Before: It took Jo several moments to realize Dean was trying to say something through his strained breaths. "Gun?" Dean struggled to gasp out. Even weak as he was, his hunter instincts were still on par.

"The gun? What gu-" Jo was cut off by the sound of one, two, three gunshots.

Jo looked at Dean, confused. They hadn't heard anyone come into the empty barn, so what was she shooting at?

Jo's look of bewilderment changed to sudden horror as she realized what had happened. The demon had shot the floor, ruining the engraved trap.

The demon was free.

Chapter Fifteen

Instincts taking over, Jo quickly grabbed three knives from the floor. Handing one to Dean, she tucked another into her back pocket to join her small pocket knife and kept the other one in her hand. She helped Dean up into a sitting position and leaned him against the wall, crouching down protectively beside him.

The demon stormed down the ladder, brandishing the gun. A wild, crazed look was in her eye.

"You'll pay for that! You'll wish you were dead by the time I'm through with you!" The demon spat at Jo. "You're lucky I have more important things to deal with right now than pieces of shit like you."

The demon leaned down and started picking up the tray and weapons, the gun still pointed at the hunters. She quickly gathered the torture instruments, then looked at the hunter's weapons. "Give me your knives."

Not seeing any way to keep the exposed knives while at gunpoint, Jo and Dean tossed the knives to her. The demon counted the instruments on the tray, making sure they were all there.

"There's one missing. Give it to me." The demon glared at Jo.

"I don't know what you're-" Jo's lie was cut off at the sound of a gunshot and Dean's cry of pain. Jo stared at the blood blossoming from his left leg, shocked.

"The knife. Now. Unless you want a matching wound."

Reluctantly Jo relinquished the hidden weapon. She prayed that the angered demon wouldn't remember the pocket knife she had been wielding earlier.

Luckily, she didn't, and the demon left once the missing blade was in her possession.

As soon as the hatch swung closed, Jo turned to Dean, worry in her eyes. His body was tense and his eyes were closed as he clutched at the gunshot wound in his calf.

Jo carefully lifted his hands up and rolled up the leg of his jeans so she could examine the wound. He groaned as she felt along the back of his leg, looking for an exit wound.

"Damnit," she cursed under her breath when she didn't find one. "The bullet's still in there." There was no way she could get it out in the conditions they were in now, not without damaging his leg more. She settled for wrapping his leg in her tank top, trying to staunch the bleeding.

Condemning herself to the fact that she could do nothing else to help any of his wounds, Jo sat down beside him, wrapping her arms around him, trying her best to avoid the worst of his injuries. She wasn't very successful, though. He still grunted in pain as she situated her arms. She gently placed one hand over the hole in his side, trying to slow the bleeding a little bit. The movement elicited a sharp hiss from Dean, but he quickly relaxed into what little warmth she could offer. He was trembling violently, and the added cold from the water bath wasn't helping.

"You wanted skin to skin contact, didn't you?" Jo said jokingly.

Dean laughed weakly. "Survi'al 101."

Jo hugged him tighter as another shiver ripped through his body. Judging by the color of his lips and skin and the strength of the tremors, Dean already had moderate hypothermia. Hugging wouldn't help much, especially when she herself was cold. They needed to get out of here soon, or Dean might not make it.

Jo desperately tried to think of a way out of their predicament as she sat there attempting to warm Dean. She had the pocket knife, but that was almost useless against a demon. Besides, she couldn't wait for the demon or her minions to come back. Dean might not last that long. Looking around the cold prison, her eyes fell on the lock of the door. The pocket knife just might be small enough to pick the lock.

Gently, she moved away from Dean, quickly telling him what she was planning to do. She dragged the chair under the door and stood on it. With the added height, she could easily reach the lock. It didn't take her long to pick it with the knife.

Rushing back over to Dean, she knelt beside him. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow. She hoped he would be strong enough to get out of here. "Dean?" She asked worriedly, gently resting a hand on his less injured shoulder.

Dean slowly blinked his eyes open and stared at her. "Y' loo' like crap."

Jo held back a sigh of relief. If he was making wise cracks, even weakly, he should be able to get out of here. "Yeah, you don't look too great yourself, hot-stuff. Can you stand?"

Dean grunted in response, trying to stand up. Jo helped him to his feet and supported most of his weight as they limped over to the hatch. Dean paused as he looked up at the door above their heads.

"Can'," he admitted quietly.

"That's ok. Stand on the chair and maybe I can pull you through." With Jo's help, Dean managed to awkwardly climb onto the chair, leaning his weight against the wall. Jo quickly scampered up the ladder and flung the hatch open, pausing to make sure no one was in the barn. Confident that no one was there, she climbed out of the hole and turned around to help Dean up. They had to move fast. Someone might have heard the sound of the hatch opening.

She reached down and grabbed his uninjured left hand. Jo pulled with all of her strength, Dean pushing with his bullet-free leg. Slowly, Dean got closer and closer to being free of that hell-hole.

Dean's face was contorted in pain when he suddenly gasped out, "Look out!"

Before she could react, pain burst across her back as something came down on it, hard. She screamed as another impact soon followed, involuntarily loosening her grip on Dean's arm.

Dean cried out in pain as he fell back onto the chair, crushing it under his weight before landing on the floor. Jo only had a moment to notice that he wasn't moving before being yanked up by her hair. Her head was forced back as far as it would go and she found herself staring into the furious face of the demon.

"Say goodbye to your sweetheart! You won't be seeing her again," the demon called down to Dean's unconscious body. "Or at least, not in this life."

The demon roughly slammed the hatch shut and dragged Jo out of the barn by her hair, ignoring her screams of pain and worry for Dean. Outside the barn sat an old pick-up truck and Christopher. He grinned viscously at her, taking in her sparsely-clothed body before tying her hands in front of her with a length of rough rope. He tied the other end to the trailer hitch of the pick-up, took one more lustful glance at her, and then climbed into the driver's seat.

The demon grinned maniacally at her. "Hope you're a fast runner." She hopped into the truck beside the grunt.

Jo gasped as the pick-up lurched forward, the rope tugging painfully on her injured shoulder. The truck's speed quickly increased, and she soon found herself sprinting to keep up. Jo felt herself lose her footing as the pick-up sped up past her limit. She tried desperately to regain her feet, but the truck was moving too quickly. She was drug roughly behind it, her bare stomach sinking through the snow to get cut and bruised by the uneven ground.

After what felt like hours the truck jerked off the unpaved road and into a thinner part of the forest. The snow was deeper now, but it did nothing to block the rocks. Jo gasped as tree roots and sharp rocks ripped into her clothes and skin, more painful than the dull stones of the road. Snow kept getting into her mouth, making it difficult to breathe. For several more minutes, Jo was dragged along until the pick-up finally came to a stop. Jo lay face-down on the ground, trying to get a hold of herself through the pain running the length of her body.

Too soon, Jo felt herself being lifted to her feet once again and lead somewhere before coming to a halt. It took her a moment to take in her surroundings. When she finally did, she tried to back up, only to run into Christopher's massive frame.

They were standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking an icy lake. And Jo had a feeling she knew why they had come.

"You know, I would've let you go if you hadn't been an interfering little shit," Jo heard the demon say from somewhere behind Christopher. "Marvin would have taken you wherever you wanted, once he was done with you."

That's complete bullshit Jo thought to herself. She remained quiet, however. She was in deep enough shit as it was without stirring the pot even more.

"It was Dean we wanted. I didn't really care about what happened to you. But then you had to go and ruin it for yourself." Jo jumped as she felt the demon suddenly put a hand on her shoulder. "Not only that, but now I'm going to make sure Dean suffers even more. His suffering would be over by now if you hadn't intervened. Now, however, I'll make sure he suffers for as long as humanly possible. Maybe even a little longer."

Jo grinded her teeth to keep back all of her snarky remarks.

"Too bad you won't be around to see it." Suddenly, Jo felt something heavy being tied to her leg, and then she was pushed forward. Next thing she knew she was tumbling over the edge of the cliff towards the dark, frigid waters below. As she fell, she briefly thought she saw something move off to the side, but she didn't have time to think more about it before she plunged headfirst into icy darkness.