It took me a while before I could even think about sleeping. And when I did—begin to think about sleeping, that is—I didn't feel as if I had the right to sleep. A tiny little part of my brain kept reminding me that I took that privilege away from almost twenty people, that I should probably not allow myself to sleep for as long as possible.

But fatigue won out, and my eyes drifted shut without permission.

I couldn't control my hands as they grabbed up the knife, gripping it so hard that the hilt dug into my palm. Its silvery blade winked in the low light, and as I looked around I found I was in a warehouse, creaking and echoing as the wind howled around it. Without a conscious reason my heart began to beat faster than the pounding of a mare's hooves as the wind spooked her, blood thundered in my ears and roared behind my eyes. As the adrenaline kicked in I wondered what it is that made me so afraid, but as I strained to see into the shadows I knew I was alone. Well, I thought I was alone. The wind's pitch rose higher and higher until it was a woman's screams, so loud and piercing it forced me to my knees. "Wake up, my love," a terrible, grating voice cooed in my ear. "It's time for you to wake up now."

With a cry my body lurched forwards, heart beating a million miles an hour in my chest, feeling like it was about to rip my ribcage clean open and fly away. My breaths came in short, ragged gasps and my clothes were drenched in sweat. A mumble came from beside me, and I jerked violently away until my brain registered the giant shoulders and back, the shaggy hair a dark shadow in the dim light. Sam murmured again and rolled onto his back, his mouth hanging open slightly. My body seemed to have a will of its own, relaxing slightly as my eyes sought out Dean. In the dead quiet of the crack of dawn I could hear his deep breaths from the other side of the couch, his feet twitching slightly in their socks as they hung over the arm.

I knew I couldn't get back to sleep now, and as I remembered the horrors of the previous night I grew completely still, self-loathing and despair washing my nightmare away like acid, leaving me hollow. I don't remember what time Sam woke, or if the sun had risen yet, and my mind barely registered him throwing on clothes suited for exercise and leaving his suit on his bed. He might have bade me good morning before he left, and I might have replied, but who's to know for sure? I scarcely remember Dean waking, and I honestly don't know if he asked me anything. His voice was just a low buzz in the back of my mind, until I detected a note of anger—or was it annoyance?—and I was slowly brought back to the present. I blinked, my eyes focusing on Dean, watching his lips shape words. When I didn't move he made an angry gesture and pointed towards the bathroom. I didn't take in his words but I understood, and I slipped off the bed and slowly shuffled into the smaller room, locking the door's latch and turning the hot water on in the shower. I stripped off and allowed the pure hot water to stab at my skin, making me gasp in shock as I was pulled out of my slump.

With life forced into my limbs I jumped to one side of the shower and twisted the cold tap, letting out a sigh of relief when I tested the water and found it bearable. My heart began to beat a little steadier and my hands didn't seem to shake as much as I washed the grime from my skin, (and maybe chipped a smidge off of my soul, too) turning the water slightly pink as it swirled around the drain, the last of the blood dribbling away. When I felt I was clean enough I changed back into the shirt I'd borrowed from Sam and my jeans, ignoring the red-almost brown stains on them.

I forced myself to look in the mirror. My hair was a short tangled mess, dark circles festered under my eyes like a bad fungus, my cheeks looked a little swallower and I felt I looked as if I'd aged two years overnight. My lips were chapped and chewed, when I ran my tongue over my teeth I swear there was a layer of fuzz coating them. I swallowed with a little difficulty, and tried to work some of the knots from my hair. I used my finger as a toothbrush and rubbed my teeth until I was satisfied that they no longer felt as if they were covered in tribbles. Once I'd finished I stared at myself again, and felt a little more confident. It had seemed to me that I'd looked different, like I had a demon crawling under my skin, but now that I was cleaner, I felt more human. Yes, I was a mass murderer. Yes, I was most likely a sociopath. Yes, these two notions terrified me (especially that last one). But no, I was not going to let that fear dominate me. No, I was not going to let that mass-murder define who I thought I was. There had to be more to the situation than I understood—that demon, Weasel, knew more than he had said—and a lot of what was happening was most definitely out of my control. I decided then and there in that dingy motel bathroom that I would uncover any and all secrets circling me. And I knew Crowley was the one I should ask. If 'ask' was the right verb to use for what I wanted to do to the king of Hell.

Dean had his back to me when I came out of the bathroom. He was changing into his suit, same dark grey slacks and crisp white shirt. He was just buttoning up his shirt as he turned, and I glimpsed a black mark over his heart. Even though it was just for a second, I recognised it. An anti-possession symbol. I met his eyes for a moment before looking away, my feet taking me to the foot of my bed. I sat. Dean didn't say a word. He just reached for his tie and began to tie it.

Eventually the silence grew thick and heavy, like a weight was settling in the room—the weight of an elephant, say—and as each moment passed it became more and more awkward to say anything. I silently wondered why American hunters got their anti-possession tattoos done so obviously over their hearts, unlike Australian hunters who had them done a little more discreetly on the soles of our feet, and if that made us the weird ones for being a little more practical. Soon Dean had finished lacing up his shoes and just stood, leaning against the back of the couch. There was something about the way he was perched there that made me think of a cat, more like a lion really, sizing up a wilder beast and waiting for his lioness to strike. It was the strength of his posture, but also the feeling of energy buzzing through him, just under the surface.

It reminded me of my mother, and the way she used to move on a hunt. Like she was the lioness to Dean's lion. And with that thought a shiver ran down my spine as I was completely weirded out.

"About the massacre…"

"D-don't." I held up a hand to stop whatever sympathy was about to come from him. I didn't want it.

He scoffed. "You don't want to think about it? Don't think you can fool me, Ripley. I know how you feel, I know how something like that feels, and it's a weight in your chest not letting you breathe. I get it. I see it in my own eyes every time I look in the mirror. What I want to know is why a demon working for Abaddon is so interested in you. Hell, I want to know why the queen bitch herself is interested in you. You need to tell us everything we need to know about you."

And I did. When Sam got back from his run I sat both of them down on the foot of each bed and began pacing in front of them. I told the brothers about my life, raised in Australia and Southeast Asia, Japan and even Europe for about half a year. I told them how my father had abandoned me when I was three and how five years ago my mother had died. There was nothing that made me special, nothing in my family's blood, nothing in my life that could explain it. There was a period of about ten days when I must have left Darwin and flown to somewhere in America, but I couldn't remember anything between my last hunt and the Winchesters finding me.

After I'd finished, Dean turned to his brother. "I think we should call Cas."

Sam paused, bit his lip and then shook his head. "Doesn't he kind of have a full plate at the moment?"

I'll admit their conversation had my interest. Finding out who Dean Winchester called when he had an unsolvable problem? Sign me up for that.

"Who else can we talk to about this, Sam? We can't go bothering Jodi with a mess that includes Crowley; she'll skin us alive. Charlie's in Oz—" (okay, wait…what?) "—so her incredible detective skills are out of reach. Everyone we can trust with an issue like this is either gone, or MIA. Cas is our only option." My heart might have broken a little when Dean said the word gone, because he said it like he meant dead, and the thought that the Winchesters had no one to turn to with something of this magnitude save for one guy was just a little bit heartbreaking. It also made me feel incredibly guilty that I was the cause of that sadness.

"Okay, then tell me this. What is he going to do? The dude's been trying to lay low and keep his head. Do you really think he should risk it by coming here?"

Dean rubbed his neck, seemingly out of arguments. I could see Sam's logic, but if this Cas was as good as the brothers said…"C-call him." I said, earning an appreciative nod from Dean and a sigh from Sam. "If he r-r-really is as g-g-good as you say, w-we're g-going to n-n-need the h-help. If h-he c-can't help me, th-then I'll m-m-make a few l-l-long d-distance c-calls and s-s-see if an-nyone b-back home is a-a-able to h-help." The brothers shared a glance before Sam waved me over to the bed. I sat, a little confused. "W-what?"

"You remember how we told you about the angels, and how they fell?" I nodded. "Well, Cas was actually trying to stop all of that. The Scribe of God—an angel called Metatron—tricked Cas into doing the trials to expel the angels from Heaven, instead of closing the gates of Heaven like he'd believed. Since then, Cas had been trying to avoid the other angels as much as he can. See, it was his grace that Metatron used to complete the spell, so the others believe it was all Cas' fault."

"O-other a-angels?" At my question Sam smiled slightly. I'd caught that, and pieces were starting to fall together. "C-cas is an a-angel?"

"His name is Castiel, and he's been saving our asses for almost four or five years now. He started when he busted me from Hell and hasn't stopped since. Not that we take advantage of that." Dean added, smirking at his brother when he thought I wasn't looking.

The rustle of wings fluttered in my ears and all of a sudden, between one blink and the next, a scruffy man in a tan trench coat stood in the middle of the room. He had bright blue eyes that bore directly into mine, curious and aflame with power, messy black hair and was wearing a black suit under the coat. He looked like he was in his late thirties, and that he was probably an accountant or had a boring office job.

I, of course, began freaking out. Since when did middle-aged accountants just appear in dingy motel rooms? In my experience—never—unless they were possessed. And since the only beings I'd ever encountered who liked to possess people were spectres and demons, I reached for the holy water on instinct. That is, until the man spoke and I was frozen in place, half way to Dean's duffel to grab his silver flask. The man didn't look at the brothers, but his words were obviously directed at them. There was something captivating about his gaze that I couldn't quite understand, and I felt something ache within me to grab a knife from Dean and peel his skin back to see what was underneath. I couldn't make myself actually listen, as if my ears suddenly stopped working, and that really concerned some small part of myself, a little voice in the back of my mind telling me that something was deeply, deeply wrong.

But I didn't care. I couldn't care. I couldn't care that Sam was looking at me strangely, that the man's curious gaze had turned into a concerned frown, that Dean's voice was a buzz in the back of my head asking if anything was wrong. Because I was finally understanding what I was seeing in the shaggy man's eyes, why I was so entranced.

Power.

Raw and beautiful, contained only by his strength of will. If he hadn't been wearing a human I felt as if I would be evaporated by it, white and blue, cold like ice but hotter than a star at the same time. It filled the human's skin, brimming and boiling through it, the light arcing like rays of pure sunlight, blinding yet gorgeous. It wasn't like the power of a demon, which seeped into whatever it could and rotted it from the inside out. This was soft and healing.

I found myself following the arcs of power as they radiated from his pale skin, fizzing through the room. Tendrils of white light began snaking around me as the man—sorry, angel—studied me, his power helping him gauge what was in my soul.

Dean looked at his brother, then to Castiel and then to me. "Cas, what is it?" Sam rose from his seat on the bed and moved so that he was now kneeling in front of me. I was staring at one spark of white hovering between myself and the angel. The effect it had on me was hypnotic. I felt myself submerged in white light, and then I was surrounded by it completely, and soon I felt like I was drowning in it.

I don't know how I ended up laying at the head of the bed, but the next thing I knew Dean's concerned frown was hovering over me as my eyes fluttered open. A gruff voice called Dean's name and my body lurched upwards of its own accord, forcing Dean to lean back or get smacked in the face by my forehead.

"W-who? H-how?"

"She has a speech impediment? Why?"

There was a scoff next to me. "What, I look like a doctor to you? How the hell are we supposed to know why she's got a stutter?" Dean was sitting beside me on the bed, white shirt stretched over his shoulders which were taught with worry. Sam was sitting at the table in his navy suit, laptop open in front of him, the angel sitting across from him studying a gun. Dean patted my leg. "You okay?"

I jumped at the contact but calmed when I met Dean's gaze. "I think." The words came out quietly, almost a whisper. The hunter nodded and rose from his position, grabbing up his jacket and shrugging it on. He began to discuss what B.S. story they were going to feed the local police with Sam. I don't know what it was but something inside me roiled when I looked over at the angel. His blue eyes moved from the gun and fixed me with a chilling stare, one that I couldn't determine the emotion of. Was that mistrust or hatred making the blue of his irises flame? Or was it just that angelic power that seemed so close to ripping through his skin? Yet another almost primal urge of wanting to cut into that man's flesh threatened to engulf my mind in bloodlust at the smallest hint of white light. It needed to be snuffed out, torn apart, gouged from his soul.

Dean announced that he and Sam were going to talk to the police again and would bring me breakfast, at that I wasn't to go anywhere lest anyone see me. When they'd gone Castiel stood, walked a few steps towards the bed where I was sitting and then seemed to think better of approaching any further and stopped in the middle of the room.

"Your name is Ripley Mitchell?" He asked. I nodded. "Your mother was a hunter?" Another nod, followed by the narrowing of his eyes. "How did you get to this country, Ripley?"

I felt my gut drop like I was on a rollercoaster and it was just about to fall down that one crazy decline that no sane person ever thinks to exclude from the design plans. There was something in his tone I couldn't place, and it scared me. So I stammered my way through the explanation that, after my last case in middle-of-nowhere Western Australia, there was a period of about ten days during which I had no memory and had somehow travelled halfway around the world. As far as I'd known, I'd gone from sweat, heat and dust to tearing a demon apart while Crowley stood by.

"This is just my opinion," he said, a slight frown making its way onto his face. "And I guess it's okay for me to say since Dean is always telling me not to keep so much to myself; you should not be around the Winchesters. I'm sensing in you the same changes that the Mark of Cain is enacting within Dean. If they find this out I know they will both go to the ends of the earth to try to save you, as Sam feels he should be doing with Dean, but I don't know if it is possible for either of you. It is the oldest curse I know of, Ripley, and although you do not possess it physically, I can sense it on your soul."

Well, shit.

I knew Castiel was just trying to protect the boys—and don't get me wrong, that was absolutely fine by me—I didn't fancy ripping Sam limb from limb or shoving a knife into Dean's skull, but I knew if I left by my own means they would end up finding me again, probably surrounded by gore and death and that wasn't an experience I wanted to repeat, like, ever. Which meant I had to get a little help.

"C-can y-you h-h-help m-me leave?" The angel didn't mind the question since he knew what I was asking him to do, but he shook his head solemnly, explaining that somehow Dean knew when he wasn't telling the truth and he couldn't lie to them—again. "B-but if you d-dr-drop me on th-the other s-side of the c-country, it g-gives me a h-head s-s-start. B-b-better yet, y-you could t-take me b-back to P-Perth, in Aust-tralia. I'm n-not that i-import-tant to the W-Winchesters, s-so they w-won't t-try t-to find m-me."

Once again Castiel shook his head. I was starting to lose my patience with him. If he couldn't help me out, what use was he?

"Th-then let a d-demon find me, and I w-will take it f-from there." I was probably crazy. How could I trust a demon to take me where I wanted to go? My best options were intimidation and torture…pretty much anything short of a deal, which was my absolute last resort. Castiel clicked his fingers and the door to the room swung open, and I walked outside, throwing my hoodie on as I went.

A crossroads. That's all I had to find, and the rest would sort itself out.

He stared into those bright blue eyes, searching for a sliver of a lie. "You let her just walk away? What were you thinking? She's a time bomb about to explode!" There was this irrational anger boiling inside his chest making it hard to see his way to reason. It wasn't all on the angel—he should have made Sam stay behind and keep an eye on Ripley, or he could have stayed under the pretence of looking for Abaddon, something to make sure she stayed put.

Sam shot his brother a look. "Come on, Dean, Cas didn't know the extent of it. He's got his own troubles, remember?"

"Dean," Cas said, an apology obvious in his tone. "She doesn't want to hurt either of you. She knows most of her capabilities, but Ripley also understands there is a part of her which is much too dark and uncontrollable."

He knew what Cas was saying. And there was a hint in his voice too, about the Mark. "You shouldn't have let her go."

"It's not like he didn't try to talk her out of it, right, Cas?" Dean watched the angel carefully, catching the little intake of air just before he began telling the younger Winchester that yes, he had tried to stop Ripley from leaving by trying to reason with her, but it hadn't worked. Dean waited until he was halfway into the lie before he cut in, the realisation a stab in the side.

"You told her to go, didn't you?"

The room fell into silence. Dean knew Cas had lied to them before, but that was a massive fate-of-the-world lie whilst this was trivial in comparison. He'd had enough practise finding a person's tell—those tiny, usually unnoticeable gestures most people miss—that he had to learn to see out of necessity, and angels were no different. Most weren't skilled liars (Cas included) because it wasn't really in their nature, so he'd learnt to find Cas' and had tried to call him out on his lies as often as he could.

"Dean, I—"

"Dammit, Cas! We're supposed to be protecting her—helping her figure this out! She's out there alone, unprotected and unable to stop Crowley or Abaddon from getting their claws into her. No Sam, shut up. You screwed up, Cas. She slaughtered twenty people in the diner up the road. No weapons, no demons, just her. Now what do you think the demons are going to do when they get hold of her?"

The three men were still for about a second, and then they sprang into action. The boys gathered their stuff and set up a rendezvous with Cas before running out to the Impala. The angel pretended to fly away, but when the Winchesters had gone he walked calmly from the motel room.

In all my life I never had to summon a demon when at a crossroads. I would just stand in the exact middle of the intersection and one would just appear. This time was no different.

She was beautiful, with a type of elegance about her that suited the forties or fifties, yet she was no older than thirty five. Her hair was curled and a shade of red lighter than mine, and there was something about her that reminded me of…well, me. Her lips were painted red, the makeup around her eyes dark and edgy. I knew she was a demon not by the complete blackness of her eyes, but because of the dangerous way her lips twisted into a smirk, the knowing hint in her expression putting me on guard.

"Hello, Ripley darling."

As soon as she spoke I was transported back to my childhood, sitting on the warm lap of my mother, giggling as she tickled my nose. With a squeal I would dart away, and she would chase me, crooning "Ripley darling, where are you?" as I hid under a bed or behind the lounge. It couldn't be…she was dead. Wasn't she?

And yet, as I stared into the face of this demon's meat suit I couldn't help but see the similarities in appearance. The woman obviously wasn't my mother—I would have been having a serious mental breakdown had that been the case—but the reality that the demon possessing her was my mother kind of took a while to sink in.

"You're…a demon? My own mother is a bloody demon, and I never knew?" By the smug smile on her face I knew my assumption was correct. But that didn't stop my anger from bubbling away inside my chest until it felt like it was about to burst, which it did. "You raised me to be a hunter, to despise evil, did you really think this whole reveal through? I was nineteen—barely an adult—and you left me to what, murder innocents? Kill babies and rip out people's throats?"

Her eyes turned to their normal colour, a startling green, very similar to my own. It made me furious. She smirked. "From what I hear, that's your job."

My stomach sank through the ground. "Y-you know?"

"Oh, honey," Her laugh was melodic and charming just like it had been for those years when it was still easy for her to smile, but now I knew better. "Weasel saw everything, and I have a way of seeing what he does. I'm so proud of you." She reached out to stroke my face, but I slapped her hand away and as I took a step backwards I stumbled, falling flat on my back in the dirt.

I pulled myself up into a sitting position slowly, the demon's eyes locked onto mine. "Y-you're Abaddon." She smiled and nodded, and everything the Winchesters had told me about her suddenly came rushing back. Knight of Hell. Chopped apart and burnt to a crisp and still here. Something told me I was screwed. It was also telling me I was a complete idiot for not telling at least Castiel, if not the brothers, where I had gone. Then, in a moment of quiet in my mind, I remembered the reason I had come out here in the first place. I wanted answers, and to hopefully stop ripping innocents apart.

"So, sweetie, why have you decided to summon a demon?" For a second I balked at the uncanny question until I mentally slapped myself. Duh—demon. She's reading your thoughts.

I think it may have been the fact that it was my own mother I'd ended up summoning that was unnerving me, and the overall weirdness of the whole situation; but despite this I still wanted my answers, I still wanted to be away from people I could hurt. A feeling in my gut told me staying isolated wasn't going to happen, so I figured I should just take what I could get.

With my initial shock and anger slowly seeping away through my feet my stutter quickly returned, which, for some reason, made the demon's lips twitch and quirk into a smile. "I-I want to know wh-what's happening t-to me. Why I'm k-k-killing and l-losing cont-trol."

"Well, if that's all you ever wanted to know, love, you should have stuck with those two idiot friends of yours; they'd have eventually found answers." As soon as I heard the smooth British accent I had to suppress a groan.

Somehow, Crowley just managed to show up wherever I didn't want him to.

My reaction, however, was nothing compared to Abaddon's. Because I was facing her I didn't see him materialise, but the knight's hands tensed by her sides and her face contorted into the epitome of barely controlled rage almost unnoticeably; if I hadn't already been trying to gauge her sincerity I would have completely missed the minute narrowing of her eyes and twitch of the corner of her red lips.

I slowly turned to look at Crowley, frowning when he met my gaze. The last I had seen of him, he'd been slumped in the back of the Impala at the mercy of the Winchesters, and all of a sudden he was free. I didn't know what exactly his relationship with the brothers was, but obviously it was extremely complicated.

Abaddon's silky voice was strained as she spoke. "Crowley. What an unpleasant surprise. What do you want?"

"Just a chat with little Ripley here. I wanted to ask her about a certain mutual acquaintance."

The tension between them was electric and as they continued to size one another up I felt that if I didn't get away from these two I was going to get caught in some very unpleasant crossfire. Slowly and hopefully not very noticeably, I tried to edge my way over to the side of the road, my hand slipping into my jacket pocket and closing around my phone. Sam had given me both his and his brother's numbers for urgent calls, so I tried to supress the look of panic on my face as I struggled to remember which speed dial numbers was theirs. Thankfully neither demon was interested in me for the moment; both gradually moving closer to the other and drawing blades from under their coats.

I peeked into my pocket at the bright screen and almost sighed when I pressed the call button, putting it on speaker a couple of seconds after the call had connected.