"Hmm," says Lucifer, somehow still beside me even as I run at breakneck speed, "How did you get out here, little brother?"

All it takes is that suggestion from him, and suddenly the events of the last half hour are gone. In the weeks since Lucifer became a tenant in my head, I've managed to mostly separate out the delusions from reality. Still, he can really make my life difficult when he feels like it.

I skid to a stop, kicking up dirt and pine needles. How did I get here? A moment ago it was all so clear, but now my mind races to figure out how I got from sitting in my stark white hospital room to running through a forest in the middle of the night. I look down to find myself still in my white patient's outfit, but with my old coat thrown over the top of it. I'm also wearing a pair of sneakers that I have never seen before. Slowly, I turn around. The edge of the forest is still in sight with the road and the hospital just beyond. I've escaped.

But why?

"Hey, hot-wings! What do you think you're doing?" I turn back around to find Meg looking at me over her shoulder. Even through the worms in the hollows where her eyes should be, I can see that she is annoyed. And in a hurry.

"What are we running from?" I demand.

She grimaces. "Oh, great," she sighs, stomping back toward me, "You picked a fine time to go loopy on me again. Look, I told you. Crowley's goons are after you. The hospital is crawling with them. We've got to meet up with your pet humans if we're going to stand a chance, but first we've got to get as far from that hospital as we possibly can."

She has almost reached me. Just as she begins to lift her hand to grab me, Lucifer reappears, leaning against a nearby tree. "Are you really going to trust her?" he says, wincing even as he smiles, "For all you know, she's leading you to Crowley herself. Besides, you're a lot faster without her."

He might be Lucifer, and he might be a hallucination, but I can't really argue with his logic.

Meg must sense what I am about to do, because the annoyance on her face turns to anger as she snatches at me and shouts, "Don't you fucking dare!"

She's too late. With a flap of my wings, I am gone.

I'm not sure where I was trying to go, but this isn't it. I'm standing on what looks like a walking path in a park, the early morning mist rising off a nearby pond. I must have jumped a few time zones to the East.

All at once, the events of the night catch up with me and I sink to the ground, my head between my knees. My powers were not at their peak even before I began to be tormented by Lucifer, and my short flight has taken the wind out of me. I sit for a moment as I collect my thoughts and plan my next move. I've eluded Meg and Crowley. Now I must find Dean and Sam.

As I sit with my eyes to the ground, I hear someone approaching at a jogging pace. I ignore the sound until a young woman's voice says from just a few feet in front of me, "Hey, mister? You okay?" She sounds nervous. I don't blame her. With my mismatched clothes covered in blood and ichor, I would make me nervous too.

I raise my head, ready to reassure her and ask her if she has a cell phone, only to find a demon's face grinning down at me. I leap to my feet with a shout and press my hand to her forehead. Nothing happens.

"Hey!" she shrieks, swatting my hand away, and suddenly her face is that of a normal, lovely young woman.

From a bench by the pond where I hadn't noticed him before, Lucifer begins to laugh.

"Wait," I begin to say, "I apologize!" But she has already weighed her options and chosen flight. She is out of earshot before I am even finished speaking.

Lucifer stands and saunters over to me, looking pleased with himself. "Sorry, Castiel," he says, "But, come on. Did you really think you'd be able to blend right in? You've got the angel thing working against you, and now you're crazy on top of that."

"Be quiet," I say, turning away from him, "I know what's real. You just caught me by surprise."

"But that's all I have to do," he says, spreading his arms and sliding back into my view, "I only have to convince you of something for a second, and you'll react. What will it be next? I wonder if I can get you to kill someone…"

I ignore him. I need to find Dean and Sam.

I walk back the way the jogger came from, toward the faint sounds of civilization. When I arrive at the small town, it doesn't take me long to realize that my appearance is going to be a problem. People are definitely noticing the bloodstains on my coat. I take it off and carry it rolled up under my arm, the stains tucked out of sight, but now it is painfully obvious that I am wearing some kind of uniform. A boy actually stops as he passes and asks me, "Did you escape from a prison?"

His mother drags him away before I can answer, "No. A psychiatric ward."

After that, even though my powers are limited, I spare some of my energy to make myself invisible long enough to steal some clothes. I grab them out of a dryer at a laundromat and duck into a gas station restroom to change. With my hospital clothes shoved behind the toilet, I replace them with a pair of jeans that are just a bit too small for me and a t-shirt with a graphic on the front spelling out "Electric Light Orchestra." I am pulling the t-shirt over my head, wondering how one might create an orchestra out of electric lights, when suddenly Balthazar is lying at my feet and staring up at me with deadened eyes.

I know it's not real, but that doesn't stop me from jumping so badly that I trip and fall, cracking my head against the toilet tank. I scramble to my feet. Balthazar is gone, and in his place Lucifer is holding his gut and laughing at me. "Two for flinching!" he sings as he throws two mock-punches at me.

I leave the bathroom and go into the gas station's attached convenience store, Lucifer following me all the way. At the front counter, I find a stack of paper bags. I stuff my coat into one so I won't have to worry about anyone seeing the bloodstains, and when I look up the man behind the counter is staring at me. Either he noticed what was on my coat before I hid it, or I'm still not blending in as well as I'd like. Or both.

"Do you have a telephone I can use?" I ask, hoping he doesn't find me strange enough to chase out of his shop.

"Not a public one," he says.

"I need to call my friends so they can pick me up," I try to explain.

He sighs. "Stranded, huh? Well, okay, you can use the phone. Just don't let anyone see you."

He lets me behind the counter and turns his back to me as I begin to dial. I'm not even through the first three digits when Lucifer sucks air in through his teeth loudly and says, "You sure you want to do that?"

I can't answer, not when the man behind me might hear. I punch the next two numbers, but my hands are shaking now.

Lucifer shimmies around the counter to stand right in front of my face as I dial. "Why would you call him, of all people?" he says, "How do you think this is going to play out? It's not like Dean is going to be thrilled to have an angel who's out of his gourd riding around in the back seat while he tries to save the world."

That pricks at my pride. Of course I don't expect Dean to be thrilled at my mental state, but I do hope he might be pleased to see me. Certainly he will want to know that I'm safe. "I'm getting better," I whisper so quietly that I barely hear it myself. I glance over my shoulder. The gas station worker didn't hear me.

But Lucifer did. "You've had some good days," he says, flipping his hand back and forth equivocally, "But don't flatter yourself. Next time Dean asks for your help, you'll have to tell him, 'Wait, just let me ask my dead brother if it's okay. Oops, nope. He says I'm going to spend the rest of the day in the fetal position. Maybe you should just leave me in the car.'"

"I can still be useful to him," I mutter. I've forgotten what number I was on. I hang up and start over.

"You are a liability," says Lucifer, pointing his finger between my eyes, "Dean's a Hunter, and right now he's busy cleaning up the mess you made. He's not going to have time to sit with you and bake you cookies whenever big brother is mean to you. Whatever small usefulness you have left is far outweighed by the effort it would take him to keep you in working order. You would be a millstone around his neck."

"No…" I begin to say, but Lucifer is on a roll.

"Say whatever you want," he says, "But don't tell me I'm wrong. You know, deep down, that when he picks up the phone and hears your voice, his heart will drop a little. Because that's just one more problem to add to the pile. Now, on top of everything else he has to do, he has to come and take care of you."

"Shut up!" I say, far too loudly. Another glance over my shoulder confirms that the gas station worker is now staring at me as if I might start gnawing on the appliances at any moment.

I slam the phone back into the receiver and flee the store as quickly as my legs will take me, pausing only to scoop up the bag containing my coat.