A/N: This chapter took me so long, mainly because writing any sort of action sequence is a weakness for me. It's something I'm constantly trying to improve on. I'm not the best at them but I absolutely needed this update to have these scenes. This is also one of my longest updates to date, I think. I was going to divide it up but when I re-read it...it just didn't seem right to have it in individual chapters. So I hope you guys don't mind it. I wanted to submit it all together in the end, instead of as a bunch of smaller updates. This will also allow for the next few chapters to run a bit more smoothly - this was 'the' chapter I was most worried about because I needed a certain event to take place...and I couldn't think of any other way to initiate it.

Anyways! As always, thank you so much for reading along! I appreciate you all so much. I'd send each of you boxes of fresh baked cookies ( or a homemade dessert of your choice ) if I could. If you feel so inclined - I'd love it even more if you could R&R! Or R&R&PM. I read all of my reviews, answer questions, all that jazz. I also respond to all the messages so no one goes unnoticed!

I hope you guys enjoy this one.v

Gravel and dead leaves crunched beneath their feet as they walked down what had at one point been the sleepy little town's main street. Her eyes stayed trained ahead, sweeping over the terrain; but her mind couldn't have been further away. Every so often she'd glance to her side to see whether or not Dean was still within arms reach. Of course he was. Why had he chosen her today? Out of everyone who had come on the run Dean had singled her out. They got along as well as gasoline and open flames did. Neither liked or trusted the other and it was obvious. No one was coming to rescue her. Alli had a sneaking suspicion that no one cared.

It took her a few minutes but she finally worked up the courage to ask. "Why did you single out me?" He shot her a look that told her it was a stupid question, but Allison didn't care. She really couldn't come up with an answer on her own. "Come on. You don't like me. You don't trust me. Why did you want me with you?"

"I don't know you. You've been in my camp for weeks know and I know jack all about you."

As soon as she said it she could hear Castiel's voice in her head. When they'd figured out what was wrong with her, how she healed him. He'd asked her to keep it a secret. He didn't want her telling anyone in the camp. At the time she hadn't asked him why he'd sworn her to secrecy, she'd been too worn down to care. For whatever reason Castiel thought it was important. Allison had never questioned it. Dean was right. He didn't know her.

"What do you want to know?" The pair on their left consisted of a teenaged boy and an older man. The one on the right was more or less the same. Allison couldn't have named any of the four. They didn't look at all concerned about what was going on up front either.

Dean looked over at her then to the road ahead, then back to her. She could have been imagining things but she swore she'd seen the ghost of a smirk pass over his face. "Okay then," he'd ask her about her brother, maybe some of the stuff he'd read in the journal he'd found while riffling through her personal belongings while she had been unconscious after he'd almost killed her. "What's going on between you and Cas?" and when he asked only one thing ran through her mind.

Shit.

Her heart began to beat faster in her chest. Allison prayed that she wasn't giving herself away. It was a loaded question, even if Dean didn't know it. Allison decided to counter it, play the oblivious card. "What do you mean?"

Dean only shrugged. "One of the guys on night watch heard some…interesting noises coming from the cabin last night. He thought I should check it out." Allison tried to play it cool, but she was torn between running or slamming her fist into the side of the mans face and then running.

From the moment she'd woken up in the camp, she'd had an intense dislike for Dean. He'd almost killed her, he'd taken her personal belongings, interrogated her. He seemed like he was a complete ass to everyone in the camp but with her? There was an extra helping of it. The idea of them being overheard was…embarrassing. The thought of Dean coming to investigate? She tried to remember if the windows had been covered or maybe there had been a knock on the door that they had ignored. It was hard to remember anything that wasn't Cas. The way he touched her, the heat of his skin underneath her lips. She didn't know what to say, and if she opened her mouth she doubted she'd be able to formulate anything close to a coherent sentence.

Dean must have picked upon her level of discomfort and as if he wanted to prolong the moment for as long as possible, he continued. "Cas doesn't bring girls back to the cabin. He never has, as long as we've been there. I know he was with someone."

Finally, she found her voice. "Maybe he brought someone back."

Dean gave her a simple, pointed look. "Then where were you? I had watch check the camp, you weren't hiding out anywhere." Despite her best efforts she felt a slow wave of heat stir in her cheeks. "Pretty sure we don't have any other ladies named Allison in camp, either."

Son of a bitch.

The way that he was looking at her, he knew. At this point her cheeks were no doubt flushed, and the anger would be shown flush across her body. The way she looked at him, the way she held herself. There would be no denying it now, he'd caught her. She hadn't wanted to have this conversation with Castiel, but she would have thrown herself into a flaming pit rather than have this talk with Dean Winchester. "Why do you care?" Allison asked, if her overall composure hadn't given it away the near 'catty' teenage-worthy tone definitely would have. Dean didn't respond right away. She wondered if she'd crossed a line, but she wasn't sure that there were really any 'lines' to cross with this man. He was all raw, exposed nerve.

It looked like he was actually thinking about something, picking out the right answer. "You don't know anything about him, do you?" The laugh that accompanied the question was every bit as cold and bitter as the man himself. What did that have to do with anything? Allison didn't know his life story, she hadn't asked. She'd been a bit too per-occupied with certain other things to think about where he'd grown up, what sports he played in highschool, or if he'd gotten bullied because of his slightly ridiculous name. "I'm all he's got." Dean wasn't looking at her anymore, he was staring straight ahead. His jaw was set, either he was angry or annoyed. Or both. It was probably both. She wondered what he meant by that. Did Castiel not have family? What about Lisa and Chuck? Were Dean and Cas related or something? She wasn't sure, but she wasn't about to ask that now.

There was this feeling in the air, like she had only just heard the beginning from Dean and he wasn't anywhere close to done with her yet. Lucky for her, fate decided to do her a favor and intervene. The pair on their right had stopped, they were looking at one of the old houses that lined the side of the road,only they hadn't noticed just yet. They had been too busy taking snipes at each other to even take in the world around them.

"Dean!" The older of the two called out. There was a slight urgency in his voice.

"What?" The man snapped, looking around. When he noticed the source of the voice was further away, he called out again, this time louder "What?"

The two men looked at each other, as if suddenly unsure of getting their leaders attention. "I heard something…"

Dean rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath that sounded like a string of barely coherent insults. "What do you mean 'you heard something' ?" Dean strode over to them, and Allison reluctantly followed.

"I uh…think I saw something, too." The younger man piped up.

Dean's jaw set. "Why are you standing out here then?" She understood that the younger boy hadn't been on a run with Dean yet - ever…but the other guy she knew for a fact that he had done at least one or two. They had their orders. Small disturbances, you checked out for yourself. If something went wrong, you screamed for help and the cavalry would come running. If you could scream for help, that is.

Neither moved towards the house. Dean took the steps two at a time, when he reached the door he tried the handle once, and then kicked it open. "You," He pointed to the older man "Come with me." Then he turned his attention to her. "And you…" Allison cringed "stay with the kid." Okay, that hadn't been anywhere nearly as bad as she had been expecting. Of course there were likely a million reasons why Dean did not want her going into the house, and if she really thought about them then her anger would return. For now she was fine with where she was.

Allison leaned up against the old metal railing that was still firmly attached to the side of the porch. It ground slightly, but supported her weight. The other groups who had come up behind them were slowing down. It seemed as if them stopping had made the others more cautious. There were no more purposeful strides, and no one only stared straight ahead.

The kid who was waiting on the porch with her looked uneasy. She wasn't sure why, maybe it was first run nerves or Dean's abrasive personality had gotten to him as well. The way he held himself, the way he cradled his rifle. His feet were moving underneath him, shifting his weight from one foot to another. Had he ever even held a gun before this? Somehow, she doubted it. The hold was too awkward, he gripped it so tightly his knuckles were white.

"Are you alright?" She asked cautiously.

He jumped, actually jumped. It was like he had totally forgotten that she had been there in the first place. Which, given that she was standing only a few feet away from him was more than a little odd. She mentally scratched her first question out. He obviously wasn't okay. The way he acted reminded her of how she had felt, the first few weeks after the infection had begun to spread. Allison had no way of knowing what was going through his mind - but she knew she had felt the way that he had looked. Her brother had been around her at the time, but he had just barely been hanging on. He was the big brother, and all the family that she had left. He had to look after her. Keeping her calm had been a big part of that.

So she tried from a different angle. "Is this your first run?" Now he had her attention. For better or worse, he was looking at her. He nodded slowly. "Probably your first time with a gun, too. Right?" She assumed, anyways. Only a few people were allowed to carry guns within the camp, for the most part their weapons were stored and the 'general public' did not have access. He nodded again.

"You know, I'd never even held a gun before everything went to hell...we had an old rifle in our house, it was my grandad's. It was mounted on the wall above our fire place. It didn't even work. That was the closest I'd been to a gun." Allison watched him from the corner of her eye, only turning to look at him every few seconds' she didn't want him to get even more antsy.

"We found a pistol, after everything started...one of our neighbors was a gun nut. I didn't want to use one, but my brother told me to look at myself, what was I gonna do, kill one of them with my bare hands?" A small smile formed on her face as she heard the conversation play out in her mind again. There was the faint sound of a chuckle, only it belonged to the young man standing across from her. " There was a shotgun too, but he didn't want me to have that one. Anyway, my brother figured out how to load them...I didn't even have the pistol in my hand for a minute and I almost shot my own foot." Now he was smiling. "I was a horrible shot, too. The first time I actually used the thing, I shot out one of the tires on our truck. Some genius had set up all the bottles and tins just close enough...I got better, but it took awhile. It's okay to be uncomfortable, I don't like guns either."

"But you look...fine with it."

Allison shrugged. "I think I realized somewhere along the line, that a gun was my lifeline. I wouldn't have made it this far without one. If you're antsy, freaking out, you're more likely to waste bullets or worse; you might hurt yourself or someone else. Someone you don't want to hurt. You don't have to like it, but you've got to accept it." He looked down at his own gun now, Allison noticed his gripe had loosened on it, and he had stopped fidgeting.

"My name's Allison, by the way."

"I know." She tilted her head, glancing at the road. Of course he knew.

Then he surprised her. "I'm Jesse."

Suddenly she felt a lot better about having been left out on the porch.

xxx

Dean and his guy had taken about fifteen minutes all together. They came out of the house unscathed and with a full backpack of supplies. Whatever they had the thought they had seen or heard, it wasn't anywhere in the residence. Allison and Jesse has talked about camp life, how long he'd been there; whether or not Dean had always been so personable. He didn't offer many details about his life before the camp, but Allison didn't ask. She knew that he had a mother and a younger sister back at camp and that Dean had been the one to take them in.

When Dean got our he barked his orders, he wanted them to continue down the strip, he wanted Jesse and Richard ( the older man, as she had found out) to stay with him and Allison.

There was a more cautious air this time. Even though Alli was walking by his side again, he didn't bring up Castiel, he didn't so much as speak to her. Jesse stayed closer to her this time, she noticed that he chose to stay by her, instead of on Deans other side. He looked over at the gruff man every few seconds, as of he were afraid of Dean. She couldn't blame him, Dean didn't seem like the type of guy who put people at ease.

The group was fast approaching a fork in the road. One roadway veered to the left while the other veered to the right. The entire group was now converging on the crossroads, everyone who had come with them was now closing in on the area.

"My recovery team. Come with me. The rest of you, I want you to check the first few houses down that way. Clear it and then make your way back here. We've got half an hour to work this."

Allison stood there, holding her rifle against her chest. Who was part of his recovery team? Dean didn't bother repeating himself, he only stepped away from the crowd. With him, other members of the group separated themselves and followed their leader. Allison looked around, the ones who didn't follow Dean stood there for a moment before their attention turned to her left.

"You heard him. We'll work this four people to a building. We'll clear it faster that way." Allison cringed. For a split second she seriously considered chasing after Dean. Apparently, the 'leader' of the second group was Castiel. Now she'd just need to suck it up. If everyone co-operated and did their jobs this wouldn't take long, she'd be back in the truck in no time. Did she want to be in the truck? Well…she hadn't thought about that.

Castiel moved out. Allison found that Jesse was still stuck to her side, clearly Dean didn't want the 'new boy', or he didn't think this was an appropriate teaching experience. Neither said anything as the mob moved forward. They stopped in front of the first building, a small corner store. Castiel turned to them, scanning the crowd. He began calling out names. There was a dozen people in his group and he was dividing them up. There were two more buildings within earshot, a small house and what looked like another store. He sent one group into the house, the other towards the store. Jesse reluctantly went with his group; but not before casting Allison a look that she deciphered as a silent plea.

That left Allison, and two other men whose name escaped her; with Castiel himself. Once the others had gone on their way Castiel ushered the three of them to follow him into the store.

Allison purposely waited for the men ahead of her to step through the doorway, using the two as a space between her and Castiel. The ride had been painful enough; but she hoped their issues wouldn't be brought up now. More than anything she just wanted the day to end.

They advanced slowly. Once they were inside she saw a barren storefront. Knocked over shelves and a handful of display cases, smashed up coolers. They clearly weren't the first people to pass through; and she doubted they'd be able to salvage much. They hadn't been in there for more than five minutes before one of the men voiced the concern that they all had in their mind.

"Cas? I don't think we're gonna find much in here. It's a goddamn wreck." The older of the two said, shoving an empty brown box out of his path with his foot. "Nothing here." He grunted.

Allison looked up, pulling her eyes away from the shelving unit that she had been inspecting. Castiel was at the other end of the store, he had been looking at some of the smashed in coolers. At one point they might have held drinks, popsicles, other treats. Now? Not so much. He didn't even turn around when he adressed the man.

"We have to look anyways. Unless you want to explain to Dean why we aren't salvaging. In that case, be my guest." He looked over his shoulder at the man, Allison had almost expected to see some sort of smile; a joking grin. Only there was nothing. It was stern, almost cold. The man took one look and then ( begrudgingly ) went back to his search.

They continued with the store. Castiel eventually worked his way to the back office, and he took one of the men to check the basement. Leaving Allison with the complainer upstairs to keep an eye on things. Castiel had insisted that they be thorough or face Dean's wrath, so once he returned from the basement they checked the store top to bottom before moving on. Once they were finished with the corner store they moved on, now the next step was to check on the other groups; in case someone had missed something.

The other groups were having as much luck as they did. This pushed Castiel to do quick walkthroughs of four more buildings before he gave up. The time was up, and Dean would be heading back with whatever he had managed to salvage. No one in their right minds would keep him waiting. All together they had only managed to fill a duffel back and a half. It was pathetic, as one man put it. Castiel assured them that it was better than nothing, and they had figuratively struck gold when they had found clean bandages, some unopened tubes of antibiotic ointment, and a few rolls of medical tape.

xxx

Feeling more than a little defeated, they began the trek back to the meeting spot. As if reflecting their moods, heavy grey clouds were rolling in fast. It looked like a storm was on it's way. There was a scent in the area - the type that came before rainfall Allison noticed. As if the mood wasn't already grim enough.

To their collective surprise, they were back at the meeting place before Dean was. Someone asked if they could go to the cars and wait there and Castiel gave them one of the scariest glares she had ever seen. Which effectively kept all complaining to a minimum. The group stayed partially bunched together, anxiously kicking at the gravel or making small talk. Castiel had situated himself away from them, for whatever reason. Allison has thought about going up and talking to him. What she'd say, she wasn't sure. Maybe warn him about Dean knowing; but she had a feeling she would be the only one catching heat for that. She was the stranger, the outsider. It only took her seconds to decide that talking to Cas was probably a bad idea.

They waited, one minute quickly turned into five and the others began to get impatient. She noticed that Castiel's demeanor had seemed to change as well. While he'd kept a watchful eye on them, now his eyes were fixed on the road that Dean had taken. They stood there for ten minutes before one of them approached him.

"He's never late." The man said. Allison had inched closer, just enough to hear the muted voices. They were purposely keeping their tones low. "We should go down there."

Castiel didn't look away from the road. "We'll give him a few more minutes." The man only looked more worried.

"You really want us to wait?"

Castiel opened his mouth, but he never got a chance to reply. The sound of shouting and gunfire pierced through the still air. Everyone jumped, raising their guns. The sound had come from down the road, a ways from where they stood. While moments ago the streets had been empty; Allison could now see the gun toting shapes pouring out onto the road. With extra bodies.

Her blood ran cold. No one said anything, no one gave any orders. Castiel took off and they followed closely on his heels. The closer they got, the clearer the picture became. Those things…Croats, as people at the camp called them. There had to be at least a dozen of them, with more coming from every angle. Dean and his crew were alternating between running and firing; but the running would need to stop at some point. These things were fast and there were only some many times you could miss the targets. As soon as their groups converged on Dean's, they opened fire.

"Dean!" She heard Castiel shout over the gunfire - he wasted no time returning to his leaders side.

"They came out of nowhere!" Dean didn't sound scared, or surprised…he sounded pissed.

The group had more or less stopped now. Two of theirs had shouldered their rifles, and were attending to one of Dean's guys. She could see them out of the corner of her eye. Allison didn't pay too much attention to them though; she was trying to help thin the heard.

She was pushed backwards by the force of the blast when she pointed the shotgun at a gnarled woman who flung herself towards them. The first shot was in the shoulder, she staggered backwards but didn't crumple to the ground. One by one the monsters dropped in the shower of ammunition; but it seemed like the more they put down the more appeared. Someone to their right had said their were some coming from the ally between two of the houses, then someone on the left said they were coming from up the road. She didn't know if that was true, she didn't look. All she knew is that where there had been a dozen before, there was double that now.

"We gotta move, We can't cut through them." Dean's voice cut over the sounds, urging them to double back.

"Get back to the trucks! We'll be right behind you" Another voice urged, Castiel's.

She froze in place. She had the gun leveled, poised to shoot. She looked at Castiel, the only expression on her face was a blank stare. He wanted them to run? While he did what? Still, what were their odds? The Croats were crawling out of every alleyway now. How had they missed them? Where the hell had they come from?

"Go!" Their leaders cold voice boomed.

Someone grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back. Allison almost fell right over but she snapped out of it just in time. Jessie had grabbed her jacket and was attempting to drag her away. Get back to the trucks. Right.

She ran with him, at least several other people were alongside them. Now they noticed bodies appearing on the roadway that they had just come from moments ago. Not as many as the gathering swarm behind them, but enough to worry.

They were still firing behind them, but when she glanced back she saw that some of the men had switched to other tactics. At least three had abandoned guns for blades, hacking and slashing at anything that came within reach. They were gradually moving back, but at this rate they were outnumbered. Allison turned on her heel, she'd been told to run from the mob and she had been - but if they men didn't move they'd be overtaken. She wasn't thinking as her feet pounded against the gravel. She heard something behind her, someone telling her to come back. Allison ignored him, tunnel vision kicked in.

As she reached Dean and Castiel, one of the Croats had gotten hold of one of Dean's men. Allison jumped into action, she knew she couldn't fire; she would hit the man and not the monster. She slammed the butt of her rifle into the thing, it's jaws dislodged from the man's shoulder and it faltered backwards, letting out a guttural moan. It poised it's rotting teeth to bite again, but she slung the rifle into it's face with enough force to push ti back. Allison did it again, and again. On the third strike there was distinct cracking sound, and something splashed onto her face…she could feel it fly up and hit her but wasn't as much concern to her as the corpse at her feet. It stopped moving, so she turned her attention back to the man she had saved. He wasn't back on his feet, in fact he wasn't moving at all. Blood was pooling around his head and she could see now there was a horrible open wound on his neck. He was already gone by the time she'd pulled the Croat off of him. He had lost blood too fast, there wasn't anything that she could have done.

Allison felt a pang of guilt, but instinct quickly overrode it. She pulled the machete out of his hands, rifle shouldered for now. Everything was too close. She could see Dean a few meters away, Castiel was still at his side. One of them was handling a knife, the other had a handgun. There were two other people within arms reach of her, each trying to evade the gnashing teeth and crooked claws of the zombie-like creatures hellbent on getting a hold of them.

There was no thought process as she slashed at the creatures, the blades cutting clothing, and flesh. They weren't people anymore, they didn't feel pain, or remorse. She'd come up against them before. Not this many, smaller groups. Her parents had turned into these things, gradually everyone she'd ever known had. She'd had to kill her own father. Only, it hadn't been their father. That was what her brother had told her. Their dad was gone when the infection kicked in, the monster that had come after her was not the man who had raised them. Still, the monster had his face. Brad had always said maybe it was good, in some morbid way, that they dealt with something so horrific first. It prepared them…it molded them into survivors.

Allison had known emotional attachments to these creatures. They had one purpose - to kill. They were like rabid animals; and rabid animals had to be put down.

The machete was serving it's purpose; though the blade wasn't the sharpest…each swing brought a new ache into her bones but she knew that she couldn't let up. Getting the heads seemed to work, if you rammed something through their eyes, ears, skull…even the mouth if you could get the right angle they would drop. She wasn't sure how long she'd been there but the next time she looked over to her side she saw that Castiel was there, and Dean was just in front of her. She hadn't even seen them move.

"Where the fuck are they coming from?" Someone yelled.

Dean looked at them. "We've gotta get back to the trucks, we can't stay here!" That meant they'd need to try and outrun them. They could try to cut them back step by step, but eventually they'd be surrounded; or someone would misstep. They had to make a run for it.

Before they could make a move she heard a screech. A pained cry. It wasn't from the Croats, it was from one of them. But their group was together? Where had it come from? Her eyes fled form figure to figure until they saw a group three, some of the guys that she had been heading back to the trucks with. They had doubled back. There was one with a gun, letting the bullets fly in the direction of anything that moved. There was one on the ground, and another trying to wrestle a Croat off of them. There was another corpse on top of the flailing figure, but it wasn't moving.

They needed help, and she could get to them.

It took her all of seconds to reach the group. She helped the man wrestle the Croat off of it's intended victim. The thing was huge, in life it had to have weighed upwards of 200 pounds easily, it was like trying to pin a pro wrestler down. She got a hold of it, pinning it to the ground while the other rammed a knife into it's eye socket.

"What the hell are you doing?!" It was Dean, was at her side. Allison got up, pulling herself off of the corpse. Her eyes flew to the person on the pavement. They were still screaming, even though nothing was attacking him; he'd kicked the other corpse off of his legs. But he was bleeding. There was a bite on his arm, at least that was what it looked like - some sort of bite. The monster she had just held down had a bleeding mouth, and something had fallen from it while they had been trying to pull it away. A chunk of flesh, it was laying by her feet. She could see muscles, she almost swore that she could see bone. Could they even get that deep? Panic rose in her chest..

The young man was babbling "You gotta get me out of here, I'm bleeding…I'm dying. Please!" Allison looked into his pleading eyes. Jesse. The kid she'd given the pep talk to not even an hour ago, he was laying there on the roadway. He had another bite wound to his neck, it was bleeding profusely. She flew to his side, the machete clattered to the ground - finally leaving her vice-like grip. She needed her hands for other things now. She pressed her hand against the open wound as hard as she could. Blood seeped through her fingers, but that only made her tighten her hold. She tried to hold him but, fumbled, she needed help. She looked up at the men, most too busy with the infected to even notice her. Then she saw Castiel, he was at Jesse's side now.

"He's been bitten…it's really bad, Cas." Her voice broke. It wasn't just panic now. It was fear. Fear for Jesse's life, he was just a kid. This was his first run. He didn't even want to be there! Then it was fear for her own safety - and for the safety of the others. When she had spoken to him on the steps it had been obvious that he wanted to be anywhere but there. The mob that had been centered around Dean had moved with him. "Help me get him up! If we can just get him to the trucks…We can bandage him and then - "

"No."

Allison's eyes widened, had he really just said that? No. His lips hadn't moved. Then she looked up. Dean was towering over her and the young man. "Leave him here, we have to go now. He wont make it back." Castiel didn't move, he didn't get up. He didn't do anything.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Allison jerked herself into a standing position, desperately trying to pull Jesse to his feet. "We need to get him back to the trucks."

"I said leave him!" Dean roared. Hot tears ran down her cheeks. The anger, the fear, it was overflowing now. Seeping out of her very being. Dean didn't tell her again, instead he left. He took off running, the others began to follow. If she didn't move she'd get left behind.

"You've gotta move, okay? I'll get you out of here." Allison pleaded, urging Jesse to co-operate. He was losing blood, fast. His eyes were half shut and the screaming had died down to moans. He was heavy, taller than her. Allison took a step forward but she knew she couldn't hold him and maintain the pressure, she needed extra support. If she didn't move faster they would both die.

She took another step, but this time the weight of Jesse's body moved forward more easily, it felt more as if she'd been pushed as opposed to dragged…someone was supporting him. She didn't look; but she heard it. "He said to leave him." Castiel's voice overtook the pained moaning.

The tears came harder now, she wasn't sure why, but they fell even faster. "I'm not leaving him!" She bit back, wrapping her free arm around Jesse's waist to better support him. She was going to save him. They were. Castiel was helping her move him he had to be supporting at least half Jesse's weight. They were moving faster. Moments ago she'd thought that they wouldn't make it but now…now they had a chance.

A small group had stayed behind them, they were picking off the Croats the choose to follow; as well as any ahead of them that the others hadn't taken care of.

As they neared the crossroads she could feel Jesse's pulse begin to slow underneath her fingertips. It had been fluttery- but now…it was slowing. She didn't know how she could feel it, maybe the wound had been that deep? Or maybe her mind was just putting two and two together. They weren't at the trucks yet, they were still at least five minutes from them…and that was if they ran. Unless some of the others brought the vehicles back; and she prayed they would.

"He's not going to make it." Castiel's voice cut through the air like a knife. "He's fading fast."

Allison shook her head, forcing herself to take a step forward. No. He wasn't dying. She wasn't letting him. Only when she moved, Castiel didn't. Why was he stopping? What type of an idiot would stop? "Allison, He'll bleed out before we get him back."

She jerked on the boys waist but Castiel wouldn't allow him to move. "No! No! Don't you dare. We can save him! Cas, please!"

She could do something. He could make it a few more meters, they'd bring the trucks around…there were bandages in the car. No, she couldn't wait for the cars. She knew he was dying, she wasn't stupid. His blood was staying her fingers, running down her arms. It was seeping into her skin. She could feel him dying beneath her fingertips. She had to do something.

Allison swung herself around, repositioning her hand. Before Castiel could tell her to stop, her lips connected with Jesse's.

She didn't notice the taste of blood or dirt, both covered his mouth. A jolt ran through her body; her eyes shut. She could hear Castiel speaking; he was frantic, he was calling her for. All she could think about was Jesse. The bites, the terrible bites….and the blood. She could do something. Drowning out Castiel's pleading voice was a dull thudding sound, it got louder…every second it grew more and more until she could practically feel the vibrations in her body. It was like a heartbeat. Her's? Or His? There was another jolt again; she'd felt that sensation before…with Castiel. Then all of the sudden the thudding stopped, her eyes snapped open. She was staring into Jesse's, his were wide with fear, they had been closed a second ago, but now he looked alive. She felt dizzy, she noticed that right away…but alive. Maybe it was the adrenaline? Maybe it was something else entirely.

Castiel was looking at her, pulling at Jesse. His eyes were wide, too. Allison noticed. She looked at her hand, where it lay on the young man's neck. The bleeding had stopped, it was no longer dripping from her fingers; running down her wrist. She slowly moved her hand away and she saw the wound…it didn't look as bad. In fact, it looked like it was closing. Right before her eyes. She wasn't sure what to say, she didn't even know what to do. Could it be closing? Had she done that? Did she save him?"

She kept a hand there as a precaution but she finally moved forward. Finally given into the frantic demands of Castiel and the men around them. She moved forward with a renewed vigor. The fear that had coiled around her was fading; quickly replaced by something else. All she could think about was getting back to the trucks.

Maybe they would make it after all.