would we be able to find it? Would the dryad be going back to it so we can maybe talk to it?"

"Yes, actually dryads must return to their tree often, otherwise they die." The angel answered, matter-of-factly.

This was a relief to Sam, as it meant they had at least made a bit of progress. "Okay, so our next step is to find the tree. In like, a forest of trees..." He sighed, quickly realising that they may have bitten off more than they can chew. "Where do we even begin to look?" he asked.

"This town has a local forest, we should look there," Cas said bluntly.

Sam had a bad feeling. This plan was already sounding off the wall..."Well, maybe Dean's already on it," he hoped, glancing out of the window towards the house. "But we'd best get out of here before somebody calls the cops."

In agreement, Cas started the ignition, and they drove away as they heard the oncoming noise of ambulance sirens. Their priority was always to make sure that people were safe, but at this point, there was no need to stick around and deal with the extra hassle. The ambulance would take it from here.

Present time

Sam and Cas updated Dean on their findings, but Cas jumped in a lot, and seemed to gloss over the part about the dryad attacking him.

"The weather is truly strange," Castiel said, kind of offbeat to the rest of the conversation they'd just been having.

"You're telling me!" Dean agreed. "I should already be having a head start on this case, but I couldn't even get back onto the damn road!" He let his mind wander for a moment. "...Hope baby's okay out there..." he said, worrying about his beloved Impala.

Sam cleared his throat. "Moving on..." he said, snapping Dean out of his emotional thoughts.

"Oh right, yeah..." Dean gathered his wits together. "So the plan..."

The plan was of course, finding the sacred tree. Yes, as crazy as it sounded – they were actually going to search for a tree in a woods, in a blizzard...

Castiel was the most prepared to go. "Well, for you two, going out into that weather would be suicide. I'll go alone."

"No way!" Sam argued. "I saw you when that dryad attacked you. You're not strong enough to fight this thing alone!"

Dean suddenly jumped in "What? It attacked you?" He turned Cas by the shoulder, forcing him to look him in the eye. "What happened?"

"I'm fine," the angel said, the annoyance clear in his tone.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Dean snapped back. He turned away, rubbing his aching forehead. "Damnit, you shouldn't have come here!"

"What?" Sam asked, confused.

Dean instantly recoiled with regret, and stared at the floor. "Nothing, never mind," he said, suddenly energised and grabbing his jacket. "So are we doing this thing or what?" Sam held his frown, burning it into the back of Dean's head, as he thought about what was going on with his brother, but he forced himself to shake it off again.

The torn feeling in Dean was growing progressively. He was so happy to see his brother and friend, but at the same time, that dark little voice in his head kept telling him he was endangering them, and that the more time he spent around them, the more he was going exactly down the wrong road. A road which would ultimately lead to... And that disturbing thought made Dean want to disappear into isolation like he'd planned to before. He even thought about abandoning them again at the next opportunity. Because as painful as it would be to have to betray them, it would be nothing compared to the alternative...

"All right, everybody got their weapons?" Dean asked, sounding like a dad making sure his kids had their lunch boxes and phones with them.

"Yep," Sam said, patting his pockets where he'd put his pistol, the demon knife and also an iron blade. Dean also carried a pistol and an iron knife. Cas was just carrying his usual angel blade.

This would probably fall under one of their more reckless missions. None of them knew exactly what they were up against, other than a dryad - which they found out could be killed with iron, - hence the iron knives. But Cas informed them that an angel blade would also suffice.

And if all that failed, they always had Castiel's smiting ability as their ultimate backup weapon.

The brothers didn't often take to dressing warmly, but today was a rare exception.

"Cas, there's another pair of gloves if you want them," Sam said, showing him the spare gloves on the table. "And a scarf too..."

But the angel declined. "Thank you for the offer, but I don't get cold."

Dean chuckled when he saw Sam wearing a beanie. Sam frowned at him and tossed a blue woolly hat at Dean. "You'll thank me later," he bitched. Dean was less inclined to be seen wearing a woolly hat; it just wasn't his style. But he knew he was going to need it once he was outside, and so he grudgingly put it on.

Once they had all their gear, Sam paused with his hand on the door handle. Before opening the door, he looked through its small frosted window, as if hoping to see a change. Dean and Cas followed Sam's gaze. But the white cascade of snow was unrelenting through each cabin window. Dean sighed. "This plan is crazy."

Nobody could argue with Dean's comment as they proceeded.

In Sam and Dean's experience, usually, having an angel on the force was a great advantage, however on this occasion, it was not. Even with Castiel's knowledge of the dryad, he apparently wasn't able to locate the tree, not even using his grace, which surprised them.

Cas said that using his grace outdoors rather than indoors, he had a better chance of locating the energy source of the tree. To do this, he apparently had to go into a deep meditative state. But each time he tried this, he kept getting too low on power.

When he made his fifth attempt, Dean and Sam had to catch him from almost collapsing in the snow.

"That's enough," Dean said, as he and Sam supported him. "Are you okay?"

Castiel never knew when to give up. He no doubt would have kept trying to the point of passing out, had they not insisted on him stopping.

"I'm sorry," the angel apologised. "The storm must be interfering with the connection."

"You sure you're okay?" Dean asked, with growing concern. Cas was for sure hiding something.

The angel managed to gather himself. "I'm fine," he said.

Sam was already having second thoughts about their plan. "Cas, maybe this was a bad idea. You're obviously not strong enough."

"I'm fine," Cas repeated. "We'll just have to find the tree by eye."

"Fun times," Joked Dean.

Sam, Dean and Cas wondered through the snow storm for what seemed like hours, and Cas had approached many different trees, a countless number of times. Each time placing his hand on the trunk of the tree, feeling its energy. And once again, he removed his palm from the tree and shook his head. Then they moved on, trudging further through the blinding snowstorm. It was enough to make any human being feel disorientated. And Sam and Dean hoped that once this hunt was finally over, Castiel would still know the way back.

The cold was becoming more and more unbearable. Sam and Dean were walking side-by-side with Cas a little further ahead. Dean grumbled to himself when he lost sight of Cas' tan trench coat again. Their friend was walking too fast for his liking. Every once in a while he would get too far ahead and they would have to jog to catch up with him again. Their fingertips and toes had long since gone numb. In fact they were both thinking of giving up, but they knew that Cas wasn't going to take no for an answer. Besides, with the way things were looking, there was very real possibility of getting lost, which meant they were better off together. And so the Winchesters stuck by Cas.

But then things began to turn even worse, as the snow storm suddenly started blasting even more severely.

In an instinctive reaction, Sam had quickly curled his face down into his scarf. He noticed Dean was doing the same. It was near-impossible to see anything, peering through their scarves at nothing but a blinding white force of cold wind and snow. They actually had to grab onto each other's jackets so that they wouldn't lose one another, even shielding their faces with their free arms.

They had lost sight of their friend. And that was the final straw. "Cas!" Dean tried to shout above the wind. They kept walking. Dean's grasp on Sam's arm was so tight it was almost painful. He kept calling, and so did Sam. Then finally...

"Sam! Dean!" a familiar voice called back accompanied by Cas rushing into view.

Signing with relief, Dean reached out with his free hand, grabbing Cas' arm. He was going to make sure they weren't losing him again.

It was a struggle, even to communicate, and they could barely hear one another. But they managed by using gestures and hand signals, and finally, but not all too surprisingly, they were all in agreement about turning back to the cabin.

So they turned back the other way, pushing forward, fighting, but Sam and Dean couldn't even make sense of how far they had left to travel. Castiel had a better intuition, but even he was struggling. The blizzard was affecting him more than it should have. Sam and Dean hoped his powers would hold out long enough to at least get them back to the cabin.

More time passed. The distance between them and the cabin seemed endless. They couldn't even see where they were going, and were blindly bumping into trees and branches all too often. Cas seemed to be able to see better than them and was in the lead. He was still struggling far too much by angel standards though, and in fact he found himself wishing more than ever for his wings.

The bellowing cold air almost muted their movements as they surged onwards. But for a moment, Dean thought he heard something else.

"Did you hear something?" He shouted to Sam and Cas. They kept moving but Sam tried to listen very hard. There was nothing to make out this time. Dean shook it off. It must have been the wind.

But a moment later, he heard it again, and this time he was sure he heard it. It was hard to tell, but to his ears, it was some sort of a shrill screaming noise. Then again, perhaps he'd gotten a case of the wind chill and he was becoming delusional.

But then Sam was startled too, as the noise struck again, a little louder this time. Cas had also heard it, and now all three of them had stopped to listen.

The shrieking noises were still indecipherable. The closest Dean could liken them to would be some sort of a bird.

"What is that?" Sam pointed and yelled. He had caught a glimpse of something in the sky.

Dean grabbed onto Sam and Cas more tightly. "What did you see?" he shouted back.

Sure enough, there was something out there. And the raptor-like noises were terrifyingly close now.

Their eyes caught sudden glimpses of something. Some sort of flapping, feathery creature, flying between the trees.

Sensing danger, Dean and Sam took out their pistols and Cas drew his blade.

Suddenly, Sam jumped as something with a very strong grip clamped his shoulder. The ugly clawed foot was tugging Sam backward, sinking its claws into his shoulder. Sam turned and tried to bat it away with the butt of his gun. Dean aimed his pistol, but this terrible storm meant there was a high risk of missing it and shooting Sam. Luckily, Sam managed to punch the creature in the gut. The thing squawked and in reflex tore a long strip of fabric from Sam's sleeve. It let Sam go, instead turning to attack Dean. Amongst the feathers and clawed feet, Dean saw a feathery head with some human features mixed in.

"The hell are you?" the hunter asked in disgust.

It responded only by shrieking, and Dean got his iron knife and slashed the air in front of him, struggling to aim at the creature. When Sam and Cas took part in the attack, it backed further away.

The monster apparently had no trouble seeing in the blizzard, and was making good use of this camouflage to ambush them again and again. It kept utilizing those huge vulture-like feet to grab and tear at them.

It was attacking them in turns, and its claws were brutal when they met skin. Castiel had been unfortunate enough to get a claw to the face.

Somehow, the three of them gathered together and managed to get into a good defence position, all facing outwards with their weapons readied. The monster continued to swoop and snap at them, and they seemed to be having no success in scaring it off.

By now they were all littered with cuts and scratches. This foe, coupled with the turbo-blizzard was more than they had bargained for.

Sam, who had half of his sleeve dangling off his left arm was once again targeted, and the bird's big clawed feet pulled at the loose fabric, and clawed where there was only thin fabric left protecting him. And eventually it had managed to slash Sam's exposed arm. The hunter cradled his bleeding limb, but the creature used the opportunity to ram into him, knocking him down.

It then began swooping down towards the injured man, but Dean fired his pistol at it. "Bitch!" he screamed. The bird changed its mind and hesitated in the air a while longer. Then Dean caught a glimpse of Cas, his face streaked with blood. The fact that he had been bleeding for this long was worrying.

The angel tried to help Sam up, as Dean fired more bullets at where he'd last seen the creature disappear.

There was a long moment of nothing happening. Sam still cradled his left arm, and held his knife in the same hand. They searched the snow-filled sky, trying to see, and held their weapons aimed and readied.

Perhaps Dean had killed it with one of those shots, but there was no body. No indication that it was dead. But this creature seemed clever. And the likelier possibility was that it was just waiting for another good opportunity to attack. So they all remained vigilant.

"Is it coming back?" asked Dean.

"It might," replied Cas.

Cas was right. It did ambush again. This time going for Dean. Dean couldn't get a steady aim as it torpedoed at him, its claws outstretched.

"Dean, lookout!" Sam shouted. There wasn't much he could do in time, but Cas had somehow made a dash between Dean and the creature, and pushed Dean out of the way. The hunter landed on his face, but quickly jumped back on his feet, spitting snow from his mouth.

He gathered the knife he'd dropped, just in time to see the creature yank Castiel off his feet. Damn, that thing is strong... Sam was attempting to stab it, but the bird was lifting Cas further into the air. Dean had the option to shoot it, but he just couldn't risk hitting Castiel, with his grace as weak as it was.

And with another horrid shriek, the bird took Castiel away, letting them both be swallowed up by the blizzard.

Sam and Dean were left screaming at the top of their lungs. "Cas?!" But the only response they got was the bellowing of the wind.

A/N: Just a quick forewarning; it gets much darker in the next chapter. :)