Chapter 4

Castiel moaned as he was dragged back into wakefulness. With the way everything hurt, he'd rather stay unconscious. He wondered where Sybil's healing magic was, and then he remembered. He jolted upright, only for his head to swim and he thunked back down against the concrete beneath him.

Where was Sybil? Had she escaped?

Probably not, since she was still wearing the witchcatcher. Dammit, Castiel had failed her, failed them both.

He bit back a groan as he rolled onto his side, preparing to sit up. It took much more effort than he was happy with. His arms were shaking like jelly, and now that he focused, he couldn't actually feel his legs.

Terror coursed through him, and he looked down to inspect himself. He was physically intact, not even a rip in the Roman soldier garb. What had the hunters hit him with? Nothing he'd ever experienced before, but probably related to the shock collar.

With a start, Castiel shot a hand up to the metal band he could feel around his neck. He clenched his fists. He'd come so close. And now without Horace's help, Castiel didn't expect a second escape attempt to go any better.

He ran his fingers across the collar, frowning as he realized it was slightly different than the first one he'd worn. It was thicker and broader in size, encasing most of his neck. It was actually rather heavy, too, given his severely weakened state and his grace being locked down again.

Castiel used his hands to scoot back against the wall so he could prop himself up, his legs dragging limply along with him. He could only hope there hadn't been any permanent damage, though he didn't think Lars had any use for a crippled contender.

Speaking of the man, he suddenly walked up to the cell door.

"You're awake. Good."

He unlocked the door, and he and Spencer came inside. Their demeanor was cold and calculating, which sent a trickle of unease through Castiel. He was essentially helpless like this. Not that he'd ever had much of a sporting chance against them when they used the remote to subjugate him.

Lars stared down at him for a long moment. "You cost me several good men, and my prize fighter."

"Sorry for your loss," Castiel muttered.

He hadn't mentioned losing a witch, so maybe Sybil was okay.

A muscle in Lars's jaw ticked. "You've had quite the mouth on you since day one. Talking instead of fighting. Spreading ideas about rebellion."

Castiel glowered up at him.

A steely calm settled over the man. "So we're going to have to change that."

He pulled out a remote, one that was different from the others, presumably to go with the upgraded collar. Castiel automatically tensed, even as he wondered in the back of his mind whether he'd feel that kind of pain in the places of his body that currently didn't have any sensation anyway. Seemed almost a waste of effort.

He was about to say so, when Lars pressed a button. The collar made a grinding noise, and Castiel jolted as several small spikes suddenly skewered his neck from inside the collar. He pitched forward onto his hands as blood spurted from his mouth to splatter across the cement. His throat was on fire, and at another surge of blood he coughed up, he nearly passed out from the agony.

Lars's shoes stepped into his blurring field of vision, and the man squatted down. Castiel couldn't even lift his head to look up at him.

"That's better," Lars crooned. He lashed a hand out to fist in Castiel's hair, and yanked his head up.

Castiel gasped and choked as blood poured down his throat, but despite his desperate heaves, no sound escaped him. He could feel the spikes staying lodged in his flesh and sinew, his sliced vocal cords unable to weave themselves back together.

Lars smirked. "Now, without my demon, you're gonna be the next sought after contender for all the fights." He leaned in and hissed, "So you'd better shape up, or I will do much, much worse."

He thrust Castiel away and stood, and Castiel heard their retreating footsteps and the sound of the door locking.

Castiel curled up in unrelenting cascades of agony. He coughed up another glob of blood, this time with traces of charred hemoglobin.

He didn't know how long he lay there, shuddering on the cold concrete, but gradually the searing burn began to abate. Castiel blinked at the mess he'd spit up, and then anxiously turned his senses toward the wound. The flesh around the entrance points of the spikes had been cauterized, explaining the taste of char in his mouth. He could feel the metal protruding into his throat, and it made him afraid to move for fear of tearing the wounds afresh.

Castiel sagged on the floor and closed his eyes in abject defeat. So now the last piece of agency he'd had was stripped away. He had no freedom, no grace, no voice.

No hope.

"Come on, Cas," Dean growled into his phone. "I've left you a dozen messages. Call me back."

He hung up and scowled at the wall. Damn Cas for pulling this crap again, going for days or weeks on end without checking in, not having the common decency to let the Winchesters know he was still alive.

And that was the core of the matter, the fear underlying Dean's anger—he was worried. After almost losing Cas in the ordeal with Ramiel, Dean's protective instincts had been triggered. So sue him.

Sam gave him a sympathetic look as he came back into the library. "Still no answer?"

"No." Dean tossed his phone on the table.

"Did you try tracking his GPS?"

"Of course I tried tracking his GPS," Dean snapped. "His phone is off. It's been off for weeks, going straight to voice mail every single time."

Sam's lips thinned. "Well, it's Cas. He's always fine."

"No, he's not always fine, Sam. In fact, practically every time he's gone off by himself he's ended up captured, tortured, or cursed." Dean shook his head. "It was too soon after Ramiel to let him go out looking for Kelly."

"Dean, he was completely healed from that. And we need to find Kelly; of course Cas had to go back out there."

"We could have gone with him."

"You know Cas would have said splitting up would help us cover more leads." Sam leaned forward over the table. "Look, let's just work on finding him, okay?"

Dean threw his arms up. "How? We can't track his phone."

"I'll call Jody and ask her to put an APB out on his truck, at least to all the states surrounding Kansas. And I'll search county reports to see if there were any vehicle violations with his license plate."

Dean let out a breath of tension. "Yeah, alright." It was a plan, at least.

But he hated the arduous and tedious work of poring through databases, trying to find that one tiny piece of information they needed.

They spent the next few days doing that grunt work, with nothing to show for it.

Until Jody called.

Sam quickly answered and put his phone on speaker. "Hey, Jody. You've got Dean here, too."

"Hey, boys," she replied. "Listen, a hit finally came back on that APB, all the way in Missouri."

Dean straightened. "Where?"

She gave them the name of the road and mile marker. "Deputy I talked to said it was pretty out of the way. The only reason he even spotted it was the school bus broke down on that road and he drove out to lend a hand. He asked if he should have it towed back to town, but I told him to leave it, that the FBI wants to see everything exactly how it was left."

Dean hastily typed the address into his laptop to pull it up on Google maps. "Thanks, Jody. Any reports of strange deaths or omens in the area in the past month?"

"Nope. Sorry. Wish I could come out and give you boys a hand, but it's way outside my jurisdiction."

"That's okay," Sam said. "You've helped a lot. Really."

"Good luck."

The line clicked as the call disconnected.

Dean committed the location on the map to memory and snatched up his keys. "Let's go."

He made the drive in only a few hours, booking it down back highways at faster speeds than he usually went. He hadn't called to let the local deputies know they were on their way, as he was wound too tight to deal with fake smiles and fabricated stories.

When they reached the mile marker, Dean pulled the Impala off onto the shoulder and turned off the engine. He frowned as he climbed out, not seeing signs of Cas's truck. Had the deputies towed it anyway?

"Dean," Sam called, and he turned toward where his brother was peering through some tall shrubbery. Cas's truck was the same color as the dead reeds not yet revived from winter, and so wasn't very easy to spot. No wonder it hadn't been reported sooner.

Dean and Sam approached it from both sides. Even though the deputy had already been out here and obviously hadn't found anything suspicious, they were still going to be cautious. Dean peeked into the cargo bed of the truck, which was empty. So was the cab. A thick layer of dust coated the entire vehicle and there were cobwebs on the tires, as though it had been sitting here for as long as Cas had been gone.

Dean went around the front to inspect the grill. "No signs of an accident," he commented.

"Or a break-in." Sam turned and squinted at the surrounding fields, mouth pressing into a grim line. "We should look around. Cas was obviously out here for a reason."

Dean's chest tightened at the unspoken reason behind Sam's suggestion—what if there was a body discarded somewhere in the grass?

He swallowed thickly, and started off. Sam moved in a parallel line three feet away, eyes searching the ground. They moved up and down in a grid pattern through the entire field, but after a couple of hours of searching, they hadn't found any signs of blood or bodies, either Cas's or something else's. Dean was both relieved and frustrated. How had Cas just disappeared off the face of the earth?

Sam ran a hand through his hair. "Now what?"

Dean shook his head. "We go back to town and ask around. Maybe Kelly was here and Cas tracked her down."

"To an abandoned field in the middle of nowhere? Where he then left his truck behind?"

"Maybe he ran out of gas," Dean rejoined.

Sam frowned, and canted his head. "We can check."

Yeah, they could. Dean headed back to the Impala and grabbed the slim jim he kept in the trunk. It'd been a while since they'd had to steal a car, so he was a little rusty using it, but he eventually got the door to the truck open. Hot-wiring was easier, especially on older car models, and it didn't take long for Dean to get the engine rumbling. The dash gauges started up…and the tank was half full.

Dammit.

Sam's mouth was pressed into a thin line where he stood in the open door, but he didn't say anything. Dean cut the power and let the engine die, then flipped the door lock before shutting it. He thought about what to do with the truck. Cas liked it, and he wouldn't want it left out here to rust. But towing it to impound would make it nearly impossible to get back. They'd have to hot-wire it again and drive it back to Lebanon, but not until the Winchesters did a little more digging around the area.

Dean carried the slim jim back to the Impala. "Let's go see if anyone saw Cas or Kelly in town."

Sam wordlessly followed.

It was getting late in the day, but they managed to check in at a gas station and diner, yet no one there recognized Cas's or Kelly's picture. Dean found a motel, and he and Sam spent an entire week digging into everything they could think of, talking to everyone just about twice, scouring the countryside surrounding Cas's abandoned truck. There was nothing.

Dean hated to give up, but eventually even he had to recognize they needed to pack it in. Cas wasn't here. He'd been gone from the area long before they'd ever arrived, and any leads were as dry as the dust coating his truck.

On their way out of town, Dean drove back to the field and hot-wired Cas's vehicle so Sam could drive it back to Lebanon. Cas would want it when he came back. Hell, maybe this was just one of the angel's typical disappearing acts, and he'd show up at the bunker, maybe a little bloody and beaten like he'd done in the past, but he'd shrug it off and say he was fine, and he would be.

Because Cas was always fine.