I sucked in a lungful of smoke as Freya and I hurried down an uneven dirt road riddled with sandy grooves and gravely potholes. My head darted from side to side, and my eyes glanced through trees and murky wetlands of tall grass and cattails, making certain I was alone on my route to Sam and Dean. With the exception of Max's panic attack, I hadn't been that petrified in years. Not since the night Mary died.
The night I first learned things like me were real.
Fear was not a lone sentiment I carried with me on that dark road. There was a tempest of fury and remorse brewing within the very core of my being. The demon side of me struggled against the small remains of humanity that had survived the fall, but the demon was growing bigger. Not only was it swelling in size, it was devouring the bits of humanity I desperately clung to.
We're good, John, I assured myself as I took in another breath of smoke. Things couldn't possibly get worse. Not tonight.
Of course, that was basically the equivalent of saying "the Titanic is unsinkable".
When I reached Sam and Dean, they were standing outside the Impala, which had been parked in the grass in the shadow of the burned remains of what was once a barn. Blackened planks of charred wood stood in crumbling rows, rooted in a fieldstone foundation that stood fast; singed, but strong. The scent of freshly burned wood carried across the light summer breeze, revealing the fire that had claimed the barn had been recent.
Dean was leaning casually against the trunk of the Impala, sipping from a silver flask, and Sam was staring up at the stars that peaked through the thin curtain of faint white light the small city gave off. They were conversing quietly, locked in a sobering discussion that came to an abrupt halt when they spied me approaching.
"Woah," Dean said, eyeing my blood-soaked t-shirt with a raised brow. "That better be demon blood."
"Of course it's demon blood," I hastily grumbled and I rolled my eyes. I drew in another breath of smoke before carelessly tossing the remains of my cigarette aside to smolder in the grass. "Get in the car. We need to go. Now."
Sam narrowed his eyes at me and folded his arms across his chest.
"No," he said firmly.
"It wasn't a question," I shot with an authoritative air. I briskly brushed past Sam and Dean, marched straight for the Impala, and threw the back door open. "Get in the car."
"Yeah, we don't take orders from demons," Dean spoke up. I turned to see he had planted himself firmly on the ground beside Sam, his face hardened by the command that had fallen out of my mouth without thought.
"Come with me if you want to live?" I wasn't trying to be funny, not by a long shot, but I didn't know how to rephrase my command to make myself sound less like General Dad.
"We're not going anywhere until you tell us what's going on," Sam said, firm in his decision to resist orders.
"I'll tell you on the way out of town," I hurriedly insisted. "Now let's go." I paused, and grudgingly added, "please?"
Sam stood fast in his place, waiting for me to share what had happened.
"You can start by telling us where the grimoire is," Dean said, taking his brother's side. His stance was not as rigid as his brother's, but he was far from relaxed. The way his fingers lightly twitched at his side, I knew he was prepared to unsheathe his angel blade at a moment's notice.
"You wanna know where the grimoire is?" I growled as I slowly stepped forward with narrowed eyes. "The grimoire was useless, and the spell you were after doesn't exist. It was all a trap that you two sent me walking into."
"A trap?" Dean echoed, and his face fell, not in sorrow for me and what had happened, but because of what this meant for his angel pal.
A frustrated breath steamrolled past my lips. I hastily pushed my left sleeve up to my elbow and extended my arm out. Sam and Dean both leaned forward to get a better view of the symbol.
"It's a curse," I informed them as they studied the mark that stretched across my flesh in red boxes and lines. "A binding spell. It ties me to Crowley. Whatever happens to him, happens to me."
"Wait, you saw Crowley?" Sam questioned, more curious than concerned, and his hazel eyes glanced up from my arm to me. "I thought Mystery told you he wouldn't be there."
"Yeah, well, he came home early," I muttered as I rolled my sleeve back down. "Mystery is gone, by the way. Crowley took her for helping me, and he's coming for you next. So, please, get in the fucking car."
"Why is he coming after us?" Sam wanted to know, his voice somewhere between curious and pissed off. "You're the one he wants, right? Now that he knows you're topside."
"Fuck if I know," I outright lied in my desperation to get on the road. "Can we please just go now?"
Sam and Dean exchanged a long, hard look, wordlessly debating their options.
"Are you two fucking deaf?" I growled when they remained silent. "Get in the fucking car!"
"Watch it," Dean sternly warned, jabbing a finger at me.
"Technically," Sam began. "You're no longer useful to us. Why should we help you?"
"Why should you help me?" I echoed with a turbulent disbelief, and I marched up to Sam to get in his face. "I just took a bullet for you, boy," I snarled. "You owe me."
Sam narrowed his eyes at me, but his expression was was more studious than irate, like he was trying to dissect something I had said. Dean stepped between us and forcibly shoved me away from his brother. I staggered back only a couple of steps and I fought the instinctive urge to retaliate.
"Back off," Dean barked protectively in a gravely voice. "We don't owe you anything. If Crowley's coming after us to get to you, I think we're even. In fact, I think we should just exorcise you here and now. Send you on down as a gift to Crowley from us."
My breath caught in my throat and my heart stopped.
"You wouldn't," I challenged with a shaky confidence.
"Oh, I would," Dean said with an insincere smile. "Especially if it gets Crowley off our ass."
Dean gave me a stony look, and I could tell he wasn't lying.
"So that's how it is then?" I said, jilted by Dean's brazen threats. "You blackmail me, get me caught, and now you're just going to exorcise me?"
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't," he challenged conceitedly.
Ice filled my veins. It hooked it's frigid fingers around my muscles and clung to my bones. Dean's words were cold, and left me frozen in place. Part of me screamed to tell them who I was; they wouldn't exorcise me if they knew it was their father they were threatening. But they wouldn't believe me. If anything, they would kill me for saying it.
"Crowley didn't know I was topside, because he didn't know I was in Hell," I confessed, hoping it was a satisfying enough excuse to keep Dean from sending me back. "If you exorcise me, I'll end up in the middle of it all and Crowley..." I paused, remembering what Desdemona and her partner had each said to me back in Vegas. A thin, insincere smile lifted at the corner of my lips. "He's never going to let me die."
"Why's that?" Sam asked, prodding me for more secrets. His brows gently folded and he nodded to me. "Who are you?"
"I'm the guy who managed to walk through Hell under Crowley's nose for a thousand years," I hotly snapped. "If you send me back now, he's going to personally torture me for the rest of eternity. Or worse, he's going to turn me into some goddamn raging death machine."
Sam parted his lips to speak, but no words came out. A perplexed look wove itself across his brow as he stared thoughtfully at me. He shifted in discomfort and, for a minute, he appeared to be holding his breath.
"That's impressive," Dean admitted with a look of interest. "That's actually really impressive. But it's not enough."
His hand hovered over his hip, preparing to arm himself as he shot me a cold but wary stare.
"Seriously?" I asked, somewhere between annoyed and horrified. "I thought you were team Maddox."
"I was," Dean acknowledged, advancing towards me. "And I sympathize with the soul selling, man. I do. But at the end of the day, you're just another demon."
The old saying, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"? I don't know about anyone else, but I've been bitten, clawed at, shot, maimed and shredded. I've suffered fractures and breaks and a century of being hacked to pieces every damn day. And no tooth or bullet or blade had ever sunk as deep or stung so bitterly as Dean's words. I tried to keep the pain from rising to the surface, tried to swallow it before he could notice. And he didn't. He boldly stepped within inches of my face and glared into my eyes, either trying to prove he wasn't afraid of me, or trying to provoke me into doing something, anything that would give him a better excuse to exorcise me. I should have seen the glint of hesitation that lingered behind his eye. I should have realized he didn't really want to exorcise me, that he was only standing his ground, sticking to his principles. And, thanks to hindsight, I did eventually see it. But in that moment, as the pain slowly dissolved and I remembered the threat of going back to hell, all I saw was red.
"You best get out of my face, boy," I spat between my teeth. I bit back the urge to lash out and beat my knuckles against his jaw. Dean cringed at the word boy, but bypassed it to give me a knowing, arrogant grin.
"Or what?" he challenged with confidence.
An electric fire of pure rage rolled from my chest and engulfed the blackened thing that used to be my soul. My fingers curled into tight fists that trembled at my sides, and I fought against the desire to lash out and strike him. To pick him up and send him sailing into the night.
Come on. We're on a roll tonight. They're going to exorcise you if you don't.
No. I can't hurt them.
"Yeah," Dean said with a small sneer when I did not retaliate. "That's what I thought."
Do not let him send you back down there!
"Exorcizamus te…"
"Wait!"
The words cut through the ancient incantation like sharks teeth. Surprised, Dean and I both turned our heads to look at Sam. Sam's eyes were on me, and they were full of questions. But when his lips parted, he only asked one; "Which one of you is bound to Crowley?"
I tried to swallow past the blazing fury, tried to steady my rapid breath as I blinked at Sam.
"I don't know," I replied with a slight roil in my voice.
"Wait," Dean said, taking a couple of slow steps back, his eyes falling to me. "You're saying Max could be cursed instead of you?"
"We did both technically touch it," I said as the fire gradually died down, not completely, but enough to hold a conversation without tearing anyone's head off.
"So there's a chance we're left with a cursed meatsuit if we exorcise you?" Dean wants full clarification on what might happen if I were to vacate my host. I shrugged, and he glanced between me and his brother. He put his hands on his hips, hung his head and sighed. "Shit."
"If you're gonna stab me in the back and send me back downstairs, I… request you wait until I help figure this mess out," I spoke up, ruefully remembering not to bark orders. "I'm responsible for him. I'm not… I would prefer not to leave him with this. It's not like I did anything to deserve an exorcism, anyway."
"You did put Crowley on our ass," Dean said, turning his head to look at me. He glanced over to Sam for a second opinion, which he gave with a small shrug that seemed to say why not? "Fine," he grumbled as he kicked a clump of dirt with the toe of his heavy black boots. "Just until we figure out how to unbind you from Crowley."
"Mystery," I spoke up. "I have to help her, too. I promised I would keep her safe."
"Man, you are just batting zero today," Dean scoffed, but his expression lacked irritation. He knew the dread that came with failing someone you've promised to protect, even if it is a complete stranger. "Fine. Yes. We will find Mystery. But if we run into Crowley, so help me god, I will give you to him myself."
"Well then. We better not run into Crowley."