Author's Note: I'm happy to see people are reading my story. I hope y'all are enjoying it.
CHAPTER THREE
It had been three days with no leads on Kalen. Sam had officially put in a Missing Persons report in town, but it had turned up nothing. The cameras leading to the alley yielded nothing but images of Kalen and Marbles walking alone. They had managed to figure out why she hadn't immediately flown off after the lecture.
Almost completely hidden amongst the blood, Kalen's cell phone had been found with a shattered screen, but still functioning. A missed text message revealed Kalen had been scheduled to go read for an hour at the local children's hospital. It had been devastating to see the phone had been open to the contacts and was on Sam's number.
Kalen was trying to call for help, the brothers thought.
"Why wouldn't she have just yelled for Cas? Or Gabriel?" Dean had demanded.
Sam had reminded him Kalen had spent most of her life trying to live like her human half. Her first instinct wasn't to call for another angel. Especially if she was under attack and witnessing her closest companion being murdered. Dean had known Sam had been right, but it hadn't stopped him from wrecking one of the cars in the garage in his anger.
Castiel had popped in a couple of times, but Gabriel still remained away. Castiel had told them there were no leads on Kalen's whereabouts. The angels had been quietly searching so as not to rouse suspicion among the others.
"Whoever took Kalen may not know we are allies. We must be careful if we are to find her and bring her home," Castiel had explained.
And that accounted for the second smashed up car.
Sam sighed as he crawled into bed. He had forced himself to take enough melatonin to put down an elephant. Rest was what he and Dean needed, despite the older hunter arguing about needing to be ready at a moments notice. He fell asleep the second his head hit the pillow.
He sat in a rigid chair. His arms were tied down to the armrests and rope tightly bound his chest to the back of the chair. His head lay heavy down on his chest. His head pounded and he could feel open wounds all over his body.
"Tell me what I want to know."
Sam lifted his head, drew in a breath, and spat a bloody wad of moisture into the stranger's face. When the stranger reeled back, Sam caught a look at his surroundings. He saw flashes of a wall with red painting and a nearby cracked glass of a window. The window gave him just enough of a reflection to see-
"Go to Hell," Kalen growled.
Sam gasped as his eyes shot up. He scrambled to throw the covers off and not eat the floor as he flew to his feet. He ran out of his room, down the hall, and into the kitchen. As predicted, his brother was sitting there nursing a coffee cup. Dean lifted his head with a question on his lips except his brother beat him to it.
"I saw Kalen," Sam blurted out.
Dean's eyebrows shifted together as he shook his head with an annoyed look.
"Sam, I get it. You're tired. You want to find her as much the rest of us," Dean replied.
Sam slammed his hands on the back of a chair, gripped it tight, and shot Dean the mother of all bitchy faces.
"I saw her, Dean. In my dreams."
Dean stared. "You're serious?"
His brother's intensifying look was all he needed to know before he called for Cas. The two exchanged surprised looks when the angel didn't immediately appear.
"Hey, Pint Size!" Dean called.
A moment later, Dean's phone started ringing. Frowning, he picked it up and looked at the caller ID.
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me."
He flipped it open and held it up to his ear.
"Are you kidding me? We call you and Cas and you call us on the frickin' phone?" Pause. "Wh…WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!"
Sam stared stunned as his brother swore into the phone. Dean growled low in his throat.
"Cas, give the phone back to your brother! I got a bone to pic-HEY!"
Sam surged forward, yanked the phone out of his brother's hand, and slung it up to his ear.
"I had a dream vision about Kalen," Sam blurted out.
"What?"
Sam turned at the sound of the echo and almost slammed into Castiel. He reeled back while ending the call and passing the phone back to Dean. Castiel slowly lowered his own phone. Castiel looked tired, but it was Gabriel that took the cake. The archangel was unshaven and unkempt. His gaze shot around wildly as if looking around for something. They finally stopped when they landed on Sam.
Castiel and Gabriel stared at Sam while slowly tilting their heads.
"Is there something on my face?" a worried Sam murmured.
Dean snorted as he stood up.
"Nah. Just your usual bitchy face, Sammy," Dean grunted when his brother's elbow connected.
Castiel turned his gaze slightly to his own brother.
"You see it too, Gabriel?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I see it."
Sam threw his arms up, nearly smacking his brother in the face.
"See what?" he demanded.
Castiel took a step forward while gesturing to Sam's body.
"Sam, your body is displaying…signs of Grace. That can only happen when you forge a deep bond with an angel," Castiel explained.
Sam and Dean's gaze shifted to Gabriel who had stepped closer to run his eyes over Sam. He graced them with a wistful smile.
"Different kind of bond, boys." Chuckle. "I think you hit the nail on the head, Sam. You and Kalen have the most history. It only makes sense you two would have formed a bond. Tell us about this dream."
Taking a deep breath, Sam repeated the tale of his dream. The angels patiently listened without interrupting. When Sam was done, Castiel was the first to speak.
"You didn't recognize the place she was in?" he asked.
"No. I saw some sigils on the wall, but I don't know what they mean," Sam confessed.
Castiel disappeared and reappeared with paper and pencil.
"Show us."
Sam sat down and drew all the sigils he could remember seeing in the dream. After Sam put his pencil down, Gabriel snatched up the paper. With Castiel looking over his shoulder, the two angels inspected the scribbles. Sam watched fascinated as the two communicated silently with gestures. He couldn't be sure if they were communicating just by gestures or if they were communicating mentally like he and Gabriel did.
"An angel drew these," Castiel said, suddenly breaking the silence.
Sam glanced up at his brother. Dean swore under his breath while digging his nails into the back of the chair he was holding.
"You're sure, Cas?" Dean asked.
"He's sure, Dean," Gabriel answered, his voice deepening to a low growl.
Sam's eyebrows shot up.
"These sigils are written specifically for angels by angels. It locks the building down and ensures that even if Kalen did get away from her captor, she'd never find the exit," Gabriel explained.
A shiver ran up Sam's back at the murderous look that crossed Gabriel's face. He had no sympathy for whoever was about to receive that archangel wrath.
"But whoever is there with Kalen can only leave through one door on foot. It is how the sigils works to trap Kalen," Castiel added.
"Or this dirtbag can leave in a body bag," Dean pointed out.
Gabriel chuckled.
"I like the way you think."
Sam jerked his head to his brother, shooting him a glare, before turning back to the angels.
"Guys, we need to be focusing on Kalen, not what you two are going to do to the bastard that took her. Now how do we find her?" Sam asked.
Gabriel and Castiel shared another look. Gabriel nodded and Castiel disappeared in the next instant.
"We're going to need to throw you back into a sleep state and try to connect you purposely to Kalen. Your dream state could have been accidental and short term. You either connected to her or she connected to you. We need you to go back and try to consciously reach out to her," Gabriel explained.
Dean waved his hand about the air.
"And Cas?" he asked.
"Getting the supplies we'll need from Bobby. While he does that, we need to make a plan of what we're going to do once we have the location. Castiel and I won't be able to enter the building until you do a little maintenance for us," Gabriel explained.
"Show Sam. I'll call Benny. He's gonna want in on this," Dean replied.
/…/
Sam groaned as he rubbed at his head while the shower sprayed down over his head. They had tried and failed to connect Sam back to Kalen. Gabriel hadn't said it, but Sam could feel the disappointment through their connection. It had stung worse when the archangel had flown off without a word to him.
[Sam.]
Sam glanced up, frowning. Despite knowing he was alone, his gaze shifted around the bathroom.
[Sam.]
He grunted as he touched his hand to his temple. His head was starting to ache. It was bringing him back to his demon blood and psychic days. He shook his head several times until the pain started to recede. The tall hunter reached up to a shelf for his shampoo.
[Sam.]
The shampoo bottle slipped from his hands and fell to the ground with a loud thud. Sam cried out as his hands flew to his head. His back hit the shower wall as he pushed against the radiating agony. He slid to the floor clutching his head. His whole body shook while he saw flashes behind his eyes.
Meanwhile outside the bathroom, Dean was rapping on the door.
"Sam? Come on, open up."
Silence.
Dean sighed heavily.
"Sam, don't beat yourself over this. Cas went out to collect some rare whatever. He thinks it'll help with the connection. But you gotta eat something if we're going to do this thing. I made some breakfast and I promise it's all your healthy, organic shit," Dean explained.
He looked up from staring at the doorknob when he still didn't receive a response.
"Sam?"
Big brother instincts went on high when he heard a deep groan from within. Trying the doorknob, Dean was never more grateful that his brother still left it unlocked like he had as a child. It struck a hard chord in him when he found his brother huddled into a corner of the shower.
"Sam!"
Dean crossed the bathroom in short strides and ripped the door open. Throwing his back to the spray of water, Dean shielded his brother and carefully grabbed him by the arms.
"Come on, Sammy."
Releasing a quiet barely noticeable whimper, Sam allowed himself to be pulled up and out of the shower. Dean grabbed a towel to haphazardly throw around him. He barely got them to Sam's bed before he collapsed into his brother's arms.
Dean was thrown off when the body started shaking in his arms. As his shirt grew wet, he realized not all of the dampness was from the shower.
"Oh, Sammy. Damn it."
There was nothing more that Dean could do except pull his brother close and hold him. They had been holding it together for days now and Sam let the floodgates open.
He cried for Marbles' death.
He cried for not being able to connect to Kalen.
He cried that he could feel every pain Kalen was experiencing. The bruises, the wounds, everything.
Dean squeezed Sam hard enough to make him pop. His teeth dug deep into his bottom lip.
"We're going to get through this, Sam. We'll find her."
Dean squeezed the back of his brother's neck.
"I promise, Sammy."
END OF CHAPTER THREE