Chapter 7
Dean kept glancing in the rearview mirror, expecting black SUVs to come careening down the highway after them at any moment. They'd dumped the vehicle they'd escaped from the yard in and had switched to an older Honda model they'd stolen outside a shopping outlet. And from there, Dean had started heading west back to Kansas after learning they were somewhere in Iowa.
He knew they couldn't go back to the bunker, though. If the Brits had already sent a team after Cas and Amy, that was the first place they'd look.
Dean wanted to believe that not even British Men of Letters would have a way to capture a fully powered angel and a half angel, half phoenix, but then, he hadn't expected them to be able to incapacitate the Alpha phoenix, either.
He craned his neck to glance in the backseat. Ryn was an unmoving lump under his jacket.
A gas station appeared up ahead, and Dean finally pulled off the road, confident in the head start they'd gotten. Now they needed to contact Cas and Amy—and hope it wasn't too late.
Sam dug around in the glove box for spare change, luckily finding enough to use the payphone. While he went to do that, Dean got out and opened the backdoor to check on Ryn.
Her pallor had an ashen tinge to it, despite the heat of fever. She looked awful, just as bad as when the Darkness had extinguished her fire and she'd been dying. Dean's throat tightened at the memory, and he lifted his jacket to get a look at her arms. The glowing veins running through her skin were still prominent.
Dean tucked the jacket around her shoulder and leaned in close. "You are not allowed to die," he told her firmly. "Cas and Amy need you."
She didn't answer, trapped in the unconsciousness of her febrile state.
Dean rubbed a hand down his face and stood up. He couldn't give up. He just didn't know what to do.
Sam came jogging back to the car. "I got through to Amy's phone. Claire answered. She and Cas are at Jody's."
Dean felt a wave of relief wash over him. Then they'd gone somewhere safe.
He shut the backdoor and climbed back into the driver's seat. "How far away are we?"
Sam's brow pinched. "I don't know. Um, didn't that sign back there say it was fifty miles to South Dakota?"
Dean started up the engine and pulled onto the highway, changing direction to head north. "Okay, so we can probably be there in a couple of hours." He frowned. "Wait, why did Claire answer Amy's phone?"
Sam's mouth turned down. "Uh, I don't know, actually. She just said they've been looking for us, and she was glad to hear we'd escaped for real."
"For real? What's that mean?"
Sam shrugged, but his eyes crinkled thoughtfully. "Maybe the British Men of Letters used our phones, tried to draw them out."
Dean's stomach dropped out from under him at the thought. But it obviously hadn't succeeded.
Still, he was anxious to get back to Cas and Amy, and then they could all try to figure out what to do with an entire organization out gunning for them.
At least it wasn't all of Heaven. Though with their home compromised, it kinda felt just as dire.
Dean made good time making it to Sioux Falls, and within two and a half hours, he was pulling into Jody's driveway. He and Sam were just getting out of the car when the front door opened and Jody and Claire came out. Jody immediately went to Sam and put her arms around him, then Dean.
"We've been worried sick. Glad to see you boys are in one piece."
Dean's jaw tightened. "Not all of us."
He opened the back door and reached in to lift Ryn out. His jacket slid off in the backseat, exposing her arms.
Jody's eyes widened. "Oh, jeez." She stepped back and gestured for them to hurry inside.
Ryn was completely limp and unresponsive in Dean's arms, and he tried to be gentle while also quickening his pace. Once through the front door, though, he drew up short and stared in shock at Cas unconscious on the couch, his clothes bloodstained.
"What the hell?" he exclaimed.
"Cas?" Sam sputtered behind him, hurrying toward the angel. "What happened?"
"Long story," Jody replied. "As I know you guys have. Let's put them on hold for now. Cas is gonna be fine. Alex patched him up and he seems to be healing. Faster than a human, anyway."
Dean whipped his gaze around. "Where's Amy?" Was she hurt too? Was that why Claire had answered her phone? Dammit, why hadn't she said anything to Sam?
"Sleeping in my room," Claire answered. "She's okay too. A little worn out, but she's fine."
Jody gestured to Ryn, still in Dean's arms. "You can use my room."
She led the way upstairs, pausing at Alex's room to knock on her door and summon her to help. Then she ushered Dean into the last bedroom down the hallway, and he laid Ryn down on top of the queen size bed. Alex stepped in to look her over.
"Um, what is this?" she asked uncertainly, waving at the yellow and orange veins.
"Liquid iron," Dean said gruffly. "It burns supernatural beings."
Alex's brows rose sharply. "I should have gone to supernatural nursing school," she muttered, then shook her head. "I don't know what to do for this."
Dean's gut clenched. "That makes two of us."
"I guess cold compresses for the fever?" she hazarded.
Jody nodded. "I'll get some."
Dean ran a hand over his hair and turned to Alex. "What happened to Cas?"
"He was shot. Angel bullet I guess."
He stiffened. Those sons-of-bitches.
"Uncle Dean?"
He turned sharply to find Amy standing in the doorway, her hair mussed like she'd just gotten up from a nap. Her eyes widened.
"Mom?"
Dean quickly moved forward to wrap her in his arms. "I know it looks bad, but she's gonna be fine, okay?" She had to be.
"What's wrong with her?"
"She was poisoned with liquid iron. But I'm sure it'll wear off."
Amy pulled back abruptly. "That's what they tried to trank me with."
Dean blinked in confusion. "They did what?"
Amy bit her lip. "I got a text. I thought it was from you. It was a trap." Her voice broke. "They shot Dad and tried to make me go with them." Tears welled in her eyes as her gaze slid back to Ryn. "Why are they doing this?"
Dean pulled her into a fierce embrace again. "They're bad people," he said. "But we're gonna stop them."
No one touched his family and got away with it.
Leaving Ryn in Alex's care with Amy, Dean and Sam gathered around the kitchen table downstairs with Jody and Claire to fill each other in on what happened. Fresh cups of coffee were in their hands, and Dean was practically chugging his down.
"When's the last time you ate?" Jody asked, setting some hastily made sandwiches in front of them.
"I don't know. How long were we gone?"
"A few days."
Felt longer.
Dean canted his head. "Then, that long." He grabbed a sandwich and scarfed it down.
"So," Claire started. "These British Men of Letters. They, what, are blaming you for all the bad stuff that's happened since the Apocalypse?"
"Pretty much," Dean muttered.
"They also want Ryn and Amy for, I don't know, scientific study," Sam put in. "If you can call it that."
"I call it torture and experimentation," Dean growled. "And I don't care who they are. They can't just come here and decide to hunt down half our family."
"But what are we supposed to do?" Sam pressed. "They're human."
Dean snorted. "Not from where Ryn and Cas are sitting." Or, laying, unconscious still while they recovered from what these humans had done to them.
Jody shook her head. "I gotta admit, this is way out of my depth. Vampire nests and werewolf packs, I can handle. But these guys sound like some kind of secret ops group, complete with money and tech behind them. Not to mention diplomatic status so that I can't even penetrate their cover through law enforcement channels."
Sam huffed softly. "You're not wrong. From what we saw…these guys are ruthless. They must have chased the phoenix Elijah all the way across the Atlantic when he escaped, and that's probably how they found out about Ryn and the rest of us."
They fell silent, and Dean gulped down more coffee, willing it to revitalize him. The adrenaline rush of escape had spurred him enough to get to safety, but now exhaustion was catching up with him.
"So, they're not gonna quit and go home," Claire surmised.
Dean's gaze dropped to the brown brew. "No," he agreed. "Not unless we make them."
"And how are we gonna do that?" Jody asked.
That, he didn't have an answer to.
Sam rubbed the back of his shoulder. "I can contact Eileen, see if she can find anything out about the Brits."
Dean shrugged. Couldn't hurt.
A muffled groan from the living room had Dean bolting out of his chair and abandoning his coffee. Cas was shifting on the couch, trying to sit up.
"Whoa, easy, buddy," Dean chided, coming around and putting a hand on the angel's shoulder.
Cas froze, eyes blowing wide. "Dean?" His gaze flicked to the side. "Sam?"
"Yeah, we escaped," Dean said. "Just take it easy, man. Alex said you were shot."
"I'm healing," he replied gruffly, stubbornly pushing himself upright. "Are you all right?"
Dean rolled his eyes. "We didn't get shot."
Once he was sitting, Cas ghosted his fingers over the bandages across his stomach, then tentatively started peeling back one corner. Dean got a glimpse of stitches and red skin, but it didn't look too bad.
Claire angled a look over Dean's shoulder. "Yeah, that's better. But you should leave the stitches in. Alex put a lot of work into those and you'll make her mad if you tear them prematurely."
Cas shot her a dubious look mixed with indignation, but nevertheless folded the gauze back down and didn't touch it again.
Dean pointed to his neck. "What happened there?"
Cas reached up to feel that bandage, and this time took it completely off. There was no mark underneath it, so whatever it had been had healed.
Jody's brows rose. "Wow. Wish I had angel healing."
Cas suddenly stiffened and whipped his head around. "Amy? Ryn?"
Dean's expression tightened. "Upstairs. Can you walk?"
Cas just gave him a sharp glower and started to push himself to his feet. Dean and Sam each grabbed an arm to help him anyway. The last time Cas had been shot with an angel bullet—by Crowley—it'd taken him days to recover.
Dean roved his gaze over the bloody trench coat and stained dress shirt. "Uh, you could probably do with a change of clothes until your grace is back up to snuff."
"Actually, no offense, but you all could use a change of clothes," Claire said, scrunching her nose at them.
Dean automatically glanced down at himself. He'd been worse…but he did kind of reek of sweat and sickness from those drugs. So did Sam.
"I don't think we can go back to the bunker," he said morosely. That was going to be a sore spot.
Claire gave him a sympathetic look. "I'll run out to the thrift store and pick some stuff up. Amy already borrowed something from me and Alex, and Ryn's close in size to Jody."
Dean exchanged an uncertain look with Sam. "Uh…"
Claire smirked. "Don't worry. I'll find something in flannel." She snatched up her keys and headed for the door.
"And you guys can stay here as long as you need," Jody said, meeting their eyes earnestly one by one.
"Thanks, Jody," Sam said softly.
She nodded. "Guess I should run to the store, though, if I'm gonna be cooking for a bunch of extra people."
Dean's stomach cramped with hunger at the suggestion.
"Thank you, Jody," Cas said sagely.
She smiled at him. "Hey, it's not every day I get to entertain angels."
With that, Jody grabbed her jacket and headed out as well.
Dean and Sam turned to help Cas up the stairs.
"Cas, listen," Dean started. "Ryn is…she's sick."
Cas's gaze snapped to his. "They hurt her."
A lump settled in Dean's throat. "Yeah. They were keeping her drugged with iron. It's- it's not wearing off very fast."
Cas tried to quicken his pace, and couldn't hide his grimace at doing so. Dean didn't try to stop him, just followed behind him and Sam as they made their way up to Jody's room.
Amy was sitting in a chair by the bed, but jumped up when they entered. "Dad!" She rushed over and nearly plowed into Cas. He grunted slightly, but wrapped his arms around her and held on tight.
"I'm fine," he whispered. They stayed like that for an extra beat, and Dean watched the pain filled lines in Cas's face smooth out a little before he pulled back. "That's enough. I'm healing." He gave her a critical look. "Are you okay?"
Amy nodded, but her expression crumpled. "I can't heal Mom."
They turned to the figure in the bed. Alex stood up and quietly took the cloth and bowl of water she'd been mopping Ryn's brow with into the bathroom.
Cas's arm tightened around Amy. "Phoenix fire doesn't work that way," he said in a low voice heavy with haunted memories.
He moved toward the bed, carefully sinking onto the edge of the mattress and reaching out to brush back a strand of Ryn's hair. Her brow scrunched up and she whimpered, but her eyes peeled open to slits.
"Cas," she breathed.
"I'm here." He cupped the side of her face, and she leaned into the touch. "I'm right here."
Her eyes slid closed, and the lines around Cas's crinkled with anguish.
"She'll be fine with time, right?" Sam spoke up softly.
Cas looked like he was working to formulate an answer, gaze roving over Ryn with that penetrating intensity, as though he were attempting to sense what was going on beneath the surface.
"I hope so," he finally whispered. "They mixed the iron with mercury. I think to keep her blood from purifying it too quickly."
Dean's jaw tightened. He was going to kill those bastards.
Sam shifted his weight. "But she's not…I mean, she's not gonna…like Elijah…?"
Cas moved his other hand to trace the faint yellow veins in Ryn's arm. At least the color was starting to fade. That had to mean something good. "I don't think so," he said carefully. "It took years for that to happen to him."
Years of this kind of treatment. Bile rose in the back of Dean's throat.
"We'll figure this out," he promised. "We'll stay here until you and Ryn are back on your feet, and then we'll go from there."
Cas gave him a look that was as full of doubt as his words were. But Dean mustered the bravado to lift his chin staunchly.
"Hey, we've gotten out of worse. At least it's not Heaven chasing us across the country threatening to blow up the state," he added, drawing up his earlier thought.
Amy straightened. "Can the angels help us?"
Cas sighed. "If Gabriel was around, then of course. But without him…the other angels won't get involved in the affairs of humans."
Yeah, what a time for the archangel to be MIA. But they'd handled crap on their own before. Usually it was just them. Them against the world. And they figured it out. They would again. Because that's what they always did. As long as they were together, they could handle anything.
Alex came out of the bathroom and left the fresh bowl of water and towel on the nightstand, and then excused herself, but not before giving them an encouraging smile.
…Actually, they weren't on their own this time. Not on their own at all.