A/N - tw for bloody violence.
Chapter 14- "I've failed her."
Sam and Bobby stood outside the warehouse in silence.
"You sure you got the right address?" Bobby frowned, looking up at three floors of abandoned brick and broken glass.
"It's the address I have. She must have given Dean a false one."
"Ya think!"
"I don't understand…."
"What Sam? What exactly is it you don't understand? That the girl in trouble isn't giving out her real address willy nilly? Boy, for someone in school you're not that bright sometimes…"
He stomped back to the car muttering to himself, Sam jogging to catch up.
Loud music pulled her back to consciousness.
The heavy Base reverberating through her head.
Oh God her head.
Taking a deep breath she tried to remember where she was.
Meg did a running inventory of her body, flexing fingers and toes, clenching muscles, trying to see if anything was broken.
She was tied to a chair, limbs lashed to the arms and legs of it, her right eye was swollen half shut, her tongue found a split in her lip.
Shakily she spat on the floor, not surprised to see blood there.
"Rise and shine whore. Busy day ahead of us." His voice cut through the music, making her flinch.
Raising her head slowly, God it felt like it weighed a ton, she saw Crowley stood on the other side of the room, his back to her.
He turned and smiled, smoothing down the apron he'd pulled on over his suit.
"You like?" He asked, noticing her gaze. "The suit's Tom Ford. Wouldn't want to splatter it."
She narrowed her eyes and made her voice as steely as she could. "I'll do my best not to add to your dry cleaning woes."
"Good girl." He chuckled, pushing a small trolley towards her.
Meg shrank back against the chair when she saw what was laid out.
Knives, scalpels, pincers, hacksaws.
She noted them all and hated the fact that just the sight of steel was enough to make her whimper.
"You shouldn't have run you know. Imagine how much cleaner it would have been if you'd just let me shoot you like dear old Lucy. All this running and hiding and now, this.." He spread his hands wide over the tray and shook his head. "… such a mess." He ran his hand over the tools, a finger pressed to his lips in contemplation.
Experimentally she flexed against the ropes binding her to the chair.
She ground her wrists against them, felt the bones moving painfully against each other, but there was no give.
A calm began to wash over her, occasional spikes of panic mixed with acceptance.
This must be what prey feels like, when jaws clamp down on its neck and there's no use in fighting.
He made his choice, plucking up a scalpel and turning it over in his hand lovingly.
"We'll start small, no point going to all this trouble and have a corpse on my hands in minutes is there."
Tears made tracks through the dust and dried blood on her face.
Not the tears of a scared girl though.
The tears of someone who thought they'd found home only to be snatched away from it.
"How long have you known about this Crowley guy?"
Dean was pushing the Impala hard, the revs high, his foot low, brow knit in concentration.
Cas had one hand on the dash as though he could steady them.
"A few weeks."
"And you didn't think to say anything to me?"
"She told me in confidence. Specifically asked me not to tell anyone."
"Damnit Cas…" Dean shook his head in annoyance. "There are some things you have to tell, and when that thing is about a person we know being up to her neck in bad drug deals and dirty cops then, yeah! You tell someone!"
Cas put his other hand on the dash and lowered his head between his arms, breathing heavily.
"Pull over." He rasped.
"What!"
"Pull…. Over…"
Dean stood on the break and jockeyed the car over to the side of the road, Cas tumbling out the door as soon as it stopped.
He stumbled off up the verge then fell to his hands and knees, retching, his gut in spasm, trying to throw up despite his stomach being empty.
Dean laid his hand on Cas's shoulder and crouched down.
"Ok. Come on, calm down…."
Cas shuddered uncontrollably. He hadn't felt like this in years.
- Take deep breaths man.
- I'm…. Trying….
- Sir is your friend alright?
- He's fine, thank you, just a panic attack. He'll be ok in a minute.
- Anything I can help with?
- Glass of water maybe? Ok, Come on Cas. I got you, keep breathing.
- Dean… I….
People staring, slowing down to watch this grown man knelt in the aisle, an upturned basket of groceries scattered about him.
But Dean was there, crouched next to him, his hand solid on his shoulder, grounding him, talking him back, soothing the panicking animal in his head.
- You're doing real good Cas. Come on. Think this through. Last week you didn't even get in the door, we had to leave. Now here you are, half way round. It's ok to take a rest buddy. Look, here's your water, take a sip. Small sips man…. That's it.
Miss, if you could maybe ask those people to leave us be for a moment?
No don't look at them Cas, look at me, drink your water and look at me.
"What if she's dead?"
"Don't say that."
Dean was sat, on the damp grassy verge, next to him.
Cas knew they had to move, had to get back in the car and hammer back home, but he couldn't.
"I've failed her."
"No."
"I shouldn't have left."
"Bullshit. How could you have known?"
"I should have known."
Dean pressed a chocolate bar into Cas's quivering hand. "Eat it. Your blood sugars all over the place I expect. When did you last eat? Not since I picked you up yesterday right?"
Emotionlessly, Cas took a bite and chewed.
Dawn was breaking.
They were already beyond the desert, back among the pines and mountains, the silent highway shrouded in a light mist that would struggle to burn off in the weak winter sun.
"I love her." He said simply.
"Yeah. I know."
"That doesn't sound stupid to you? That I spent two nights with someone and already know I love her?"
Dean shrugged. "Not like you only just met her. Besides. When you know you know, right?"
He nodded and took another bite.
"She's not as tough as she makes out. I'm afraid for her. I'm afraid, and its paralysing me."
"Cas. Tell me everything, even the stuff she asked you not to tell. We need to know what we're up against here."
So he did.
He started with finding her in the car park and taking her home, and finished with the day he left with Dean.
"You laid into two guys?"
Cas frowned at him. "Out of all I told you, that's the bit that caught your attention?"
"Sorry, it's just, I've never seen you so much as raise your voice in anger before, let alone hit anyone."
He clapped Cas on the back and stood up, brushing his jeans down.
"So, we can't go to the police. That much we know for certain. Good job you got me and Sam, and Bobby if he's sober. Get in the car amigo, lets go find our girl."
They lay face to face, noses almost touching.
She smiled, watching him watching her, his fingers tracing patterns on her shoulder, tiny soft movement that made her skin prickle with delight.
- Cas. Can we just stay here.
- Forever?
- Why not.
- What about food.
- We don't need food.
- If we don't eat we might be overcome by hunger and resort to cannibalism.
She laughed softly and kissed his smiling mouth.
- You'd eat me?
- Yes.
- Lucky me.
Something was wrong.
It was wrong.
His mouth changed.
His eye's hardened.
Everything was red.
She blinked and coughed.
No.
- I want to stay here.
Can't move.
- Cas? I Can't move…..
"Ah, ah, ah! No passing out on me princess."
Meg gasped as Crowley threw water in her face, coughed and spluttered, shaking her head to rid herself of the stinging salt of blood in her eyes.
Pain hit her then.
The pain that had driven her under in the first place.
She cried out from deep in her chest as she glanced down and saw two of her fingers from her right hand on the floor by her feet.
Crowley took her face in his hand and she snapped her mouth shut, eyes wide, breathing hard through her nose as he looked down at her.
"You're tough. I like that. Almost respect it….. Not you of course, just the toughness."
He drew his hand back and drove a small hunting knife through her hand and into the wooden arm of the chair.
Her whole body snapped up against the ropes as she screamed in pain.
Crowley ran the pad of his thumb under her eyes and smiled.
"I'll just leave this here shall I? Rest up love. We'll continue this later."
He strode away, whistling happily, pausing to remove his apron and turn the music up before he left the room.
Her screams slowed to shuddery cries, the blade slicing inside her hand every time it moved, every time her body shook, every time she breathed.
Letting her head drop forwards, she fought against the urge to throw up on her shoes, as glassy waves of pain spread through her body.
Meg succumbed to tears of despair.
She hoped she'd die.
Hoped he'd come back and found her bled out.
Most of all though, she hoped that she would satisfy his bloodlust, and that he wouldn't then think to go after Cas.
He was the reason she was sat here.
The reason she'd stayed too long.
But she didn't regret it.
As she bit her lip hard enough to break the skin, to fight pain with pain, she knew she'd do it all over again.
She'd do it for him.