Thank for reading! :) Sorry about the cliffhanger, I do love cliffhangers.

Chapter 9, nearly at double figures! :D

I 'wasted' my 3 hours of study today to finish this, It was worth it though, Let me know what you think and if there's any supenatural characters you'd love to see involved x

I'll post a list of the remaining tributes in the next chapter AN.


"Castiel" the shooter says hesitantly, tilting their head at him. "what a surprise it is to find you." They state, lowering the gun down slightly but not enough for Cas to feel safe that they wouldn't shoot if he moves forward, they're less than 10 metres away from him now.

"It is you." he smiles at her.

"I can't say it's a pleasure to see you old friend" she copies his smile.

"Not under these circumstances, No" he replies shuffling his feet slightly.

"So who's this?" Dean asks, stepping out from behind the tree, not wanting to leave Castiel out in the open like this for long by himself, with his bow raised with an arrow already loaded in to it ready to strike in case of attack.

"An ally, don't worry" Cas replies.

"You can put the bow down" he tells Dean, but he doesn't, keeping it right where it is.

Anna quickly pulls her gun back up, pointing it at Dean's head, stopping him from relaxing his weapon down.

"Stop!" Cas demands. "He won't hurt you, I promise Anna. This is Dean"

"How can you promise that Cas?, you shouldn't be so trusting in a place like this" she states carefully.

"No Anna, This is Dean." Castiel emphasises his name.

"Yes, I heard you the –wait a minute. The Dean?" she asks.

Castiel nods his head in response.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me" she states, lowering the gun. Dean follows suit with his bow slowly afterwards.

"Seriously? Of all the places for you to find him, you find him in the middle of a fucking death arena. I always said you had perfect timing Cas, but this is ridiculous, well fucking done." She moans at him. She reminds Dean of home, the way he and Sam would squabble.

"This is what you call perfect timing? I think your definition is wrong." He replies seriously.

"I was being – oh never mind, I see you're still the same old you that you were 2 days ago then"

"I hope so" he replies.

"So...You're the Dean then huh?" she asks turning her attention to him.

"Urmm, I guess so?" he replies, unsure what Castiel has told her about him.

"I've heard so much about you" she states, a wide smile spreading across her face as she pockets the gun.

"Yeah well I can't say the same for you" he replies cautiously, in which she shrugs in reply.

"I'm the female tribute from Castiel's district, I've spent many days and nights in his company" she winks at Dean. Was she and Cas together? Had he just failed to mention it?

She walks forward until she's standing in front of Dean, and what she does next surprises him, pulling him into a big gut clenching hug.

"I knew he'd find you again!" she whispers in his chest so Cas can't hear and leaves him be, turning to hug Castiel, one that lasts a bit too long for Dean's liking.

"So what, she's your...girlfriend from back in district 12?" He asks Cas, jealousy bubbling up inside of him as he watches the two of them interacting with each other.

They both turn to look at Dean and begin to laugh.

"Don't worry lover boy, you're safe. Me and Cas have never been down that road, he's like a brother to me. That would be wrong on so many levels to me" she states.

"Mind if I stay with you guys for today?, I' m starting to go a little crazy without any human contact that doesn't want to wear my insides as a prom dress"

"Sure" Castiel nods quickly.

It's about the middle of the day when they decide to set up a camp on the ground for a couple of hours to get some lunch in them. Dean set's off with his bow and arrow in the forest, making sure to keep fairly close and bags a few small animals before heading back to the camp.

He stops about 10 metres from camp but close enough so that he can hear Castiel and Anna chatting when he hears his name mentioned.

"...he's really good for me Anna, we're good for each other I think"

"but you do realise you're going to have to kill him eventually right? If you two get into the final two it's either him or you at the end of the day and he doesn't look like much of a sacrifice to me Cas."

There's silence for a while before he replies. "I trust him" It makes Dean's heart swell up.

"Well then you're being a fool." She replies to him, placing more wood into the fire they had made.

Dean chooses this moment to walk in carrying 3 small birds, each one hit in the eye, pretending not to have heard anything.

"Hey" he says, alerting them that he had arrived back, and diverting their conversation.

"Hey Dean" Castiel smiles up at him as he turns his body towards him.

"Look Anna found some berries, we were just waiting for you to come back to eat them" he says, popping a berry into his mouth from a bundle.

Dean looks at the berries, mounted up on top of a cloth, dark blue but not quite the same colour as a blackberry, he recognises them almost instantly and rushes forward, dropping the birds on the ground and grabs Castiel's cheeks, pushing them forward.

"SPIT IT OUT,SPIT IT OUT!" he shouts urgently at him, whacking him on the back at the same time.

He coughs the berry out his mouth as Dean quickly find some water and hands it over to him, allowing him to gulp it down.

"Those berries are Nightlock Cas, you'd be dead in a minute!" he says urgently.

"I-I didn't know." He stutters out. "I didn't know" he replies.

Dean swivels around to face Anna.

"I'll bet you she had a very good understand of what these were" he states, picking up a handful of the berries and throwing them onto the floor.

She acts shocked, standing up from the log she was sitting on to defend herself. "I didn't know! I just thought they were normal berries, where at home am I going to get experience in berry type? I'm not the one who comes from the agriculture district!"

"It is true Dean, there's not a lot of vegetation in our district, let alone berry bushes." Castiel sticks up for Anna. It makes Dean's stomach drop, he believes her over him. He doesn't trust him.

Dean watches her carefully, she avoids eye contact with him and to him it's obvious she did it on purpose.

"pfft, didn't know my ass. It's written all over her face Cas" he retaliates. "just look at her!"

Castiel hesitates before replying "No. She wouldn't."

"She tried to kill you Cas! Why don't you trust me? Why are you acting like it's not a big deal?" He doesn't wait for an answer, instead heading for his bow that he had left on top of a nearby rock when entering the camp.

He keeps one eye trained on her but she's fast, faster than Dean anticipated she would be and reacts a second too late. She runs at him and grabs his neck twisting her arm around it and pulling the gun up underneath his chin with the other.

Castiel stands for a moment shocked before making a move forward towards them, hand outstretched to Dean.

"One step closer and I blow his face off Cas" she says, making him halt in his tracks.

"Anna. Why are you doing this?" he asks, the hurt of betrayal evident in his voice, his eyes glistening with tears.

"You know why Cas, it's either you or me, it's nothing personal, it really isn't. I need to win this thing." She replies.

"But don't you get it? This is how they win, you'll never really escape this arena if you pull that trigger, it will always be in the back of your mind somewhere, don't let them take away your humanity Anna, please. Don't hurt him." Castiel tries to persuade her.

"You don't understand Cas! I need to do this, I need to win this thing and go home to my family, I'm all my dad's got left, without me he'll me dead within 2 weeks." She cries, pulling the gun up harder against Dean's chin.

"Don't you think we've all got family to go home to?" Dean chokes out, thinking of Sammy all alone back home in district 11. Dean knows he'll be watching at every opportunity he gets, he wonders how Sam will take his death, how he will cope, he knows that if he makes it home Sam will tease him for the rest of his life about nearly being killed by a girl.

"Please, Anna. Don't let them win, can't you see, you're just a pawn in their games! Please just let him go"

"I can't" she cries out. "I need to do this!" she screams at him hysterically.

"Do you really want your dad to see you murder all these innocent people? You think they'll treat you the same way back in the district? No, they won't, you'll be a disgrace Anna, and I'd be surprised if your father even talked to you if you won. Killing is a sin Anna and we both know it's wrong no matter what the circumstances, so needing to be there for your father is a load of bollocks."

Dean is surprised at Castiel, he usually never swears. It throws Anna off as well.

The mere second that she's distracted opens up a chance for Dean. He quickly whips up his hand, whacking the gun from out of her hand and onto the floor, falling a few metres away form where they were stood. She scrabbles forward for the gun, reaching it as Dean grabs her leg, pulling her down onto the ground.

"Aghh, get off me!" she screams out, kicking and fidgeting forward until her hands clasp around the cold gun handle.

BANG. The gun goes off.

Dean's unsure of which direction the bullet went until he hears Castiel scream out in pain and hears the loud thud as he falls to the ground.

He watches as Castiel kneels down in searing pain as it spreads through his leg. He tries to get up but can't walk on it, Dean is worried about the rate in which the blood is trickling down his leg.

Anna stops squirming, shocked at the fact she had actually shot Castiel, opening opportunity to strike to him.

"I'm-I'm sorry Castiel. I'm sorry" she whispers.

Dean reacts on instinct, grabbing his bow and shooting an arrow right into her heart before she can move, making her stagger backwards a couple of feet before falling down on the forest floor, followed a few seconds later by the cannon booming off. She's dead.

Dean sighs in relief but its short lived as he hears Castiel scream out his name and remembers the danger he's in.

"Dean, I can't – ahh fuck!" he scrunches his face up in agony as he tries to stand on his leg.

Dean rushes over to Castiel, ripping his shirt sleeve off and tying it in a knot around where the bullet entered his leg, keeping pressure on it and stopping some of the blood from seeping out.

He quickly picks up the gun and some of the berries and stuffs them into his bag and hoists his bow onto his back. He then pulls Cas up gently, letting him lean on him and helping him stand up.

"Oh God Cas, we've got to get you somewhere safe fast, you're losing a lot of blood."

"There's no where safe here, just leave me here Dean, it's fine, you'll be better of without me" he laughs out in reply trying to hide his pain.

"Why do you think you don't deserve to be saved? because you do Cas, a lot more than I bloody do, so suck it up and let me help you" he states, placing a soft kiss over his lips.

He returns the kiss then pulls away and nods.

Before long both of the boys are tiring, it takes too much effort for Dean to carry himself and Cas with his energy levels low already.

He places Cas on the floor, hidden away in some bushes.

"Right man, stay here and don't move, I'm going to search the forest a bit and see if I can find anywhere appropriate for us" he says, handing him a knife for protection.

He's travels for about 10 minutes before he finds a cave, hidden by moss and bushes and it's about as perfect as they will get in the arena. He sighs in relief and begins to make his way back to Cas.

He begins to shout his name out as he gets closer.

"Cas!" he gets no reply. "Cas!" he shouts again.

He breaks into an urgent run, sweeping through the trees hoping no one had found him while he was gone, he couldn't have fought anyone off with his leg like that, and he'd be dead in a heartbeat. He was stupid to leave him.

When he reaches him Castiel is unconscious.

"Fuck" Dean swears, brushing his fingers through his hair. On instinct he picks his body up in his arms, caressing him to his chest. He feels like he weighs as much as a tonne of bricks but he manages it and carries him the distance to the cave, seeming much longer now than before.

Dean lays him down, unwraps the bandage and searches through Castiel's trench coats pockets for the knife he had given him earlier. Once he finds it he grimaces at what he needs to do, pushing the knife into Castiel's leg, making his body flinch up whilst he's pushing the bullet out, and causing even more blood to seep out of his leg. He quickly re wraps the bandage, pulling the knot tightly. He can't do any more than that, he hopes Castiel has got good sponsors because without them helping he didn't stand much of a chance.

He pulls himself up away from his leg and lies down next to him, swinging his harm over his warm body and placing his head in Castiel's neck.

"Please don't die Cas, I need you" he whispers.