Chapter 12

Adrenaline surged through my arteries, speeding up my heart.

I needed to save these people.

I needed to get to Dean, to warn him.

I could lure the demons away, maybe one by one, and say the words. However, I knew once they made Dean and me, every human in the building was at risk. They could hurt or maim or kill every person in the casino. I couldn't heal them all. I couldn't bring each one back.

And then, there were the hostages.

Inside each demon, a husband or a wife, a child or a parent, was trapped, imprisoned.

I swallowed the rest of the rum and Coke, drifting my eyes across the room. Think! Think! I studied Dean at the table, still wearing his amateur expressions, pulling a pile of chips toward his stacks of red and white.

"Can I get you another?" The bartender with flowing long brown hair asked me.

I turned back and looked into her eyes, cinnamon irises with flecks of gold, her pupils the only shade of black I could see.

"No, uh..." I answered as I started to turn my head back toward the gaming room. Then, I caught a glimpse of a black telephone on the wall behind the bar. The intercom. I had never tried to exorcise demons over a PA system, but it was my best bet. If it worked, I could cast out all the demons in the building. If it didn't work, dozens of people could die. If things went bad, I knew I could heal only one, the human who had already seen Hell.

Bobby knew. Bobby knew I would risk my own life to save Dean's.

"You know, I think I will have another. I'm going to see if he wants one, too." I nodded toward Dean and walked over to the poker table.

I smiled as I leaned close, whispering in his ear. "There are demons everywhere. Everyone at your table is one. Keep playing. Stay here. I have a plan." I kissed him on the cheek.

When I stepped back up to the bar, the woman handed me my drink. The sour liquor mixed with the fizzy cola sparkled on my tongue as I swallowed it. I emptied the glass as I caught eyes with Dean. "He said he wants another." I smiled at the bartender.

"I'll get that for you." She returned the smile. As she turned her back to walk down the bar, I threw my glass and hit the back of her head, causing her to drop to the floor. I scrambled over the counter and lunged toward the phone.

I grabbed the receiver and scanned the buttons. Intercom! Intercom! Where is the fucking intercom? And then, I saw it. I extended my finger to press the button.

Someone grabbed my legs and pulled them out from under me. I yanked the receiver down with me and the cord snapped as I hit the floor. Shit! I rolled over to see the bartender pulling herself up, a scowl on her face.

"Sorry!" I yelled as I kicked her in the face. Blood began to trickle out of her nose as she screamed.

I pushed myself off the floor with my arms. I stood and searched for Dean as I climbed the counter again. NO. NO. Dean shoved the blade into the chest of the young man beside him. The demon fizzled out inside before the body dropped, his soul escaping as he hit the floor. Dean turned to the spiky haired woman and did the same. Goddamn it! "DEAN! STOP!" I yelled as I stood on the bar. Brad, my reaper, appeared. The young man's ghost stared down at his body, then looked up at me and shrieked, eyes wild. It shot out of the room like lightning and was gone. The reaper glared at me, then at Dean before disappearing again.

All eyes in the room focused on me, then jerked their attention toward Dean as the dealer threw him across the room through a glass entry door. Shit!

I put my hands around my mouth, trying to amplify my voice as I shouted, "het·negdev leshet·n vheva y·ebrh mep·neykem!"

In the past ten years, I had killed a few crossroads demons in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio. Unlike the other evil things I've hunted, demons were special. Most monsters devoured humans, hunted them for their hearts, their blood. Demons wanted something else, they wanted souls, the life within the meat and bones. They wore the bodies of humans like fitted suits, devils costumed in the skins of men and women. I had killed one or two demons at once with the words from my mouth, but never as many as this.

I watched in awe as over a dozen demons sparked and crackled, yellow-orange light dying inside their human hosts. With a collective thud, the bodies dropped to the floor causing a panic among the people in the room. They frantically rushed toward the front doors, toward Dean as he began to rise out of the broken glass.

I jumped off of the counter and ran to the demon that Dean had stabbed. I crouched down and jerked the blade out of the woman's chest.

Fucking Dean. Why didn't he listen?

I tried to tuck the knife into my jacket as I stood up. I turned to see Dean hurrying toward me, pushing his way back into the casino through the mob of screaming humans.

"Jane! Are you okay?" He yelled.

"I'm fine! We need to leave, now!" I hollered back.

We rushed out of the building and down the street, doing our best to blend in with the others who fled the casino. Dean and I moved quickly and said little as we hurried to my Camaro a few blocks away. I heard the sirens behind us. I tried to remember what all was in my motel room. I hoped it was just my clothes. We couldn't stop. We had to get out of town before they arrested us, questioned us as to what the hell happened back there. Those I freed from possession would have awoken, confused and afraid, back piloting their own bodies. The only thing they could really charge me with was assaulting that bartender.

But Dean had stabbed two people on camera, in front of 20-30 other witnesses.

If he had only fucking listened and waited. Those people would be alive. Well, at least one of them would be.

I noticed Dean wince as he sat in the car. I started up Marie and cautiously drove southeast out of Elko on Route 227. I wasn't sure where it would lead, but I didn't want to get on the interstate yet. I focused on the road, saying nothing. Fucking reckless, arrogant Dean. I kept checking the rear view mirror, but no flashing red and blue pursued us. I stared at the road ahead, the dotted yellow lines at my left, the single strip of white on my right. It should have calmed me down, but I simmered, I seethed.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Dean finally asked.

"Oh I'm fine." I snapped back.

"Are you mad at me?" He turned to me, incredulously.

I ignored him. "Where do you want me to drop you off?"

"Pull over here."

"Fine."

He growled. "Now!"

I eased on the brakes and stopped on the side of the road, putting her in park. I was angry at Dean, not my Camaro. He jumped out and slammed the door, which pissed me off even more.

He walked out in front of the car. I shoved the door open and stood, yelling at him. "All you had to do was fucking sit there, Dean! I told you I had a plan!"

He spun around and glowered at me. "Did that plan include getting tackled by that demon bitch?"

"That's the problem, Dean! She wasn't a demon! You can't tell the difference!"

"Of course I can tell the difference! You told me they were demons! I saw their black eyes when they tried to grab me. I wasn't going to sit there and watch you get killed in some goddamned casino!" He roared.

"I handled it, didn't I? If you would have fucking listened, that kid wouldn't have died in there!" I wanted to hit him.

"Look, I'm not going to apologize to you for ganking some demons and doing my job!" He turned to walk away again.

"Because killing people is your job, right?" I spit back at him.

He rushed around to my side of the car pointing his finger at me, his face feral and enraged. I shivered as I realized this was the last thing monsters saw before he slipped in his knife.

"If I remember right, the last time I saw you, you were the one 'killing people'!" He roared.

"FUCK YOU! THOSE PEOPLE IN THE CASINO LIVED BECAUSE OF ME!" I shoved him and he grabbed my arms. I jerked back, but he held me close. I glared into his eyes, still merciless and untamed. My skin felt electric as the adrenaline raced through my veins. The heat rose off of his body and I wanted it, needed it. I let my eyes drift down to his lips. I let myself remember the things they did to me.

Dean saw my invitation and pushed me up against the side of the car. I tugged as his jacket and pulled him to me as he pressed his mouth on mine, savage and senseless and whiskey on his breath. I reached up under the back of his shirt, my fingertips trailing the-ivory gripped colt in the back of his jeans. As he slid his hands up the front of my shirt, I brought mine to the front, unbuttoning his jeans.

The chilly stillness of the desert surrounded us as Dean and I reclined beside each other. After the heavy breathing, the grunts and the groans, we sat in silence in the bucket seats of my Camaro.. I let my eyes drift out to the sage brush sprinkled across the dry earth, illuminated by the lunar light above. I thought of the dream about Dean and I gazing up at the night sky. But, this wasn't the Impala and he hadn't asked me not to leave him. On this night, the moonlight eclipsed the dim stars. "Layla" by Derek and the Dominos played on the radio as we relaxed in our own high.

"How's your ass?" I yawned, thinking about how he crashed through the glass door.

"Not as good as yours." He picked up my right hand and kissed the top of it, interlocking our fingers.

I grinned. "We should get a move on. I'm sure half a dozen security cameras caught you stabbing those demons."

"I doubt it. With that many demons in the place, I'm sure the cameras were off."

"Could be." I glanced at the muted glow from Elko in the rearview mirror.

"Back there, you were able to kill the demons without killing the humans?"

"All the humans who were still alive."

He nodded. "I should have waited. I didn't know."

"I know. Sorry I got so pissed."

"Have you ever been possessed?" Dean asked.

"No. I don't know if I can be. I mean they enter through the mouth. What about you?"

"Oh yeah, you with your magic mouth." Dean smirked. "Not by a demon, but yeah. A few years ago, a khan worm possessed me and I killed my cousin, Gwen."

"A khan worm like from Star Trek?"

"Well yeah, kind of. Then, a spectre possessed me a week or so ago and I almost killed Sam."

"You what?" He almost killed his brother?

"We used to exorcise demons, cast them out kind of like you do. But you know, if you've been possessed, it's like...I mean, you don't have control over your own body and you do these horrible things but all you can do is watch. It's inside you and you are powerless and used."

"So, it's like rape?"

Dean paused. "Yeah. I guess. What I'm saying is that if someone has been possessed for a short time, then maybe they can't remember and can go back to their lives. But, if someone has been imprisoned for a long time and the demon made them slice and fillet other people, then if they remember...I don't know if they can recover from that. I had a hard time after I killed Gwen."

"And you tell yourself that you are being merciful, by killing the person and the demon at the same time." I mused.

"You haven't said anything about that demon bitch that I ganked. She was dead already, wasn't she? Some of the meat suits the demons wear are already dead, but others? We used to exorcise all of the demons we caught, but then they would just kill someone else. I'm sorry I killed that dude, really, but not if it stopped someone else from getting killed."

"And you see why we can never hunt together." I let my fingertips drift across the callouses on his hand.

"This is going to end bad, you know that, right? One of us is going to end up dead."

"I know, but I sure as hell don't want to die in Nevada." I started up Marie and pulled back on to the road.

Dean dozed as I turned on to the interstate headed east. I clicked through the local radio channels and turned on the police scanner. Dean was right; they had general descriptions of us, but no surveillance photos, no APB out on my car. Four people were dead: two were stabbed, one had a broken neck, and the other died from a gunshot wound. They were still investigating what caused the others to pass out. One woman was catatonic, unable to say her own name, unable to say a word.

I wonder how long the demons wore their bodies before we found them.

On I-80, I chased after the taillights ahead of me, weaving through the steady stream of semis. Shiny coupes darted in and out of the lanes. Children in the backseat of SUVs watched cartoons on flip down tv screens. For the past ten years, I had divided my life into the before and after. Though far from idyllic, I thought my childhood was safe, ordinary, like the lives of the people I passed. I spent my teens as a prisoner, then a fugitive, homeless and hiding from the law. I had pretended that everything changed when I woke up with my burden, even though the lie never felt right.

After what Cas told me, there was no before and after. My life was never my own. How many other lives have been taken because of me?