Thanks for the continued encouragement! ;-)
Chapter title is from song by Metallica.
63
That Day Never Comes - Metallica
"Billings. We're going to Billings."
"Dean."
Sam had that reasoning tone to his voice. Dean set the newspaper down on the diner table with a whap.
"Billings or Tulsa. Or Kearny. Or Clarksville. Or Chicago. Or Nashville. Take your pick. Hell, pick anywhere. The shit's busting loose at the seams, Sammy. How long did you think we could ride the pine?"
He avoided looking at Zee, sitting across the table from him. If he felt out with his senses, he'd be able to feel it, the roil bubbling through the dark side that Ramiel was kicking up. Ghosts, on the edge of sanity, punching through the Veil. Zombies, driven by an insatiable hunger, ripping through the fabric of existence. Heaven and Hell colliding, light and dark blending into a dirty bachelor's gray. It oozed all around them like puddles of viscous muck, swallowing everything in its path.
"Twelve year old bites classmate's ear off. Occult killer suspected of ritual cannibalism in Oceanside." He jabbed at the headlines on the paper with a finger. "Couple abducted, whereabouts unknown in Greenville, second time this month. Man attacks family on subway with a butter knife. Decapitated teen found with all limbs chewed off by wild animals. Any of this ringing a bell?"
Exasperation flickered across Sam's face.
He didn't ask Sam what he'd learned from Garth last night, a whole bunch of yeah, no, aw craps, not now, not yets on Sam's end of the call, Sammy solemn and quiet as he hung up the phone, like he had been back at the bunker, when Timmy, Jimmy and Mary Sue hadn't answered that morning's roll call and Dean wasn't going to ask. He didn't have to.
He'd chosen the case in Billings with care. They wouldn't be able to turn it down. For one, it was too close to Cody. If nothing else, it meant Zee would go along with the plan, because some priorities outranked others.
Sam's face puckered.
"Maybe we should re-think this, Dean." Sam stated lowly.
He should have left well enough alone, all those years ago, back at Stanford. He could have handled it alone, the hunts and the life, with a few more bruises and a lot more whiskey, but he would have managed. He should never have come back the second time. He should have left Sam with the girl and the dog, and it would never have come to this, the doubt in his brother's eyes.
Beneath the table his hand fisted. He kept his eyes hooded, remembering the shadow of death over Sam's shoulder. His shadow. His jaw clenched. He looked up and met Sam's gaze square on. He didn't even blink the slightest when he lied to Sam through his teeth.
"Trust me, Sam. I'll be fine. C'mon, hurry up. Let's do this."
She hadn't expected the school when they got to the address Dean spat out that morning. The small parking lot out front was full of parked cars, but the building was eerily silent.
"Shit." was Sam's quiet imprecation, staring at the darkened building.
"Sam, see if you can find the kids. We'll do a sweep." Dean was already moving towards the back entrance, not waiting for Sam to argue. Sam opened his mouth, then shut it again when something fluttered in one of the windows.
"Go." She said shortly. "It'll be fine. We'll meet up inside. Just go."
She had to watch where she stepped, over half eaten bodies and overturned chairs and scattered bloody textbooks. The undead came bursting out of janitor's closets and closed utility rooms, from behind doors and around corners, in ones and in twos. Dean cut and she salted and burned, leaving a trail of smoldering body parts behind them as they made their way down the wide hallway.
"Heads up!"
She ducked, feeling the whistle of Dean's machete swinging overhead. She splashed gasoline on the ambulatory cadaver closest to her, then threw the lit match to follow. The whoosh of flame kissed her hair and she backed up, keeping an ear on the thud of body parts Dean was dropping behind her. She took another matchbook out of her pocket, splashed gasoline on a twitching leg that came flying her way, and lit that. Another. Three. Four. She moved faster, trying to keep up, listening uneasily to the increasing number of shuffling footsteps.
An arm re-joined a torso and it rolled away before she could torch it. She knew the exact moment when it was too much, too many; the moment when Dean's machete clattered loudly onto the ground. She kept doggedly at what she was doing, until the next head that rolled by her feet stared lifelessly up at her, not a twitch, not a twitter, echoing the sudden eerie silence behind her.
She set the gas can down and slowly turned.
She'd been aware this was a possibility. It was bound to happen sometime. Dark demonic eyes looked back at her in Dean's expressionless face, remote, the way the demon's always was. She had the angel blade in her hand without thinking about it, but not gripped loosely the way Sam always held his. She braced herself, her shoulders tensed, tracking the movement of the lethal jawbone.
The tip of the First Blade dipped, and then stayed still.
Her eyes flew up to his face. The demon turned more towards her, arms held wide open in blatant invitation.
Come on.
He eased his right shoulder back, eased the First Blade back, opening his stance even more. The edges of his jacket parted, giving her a straight shot at his heart. A muscle worked in his clenched jaw as he stared back at her.
DO IT.
The point of the First Blade dipped even more. His arm shook with the effort of holding still. She looked into eyes that were as black as night, and somehow not dark at all.
Come ON.
DO IT.
His eyes were black but she would have sworn they were green.
…Billings, he had said, looking straight at her.
…Sam, go and see if you can find the kids…when Sam was usually the one standing here.
The Mark lit ember red beneath his sleeve and still he didn't move.
Please.
Save Sam.
Sam. Standing where she stood, time after time, each time like the slow cut of a knife. No matter which way things went down, Sam died. Body or soul, did it matter? Sam died. Her hand shook, and she gripped the cold silver tighter, resisting the understanding twining bitterly around her.
The weapon in her hand was a lead weight. Her breath rasped out harsh and uneven, her fingers gone icy numb. She couldn't make her elbow bend no matter how hard she tried, couldn't stop pure ice from spreading to every limb, frozen still when she should have moved. She wouldn't get this chance again. All she had to do was take five steps forward while holding his gaze, somehow sunlit green behind the black, drive the blade through skin and heart, one blow quick enough to shatter her own, his hand warm on the small of her back, Sam's echoing noooooo ringing in her ears.
The angel blade fell from her hand, clanking loudly onto the ground.
Dean surged forward. His left arm snaked around her waist, pulling her unresisting to him, enveloping her in heat and canvas, her nose muffled into the rough fabric of his jacket, his arm like a steel band around her waist, hauling her off her toes. She hung limply when he swung around, lugging her with him like a dead weight, beheading the reassembled zombie that had crept up behind her with one swing of the First Blade.
Sam's footsteps came pounding up, his eyes going straight to the death grip Dean had around her.
"What happened?"
She shoved violently out of Dean's grip, not looking at the brilliant green of his eyes. She was breathing in small gasps, ignoring the reluctant drag of his fingertips against her waist as he let her go. She stumbled awkwardly over her own feet; all of her ice, ice cold. She didn't speak, she didn't shake, and Sam's voice pitched up with concern.
"What happened?"
She didn't look at Sam. She didn't look at either of them. She stared down at her boots. She should have run from the outset. It was rule number one.
"Nothing." Dean answered curtly into the stretching silence.
She shut her ears to his voice, not letting it vibrate her to her toes, not even when he spoke again.
"The kids?"
"Got 'em. I called 911, so we should bail."
She shut out Sam's voice too. Keys. Keys. She needed her car keys. She fumbled in her pocket for them, her feet moving her towards the entryway down the hall, away from the sound of their voices. Her clumsy fingers dropped the suddenly small key ring as she stepped out onto the pavement. She would have picked them up, but before she could try, the keys were being pressed into her hand, her car keys and the angel blade she had dropped. She stared down at both objects blankly, refusing to look up.
"Zee?" Sam asked from one side, real worry creeping into Sam's voice now.
The SUV was a few feet in front of her. Her fingers shook out the keys and pressed the unlock button before she could drop them again. She stepped left, knowing he wouldn't get in her way. She pulled open the car door.
"Zee?" Sam asked again. She heard Sam's anxious footfalls following her.
"Sam." She wasn't listening.
"Sam. Come on." Keys into the ignition.
"SAM!" That barked sharply, a direct order. A flurry of footsteps, then the footsteps moved away.
Close the door. Turn the keys.
Drive.
It was the peak of rush hour. Traffic slowed to a crawl, bumper-to-bumper brake lights glowing red in every lane, punctuating the blue-gray dusk of twilight. Dean drove with one hand on the wheel, not speaking, the stereo off, staring at the Durango's bumper, two cars ahead of them.
Sam shifted uneasily in his seat, not taking his eyes off the SUV partially obscured by the traffic. A police cruiser sped by on the left shoulder, heading for whatever accident was up ahead. The minivan in front of them inched slowly forward.
A small gap opened up ahead in the right lane. Without warning, Zee veered the Durango horizontally into it, narrowly avoiding the bumper of the F-150 in front. The delivery truck she'd just cut off blared its horn, the driver waving a one-finger salute angrily out the window.
Sam sat up.
Another bare gap opened in the far right lane. Zee shot the Durango into barely enough space without signaling again, drawing another blare of irate honking.
"Dean." He glanced over at Dean, where Dean had a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, mutely watching the SUV pull away.
Sam checked their right, cursing as the gas tanker pulled up even. He turned back to Dean, expecting him to signal to change lanes to follow, only to find Dean staring straight ahead, not doing a damned thing.
"Dean!" He barked.
Dean inched the Impala forward, not even trying to find an opening in the traffic.
He glared at Dean and reached into his pocket for his phone to call Zee. Before he could even get a grip on it, his phone whistled out of his hand and out of the car. Through the suddenly opened window he heard his phone land with a plastic plonk followed by a crunch as the gas tanker rolled right over it.
"DEAN! What the hell?" If he noticed Dean still had both hands on the wheel, he was too riled to care. "WHAT HAPPENED BACK THERE?"
Dean fixed his gaze on the shrinking spot that was the Durango, and grit his teeth in a stubborn, fragile silence.
He had a backup phone. He was reaching for it when Dean shot him a glare.
Sam narrowed his eyes. He remembered the last time Dean had looked at him like that, outside the hospital in Battle Creek where Cas had memory wiped Lisa and Ben.
"Dean. What did you do?"
One corner of Dean's mouth quirked down, hard and self-deprecating.
"Nothing."
"Then what happened?"
Dean kept his eyes on the minivan ahead. A muscle ticked on the hard line of his jaw. "Nothing, Sam. She wants out, she's getting out. Just drop it."
"Dean, we can't. We promised Toby we'd look out for her." Demons and angels, now on her ass, who knew what else Dean didn't know about and he was damned if he was going to just let it go. He pulled out his backup phone, flipping the cheap burner open. "She'll be a lot safer at the bunker. We haven't been back in a while anyway. I'll …"
His finger stabbed through a whole lot of nothing and into his palm. From outside the car came a second crunch.
"DEAN! WHAT THE FUCK?"
"DROP. IT. SAM. "
Dean's words were a growl, grated and broken like glass, and Sam shut the fuck up. One corner of his mind quietly noted that Dean had rolled the Impala's window back up without once taking his hands off the wheel.
"Leave her alone, Sam. Don't track her."
Sam glanced down at his left shoe, worrying at the inside of his cheek. He didn't agree, he couldn't agree, but he knew from long experience it was useless to argue with Dean when he was like this. If he kept an eye on Zee's location, it was only for Dean's own good. And he'd promised Toby. He had to keep an eye on her.
"Sam."
Dean bit off his name like an order, reading what he was thinking. Sam slouched down in the seat and deliberately let his hands fall lax. He turned his face toward the window, staring past his reflection at the gas tanker's polished bumper, memorizing the exit they'd just passed.
"Sure. Alright. Yeah."