You expect slow motion, don't you? In those moments of complete and total life-altering horror, time should slow down. It doesn't. You don't get time to think or plan. You don't get those Matrix-like moments of sudden pin-point clarity. No. Instead, you act. You act with no real thought, just emotion and adrenaline and the need to do something. No plan, no idea of the most effective move, no strategy. Just action. And it all goes so incredibly fast.
I've learned that lesson well through the years. The life we lead, the kind of hunting we do, it spurs you into hasty action pretty often. Rarely does it work out quite the way you'd hope, often it is completely unsuccessful. Doesn't stop you, though. When someone you love is in danger, you act.
And that's what I'm doing. Seeing Alistair so close to Dean finally clears whatever fog is clouding my mind. I am able to spring from the spot on the floor to which I've been rooted. I make it less than a step, though. The demon seems to have known I was going to move before I did. Thrown against the dirty, rusted metal walls of this disaster of a room, I bang my head. The noise is deafening in my ears, but I think I'm the only one who hears it.
Alistair swings his right fist. Dean is on the ground. Alistair is seething and looming over the center of my world, and there is not a damn thing I can do about. I yell for help, but I know that if Castiel and Anna could hear us, they'd be in here already. I don't understand how any of this is happening. The sight of the broken Devil's Trap, ancient magic undone by mysteriously present drops of water, makes me wonder what is truly at work here. It is no matter at this second, though. At this second the questions for Heaven make no difference. All Hell has broken loose.
The sounds of impact are all I can hear. I'm know I'm yelling at Alistair to stop, screaming for Dean to fight back, sobbing at the sight in front of me, but I hear only the sound of Alistair's fist as it breaks bones, bruises skin, draws blood. He has lifted Dean from the floor by his collar so he's easier to reach. Dean can no longer hold himself up.
"Alistair," I say, trying so desperately to reach him, have him look at me, steal his attention away from Dean.
"Sweet Jane. I almost forgot I left you hanging there. Enjoying the show?" he asks me, smirking, letting Dean drop to the floor. He turns his hypnotically evil face to me, and I am chilled.
"Alistair, please."
"Please? Please what, girl?"
"Please stop. You're going to kill him."
"Oh, I know," he drawls. "I am definitely going to kill him. And I'm going to make you watch. And when he's dead, I'll kill you. I'm just sorry he won't see it, little Jane. But I'll tell him all about it when I get him back on my table. He'll know every detail of what I do to you. Don't you worry your pretty little head about that," he sneers.
I have never been so afraid.
"Oh, God, please help us," I pray as I struggle with renewed panic against the invisible shackles holding me in place.
"God is not here."
With that final thought for me, Alistair turns his attention back to a bleeding and broken Dean. Lifting him with a hand under his chin, his thumb gouging into his throat, the powerful and pissed off demon pushes Dean against the rack from which he himself was so recently and inexplicably freed, raising my love's battered body until his worn boots no longer touch the floor.
"You've got a lot to learn, boy," Alistair tells a barely conscious Dean. "So I'll see you back in class bright and early Monday morning."
Dean's eyes are unfocused, they begin to roll back into his head. Alistair is killing him at the very moment he informs him that Hell again awaits.
I feel like an animal. I howl and snap my jaws, I push and pull against the unseen cage in which I am trapped, I have no thought or goal except escape. Escape and get to Dean.
I am no more successful than a monkey beating against the bars of its cage.
Suddenly, in silent appearance, no sound of wings, Castiel. God may not be here, but his angel is.
"Cas," I breathe.
He pays no mind to me, intent on the angel blade in his hand as he rushes behind Alistair. But the element of surprise is lost almost before it began, and the demon turns on the angel. Too late. Cas stabs him in the heart with Ruby's knife, and sparks erupt. I am freed from the bonds created in Alistair's mind. Dean, for the moment no longer Alistair's only focus, drops again to the ground. He's gasping for air through, at the very least, broken ribs and a collapsed lung. I rush to him, and resist the urge to pull him into my lap.
"Jay," he whispers, and I hear him. Through all the fighting between Heaven and Hell going on around us, I hear him.
"I'm okay," I tell him touching his face, hoping I am not causing him more pain. And then my attention is drawn to a still talking Alistair.
"Well, almost. Looks like God is on my side today."
Castiel disagrees and stretches his hand toward the demon, twisting the knife in place. Though grunting in pain, Alistair reaches up and removes the knife.
Oh, shit. We are not okay. None of us. Dean loses consciousness as they begin to fight. Slamming Castiel against a post, seeming to hang him from a hook, Alistair can't resist a villain's monologue while holding the angel in place by the throat.
"Well, like roaches, you celestials. Now, I really wish I knew how to kill you. But all I can do is send you back to heaven."
Latin spews forth from the mouth of the very old torture master, and Castiel begins to glow. He's being banished. How the hell can I possibly get Dean and me out of this, if the angel on our shoulder can't get it done?
And then Alistair is thrown to the wall on the opposite side of the room; Castiel falls limply to the ground.
"Sam."
A/N: Please leave a review. Reviews are incredible motivation.