Author's Notes: We're definitely winding down to the end...! I had to re-read this chapter and remind myself of all that happened. Keep in mind that this chapter was written before season 4, so what happens is my own personal interpretation. Something that happens in here was later debunked by an episode of SPN in season 4. But you'll see what I mean when it happens. At any rate, please enjoy, and lemme know what you think in a review :D

Also Dianne, the squirt gun with holy water totally seemed like something they'd have...I dunno why, but I just had to put it in!

They had failed. Lilith had set up a trap for them, and they had walked right into it. There was nothing else to it than that. It was very simple.

Dean and Sam had both felt crappy when they returned to their hotel room that night. Dean had extracted and cleaned out his brother's wound in silence, save for the occasional grunt of effort that came with keeping Sam from responding physically to the pain. But, eventually the painkillers got to him and the larger hunter had fallen asleep. The older one followed suit shortly after calling Bobby and updating him on what happened.

Sam was the first to wake up. His painkillers—the joyous Advil—had worn off, and his shoulder throbbed in reminder of what had been inside of him not too long ago. He was a little delirious. He couldn't piece together a coherent thought for the life of him, at least outside of just how much pain he was in. He didn't bother waking up Dean. Not for painkillers. Those he could get himself.

Though it took more effort than he would have liked, Sam popped the top of the bottle, plopped two pills into his hand, and then swallowed them with a quick swig from the glass of water he had poured just a few moments previous. They wouldn't work right off the bat, he knew. So, he returned to his bed and propped up his pillows so that he could turn on the television and rest a little while listening to it.

It was somewhere around three in the morning. Nothing but infomercials reigned supreme on TV. He ended up choosing one for some Philosophy face product line, if only because the woman who was featuring the products caught his attention. Her voice was nice, calm, and soothing. It reminded him somewhat of Sarah's.

Sam closed his eyes and tried to ignore the pain that pulsed through his shoulder.

"And for people who like our Hope in a Jar, we'll be coming out with a new product soon called Divine Illumination. It's similar in texture but the benefits are far, far more numerous…"

Sam had absolutely no idea what the woman was talking about, but she sounded nice while doing so. He heaved a heavy sigh.

Suddenly Lilith's face—or rather, the face of the girl she had possessed—entered his mind's eye. She looked sinister, yet equally child-like. It was sick and twisted. How she had outsmarted them like that, she didn't know. The fact that she had somehow managed to do so worried him. Then again, she had done it before. Dealing with her was like dealing with some malevolent, youthful force that played around with you before it tried to annihilate you.

"God," he muttered.

The woman on television droned on in her soothing voice: "…and yes, yes it can! I'm glad you asked. The Divine Illumination face cream can be used during both night and day. This versatility is what's going to appeal to women most…"

Sam wondered what Sarah was doing right then and there. He wondered if she was sleeping. Then a more coherent part of his mind told him that yes, of course she was. It was early morning. Why wouldn't she be?

His thoughts continued to drift over several different topics after that. He thought about himself, about Dean, and about Lilith some more, then back to the face cream on television, before going back to Lilith. Eventually the meds kicked in. That, and he felt tiredness overwhelming his mind. But for some reason, he couldn't fall asleep. It was almost as if something were stopping him.

Then, Sam felt a sudden burst of clarity. He opened his eyes. They weren't going to catch Lilith by chasing her down. No, they needed to ambush her. And in order to ambush her, they were going to need to find the location of the next seal she was going after.

Another burst of clarity hit him. His mouth hung partially open as his brain connected the dots. In his dream, he had been in a very hot, very dry desert. Salt Lake City—and a good portion of Utah—was in that kind of climate. And he had seen the Horseman of Pestilence and Conquest there. Shortly after, he heard the news of the breakout in China. Where he had been in his dream had to be the spot where Lilith had freed the horseman.

But how was he supposed to find the location of the other seals? Could he force himself to have another premonition? He doubted it. No, he would need to let it come on its own time. They had done right by him up until then, even if he hadn't always interpreted them perfectly right off the bat. He couldn't wait, however, for it to announce that she had let another go. They needed to ambush her!

Again, his mind asked: but how?

Sam groaned. He obviously wasn't getting to sleep any time soon. Not now that these kinds of thoughts raced through his head. He exerted himself in leaning down over the bed to snatch up his laptop from the floor with his good arm. He opened it and turned it on after setting it in his lap. That rock formation was all he had to go off of. With any luck, he could find another one within the United States that was just like it. And with any luck there, he could set up an ambush for Lilith that would ultimately lead to her downfall.

About halfway through his search, Sam fell asleep. His exhaustion and the meds hit him pretty hard after a while, and he conked out. It was only after Dean began gently shaking him that Sam stirred again that morning, sometime around seven.

"Sam?" Dean asked.

"Yeah?" Sam rubbed at his eye tiredly.

"You all right? Couldn't sleep?"

"No, couldn't. And yeah, m'fine." He yawned. His body was stiff—particularly his back, due to the way he had slept. He watched Dean head into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Soon thereafter he heard the shower start.

Sam looked down at his laptop. Its screen was blank, but the power light was blinking. It had just gone into hibernation. Giving the touch pad a gentle nudge and his enter key a tap, the laptop booted back up to life again. The screen flooded with images of rock formations in sandy deserts, expansive forests and even along the coasts. Sam had about fifteen tabs open in his Safari browser, each one retelling the story of the rock formations that he was looking at.

It took him a minute to remember why he was searching for all these rock formations. When it hit him, he started right back up again, albeit slower than before. He was halfway in the middle of reading a story about some large formation in Oregon called 'The Honeycombs'. By far it bared the most resemblance to the rock formation he had seen in his dream not too long ago. Of course, his memory was a little fuzzy. But like the rocks in his dream, he was oddly drawn to these ones.

Dean came out of the bathroom about ten minutes after having gone in. Like usual, he dressed and tossed his dirty clothes in his bag. He approached Sam's bed and took a seat on the nightstand beside it.

"So what're you lookin' at?"

"Rock formations," Sam said.

"…Uh huh. Why?"

"Because we've got to ambush Lilith before she releases the next horseman, and I think this is how."

At first, Dean had his mouth open, like he wanted to say something. But then he seemed to decide against it, because soon he closed it and brought a hand toward his face. He tugged on his lips for a moment.

"All right, I'll bite." he said. "I don't get it. What do rock formations have to do with us ambushing Lilith?"

Sam swallowed. "You remember that dream I had? With the horseman?" Dean nodded. "I think that in it, I was in Salt Lake City. Or maybe not Salt Lake exactly, but the desert area around it, or something. And I saw this rock formation. I…can't really describe it. I just felt drawn to them. Like they had something powerful there."

Dean caught on quickly. "So now you're trying to find any other peculiar rock formations you think might lead us to the location of the next seal?"

"Yeah."

Dean gave a considering look. "Not bad, Sam. I'm surprised you came up with it while drugged up. Speaking of which, you feeling better?"

"Sorta," Sam said. The throbbing pain in his shoulder had lessened to a more nagging, constant one. But it was less noticeable than before. He gave a ginger rotation of the joint. It stung immediately, and he hissed in a breath. "Fuck."

"Lemme get you some more medicine. Hang on."

Dean disappeared into the bathroom and a moment later came out with a glass of water and two more painkillers. Sam took them. He sighed afterward.

"There's this one I had just found before I must have fallen asleep," he began explaining. "It's in Oregon. It's called The Honeycombs. I dunno why, but it gives me that same feeling as the rocks in my dream did. I've looked at about a dozen others, and nothing. But this one…"

He turned the laptop in his lap so that Dean could get a better look. The older hunter nodded a few times, though faintly, as if he were putting it all together. After a minute, he cleared his throat. "You sure about these ones, Sam? Oregon's a long drive from here. We should check in with Bobby again and see where she's headed."

"I'm sure," Sam said suddenly, but with conviction. He stared at the image on the screen.

Something drew him to them, just like in his dream. He had to trust it. He had to listen to it.

And it really meant something to him when Dean said, without a question, "Let's get going."

. . .

"You're sure, Bobby?"

"Sure as sure can be. She's nowhere near Oregon yet. She's hangin' out over in Maryland right now."

Sam listened with slight concern as Dean conversed with their friend. It had been several days now, and Lilith had still not come to Oregon as Sam thought she would. They were staying in some shack-of-a-motel in Malheur County near The Honeycombs, and it was obvious that Dean was getting antsy.

"Where was she before again?" he asked tersely.

"Saw her runnin' around in Texas a day ago. She's all over the damn place."

For what felt like the millionth time, Sam defended himself by saying, "We probably spooked her back in Oklahoma, so she's trying to throw us off her tracks."

Dean quickly hushed him with a look that was far from polite. It made Sam frown, and he looked away from his brother almost petulantly. Sam knew he was right about this. He just knew it. Of course, they hadn't found anything in their search of The Honeycombs, but that didn't mean that it wasn't there. Their eyes had fooled them before, and on several occasions. Sam remained entirely convinced.

It was just keeping Dean the same that was difficult.

"Thanks, Bobby. Appreciate it. We'll let you know what happens."

When Dean hung up the phone, he gave a short, irritated sigh.

"I—" Sam began.

"No, you know, Sam, just…no. You're probably right. But I'm irritable, I'm tired, and I'm hungry. We've been stuck in this hellhole of a place for what, three, four days now? I'd really just like Lilith to get her ass here and let us destroy her."

Sam knew part of Dean's anger was over the fact that they had to take a boat to cross the Owyhee Lake to get to The Honeycombs. He couldn't drive the impala over there. Without the car and without their arsenal, he felt like he was at a disadvantage.

The younger hunter remained quiet for a minute while Dean paced back and forth in the room. He was clearly thinking of a plan. But Sam had one already forming in his head.

"Dean, I have a really strong feeling that she's gonna come tonight," he said.

The look his brother gave him was easily readable. Though Dean said nothing, he didn't have to. His expression did it for him. It was sheer incredulity, as if he didn't believe Sam at all. Had he spoken, Sam was sure it would have been something like, "You have a feeling? You have a feeling she'll come tonight? Oh, sure, let's base it all on a feeling!"

But he said nothing, because he had believed Sam when he said what he did before about the rock formations. And he wasn't going to be made to look like a fool for having done that.

Plus, Sam knew that deep down, Dean did believe him. It was one of the main reasons he had stopped himself from speaking.

Dean looked down. "Then we're going out there."

. . .

As the sun set over the horizon of The Honeycombs, Sam covered the last of the Devil's Trap beneath the brush that he and Dean had collected around the area. It had taken them about twice times as long to hide it as it had to make it. But the trap would help keep the demons in when they came toward what Sam could only assume was the object that Lilith was looking for.

He had overlooked it the first time they had checked the place out. It wasn't anything much, just a tree stump surrounded by little saplings and some fronds. But this time around, he had taken the time to brush the fronds away from the stump. Instead of having ringlets denoting the age of the tree that had been cut down, there was a very strange shape that Sam later identified to be a religious mark. And in the middle of the religious mark was one that had come to be known as "the seal".

It was hidden plain as day. Anybody could have stumbled across it. At first, Sam didn't understand why it was so obvious. But when Dean mentioned that he couldn't see what Sam was talking about, even after the younger hunter had shown him specifically, he realized that it was shielded from the eyes of those who either didn't believe, or those who had no supernatural blood within them. He couldn't be sure, of course, but if anybody should have been able to see it, it was Dean. That he couldn't was curious.

Now Sam was sure that they were in the right place. Evening had given way to night, and the only sounds that filled their ears were those of nature: the water flowing in the lake nearby, the birds in the trees, the crickets hiding in the flora. He and Dean chose to hide behind some particularly bushy shrubs that surrounded a tree near the trunk in question.

Fortunately for them, they didn't have to wait long.

The beautifully sparkling stars above seemed to extinguish all at once. But both hunters knew that it was only the swirling black clouds of demon smoke that had done it. Funnels shot toward the ground, and they formed into several shapes: three women, and one individual who looked younger than the rest. Lilith had yet again chosen a little girl's form.

That didn't sit well with Sam.

He and Dean had apparently gone unnoticed. Lilith, now inhabiting the body of a girl no older than ten, with short, curly black hair and olive colored skin, turned to address the group. Her voice was dainty, but her words were not.

"Tonight we have come to release one more of our brethren to unleash Hell upon the surface of the Earth!" She clapped her hands together, as if cheering for herself. "With the Winchesters out of the picture trying to chase down my trail, I can recover here for a few hours after I break the bonds that bind him. That's where you all come in. Keep an eye out. Kill any creature that approaches me. Even if it's a cute little bunny." She lowered her head slightly. "Got it?"

All the demons stood on bended knee for a moment as they nodded their heads.

"Good!" Lilith turned around, facing the nearby trunk.

Sam felt his heart pounding in his throat. It was a good thing he hadn't eaten in a while. He would have been sick all over the tree. This wasn't just some piddly spirit or malevolent beast they were dealing with. This was one of the foulest, evilest beings on the face of the Earth. The future of the planet rested on whether or not they could kill her right then and there.

Fool me once, shame on you, Sam thought. Fool me twice, shame on me.

That was true for Lilith, of course, and not them. They wouldn't get another chance like this, and he knew it. Last time had been a fluke. Lilith had set a trap for them. Now, the trap was set for her.

They had designed the Devil's Trap to be about forty feet in diameter around the log. But, they hadn't planned on those other demons being there. And of course, there was no way of killing them without risking Lilith trying to run away. Their Devil's Traps had been broken before by lesser demons. This one wouldn't hold her for long.

Dean and Sam looked at each other. An unspoken agreement was made between them. Sam would go after Lilith and Dean would go after the demons using Ruby's knife. It would be a massacre, him going up against three demons on his own, but Sam knew that his brother could handle it. If anyone could, it was him. Especially now. It would do him some good.

They couldn't wait any longer. Lilith had begun the ritual, and the magic that began to emanate from both her and the trunk would eventually do its job.

"Now!" Dean hissed.

The two hunters shot out from behind the tree and shrubs like bats out of Hell. Sam jumped right into the Devil's Trap with Lilith, who didn't seem to realize he was there. Meanwhile, outside, Dean had already gutted one of the demons, having caught her off guard.

But soon everything changed.

The magic bond between Lilith and the seal broke suddenly. Right after, her eyes went white and she stuck her hand out. But nothing came from Sam, because he wasn't carrying anything as a weapon. She looked almost surprised.

"Sammy! How did you—"

He cut her off by lifting a bag from his pocket. It was the hex bag that Ruby had given him to throw Lilith off their trail all those months ago. Sam had furiously checked the trunk of the impala before they left Oklahoma City, having sworn up and down that they still had them. And surprisingly, they were in a very obvious place. Part of him wondered if they hadn't been placed there by happenstance, because they sure as hell hadn't been there when he looked before.

But that pouch alone was enough to give him and his brother an advantage, because Dean was carrying his, too.

Lilith shouted obscenities that sounded completely wrong coming from the mouth of a little girl. Sam yelled at her to shut up, and when she did, she telekinetically stole the bag from him, crushing it in midair with her gaze.

"That bag won't help you now, Sammy. It won't help you defeat me."

Sam chanced a brief glance outside the trap. There, Dean was partially trapped in the arms of one of the demons, while he kicked at the other with the tips of his boots. He was growling and cursing profanely, but he was alive. So, Sam turned his attention back to Lilith.

"You're going down, Lilith. Tonight."

Lilith attempted to jump back, but the power of the trap ensnared her, and she stumbled to the ground, dazed momentarily. Sam took this opportunity to use his power to pick her up and send her flying across the trap. He couldn't tell where it ended, however—the night sky above may have been bright with the moon and stars, but it was nothing like daylight.

Sam went after her in a jog. He was well within a few feet of her by the time she got up.

"Looks like little Sammy wants to play! And look, he's made us a playpen, too!"

Lilith slowly began to raise her arms up. In doing so, she caused the ground beneath them to rumble and shake. Sam could tell she was attempting to break the trap. Closing his eyes, he imagined himself lowering her arms. He made the motion with his hands. To his surprise, it worked. The ground stopped shaking and Lilith—looking spooked—had her arms lowered at her sides.

"Better than I thought," was all that came out of her before she shot at him with inhuman speed.

Sam fell back onto the ground and immediately felt a loss of air. Lilith knew her powers were useless against him, and so she was going for the physical approach. Though she was in a young girl's body, she was supernaturally charged, and her grip was nearly deadly. Sam started choking, large hands gripping at Lilith's thin arms to get her to release him.

"You're gonna die, Sammy," she said in a singsong voice. "Die, die, die!"

Not if I can help it, he thought.

Despite the pain that shot through his injured shoulder—why was he noticing it now, of all times?—Sam closed his eyes and expelled Lilith from atop him. She went flying into the air with a scream and landed a few yards away. The young hunter scrambled to his feet, coughing violently as he gulped down breaths of air.

"SAM!" Dean shouted suddenly.

Sam heard the horrific squish of flesh being punctured, and then the crackling sound of lightning. When he looked to the side he saw that Dean had killed another demon with the knife. However, he was bleeding profusely from a cut that ran along the side of his head and his entire right sleeve had been torn off. Blood poured down his arm from a gash that one of the demons must have inflicted.

Though he wanted to help Dean badly, Sam knew that his brother would never forgive him if he let Lilith get away. He just wouldn't. And Sam could never forgive himself.

He turned his attention back to Lilith, who wore a look of complete contempt on her face. Her white eyes seemed to harden as she once again lifted her arms, giving a shrill shriek. The second the ground started to shake Sam disabled her, which sent her flying into a rage. This time, however, Sam was prepared. Right as Lilith came for him, Sam stuck his hand out, and she froze in place.

But she fought hard. Sam had never felt such force before. Lilith writhed and twisted in his telekinetic grasp, fighting him with every last ounce of strength she had. He held her, however, with as tight a grip as he could. The sound of pierced flesh once again entered his ears. Dean had killed the final demon guarding Lilith. He wanted to look—God, he wanted to look so bad—but he knew breaking concentration would break his hold.

"Dean, NOW!" Sam shouted. "Stab her with the knife, now!"

Out of the corner of his eye, the younger hunter watched as his brother stumbled toward the floating and raging Lilith. She nearly broke free, but Sam focused with all his might, grunting and breathing labored breaths as he kept his ground.

And then, in a flash, it was over. Sam could see Dean behind Lilith and saw the way her body jerked forward when he stabbed her in the back with Ruby's knife. Immediately he felt her fighting force slack, her life force weaken. Lilith went nearly limp in his grip for a moment before she began to convulse wildly. Her skin cracked and took on the appearance of a broken shell, as the demon inside was expelled. The child's mouth opened and from it came the largest, most powerful tendril of black smoke that Sam and Dean had ever seen. It was tainted with hints of white and gold, and it poured right down into the ground, as if pulled toward it.

When it was gone completely the little girl went completely limp, and she fell into Dean's arms.

Sam didn't even feel the tears running down his cheeks until he felt them in his mouth. Dean was crying, too, but he didn't seem to notice, either. The little girl now lay lifeless in the older one's grasp. An innocent victim in a fight of which she should have never been a part.

What they did next, neither of them was proud of. They took their boat back across the lake and they lay the little girl's body down near the little lake house where they had stolen the boat from. Someone would find her in the morning.

And by then, they would be long gone.