A/N: Thank you guests Kathy and Allison for your reviews (and Kathy for your review on "Everything Ends")!

Chapter 2

Sam kicked in the door of the cabin and dragged a limp Cas inside. A quick look around revealed no one was home, luckily. The place had sparse furniture, but there was a couch, so Sam hauled Cas over to it and laid him down. He then went and ransacked the cabinets and drawers in search of first aid supplies. Thankfully, the cabin was stocked with basic necessities, and he grabbed a kit and some towels before returning to the unconscious angel.

Cas was pale and shocky, and there was so much blood, Sam didn't even know where to start. The gouges in his leg and torso were deep, jagged fissures of flesh and muscle that made Sam's stomach lurch because a human could easily die from this. But Cas was an angel…he'd be fine.

Except, he'd been bleeding grace earlier…

Sam pressed one towel to Cas's chest, then removed his belt so he could cinch it tightly around Cas and keep the pressure applied. He took off Cas's tie and used that to bind a towel around his leg. Finally, he checked the bite marks in Cas's arm, which were already swollen and puce colored, and when Sam peered closely, he caught glimpses of grace fizzling deep within the punctures.

Sam fingered a packet of antiseptic, wanting to use it but realizing that it probably wouldn't do any good against hellhound bites. He opened it and smeared it on anyway, then wrapped Cas's arm with another towel.

Once done, he rocked back on his haunches and surveyed his slapdash handiwork. If Cas didn't start healing…shit, most of this was too deep to stitch. What were they gonna do?

Cross that bridge when they came to it.

Sam got up and went to the sink to wash his hands of blood. When he came back, Cas was finally stirring, letting out a pained moan and turning his head from side to side.

Sam dropped down onto the floor next to the couch. "Cas, hey. You back?"

"I didn't leave," he mumbled, eyes still closed.

Sam let out a huff. "Okay, what do we do? You said you can't heal yourself?"

Cas finally pried his eyelids open. "Not…quickly, no."

"But you will heal?" Sam almost sagged in relief if things weren't as dire as he'd thought. Bad, yes, but not fatal.

Cas took in a strained breath and wheezed, "Eventually."

"Anything we can do to help? Something at the bunker?"

"I doubt it," Cas murmured. A shudder rippled through his frame, eliciting a low groan.

Sam's jaw tightened. He hated being unable to do anything. But once they got back to the bunker, he'd search through the archives for something to help, whether Cas thought he'd find anything or not. It was better than nothing.

He got up to go look out the window in search of the Impala, but the night was dark. Dean probably wouldn't have even made it back to the car yet. And hopefully he wouldn't run into any trouble. Sam checked his phone, just in case.

Cas whimpered softly, and Sam returned to his side, mouth pinching with worry as he noted the sheen on the angel's brow. Sam pressed the back of his hand to Cas's forehead.

"You're getting feverish."

Cas's eyelids fluttered as his mouth turned down. "I don't…feel right," he rasped. "I think something's wrong."

Sam jerked ramrod straight. "What do you mean?" He glanced at Cas's arm. "Do hellhounds have venom?" It wasn't something they'd ever come across before…but then, no one ever survived a hellhound attack, so how would they know? Unless it was only a problem for angels, in which case that wouldn't be common knowledge for hunters, either.

Cas shook his head. "No, but…that hellhound…it was behaving strangely. Making a den. Keeping the bodies for itself." He took in a shuddering breath. "And I sensed it was…I don't know… There was something off about it. Like it was diseased maybe."

A chill slid down Sam's spine. "Are you saying it had, what, supernatural rabies?"

"In layman's terms, I suppose it's possible," Cas said quietly, his words starting to slur.

Shit, and it'd bitten Cas. What the hell did that mean for an angel, anyway? Sam wanted to press for more answers, but it was clear Cas was fading fast, and it didn't sound like he knew anything solid anyway.

Sam prayed Dean got there soon as he found a bottle of water and helped Cas sip a little of it. He then wet a small cloth to start wiping Cas's brow with. The angel had slipped into a restless doze, tossing his head side to side and making small, unintelligible noises. Sam's gut cramped with worry.

He pulled his phone out again and tried to access the cloud of the Men of Letters archive he'd uploaded. It would have gone faster with a WiFi connection, but this far out, he had to rely on his phone's data. Loading pages had never felt like such an eternity, and typing in search keywords for hellhound sickness didn't narrow the results as much as he'd been hoping.

"No," Cas moaned. "Stop."

Sam set his phone aside and leaned forward. "Cas," he said urgently. "It's Sam. You're safe."

"Burns."

He swallowed. "That's the fever. Just hang in there, okay? Dean's coming." He glanced at the time again, fighting the niggling inclination to start worrying about his brother.

Cas finally seemed to wake, though his eyes were glassy and not entirely lucid as he gazed up at Sam. "Lucifer," he croaked.

"He's not here. He's back in the Cage, remember?"

Cas turned his head away. "Stop wearing Sam Winchester's face."

Sam stiffened. Oh, crap. "Cas, it's me. Lucifer's gone, I swear."

"You said we were in the Cage."

"No, Lucifer's in the Cage. We're not. You got attacked by a hellhound, remember?" Sam said desperately. "You have a really high fever."

Cas's brows knitted together. "Hellhound," he repeated uncertainly.

"Yeah. You just gotta hang in there, okay? Dean's gonna be here soon and we'll get back to the bunker."

And then as if on divine cue, Sam heard the rumble of the Impala coming up the drive. Finally.

"See?" he told Cas. "Everything's gonna be fine."

But just as he relaxed with the guttural roar of the familiar engine getting closer and headlight beams sweeping across the window, Cas's eyes blew wide in panic, and he leaped from the couch.

"What—" Sam couldn't get anything else out, because Cas shoved him so hard he went flying across the room and slammed his back against the far wall.

Cas's eyes were wild as he snapped them to the door and the direction of the Impala where the crunch of tires over gravel sounded just outside, and then he spun around and staggered to the window, diving straight through the glass in a shower of shards.

"Cas!"

Sam was scrambling off the floor as Dean came barreling in.

"Sam!" His brother pulled up short, shooting him a bewildered look and then sweeping his gaze around the cabin. "What happened? Where's Cas?"

Sam stumbled to his feet. "He just took off."

"What?" Dean exclaimed. "Why?"

"I don't know."

He rushed out the front door and darted around to the side of the cabin and the window Cas had jumped through. The angle of the Impala in the drive cast one of the headlight beams across the ground, illuminating a bunch of broken glass. Some pieces were tinged with red, but it was difficult to say whether they were from Cas cutting himself on them or just blood transfer from the wounds he already had. Sam scanned the forest, but though dawn was just beginning to creep up the horizon, the woods were too dark to see much. He did spot a rumpled towel on the ground and hurried to snatch it up. One of the tourniquets had come loose. But there was no sign of Cas.

Dean came jogging up behind him. "Sam, what the hell?"

Sam ran his hands through his hair. Shit, this was bad. Very bad.

"Cas was getting delirious with fever," he explained. "I don't know, maybe the sound of the car scared him. That's when he freaked and tossed me across the room before jumping out the window."

Dean's brows shot upward. "Are you saying he's running around these woods, out of his mind?"

Sam's throat constricted. "We have to find him. The hellhound might have had supernatural rabies or something. If it passed that on to Cas when it bit him…"

Dean let out a curse. "Okay, well, he started to heal, right? If he had the strength to knock you down and take off like that."

Sam shook his head. "No, I think that was adrenaline." Which meant Cas could start bleeding out again. Dammit!

"He probably won't get far," Sam said, already pulling out his flashlight from earlier and roving the beam across the ground. "I got a blood trail."

"Dammit, Cas," Dean muttered as he ran back to the car to shut the engine off and grab his own flashlight. Then he fell into step beside Sam.

They had to find their friend before it was too late.

Castiel staggered through the woods at a harried pace. He almost tripped in a rut, but caught himself against a tree trunk. Soft light permeated the forest with a dull gray, and he looked around the canopy of trees in confusion. Was this Purgatory? It certainly looked like it. But why was he here? How was he here?

His chest burned with every wheezing breath that he struggled to take in, and Castiel shifted so he could look down at his wounds. His clothes were in tatters and stained crimson. What had attacked him? A chill followed by a wave of fire coursed through him, and Castiel dropped his forehead against the cool bark with a groan. He felt absolutely awful. Maybe he'd been attacked by Leviathan and poisoned. That must be it. He needed to keep moving, then.

Forcing himself away from the tree, Castiel continued to lumber through the woods. He had to get away from what was hunting him. Although, he thought muzzily, if he had been poisoned, then he was dying anyway. But no, he couldn't let himself be captured.

He focused on putting one foot in front of the other, each step a hobble of agony. Until he broke through the trees and stumbled onto a frozen black river—only to be struck by a beast of metal. Castiel flipped up over the hood and then crashed down onto coarse asphalt, darkness taking him.

Every nerve ending firing brought him back to consciousness, albeit groggily.

"I swear, he just came out of nowhere. I didn't see him!" a distraught voice sounded somewhere nearby.

Castiel immediately tensed for danger, and struggled to open his eyes. A man in a blue uniform was kneeling beside him, and started to lean over threateningly.

"Sir, can you hear me? Can you tell me your name?"

Castiel tried to turn his head, but found he couldn't. Something was strapped around his neck, immobilizing him.

"Sir?"

"I recognize him," a female voice interjected. "He's a fed. Came down to look into the wild animal attacks. It looks like he got mauled by the bear, dammit. I need to find his colleagues. Hopefully they weren't all out in the woods last night, or this will be a federal case now."

Castiel couldn't follow what was being said. His head was fuzzy and everything hurt. A strangled sound garbled in his throat.

"Get a line in," the man in the blue uniform said before turning his gaze back to Castiel. "Sir, we're going to take you to the hospital."

Castiel frowned, but then choked on a cry of pain as he was suddenly lifted on something flat and hard, and placed on a litter that bore him to the back of a vehicle. The wheels juddered over concrete before they were somehow retracted and he was sliding into a cab of some sort. The man climbed in behind him and began to fiddle with bags and implements that Castiel thought looked familiar but he couldn't quite place.

Then an engine rumbled beneath him and Castiel jolted. What was going on? The vehicle lurched slightly as it started to move. He heard a voice up front speaking in code through what sounded like the crackle of a radio. Didn't they say they were taking Castiel to the hospital?

…The hospital with all the demons in it? He looked around for Meg, but no, she wouldn't be there. Which meant Castiel couldn't let himself be taken to that place. He started to struggle against the straps across his chest.

"Sir, you need to calm down."

Castiel looked up at the man, but couldn't see the black pits of a demon's true face. So, he was human? Maybe they didn't know the hospital was full of demons. Or, could Castiel's sight be diminished by the poison in his veins? He'd never felt such fire in not only his vessel, but also his grace, before. How had he been injured? Something about Leviathan? Or was it something else?

Castiel gave himself a rough shake. He needed to concentrate on escaping. But if these really were humans in the ambulance with him, then he couldn't kill them. But he also couldn't be sure, and therefore couldn't risk staying like this and letting them deliver him to the enemy.

So Castiel clenched his fists and summoned all his might to snap the straps holding him down, and then he surged upright on the gurney.

"Hey!" the paramedic shouted.

Castiel threw himself at one side of the cab, trying to break free. He wasn't able to punch a hole through the metal, but the force of the impact sent the entire vehicle flipping onto its side. Castiel crashed against a bunch of shelves and nearly blacked out from the pain again.

The ambulance skidded across asphalt with a screech before careening to a stop. The paramedic lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom, moaning. Castiel crawled to the back door. Something in his arm tugged, and he turned to rip out an IV line from the crook of his elbow. He hadn't even felt that get inserted.

Kicking the back doors open, he tumbled out of the ambulance, squinting in the harsh sunlight that assaulted him. He needed to find shelter.

Without a single glance back, he broke into a lumbering gait and escaped into a field.