A/N: So sorry for the long delay! I used last weekend to write that oneshot - Foresight - instead. And then this site wouldn't let me load my chapter - I had to wait a day. But this chapter is extra long to make up for it! And so sorry I haven't had a chance to reply to everyone who reviewed last chapter - you guys mean the world!
IMPORTANT: I'm changing my rating to M - due to swearing and violence. So please make sure to change your settings from 'K-T' to 'All' to see future updates.
Chapter 4
Sam watched Meg's fingers clutch the gun, aimed at Dean's head. A perfect aim, a perfect arc between the barrel and its target. The muscles in her arm were taut, her fingers steady.
"Call, or I'll kill your brother." Her eyes bore into Sam's. Calm, determined.
Dean backed up a step, holding out his hands reluctantly, his frustration clear.
Sam watched as Meg's eyes flickered towards Dean and her finger tightened on the trigger. "Okay!" Sam shouted, quickly jumping in front of his brother, holding out his hands in a gesture of peace. Or defeat. Or to ward off this psycho blonde. Whatever, he didn't care; he just wanted to stop her from shooting Dean.
Meg's finger visibly relaxed and Sam stepped back, his eyes flickering towards Dean. "Okay," he repeated, flipping open his phone.
Dean turned to look at Sam in shock. "Sam," he said firmly. A command. "Sam," he repeated when Sam ignored him and started to dial. The anger was evident in his voice, the meaning clear: Don't you dare draw Dad into this. Listen to you big brother, dammit.
It was the last thing Sam wanted to do, to trap his dad again. But he didn't really have a choice, did he? Didn't Dean see the gun pointed at his own head?
"Sam!" Dean moved forward to wrestle the phone from Sam's hand.
Rocks abruptly exploded just above their heads. Bits of pebbles sprayed their faces and a blast rang out that left their ears ringing. They ducked and sprang back. Dean gaped at the bullet hole wedged in the rock face between himself and Sam. He turned to Meg, who stood with the smoking gun still drawn, a triumphant shine in her eyes.
"Oh, I am killing you so badly," he growled. He turned back to Sam and held out his hand. "Give me the phone."
Meg laughed incredulously, looking from the gun in her hand to the hole left by the bullet that had just missed Dean. "Oh, you really are a special kind of stupid, aren't you?"
Sam stared at his brother - his expression more or less mirroring Meg's incredulity. Frowning at his urge to repeat Meg's question, Sam turned his back on her and quietly addressed his brother. "Uh, Dean, she just shot at us."
"She shot at the wall, Sammy. She's bluffing. She needs us."
"You boys aren't talking behind my back, now are you?"
Dean looked at her and smiled, matching her calm, untroubled expression with his own. "You shot the wall. You're bluffing. You need us."
The stared each other down for a second, before Meg licked her lips and shook her head. "Is that right?" She strode up to him, gun outstretched, a spark in her eyes.
Dean glanced down, watching her feet as they drew her closer. The instant she stepped within range, Dean sprung forward and knocked her arm to the side, elbowing her in the face. Meg gasped and the gun flew out of her hand.
"Grab it!" Dean yelled to Sam, pushing Meg away. Meg stumbled backwards, her arms swinging out as she fell backwards, landing on the cave ground with a small grunt. Instantly recovering, she closed her eyes and chanted something under her breath. Her short hair rustled in the breeze that appeared with her words.
Sam dove for the gun, scooping it up only to have Dean snatch it out of his hands. "Hey!" Sam wanted to interject, but was stopped short when a dark shadow fell over them. Sam's head snapped up and he gasped, stumbling backwards.
"Dean," he whispered, nodding his head at the being that had emerged from around the cave's corner.
Dean recoiled, a disgusted sound escaping his throat. "What the freak is that…freak?"
In front of them stood what looked like a decaying body. A dead and rotting version of someone who looked to have been a bit older than Dean. He…it…was large and broad shouldered, looming over even Sam in height. But its chest didn't rise or fall with breath, its face didn't turn at Dean's insult. It was staring ahead, blank and slack jawed. From it arose the distinct small of…death. A dug-up grave. Dr Ellicott's rotting bones.
But its eyes…They moved. They roamed the cave, restless, agitated…Sad. Black, misty eyes.
"Oh wow," Sam whispered. "It's that thing we saw in the cave. She has it trapped in a…a corpse." He turned to Dean, face twisted with revulsion.
Dean glanced at Sam, noting the shock etched into his face. He was amazed that his brother could still be shocked by the things they encountered on this job. This hunt. This life. Dean, all he cared about was that the body was dead. He had no moral obligation to withhold from shooting up its ass. Dean lifted the gun and aimed.
"Tie up Rambo, there," Meg commanded. She was back on her feet, watching the exchange – Sam's shock and Dean's heroics. Her twitching lips and arched eyebrow betrayed her amusement.
A shot rang out. The bullet struck its target, this walking corpse, with a small schlip. The corpse jerked backwards – though only slightly, and it quickly righted itself, lunging at Dean and knocking the gun from his hands.
"Hey!" Dean exclaimed, growling in disgust as it grabbed his forearms with its fleshy, dead hands and tried to wring them behind Dean's back.
Sam rushed into to the struggle, grabbing the thing's tattered shirt and trying to pull him away from Dean. The thing glanced back at Sam before turning and landing a strong, quick, punch to his face. Sam flew backwards, landing on the floor in a stunned heap, his phone shooting out of his hand and skidding across the ground. Meg stopped it with her foot.
A few minutes later, the thing tossed a struggling, swearing Dean to the ground. It then shoved Sam down next to his brother. Dean's arms were tied tightly behind his back.
Taking a breath from the threats and curses he was shouting at his captors, Dean turned his head to look over at Sam. "How'd we manage to get jumped by Frankenstein and Creepy-Bo-Peep here?"
Sam, who was rubbing his sore jaw – it was already beginning to swell from the hit – shot Dean a dry look. "We followed a scream into a cave."
Dean frowned. "Snarky," he muttered, turning back around.
Meg strolled up to Sam, fondling his phone in her hands. She crouched in font of him and battered her eyelashes, a satisfied smile on her face. She lifted up his hand and pressed the phone into it. "You've both had your fun, now be a good boy and call Papa Winchester."
The pain pulsating from his jaw ignited his anger. "Screw you," Sam spat. God, he was sick of being held captive by psychos.
"In front of your brother?" Meg teased.
Dean rolled his eyes.
Meg smiled at Sam's glaring face and backed away, crawling over to Dean, eyes locked with Sam's the whole time.
"Whoa, hey, don't draw me into your lover's spat." Watching her disappear behind his back, Dean automatically tensed. His breath froze in his throat as he felt her fingers stroke his hand as it lay there tied up and useless. She then wrapped them around his index finger.
Dean's eyes widened. "Don't you fucking dare!"
His threat ended on a suppressed scream as a snap rang out. Sharp and loud. Dean clenched his teeth and shut his eyes. "Oh you bitch," he wheezed, the words struggling to escape his clamped jaw. His face reddening as the pain snaked up his broken finger and into his body.
Meg slid back over to Sam, who was staring at his brother in shock.
"Call," Meg repeated.
Sam almost snarled, his fury expanding into his head and creating a fog between him and Meg so that all he could see was red. But when Sam glanced over at his brother, the fog disappeared and a dull ache took its place. A distressing resignation. Dean was struggling to get his breathing back to normal, to swallow the pain. But when he finally glanced over, Sam could see it riddled in his eyes.
"Fine," Sam whispered.
Dean let his head fall back against the cave wall, sighing. In relief, in annoyance, in frustration, Sam couldn't tell.
Sam snapped the phone open and dialed the number he knew by heart, listened to that voicemail he could recite in his sleep, and told their dad that they needed him, that Meg was here, that they were being used as bait. Again. Meg didn't seem to care that he was divulging the whole 'you're the mouse and we're the cheese' thing. She didn't seem to care about anything other than getting him here and finishing what she'd started.
Sam hung up. Dean nodded slightly. His thanks. It was cased in a strange combination of annoyance and defeat, but it was there.
Meg grinned, relief shining from her eyes for a second before she turned to the silent, still corpse. She gestured at Sam. "Tie him up too."
Sam didn't struggle – he couldn't see a way out of this. Not yet. So he'd preserve his strength. For now he just glared at Meg as she stood there. Watching him.
Sam felt the rope pinch his skin, the rough material scraping his wrists with every attempt to struggle against them. They rubbed against his wrists the same way the worry did. The worry caused by the silent, unmoving form that his brother's struggles had died into.
He stole a glance over at Dean. Quickly, fervently. He didn't want Meg to see his concern. To act on it. Dean's head was still resting against the cave and his face had paled, his eyes glazed over. But from beyond the dull glaze, Sam could see his mind churning, concentrating. Onto something. Sam discreetly followed his gaze. It was resting on the giant, stoic corpse.
A slight frown furrowed Sam's brow. What was Dean onto? But he quickly erased it from his face, replacing it with an emotionless glare, realizing that Meg was still watching him with that smile dancing on her lips.
"Now this isn't any fun. Where's all the threats. The questions? Don't you want to ask me why I'm doing this? Who I'm working for? What's in it for me?" She smiled, still watching Sam. "How I'm controlling him?" She gestured over to the corpse, her smile widening. Sam shut his eyes momentarily and cursed under his breath, realizing that Meg had been following his gaze just as he had been Dean's. He hoped he hadn't just ruined whatever Dean was concocting.
Dean blinked back the fog, and let a smirk sparkle in its place. His eyes flickered over to Meg's. The chance to respond to her questions was too good to pass up. Broken finger or no broken finger. "Because you're a bitch, you work for a bigger bitch, and you get off on tying us up."
Meg's eyes slid towards Dean, annoyance flickering through them, but she didn't respond. Instead, she turned back to Sam and sauntered up to him, straddling him.
He locked eyes with her in defiance. Her face was so close that he could feel her breath; he resisted his urge to turn away.
"Please," Dean scoffed. "The ropes, the straddling. It's been done. Get some new material."
Meg reached behind her and from her waistband withdrew a giant carving knife.
Dean's eyes widened and his heart sped up. Okay, that was new. "Geez, lady, overcompensating much?" he said, trying to ignore how rapidly his heart was beating. He did not like that bitch sitting on top of his brother with that knife.
A growl escaped Dean's throat as he watched Meg place the blade almost lovingly against Sam's cheek. Sam's body recoiled against the foreign feel of the blade. Of the cold metal. She ran it lightly down his cheek, not hard enough to draw blood, just enough so that it hissed in the quiet cave as it scraped against his cheek.
"You know," she said, tilting her head in a mock gesture of thoughtfulness. "As long as one of you are still alive, he'll come." She placed the knife under Sam's chin, the point of the blade resting against his jugular. She smiled as he gulped, a sheet of sweat erupting on his forehead. "As long as one of you are alive, it can still be one big, bloody reunion." She pressed the knife harder, twisting it around in her hand. Sam gasped as he felt it dig into his flesh, just short of breaking through. "All he needs is one."
"Hey!" Dean pulled harder at his ropes. Heart speeding up in panic. Eyes clouding over in anger. Not caring that the pain in his finger was sparking with every jolt.
Sam couldn't see Dean working to free himself. Couldn't see the taunt in Meg's eyes. He could only see the hand in front of him. That hand holding the blade. The blade that was glinting in the dull light. He couldn't feel the beads of sweat on his forehead; couldn't feel Meg's weight on top of him. Could only feel the sharp point pressed into his throat.
"You don't have to do this, Meg," Sam gulped, speaking quickly, tearing his eyes from the knife to her face.
Meg laughed at him. "Really? I don't? Should I repent instead? Give up my big bad ways? Don a catholic girl's uniform and bake you cookies? Come on, Sam, you more than anyone should know that we do what we do not because we have to." She watched the knife as she traced it over his skin. "You do what you do because of revenge, loyalty, loneliness. I do it because it's fun." Her eyes locked with Sam's and he saw swimming in there a dedication and certainty that scared him. She may find this kinky rope and torture thing fun, but she was doing it for some other reason. Something to do with their mom. And Jess.
"And maybe because you're a whack job," Dean interrupted, growing more unsettled as Meg grew more serious.
Meg pursed her lips and abruptly retracted the knife, tossing it into a corner. "But I like you, Sam." She shrugged. "If things were different, we might have worked out well together." She smoothed down Sam's hair, tucking a lock of it behind his ears as he visibly relaxed, the tension freed by the blade's retreat. "I wont kill you. Yet. First, I'll do you one last favour."
Meg scooted closer to Sam and leaned forward, whispering into his ear. "I'm going to kill your brother for you."
Sam's breath froze in his lungs and his head whipped towards Dean, eyes wide. Meg grinned and hopped off Sam, gesturing the corpse forward, towards Dean.
Dean looked from Sam's panicked face to Meg's smug one, to the corpse looming closer. He sighed. "Ah, fuck."
The corpse grabbed Dean by the lapels of his shirt and pulled him up, dragging him across the cave. "Hey!" Dean shouted, more annoyed than anything else. "Get your dead hands off me! Or I swear I'll kill you…again…Dammit, you know what I mean!"
"Dean!" Sam leant his back against the wall and used it to lever himself to his feet. "Where are you taking him, Meg?" he demanded, watching as Dean was dragged around a corner, hearing his brother's angry curses grow muffled and distant.
Meg mumbled something under her breath, an incantation. A black mist shot out from around the cave's corner and lunged at Sam, furling itself around his feet and binding them close, causing Sam to fall back down with a grunt.
Meg shot Sam a grin. "Don't worry, baby, your turn will come." Then she turned and followed after Dean.
Dean growled and twisted, feeling his shirt lift and bunch around his neck, but that thing's grip wouldn't loosen.
He was suddenly shoved, his legs scrambling to keep up with his torso as it flew forward. He righted himself, inches before his face collided with the rocky wall, and whipped around. "Oh I am so cremating your ass," he snarled. The thing didn't answer. Didn't react at all, in fact.
Dean sighed and glanced around. He was in some sort of crook that nature had carved into this cave. Mother Nature's own Abu Ghraib, great.
Dean looked back at the corpse. It was staring blankly ahead. Maybe he can't react without orders, Dean thought. Dean inched forward, trying to make as little noise as possible. But the thing's head slowly turned towards Dean – an owl watching its prey – and stepped to the side, blocking off Dean's escape.
A half sigh, half growl escaped Dean's throat and he stopped walking. "Dude, give a guy a break."
No answer.
"Not feeling very chatty today, huh?"
Still no answer.
Dean raised an eyebrow. "Can you speak, or do you just stand there, waiting for orders? You don't look like a Royal Guard."
Dean sighed again and leant against the cool wall. The small area was cold, moist, dark. There was only one way out – and Frankenstein there was blocking it. "What does it pay these days to be the muscle?"
"More than you can afford," Meg's voice answered a second before she strolled into the room.
Dean instantly stood up straight, face hardening. "Yeah, you're right, I wouldn't sell my soul."
Meg chuckled. Dean noted how the corpse's black, misty eyes wavered, twisting and tumbling crazily now that Meg had entered the room. The ghost, or whatever was trapped inside that body, was growing agitated, desperate. It didn't like being trapped and used any more that Dean did.
Now, the question that remained: how was Meg controlling it? Dean quickly scoured her body, but didn't see any pendant or obvious marker of Dark Magic.
Meg ran her hand over the thing's arm. Its black eyes sparked with anger. "I still haven't tried out all the nifty things I can do with my new toy. Wanna play?"
"No."
"Too bad." Meg walked up to him and pressed her hand against his cheek. Dean frowned at how random that gesture was, before he felt his cheek begin to sizzle and he smelt his own flesh burning. "Belief," she whispered into his ear. "Is its specialty."
Dean cringed, the world falling away, turning black, spinning in circles. He gasped as the pain in his cheek reached into his mind and accessed his thoughts – memories flashing before his eyes, like the fluttering pages of a book falling from its shelf.
Dean cried out and in a burst of adrenaline, snapped the rope from his arms. Startled, it took Dean a second to comprehend that his arms were freed. He sprung up, pushing Meg aside and running to the entrance, ducking past the corpse and back to Sam. But Sam was gone. Bloodied ropes left in his place.
"Dean," Sam's voice rang out from close behind. Dean whipped around only to find Sam with Meg's knife in his hands. He plunged it into Dean's shoulder.
The blade tore through Dean's clothes and skin, slicing into his muscles with such ease that Dean felt betrayed by his body. Betrayed by the blood that was scrambling to escape, by the fire that his torn muscles and skin spat at him, by his own flesh and blood.
Dean gasped, his eyes springing open, his head jerking back. He was back in that rock crevice. His arms still bound. Meg was still at his side, her hand pressed against his burning cheek. Only now, he was on the floor, having slumped there. And his shoulder was pulsating with sharp, searing, pangs. Confused and distressed, Dean looked down and saw the tear in his shirt, the dark circle of blood soaking the cloth, sticking it to his skin.
Meg scooted around Dean and yanked the jagged tear open wider, inspecting the clean, thin, triangular cut. Blood still welled at its surface, waiting to escape, but the flow was already beginning to ebb. "Hmm," she mused. "That should've cut clean through. Didn't really believe that one, huh? I guess it was a long shot."
Dean squinted, trying to concentrate through the fire in his arm and the dull throb from his finger. Only…it wasn't the pain creating the black haze in front of his eyes. There was an actual black fog floating through the cave! He turned his head, following it. It was emanating from the corpse – from the thing inside it, and traveling through the room, ending at Meg's hand, the one she'd had pressed against his cheek.
"…What?" Sam wasn't in the room. Sam was never in the room. He arched an eyebrow at Meg, mouth twisting with disgust. "Demon marijuana? You serious?"
"Like a hot poker." She pressed her hand back against his cheek. He tried to jerk away but her hand remained firm, and in his confusion Dean didn't resist the dizziness that spun the world away from him.
The fog slowly cleared from Dean's head, replaced by a dull ache. He jerked awake to find himself staring at the three human freaks – the Benders. He could smell their rancid breath, see their unkempt, unwashed faces as they leered at him. Wait, what was that? Fun to hunt?
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me, this is what this is about? You yahoos hunt people?" Jesus, he had to get Sam out of here. The leader of this crazy pack – the father – rambled on a bit about the hunt and their lives, which, of course, revolved around that hunt. Until Dean's disgust forced him to spit a few too many patronizing remarks their way. Then he found himself staring into the tip of a hot poker.
The gap-toothed man held it above the knife wound in his shoulder. The heat from the poker licking his exposed flesh, his open gash. Wait, Dean frowned, confusion cutting through his panic. Where the hell had that cut come from?
The old man flickered. Dean blinked. He swore he just saw blonde hair where his gray had been, a satisfied smirk where his grin now sat.
"…what?" But Dean didn't have time to finish the thought. The old man plunged the scalding poker into his wound, onto his exposed flesh, his raw nerves. The heat shot into the fresh opening and sprang onto his sliced muscles, sizzling into him. Dean screamed, writhing his shoulder, trying to jerk the poker away, a rubbery smell assaulting his senses.
And then there was black.
Sam's face was covered in sweat – he was exhausted, the efforts to free himself from the rope and this black fog wrapping itself around his legs proving too much.
"Smokey substance, one; Sam, zero," he muttered to himself, annoyed. He let his body relax, leaning his head against the wall.
But he jerked, the annoyance disappearing the instant he heard a scream from somewhere deep in the cave.
Sam's breath hitched in throat and the sweat froze on his face.
Dean…
A thousand images flashed through Sam's head. A thousand ways to make Dean scream like that. "No…Meg!" he shouted, trying to distract her, to stop her. He renewed his struggle.
Dean was back in the cave. Back with Meg. Back with the black mist. His shoulder sizzled and burnt. He couldn't run from the pain, couldn't clench his fists against it because of his broken finger. So he just stared at Meg. At her smirking, satisfied face.
She moved over to his shoulder and poked it. A scream got caught in Dean's throat, tangled with a growl.
"I think I'm getting the hang of my new toy," she said, gesturing over to the corpse. "Memories work better. You believe the pain more."
What the hell was going on? Dean glared at her through the sweat that had erupted on his face, that slid into his eyelashes. "Want to fill me in on the rules, sweetheart?" His sarcasm easily ate through his confusion. Through the fog that was making it difficult to concentrate, to connect what was happening to some clear – if twisted – line of logic.
Meg grinned. "No."
She pressed her hand back against Dean's cheek, and that burning and dizziness engulfed him once more.
He was being jostled. Dragged. He forced his eyes open and found himself staring at a stream of red and brown. He blinked. Trying to clear his vision. He was being dragged across a dirt ground!
He twisted his head and found that his feet were bound and a large Wendigo held the rope that was attached. He groaned, remembering the snapping twigs behind him and the blow across his head.
His back scraped over some jutting rocks and he gasped as the jolt knocked his burnt shoulder. Burnt shoulder? He didn't have time to register what that meant, because in the next second the Wendigo had stopped, hearing his gasp, and was grabbing him by his shirt, slamming him up against a tree. It reared back his head and was about to rip Dean's jugular from him when Sam's shout cut through the Woods.
"No…Meg!"
The fear in his brother's voice forced Dean to act, he lifted his legs and kicked away the Wendigo.
But before he could escape, follow Sam's voice, Dean dropped to the ground, clutching his face as his cheek burned. And suddenly he was losing. Losing the hunt. Losing the battle. Losing his family. He was being drawn down into the lake by the young boy's ghost. His lungs were expanding, convulsing, ready to explode. And Sam wasn't there to help him, Sam was still at college. Sam hadn't come back. And he was being struck across the face by the shape shifter. It looked like him, it moved like him. Dean had stepped to the right when he should have stepped left, made one stupid, careless mistake and could only watch as a fist – his fist! – flew towards his face, struck him on the mouth, split open his lips. A knee struck him in the stomach and Dean doubled-over, his breath stolen from him. Another hit and he was on the ground, shielding his head as that thing – that thing with his face – kicked him. Again and Again. Dean curled up against the pain – against the hunt, the loss, the confusion – only to expose himself to a finishing blow that connected with his ribs with a deafening crack that reverberated into his entire body, into his thoughts, into his consciousness.
And then he was sitting in a motel room, his Dad and Sam staring at him.
"Dean, what's wrong?" Sam asked, watching Dean closely.
Dean shook his head, trying to clear the fog. The black fog. He groaned at the movement, clutching his ribs as sweat broke out on his brow, dripped down his face. He tried to wipe it away but his fingers came back red.
"Dean?" his dad asked. But their voices were getting stuck in the thick haze circling Dean. He looked down. He was sitting at a table. Making protection charms. Against the daeva, against Meg, against whatever demon she was working for. The one that'd killed his mom.
"Dean, we don't have much time. Are you almost done?"
Who asked him that? Sam? His dad? Couldn't they see that he was hurt? That he could barely breathe? Didn't they see the blood dripping from his head, splattering onto the table?
But then a whistling, inhuman howl surrounded them. Dean's head snapped up. The Daevas! They were here! He'd only finished two protection charms! Quickly springing up, Dean shoved one at Sam, one into his father's hands. A second later he was torn from the room and into the next by a force like a gale. He cried out as his back hit the floor, jarring his ribs. He sucked in air to stop from screaming as invisible claws tore into him, shredding his shirt, ripping into his skin, splattering blood onto the floor. He tried to fend them off, but they were too quick, too predatory. He curled himself into a ball, shielding his face. He couldn't tell what was being torn into, what was hurting where. The pain that racked his body had merged into a single, ringing, burning blanket. And it was smothering him. And all he could hear beyond it was the sound of claws catching in his flesh and tearing across it, ripping back his skin as easily as opening stitches.
"Dean!" Sam called out his name.
Through a slit in his arms – his shield –Dean saw Sam rush into the mix. "No," Dean tried to call out, but his words were muffled by his forearms. He watched as Sam threw the charm at the Daevas, at Dean, only to have one of them slice Sam across the face, in the same place where his fading scars rested.
Dean's head jerked up when he heard Sam cry out.
The Daevas suddenly retreated and, judging from their shadows, hovered around Sam instead. "Sam!" Dean cried out, wanting to know if he was okay. But then his vision blurred, flickering in and out, torn between the motel room and a dark, rocky cave. The motel came back into focus as a new cut materialized on Sam's arm. Sam cried out and the motel again merged into the cave. And Dean heard Sam cry out not from inside the motel room, but from somewhere in this cave.
And then he got it. Dean forced his bloodied, battered body to sit up. He then slowly turned his back on the scene of Sam and the Daevas, his body absorbing every movement like he was being hit with a jackhammer. "Meg!" Dean yelled, using his last bit of strength. A shadow sprang up over him, indicating a daeva was diving towards him, but he just ignored it. The shadow passed over him, harmless. An illusion.
The motel disappeared, Sam's yells stopped, Meg recoiled her hand from his cheek with a hiss as Dean's mind kicked her out. "Game Over," Dean mumbled through the blood dripping from his lips, trough the coppery taste in his mouth and the blood dripping into his eyes from the cuts and gashes now marring his face.
"Believe," Dean muttered. He was finding it difficult to breathe, to concentrate. "The inscription. That thing you're controlling, the paintings…" Dean laughed suddenly, not caring that it shot spikes up his chest and that it ended in a coughing fit, more blood running from his mouth, joining the cascade that was splattering onto his torn shirt. "So there are demons out there who take the clichés seriously, huh? 'Just believe'? Just believe and it comes true. That's why three of those victims had no marks on them. You killed them in their minds. Made them believe something that wasn't real. Killed them with fear, grief. Killed those other two like you tried to with me. Made them believe something violent was happening."
Meg looked pissed off, but she clapped anyway. "Well done, you're not as dumb as you look."
"You're the only dumb one in this room, Sweetheart," Dean corrected, smirking. "You tried to use my mind to hurt Sam. Big mistake."
Meg smiled tightly, before hopping on Dean, straddling him, leaning her weight into him and shoving his back against the wall, jolting his cracked ribs. Dean gasped, shutting his eyes against the pain flowing up from his ribs like an angry tide.
"Deany baby, a girl always has more tricks up her sleeve." She leant casually on Dean's shoulders, her hand resting against his burnt shoulder. Dean grunted, clenching his jaw.
"Really not into this BDSM thing, darlin'."
Meg ignored him, pressing her hand back against his cheek. Dean jerked away, but she held on firmly. And the world was gone again, faded into black.
Let me know your thoughts! I hope you arent confused as hell, lol. If so, sorry!
