I surfaced painfully, scrambling to take in my surroundings. Stokes was here, in this room, I could feel his darkness. Metal bit into my wrists and ankles and I struggled for breath around a gag as I forced my gritty eyelids open. It was a small comfort to spot the pentagram grate above me and realize that I was still in the panic room, but scuffling from the shadows made my heart begin to pound. Adrenaline spiked in my veins and I jerked on my cuffs, panic drowning out all rational thought as the sounds of Stokes' presence grew louder.

"Now, there's my girl." Stokes' satisfaction oozed from the shadows. "I've missed those pretty green eyes."

I thrashed on the bed, pulling against my restraints as my stomach started to roll. Not again, oh God, not again…

"We have something to finish, you and I," Stokes murmured, finally stepping out of the shadows. He watched me closely, his irises now an eerie milky white that showed no signs of the damage I had done. "Surprised to see me? Or surprised that I can see you? There are perks to serving an overlord, you know. They like to keep their warriors in good working order." He slowly circled me, trailing his fingers along the metal bedframe. His expression sharpened. "Not that your Winchesters left much of me to be salvaged. I still owe your Dean a number of scars in return."

Dean. I pressed my eyes closed and sucked in a deep breath, trying to still the thunderous beating of my heart. Dean, Bobby, Sam-I wasn't on my own this time. One of you better hurry the hell up and get me out of here-

"Now, now," Stokes tsked, irritation lacing his words, "don't go taking my fun. I want you to fight. I want you angry. I want to see the spirit that made you such a challenge in that cellar for so long." He pressed in close, his sour breath scalding the side of my face. "Rescue isn't coming, darling. Your Winchesters and their little posse? None of them are coming to save you. You're all mine, now."

I froze at the certainty in his voice, fear clawing away at my feeble hope.

"Sam, Dean, Bobby, Castiel …" He sang their names cheerily. "They'll never come to your rescue again. Bobby and Dean walked right into the welcome embrace of my best and brightest demons in the tiny town of Sioux Falls. They have been successfully captured and delivered to the Big Man himself – seems he has a few personal scores to settle with them. I can't imagine they'll make it through that all in one piece. Dear old Cas is now inhabiting my old cell—" his voice snapped with hatred, "the cage where the Winchesters tried to break me. Their attempts were nothing more than exasperating as I bided my time until my companion came for me, but every minute was worth it to watch their faces as I told them … every … tiny … detail … of your captivity. Seemed to get under Dean's skin in particular, he seems to be quite the fan of yours."

Fire burned hot in my gut, evaporating the weight of my exhaustion and fear. This son of a bitch had put pity in Dean's eyes. Fuck being afraid, I was going to burn him right back to hell.
He straightened, self-satisfaction clear. "They both seem to have quite the soft spot for you, something I was hoping to exploit but all my tidy planning has made that unnecessary. Everything came together beautifully, even better than I hoped. Faulkner was gracious enough to teach me some delightful angel warding sigils that let Castiel into my cage but will not let him out unless I desire. Did you know that they were keeping me right beneath your feet this whole time? Bobby has quite the set up in his basement for torture and containment. I would admire his creativity if it hadn't proven so damn inconvenient."

Shit, Cas, I'm so sorry. I'll get you out, I swear-

"And I wouldn't go getting high hopes for Samuel, either." Glee lit Stokes' features. "My companion should have him well in hand by now." He strode to the door and slid open the small panel that served as a peep hole. The faint sounds of a scuffle reached me and I strained to hear more clearly. Sam would win the fight, no doubt in my mind. He would come and we could take down Stokes together—

The sounds grew louder until I heard the basement door slam open and the clatter rumbled down the stairs, the pair still fighting. Grunts and curses abounded from two distinct voices and Sam suddenly cried out, a shocked painful cry that exploded in my mind. Sam. Heat bloomed in my chest, and a piercing, shredding pain that enveloped the whole left side of my chest making it hard to breathe, hard to think. Blood soaked the fabric of my shirt and I struggled against my restraints. Sam. I had to get to Sam. His emotions poured into my consciousness like acid in a wound. Anger, so much anger … but fear too. He could feel that something was seriously wrong.

"Alex-!" Sam bellowed with as much breath as he could manage.

Sam! I screamed through the gag, jerking viciously against my restraints.

"Ah yes, I believe we have a victor." Stokes beamed at me and swung the door wide open. Sam was there, crumbled on the ground, his face a mess of battered bruises. Blood had soaked the whole side of his chest, and a tall lanky figure stood over him with an angel blade, blood dripping off the tip.

Sam struggled to rise, tried to lurch toward the open doorway. "Alex, fight hard! They have Cas, they—"

The lanky figure smashed the handle of the knife into Sam's forehead and he dropped like a stone.

Cas roared from deeper in the basement, a cry of frustrated anguish as he watched Sam fall.

The tall figure wiped the bloody knife on his pant leg and strode into the panic room without backward glance. "Now that that is taken care of—we have a lot to talk about, Aly." He tipped a familiar nod at Stokes that flooded me with sick dread.

Grady came right to my side, his lanky frame bending over me and blocking the light from the ceiling grate. His dark eyes narrowed at me, watchful. "You've made this whole process a lot harder on yourself than it needed to be. And you have to admit, Sam had that coming."

Betrayal gutted me and I pulled away from him, straining to see if Sam was still all right. The pain in my chest was only growing and I could feel the fluid building in his lung. Damn it, Sam, get up…!

Stokes clapped gleefully. "Aw, so sweet to see the long awaited reunion first hand. I hear that Grady played his part beautifully and managed to lull the Winchesters into nothing more than a guarded suspicion. Which is a miracle really. I didn't think he would be able to get past the front door."

Grady shot Stokes an irritated glare. "I did what I had to. We have to finish this. Leaving it half done and letting it destroy her slowly was never part of the deal." His gaze dropped back to me and he casually brushed hair out of my face. I flinched away, scrambling to understand his role in all this. He grabbed my chin, jerking me around to face him. "Don't pull away from me again, Aly. I've put up with way too much nonsense from your beloved Winchesters to get any more crap from you. They're all out of the way now so you can focus on what's really important: embracing your full potential."

I pressed my eyes closed, unwilling to look into his eyes as he destroyed my faith in him.

He sighed. "I'm trying to protect you, don't you understand? I've been trying to protect you this whole time. But what did you do? Stokes explained what really happened. You fought them, fought all of them. If you had just accepted what they were trying to do for you, then none of this would've happened." He gestured to the scars on my face distastefully. "They have the ability to take away the pain, to make you an even stronger healer. But you rejected it every time. Your stubbornness has done nothing but get you hurt. Stop fighting and give in, Aly. I'm not going to stand by and let you keep choosing to hurt yourself!"

Anger started to burn deep in my gut. I spit at him, struggling to talk, pushing to communicate despite the pain in my chest.

Grady shot a quick questioning glance at Stokes who nodded and Grady bent to untie the gag. As soon as it loosened I slammed up into his forehead, knocking him back on his ass. "Damn you, Grady, what the hell are you doing?! You're working with them?"

He stiffened furiously, shaking his head to clear the pain. "I'm protecting you from yourself."

"Protecting me from-? Fuck you!"

"I'm trying to help you—"

"Tell me you didn't know," I gritted out, my chest tightening. "Tell me you didn't leave me to rot in that cellar."

A ruddy flush filled his face. "I had no idea that you would fight them. They told me they could make you stronger, make it so you could heal people without hurting yourself. Why wouldn't you want that, Aly? Why would you do this to yourself?" He gestured to the scars and I couldn't hold back a snarl of rage. Everything inside me boiled and fire started licking at my muscles again. Betrayal cut so deep inside me that I could hardly process words.

"I protected you," I hissed. "Our whole lives I've protected you, killed for you."

He scoffed. "Protected me from what?"

"From monsters like him!" I jerked toward Stokes where he stood watching us with undisguised fascination. "You knew they had taken me and you did nothing?! They had me for months, Grady!"

"If you had said yes, it would've been over in a matter of hours." His eyes were cold. His dark eyes, the same eyes that had wrinkled in laughter and softened with affection my whole life, were now cold and emotionless. "You dragged it out, Aly, not them. I'm not going to watch you continue to destroy yourself. Your stubbornness dragged me back into this mess when it should've been over months ago. This is the better way, Aly. The only way."

"Don't you stand there and tell me this is my fault," I hissed. "Damn you—!"

Grady just rolled his eyes. "You're a healer, Aly. You have a gift, but it's not fulfilling its true potential. If you don't do this, someday it is going to kill you. So what, Stokes asked you to heal some of his men. I don't think it's unreasonable for him to expect some kind of repayment. He's saving your life-!"

"They're monsters, Grady. Those sons of bitches belong back in hell and I was not going to heal them and set them free back on humanity!"

"I don't care who he asked you to heal – he can make you stronger. I thought you would want this!"

"You thought I would want this?! He's turning me into something, Grady – why don't you understand that?!" Pressure built in my chest.

Grady jutted out his chin. "Don't be melodramatic. Not everything has to be a colossal battle against evil, Aly!"

"If you believe that you're either stupid or a coward," I hissed.

Stokes tsked and stepped closer. "Now, now, Alexis. No reason to go calling names."

I ignored him. "He's turning me into a Chinuitor, Grady – do you even understand what that means?!"

Grady shrugged carelessly. "It means you'll be a powerful healer. How is that a bad thing?"

"He was dosing me with Chinuitor blood, Grady," I gritted out, trying to suck in a full breath. "But you can't turn a Chinuitor without consent. So he mixed something up that would force the change. It's tearing me apart, Grady, from the inside out!"

Grady's gaze bounced between us and Stokes nodded in affirmation. "That's why it's so important that we finish this. It will tear her apart if we don't."

"See?" Grady lifted his chin. "Quit fighting us. We're trying to save your life."

"He tortured me, Grady—he and those bastards cut me apart!"

Stokes gave a nonchalant nod. "Had to. Part of the process."

A flicker of hesitation crossed his expression. "Well … I guess it doesn't matter how he does it. He knows what he's doing, Aly. He's going to make you stronger, better-!"

"'It doesn't matter'?" I gritted my teeth, furious to feel tears escape and leave burning trails down my cheeks. "Look at the scars, Grady. Look at the scars all over my body and tell me it doesn't fucking matter." I thrashed in my restraints, sliding down the mattress as much as I could to make my shirt ride up. A thin strip of skin appeared above my waistband, revealing the bottom edge of Krieger's handiwork.

Slowly, casting a hesitant glance at Stokes and receiving a negligent shrug in return, Grady moved to roll up my shirt to my ribcage. The cool air chilled my sweat dampened skin and my angry breaths expanded the ragged pink new scars. Grady's eyes traced Krieger's circles and the claw marks wrapping around the opposite side of my ribs, mouth curling in distaste.

"Oh come now, no time for modesty. No reason to only show a taste of our masterpiece." Stokes stepped up, pulling a knife out of thin air and slicing my shirt from hem to neckline without pause. In the time it took me to suck in a breath Stokes had sliced my jeans, too, throwing them to the side and leaving me in my black underwear and bra. My heart stuttered, the cool air pebbling my skin as my necklace slid back into my hair.

Grady stepped back in disgust, taking in the ugly ridges and dull pink and white skin still struggling to heal. Almost every inch of me had been altered.

I struggled to fight down the instinctive recoil from his disgust. "Look at what they did to me and tell me it doesn't matter. You knew, Grady. You knew they had me the whole fucking time. This wasn't about helping me. You sent them to find me for what? For my own good? Fuck you. What did you get out of it?" I turned my fury on Stokes. "What did you give him when he gave me up? He never was one for the greater good. He's too self-serving for that."

Stokes lifted a shoulder negligently. "All we had to do was threaten his girl."

Emptiness barreled into me and all of the pent up heat and fury vanished. My head dropped back to the bed, numbness spreading through my limbs. "Clarissa."

Grady sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "They were going to hurt her, Aly."

I said nothing, staring numbly at the fan spinning slowly behind the grate in the ceiling.

"They … broke into our house one night. Threatened her. Said they would do all kinds of things to her. She was terrified. They had been attempting to reach you for years, said they only wanted to help you, Aly. They want to make you better."

"They threatened her." I echoed, my words a rasping whisper. "They threatened her so you gave me up."

He finally looked uncertain. "I … I didn't know what they were going to do, exactly-"

"They beat me." Again, barely more than a whisper escaped me, everything inside me numb. "They whipped me … cut me, and carved into me. They raped me, Grady."

He finally flinched.

"Over. And over. And over." I turned to him slowly and cursed the tear running down my cheek. "You deny it all you want, but you knew what they were going to do. …If it wasn't for you, none of this would've happened."

The look in his eyes was stark, internal doubt slowly being replaced with censure. "Why didn't you just say yes?"

I choked in disbelief. "That's what you have to say to me? That?" I lurched toward him, straining to reach what had once been a beloved face. The handcuffs caught me up short but still I strained, growling. "You bastard!"

"Now, now," Stokes came up on the other side of me, grabbing a hold of my throat and slamming me back to the bed. "Save your strength. We still have yet to get to the good part."

"Fuck you, Grady," I hissed hoarsely, Stokes' fingers digging into my neck. "Run home to Clarissa. You've done your part. I hope you rot in hell!"

Grady stumbled back from my anger, getting to his feet to avoid my flailing legs. "Don't act like all of your pain is my fault – all you had to do was say yes!"

"He's right you know," Stokes raised an eyebrow at me and avoided my attempt to elbow his face. "It's pretty simple."

"Fuck you," I snarled. "Go ahead and kill me, I'll never heal for you!"

"Lucky for you, your willingness is no longer the issue. We discovered what we were missing the first time around." Stokes suddenly stepped in, waving Grady back farther. "Go and bleed the angel. We need as much of his vessel's blood as you can manage."