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Goodbye Is Never Forever

Chapter Fourteen: Finding The Missing

Colorado - 04:47AM

Dean ducked yet another tree branch as he headed deeper, further into the woods. It had started as a panicked, frantic search for anything he thought could lead him to finding his sister. But that had been two hours ago. And those two hours had felt like a lifetime. Now, it had turned into simply wandering through the dark leaves hoping, praying, that he could find something, anything, to lead him to her. It was past dark, and, even with a flash light, it was becoming harder and harder to see anything. But he wasn't leaving that forest without her, and he wouldn't stop until he had found her.

There was a sound behind him, something that resembled snapping branches and rustling leaves. He wasn't alone. He turned sharply, his eyes scanning the darkness, and it was as though the sound was getting louder, closer. Something was out there, something was watching him, waiting for him. He took a step back, shining his flash light in the direction of the noise, but he saw nothing. His gun was aimed and ready to fire, only he didn't have the first clue in which direction to shoot. He backed way, unsure, and he felt himself lose his balance. The ground was uneven beneath his feet and he felt it disappear from under him. Only it wasn't just a trip, he didn't hit the ground and he didn't stop falling. It felt like stairs, made of cold, damp stone. He landed at the bottom with a thud, and for a moment he lay there, dazed. He groaned as he pushed himself to sit up, and he looked around slowly.

His surroundings were unfamiliar, nothing that he could ever have expected to find in the middle of the woods. It looked something like a basement, something that had been left behind from a cabin that had long since been demolished. "Hello?" he called, but there was no response, only silence. It was dark, cold, eerie, it looked like something out of a horror movie, and he couldn't determine whether he was alone down there.

Slowly, wary, he followed the dark, narrow path into a wider space, and that was when he saw her, Alison, just hanging there from the wooden roof by her wrists. She was covered in mud, and her face was bloody. For a moment he wasn't even sure that she was breathing, his stomach dropped and a new wave of panic ran through him.

Dean crossed the room to her in three long strides, and his palm came into contact with her cheek. His stomach dropped in some kind of relief because her skin was warm to touch, she was breathing. Alison was alive. She was okay.

The contact to her skin seemed to pull her back into reality. Slowly, Alison blinked open her green eyes, and the first thing she saw was the panicked face of her brother, just inches away from her own. His eyes were wide, unblinking, staring right at her. She saw the panic, she saw the fear, she saw the desperation, the relief, and she didn't miss the way he shook his head at her the slightest bit.

"Dude," He huffed a laugh, and he looked torn between laughing and crying. "You scared the hell out of me."

Alison scoffed, blinking hard as she looked around slowly, taking in her surroundings, she looked confused, as though she wasn't sure what had happened. "Just testing you." she muttered, he knew it was supposed to be a joke, probably to calm the panic he was sure was evident on his face, but she was clearly still groggy. "How did you find me?"

Dean chuckled. "By accident." he quipped, but it was more honest than she realized. "Come on, let's get you down." He pulled the knife from the belt of her jeans and forcefully cut through the ropes at her wrists. She dropped down, and he had to catch her before she crumpled to the ground before him. "Are you okay?" he asked, and she could see that the panic had come right back.

Alison nodded, anything but convincing. "Yeah, 'm good." she muttered. "Just give me a minute."

He loosened the grip he held at the tops of her arms and gently lowered her to sit on the ground, and he dropped to sit beside her. "I thought you were gonna be dead." he said quietly, glancing up at her.

"You exaggerate." she replied simply, as though the thought couldn't have concerned her less.

"I exaggerate?" he exclaimed. "You're bleeding."

Alison looked up at him through one eye, eyebrows furrowed. "So are you." she countered. She reached up and wiped away some of the blood coming from the cut at the end of his left eyebrow. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Fell down the stairs." he admitted, his voice completely serious.

She laughed, as though she had assumed him to be joking, but his face didn't change. She looked skeptical. "In the middle of the woods?"

He smirked, because he knew that she was simply going along with what she thought was a joke on his part. "I did, actually."

Alison frowned, confused, but seemed to accept it from him. "Fair enough." she commented. "Where are we, anyway?"

"I'm not sure." he admitted. "Somewhere underground." He gave a sigh, looking over her slowly, and it was beginning to sink in what could have happened to her. He wouldn't admit it, but he had been afraid. "You see, Ali, this is what I was talking about." he warned, and his voice became stern. "Doing this alone, it's dangerous."

Alison simply huffed, shaking her head, she didn't want to hear it. He knew it was a conversation that she didn't want to have, he could see it in her face. She knew that he was right, she just didn't want to admit it. Either that, or maybe she didn't want to accept the real trouble she knew she was in. Perhaps it really was all severe denial with her. He couldn't work it out.

"I would have found a way out of here, Dean." she said, her voice quiet, but he wasn't so convinced, and, he had a feeling, neither was she.

"Maybe this time. But what happens the time when something goes really wrong?" he pressed, he wasn't backing down again. "Then what? Huh? No one will know where you are, or what happened to you. What happens when one day you just don't come out the other side of one of these jobs?"

Alison shot him a look, something between a warning to stop and a plea to drop it. "Have you seen it?" she asked him, as though he hadn't said a word.

Dean shook his head at her. It was a blatant excuse to change the subject, but he knew it was what they needed to be talking about. There was a time and a place, and he had a feeling she was neglecting to acknowledge she had a nine hour car ride back home with him to sit though. "No." he said simply. "Not yet. But I think it was close."

She nodded, as if to say that she agreed. "So why are we sitting here?"

Dean watched as she pulled the gun from the back of her jeans, and he followed her actions. She pushed herself to stand again, and he noticed how she still seemed a little shaky, but he chose not to comment. She made a move towards the direction Dean had entered, but something stopped her.

They both turned sharply at the sound of a growl behind them, guns aimed and ready to fire, and Dean wasn't sure which one of them looked more stunned at the sight before them. The creature that stood over them was huge, easily twice the size of them. It was terrifying, like something from a horror movie, nothing he could ever have imagined. It's teeth were sharp, and as it growled it only seemed to intensify the true look of hunger it portrayed. He heard his sister shift the slightest bit, and then the sound of a gun firing rang through the air and echoed off the cold, dark walls around them.

Dean followed her lead as she continued to shoot ahead. It seemed to stagger a few steps backwards, before it fell and crumbled to the ground before them, still. He didn't know how to react, and he was back in that place where he didn't know what was happening around him, where the reality set in and he realized the situation he had been in was beyond a death sentence.

"Is it..." Dean paused, looking over it slowly. "Dead?"

Alison stepped forwards, wary, her gun still aimed and ready to shoot, and she looked down at it for a long moment, nodding slowly. "Yeah," she said softly, as if not to disturb the silence that seemed to have fallen over them. "Yeah, it's dead."

Dean nodded, because he didn't know what to say. "So... now what?" he asked, apprehensive.

Alison turned back to him, and he watched as she returned the gun to the back of her jeans. "Now, we go home." she told him simply. "It's over."

Once again, he nodded. And, truthfully, he didn't know how he felt about that.

Dean could see the glimmer in her green eyes, he saw the life there and he recognized the adrenaline. He knew right there, just looking at her, he knew that she wasn't going to stop. Alison was fearless, she didn't see the danger that was right in front of her. Either that, or she was ignoring it completely. Which one it was, he couldn't determine, but it didn't change the outcome. There was nothing that was going to stop her from doing what she was doing, and he was only going to be able to watch her back for so long.

But it was more than that, now it was over, now that they were going home, he knew there was something he had to tell her. He had held off as long as he could, but he couldn't keep her in the dark anymore. And he knew, once he did, there was no taking it back. It was going to break her.