Chapter 4: The Freaks Come Out At Night
". . . anything's possible if you've got enough nerve." - The Half-Blood Prince
Kat sat in the corner of the dark room, hunched over and facing the moldy wall. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest as tears ran down her face. She tried desperately to stay silent. She couldn't let those . . . those things know where she was. Struggling to keep herself from hyperventilating, she fought to direct her thoughts somewhere, anywhere, else. Why had she let Gavin talk her into coming here?
Gavin . . .
Instead of making things better, thinking of her boyfriend just made things so much worse. She'd heard him scream a while ago - she didn't know how long it had been, but it had felt like an eternity - after he'd gone off on his own to go exploring deeper in the asylum. He could be hurt, dead for all she knew. One of those things could have gotten him and she would never know.
Should she try to leave? Go find help? That would be the most reasonable thing to do. But she couldn't leave. Those things might come after her if she moved. Besides, she wasn't going anywhere without Gavin. She had to know if he was okay.
Suddenly her body tensed as her ears registered a sound beyond the rushing of blood through her head. Voices. Human voices. Coming this way. She strained to listen. It was a guy speaking, but it wasn't Gavin. Were there other people here? She tried to turn to listen but accidentally hit the bed she was hiding behind with her arm. The voices abruptly stopped and she froze, hardly daring to breathe. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. Maybe they weren't human but instead one of the things roaming the hall. What was she going to do? Okay, maybe if she stayed absolutely still they would just pass by her without noticing her. Footsteps sounded through the room, but maybe they were just continuing down the hall? Oh God. Oh God.
With a shriek of metal against concrete she heard and felt the bed get pulled out of the way and she screamed. Her fight or flight instincts kicked in as she whipped around to see who or what had found her, backing up against the wall. Instantly she was blinded by a bright light and she blinked, squinting against the glare. A flashlight, her mind registered as she gasped for breath. There was a flashlight being shined directly in her face. Behind the bright light were three people. Two men and one woman. One of the men was a literal giant with longish brown curls - he was the one with the flashlight. The other man had shorter spiked brown hair and was pointing a sawed-off shotgun directly at her. The woman, far shorter than the two gargantuan men next to her, had long dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. All three of them wore run-down clothes and had an identical look of surprise on their faces, as if she was the last person they expected to find here.
They stared at her for a few moments, then the two men lowered their respective objects. "It's alright, we're not gonna hurt you," the shorter of the men said. "It's okay. What's your name?"
She started to get to her feet, making the split-second decision to trust them. They seemed human enough to her, and she was glad to not be alone by herself anymore. "Katherine," she said, her voice a little breathier than she would have liked. Gathering her wits a bit more, she stood up the rest of the way. "Kat," she clarified, in a stronger voice than before.
"Okay," the man replied. "I'm Dean, this is Sam and that's Alex." He pointed to the taller man first and the woman second.
"What are you doing here?" the taller man - the one she guessed was named Sam - asked incredulously.
She tried to take a few deep breaths to steady herself and ended up hyperventilating again. "Um - my boyfriend, Gavin -"
"Is he here?" Dean asked.
She nodded shakily. ". . . Somewhere." The trio exchanged a strange sort of glance, which Kat took as a sign to continue her explanation. Gasps punctuated her sentences at random intervals. "He thought it would be fun and try and see some ghosts. I thought it was all just . . . y'know, pretend." She tried not to start sobbing again as she pulled her sweater closer around herself. "I've seen things. I heard Gavin scream and -"
"Alright, Kat, come on," Dean said, taking her gently by the arm and leading her towards the doorway. "Sam and Alex are gonna get you out of here, then we're gonna find your boyfriend."
As soon as the words left his mouth something inside her kicked in. "No! No! I'm not gonna leave without Gavin! I'm coming with you." She couldn't believe she was saying it, but she knew she would never be able to forgive herself if she didn't stay and look for him.
Dean seemed exasperated with her. "It's no joke around here, okay? It's dangerous."
"That's why I've gotta find him," she explained, calmer now.
Silence fell for a few moments as the trio shared another look. If she didn't know any better, she would have believed they were communicating telepathically. Before she could examine it any further, however, Dean faced her again. "Alright, I guess we're gonna split up, then. Alex, you're with me."
Alex shot him an incredulous glance. "And leave Sam alone?"
"Sam can handle himself, alright? I want you with me so I can keep an eye on you."
Alex opened her mouth to argue again but Sam quickly cut her off. "It's fine, Alex, really. Go on, I'll be okay."
Seeing that she was outnumbered, Alex heaved a long sigh of resignation. It was strange the way they acted around each other, as if Alex was some sort of apprentice and Dean and Sam were her mentors. Dean nodded once and faced Kat again. "Let's go." And without further ado, he began leading the way out into the corridors.
Kat stuck as close as she could to the other two as they walked down the long, dark hallways. Thankfully there were no signs of the things from earlier. She called out for Gavin as often as she could while Dean shone a flashlight in every corner. They were almost past a long row of moldy windows when Dean stopped and turned to face her. "Hey, I got a question for ya. You've seen a lot of horror movies, yeah?"
"I guess so," she answered uncertainly.
"Do me a favor. Next time you see one? Pay attention. When someone says a place is haunted, don't go in." And with that he turned and started walking forward again.
She glanced back only to find Alex shaking her head. "You can ignore him, he doesn't do well with the whole touchy-feely emotional thing," Alex said, walking next to her.
"I'm being serious here," Dean called back over his shoulder.
"So am I. You're really crappy at dealing with people."
Kat giggled a bit but tried to hide it behind one of her hands. Alex still seemed to see, though, since she gave Kat a grin and continued pushing forward.
The trio moved further and further down the hallway. Alex had taken to making small talk with Kat - mundane things like where she was going to school and what she liked doing -, something she greatly appreciated. She knew Alex was trying to take away the stress of the situation and get her mind off her missing boyfriend. She was grateful for that; she didn't know how much longer she would last if she kept imagining finding Gavin's dead body around one of the corners.
Suddenly Dean's flashlight began to flicker and he shook it as it went out completely. "You son of a bitch," he muttered furiously under his breath, putting the now useless flashlight in the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He reached into his pocket. "It's alright, I got a lighter," he reassured them. Within a few seconds a tiny flame flared to life in his hand, illuminating some of the darkness.
Kat shifted uncomfortably. "Ow! Alex, you're hurting my arm!" she whispered.
"But I'm not touching you," Alex said.
Dean turned around, moving the lighter to show that neither of Alex's hands were anywhere near Kat. Her heart rising in her throat, Kat looked down at her arm. There was a hand - filthy, blackened by dirt and other grime - gripping her tightly.
All at once something strong pulled her into an empty with a loud scream, the door slamming shut behind her. "Kat!" Dean and Alex both shouted, their footsteps pounding against the floor.
Kat was well and truly panicking now. She slammed against the door with her fist repeatedly, trying her best to break it down despite knowing it was physically impossible. "Let me out!" she shrieked in terror. "Please! Please!" Outside, she could hear Dean straining like he was trying to pull the door open. Nothing. It wasn't even budging.
"Hang on, Kat, we're gonna get you out of there! Just stay calm, okay?" There was an edge to Alex's voice as she shouted through the door and Kat backed up a few paces towards the center of the room. Suddenly feeling as though something were behind her, she spun around, only to be greeted with an empty room.
Outside, Dean was hammering on the door with something, trying to physically bust it open but to no avail. She wished they would hurry up. Why couldn't they hurry it up? Then she felt it again - the sensation that there was something right behind her. Slowly, hesitantly, she turned her head, and shrieked in horror again. There, in front of her, was a horribly disfigured man in grimy clothing. She backed away as quickly as she could, only to hear a sound like someone drawing in a ragged breath right behind her. She spun around once more, shrieking again when she saw it was the same disfigured man.
She pushed herself as far away from him as she could, pressing up against the door and making sure to keep an eye on him at all times. She heard Sam shout something unintelligible from her end and footsteps running towards her. Dean paused from his hammering and shouted what sounded like "She's inside with one of them!" to Sam.
"HELP ME!" she screamed. The man was moving closer to her.
"KAT!" There was Gavin's voice now. He was alright!
"GET ME OUT OF HERE!" she yelled. The man just wouldn't stop coming.
"Kat, it's not gonna hurt you!" That was Sam's voice. She didn't care what he said. She ran as far away from the man as she could, sobbing as she rushed to another wall. "Listen to me, you have to face it! You have to calm down!"
"She's gotta what?!" Dean and Alex asked in unison.
"I have to what?!" she repeated.
Sam continued on. "These spirits, they're not trying to hurt us, they're trying to communicate! You gotta listen to it, you gotta face it!"
"You face it!"
"No, it's the only way you're gonna get outta there!"
"No!"
"Look at it, that's all!" Sam's voice was pleading now. "Come on, you can do it!"
Kat found herself hyperventilating again, but she tried her best to do as Sam said. She wanted to get out of there. She had to get out of there. Swallowing her fear, she turned slowly to face the man in front of her. He was absolutely hideous. His long black hair was matted and tangled. One eye was completely swollen shut, the other covered by his hair. His clothes were torn and dirty and he looked as if he hadn't bathed in a long time. His breathing was loud and labored. But true to Sam's word, he didn't seem to want to hurt her. He was no longer moving closer to her, but instead just standing there, staring at her. As she allowed herself to look at him directly, he began to slowly move his mouth closer to her ear.
After what felt like an eternity, the lock clicked and the door swung slowly open. Kat stood there, looking up at them. There was Gavin in between Sam, Dean, and Alex. He seemed to be alright except for the gash on his forehead. "Oh Kat," he sighed in relief. Immediately, Dean pulled her out of the room as Sam and Alex moved forward to examine it. She waited by Gavin, not willing to speak until they were all out of there.
"137," she said. Her own voice sounded tired and weak to her ears.
The trio looked at her, confused. "What?" Alex asked.
She took a deep breath. "It whispered in my ear. 137."
Sam and Dean looked at each other. "Room number," they realized in unison.
Kat didn't know what exactly they were talking about, but she didn't care anymore. She just wanted to leave. She waited patiently, trying to gather her wits back while Sam and Dean had a small conference - something about what the spirits were "really trying to do." Alex stood there awkwardly, trying hard to be included but failing. For some reason, Kat found herself thinking, she looked really out of place. Why was that? They arrived here together, shouldn't they be working together doing . . . whatever it was they were doing? Before she could answer her own question, Sam and Dean stood up again. "So," Dean said, "now, you guys ready to leave this place?"
"That's an understatement," Kat replied with a long sigh.
"Alright." Dean turned to the other two. "Sam, Alex, you two get 'em outta here. I'm gonna go find room 137." Pulling out a flashlight, he clicked it on and started off down the hall again back in the direction they'd originally been heading. As soon as he left, Sam and Alex began leading Kat and Gavin down the opposite way, which she assumed was the way out.
Kat thought hard to herself. Before, Dean had said something about wanting to keep Alex close to him so he could keep an eye on her. But before that, he had wanted Alex to go with Sam to get Kat out of there. And now he was sending Alex with Sam again. It was almost like he was trying to keep Alex out of harm's way. Why? And why the hell did they know all this stuff about ghosts and spirits? It didn't make sense. After a few more moments of silence, she decided to ask. "So how do you guys know about all this ghost stuff?"
It was Sam who answered this time. "It's kind of our job." Alex remained stubbornly silent, something Kat found interesting. The young woman had been so willing to talk to her earlier, and now she was abnormally silent.
"Why would anyone want a job like that?" Kat asked.
Sam huffed a laugh. "I had a crappy guidance counselor."
"And Dean . . . he's your boss?"
Alex snorted, finally making some sort of noise. "Not exactly," she answered, clearly trying to hold back laughter. Though why that was so funny went right over Kat's head. Dean was clearly the leader, taking charge in all the situations, so it would make sense if Sam was the employee and Alex was some sort of intern. But if they weren't boss and employee, what sort of relationship did they all share?
As she struggled to wrack her brain, she saw that they were heading towards a large hospital door. That was where they had come in, Kat was sure of it. They were almost there! At least, that's what she thought until Sam tried to pull it open. When that didn't work, he banged on another set of doors to their left. Nothing. Both stayed stubbornly shut, like someone had locked it. He turned back to them. "Alright. I think we have a small problem."
"Let's break it down," Gavin spoke up, trying to take charge of the situation. Like always.
"I don't think that's gonna work," Sam replied, exasperation showing in his tone.
"Then a window!" Gavin suggested again.
"They're barred," Kat pointed out. He knew that.
"Well then how are we supposed to get out?!"
"I think that's the point," Alex said. Her face took on a somber expression. "We're not. There's something in here that doesn't want us to leave."
Kat thought about it. "Those patients -"
"Not them. Something else."
Alex looked up from her post on the wall as Sam came striding back towards the group. "Alright, I looked everywhere. There's no other way out."
"So what the hell are we gonna do?" Gavin asked.
"Well, for starters, we're not gonna panic."
"Why the hell not?!"
As Sam's phone began to ring, she found herself actually feeling a bit sorry for Gavin. The guy had absolutely no spine. Despite how much he tried to hide it and be 'big man on campus,' it was clear he wasn't cut out for this sort of thing. Her pitying thoughts about Gavin were cut short when Sam answered the phone.
There was some sort of weird high-pitched static that immediately caught Alex's attention. Dean's voice sounded like it was having a hard time getting through. "Sam, it's me. I see him. He's comin' at me."
"Where are you?" Sam asked.
"I'm in the basement. Hurry up!"
"I'm on my way." He closed the phone, then handed Alex a black shotgun. "Alex, you remember how to handle a shotgun?"
"Yeah, of course I do," she answered. She hadn't forgotten everything about hunting.
"Alright, take this. It's loaded with rock salt. Now, it might not kill a spirit, but it'll repel it, so if you see something, shoot. I'm going after Dean."
"Wait, alone? Are you nuts?"
"Look, Alex, I don't have time for this. I gotta help him."
She glanced back at Kat and Gavin, who were standing off together, then focused her attention back on Sam. "He's my brother, too, y'know," she hissed under her breath. "If anything happens to either of you -"
"I understand that," Sam interrupted softly, "but I need you to stay with these people and keep them safe. You may have never actually hunted before, but you have training, which is way more than they have. Please."
She glared at him for a few moments as he gazed back at her, giving her puppy-dog eyes. Damn, she had forgotten about those. When did he get so good? He used to be terrible at them. Finally, she relented. "Okay. But you'd better come back."
"I will," he promised. Then he was off down the hallway again, searching for Dean.
She sighed, then loaded the shotgun. She hated waiting. It made her feel completely useless. Then again, she'd been feeling useless this entire time, so this really wasn't much different.
They waited. And waited. It seemed like an eternity. Alex was almost growling with impatience as she paced back and forth. A bad feeling was bubbling in the pit of her stomach, telling her something was about to go horribly, horribly wrong. She glanced back at Gavin and Kat. At least they seemed to be doing okay. That was something. As long as they were alright then that was one less thing for Alex to worry about.
"Hey Gavin?" Kat finally said with a sigh from where she crouched against the wall.
Gavin walked over and crouched beside her. "Yeah?"
"If we make it out of here alive . . ." She looked over at him. ". . . we are so breaking up."
Had they had a few more moments of quiet, Alex would have burst out laughing. She liked Kat. She was strong, unlike her boyfriend. She definitely deserved better than him. It was at that moment, though, that she heard something move further down the hallway. Alex's head shot up at the noise just in time to see a shadow moving along the wall. "Get behind me," she warned, raising the shotgun. Her heart pounded as she tried to remember what Dad had taught her: butt tight against the shoulder, hold the barrel with the left hand, lead the target, squeeze the trigger. The figure rounded the corner and Alex instinctively took her shot, missing it by a few inches as it ducked back around the corner.
She heard something that sounded like a curse, followed by a gravelly voice. "Don't shoot, it's me!"
Her heart leapt up to her throat as she instantly realized the figure hadn't been a spirit. Oops. "Sorry!" she called back.
A few seconds later, Dean popped back out from around the corner, taking a few moments to examine where she'd hit. It looked like she had managed to get the wall. Had Dean continued forward, she would have hit him right in the face. Great. Her first time working a job and she almost shot her own brother. He walked over to them. "What are you still doin' here?" he asked. "Where's Sam?"
"What do you mean? Isn't he with you?" Alex asked.
"I sent him back with you."
"He went to the basement, you called him!" Gavin explained.
Dean gave them all a look. "I didn't call him."
"His cell phone rang," Kat added. "He said it was you."
Alex's heart skipped a beat. If Dean didn't call him, then . . . oh no. Oh no. Dean seemed to come to the same realization. "The basement, huh?" Gavin nodded. Dean paused for a few seconds, then grabbed a gun and stuffed it in his inside coat pocket. "Alright, Alex, watch 'em. And watch out for me." He started to stalk off back the way he had come.
"Wha - Dean! Dean, wait!" Alex called, racing after him.
"I'm serious, Alex, stay with them," Dean called back over his shoulder.
"I'm not letting you go down there alone!" Grabbing his arm, she yanked him backwards so he was facing her. "Listen to me - something lured Sam down there. He might be in real trouble, and if he is and you go down to rescue him alone, you could get hurt too -"
"I hear what you're sayin', but I've been in this rodeo a lot longer than you have. Besides, if you're right and whatever's down there does get me, then who's gonna protect those people?"
She stared at him incredulously. "So what, you expect me to just sit on the side lines?"
"I expect you to protect Kat and Gavin, alright? You're the last line of defense here. So stay outta trouble and keep an eye on them. I'll be back soon." Without waiting for her response, he broke into a brisk walk towards the basement area.
"Dean!" No reply. He was long gone. She cursed under her breath, tugging at her ponytail in frustration. Now what was she supposed to do? She knew Dean needed her. He wouldn't be able to take on whatever was waiting for him alone. She couldn't explain it, but she could feel that something was going to happen to him if she didn't go after him. She kicked at the floor and stalked back towards where Kat and Gavin stood, sliding down the wall. Stupid, stupid, STUPID! Why was he so freaking stubborn?
"Hey, you okay?"
She looked up to see Kat standing over her, a concerned look on her face that bordered between worry and pity. Alex released the breath she had been holding in with a sigh. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Kat took a seat next to her against the wall, smoothing her sweater underneath her. "I never did get a chance to thank you," she said after a few moments of silence. "Not just, y'know, for saving me, but for earlier, with the small talk. It helped a lot and I just wanted to say thanks."
Alex gave her a small smile. "It's the least I could do. Though you should probably wait until we get out of this place, see if you still want to thank me then."
Silence prevailed for a few more moments before Kat gathered the courage to speak again. "So, Sam and Dean . . . do they always do this to you? Make you stay behind?"
"Hmm . . ." Alex thought to herself for a moment. How in the world could she even go about answering that? She'd watched Sam take the lead when Kat was questioning him before and noticed he tried to skate around the topic with lame jokes and sarcasm. It didn't take a genius to figure out there was some sort of unspoken rule about giving as little information as possible about their actual lives, specifically hunting. Bearing this in mind, she tried to phrase her answer as diplomatically as possible. "Well, I'm still kinda new to this whole gig. My guess is Dean and Sam both want to protect me as much as possible." She thought about the implications for the second part of that sentence. Sam being protective over her . . . if that wasn't a strange thought she didn't know what was.
Her mind was distracted as Kat started talking again. "Still, that's not fair for them to sideline you like that. Especially when it's clear you're worried about them."
Alex huffed. "You don't have to tell me twice."
There were a few moments of silence before Kat spoke again. "So Sam and Dean are your brothers?"
"Yeah," Alex replied. No use hiding it now; she hadn't exactly kept it a secret, after all. "Sam's the youngest and Dean's the oldest. I'm right in the middle."
Kat nodded, her mouth making an "o" shape. "That makes a lot more sense than boss and employee."
Alex actually chuckled at that. Again, she found herself thinking about how much she liked Kat. That thought was interrupted by the sound of a sawed-off shotgun echoing through the building. Again, she was assailed with the feeling that something was horribly, horribly wrong, and she had a clear image of Sam in her head, standing over Dean with a gun and a bloody nose. She jumped to her feet.
"What is it?" Kat asked, worried by her sudden movement.
"It's the boys. They're in trouble, I know it." She paused, weighing her options. She knew these two needed to be protected, but there was only one spirit in here that wanted to hurt them, and she had a feeling it was down in the basement with her brothers. She had no choice. The boys needed her more, she had to go help. Her mind made up, she turned back to the couple. "Alright, can either of you use a shotgun?"
"What? No!" Gavin replied, horrified by the very thought.
"I can," Kat answered. Gavin looked over at her in surprise. "My dad took me skeet shooting a couple times," she defended herself.
Alex gave her the shotgun and searched the ground for a bit. If she was going to go down there, she needed a weapon to ward off the big baddie that was stalking her brothers. She settled for an iron rod that was lying in one of the piles barricading the door - she didn't know where it had come from, but she wasn't complaining. "Alright. Stay here, and if you see something, shoot. I'm going after them."
Kat just nodded while Gavin looked visibly panicked. "Didn't both Sam and Dean tell you to stay here?" he asked.
"Those two idiots are in way over their heads," she said. "I have to go after them."
"Go get 'em," Kat replied, a hard glint in her kind eyes. "We'll be fine." Gavin glanced back at her in shock, as if he couldn't believe she would say such a thing.
Alex nodded her thanks, then turned and began jogging off to the basement. Her heart raced in her chest, her mind constantly bombarding her with images and scenarios. What if they were dead? What if the thing that had been making people insane had turned one of them? What if the one of them was dead by the other's hand? She kept getting flashes of images in her head - Sam standing over Dean with a gun, Dean gazing up helplessly as Sam prepared to finish him off, an old man with white stringy hair and a deformed face shooting electricity from his fingers. Stop it! she told herself sternly. That kind of thinking wasn't going to get her anywhere. She had to find them, as quickly as possible.
The corridors blurred together as she raced through them, finding a staircase to the basement with relative ease. Holding her rod like a baseball bat, she walked carefully but quickly, scanning the surrounding area for anything that might want to kill her. So far there was nothing, but all the same, something didn't feel right. She felt cold and sick to her stomach and her hairs on the back of her neck prickled. This was much different than her encounter with the spirits of the patients. There was something sinister here, something malevolent.
She was just nearing the open door at the end of the hall when the sound of squeaky wheels rolling and large objects crashing made her rush forward through one room and into the next. A strangled scream reached her ears just as she entered the room. There, in the corner next to an opened cabinet, was Dean. Above him was an old man with a cloud of stringy white hair clinging to his head, his bony fingers surrounded by a blue glow and pressed against Dean's temples and cheeks. He was saying something to Dean in a smooth, relaxing tone, but she couldn't make out what was being said over the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears. All she knew was that Dean was being electrocuted, and if she didn't do something, he was going to die.
Thinking quickly, she glanced around the room and found a sawed-off shotgun lying on the dirty floor. She traded it in for her iron rod and readied it, taking her aim. "Hey ugly!" she shouted, drawing his attention. He looked up at her, annoyed, just as she shot him in the face with rock salt, causing him to disappear in a puff of smoke.
Dean lifted his head and looked up at her, groggy. "Alex . . . ?"
"Don't just sit there, idiot, get rid of him!" she yelled, scanning the room for any sign of the bony bastard who had tried to kill her brothers. Something slammed into her midriff and shoved her backwards with a scream, causing her to hit a wall hard and fall to the ground. She tried to get up when suddenly the spirit was above her, his cracked lips curled in a snarl. One of his eyes had been gouged out, his skin powdery white and flaking away in places. His other eye was yellow and glared at her in hatred as he reached for her -
FWOOOOOSH!
The spirit looked over to the cabinet Dean had been lying next to. Orange and yellow flames engulfed what looked to be a decaying corpse in a lab coat, making a crackling noise. The spirit gazed at his own hands in horror and stood, and as she watched, he began to dissolve in front of her, his skin melting and petrifying until he fell forward onto the ground, shattering. Alex breathed a sigh of relief, letting her head fall back against the ground with a dull thud and squeezing her eyes shut. It was over. The bad feeling in her stomach eased and she felt she could relax again.
As she attempted to keep her head from splitting in half from a headache, she heard Dean pull himself to his feet and stumble towards her. "Alex?" he called, his voice thick and strange.
"I'm alright," she replied. "Head's killing me, but I'm alright."
She opened her eyes again and looked over at him. He was leaning heavily against the wall, head turned towards Sam who was just waking up. "You're not gonna try and kill me, are ya?" he asked their younger brother.
Sam paused, half of his lip scrunched up as he stretched his jaw. He must have gotten clocked pretty good. A thick line of drying blood trailed from one nostril down over his lip. "No," he said finally, going back to stretching his jaw.
Dean nodded. "Good," he said. "'Cause that would be awkward." He then looked over at Alex again, limping over towards her as she started to sit up. He reached out a hand and she gratefully accepted it, using it to pull herself up. He then did something that she wasn't expecting - he hugged her, tightly. Surprised, she simply wrapped her arms around him loosely and patted him on the back.
"I'm alright, Dean," she protested slightly. "I'm okay."
He finally pulled back and looked at her, his expression grave and serious. "Don't you ever do that again. Y'hear me?" Unsure of what else to do, she just nodded. "Good. Let's go get the lovebirds outta here."
The gray morning light was a welcome relief as they stood outside the sanitarium, the cool air fresh and clean against their faces. Kat and Gavin stood awkwardly next to each other in front of the Winchesters, both exhausted but clearly happy to be out and alive. "Thanks, guys," Kat said.
Gavin nodded and echoed her with a "Yeah, thanks."
"No more haunted asylums, okay?" Dean reprimanded, giving them a stern look. The two simply returned the look before turning and going back to the car, Gavin moving his hand up to cup Kat's shoulder. Kat turned back for a brief moment and glanced at Alex, who gave the young woman a friendly smile and a hand raise, then got into the car with Gavin.
Alex sighed as the siblings looked away from the car, Dean lowering the duffel bag they'd brought with them into the Impala. Sam turned back towards the sanitarium briefly, then looked over at Dean. "Hey Dean?" he started, waiting until Dean looked back at him. "I'm sorry, man. I . . . I said some awful things back there."
"You remember all that," Dean stated in surprise.
Sam nodded. "Yeah. It's like I couldn't control it, but I didn't mean it. Any of it."
Alex averted her gaze from the two, continuing to carefully monitor them. She got the sense that there was a lot not being said in this conversation, but she knew prying wouldn't help matters any. If she wanted to know more, she would have to wait until one of them came forward and told her. Meanwhile, Dean continued to give Sam an odd look. "You didn't, huh?"
Sam's eyes twitched in surprise. "No, of course not." Dean didn't respond, simply nodding as if he wasn't convinced. "Do we need to talk about this?"
"No," Dean replied, tossing the bag into the back. "I'm not really in the 'sharing and caring' kind of mood. I just wanna get some sleep." He got into the car and looked back at Alex expectantly. "You coming or what?"
The drive back to the motel was long, silent, and tense. No one said anything, even after the three arrived in the room. They were all too exhausted to continue any sort of conversation. Alex wanted to ask more, but the couch looked so inviting that as soon as she kicked off her shoes she was lying down, fast asleep. It only seemed like moments later, though, when a ringing cell phone brought her back to consciousness.
"Dean," came Sam's groggy voice from across the room, but no response. The phone rang again. Alex rolled over and blinked one eye open just in time to see Sam reach over and grab the phone, glancing at the caller ID. A third ring. Sam flipped open the phone and held it up to his ear. "Hello?" There was a brief pause as Sam sat bolt upright. ". . . Dad?"