It starts off easy enough.
With Andy's spell broken Cas's true strength is at his disposal once again. His body is still weakened, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins, his panicked will to survive, more than makes up for the deficit.
He elbows the first man holding him in the mouth and he lets go, holding his bleeding face. The other man moves to grab him and Cas grips him by the wrist and easily swings him around, sending both men crashing into the cage with a metal clang.
Cas roughly grabs both men by the napes of their necks and forces them to their knees. They struggle to rise but it's futile. Just because he can, and because he's pissed, Cas pushes their heads all the way to the floor with just a touch more force than necessary. He hears a gasp and looks up to see Andy staring at him wide-eyed.
"How did you do that?" Andy asks, awed, slowly rising to his feet. Cas raises an eyebrow.
"We all have our gifts," he answers dryly and Andy's eyes grow even bigger.
"You're one of them!" The first man snarls from the ground. Cas doesn't bother with a witty retort.
"If you would..." He says to Andy, nodding at the men at his feet.
For a second, the younger man looks confused, then it dawns on him. Andy hurries to kneel in front of the men and utters, "Sleep."
The two men are snoring before they hit the ground.
Then things get tricky.
In all the excitement, Cas had forgotten about the camera until Andy points up with a fearful expression.
"We should go," he says, "Things are gunna get messy."
Cas nods and the two men race into the darkness of the warehouse.
Castiel lets Andy lead the way through the prison he knows so well. They weave around tall shelving, towers of crates, storage cage after storage cage. Finally, they round a corner and a set of double doors comes into view. That's when their good luck runs out.
Four men emerge from the shadows. With guns. Cas freezes where he stands. He may be strong but he's not bullet-proof.
"Drop your-" Andy starts, but he abruptly cuts off with a sharp choking sound. Cas looks across and sees his ally doubled over, clawing weakly at his throat. He turns back to the men guarding the door, wide-eyed, and Meg strolls into their sightline, holding a thin black remote.
"Ah ah ah," she tsks, "None of that Andrew."
Andy's eyes are bugging out of his head, the collar crushing his windpipe. He falls to his knees. Meg tilts her head to the side. "Really, kiddo?" She asks, "You know better than to try something like this. Think of that poor girl. What's going to happen to her now?"
Andy manages to choke out one word, "No."
"Let him go!" Cas shouts,"Whatever you're doing, stop!"
Nobody moves. Meg's gaze drifts lazily from Andy to Cas and then back again. Andy's face is turning blue.
"Stop! You're killing him!"
"Mr. Gallagher broke the rules," says Meg, fingers dancing teasingly over the remote, "We gave him his gift. He thinks he can use it against us? He's wrong."
Cas drops to Andy's side and no one makes a move to stop him. The boy's struggles grow weaker, his eyes begin to close.
Cas reaches for the collar, but he can't get a grip, it's too tight.
"Will you stop?" Cas cries, "He's going to die. He's valuable, isn't he? You're really willing to lose him?" Cas is scrambling. Anything to make this stop.
"Tools are no good if there broken," says Meg.
"Then stop breaking him!"
She hits the button.
Cas feels the collar loosen beneath his grasping fingers and Andy sucks in a greedy breath. It's the greatest sound Cas has ever heard. The young man collapses onto his hands and knees, coughing and heaving.
"Andy," Cas breathes into his ear, "Get ready."
The gasping man looks sideways at him, eyes confused, but he nods all the same.
"Take them," says Meg, almost bored.
As the men start to close in, Cas gets a firm hold on Andy's collar with each hand and pulls. It snaps like a loose thread.
Meg's eyes widen in alarm. Before she can get a word out, Andy shouts, "Freeze!"
Everyone does.
Including Cas.
Andy stands slowly, a hand carefully rubbing at his liberated throat. A dark bruise rings his neck.
"Drop your weapons," he says, his voice raw from the strangling. The four men do. Andy walks slowly over to one of them.
"Andy," Cas manages, from his place on the floor,"What are you doing?"
The kid bends down on scoops up the man's fallen gun. He weighs it experimentally in his hands.
"Weird," he says quietly, "Never held one of these before. Not a real one. Never needed to."
"Andy."
"It's heavier that I thought, you know? It's heavy."
"Andy, don't."
"Six years, Agent. Six years they've held me here. Holding Tracy over me. Keeping in line with that." He points with the gun at the collar lying limp by Cas's feet. "Enough's enough, you know? You get it?" He seems to be talking himself into something. Cas doesn't like it.
"It's their turn," he says, leveling the weapon at Meg's frozen form.
"Come on, kid," Meg spits, "You don't have the guts."
"Andy, listen to me. You don't have to do this. This isn't who you are."
"Oh, yeah?" Andy answers without looking away, "And you know who I am, Agent? You think you know me?"
"I know you're better than this. I know you're better than them."
"Am I?" He asks, voice choked with emotion, "How long can you work with monsters before you become one?"
The younger man doesn't wait for Cas's answer. He lowers the gun and turns around. There's a darkness in his eyes the likes of which Cas has rarely seen. Only in the faces of those men and women who've done unspeakable things. Terrible things.
"You four," he says coldly, nodding his head toward Meg, "Torture her. Make her scream."
And they do.
Cas watches, horrified as they rip at her skin and pull her tongue from her mouth. They tear her hair from her head, her clothes from her body. The sounds she makes are nightmarish. And through it all, as blood splashes on his face and Andy stands there, shaking, tears running down his face, Cas can't help but feel a grim sense of satisfaction. It's not the justice he imagined for the demon. But it's so much closer to what the bitch deserves.
But there's a sadness also, underneath the fear. A deep, unrelenting sense of mourning. For the death of Andy Gallagher's soul.
Finally, when there's nearly nothing left to shred, Andy shouts "Stop."
The four men stop where they stand and Meg's body falls to the earth as a bloody pulp.
Andy drops to his knees and hunches over, sobs shaking his shoulders. Cas longs to approach him, but he's still frozen by his mind control.
"Andy," he calls softly. Cas doesn't hear what Andy chokes out, but whatever it is frees him from his bonds. Immediately, he's by the younger man's side. "Hey," he says, gripping the other man by the shoulders and turning him to face him. Andy looks completely lost, his eyes are wet and far away.
"What did I do?" He whispers.
"Hey," Cas says again, "It's okay. It's okay. It's like you said, she was a monster." Cas suppresses a shudder as he realizes who he sounds like.
"Yeah, but-"
"It's over. It's over, Andy. You're free."
Andy finally meets his eyes and shakes his head. "No," he says, "I'm not."
"What do you mean?"
Andy takes a sharp breath, "They still have her. They still have Tracy."
"Who?"
"I have to save her!"
"Okay. Okay, calm down. First, I think we need to get out of here."
"They saw you," Andy whispers, "They know what you are. You'll never be safe from them."
Cas swallows, "That's my problem."
Castiel is about to pull Andy to his feet when something catches his eye. Something shiny and metallic by Meg's body. He scurries over and scoops it up, finding to his horror that it's a phone. A phone with a call sent out just minutes before.
"Andy," says Cas, "We've gotta go."
Suddenly a shot echoes through the warehouse and Cas hears a body thump behind him. He whirls around and sees one of the two men they'd left sleeping. He's standing over Andy's fallen form with a gun in his hand, the barrel still smoking.
"No!" Cas screams. He wants to charge at the man and rip him limb from limb as the man levels his weapon at him, but in that moment a red dot appears on the man's forehead and a second gunshot echoes throughout the space. Blood splatters and the man drops to ground, dead.
Cas spins where he stands, frantically searching for the sniper, but seeing nothing past the small halo of light encircling them. However, Cas has more immediate problems. With Andy unconscious (or possibly dead) the four men surrounding them are freed from his power. They start closing in.
Bang!
The first man drops.
Bang!
A second.
One after the other, gunshot after gunshot, they fall, until Cas is left, standing alone in a sea of blood and bodies.
He desperately scans the darkness, waiting for the dot to appear on his own chest.
But it doesn't. And a pained gurgle from Andy sends Cas flying to his side. The man lies in a pool of blood, red gushing from his chest. His breath comes in sharp gasps and his eyes are wild.
"Andy," Cas breathes, forcing back tears for a boy he barely knows, "Stay with me."
Andy's flailing hand finds Cas's arm and grips it with a strength the agent would have guessed was beyond him. "Tracy," he chokes, "Please. Find her. Save her."
That's not a promise Cas can keep. He wouldn't even know where to start looking.
"Andy-"
"Save her, Agent."
Cas nods.
The boy's eyes slide closed.
Cas curses and drops his head, body shaking with repressed sobs. How could he have let this happen? They were in the clear. They'd done it, escaped. And Andy, after six long years of indentured servitude to monsters to be so close to freedom only to...
Suddenly, a slick gagging sound startles him back to reality.
His head snaps up just in time to see the second man Andy had put to sleep stumble and fall, gun sliding from his limp hand and blood pouring from his throat where it had just been slit. His body drops and Cas see the knife-holder standing behind him. A face Cas thought he'd never see again.
"Hello, Angel."
20 Minutes Earlier
Dean follows the woman's screams to a large warehouse, the only one in the lot with a light shining through the cracks of the sealed double doors. He circles the building once, trying to do recon, but there are no windows low enough through which to see anything useful. He parks and pushes down the overwhelming urge to barge in guns drawn, caution be damned. This is the cult he's dealing with. He needs to be smart about this.
He pops the trunk and loads up with an assortment of weapons, including a medium-range sniper rifle, knowing he needs to be prepared for whatever is in store for him inside that warehouse and not having the faintest clue what to expect.
He's scaling the fire escape, listening to the screams grow fainter and farther between when suddenly he hears a man shout, "Stop!" And the yelling cuts off altogether. He ducks inside a high window onto a rickety service balcony ringing the warehouse. To his right he can see a dim circle of light illuminating the concrete floor. He can hear the low murmur of voices and a quiet sobbing echoing throughout the enormous space, but the high shelving blocks the source from his view. Dean moves toward the light slowly, measuring each step. He rounds the shelf and what he sees makes him want to punch the air in victory.
Cas is alive! Unbound, and not being tortured to death. Meg is lying on the ground in a pool of her own blood and hair and skin, dead as a doornail. Four men stand over her body, strangely motionless. This gives Dean pause for a moment before he sees the sixth man, kneeling on the ground with Castiel.
Andy.
Of course.
Had the boy switched sides? It would appear so. But he can't be sure. Dean kneels down and sets up his rifle, just in case, praying he won't need to use it. Cas and Andy seem to have the situation well in-hand. Maybe he won't need to intervene after all.
Dean watches with the rifle as Castiel rises and moves over to Meg's body. Through the scope he can see the other man pick up something lying next to the body. Cas does not look good. He looks exhausted and beaten down, pained and panicked. Dean feels a protective, vengeful anger rise up in his gut when he sees the blood covering Cas's body and the burn marks showing through his open shirt. If Meg weren't already dead, he'd kill her.
Dean is so distracted, fuming over the state of his Angel, he doesn't see the shooter until it's too late.
The gunshot rings out and Andy falls.
"No!" Cas shouts.
Dean hesitates only a second, only long enough for the gunman to raise his weapon at Castiel before taking him out. No one gets to threaten his Angel and live.
The other men, free of Andy's spell, begin moving in. Dean takes them out in quick succession. Not missing once.
Underneath the adrenaline, Dean is actually feeling pretty good right about now. Taking out cult trash always brings up those warm fuzzy feelings inside of him.
Cas rushes over to Andy's fallen form and Dean, after watching him for a moment, packs it up and heads down the narrow stairs, meaning to slip away into the night. There is no need for Castiel to ever even know he was here.
It's better this way.
He's just about halfway down when he sees them.
Reinforcements. At least a dozen of them streaming toward the warehouse in cars, motorcycles, on foot. A whole slew of cult zombies.
Headed straight for Castiel.
Dean spins around and hightails it up the stairs, across the balcony, and down the inside steps. He's running toward Cas who is still hunched over Andy's body, when a sudden movement to his left freezes him in his tracks. They're not alone.
Dean's fingers twitch over his handgun but he forces himself to wait. Any more shots would alert the zombies outside to their location. He watches the man approach Castiel and silently follows, slowly unsheathing his hunting knife.
Just as the man levels his weapon at an oblivious Cas, Dean steps up behind him and slices his throat. And damn does it feel good.
Dean takes a sweet moment to relish the hot feeling of blood on his hands. The blood of a man who would have hurt Castiel. Killed him. Taking out assailants from a distance is one thing, but damn if Dean doesn't love the personal touch.
He's feeling so good, for a moment he forgets the imminent danger surging toward them from all sides. All he hears is the sound of his demons falling silent in his head, he smells the metallic odor of blood and gunpowder, sees the wide, beautiful, blue eyes of his Angel staring up at him. And he smiles.
"Hello, Angel."
"Dean?" The Angel breathes.
Just then the double doors burst open and in streams the mob of zombies.
"Time to go!"
Dean grabs Castiel by the hand and pulls him to his feet. The moment they touch the overhead light fixture explodes, sending shards of glass and sparks raining down on them and casting the whole space into shadow but for the early morning light now trickling in through the open doors and high windows.
They don't stop to question it, quickly disappearing into the darkness of the warehouse. Cas is either too scared or too shocked to protest Dean's hold on his hand and allows Dean to lead him back behind a large crate, deep in the building where they stop to catch their breath.
They can hear the men and women shouting and flinch as a few over eager zombies fire shots randomly into the dark.
"What are you doing here?" Cas hisses.
"You really wanna talk?"
Bang!
A bullet ricochets off of a metal shelf and lodges itself in the crate they're sheltering behind. They take off and seek a new hiding place, pressing themselves into a dark corner.
"How did you find me?"
Dean unholsters his gun and peeks around the edge of the wall.
"What makes you think I came here for you? I was tracking Meg."
Bang!
Another gunshot. Too close for comfort.
"Meg?"
"Yeah, psycho bitch was on a killing spree. Can't believe you beat me to her."
A zombie rounds a distant shelf and spots them. He shouts to his comrades and Dean puts a bullet in his chest.
"This is fun," he says as they run behind a storage cage, "It's like laser tag."
"It's like what?"
"Don't tell me you never played laser tag. You're a fucking cop!"
"Federal Agent."
Bang!
A bullet buries itself in the wall between them.
They round another corner and find themselves surrounded on all sides.
Fuck.
Now what?