A/N: Thanks again to everyone who's reading and for all the reviews. I appreciate it greatly! Onward ho. Dean-stuff. Kind of an interlude...ish. A little dark. Shorter chapter. Enjoy.
XIV. Lone
Was forever just a phrase
Or was the rebel just afraid of who he was?
Did he ever say my name
Or tell ya that I had his face and his same blood?
That I'm a drifter just the same and walked
Away from anyone I've ever loved.
-Kail Baxley, "The Rebel"
xXx
Alone in a dark parking lot.
Frozen breath hanging in the air like smoke from the cigarettes he swore to God he gave up two years ago.
A pair of bags heavy on his shoulders.
But it wasn't far:
The car was up ahead, some dark thing crouched alone in a snow-choked circle of lamplight.
(Since when does snow fall up?)
"...little rabbit…"
Fuck.
"...little rabbit…she's waiting for you…"
Couldn't tell where it was coming from.
"Leave me the fuck alone," he tried to say. Nothing came out but the smoke-puffs.
He walked faster.
Didn't seem like he was getting any closer to the car - felt like he was some kind of car spinning its wheels on a patch of ice. Bare feet - (Where the fuck are my boots? I had 'em on when I left the arena, I know I did.) - slipping and sliding every which way.
Night closed around him like a smothering curtain.
A coffin with its lid closed.
The car was up ahead, some shivering dark thing crouched like an abandoned dog dying in a gutter.
"Little rabbit."
Some frozen-dead hand fell on his shoulder, and his heart fucking lurched. He could feel it throbbing in his throat, pounding so hard it was tough to swallow.
Blind instinct kicked in and he spun to shove, two hands sinking deep into a fluff-soft chest.
"Get away, you son-of-a-bitch. Get out of my head."
Laughter floated up like some kid's helium-filled balloon, drifting up and up and up into the snow.
Nothing - no one - else there.
Just himself, the dark, the cold, and that high mocking laughter.
"Fuck," he muttered.
Too far to the car, but the arena - huge and black like the heart of some enormous slumbering monster - stood nearby, a door open and offering shelter from the cold.
From the laughter.
"...little rabbit...rabbit…"
"...little hound…" Second voice carrying under the swirl. Girl's voice, honey and sunlight. "My hound."
"Shut the fuck up," he muttered, all chattering teeth and heavy shivering.
Bags were so fucking heavy.
They were gonna drown him in all this snow, just drag him down.
They'd be fine in the cold.
He didn't need them, anyway.
They'd be fine without him.
Two soft thumps as he let them go, and snow swirled up cold around his ankles.
Pelting ice laughed down at him from a bruised sky.
Unencumbered-
(-all alone again-)
-he waded through the storm and made his way to the lit doorway ahead.
"Out of the darkness and into the light, little rabbit," the Bray-voice whispered. "Let me show you."
"Oh, fuck you," Dean muttered.
Tried.
More soundless breath-puffs.
He put frozen hands over his ears and slip-shuffled toward the arena's doorway.
(Alone.)
xXx
"Pretty little rabbit."
Explosion of light dazzled his eyes as he walked through the doorway, and suddenly he was in the middle of a forest somewhere, a dense canopy of greenery above and dirt snow-soft under still-bare feet.
Sunlight filtered down through the leaves in patches, giving the ground a mottled look.
Somewhere nearby, water babbled.
Thick smell of earth and plants.
"My pretty rabbit."
That little girl's voice again: warm summer skies and fresh cookies.
Familiar.
She stepped into his field of vision: curly dark brown hair and big blue eyes, white sun dress dirt-smeared at the hem, muddy feet and scratched legs.
She reached over to pet him. "My rabbit."
He wanted to slap her hand away and say, 'I'm not your fucking rabbit,' but his hands didn't work. Words didn't come out. He couldn't move.
(Rabbit in a snare.)
"Soft little rabbit," she said. Gap-toothed little smile. Dirty hands on his face.
(Get away, away, get away.)
Sound of a hound baying nearby, deep-chested howling barks that drew closer.
The dog: a droopy-faced, long-eared skinny old hound, lumbered over, whippy tail flipping back and forth, gnarled old stick in its mouth.
"Get away!" the girl yelled at him. She put herself between Dean and the dog. "Go. Bray! Get him away!"
"He's fine, Ab." Boy's voice. Same rolling accent as Bray's. Lazy.
Belonged to a husky kid, maybe ten, dark-haired and blue-eyed like the girl. Dirty red flannel shirt hung open over a dirty gray tee shirt. Holes in the knees of his pants.
Barefoot like the girl.
(Haven't I seen you before?)
The dog drifted closer. Growled at Dean low in its throat with a sound like a distant thunderstorm.
Dean still couldn't move.
Fuck.
("Little rabbit.")
The girl picked up a jagged white quartz rock and threw it at the boy's - Bray's - face.
He fell over, howling like the dog.
The dog stopped its advance and looked around.
When the boy got up, his face was bloody and twisted and feral.
He shoved the girl aside hard enough she whumped when she hit the dirt face-first, a little dust-cloud kicked up around her body.
Then he reached for Dean.
"No!" Dean snapped. He tried to twist and fight out of the boy's grip. "Let me go! Get off me. Get off me!"
Nothing came out.
("Liiiiittle raaaaaaaaabbit.")
And suddenly there was a dog, open-mouthed and snarling at him.
Hungry.
White teeth like huge knives.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
"Let me go! Let me go!"
"Bray! Stop it! Bray, no! No! Don't! My rabbit! My rabbit!"
Howling laughter.
Baying dog.
Adult Wyatt's face suddenly in front of him: beard and glittering eyes and mad jester's grin, his mouth opened wide to expose a mouthful of razors.
"Nonononono."
Hot, suffocating dark closed around Dean like a fucking coffin lid closing over him.
The teeth clamped down.
Dean screamed and screamed and screamed.
xXx
("I'll get you a new rabbit, Abigail. I promise. I swear I didn't mean it. I'm sorry.")
("My rabbit. My little rabbit. Little-")
xXx
"-rabbit!" Hot hands on his shoulders, shaking him. "Wake up!"
Dean groaned and tried to pull away from that touch, from the quiet roll of that voice. Bright, silvery pain sank its sharp claws right in between his eyes, momentarily rendering him immobile.
The side of his head thumped against something cold and solid.
Glass.
The pain in his head receded like the tide receding from shore, slowly, and he managed, at last, to lift his head and blink bleary eyes open.
He immediately wished he hadn't.
Like waking up in the middle of fucking Deliverance or one of those fucking hillbilly psycho horror movies he really fucking hated.
They were in the dimly-lit cab of the Wyatts' truck. It was night out, and snowing just as hard as it had been in his fucking nightmare. The cab smelled like old BO and unwashed clothes. He was slumped back in the seat behind the driver's. Harper was up behind the wheel, but had turned around to gawk. Sheep Boy was up in the passenger seat, battered creepy lamb's mask in place, and turned around like Harper. And Wyatt-
Wyatt sat right next to him, twisted in the seat so both hands rested on Dean's shoulders. Same orange and red Hawaiian shirt Dean remembered seeing on him earlier, same white pants. Hat gone. Dark brown hair hanging down over his shoulders.
(Like the girl's did.)
They were all fucking staring at him like he was some species of exotic animal that had wandered into their camp by mistake.
Dean shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut, his stomach rolling.
He tried to move his hands, but it felt like they were cuffed together behind him, metal digging into his wrist bones. Seat belt kept him from shifting any closer. His ankles were locked together, too, and hooked to something on the floor so he couldn't lift them.
Yeah, this was bad.
He pulled down a deep breath and forced himself to meet Wyatt's gaze again. "You better hope to God that I never get outta this, Wyatt. 'Cuz if I do, I'm gonna turn you three into the world's smelliest pile of roadkill." He started to add, 'Believe that,' but stopped himself, wincing as the day's events sank their sharp little fangs in, too.
Wyatt sat back, chuckling. "There's no need for threats, little rabbit. You're among friends now."
"Friends," Dean sneered. "Tell you what, you let me go right now, and maybe - maybe - I only pound your faces in partway. Maybe I'll leave you alive."
"You want us to turn you out in the middle of a blizzard?" Wyatt asked, leaning back so Dean could see the snow swirling out the window beyond him. "We're not that so-called team you left behind. We don't leave anyone out in the cold." In the weak dome light, Dean could see him still smiling - an upward tuck of his mouth, just visible behind the beard. "How quickly you slam that false bravado in place. Tell me, what were you dreamin' about that had you screamin' with so much terror?"
Dean shifted experimentally to see how much he could move. With his feet cuffed to the bottom of Harper's seat, the seat belt tight around his waist, and his hands more-or-less pinned under his ass, the answer was not very fucking much. His arms - thankfully covered by his hoodie, and not actually touching the disgusting fucking seat - were starting to go numb.
"Let me go, Wyatt," he said. "Seriously. 'Cuz I'm telling you right now, this is a waste of time."
"Oh?" Wyatt picked his hat up off the console between the front seats, settled it on, and then shifted around to lean against the rear passenger door. "Is that so?"
He didn't sound mad - just interested.
Head fucking pounding, Dean glared across the dim cab. "You fucking raped me. Dumb and Dumber up there raped Seth. You lied to my face. You've done nothing but gang up on me and knock me around. On what fucking planet do you think that means I'm gonna listen to a word you have to say?"
Sheep Boy's hand twitched up like it was itching to reach back and belt Dean across the face.
Wyatt raised a hand of his own. "It's all right, Erick," he said. "Like Abigail said - he's just been beaten down so many times he doesn't recognize the difference between a hand that's trying to lift him up from one that's trying to strike. Like you before." Those intent eyes flicked up toward the driver's seat. "He won't escape, Luke. Drive on."
Harper's wild dark eyes touched Dean's briefly, and then met Wyatt's. "Sure we don't wanna push him out into the snowstorm? Might cool him off."
"Oh, fuck you, Sasquatch," Dean muttered.
What he wouldn't have given to be able to kick the back of the fucker's seat.
Meanwhile, Wyatt just laughed again. "As tempting as that is, we've already lost a good bit of time thanks to the little rabbit's nightmares. Let's just get home."
Harper flipped off the dim dome light and pulled the truck back out onto the highway. Dark closed around them again like a curtain, blue-black with the cold, and snow whipping against the truck like a swarm of angry wasps.
Dean made himself look back over at Wyatt, whose face had been swallowed by shadows beneath the brim of the fedora he'd pulled over his eyes. "You didn't answer my question, Wyatt. What the fuck do you really think you're gonna be able to get from me? 'Cuz you gotta know about the only thing I want from you is to see your blood on the floor."
"I know," Wyatt said, just loud enough to be heard. "But, little rabbit-"
"Stop calling me that," Dean snapped. "I'm not a fucking rabbit."
Knife teeth closing in on him like the jaws of some enormous bear trap. Laughter and barking in his-
"Yes, you are," Wyatt's voice broke in. "And so easily snared."
"Yeah, when you blindside me and take me three-on-one," Dean said. "Funny what happens when you come at me one-on-one, isn't it?" The memory of fisting Wyatt's beard and sinking his own teeth into the side of that fucker's neck made him smile. "How's the throat, by the way?"
"Healing," Wyatt said, unperturbed. He tipped his head back against the window behind him. "We shouldn't have touched the skunk. That was a mistake. Instead of just staying after you like I should have, I let Daddy Regal distract me. Bad men have a way of doing that."
Dean huffed a bitter laugh and shifted his weight off his wrists. "Bad men. You've made my life fucking miserable for the last two weeks, Wyatt. The fuck does that make you?"
"Oh, we both know you've been miserable a lot longer than that, little rabbit," Wyatt said. "I shined a bright, glaring light on the situation for you - too bright for you to ignore. Showed you just how isolated and alienated, how alone, you really are. You're a square peg trying to fit into a round little world that has no room for your edges and your corners. No, no - you have to sand those away, make yourself less than, become inferior and lay down to fit where they wanted you to fit.
"But you can't.
"And they don't understand that - they never did.
"They talk about teamwork and unity - but they turn around in the next breath and strike their brother in the face." He leaned forward. "You called him on his hypocrisy, and he struck you down. They both did. For his arrogance, you paid the price.
"You handed them your heart on a silver platter, and it wasn't good enough. They still kicked you out of your little love triangle.
"Nothing was ever enough for those two-called good guys.
"They wanted you to change your shape to fit into their world.
"But you can't. You've spent too much of your life down that rabbit hole to remember what it's like not to have those edges. And even so, they're part of who you are.
"They never understood that.
"The difference," he went on, and oh fuck, he was sermonizing again, voice rising and taking on that sing-song cadence, "is I want you to keep your edges and make this world fit you. Fit us. Right now, doesn't. This world ain't for men like us. But it could be. Men like us - men who know the dark - we deserve to have a place, too. We have every right to our pursuit of justice, truth, righteousness. We just don't see the world like they do. We're not walking around with blinders on. We use our edges to cut through the lies and to expose the hypocrisies of bad men like Daddy Regal and the Authority and John Cena to the light.
"I did what I did to show you how wrong the path you're on is - not to be cruel, not to hurt you, but to show you where the path you're on is leading you: down to a place where you're alone and anything could hurt you.
"You may well hate me for it." He'd gone quiet again. "But you can't deny you're better off now - freed of the illusions of security and comfort and love your teammates tried to placate you with, and the puppet strings Daddy Regal would have tried to tie to your back.
"I'm not tryin' to tie me own on. I want you beside us. Standing with us of your own free will and helping us drag the fakers and liars and greedy men kicking and screaming into the light of justice. True justice - not whatever that was you three boys claimed you were dispensing.
"We could rule the world, little rabbit. All of us.
"This is what she wants. She saw this in you. Her lost little rabbit. She knows you can stand on your own. You just need someone to show you where you go once you're moving. That's what we want to do."
He fell silent, finally.
Dean didn't bother to suppress his yawn.
It was fucking exhausting listening to Wyatt's endless word-marathons sometimes.
But putting all that aside, he let the side of his head fall against the cold window glass, gaze drifting out to the thick snowflakes buzzing by. "You say that like you think it's gonna convince me to forget I want to kill you," he said. He didn't know if it was loud enough, but all of a sudden he was too tired to give a fuck. "Like I'm just supposed to forget I'm sitting here handcuffed in the backseat of this shitbox."
Until he was somewhere with his hands and feet free, where he could square up and actually do some damage, he figured he was better off just saving his energy.
Pain his forehead still, sunk under his skull, diffuse like high-cloud lightning, and he wondered, idly, if he had a bruise this time.
When he frowned, it felt like it, the skin pulling sullen.
Apparently he had spoken up loud enough because Wyatt said, "Sometimes it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission, little rabbit. You know that as well as I do."
Dean turned just enough to stare into the shadow-black hole of Wyatt's face. "What happens now, then? We go to back to the swamps or wherever, and - what? - you keep me locked up until I follow the fucking buzzards? What if I don't? Then what? You really think nobody's gonna notice I'm not around? C'mon, Wyatt. What the fuck are you doing here?"
Wyatt pulled something about the size of a cigarette pack out of his shirt pocket. In the dark it was hard to see, but then Wyatt pressed a button and the screen of Dean's iPhone lit up blue. "In the last hour, you've sent a text message to the Authority explaining that you want to take some time off to 'get your head together.' They weren't very happy with you - especially when you called Daddy Hunter a scumbag." Wyatt pulled the phone to his chest and bent his head over it while he tapped the screen. "I'll let you read his answer yourself."
"You son of a bitch," Dean said, gritting his teeth.
Chuckling, Wyatt held out the phone.
White text in a blue bubble under a header that said 'Triple H': You little punk, you'd be nothing without the Authority. Send the title back. Don't bother calling me again until you're ready to apologize and pucker up. If you're lucky maybe I'll find a spot for you tag teaming with Hornswoggle.
Dean read it twice. "Until I'm-? Jesus fuck, Wyatt, what did you say to him?"
Wyatt dropped the phone back into his pocket without turning it off. For a second, it glowed like an eerie rectangular eye through a thin layer of fabric and low-hanging beard hair.
"Oh," he said as the chuckles tapered away, "you might have called him an abusive tyrant. Or an asshole. I can't remember. You also might have threatened to come after the Authority."
Of course.
"You also sent some text messages to those former teammates of yours," Wyatt went on idly. "They were mighty confused as to why you walked out on 'em. I set 'em to rights."
"What did you tell them?" Dean asked. The tightness of his jaw made it hard to get the words out.
"What they needed to know," Wyatt replied. He could have been talking about the weather. "You were tired of being their whipping boy. You were tired of their hypocrisy. You were tired of always being the one left out in the cold. Most importantly, you told them - and Daddy Regal - to leave you be."
As much as he didn't want to, Dean made himself nod. "Fine. You don't fuckin' touch them. You hear me? When the time comes, I'll deal with 'em myself."
That dark chuckle again. "We won't harm a hair on their pretty little heads. Don't you worry about that. When the time comes, we'll be there to watch you tear their hearts out like they did yours."
Dean peered intently into the dark. "You better mean that," he said. "They're mine."
"I do," Wyatt said. "We have more important things to worry about just now, anyway in John Cena. Man's a cancer. We aim to cure it. So your boys and the snake will be alive and well when you're ready to grind their bones into dust."
"Good," Dean grunted, and added in an undertone, "Fuckers."
If it kept them all safe, if it kept them all out of the Wyatts' crosshairs, let Wyatt think he hated them.
That was fine.
It wasn't their fight, anyway, and he was sick of worrying about collateral damage.
He'd never needed anybody to fight his battles for him.
And he'd been planning to fight this one on his own.
(Didn't have to; you know you didn't have to.)
It was fine.
The seat dipped next to him, and now Wyatt sat close, thigh and shoulder pressed tight against Dean's.
"The fuck're you doing?" Dean demanded, heart thumping and adrenaline spiking.
Wyatt reached over and drew lines through the stubble on Dean's cheek. For a few seconds, the only sound in the dim truck cab was that quiet, rhythmic rasp.
Dean finally jerked his head away, but only succeeded in smacking the side of it into the frosty window.
Light as a bird, Wyatt's hand landed on Dean's shoulder. "Cut you deep, didn't it? Your little rat abandoning your sinking ship last night. The pair of them putting you down like you're the problem."
"I don't wanna talk about it," Dean muttered.
Didn't want to talk about how last night he'd felt like Seth had punched a hole in his fucking chest, and how tonight it felt like he'd been standing across the ring from two complete strangers.
Didn't want to talk about how he'd walked down to the ring tonight knowing it'd probably be the last time he ever did it to the Shield's theme.
Didn't want to talk about how even if he hadn't been planning to walk away, he didn't think he'd have been able to bring himself to stick his fist in after Seth's bullshit about 'sacrifices' and 'taking one for the team.'
Didn't want to talk about how he knew even if he managed to get out of this thing with the Wyatts with his skin intact, he probably wouldn't have anything to go back to.
He'd fucked up and ran off to go chase his monsters last night, and yeah, it had been a shitty thing to do to leave Seth hanging like that, but, fuck, it wasn't like they completely abandoned him. As soon as things calmed down, they went right back for him and they were there the second time. Yeah, Seth was right to be mad, but for him to just up and quit in the middle of that match, man, there was no coming back from that - not from where Dean was standing.
Roman clearly didn't agree.
Even if Dean hadn't been planning to walk away, he didn't think he could bring himself to walk across the chasm between them, knowing Roman was okay with Seth pulling a stunt like that in the middle of a match like this.
So, no, no, Dean didn't want talk about it.
Didn't want to think about it.
They were safe now, out of the fight, and out of the Wyatts' line of sight.
And that was fine.
They could stay there.
He didn't need them anyway.
Wyatt's hand squeezed Dean's shoulder. "You looked like your whole world came crashin' down in on ya, you know. That's what happens when you try to make yourself fit where you can't. It's all right, though. You got yourself free of them. All of them. That's the important thing."
"Yeah, just went from that to bein' a rabbit in your fuckin' snare," Dean muttered.
"For now," Wyatt said. "To answer your question, what happens now is we go home. You'll stay tied up. I'll not have you running and I won't allow violence against my family. We'll talk, you and I, a great deal about your future. Your past. I'll show you what she wants for us. You'll see it for yourself. See where you fit. And all you have to do is let me help you. Because I can fix you, just like she wants me to. She showed me how." The hand squeezed harder, Wyatt's fingers digging into the fabric covering Dean's skin. "She's so, so very happy to have you with us, little rabbit. You have no idea."
(Little Bray, holding a rabbit by the scruff of the next right front of a yowling dog. Screaming little girl in the background. The dog's jaws opened wide.)
"Is…?" Dean ran a dry tongue over a cracked lower lip. Tried not to wince at the pain Wyatt was causing his shoulder. "She who we're going to see?"
He was pretty sure knew the answer, but he had to ask the question anyway.
Wyatt's grip loosened, finally. "No, little rabbit," he said. "She passed away a long time ago. Still here, though." He tapped his chest. "Still lightin the way. No, we're just goin' back to the homeplace. To the family. You'll see soon enough."
With that, he pulled away and moved back to the other side of the cab, shadows once again swallowing him up as he turned to stare out the window.
Dean turned to stare out his own: snow-blanketed white night, deep and dark and silent.
Emptiness all around.
("You're all alone, little rabbit.")
He shuddered.
xXx
Warm, sunny Orlando Sunday afternoon.
Dean, hands stuffed into his pockets, absently took note of a couple little kids throwing a baseball back and forth in a the street half a block up.
Be just his luck to get hit the face with the ball or something and not be able to wrestle the Wyatts tomorrow.
Not that he'd let a busted nose or a black eye stop him, but still, better safe than sorry.
He knew he should be focusing on the match, on ending the fucking war, but he had a hunch - an instinct - that even if the Shield somehow managed to beat the Wyatts into the ground and bury them under the ring that Bray fucking Wyatt wouldn't let this shit go.
("Little rabbit.")
Another fucking nightmare this morning:
Wyatt had been baptizing him in a river somewhere. Everyone was there - the Wyatt clan, his mother and father, Seth and Roman, Regal, Hunter and Stephanie, half the fucking roster.
They'd all laughed while Wyatt drowned him: "Useless little bastard, anyway."
His own fucking mother's voice.
He'd gasped awake without a fucking clue where he was or how he'd gotten there.
Regal'd been awake right next to him again, reading, and he'd settled a quiet hand on Dean's head, wordlessly carding fingers through Dean's sleep-matted hair while Dean shook and shook.
They hadn't talked about it, hadn't really talked at all today, and that was fine as far as Dean was concerned because he wanted - needed - to focus on ending this shit with Wyatt.
The war tomorrow.
But that instinct - that fucking gut-feeling - that this wasn't going to end with the match wouldn't leave him alone. It was stuck like a fucking thorn in his finger.
At the end of the day, the war wasn't between the Shield and the Wyatt family.
It was between Dean and Bray Wyatt.
("Little raaaaaabbit.")
But The Shield - and Regal - being involved meant there was a real good possibility they were gonna get hurt even more, 'cuz God knew Wyatt had no problem with steamrolling anybody who tried to get in his way.
He'd already done it, by first going after Seth and Roman and then coming here to Orlando after Regal.
(And fuck, that look on Seth's face the other night in the hotel, that flat sound to his voice, even now made something in Dean's chest just twist. That couldn't happen again. Could not ever happen again.)
The war was between Dean and Bray Wyatt.
He really just needed to get everyone clear of Wyatt's fucking wrecking ball so he could go after the crazy fucker himself without having to worry about what Wyatt would do to the people he thought Dean cared about.
Which was just a fucking terrible idea, going after Wyatt on his own, but if Wyatt was really that fucking obsessed with going down this road with Dean, then fuck it. If he really thought Dean was so fucking weak he couldn't stand on his own, he had another thing fucking coming.
"I don't fucking need anybody," he muttered to the...
Forest?
The fuck?
Big old trees all around. Dirt ground. Blue sky peeking through.
Vaguely familiar.
"No! No! Stop!"
LIttle girl's voice, bright with distress and urgency, and Dean took off running without even stopping to think about where he was going, just followed the sound - have to get to her - as fast as his legs could carry him, slapping through the plants that rose up to slash at his face.
Where is she? Where is she?
"No! Stop! Stop!"
He fucking flew through the plants and trees until, finally, he broke through.
Big clearing. Pond off to the right surrounded by cattail reeds. Patchy grass everywhere, dirt showing through where it rubbed away.
Up straight ahead, a man and a boy with the same dark hair were pushing and shoving at each other.
The man had a beard.
The boy was maybe half the man's size, heavyset and dirty.
The man shoved the boy down, and the boy landed in a heap that kicked up a dust cloud.
A tiny, dark-haired little girl in a white dress ran up to the boy and said, "Stop it! Stop it!"
The boy bounced to his feet, face twisted, and he snarled at her, "Git away!"
"No," she yelled back. "You stop this right now."
The boy have her a hard two-hand shove right in the chest.
Dean raced forward to try to catch her.
But he was too late.
Her little feet got caught in a stick, and she fell backward.
She thumped down hard on a big rock, and she didn't move.
Furious, Dean rounded on the blank-faced little boy. "What the fuck did you do that for?"
The boy snarled like a dog, and his lip pulled back expose teeth as sharp as knives.
He jumped on Dean.
The teeth clamped down.
Dean screamed and screamed and screamed.
xXx
("I swear I didn't mean it. I'm sorry.")
xXx
After he woke up the second time, Wyatt's hand on his shoulder and an uneasy silence filling the cab, Dean turned to stare out at the frozen midnight highway.
("You're all alone, little rabbit.")
("What have you gotten yourself into, lad?")
It was a long time before he stopped shaking.
xXx
A/N: Thanks for reading. Hoping to get the Echo update out sometime this week. This chapter kinda got in my head and wouldn't let go, so I wanted to get it out first.