Disclaimer: none of it is mine, I just love it!
Sam flew backwards through the air and hit the wall. The child spirit held him there, its face contorted in a snarl of hate. It let him go abruptly and he dropped to the floor, tasting blood in his mouth as he impacted with the ground. He heard Katie scream his name, and then abruptly fall silent.
"Katie!" he yelled, pushing himself up to his knees and opening his eyes. "Katie, are you–"
He broke off as the spirit lifted him and threw him again. His head snapped backwards and pain erupted in his back as he hit the wall. He blacked out for a few seconds, waking to find himself lying on his back amongst a scattered pile of broken wooden planks. He sucked in a gasp of air and rolled over onto his side, his whole body trembling as he struggled to support himself. With a jolt, he saw that the grey tinge that had covered his fingers had now spread up to his elbow. He looked up, breathing hard.
The spirit was standing in the middle of the room, its burned face turned up towards the ceiling. It was scowling, anger flickering in the depths of its eyes. A second glance told Sam that Katie was okay – she was kneeling beside the oven with one hand pressed against her cheek. Wincing, Sam pushed himself up into a sitting position and fixed his gaze on the spirit, which was still gazing up at the ceiling.
"Hey!" he shouted, grabbing the wall to pull himself up to his feet.
The spirit turned its cold, dead eyes on him and hissed quietly. It made a short, sweeping motion with its hand and flames leapt up in front of it. Sam stumbled backwards, letting out a yell of surprise and shock. The spirit smirked and narrowed its eyes, and the flames raced towards Sam. Sam threw himself clear just in time, and the flames leapt up the wall behind him. He skidded onto his knees, fighting to keep his balance, and spun to face the spirit which was turning to follow him.
"Scared?" it hissed.
Sam stared at it, his breaths coming in shuddering gasps. "Not… of you!" he managed, snarling the words through clenched teeth.
"You will be."
Sam pulled as much hatred as he could into his eyes and glared at the spirit. "Don't think so," he panted.
The spirit's smirk vanished as its face contorted with rage, and it lifted its hand again. The fire climbing the wall across the room wheeled and ripped towards Sam. Sam felt the intense heat, the roaring anger–
"Oi! Get your filthy hands off my brother, freak!"
Sam's head jerked upwards. "Dean?" he whispered.
The spirit turned, snarling. Behind it, Dean lifted his rifle, his eyes blazing almost as fiercely as the fire around him.
"You heard me!" he shouted. "Back off!"
The spirit took a step towards him. And Dean fired.
The spirit skidded backwards, letting out a harsh scream, and dissolved into nothing, the rock salt blowing it away in seconds. At the same time, the fire fell away and died out, its heat vanishing with it.
Dean lowered his rifle, letting out a long breath.
"That one was a real bitch."
Sam stared at him, his mouth hanging open. "How… how the hell did you get in here?"
Dean shook his head. "I guess it just got really angry and decided to give me a kick up the arse when I shot the book."
Sam closed his eyes. "God, Dean, you could have been hurt…"
"Aw, don't start with that," Dean whined, but he grinned as he walked over to Sam and held out his hand to help him up. "No chick flick moments, remember?"
Sam allowed a smile to spread over his face and he reached up to take Dean's hand. Dean froze, paling, and Sam blinked.
"What is it?"
"Sam… your hand…"
Sam looked down at his hand. He'd forgotten the greyness that was spreading over him. He pulled his collar forwards and looked down his shirt. It had spread to his chest now, creeping towards his throat, covering his clothes too. Sam swallowed hard.
"Sorry, I forgot about–"
Dean shook his head and reached down, gripping Sam's hand and pulling him up to his feet.
"It doesn't matter. What did it do to you?"
"I think it's just a result of being here, in this place," Sam replied. He wiped at his mouth, wincing as his lip throbbed, and his hand came away smeared with blood.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," Sam muttered, dragging his hand across his mouth again. "I'll be fine, once we get out of this place."
Dean hesitated. "Yeah..."
Sam noticed the pause, but he settled for just giving Dean a raised-eyebrow-glance before turning towards Katie who was looking up at them, a bruise darkening on her cheek.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes," she said, climbing to her feet. "Is he gone?"
"Harry? Yeah," Dean said.
"No. It's not Harry, it's too young," Sam interrupted, glancing at his brother. "It can't be him."
"But then… who is it?"
"I think…" Sam hesitated. "I think its Jason Hartford."
"The kid Harry burned? His son?"
"Yeah." Sam shivered. "Looks like he's finally got over his fear of fire, huh?"
Dean grimaced and turned away. "C'mon. Let's get out of here."
"How?" Sam asked, spreading his hands slightly as Dean moved towards the door. "When I tried to break one of the windows, the glass just fixed itself straight away. There's no way out."
"Yeah, well," Dean muttered, "I think it's about time that this spirit met Dean Winchester."
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Katie watched as Sam and Dean discussed their situation, ignoring her for a moment. She bit her lip and looked away. She should tell them, she knew it. But what good would it do now anyway? She turned away, fixing her gaze on the floor. It wasn't important… right?
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Dean rammed the handle of his rifle into the glass of the back door in the kitchen. There was a tinkling sound as the cracked window repaired itself, and Dean swore at it angrily. He hit the glass again for good measure and then turned away, looking over to where Sam was rooting through one of the cupboards, still keeping up his search for more salt. Katie was standing behind him, asking him questions in a hushed voice. Dean could just about hear them from where he was.
"… is your brother?" she was whispering.
"Yup. Dean."
"Whoa. And you, like, hunt supernatural stuff for a living?"
"Yup."
"Whoa," she murmured again. "Like Ghostbusters."
Dean rolled his eyes. Ghostbusters! He and Sam were nothing like those jumpsuit-clad punks.
He hit the window one last time, and then sauntered over to Sam's side.
"Any luck?"
"No. Pretty much everything in this place is dust."
Dean shook his head. "Well, then, we're screwed. Until Bobby gets here."
"Bobby's coming?" Sam visibly relaxed, the tension leaving him in seconds. "Thank god. At least he can still help."
"Yeah," Dean muttered. "Once they're we just have to give them up…" If Bobby could even find a way to help them, he still wasn't going to get to their motel for another hour at least. Until then, they were at Jason's mercy. Unless they could find some way to destroy him.
"What if we burned the whole place down or something?" he suggested, leaning back against the wall.
"We'd probably end up being burned up too: there's nowhere else to go," Sam replied. "I was hoping that we could somehow find the photo album here and burn that, but when I was looking upstairs I couldn't see it anywhere."
"You mean we're stuck here?" Katie asked, her eyes widening. "Forever? Or at least until that thing gets us…"
"Hey!" Dean fixed his gaze on her. "That 'thing' isn't getting anyone, alright? If he comes near us again I'll blow his head off."
Even though I'm down to my last round of rock salt, he added silently. If only he hadn't wasted so much shooting at the light and the book…
"Dean?"
"What?"
"I said, maybe we should look upstairs again."
Dean shook his head. "Nah, we're not gonna find anything new."
"So what do we do?" Katie asked.
Silence met her question. Finally, Sam looked up at her. "Well, Katie, I guess now we just wait. Hope that Bobby has something up his sleeve. Otherwise…" he let his voice trail off.
Dean turned away and went back to the back door, lifting his gun to hit it again. Was this how he was going to die? After everything that had happened, after he had sold his soul, he was going to die at the hands of some spirit? Trapped in a ghost world? He clenched his jaw and hit the glass of the door again, putting all of his strength into the blow.
This time, he hit it so hard that he broke a hole in the glass. He pulled the gun free, his heart leaping, ready to attack again – and blinding white light flooded through the jagged hole. Dean felt the gun slip from his fingers as he lifted his hand to protect his eyes, heard Katie scream in shock, heard Sam yell his name. A huge gust of wind blew into his face, bringing with it a smell of decay and fire. Somewhere behind him, he heard Sam let out a shout of pain.
"SAM!" he yelled.
Then darkness closed over him and everything vanished.
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