They'd been driving for just a few miles when Dean frowned, staring momentarily at his fuel gauge, which was dipping into 'E' territory. "Shit."
Max leaned to peer over his arm. She knew that tone. It meant 'Time to get a car with more gas.'
"Keep your eyes peeled," he said.
"For what? A place to stay the night, or another car?"
Dean decided against both falling into innuendo at her 'place to stay the night,' and screeching to a halt. "Are you fucking insane? There is no other car."
She started to laugh at his outburst, but straightened her expression right away. "I get it. This is your baby." She thought about her Ninja. It was part of the reason they'd left the group in the Impala.
"I've had her for a long time. I take good care of her; she takes good care of me." Kinda like a good woman, he added mentally.
"Exactly. So we're looking for gas."
Dean nodded.
"Hey, let me know if you see an auto parts store. I need some oil, too."
Dean raised a brow, silently questioning what she knew about engines.
"I got a baby, too." She smiled.
Constructed from some of the decorative surfboards from the motel rooms, and banded together with leftover rope and torn-up bed sheets, the makeshift raft rested near the shore, transgenic after transgenic piling on their fallen comrades in preparation for the mass burial at sea. Palm fronds and shrubs littered the stack from the top of the heap down to just above the second layer of bodies.
Sam had insisted he help, and after some guffaw, Zack acquired a pair of gloves. 'Protection,' he had said. He was certain he had no cuts or open wounds on his hands, which was a relief since the gloves had soaked through with blood in a matter of minutes.
After the beach battle, conveniently (in Sam's opinion), more transgenics and transhumans showed up with two truck beds' full of dead soldiers. Zack and Krit had taken lead in going to intercept them. Krit shook the hand of the apparent CO of this unit, Tony, a tall, lean transhuman (he'd heard one of them grumble). Looked a little bit like a cheetah, his orange, spotted skin aglow in the eerie moonlight.
It had taken only a few minutes for Zack and Krit to vet the surprise newcomers, and then everyone had set to work with the raft and the dead. Despite the bloodiness of the corpses, the many hands made quick work of building the raft and carrying the dead onto it.
Which brought them all to the present. Standing in small groups at the shore and watching as sixteen soldiers, including Zack, Krit, Tony, Drew and Gwen, pushed the raft into the water, both sets of armies were silent. They swam the rafter over the smaller waves, and then finally over the bigger, cresting wave, each assured they wouldn't lose a soldier to the crush since they'd tied them all down.
Sam stared out at the raft and felt a palpable sense of loss as the shrubs and twigs and leaves were all set on fire with storm-proof matches.
Confident the flames would grow until their comrades were consumed, Tony led the soldiers back to shore. Without a word, Tony passed the crowds and headed toward his truck.
He figured they must be freezing, but none showed signs of it. When Gwen came into view, soaked from her duty to her unit mates, Sam felt the chill of the air nip at his arms as he removed his coat and offered it to her.
"Thanks," she said, pulling it around her smaller frame.
He fell in step next to her.
"Just gotta change before we leave."
"Leave?" he asked. "What about staying the night here? What happened to waiting for Dean and Max?"
"Mobile in five," Zack shouted, passing them on the way to his own room.
"Tony said there's a commercial spot with a couple dozen rooms above it just a few miles in, and it has a working couple of generators. So we get to cook, and heat, do laundry if we want. Whatever we want," she paused, looking to Sam. She started up the stairs. "Just gotta get outta these wet clothes."
Climbing up after her, Sam missed the slight undertones of her voice.
It was getting later and the sky grayer. Dean rolled the window down an inch to see if he could smell any proof of his suspicion. The sight of which tickled Max.
He wedged his nose closer to the crack and took a whiff.
"What are you doing?"
Satisfied, he sat back, rolled up the window, and said matter-of-factly, "It's gonna rain."
"Oh, thank you Nostradamus," she joked.
Sounded like something Sam might say, he thought. "Which reminds me!" he said aloud, completely missing the look she was giving him. Pulling the cell phone from his pocket, Dean plugged it into the adapter Sam had long-ago stuck in his cigarette lighter, and heard it buzz to life.
"Your phone?"
"Yep." He glanced at the screen and almost panicked when he saw the missed calls from Sam. He listened to the message, watching Max's eyes. He could tell she could hear Sam's message.
"Shit," they said simultaneously.
Dean tried calling him back, but it went straight to voicemail.
Like a bat out of hell, the Impala roared down the freeway, Dean's foot holding down the accelerator.
Stepping into the room for the first time, Sam took in the ambiance. Dark. No working power, but shielded from the delta breeze. He pulled his pone out of his pocket and opened his flashlight app. As the beam illuminated bits of the room, he saw the king size bed, the fireplace stocked with three logs, and the small bathroom. Before he could shine the light further, the light went out. He checked the screen.
No battery.
Something about this situation was bugging him. Zack and the others were so tight-lipped about everything, and hadn't he hard them complaining that he and his brother weren't immune but that they could somehow make them? If that was even remotely possible, why hadn't they done it already?
Sam settled himself on the bed and put his phone away. He stared at the sliding glass doors leading out to the balcony, the dark curtains closing off his vision from the ocean.
Croats hate water. Trying to remember and compile the facts, Sam considered that maybe the reason they weren't often found near water was because the virus filled them with an insatiable need for aggressive and violent cannibalism. But maybe the transgenics knew something about the virus they didn't – like maybe drowning a Croat kills it, or some molecule in saltwater reacts to something in the Croatoan virus that incapacitates or kills them.
And where the hell are Dean and Max? If Sam decided to keep going with the band of transgenics, there was a chance he might not reconnect with his brother.
A knock came at his door, and Sam stood to make his way to it, still not sure if he wanted to keep going without Dean. Surely he'd be safer if he stayed with the group, right? He swung the door open and came face to face with Gwen. She'd changed into some dry clothes and held his jacket draped over her hands. He noticed she hadn't brought her bag.
"Ready to go?" he asked, glancing past her to the parking lot where everyone else was packing up their vehicles.
Gwen smiled demurely. "I was thinking we could wait her for Max and your brother. I told Zack to go without us."
Brows lifting in surprise, Sam gave a nervous smile. "Would we be safer with the group?"
Gwen took a step forward, causing him to take a reactionary step backward, as if to make room for her to come in. "We'll be fine," she said, passing him. She allowed her arm to brush against his. "Oh, good, you have firewood."
Sam turned in, closing the door.
Turning into the lot at the Surf Motel, Dean parked as quick as he could, and before he could reach for his door handle, Max was halfway to the sand. He watched her for a few seconds. Yep, it looked like blurring alright. But where was she going in such a hurry? The only presence in the lot was abandoned cars, and no one was on the beach.
He climbed out of his car and jogged after her, wondering exactly where she was going, until he saw the flames heading toward the horizon.
Max stood still, a few feet from the shore, staring out at the fire.
It was the sickest she'd ever felt her entirely genetically-engineered life. She witnessed their goodbyes – the soldiers'.
The people.
Dead people.
Dead because of me, she attempted to reason. Because I opened the gates and ran away and never thought about how it would be for them to live out here. Damn it. I should have been here.
Dean stood, silent next to her, hands folded in front of him. He recognized the scene. He knew it all too well.
Max only stood there one more minute, staring helplessly at the seaward inferno. She knew the fire would reach the bodies at the bottom soon enough, and they'd sink to their final resting places. She wondered if they'd all get the peace they deserved before the rain came.
Without tearing her eyes from the encroaching tides, and ignoring the rain clouds in her peripheral threatening to wash away everything that had happened, Max spoke. "Couple of cars in the lot."
Dean nodded. "And some fresh tracks. Think they left us any gas?"
Max took a deep breath. "Let's go find out." She turned back toward the motel and headed for the lot.
Dean pulled the hoses from his trunk, as well as two plastic red gas cans. Normally, he and Sam would go about siphoning gas during the day, when visibility was better and consequently, they were better able to see approaching threats, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
Handing Max a hose and can, Dean said, "Sorry about your unit. Let's hope our brothers both made it."
Accepting the items, Max turned toward the ugliest, rustiest car in the lot.
He could appreciate her logic. Least likely to be driven vehicle – unattractive exterior, easy-to-open gas cap. He nodded as she set the can down and popped open the lid to the gas tank.
Finding a mid-size sedan not too far from Max, Dean popped the lid to the gas tank and unscrewed the cap. He let it dangle by the side as he fitted the hose into the hole, unscrewed the cap on the red plastic can, and dropped to a squat, facing Max.
The sight of her nearly made him lose his balance. She had also squatted, and was mid-work with her lips around the tube, her cheeks sucked in partially.
As if she could feel his spying eyes, she looked up at that very second.
Dean met her gaze, and as she watched him through heavy-lidded eyes, the gasoline found its way to the top of the tube. Some of it spurted at Max's mouth, and in the split second timing, she plunged the tube into the plastic can and waited, bringing up the wrist of her other hand to wipe the gas from her chin.
Jesus. Dean found he was unable to look away, but extremely turned on by what he witnessed. When she licked her lips, he felt a twitch in his lower extremities and shifted in the squat. She didn't look away. In fact, she gave him a wicked smile.
"You gonna make me do this all by myself?" she teased.
Dean felt the blood pumping through his veins and smiled. He went to work on collecting gas from the white sedan, looking back up at her occasionally to see if she was still flirting with him.
Max moved to another vehicle close to the rust-bucket and pried open the lid of the gas tank.
Once he had siphoned all he could from the sedan, Dean moved to a truck across the lot from Max. With the taste of gasoline coating his gums, he looked up at the clouds. Harbingers of the storm.
And just as he thought it, he felt the first few drops on his forehead and scalp. Then a few more, closer together and bigger. Then came the downpour. He closed his fingers around the hose in the can and protected the can from collecting water. He waited until no more gasoline was spilling from the tube before recapping the can and standing up.
Across the lot, he could see Max doing the same. She turned toward him, and he caught movement behind her.
Instinctually, he reached for his knife, dropped the gas supplies, and ran toward her.
The Croat had snuck up behind Max and tried to attack her, but she used its weight against it, flipping it over her body and onto the gravelly asphalt. The Croat got to its feet quickly, and as Dean reached the tussle, the Croat tackled Max, grabbing her by the legs and causing her to fall backwards onto the harsh, jagged ground.
Dean prepared to swipe the Croat with his knife, but as he swung, the Croat jerked backward, simultaneously resulting in head-butting Dean, and Dean's blade piercing the Croat's side. Dean fell backward and scrambled to his feet as the Croat growled, rasping.
Max held her hand out to Dean to help him to his feet. Producing her own blade, she turned to face the Croat, throwing a blade-bearing right cross toward the Croat's face. The serrated edges of the knife sliced a superficial cut to the Croat's face, moving through its nose cartilage like a hot knife through butter.
Though it stunned him a moment, the Croat pulled Dean's blade from its side and tried to use it on Max, lunging forward. Max caught the Croat's arm between her arm and torso. The blade clinked to the ground, and as Dean bent to grab it, the Croat surprised Max with an uppercut which sent her sailing over Dean's crouched form.
Knife in hand, he turned to see her land. It seemed to knock the wind out of her.
Boots crunching on gravel alerted him that he was next on the Croat's list, but he was prepared. He spun and tried to stab the Croat at the neck, but the Croat blocked his arm's movements, and before he knew it, the Croat was latched onto his shoulder.
Anger infused with his blood as he switched the blade to his left hand and slammed it haphazardly into the Croat's skull. Immediately, its jaw slackened and the body crumpled to the ground.
Dean turned back to Max, who was sitting up, and a flurry of realizations hit him. "I've been bit!" he cried. Desperate panic replaced the anger as he tried to feel his shoulder to see if the Croat had broken skin.
Max got to her feet quickly.
Is this it? Is this how Dean Winchester goes out? By a fricken Croat bite?!
"I don't know if it broke skin!" he shouted.
Post-haste, Max pulled his jacket off, tossed it over the hood of the nearest car, and began to pull at his over shirt when Dean finally realized what she was doing and started to help. After the button-up shirt was off, he pulled his tee-shirt up by the bottom hem while Max pushed the material up his chest.
Finally at bare-skin level, Dean checked his shoulder, and Max stood on her tip toes to see the possible wound, pressing at it with her fingertips.
As the rain poured more on his skin, it was clearer and clearer that the Croat had not broken skin.
"You're fine," she said. "No holes, you're okay!"
Out of breath from the adrenaline, Dean tried to calm himself down.
But Max was giving him that same look she'd given him from across the lot. She took in the sight before her, his naked chest heaving from the adrenaline, the rain making tiny rivulets down the contours of his shoulders, chest, and arms. She dragged her fingertips down to his tattoo and caressed it gently.
When she looked up to him and he saw her pupils dilate, the adrenaline rush returned.
"What's this?" she asked, sweeping her fingertips smoothly over his tattoo. But by the look on her face, Dean would have guessed she was really asking how it tasted.
"Protection tattoo," he said, his hand hovering over hers at the sun-shaped mark on his chest.
She smiled that wicked, sexy smile. "Oh, so you have protection," she trailed in a low, sultry voice. She stepped forward and pressed her lips to his, tilting her head in a sudden rush to taste him.
Dean pulled her against him, tiled his head, and parted his lips, allowing her access to his mouth.
She took advantage of it, jutting her tongue against his. She didn't care they both tasted like a bit of gasoline; she was horny, and judging by the way he grasped her and kissed her, she could tell he was in the same boat.
She broke away from him, naughty images racing through her mind, in a mad rush to figure out where they were going to go. Not the care – too much exposure to possible Croats. She looked back toward the motel. As she craned her neck, Dean bent to kiss it, tonguing just below her ear.
Max's eyes rolled back. The upstairs room on the end. Croats were usually ground-bound and didn't climb. Plus, she liked the end rooms. "Come on," she said, wrestling free of his grasp, but grabbing his hand as she rushed them up the stairs.
Trying the handle, Max smiled as the knob twisted and the door swung open with no resistance. Dean followed her into the darkness and as she shut the door, he pulled her top up, discarding it to the floor and pressing her against the entry wall. He kissed hurriedly down her neck, avoiding her stitched wound, and followed a lazy path to the soft parts between her breasts.
Wrapping both hands around her rib cage, he felt her hands raking his scalp, urging him on. She arched her back, a move which allowed him better access to… everything, she realized. She reached back to unhook her bra, just as Dean used his chin to push the cup of her bra down on one side, exposing the tight bundle of nerves atop her breast.
She hoped and knew his intention, but before he could close his mouth around her, they heard a voice. Two voices, actually.
"Dean?"
"Max?"
Startled, the twosome separated, Max turning to re-hook her bra. Dean turned toward the voices.
Not ten feet from where they had been on the fast track to Naked Happy Town, laid Sam and Gwen. Under the covers.
"Sammy!?" he asked, surprised, and now, frustrated.