Chapter 10
Serra
Grace and I were still lying in the back of my truck bed when my phone vibrated in my pocket with a text message. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone and nodded, seeing Dean's name flash across the screen. I was surprised it took him as long as it did to see what we were doing.
"Your husband beckons," I said, showing Grace his name. "What do you think he wants?"
"He's probably hoping that you keep me out here," she answered pulling herself into a seated position. "He's so sick of my shit."
I leaned forward to read the text and felt myself smile as I finished. I turned towards Grace and shook my head. "Well," I began, holding the phone out to her, "that's new."
Grace stared at the screen and slowly reached her hands out to take it from me. "What does this mean?"
We both reread the message and I watched my sister's reaction as she read.
"Cas just called. Says he has a plan and needs us to trust him. Lib says he's looking for Faith."
"Serra," Grace repeated after she finished reading silently. "What does he mean?"
"It means Faith isn't dead," I whispered to my sister and tried not to smile, knowing deep in my belly that it was true.
She reread the text again and I knew she was trying to make Dean's words mean the same thing to her as they did to me. There was no doubt in my mind: Faith's body might be sitting in a tiny purple urn on top of their mantle, but suddenly, I knew her soul was out there, which meant we needed a body to put her back into. Castiel hadn't abandoned us at all; he was looking for Faith.
"You're going to have to take another angel and then get to knocking boots. Soon," I said, gesturing at the phone. "Cas has a plan, Grace. That's good enough for me."
She was shaking her head and I knew her mind was full of doubt. "There are so many questions. Why does Lib say that he's looking for Faith? He didn't say it himself? I don't understand." She handed the phone back to me and closed her eyes. "Jesus, Serra," she breathed, "this morning I could barely get out of bed. Now, all of a sudden, we're moving into me getting pregnant again? I don't want to keep doing this to myself. I don't want to keep doing this to our family."
"What, just leave Everett to his own devices for the rest of his life? Leave him as a veggie spring roll even when Glory goes off to college?" I shook my head. "You knew this eventually would be the answer. You knew it would come back to this. We just wanted to give you the time to deal with it." I scooted towards the edge of the truck bed. "You've had your time. Come on," I held out my hand to help her down the tailgate. She shook me off, so I pulled the blankets towards me as she stood next to me. "Let's go have that steak and we'll get back to business as usual: you making babies."
Grace's face was filled with uncertainty. "I want to talk to Dean first," she said.
I held out my phone again and shrugged. "Start with some foreplay," I chuckled. "You're probably pretty rusty."
Grace made a face as she took my phone and turned away from me, dialing Dean's number.
"I figured you and Grace would be gone longer," Dean's voice came over the other end of the speaker, thinking it was me, and I could hear him so well through Grace's mind that it sounded like he was addressing me directly. I hoped it wouldn't last. There were things that Grace and her husband discussed that I wanted no part of.
"It's me," Grace said quietly, correcting him.
Dean hesitated only long enough to take a breath and I was positive he was grinning. "Hey, gorgeous," came his standard greeting. "You okay?"
Grace nodded, holding the phone close. "Better," she replied, glancing at me. "Serra's pushing me around a bit. I hit her."
Chuckling, Dean said, "Sounds about right."
"What does your text mean?" she asked, not wasting any more time. "Serra says it means Faith is alive."
I could tell Dean hesitated because he didn't want to be the one to disappoint his wife if it turned out not to be true, but he couldn't help to believe it was real. "You should have seen Lib's reaction, Gracie. She watched me on the phone with Cas and she smiled. Said that Cas was in Heaven looking for Faith because she's a 'Lost Soul'." He shrugged, "I know she's four and all, but…it's hard not to trust someone with that much certainty and the fact that she's a nephilim's daughter…"
Grace smiled weakly and glanced at her boots in the dirt. "Showing some psychic tendencies, is she?"
"Little bit," Dean replied.
"Do you believe that Faith is alive?"
"I don't know yet."
Turning to glimpse at me, she sighed softly. "Serra and me have some more shit to do. She owes me a steak."
"She lose a bet?" Dean asked, taking a drink of something.
"I made the first vetala kill," Grace replied, smiling. She opened the passenger door to my truck and climbed in as I started her up.
"That's my girl," Dean declared quietly.
"We'll be home tonight. I want to talk about this," Grace said, wrapping up the conversation.
Dean nodded. "I know. Me too." He hung up the phone and she let her hand fall to her lap.
As she turned to stare at me, I raised my eyebrows. "There was no foreplay in there," I said, cracking a smile.
"Goddammit, Serra," she sighed, exasperated.
I laughed as I pulled back onto the highway. "Oh, come on," I continued. "You've become such a prude. I remember when you would come home all a twitter because you two had been screwing all day long and didn't even remember to eat." I stared at her as I pulled to a stop at a red light. "Remember?"
Grace smiled slowly, nodding ever so slightly. "Of course I remember," she answered.
We drove silently for a few miles, listening to the radio and staring out the windows. After about ten minutes, Grace's body language shifted. She sat up a little straighter and she tilted her head slightly. I knew, just from experience, that she was listening to something I couldn't hear.
"What, Grace?" I asked as I let my foot off the gas pedal, and the truck slowed a bit. "What do you hear?"
She pointed out the front windshield, gesturing to the black Suburban at the base of the hill we crested. "Them," she whispered.