"I cleared the space out for her, s'all ready," Garth smiled into the phone as Beth put a fresh mug of coffee on the age-worn wooden surface of Marcy's kitchen table.
She stroked her delicate fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. He was nodding and she smiled at him indulgently. Silly boy. Marcy couldn't see him nodding. "Yes, ma'am. I'll lock it up real tight and keep her safe as a bug hibernating in a tree trunk. I promise."
Marcy set down the phone and quietly walked back into the lounge. Jess was sleeping peacefully, sprawled across one of the deep sofas and Marcy opened up the blanket over her legs, dragging it up over the girl's shoulders. The baby was equally peaceful, safely strapped into a baby sleeper a few feet away, his last feed leaving him rosy-cheeked and sated. With a last sweeping look, she crept out of the room and closed the suite door with a gentle click. Satisfied that she had done everything she could within her own domain, it was time to go and make sure that everyone else was doing their utmost and most importantly get an update on what was happening with her boys.
Stunned, ears ringing from the acoustic shock of the gun, Cas reluctantly opened his eyes. Raphael was walking slowly towards where Adler lay. He was still alive. Just. Judging by the soft gurgling that accompanied the rise and fall of his chest.
The carpet under Raphael's foot squelched slightly as he took a step back, his lip curling in disdain, he wiped his sole on a clean area of Adler's pant leg, as he turned his attention back to Castiel. "Sit yourself up, but stay where you are."
Cas raised himself awkwardly to one elbow, the muscles of his abdomen complaining painfully. He let his shoulder fall back against the wall and pushed himself vertical. He drew his feet back towards his body, away from the steadily growing flower of Adler's blood spread out across the grey pile of the hotel carpet.
In a tone so urbane, conversational even, it chilled Cas to the bone, Raphael said, "Oh Adler, did you honestly think you would be able to outmanoeuvre me? You should have known better than to cross me. I showed you what happened to people who crossed me. You knew if Castiel hadn't been so stubbornly determined to interfere I would never have lifted a finger against him. Should have learnt from his example, Adler, you really should." Adler's only response was a small, soft groan. "But he just had to meddle, didn't he?… Just had to try and convince other people of my 'dastardly plans'," he waggled his fingers and pulled a melodramatic face, smiling, although it did not reach his eyes, which were as cold and empty as ever. "Just like dear Anna."
He chuckled at the venomous look Cas gave him. "Careful there, Castiel, your true nature is showing." He placed the gun onto the desk behind him and perched against it ankles and arms crossed. He sighed and with a final quick glance at Adler turned his attention to Cas. "I have to grudgingly admit, you are not the whining coward I mistook you for. My father would be so proud of you."
"He was my father, too," Castiel spat, "And you killed him. It's all out there now, Raphael. Michael has all the proof he needs to finish you. He wants you to have a way out. To retire, somewhere warm and comfortable, I don't think you deserve it, but if you'll…"
"Retire? Why on earth would I want to leave when everything is within my grasp? And all that proof… Oh, I admit, this isn't quite how I planned it all out, but honestly, this is almost better. Fate is my best friend, Castiel. Adler, here…" he kicked at the nearest leg, but this time Adler did not respond to the contact, "... has destroyed all of the evidence bar his own copies… couldn't blackmail me unless he held the only source after all… And who has fate given it to, why Michael of course. Michael the perfect patsy. And what do I need to entrap Michael? Sentimental, honourable Michael. Why you, of course. And here you are… obliging as ever... Do you not see Cassie, it's as if God himself wants me to have it all."
"Have what Raphael? You had it all anyway. We have more money than we know what to do with and we were a family…"
Raphael sneered at him. "We are hardly the Waltons… Our father used us. Naming his sons for archangels? Do you think that was done for anything other than hubris? To make us marketable. You have no idea how he mistreated my mother, used her inheritance and her family connections to claw his way up and then left her alone to cope without his support. She wanted a husband, not a tycoon. She died of neglect. She thought they married for love. He killed her and then he replaced her…" Raphael's lip curled as he snarled out the words, "...with a secretary. Then… to add insult to injury… he expected us to accept her bastard, defective offspring."
Cas shook his head, disbelieving. He had always felt that Raphael didn't like him much. Had always assumed it was because of the huge age gap and his eldest brother's aversion to children… but to hear the hatred so openly expressed was still a shock. "Do you really hate me so much just because our father loved my mother? He made mistakes, but he loved us all. He always did his best…"
"His best! Oh yes, best for himself. His love came with conditions, Castiel. Except where she was concerned, of course. Precious Amelia could do no wrong… and by extension neither could you! I tried to warn him about her and Lucifer, and my thanks for my loyalty? Shipped off to a subsidiary in Europe, while they stayed home. It took me three years to regain his trust... And then you were born and still, he wouldn't admit what was right before him. Oh, no, you were his little miracle. He really, truly couldn't see it. A man of his age… having a child."
Cas shook his head in disbelief. "You think I'm Lucifer's?"
Raphael sneered. "Why else would 'Chuck' have treasured you as so much more than the rest of us? The cuckoo sporn of his favourite son and his prize bitch…"
"Oh my God, Raphael, that's just paranoid nonsense," Cas stared at his brother, incredulous. His expression flooded with realisation and he scoffed, "You're jealous?!"
Raphael growled with irritation. "Jealous of the freak, I don't think so."
Cas raised an eyebrow, allowing himself a smirk, knowing it would provoke. "That's it, isn't it Raph? You're jealous of me. All this is because you feel… what? That you weren't good enough for Dad? Jesus, is that what this is about. Twisted hatred, because you feel like you never measured up and somehow, you think, I did!"
The back of Raphael's hand hitting his cheekbone was like the strike of a snake. Cas gasped, more in shock at the speed of it than the actual pain, as his head snapped sideways. Raphael grabbed the roll of tape from the desk, where Adler had left it and tore a strip haphazardly, bending forward to press it firmly over Cas' mouth. "I think we've heard quite enough from Cassie for you for a while, don't you Adler," he sneered.
A rattling gurgle deep in his lungs was the only response.
Kasia woke with a start. She was curled up on the sofa, alone. She wiped at a small drool from her lip that had made a damp patch on the hoodie under her head. Somewhere down the corridor, she heard Charlie whoop, it was a repeat of the noise that had woken her. She rubbed her face and stretched unsteadily to her feet, intent on investigating and making coffee in no particular order.
She had barely made it across the room when Charlie barrelled into her. "We found them, Kashkoo. We only goddamn found them! Amy's ringing the team with the news, so I've come for celebratory espresso."
By the time the two of them carried three hot drinks back into the media centre that had become HQ, the video conference had already started.
"It's a foreclosure. It would make the ideal hideout. Isolated, independent power supply, nothing else within miles, a single access road and according to the database logs that Charlie hacked into Adler downloaded the schematics and other various details to his own terminal."
Charlie slid onto her stool and pulled up Google maps, as Kasia set down the tray. The secondary screen filled with a sparse spaghetti of coloured maps before she switched it to satellite view, the screen filled with the red-orange moonscape of the desert, the shell of a building gradually grew in the centre of the screen as she zoomed in. "Obviously this image was taken while it was still under construction, but this…" she zoomed back out and placed a marker on the map, "...is where we last saw the Lexus."
"It's too great a coincidence for this not to be significant," Gabe said, his eyes flitting onto Kali's face seeking her opinion. She nodded at her husband.
"Adler's not the only one who checked it out, either. Michael logged in remotely. He searched for addresses within 250 miles of Vegas and got a few hundred hits. But with our last location for the Lexus … this one just seems…"
"Dammit!" Gabe interrupted. "Mike and Cassie aren't just acting on Raphael's directions, they've cooked up so half-assed plan of their own. Why the hell didn't they say something?… we could have worked something out together."
"Maybe, because when Cas suggested it, we all flew into a collective dipshit?" Bal said softly. "Besides this strikes me more of Michael than Cas… he would go out of loyalty, but it's Michael who feels he has things to prove."
Kali reached for Gabe's hand and he squeezed her fingers, grateful for the grounding contact. "It's a good job I married you, my love, because when I get my brothers back here, I'm going to need a really exceptional lawyer to get me off the double assault charges when I bang their heads together."
Somewhere deep in a pocket, Raphael's phone began vibrating, he pulled it out and swiped the screen. After a cursory glance, he let it slide back and leant sideways to retrieve the gun. "On your feet, Castiel. You came here for your little bitch. It's time for your reunion. And, Cassie, don't even think about making a run for it, I need you alive just a little while longer and while I could just knock you out again, I've wasted enough of my life carrying dead weight little brothers."
With that Raphael gripped him by the elbow and dragged him the rest of the way to his feet and then pushed him through the reception door and hustled him out.
The brilliance of the sun, now high over his head, was burning his eyes, even while he squinted against it. Something caught his eye. A flash of light. The unmistakable flash of sunlight reflecting off a surface. He stumbled and fell, unable to save himself, the clash of the concrete against his knees stinging sharply and jarring up through his hips.
Raphael grabbed him roughly under one arm and dragged him back to his feet. "Get up," he said harshly.
Cas grunted, unable to properly reply with his mouth sealed with a length of duct tape.
"Keep going, door at the end." The shove was unnecessary and caused Cas to stagger yet again, wincing at the stinging in his knees. He slid his eyes along the front of the building. The metal anti-vandal shutters over the windows shone silver, combining with the white stucco of the walls and the pale grey of the concrete walkway to form a solid blinding mass of reflective surfaces. The only break from it, the dusty black top and the gaudy hotel doors, a rainbow of different colours at regular intervals along the length. He squinted into it, toward the last door at the end of the building.
He stopped just short of the last door, painted a deep crimson, not yet peeling but much like the others showing the early signs of bleaching under the unforgiving sun. The door was covered in dust, just like everything else, except for the brand new hasp and staple which glinted incongruously just below a circular door knob. An unmistakable clink on the concrete surface just to the side of his feet dragged his attention down. A set of keys, bright and vulgar in their newness lay in the dust.
"Undo the padlock. Carefully now. You wouldn't want to startle me." Cas glanced over his shoulder. Raphael had dropped back, his stance business like the weapon in his hands small, but deadly enough to make him listen and aimed right at his knees. "I only need you alive long enough to make sure that Michael fulfils his end of the bargain and surrenders those files to me. After that…", well let's just say, I don't care much for the carpet in this place, so letting you bleed out slowly, too, would be no problem at all. There's plenty of blood stain here already…afterall."
Cas shivered. He did not mourn Adler's demise obviously, but even a snake like Adler did not deserve the gut shot he had just taken. His whimpering cries as Raphael sneered at him, writhing on the floor in the mess of his own blood and urine would stay in Cas' mind for a long time.
Another shove pulled Cas back to the present. Squatting slowly, he retrieved the keys, before stretching back upright fumbling awkwardly with the padlock, because of his bound hands.
"Hang it on the loop and open the door, slowly. I wouldn't want to have to waste another bullet… not yet anyways."
Oh, shut up, Cas thought, threat, threat, threat. You're getting tedious, big brother.
With one last push that threw him face first onto the floor, Raphael slammed the door shut behind him. Cas pushed himself up to a sitting position, waiting until he heard the rasping clunk of the padlock closing before he ripped the tape from his mouth. With the door shut and the after effects of the walk through the glare outside still stinging his eyes his vision was a wall of black. Gradually, his vision adjusted. Tiny slithers of light filtered through the metal shutters over the windows but gave up after a few feet, as if defeated by the gloom. "Meg?" he whispered urgently. "Meg, are you here?"
Somewhere in the darkness, he heard a muffled noise and then a more determined bumping sound. Carefully, he moved in that direction, arms extended in front of him. His palms hit a solid wooden surface, and he let his arms slide down until his fingertips dipped into a vertical slotted recess. With a little bit of fumbling investigation, he managed to slide a door sideways.
A flare of pure rage surged through him: They had discarded her like dirty clothes in the bottom of the wardrobe. He knelt down carefully muttering stupid nothing phrases of comfort, his fingers reaching automatically for her face, barely flinching at the sticky mess he could feel on her cheeks, he pulled at the tape covering her mouth. For a second she melted into his touch, but then she began to push against him and he stood up, pulling her gently to her feet.
He recoiled in shock as the tape finally slipped free and she demanded angrily, "What the fuck are you doing here, moron?" Kicking him hard in the shin for good measure.
"Ow! Meg!"
"Seriously, what the hell were you thinking? I risk life and limb getting you free and you walk straight back into Raph's clutches!"
"I've come to rescue you," he protested, blinking under the onslaught.
"Oh, that's just genius!" She sighed, but he could hear the beginnings of a smile in her voice. "What are you now? Fucking Luke Skywalker? I hate to break it to you, Cas, but this motel doesn't have any garbage shoots…"
He grinned, she might be battered and torn and smelling vaguely of … ok… he'd keep his counsel on that one… but she was still 100% his Meg. "You know that whole scene doesn't make any sense…" he said, as casually as he could, working hard to keep the tremor out of his voice, "All that technology... they would have a much more advanced way to dispose of trash than a giant cephalopod…which, by the way, would have been crushed along with the junk."
"Star Wars is a classic, Cas, you're meant to enjoy it, not over analyse it."
"You know I am who I am and you still made me watch it… you only have yourself to blame." Despite her bravado, he felt her list slightly and she could not avoid the whimper as she leant against his side. "I'm so sorry you got dragged into this mess, Meg." Even to his own ears, he sounded like a lost little boy.
"I jumped, Cherub. You know damn well nobody drags me anywhere." She sounded exhausted and he helped her onto the bed.
He checked along the length of her nearest arm where it dipped behind her back, sliding his hands down from just below her shoulder, fingers snagging onto the same zip ties as were on his own wrists. She hissed a breath, as he lifted her legs, letting her shift herself back against the headboard. He began quickly and efficiently opening cupboards and drawers searching for anything he could use. It was proving fruitless. With a growl of frustration, he grabbed one of the pillows and awkwardly, using his mouth as his spare hand, pulled the slip free.
The faucet in the cupboard-like ensuite was stiff from underuse and when he did manage to apply enough pressure to turn it, it creaked ominously. With a dim recollection of the warnings issued by the squeaky-voiced novice actor pretending to remember his Naval health and safety briefings in a training video he had watched when he first started working at the Gas 'n Sip, he left the water running and returned to the main room to carry on searching.
His eyes more accustomed to the darkness, he could just about see the quizzical look on Meg's face. "Struggling to piss?" she asked sarcastically.
"Huh?"
"Running the tap for inspiration?"
He walked around the bed, turning his attention to the other bedside cabinet.
"Legionella," he replied distractedly, his initial surge of hope at feeling the top drawer heavy dashed when the contents proved to be a large book. Fuck off, Gideon, he thought venomously. "It likes dark, warm, stagnant water supplies." He dropped what was presumably a bible onto the floor, pleased when the slide of the bottom drawer also gave the subtle thump of long-forgotten contents. "I'm running it and any other potential bacteria off before I use the water." He felt inside the drawer for his prize and smiled happily to himself as he turned it over, pulled the plastic zipper open and tipped the contents onto the counterpane, blessing the careless traveller who had purchased and discarded their guest kit in the drawer.
Behind him, he heard Meg chuckle. When he glanced over his shoulder he could just make out the shake of her head, the mess on her face doing nothing to disguise the smile she had been confusing him with for years. "Oh, Cas. We're imprisoned in the middle of nowhere, by a psychopathic maniac… who just happens to be your older brother... and you… you... why would you even know that, much less bring it to mind right now… My God, I love you, Cas, but you are such a fucking nerd."
"Indeed I am," he chirped happily pulling one item from the mess on the bed with a look of triumph, "But I'm the best kind, I'm a nerd with a razor blade."