CHAPTER 13

They rolled into Lafayette at an actually decent time that night, which is more than could've been said about the last times that they'd had to drive from town to town. The best part was that it was just late enough that they couldn't begin their investigation until the next day, meaning that they could all actually get some decent rest for once. Usually, Dean wasn't the one to complain about the lack of sleep – and really, it wasn't like he needed more than four hours, anyway. But this was getting a little ridiculous, and he swore that he still wasn't entirely caught up from those nights after the Hellhounds had first started chasing his ass, when he hadn't been able to get any sleep at all. Of course, he'd kick Sam's ass for even implying the same thing, but it didn't make it any less true.

Either way, he was glad that he'd get to sleep during the actual nighttime for once. That seemed like a pretty good change of pace.

He and Cas were up early the next day. Or, Dean was up early. Cas was sitting in bed and yawning and generally looking like even opening his eyes was a cruel and unusual punishment. Honestly, Dean hadn't expected Cas to be so obsessed with sleep – he definitely hadn't been when he'd actually been human – but he figured it was better not to question it. Besides, what could he say? Cas looked pretty frickin' adorable with his bedhead.

Still, though, they actually had an investigation to begin, so Dean headed over and ruffled one hand in Cas' hair, until it was practically sticking up straight from his head. "Okay, sunshine, time to get all washed up and dressed. We're hoping to go investigate the crime scene before breakfast."

"Yes, I know," Cas said, though he didn't make any move to go actually do anything, just sat there and kept rubbing his eyes.

Dean shook his head and poked him in the side. "That means you actually have to go do things. Come on, Cas, what turned you into such a lazy bum in the morning?"

Cas groaned, but did stand up and take his nice clothes from his garment bag, which Dean had hung over the top of the bathroom door. "Sleeping is different as an angel, or partial angel." He paused and frowned at that, still not sure of what the right word was, then shook his head and continued. "It is more restful, believe it or not. I think because my human body didn't think that sleep was anything unusual, whereas my angelic self knows that this is something that I have never before experienced. My grace isn't accustomed to the need for sleep, and may be overcompensating." He frowned again, then shrugged. "Or maybe it's the same reason why I dislike eating food now. I am aware of all of the individual components that cause my body to sleep, and somehow, this makes the process more enjoyable instead of less."

"Huh," Dean said. And there wasn't really anything to say to respond to that, so instead, he just waved Cas toward the bathroom. "Either way, Dad's going to kill us if we're late, so let's get a move on."

"Yes," Cas said, and disappeared into the bathroom to wash up and change his clothes. Although, Dean was half tempted to knock on the door and tell Cas that he could just do that second part out here. If Cas was going to be undressing, then Dean might as well get a show out of the deal.

He didn't, though. Like he said, they needed to get going. There wasn't exactly any time for distractions. And seeing Cas sliding out of his pajama pants and tee shirt would definitely be a distraction.

Five minutes later, Cas was fully dressed, meaning that they were both pretty much ready to go. Dean stepped toward him, and was just straitening Cas' tie – guy was never going to learn how to do that right – when he heard a knock on the door. "Probably Dad or Sam," he said, adjusting the tie one last time before heading over to answer it.

It wasn't. Instead, standing at the door was a girl with brown hair and this super nervous expression stamped onto her face. She stood there biting her lip for a moment, standing on her tiptoes like she was trying to see past Dean into the motel room. Whatever she saw, it made her face fall, and she frowned. "Oh," she said in a small voice, and glanced up at Dean. "I think I have the wrong room."

"Okay," he said slowly, narrowing his eyes at her. Odds were that she probably was just some lost girl trying to find someone and knocking on the wrong door, but he wasn't going to count on it. In his experience, it was never just an easy misunderstanding, not when it came to him or Sammy.

And sure enough, she took a deep breath and glanced around Dean's motel room a second time, then asked, "Do you know any really tall guys, by any chance? Kinda... floppy brown hair and a big brown jacket?"

Yup. Definitely not a coincidence. "Why are you looking for him?"

Immediately, her eyes widened more, and she shook her head. "No reason," she said. "I'm just looking."

"Uh huh." Dean narrowed his eyes further. "You know, you're not exactly making me eager to trust you. So, do you want to tell me what's really going on here?"

She hesitated. "Yes," she finally said. "Trust me, I would love to tell you the whole story. In fact, I'm just about dying to tell this to someone. Except that there's the little fact that there is absolutely no way that you'd believe me, so I'm not going to do that."

"Oh yeah?" Dean asked, and leaned against the doorframe. "Try me."

She bit her lip again, still not saying anything. Cas walked over, joining Dean in the doorway. "Whatever you say, I am reasonably sure that we are going to believe you," he said. "We have seen more than our fair share of strange occurrences, and I can assure you that anything that you have to say won't be any more unusual than the things that we've seen already."

That seemed to do the trick, or maybe she had been telling the truth about how badly she wanted to tell someone, because all of a sudden the girl took a deep breath, and then the words were pouring out. "Okay, so the boy with the floppy hair, right? He's going to get killed. Or, specifically, he's going to explode trying to break into some guy's cottage out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. And I didn't really see why he was breaking in there, except that there was someone that I didn't get a good look at tied up in one of the chairs, and so floppy hair guy was obviously trying to rescue him, which didn't exactly work out, and oh god, I'm totally freaking you out, aren't I? You definitely think I'm crazy." She broke off, shaking her head and covering her face with one hand. "I know, this is insane. Trust me, I wouldn't believe me, either."

"No, we do," Cas said quickly, though he was looking over at Dean like he was silently asking what to do about this.

"Come on," Dean said, stepping back and gesturing her into the motel room. "I'm going to go grab the, uh, the 'floppy hair man' and we're going to talk to you about this."

She lifted her head, and the nervousness drained away, replaced by suspicion. "Wait," she said, glancing between both of their faces and not moving from where she stood. "You know who I'm talking about? And you believe me when I say that I had visions of some random guy's death? No offense, but now I'm the one who's kinda freaking out."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, I get that. Trust me on that one," he said, and made another gesture for her to enter the motel. This time, she did, slowly, still frowning and glancing around nervously. "But you're not the first psychic I've met."

"Wait, you know someone else who's psychic like me?" she demanded, spinning around to face him. "Who?"

For a split second, Dean wondered if he was supposed to say this. Then he figured, why not? This girl wasn't looking like much of a threat, and if she was telling the truth about this vision of hers, then they were going to need her to tell them everything she knew. Plus, if they talked about these psychic powers at all, then she was going to find out about them, anyway, so might as well break it to her now. "My little brother," he said. "He's got the same thing you've got- the weird death visions, or whatever they are."

"Your brother?" she asked, and her eyes flickered to Cas like she was wondering if it was him. Then he saw her notice the fact that the room only had one bed, and quickly let go of that assumption. "Where is he?"

"The room next door," Dean said. "I'll go grab Sammy, and then we'll talk about this vision of yours." And figure out a way to be damn certain that it didn't actually come true. Hopefully it would be simple enough. Sam got himself blown up in a cabin somewhere? So they stuck in the town and didn't go anywhere near the woods. Simple.

And Dean was going to make damn sure that that happened. The visions could be changed, and he knew that for a fact, considering that one of Sammy's visions had ended with that crazy psychic blowing Dean's brains out last year. And if Dean could beat the vision, then so could Sammy.

"Sammy," the girl repeated. "Is that your brother's name?"

"Yes, but only Dean is allowed to call him anything besides Sam," Cas said. "The rest of us get in trouble if we try."

"What's your name, anyway?" Dean asked. He was already heading toward the door, but now he paused and glanced back at her.

"Ava Wilson," she said, and he nodded and started walking again.

He didn't make it more than a step before the gunshots began.

The window next to the door exploded, glass scattering inward. Dean reacted instinctively, throwing himself to the ground behind the bed, then rolling over to look for Cas and Ava. The two of them were huddled together behind the table against the opposite wall. Didn't look like the absolute safest place in the world, but at least they seemed to be out if the line of fire.

"Stay there," Dean called to Cas, raising his voice to be heard over the gunshots. There were a ton of them, way more than there should've been for just one shooter – Dean was thinking two of them, maybe more, it was hard to tell. He didn't think that all of the bullets were being shot their way, though. Not that he could exactly count them as they flew overhead, but it didn't look like the damage being done matched up to the number of shots that he heard. He'd gotten pretty good over the years at estimating stuff like this, and he was pretty sure that the other shooter was aiming somewhere else.

There was about a one-second period where he wondered where the other one could be shooting. Then he got it.

Dad and Sammy's motel room was right next door to this one. Shit.

Cas and Ava were both staying where they were, which was good – the angle of the gunshots meant that they'd be fine so long as they stayed there. And Dean's spot seemed to be safe enough, too. He couldn't stay there, though. Not when he had to make sure nobody got a good shot at Sam.

The bullets were flying through the front wall, directly in front of Dean, right on the opposite end of the bed. Dean pressed himself flat against the floor, crawling under the bed, then rolling forward as fast as he could, until he was slammed against the wall. He thought that he'd worked it out right, that he'd be underneath the bullets and out of range. He didn't have to find out, though. The shooting stopped the moment that Dean hit the wall.

There wasn't time to wonder why, or to hesitate. Dean figured that he didn't have long before the bullets started flying again, and he wasn't going to waste his chance. He took only a second to grab his gun from his jacket pocket, click the safety off, and then he yanked the door open and ran outside.

First thing he did was drop to the ground behind one of the cars in the parking lot – a dark gray mini van, since he definitely wasn't using his baby as cover in a gunfight, not if he had a choice. He barely managed to get behind it before the shooting started up again – not at him, though. It was definitely still aimed into the motel room.

Dean braced himself, then darted to hide behind a different car about two spaces away, one that was out of the line of fire. And still, the shooter didn't make any attempt to try to hit him. Whoever it was, they clearly cared more about getting rid of Cas – or Ava – than they did about Dean.

He was going to make sure they realized that that was a mistake.

Dean gave himself about half a second to rest and catch his breath, then raised himself just enough to peer over the car, scanning the area to try and find where the shots were coming from. It only took him a second to locate the source.

There were two men on the building across from the motel. One of them, Dean had never seen before, but he was sending a hail of bullets into Dean's motel room. The other man was aiming toward Sam's room, just like Dean had thought.

This guy, Dean recognized.

Gordon.

Dean's hand clenched around his gun, and a second later, he was up and sprinting across the street toward the building, not bothering to stick close to the ground or trying to make him less of a target, just running as fast as he could. Half of him expected Gordon or the other guy to shoot him down before he reached the building, and even though it only took him maybe ten seconds, he still couldn't believe that he had actually made it. But no, both of them were still aiming bullets down on the motel rooms with a single-minded determination, like they weren't going to let anything get in their way.

Well, Dean was just going to have to mess with those plans, then, give them something else to worry about Because Gordon and his bastard friend were not going to do anything to hurt Sammy.

Dean circled around the building until he found the rickety fire escape that they must've used to climb to the roof in the first place. It looked like just tapping it would be enough to send it crumbling to the ground, but, well, Dean didn't exactly have a whole lot of options now. He didn't waste a second before grabbing it and hauling himself up.

By now, the bullets weren't just flying one way – Dad or Sam had grabbed a gun and started returning fire, and Gordon and his friend both pressed themselves flat to avoid the hail of bullets, hiding behind the lip around the edge of the roof.

Dean waited in the fire escape, over to the side of the building, until the bullets paused for a second – Dad or Sam reloading their gun, most likely. Gordon and his friend both took advantage of the pause to take aim toward the motel again, ready to resume fire.

Dean launched himself up off the fire escape, then aimed his gun squarely at the center of Gordon's back. "I wouldn't if I were you."

Gordon froze, then slowly, he and his friend both turned around. "Dean Winchester," Gordon said. "Why aren't I surprised that you're trying to stop us?"

Then in an instant, both Gordon and his friend had their guns leveled at Dean.

"You could try to shoot," the friend said. "Somehow, I doubt that you'd manage to get both of us before we stop you."

Yeah, Dean was realizing that, too. Sure as hell didn't mean that he wasn't going to try, though.

"But we don't want to hurt you," Gordon said, even as he shifted his gun slightly, to give himself a better shot. "You aren't our target here."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, that was definitely the impression I got when you started blasting my room to pieces."

The friend narrowed his eyes. "People who interfere with the Lord's work deserve to be punished," he said. "We won't have to harm you if you don't get in our way."

"Nice offer," Dean said. "Think I'm going to have to pass, though."

Okay, he needed a plan. He wasn't sure what Cas and Sam and Dad were up to, and he didn't dare to take him eyes off of either of them long enough to look, but he knew that they had to be doing something. All three of them would have guns – though Dean hoped that Cas wouldn't try to shoot anything. Even after all this time, he still wasn't the best shot. But they'd all be armed, and if Dean could keep the guns trained on him instead of on his family, then it'd give them a chance to fire up here and stop them.

Gordon and his friend seemed to realize the same thing, because Gordon glanced over at him out of the corner of his eye, and said, "We don't have time for this. We have to-"

A gunshot.

Too late for them.

Gordon staggered, and Dean didn't get the chance to see how bad it was, because a second later the other man was charging at him. Dean swung his gun around, finger already pulling the trigger, but not fast enough.

The butt of the man's gun crashed into the side of Dean's head, and he was on the ground, blinking. The world was spinning in front of him, dizzyingly fast, and he had just long enough to try and figure out what the hell happened before he fell unconscious, still not entirely understanding the answer.

Dean opened his eyes, then winced and closed them again. It was dark in whatever the hell place he was, but that didn't matter – what little light was in here was still enough to make his head start to throb. He took a deep breath, then forced himself to open his eyes and take a look around.

The walls were made of wood, he saw that right away. So was most of the furniture, with a few store-bought chairs here and there. There weren't any lights, and the only light came from the bit of sunlight managed to make it through the heavy curtains. He blinked at it slowly, and turned to look out the window. He couldn't see much, but he could make out a sliver of trees through the crack in the curtains, and absolutely nothing else. He couldn't tell why that was so important, though.

Then he'd remembered. A cabin in the middle of the woods. That was where Sam had died in Ava's vision.

Dean froze, then immediately tried to jump to his feet. Forget about his headache, or whatever else was wrong with him. This was where Sam was supposed to die, so there was no way that Dean was going to stick around longer than he had to. He had to get out, and run back down to the motel to find Sammy and warn him that he had better not try to come for him, or do anything stupid like that. Sam was not risking dying here. He wasn't-

Dean couldn't move, though. For the first time, he realized that his hands were tied behind him, and his legs were roped to the legs of his chair.

Fuck.

"You're awake," a voice said from behind it, and Dean recognized it as Gordon's a second before the man circled around to stand in front of his chair. He was shirtless now, and had wrapped his left arm in bandages that were already soaked through with blood – so that one shot hadn't done as much damage as Dean had hoped that it would.

"Good," Gordon continued, moving closer to Dean. "It's about time that we get this show on the road." Then he glanced past Dean, and said, "Kubrick, mind handing over the phone?"

"Sure thing," the other man – Kubrick – said, and crossed the room to press Dean's cell phone into Gordon's hand. Gordon flipped it open, and started scrolling through his contacts. "S," he said after a moment. "I'm guessing that's Sammy's number, isn't it?" He didn't wait for a response, just hit the call button, then pressed the phone against Dean's ear.

Sam picked up halfway through the first ring. "Dean?" he demanded, voice almost frantic. "Where are you? Are you alright?"

Sam's voice was loud enough to make Dean flinch, and to send another throb of pain through Dean's head, but he took a deep breath and didn't let that show when he responded. "Yeah, don't worry about my, Sammy. I'm fine."

"Now, Dean," Gordon said, soft enough that Dean hoped that Sam wouldn't be able to hear him. "It's not going to do you any good to lie."

Dean took another breath, and continued as fast as he could, "Listen, just hang tight, and don't do anything stupid. I'll come join you as soon as I can, just hang somewhere safe, you know what to do-"

"Dean," Sam cut him off, "was that Gordon?"

Well, shit. Dean was trying to figure out if he could get away with claiming that it was someone else, try to convince Sam that he was perfectly fine and definitely wasn't in need of a rescue. Gordon took the phone away from him before he got the chance.

"Hey there, Sammy," he said, his voice calm, almost happy, like he was talking to an old friend. It made Dean's skin crawl. "Listen, I have a deal for you. You know that girl that came to visit you today? I have a matter than I want to work out with her, and I'm pretty sure that you'd like to have your brother back. Sounds like an arrangement can be made between us, what do you think?"

Dean couldn't make out Sam's response, but based on the muffled noises that he did hear, he'd say that Sam was cussing Gordon out. Gordon just shook his head. "That's not going to help you much, Sammy," he said. "Here's what I'm thinking. I'm staying a place up in the woods. You bring the girl to 5637 Monroe Street, and I'll let you take your brother back home with you. You have to come alone, though, just you and her. Bring your dad or your friend with you, and you're not going to like what happens."

Sam said something more, and Dean could hear the fury in his voice, if not the actual words. Gordon just listened, nodding slowly. "You know what? I'll give you a deal number two," he said. "How about this, instead? Same rules – you still need to come on your own, and you'd better not be armed. But I know what your daddy was looking for not too long ago, and I'd bet anything that he's found it. Instead of bringing the girl, I want you to bring me the Colt." A pause, long enough for Sam to say something that vaguely sounded like a denial, then Gordon said, "Well, that's too bad, then. But if you realize that you do have it, you can bring it here and hand it over, and I'll let Dean walk. Something like that shouldn't belong to someone like you."

Another pause, Sammy saying something else, then Gordon said, "Either way, you might want to get here soon. I don't exactly like to have to wait." Then he hung up without another word, tossing Dean's phone onto the nearest table.

Dean couldn't help it – he snorted and shook his head. "You really think that Sam's going to be dumb enough to fall for that?"

Gordon turned to look at Dean. "No," he said, "I don't think your brother's going to be smart enough to do what we said. Your dad and your friend are going to come with them, and all that will mean is that both of them are going to die when he does."

"You know, none of you are who we're going after," Kubrick said. He grabbed a chair and pulled it away from the table, then settled down, his gun in his lap, still pointed squarely at Dean. "You- Well, you may be helping them, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you deserve to die, not for sure. But them, though. Your brother and that girl. You've got to know there's something wrong with them."

"They're not even human," Gordon added.

Kubrick nodded immediately. "That's right," he said. "It's not right. Goes against the natural order, interferes with God's plan. Things like them have got to be dealt with."

"Fuck you," Dean snapped, too mad to think of anything more articulate, and gave another sharp pull on the ropes. They didn't give at all, though. And Gordon must've searched him when he was unconscious, because neither of his knives were in his sleeves. He scowled at both Gordon and Kubrick, but neither of them seemed to even notice the fact that he was trying to kill them with his mind. Though he wondered what Kubrick would say if he told him that this was far from going against God's plan – if there actually was some sort of mythical God up there, then he was definitely the one behind this, or at least he didn't give a damn about what his angels were up to.

Dean didn't, though. For one, it wasn't like some bible-thumping bastard was going to believe him, anyway. But more than that, he had more important things to do, like figuring out how the hell he was going to get out of here.

He scanned the room again, and this time, he found a pile of weapons off to the side of the room, in a dark corner where he hadn't noticed them the first time. It was definitely Dean's stuff, too – he recognized his gun, and the angel blade was piled below it, managing to shine slightly even without any light.

Okay, so if he could find a way to break himself free, then the first thing he had to do was dive for the pile and arm himself. He didn't think that that was going to happen, though. Any hunter worth his salt knew how to tie someone up so that they could never break free, and they also knew all of the ways to slip a rope – meaning that they knew how to keep other people from using those same tricks. And he hated to say it, but Gordon was good, even if he was a fucking asshole.

Dean was slowly realizing that there was no way he was going to get himself free on his own. Meaning that he had to wait here until Sammy came to his rescue. And when he did, Gordon and Kubrick would be waiting to shoot.

Dean took a deep breath, and told himself that Sam would have a plan. He'd know a way to get in here without getting himself killed, and the two of them would both make it out of here in one piece. He repeated it to himself again and again, and it was the only thing keeping him from going insane.

It didn't stop the hallucinations from slowly creeping into his vision, making the walls twitch and undulate like there was something writhing in the shadows. Dean kept his eyes fixed firmly in front of him, very intentionally not letting himself look at the dark shapes in the corner of his vision, and he waited.

It was less than an hour before Sammy arrived. Dean hadn't been able to tell exactly how much time had passed, but he knew this much, at least.

He was still tied in the chair, though now he kept his head bowed, because that was the only way that the hallucinations left him halfway alone. So long as he kept his eyes locked on his knees, he could pretend that everything around him hadn't been twisted by his mind until it looked like some dark nightmare that only a psychopath would think up.

He was gagged now. Gordon had explained about it being a necessary evil – those were his exact words, the bastard. But according to him, they couldn't risk having Dean say anything to Sam that could give him an advantage. The gag would be removed as soon as Sam was dead and Dean was free to go. He understood, didn't he?

Dean was really starting to look forward to getting himself free so that he could stick a bullet or ten into Gordon's chest, then fill his friend Kubrick with lead, too, just for good measure. And if they did one fucking thing to hurt Sammy at all, they'd be begging him to shoot them, and there was no way that he would ever let them off that easy.

Maybe he'd have been fine with just getting away with Sam and never seeing either of these bastards again, but they kept talking. The whole hour, it was just them chattering away, about Sam and the psychics like him. The way that Scott Carey had killed some bunny or some shit like that, and obviously that was a sign that he was a crazed killer. Other things, too. Ava Wilson had once called the police to stop a murder before the murderer had even started heading to the would-be victim's house, which Dean thought was a pretty damn good thing for her to do, but apparently Gordon decided that that deserved the death sentence.

"And it's all related to that demon that your daddy's been going after," Gordon said, leaning back farther in his chair, wincing slightly as he jarred his hurt arm against the arm rest. "We've done our research. You'd be amazed at all of the strange shit we turned up. Or maybe you wouldn't be – you probably know all about it, and it hadn't seemed to change anything. But Dean, even you've got to know that this isn't right. It's up to us to fix it."

Dean's mind flashed to what Cas had told them just a few days earlier – about the demon blood, that Sam had been infected when he was six months, that that was the whole reason why these powers started coming. Gordon and Kubrick didn't seem to know about that part of it, so that was one thing to be grateful of, at least. Still, Dean could picture the panic that'd crossed Sam's face when he'd first learned the truth, and the way that some of the other psychics had turned to murder without even knowing what had caused these weird abilities in the first place.

Then Dean shook his head. If he could talk, he wouldn't started some big argument, making sure that Gordon knew that Sammy wasn't some monster – that there was nobody in the world who cared more than that kid, that Sammy was a hell of a lot better than trash like Gordon and his little pal could ever understand. As it was, he settled for just glaring as hard as he could, hoping that Gordon would be able to read the "fuck you" in his eyes.

Gordon didn't seem to be paying attention, though. Instead, he turned his head slightly, like he was looking out the window using just the corner of his eye. "Looks like he came alone."

"Doubt it," Kubrick said, carefully adjusting his grip on his gun.

Gordon nodded once, and the two of them tensed, bracing themselves for whatever Sam's next move was.

The waiting couldn't have lasted more than ten seconds. Dean knew that intellectually, but to him, it felt like it stretched on for minutes, or – hell – hours, even. All he could think about were the two guns at Sam's head, and that it didn't matter if Dad and Cas were here to back Sam up. All it would take would be one shot from either gun, sent into the right spot in Sam's body, and it would be over.

Then there wasn't time to worry more about that, because at that moment, Sam burst through the front door. Gordon and Kubrick both spun around, guns pointed at Sam. Sam already had his gun pointed straight for Kubrick, and didn't even flinch at the sight of the weapons being pointed his way. The light streaming in from the door behind him was enough to light the room, revealing that the gun Sam carried was either the Colt, or a very realistic fake.

"Sam," Gordon said. "How nice of you to join us."

Sam took his eyes off Gordon and Kubrick for a moment, just long enough to glance at Dean. "You're going to let my brother go," he said.

"Of course," Kubrick agreed easily. "Just as soon as you hand over the Colt."

Sam shook his head. "Dean first," he said, in a voice that left no room for argument.

"Not until you give us what we're after," Gordon said, in the same type of voice.

Dean couldn't make much noise with the gag, but he sure as hell did his best, trying to catch Sam's attention. And it worked – Sam looked over at him again, and Dean shook his head as hard as he could.

Sam had to know that this was a trap, and that if he wasn't armed, then there'd be no way that he'd make it out alive. Sam was smart, so there was no way that he hadn't figured that out already. Still, though, Dean wanted to make sure that the message really hit home, and that Sam knew that he wasn't even allowed to start thinking about actually turning it over, no matter what happened to Dean.

"Believe me, you don't want me to shoot you with this," Sam said, still aiming the Colt straight at Kubrick, and taking a step forward now. "Just let Dean go and nobody has to get hurt."

If the threat bothered Gordon, he didn't let on. "I'm sure you're right about that," he said, then swung his own gun around, stepping back and pressing the barrel against Dean's temple. "And I'm just as sure that you don't want me to pull my trigger, either. So what do you say you put the gun down and we talk this out, huh?"

Dean shook his head again – he was sure that lowering the gun would be suicide right then. The moment that Sam didn't have a weapon in his hand, there would be nothing to stop Gordon or Kubrick from pulling the trigger. And Sam obviously knew it, too, based on the way he hesitated. Then he took a long look at the gun in Gordon's hand, and nodded, moving the Colt marginally. It was pointed downward just enough that he was no longer aiming it at either of them, but his body was still tense, and it was obviously that he was ready to swing the Colt up and shoot any moment.

"You wanted to talk?" Sam said. "So talk."

That was when they heard the explosions.

The entire back room of the cabin was suddenly blown apart, sending debris shooting into the room. Dean stiffened, Sam instantly swung the Colt back up to aim at Gordon. Neither Kubrick or Gordon even flinched.

"I did tell you to come alone," Gordon said.

Dean was shouting against the gag, trying his best to cuss Gordon out, even with the fabric choking his words. Sam took a deep breath – Dean could see his shoulders rise and fall, slowly, and he kept the Colt trained on Gordon, no emotion on his face at all. Dean copied Sam, taking a breath to calm himself down. Sam had looked surprised for just a moment, but it'd disappeared almost immediately – so he'd been expecting it. Of course he had been. Ava had been the one to tell them about the explosion, and Cas had been standing right there listening. It wasn't like Cas would've forgotten to mention that little detail about the back room being rigged to explode.

If Cas and Dad had expected this, then there was no way that they'd be caught in the explosion. Meaning that there was no reason for Dean to actually start panicking. Or, sure, he could act like he was – no way was he going to let Gordon and Kubrick know that Cas and Dad were just fine and ruin their element of surprise – but that didn't mean anything.

Then Kubrick raised one hand, and smile slowly spreading over his face. "Just wait," he said. "This is the good part."

Two seconds passed, and then the back room was blown apart by a second round of explosives.

This explosion was bigger, lasted longer, and Dean screamed against his gag, trying and failing to call Cas and Dad's names.

Sam froze again, but it wasn't in surprise this time. Dean could read every emotion that crossed Sam's face, and fear had to be number one on that list. Or, maybe not fear – Dean was pretty sure that terror was a hell of a lot more accurate, and suddenly Dean felt like he couldn't breath.

"You bastard," Sam said, practically snarling the word, and strode forward, toward Gordon, Colt still held out straight in front of him. Kubrick raised his gun, but Sam spun around, pointing the Colt back and forth between the two of them. "Don't test me," he snapped. "Just release my damn brother."

"You know, those explosives were supposed to be meant for you," Gordon said, still way too calmly. "You were going to be the only casualty today, if you'd just listen. But they got what they deserved, trying to help you survive. People who work with the monsters are no better than the monsters themselves."

"Last time I'm saying it," Sam said. "Let. Dean. Go."

"Set the Colt on the ground and we will," Gordon said.

Sam hesitated, then slowly began to crouch down, lowering the Colt but still keeping it trained on Gordon. "I set this on the ground, and how do I know you won't shoot me right now?"

"You don't," Gordon said with a shrug. "But if you want Dean to make it out of here okay, then I guess you'll just have to-"

"Look out!"

The shout came from Kubrick, and he tossed himself to the side, just as a bullet tore through the wall behind where he'd been standing just a second earlier.

Sam jumped to his feet in an instant, but Gordon responded just as fast, swinging his gun out and striking Sam in the side of his head. Sam staggered, but responded the same way, slamming the side of Colt into Gordon's face, and then there was a sick crunch and blood was spurting out of Gordon's nose.

Then Dad and Cas were storming the room, John and Kubrick circling each other with their guns drawn, Cas suddenly kneeling beside Dean's chair, already pulling a knife from his pocket to cut the rope holding Dean's arm to the chair. Dean stared at him, caught between relief and panic. Dad and Cas were fine, they'd avoided the second round of explosions, and Dean finally felt like he could breath again – but Dad and Kubrick were circling each other like only one of them would make it out alive, and Sam and Gordon were still duking it out, trading blows instead of bullets, but that could change at any moment.

"Go help them," Dean said, but of course the words didn't make any sense, and he groaned in frustration, nodding his head in Sammy's direction in the hopes that he would get the message.

Cas obviously didn't understand what Dean was trying to say, but he did pause and set his knife in Dean's lap, then pulled the gag from Dean's mouth. So there was that, at least. Dean spat out the wad of cloth that Gordon had shoved into his mouth, then said quickly, "Forget about untying me. Go help Sam and Dad. They need-"

"Your brother and father will be fine," Cas said, grabbing the knife again and setting to work on Dean's other wrist. "Give me one more moment to free you, and then we can both-"

Sam fell, hitting the ground hard, crying out as his head slammed into the wood floor. The Colt tumbled out of his hands, and it was barely a second before Gordon had grabbed it.

"Cas-" Dean shouted, but Cas was already moving, tightening his grip on the knife and throwing himself at Gordon just as Gordon took aim at Sam.

Cas thrust with the knife, but Gordon turned just in time to see it coming, moved just in time so that the knife stabbed into his arm instead of his chest. His uninjured arm, meaning that now he was fighting with both arms down, but he was still fighting.

Dean couldn't see what was happening. Sam was rolling out of way, toward the back corner of the room, and Cas was still wrestling with Gordon. Dean didn't dare do more than glance at them every couple seconds to see what they were doing – he was too busy fighting a battle of his own, trying to rip off the ropes that tied his legs to the chair so that he could do something but sit here being useless. It wasn't fucking working, though. Gordon had tied them tight, and Dean was too impatient to be careful, even though that stupid voice in the back of his head kept reminding him that he was probably moving so fast he was messing up and making it take even longer. He gritted his teeth and yanked the rope as hard as he could. Cas looked like he was winning – 'course he was, he was a fucking angel, for god's sake – but that didn't mean that Dean could just sit here. He had to get free and go help, before Cas-

Then came the gunshot.

Dean froze, then looked up.

Just as Cas fell to his knees. One hand still clutching the knife, the other hand holding his stomach. His shirt was already turning red. Gordon still held the Colt, but now the barrel was smoking.

For one second, Dean swore that the whole world stopped moving. He heard himself screaming Cas' name, but that was the only thing that he heard, like nothing else even dared to make a sound. Then everything snapped back into focus, and one more shot echoed through the room. Dean looked around frantically, half expecting to see Dad or Sam collapse to the ground – because Cas had been shot, and that meant that everything else that could possibly go wrong had to be happening too, Dean couldn't even imagine a happy end.

Then Kubrick hit the ground, and Dad swung his gun around to point it toward Gordon. At that same moment, Sam reached the back corner, where Dean's stolen weapons had been piled. An instant later, he was on his knees, gun pointed at Gordon from behind.

Gordon took one look at the two of them, both of them aiming their guns at him while his friend lay dead on the floor, and then he turned and ran.

Dad took off after him, chasing him through the destroyed back room and disappearing from view. Sam didn't even look like he cared that Gordon was getting away. Instead, he dropped the gun and immediately rushed over to Cas, grabbing him and lifting him into his arms. ""Cas! Hey, Cas, look at me, you're okay, you got that? You're fine. We're going to get you help."

Dean yanked once, twice, three times at the ropes, ripping them viciously, calling them every swear he could think of and several that he had to invent. And finally, he got them loose enough that he could slip his legs out of them and run over to drop to his knees next to Cas.

Cas' eyes were open, but unfocused, both hands pressed against his stomach now. "Hey, you listen to me, Cas," Dean said, voice low. "Don't you dare die or do anything stupid like that, you got me? Don't you fucking dare." He ripped off his jacket as fast as he could, shoving Cas' hands out of the way so that he could press the jacket against the wound, pushing down hard to try to stop the bleeding. He could barely see what he was doing. Cas' skin was warping underneath his hands, twisting until Dean couldn't even see where the gunshot was. He could see the blood, but there was blood everywhere, seeping out from blacked flesh, like Cas had been burned, and fuck, he knew that this couldn't be real, but did he have to start seeing things now? He wasn't tied up anymore, but he felt just as useless, staring down at Cas and trying to figure out where he should even put pressure. He didn't even know where the wound was, how was he supposed to do something about it?

Then Sam was putting Cas in Dean's arms, switching him over so that Dean was the one who was propping him up. "Hold him," Sam said, and Dean nodded, tightening his grip on Cas, Sam ripping the jacket out of Dean's hands and pressing it against Cas himself. Okay. Okay, Dean could do this part. Cas was twitching – or the hallucination was twitching – and it looked like he was going to spasm out of Dean's arms, but he could feel the real Cas lying almost completely still in his arms. Dean took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, trying to focus on the feel of Cas in his arms, and the fact that Dean could feel him move, which meant that he had to still be alive.

He tried to ignore the fact that when he opened his eyes, it looked like he was holding a corpse.

His mind was whirling frantically, searching for something he could do to help, and suddenly his mind landed on Hester. And fuck if he didn't think that it would be useless, but he had to try anything, so a second later he was shouting in his mind, Hester! Listen to me, I don't care if you believe Cas or not, you need to get your ass down here. Seriously, get down here. You can feel where I am, right? Cas is- We need some help here.

The words circled through his mind, a million different ways to pray for help. There was no response. Dean felt stupid for hoping that there would be.

"Dean," Cas said. His voice was barely audible, but it made Dean's eyes fly open immediately, his prayers forgotten. Cas was staring up at him – Dean thought that Cas was staring up at him – and his eyes were wide, but Dean swore they were more focused now. For about two seconds, until they started flashing black, and Dean couldn't hold back a shudder.

"Dean," Cas repeated, and his voice was twisted just like everything else, but Dean could tell that it was a little louder, a little stronger. He coughed, then said, "Being injured is much less pleasant as a human than as an angel."

"Yeah, no shit," Dean said, but he couldn't stop the relief from washing over him. He still couldn't see, still couldn't check on Cas for himself, but if Cas was able to make comments like that, then he had to be okay, right? That had to mean he hadn't been hurt too bad.

"Dean," Sam said suddenly, and his voice was urgent, but Dean couldn't tell if it was in a bad way or not. "Look at this."

Dean opened his eyes immediately, and looked down, trying to figure out what Sam was talking about, if it was something he should be freaking out about. Now, the hallucination had changed, but it was still twisting his vision – Cas' flesh bubbling, blood pouring from every inch of his skin, his body turning a sickly green color-

Dean pulled in a long breath. "What?" he snapped, because if he couldn't see what was happening himself, then Sam sure as hell better start explaining soon, or else-

Sam realized what was going on immediately, because he answered at once. "There's not enough blood," he said, so fast that his words were all rushing together. "He's not bleeding as much as he should be."

"What?" Dean asked.

Cas cleared his throat, and tried to sit up. Dean instinctively tightened his hands around Cas, holding him in place, and after a moment, Cas gave in, and stopped trying to move. But he did clear his throat again, and said, "I still have my grace." His voice was breathless, and drawn with pain, but at least it was steady.

"Yeah," Dean said, and his mind was still spinning in circles too fast for him to get it.

Sam did, though. "You think that it does something?" he asked.

Cas nodded his head slightly, just the tiniest bit of movement. "I had hoped," he managed, and didn't say anything else, because at that exact moment, he tried to move again, and cried out.

"Shit," Dean said, holding Cas even closer. "Fuck fuck fuck." He started it up like a mantra under his breath, and couldn't stop himself from repeating it, even after Cas had stilled in his arms.

Cas was still panting, his breathing hard and labored, but he gasped out, "I'm fine. I need to be careful. I'm fine."

Footsteps coming from the back of the house. Sam and Dean both stiffened, and Sam let go of Cas, grabbing Dean's gun from where he'd stuck it on the ground beside him and aiming it at the back door. Dean carefully shifted his grip on Cas, making sure not to jar him, but carefully sliding his hand down to take over putting pressure against the wound. He didn't care what Sam said about it not bleeding much, he wasn't taking chances.

If Gordon had been the one to walk through that door, Dean didn't know what he would've done. Hoped that Sam shot him first, mostly. Tried to roll over and grab one of his other weapons from where they were still piled in the corner – fucking bastard deserved to have an angel blade shoved where the sun didn't shine, or in even more unpleasant places.

It was Dad, gun still in hand, scowl on his face. "Gordon got away," he said, then glanced over toward Dean and Cas. "How is he?"

Slowly, Sam lowered his gun. "He'll recover," he said.

Dad nodded once. "Good," he said. "Think we can move him? We've gotta get out of here. With those explosions, I'd give it five minutes before the police get here." He didn't wait for a response, just headed over and started gathering up all of Dean's stolen weapons.

"Think you're okay to move?" Sam asked. He was frowning, looking like he wasn't quite sure about whether to move him, even if Dad had a point – the longer they stayed, the better the odds that their asses were going to wind up in jail.

Cas nodded determinedly, but Dean didn't think that that meant much – the guy could've been bleeding out, and he would still be insisting that he wasn't hurt. And shit, Dean should not have thought about Cas bleeding out, because he swore those two words made the hallucinations throw a party, start fucking with him twice as hard until he had to squeeze his eyes shut to block out the things that weren't here.

"Yes," Cas said firmly, and he didn't sound terrible, at least. "Yes, I can be moved." He started to sit again – hadn't learned his lesson last time – but when Dean tightened his fingers on Cas' shoulders, he paused and admitted, "I think that I may need help. But I can move."

Sam looked at Cas for a long minute. That was good. Dean couldn't see Cas' expression, couldn't tell if he was telling the truth or not, but Sam would be able to. Sam would know if this was all just a big pile of bullshit or not.

Finally, Sam nodded once. "Okay," he said. "Let's get out of here."