September 12th - September 16th, 2014

"Did you hear that?" Dean asked.

I shook my head. "What?"

"Sounded like a door." He walked over to the window and peered outside. Then he stepped back and grabbed two bottles and a knife out of his bag.

I stood up. "What's going on?"

Suddenly, the door clicked and creaked as it slowly swung open. Then Sam walked through the door.

Dean tackled him to the ground and doused him with holy water.

"What the…?!" Sam shouted, "I'm not a demon!"

Dean poured Borax over Sam.

"Or a leviathan." Sam looked up at Dean and over at me, confused. "What—"

Dean grabbed Sam's arm and cut it with a knife. "Or a shifter. Good." He nodded and stood up. "Our turn. Come on. Let's go." He held the bottles out to Sam.

"I don't need to. I know it's you," Sam said as he clutched his arm on the ground.

"Damn it, Sammy!" Dean shouted and splashed himself with the holy water and Borax.

I held my arm out, and he splashed me with both as well. Sam stood up slowly and watched us.

Then he held the knife out to Sam. "Come on!"

Sam shook his head. "No! Dean, can I just say hello?"

Dean furrowed his brow at Sam and rolled up his sleeve. He then cut his arm and handed the knife to me.

I rolled up my sleeve and cut my arm, showing Sam, even though it healed only a moment later. Then I put my hand on Dean's arm and healed him as well.

"I don't know if I'll ever get used to that, but it's definitely useful." Dean chuckled. "Well… let's do this."

Sam shook his head and smiled at us. "I don't know whether to give you a hug or take a shower."

Dean laughed. "Come here." He held his arms out, and they embraced.

"Dude. You're… friggin' alive," Sam said and smiled at Dean and then hugged me. "You're a sight for sore eyes," he said as he held me tightly.

I quickly healed his cut before he pulled away.

He took a few steps past us with his hands on his head. "I mean, what the hell happened?"

Dean shrugged. "Well, I guess standing too close to exploding Dick sends your ass straight to Purgatory."

"I knew it," I said.

Sam raised his eyebrows. "What? You did?"

I nodded. "Yeah, it's kinda a long story. I was working a case a few weeks back, and all the pieces sort of fell together. I felt so stupid I didn't realize it sooner. We were working on how to get Dean out but got a call from him before we figured it out."

"Hmm." Sam nodded and then looked at Dean. "You were there for the whole year?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, time flies when you're running for your life."

"Well, how'd you get out?" Sam asked.

"I guess whoever built that box didn't want me in there any more than I did." Dean smiled.

Sam furrowed his brow. "What does that mean?"

"I'm here, okay?" Dean asked.

"What about Cass? Was he there?" Sam asked.

Dean took a few steps away and spoke with his back turned to us. "Yeah, Cass didn't make it."

I furrowed my brow and shook my head. "What?"

"Something happened to him down there." Dean shook his head. "Things got pretty hairy towards the end, and he… just let go."

"So Cass is dead?" Sam asked, "You saw him die?"

"I saw enough," Dean said.

Sam shrugged. "So, then what, you're not sure?"

Dean turned back. "I said I saw enough, Sam," he snapped.

"Right." Sam nodded. "Dean, I'm sorry."

"Me too. So you— I can't believe you're actually here." Dean turned to the fridge and pulled out two beers. "You know that half your numbers are out of service? Felt like I was leaving messages in the wind." He sat down and set a beer down in front of the seat across from him for Sam.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I— I— I didn't get your messages."

"How come?" Dean asked.

"Probably because I ditched the phones," Sam said.

"Because…?" Dean asked.

"I guess, um… I guess something happened to me this year, too." Sam shrugged. "I don't hunt anymore." He smiled tentatively.

I rolled my eyes and sat on the counter.

Dean hesitated and then chuckled. "Yeah. And Sasha Grey's gone legit."

Sam smiled and scoffed.

"What?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head. "Nothing. Um, she did a Soderbergh movie."

"What?" Dean snapped.

Sam raised his eyebrows. "She did a Soderbergh—"

Dean shook his head. "No. You, Sam. You quit?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I— You were gone… Dean. Cass was gone. Bobby was dead. I mean, Crowley even shipped off Kevin and Meg to parts unknown."

"So you just turned tail on the family business," Dean said.

"Nothing says 'family' quite like the whole family being dead," Sam said.

"I wasn't dead," I said.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, and I wanted to keep it that way." He shrugged. "Then you left and—"

"Yeah, to keep looking for Dean… to keep hunting," I said.

Dean hesitated and nodded. "I wasn't dead either, Sam." He stood up. "In fact, I was knee-deep in God's armpit killing monsters, which, I thought, is what we actually do."

Sam nodded. "Yes, Dean. And far as I knew, what we do is the thing that got almost every single member of my family killed. And once Maddi left, I had no one… no one. And for the first time in my life, I was completely alone. And, honestly, I— I didn't exactly have a roadmap."

Dean nodded. "After you looked for me."

Sam said nothing.

"Did you look for me, Sam?" Dean asked.

Sam gulped and glanced at me before looking at the floor.

I furrowed my brow confused. "I mean, we looked while we were together."

Sam shook his head. "No… we didn't."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

Sam sighed. "Look—"

"What?" I snapped.

"Maddi… you were sick… for a long time," Sam said, looking at me almost ashamed. "The only thing that kept you going and kept you on the path to getting better was talking about Dean or finding Dean, so I made you think we were."

I furrowed my brow. "But Garth—"

Sam nodded. "You're smart. I knew it wouldn't last long without any leads, so I reached out to Garth." He shrugged. "But I knew he wouldn't find anything, and I had a feeling his lead would run cold, and it did."

I hopped off of the counter and approached him. "So, instead of actually looking for Dean, you wasted my time pretending to be?!"

"You were sick, and Dean literally disappeared. I had no idea where to start. My concern was on you," Sam said.

"You son of a—" I moved to punch him.

Dean wrapped his arms around me and pulled me back. "All right."

"I kept looking without you!" I shouted.

"And it took you almost a year to find anything, right?" he asked. "Apparently, by chance. You got lucky, Maddi."

"Yeah, but at least I tried. At least I didn't give up. And here's an even bigger difference between you and me… I kept my phone in case you needed me. Because of that, I didn't miss his call," I said and shrugged Dean off and walked behind him with my arms crossed, glaring at Sam.

Sam looked at me, completely ashamed and clearly feeling awful, but I really didn't care at the moment.

Dean nodded. "No, Maddi. He's right. That's good. We— We… always told each other not to look for each other. That's smart. Good for you, Sam." He shrugged. "Of course, we always ignored that because of our deep, abiding love for each other, but not this time, right, Sammy?"

Sam looked down. "Look, I'm still the same guy, Dean."

"Well, bully for you. I'm not." Dean shook his head and left the cabin, slamming the door behind him.

I raised my eyebrows at Sam. "Welcome back." I rolled my eyes and plopped down on the couch.

Later that night, Dean was going through a box of old phones while I chilled next to him on the couch, and Sam stood in the kitchen.

"You want some dinner?" Sam asked as he stirred something on the stove.

I shook my head. "Nah."

"Pass," Dean said as he put an earbud in his ear and connected it to one of the phones.

Sam took a deep breath, nodded, and then turned back to what he was doing. After a few minutes, he clicked off the stove and sat down with a bowl of stew.

Suddenly, Dean looked at Sam hard with fury all over his face.

Sam hesitated, looking confused. "What?"

Dean pulled the earbud out and clicked the phone on speaker.

"Sam Winchester, it's Kevin Tran. Crowley had me in this warehouse, and I just escaped. I don't know where I am. And I don't know if he or— or any other demons are still after me. I need your help. Call me back. It's Kevin Tran."

"When was that?" Sam asked as he took another bite.

Dean clicked the phone to play another message.

"Sam Winchester. It's Kevin Tran. I called you a week ago. Call me, please. I don't know what the hell I'm doing out here, man."

Sam put his spoon down and nodded. "Okay." He stood up. "I get it. So, what? You want to… strategize or something?"

Dean clicked another message on the phone and looked at Sam angrily.

"Sam, it's Kevin. I'm— Whoo! I'm so good," Kevin said, sounding drunk.

"Is he… drunk?" Sam asked.

"Three months since you ditched my ass. Haven't slept for more than four hours a night. It's all good in the hood." Kevin cleared his throat. "Uh, if you're still alive… eat me."

Dean played another message.

"Eat me!" Kevin shouted with a gravelly voice.

Dean clicked another message.

"Sam, it's been six months," Kevin said, sounding sad and worn out. "I can only assume you're dead. If not, don't try and reach me. You won't be able to. I won't be calling this number anymore."

Dean looked at me. "Did he call you?"

I shook my head. "No. I honestly don't think he ever had my number."

Dean nodded and stood up to walk over to Sam. "He was our responsibility." He tossed the phone at Sam's chest. "And you couldn't answer the damn phone."

Dean and I were reading on the couch while Sam worked on his laptop at the table.

"All right, listen to this… Kevin's last message. Listen to the background," Sam said.

"If not, don't try and reach me. You won't be able to. I won't be calling this number anymore."

Behind Kevin's voice was a squeaking sound.

Sam stopped the audio. "Hear that?"

"What is it?" Dean asked.

"I think he was on a bus. Listen again," Sam said and repeated the message.

"If not, don't try and reach me."

"Last stop— Centreville," a woman said in the background.

"Won't be calling this number—"

Dean stood up and walked over to Sam. "Centreville? Centreville, where?"

"Michigan," Sam said, sure of himself.

I looked over the back of the couch at him. "Why would Kevin go to Centreville, Michigan?"

"Because…" Sam typed a few things into his laptop. "His high school girlfriend…" He turned his laptop around to show us a page for a girl named Channing Ngo. "Goes to college there."

"That's thin," Dean said.

Sam nodded. "It's the best lead we got."

"We?" Dean asked.

Sam took a deep breath. "You were right." He nodded. "He was our responsibility. So… let's find him. Okay?"

The next morning, we loaded weapons and our bags into the trunk of the Impala.

"Hey," Sam said and tossed the keys to Dean.

Dean nodded as he caught them and then looked the Impala up and down. "Well… no visible signs of douchery. I'll give you that."

We all got in the car, and Dean paused, looking into the back seat.

"What?" I asked.

"Smell like dog to you?" Dean asked.

Sam and I glanced at each other quickly.

"In the car?" Sam asked.

"You tell me," Dean said.

Sam shook his head and shrugged.

"Hmm," Dean said and started the engine.

Sam and I gave each other a quick look and cringed.

Once we made it to the motel, we got settled in. Dean sat on his bed, looking a little on edge as he rubbed his hands together.

"You okay?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Dean said and clapped. "Yeah, hey, what do you say we blow this joint, hit the road?"

"Now?" Sam asked.

Dean nodded. "Yeah, Kevin's not getting any more found."

Sam shrugged. "The kid survived a year without us. He'll be okay for another…" He chuckled. "Twelve hours. Besides, when's the last time you slept?"

"Hmm." Dean nodded and looked down, disappointed.

"What?" Sam asked.

Dean shook his head. "Nothing. Is that, uh— that how you rationalized taking a year off? People will be okay?"

Sam took a deep breath. "People were okay, Dean. You're okay."

Dean chuckled and nodded. "Wow."

"Look, I did what we promised we'd do. I moved on. I lived my life," Sam said.

I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, no, I'm getting that," Dean said.

"Look, it wasn't like I was… just oblivious." Sam shrugged. "I mean, I read the paper every day. I saw the weird stories…" He sat down on the other bed, facing Dean. "The kind of stuff we used to chase."

Dean nodded and scoffed. "And you said what? 'Not my problem'?"

Sam nodded. "Yes. And ya know what? The world went on."

"People died, Sam," Dean said.

"People will always die, Dean," Sam said, "Or maybe another hunter took care of it. I don't know, but the point is, for the first time, I realized that it wasn't only up to me to stop it."

Dean nodded. "Hmm. So what was it, hmm? What could possibly make you stop just like that?"

Sam sighed and looked away.

"A girl?" Dean asked.

Sam didn't answer.

"Was there a girl?" Dean asked.

"The girl had nothing to do with it," Sam said.

I laughed and shook my head.

Dean looked at me and then back at Sam. "There was a girl."

"Yeah. There was. And then there wasn't. Any more questions?" Sam asked.

"You left her?" I asked. "After all that… you left her?"

Sam sighed. "Maddison, you act like I'm the one who walked out on you."

I nodded. "And you act like I didn't give you plenty of warning before I did. I told after the dog was—"

"So, there was a dog?" Dean asked.

I ignored his question. "I told you after the dog was better, I wanted to go and continue looking for Dean." I shrugged. "I mean, at the time, I didn't know we were never actually looking… but then you started hanging out with guilt trip."

"Can you please not call her that?" Sam asked.

I shook my head. "Whatever. The point is, I gave you multiple chances. I told you I would be leaving with or without you at some point. It hit that point, and you still weren't ready, so I gave you more time, and then I just couldn't do it anymore, so I left."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, and ignored my calls for months."

I shrugged. "I didn't want you to guilt me into coming back, so I waited, and by the time I called, your phones were disconnected. So, I continued hunting."

Sam sighed and looked down as he nodded. "Listen, I know this is gonna sound crazy to you. I don't even necessarily need you to understand. But… you need to know. I didn't just drop out. I found something. Something I've… never had all my life."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, what was her name?"

"Amelia," Sam said.

"So, what, you, uh, you dropped your peanut butter in her chocolate?" Dean asked, "How'd it happen?"

"I hit a dog," Sam said.

Dean nodded and pointed a finger at each of us. "I knew I smelled dog."

Sam nodded. "And we knew you'd throw a bitch fit."

Dean shrugged. "Hey, the rules are simple, guys. You don't take a joint from a guy named Don. And there's no dogs in the car!"

Sam nodded and took a deep breath. "All right, what about you?"

"What about me?" Dean snapped.

"Look at you." Sam shrugged. "You've still got that look. You're shaky. You're on edge. What was it like?"

Dean scoffed. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try us," I said.

Dean hesitated. "It was bloody. Messy. Thirty-one flavors of bottom-dwelling nasties. Hell, most days felt like 360-degree combat. But there was something about being there. It felt pure."

The next morning, we met with Channing in her dorm room to see if she had recently seen or talked to Kevin. She believed we were investigating his disappearance.

Channing spoke to us while her roommate sat behind her, working on her laptop.

"The last time I saw Kevin was, like, a year ago," Channing said, seemingly uninterested.

"When he disappeared?" Sam asked.

Channing nodded. "Mm-hmm. He stole his mother's car because he thought he was on a mission from God or something?" She shrugged. "It was crazy."

"Shut up!" the roommate shouted. "My friend Adam… who got addicted to Adderall but got a perfs on his SATs, so it was totally worth it… same thing."

"Shut up!" Channing shouted.

"Serious. Mission from God," the roommate said.

Sam cleared his throat. "Look, Channing, we know Kevin was here—"

"No, he wasn't," Channing said.

"And we understand if you're trying to protect him. But nobody can protect Kevin better than we can," Sam said.

"I hate Kevin. I wouldn't protect him," Channing said.

"I thought you two had a thing," Dean said.

Channing scoffed. "Yeah, when he was going to Princeton."

I scoffed. "Wow. That's all it took, huh?"

The roommate nodded. "Yeah."

Channing shrugged. "Mm-hmm."

We left Channing's room and walked through the campus back toward the Impala.

"So why would Kevin come sniffing around here if not to see her?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head. "No idea. Maybe we should split up, ask around, see if anybody's seen him?"

"Yeah, Asian kid." Dean held his hand to indicate Kevin's height. "Yay high, at a university. That should be easy."

After searching around and talking to random students for a while, I came up empty and met Sam in a café.

I sat down next to him as he worked on his laptop. "Well, that was a waste of time."

Dean walked up and sat down with us a moment later. "Don't judge me. I got bupkis."

Sam nodded. "Well—"

A waitress came up and set a plate of burger and fries next to Sam. "And here you go."

"Ah, thank you," Sam said as the waitress walked away, and then he shoved the plate toward Dean.

"Sweet mother of God." Dean smiled. "It's for me?"

Sam nodded.

"Seriously?" Dean asked happily with a smile.

"Check this out," Sam said as he scrolled through his laptop. "So, I went through campus security archives around the time Kevin should have been here."

Dean took a huge bite of the burger.

"Anyone look familiar?" Sam asked as he turned his laptop toward us. It was an image of Kevin wearing a baseball hat.

Dean was chewing with his eyes closed. He looked so happy, like he had never eaten before.

"Dude. It's a burger," Sam said.

Dean shook his head. "It's a treasure." He nodded. "All right, so, what, Kevin comes all the way to campus and doesn't see his girlfriend?"

"I don't know…" Sam said and turned the laptop back to him. "But I went to the computer lab and found the computer he was on."

"And?" I asked.

Sam nodded. "And… I found the website he was visiting, found his account username, hacked into the website, found when else this username logged in, and then I reverse-tracked the IP address back to the original user, Kevin, who has apparently been using the same wireless router for the past two months."

"That is spectacular work," Dean said sarcastically. "Any chance we can get that in English?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. I think he's in Iowa…" He turned the laptop back around and showed us a map. "At a coffee shop."

We pulled up to an old church the next day and got out.

"A church? You sure this is right?" Dean asked.

Sam shrugged. "Barista at the coffee shop swears he's seen Kevin ducking in here for the past few months."

We sighed and walked up to the door.

Sam knocked on it. "Kevin. It's Sam, Maddison, and Dean Winchester. Open up." He listened for a moment and shook his head at Dean.

Dean leaned forward and picked the lock. When the door clicked open, we walked in and down a hallway.

Kevin jumped out around the corner of a doorway, spraying us with soap out of a water gun.

"Stop! Stop!" Dean shouted. "Not leviathans. It's us."

"What the hell happened to you guys?" Kevin asked as he stopped spraying us.

"Cliff Notes?" Dean asked. "I went to Purgatory. Sam hit a dog. Maddi was hunting."

"For real?" Kevin asked as he lowered the water gun.

I nodded. "Kevin, I looked for you, but Crowley said you went missing, and he couldn't even find you."

"Crowley?" Dean asked, "When did you talk to Crowley?"

"Garth, Nate, and I summoned him to see where he was keeping Kevin," I said.

Kevin nodded. "Yeah, I escaped him, and when I couldn't get through to Sam, I went off the grid."

"Yeah, we should probably exchange numbers," I said.

Kevin nodded and smiled slightly. "Yeah, definitely. You guys want some towels?"

We nodded and followed Kevin into the room, where he handed us towels. There were symbols painted all over the floors and walls.

"Who taught you all this?" Dean asked.

Kevin shrugged. "I guess… God."

"God taught you how to trap demons?" Sam asked.

Kevin nodded. "Technically, yeah."

"Wait, wait, hold on," Sam said. "You escaped Crowley. How?"

Kevin sighed. "Well… first, he took me to a warehouse. There was a tablet there, like the last one—"

"Wait, there's another tablet?" Dean asked. "So another Word of God."

Kevin nodded. "Yes."

"How many words of God are there?" Dean asked.

Kevin shrugged. "I just became a prophet, like, a year ago."

"Well, did this tablet have a name?" Sam asked.

"Demons," Kevin said.

"What about demons?" Dean asked.

"As far as I could tell… everything," Kevin said.

"What about Hell Gates?" Sam asked.

"There's one in Wisconsin. The tablet told me how to open it." Kevin sighed. "There were ingredients for a spell. So, after Crowley's demons got me the ingredients, I showed them a spell."

"You showed the King of Hell how to open a Hell Gate?" Dean snapped. "So that all the demons in Hell could come out all at the same time?"

Kevin furrowed his brow. "What? No." He smiled. "I told Crowley I was opening a Hell Gate, but I was reading from another chapter… how to destroy demons."

Dean smiled and nodded. "You son of a bitch."

"Wait, Kevin?" Sam asked. "Where's the tablet now?"

"Safe," Kevin said.

"Safe where?" Sam asked.

"Hey. As long as it's safe, okay?" Dean asked and then turned his attention back to Kevin. "Were you able to read anything else off the tablet before you stashed it?"

Kevin smiled. "Only the stuff about closing the Gates of Hell. Forever."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Come again?"

Kevin nodded. "Banish all demons off the face of the Earth, lock them away forever. That could be important, right?"

Sam, Dean, and I looked at each other.

"Closing the Gates of Hell forever?" Dean asked. "Yeah. Yeah, that could be important." He nodded. "Would you excuse us for a second?"

Kevin shrugged. "Sure."

Sam and I followed Dean back out of the church.

"Okay, if this kid is right, he's sitting on a bombshell. Hell, he is the bombshell," Dean said.

Sam looked away.

"What?" I asked.

"That." Sam shrugged. "I mean, there's no way that Kevin's getting out of this intact, is there?"

"Well, he's doing pretty well for himself so far," Dean said.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, he got out."

I nodded. "Yeah, and now he's back in it."

"Whether he likes it or not," Dean said.

Sam scoffed. "So… free will, that's only for you two?"

Dean looked at Sam with irritation all over his face. "I can't believe what I'm hearing. Sam, we have an opportunity to wipe the slate clean. We take Kevin to the tablet, he tells us the spell, we send every demon back to Hell… forever. Every single bastard that destroyed our lives, killed our mother, killed Jess. And you're not sure?"

Sam said he wanted to talk to Kevin privately, so Dean and I waited in another part of the church for him. Sam and Kevin joined us a few minutes later. Then suddenly, the church started to shake.

"We got company, Sam," Dean said as he handed Sam a knife. "Maddi." He held a knife out to me.

"I'm good," I said and pulled out the demon blade.

Dean picked up a crazy-looking homemade blade.

"What the hell is that?" Sam asked as he examined the blade.

Dean shrugged. "It's Purgatory."

The door flew open, and two demons entered.

"Dean Winchester," one of the demons said with a smile. "Back from Purgatory."

Dean nodded. "Spanky the demon."

Sam and I moved to stand in front of Kevin.

"Yeah, I heard about you," Dean said. "You're the one who uses too much teeth, right?"

One demon rushed toward Dean and the other toward Sam and me.

"Stop," I commanded him.

The demon looked at me curiously but then straightened up, giving me a zombie-like look.

I held my knife out to him. "Take this and kill your buddy."

"Wh— What?" Sam asked.

"Shh." I held a finger out to him.

The demon nodded at me, took the knife, and tackled the other demon off of Dean.

"What the—" Dean sat up and watched as my demon stabbed the other one.

The demon turned to me.

I nodded. "Knife?" I held my hand out, and he handed it back. "Thanks. Now go to Hell."

The demon nodded and then smoked out of the body it possessed and burned down into the floorboards, back to Hell.

Dean looked at me with a mixture of confusion and worry. "How did you—"

I nodded. "My powers… have developed… entirely on their own. I haven't touched a drop of blood since last year. Don't worry."

"She's telling the truth," Crowley said as he walked in with Channing, who had black eyes. "Hello, Winchesters." He sighed. "While Poodle's new development is useful, I personally find it to be quite irritating.

"Good," Dean said.

"Dean." Crowley smiled. "You're looking… well, let's just say Purgatory didn't do you any favors. Where's your angel?"

"Ask your mother,"' Dean said.

"There's that grade-school zip. Missed it. I really did," Crowley said and then looked at Sam. "Moose. Still with the pork chops. I admire that." He looked at me. "Poodle, last time we spoke, you gave me a pretty nasty threat. Are you going to make good on it?"

"If I have to," I said.

Crowley laughed and nodded. "You didn't play very nice with my boys."

"Let Channing go!" Kevin shouted.

"That's not Channing, Kevin. Not anymore," Dean said.

"What an awful thing to say to the boy," Crowley said, "Of course it's Channing." He looked at Kevin. "Kev. Last time we danced, you stole my tablet and killed my men. Tell you what. Come with me now, bygones. And I'll let the girl go back to… What's-the-Point-U."

"He's lying," Dean said, "You won't get Channing back. She's probably dead already."

Crowley sighed. "Will you please stop saying that? Let the girl speak." He snapped his fingers.

Channing's eyes changed to her normal eyes, and she smiled at Kevin. "Kevin?"

"Channing?" Kevin smiled.

"What's going on?" she asked nervously.

"There's a demon in you, and you're going to your safety school," Kevin said quickly.

"What?!" Channing yelled.

"But it's gonna be okay," Kevin said.

Dean and I exchanged a "seriously?" look.

"I— I— I— I just—" Crowley shook his head. "I can't."

Kevin shook his head. "No, no, wait."

Crowley snapped his fingers, and Channing's eyes turned black again. He pointed at me. "Don't even think about doing anything. Let's face it, we both know you're not quite in my league yet, and I will kill the girl, demon or no demon, before you can bat your pretty eyes."

I glared at him.

"Okay. I'll do it," Kevin said.

"Kevin," Sam said.

Kevin nodded. "Myself for the girl. But this ends. All right? No fighting, no nothing. It ends."

"Can't let you do that, buddy," Dean said.

"Or what?" Kevin asked, "You'll kill me?" He looked at Crowley. "I'll grab my stuff." He turned and walked out of the room.

"Chin up." Crowley smiled at us. "I'm a professional."

"This ain't over by a long shot, Crowley," Dean said.

"Really, Dean, who writes your stuff?" Crowley asked, "A marshmallow? Come on, Kevin!" he shouted, "Chop, chop!" He paused for a moment, but there was no response. "Kevin?!"

He took a step forward and raised his knife. Crowley snapped his fingers, and the knife started glowing red, causing Dean to drop it.

"Ready, kids?" Crowley asked as he walked past us. "Kevin!"

Dean picked up the knife angrily.

A moment later, we heard Crowley and Channing screaming.

"Guys, run!" Kevin shouted.

We took off out of the church, running for the Impala. Kevin hopped in just as we reached it. Then we sped away from the church.

As we drove by, we watched the demon smoke leave Channing's body. Crowley made eye contact with Kevin and made a motion with his hands. Channing looked around confused, and then her neck snapped.

"No!" Kevin yelled.

When the sun started coming out, we pulled up to a gas station, and Dean's phone rang.

"Hello?" he answered. (…) "Wrong number." He hung up. "Automated jackass." He scoffed. "All right, anybody want anything?"

I shook my head.

"I'm good," Sam said.

Dean turned to look at Kevin, but he didn't respond.

"Kevin? How you holding up?" Sam asked.

"Awesome," Kevin said sarcastically, "The King of Hell just snapped my girlfriend's neck. How about you?"

Sam, Dean, and I exchanged looks.

Dean nodded. "All right, listen to me. I'm sorry about your girlfriend, okay? I am. But the sooner you get this, the better. You're in it now, whether you like it or not. That means you do what you got to do. I'm hitting the head." He got out of the Impala and slammed the door.