CHAPTER 4
"It's not what you think," Ava said quickly, standing and holding up her right hand in surrender.
Sam had his gun trained on her almost before the first word was fully out of her mouth. "Then what is it?" he demanded. "Because it sure looks like you just killed Jake."
Her hand was still stained with blood, and he'd seen her clutching the knife – there was no way that she could deny it. Still, though, she shook her head insistently. "I had to," she said, a desperate edge entering her voice. "I had to kill him, or he would have killed me first."
Sam narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"
She stepped toward him, right hand still raised. Her left arm was held against her chest, carefully, and Sam could see that it was already starting to bruised and swell. Definitely injured, and probably broken. "He was coming after me," Ava said. Her voice was small, and pitiful, like she was on the verge of losing it completely. "He was trying to kill me, Sam. I was protecting myself."
"Jake wouldn't have done that," Sam said, then stopped, realizing that he didn't know if it was true.
He didn't think that Jake would try to kill Ava. He just didn't. But then, he didn't think that Ava seemed like the type to attack someone without a reason, either. Meaning that he had to be wrong about one of them.
"Why wouldn't he?" Ava asked, shaking her head.
Lily was the one who answered this time. "He organized us in a group," she said. "He was the one to insist on going to find more people and bring them back. He saved your life, remember? Why would he try to kill you now?"
Now, Ava's eyes narrowed, almost like she was angry, or trying to be intimidating. If that was what she was aiming for, though, the effect was ruined the moment that she opened her mouth. Her voice was still trembling. "Does that mean that you trust him?" she asked. "A hundred percent, no reservations? You really would believe that he would never, ever harm you?"
Lily scowled. "No," she said at once. "But I don't trust anyone. That includes you."
Ava shuddered at the heat in Lily's voice, and turned to Sam. "Please," she said, taking another step, holding her uninjured hand forward like she was reaching out to him. "Please, Sam, this wasn't me. I didn't want to do this, he made me. You have to believe me."
"Don't come any closer," Sam said, because he didn't know what else he was supposed to say.
She immediately froze, but kept talking. "Come on, why would I kill him? What would make me do that?"
"I don't know," Lily said, voice still hard. "Why would Jake? Or anybody?"
Ava looked like she was going to respond. Sam beat her to it.
"Because Azazel told us to," he said slowly. "Because the demon said that there's no other choice."
He remembered talking to Jake in the first house they checked, how Jake had been the one to bring it up. The way that he'd turned the gun on Sam the moment that he'd suspected that Sam might be someone that they couldn't trust. It'd been obvious that he didn't have a problem with killing someone, how Sam had looked into his eyes and sensed that it wouldn't be something that Jake would even think twice about, if he'd really had to. Someone like that would be able to kill if it came down to that, or if they thought it was their only option left.
And Jake had been the one to convince the others to split up, Sam realized. If he'd wanted to kill someone without being caught, this would be the place to do it. Alone in a room like this, where it could be blamed on a demon and nobody would be able to say otherwise, not for sure. That could have been his plan all along, come out here with the people who were most likely to fight back, get rid of the threats first. Maybe he'd planned on doing the same to Sam and Lily, and Ava had stopped him before he'd gotten the chance.
Then Sam remembered the look in Jake's eyes as he'd sworn that he would never give in and do what Azazel wanted, that he'd die before he killed for Azazel. And suddenly, it wasn't quite as clear anymore.
He swallowed, then used his gun to gesture toward the door. "Come on," he said. "We're going back to the base. You're leading the way."
Ava swallowed, and didn't move. "What are you doing with me?"
Sam tried to come up with the right words to say, but the only honest response that he could give was, "I don't know."
They couldn't keep her with the rest of the group, not if she had killed Jake in cold blood – who knew what she would do to everyone else? But they couldn't leave her alone, without backup, if she'd been acting out of self-defense. If she was a murderer, then the best thing to do would be to restrain her, tie her up somewhere to keep her from hurting anyone else, maybe post guards on her to be absolutely certain that she couldn't slip out. But if the demons attacked, then leaving her tied up would practically be a death sentence – one that they couldn't inflict on her if she was innocent.
Sam's head was starting to swim, and he didn't know what he was going to do. He had to think of something before he got back to the others. By his estimate, it would be about a ten-minute walk. He doubted that that would be enough time to make up his mind, but it was gonna have to do.
"Shouldn't we keep looking for more survivors?" Ava asked in a low voice. "There's still whole other sections of the town that we haven't checked. There could be people there."
"Yeah," Sam said, because she was right – people could still be alive, no matter what Lily said about it. Then he shook his head. "Not with you," he said. No way was he going to go check out an abandoned building with her behind him. He wasn't going to run that risk.
Ava flinched, a look of betrayal flashing in her eyes, and Sam couldn't tell if it was faked or not. If it was, then she was a damn good actor.
"You need to get your arm bandaged," he said, in a softer voice this time. "You can't fight until that's taken care of." Not that it could really be fixed up until they were out of here, and somewhere with X-Ray machines and actual plaster casts instead of the makeshift bandages that he could probably pull together for her. But he could immobilize it for her, at least, try to keep the break from getting any worse until she could actually get it checked out.
Her shoulders hunched, and she looked up at him nervously, something like hope flashing over her face. "Does that mean that you believe me?" she asked. Her voice still trembled.
Sam didn't answer. Instead, he just made another motion toward the door. "You're still walking in front of us," he said.
She looked disappointed, but she nodded. "Okay," she said quietly, and began walking.
Sam started to follow her out the door, but stopped after just a few steps, realizing that Lily wasn't following. He stopped, and turned back to look at her.
She was standing over Jake's body, staring down at it, an unreadable expression on her face. She didn't look sad, or hurt, or even remotely upset. Her face was just... blank, like she didn't feel anything at all. But as Sam watched, she slowly bent down and touched his face, then carefully closed his eyes.
When she saw Sam looking, she didn't glance away, or even glare. Instead, she just straightened, her eyes locked on Sam's, her face still strangely blank.
"I didn't actually know him, really," she said. "But he still deserves that."
Sam just nodded. She was still staring at him, but now, he looked away. "Let's go, before Ava gets ahead of us," he muttered, and headed out the door. This time, Lily followed.
Nobody spoke as they walked. They passed the clock tower in utter silence, and Sam looked up, his eyes finding the tree engraved on the side of the bell once again. He still felt like there was something familiar about it, something that he should know, but whatever it was, it was eluding him completely. He felt like he was just on the edge of some important revelation, but he couldn't actually remember what it could be.
"Sam," Lily said suddenly, speaking for the first time since they'd left Jake's body behind. Sam glanced at her, and she pointed over to the side. "Isn't that one new?"
Sam followed her finger, looking in the direction she was pointing. There was a boy's body about a dozen feet away from them, his dreadlocks stuck to his face with blood. Sam couldn't tell what had been the fatal wound – there were too many of them covering his body.
"I don't know," he admitted after a long second had passed. "I didn't look close the first time we passed through here."
"I did," Lily said, then pressed her lips together in a thin line. "I couldn't look away. And I definitely don't remember looking at him."
Sam glanced at the body again, then grimaced and sped up his steps, putting one hand on each of Lily and Ava's backs, urging them to hurry up. "Let's just go," he said.
He definitely did his best not to think about the fact that the boy must have passed through here soon after the four of them had. It might have been only a difference of a few minutes. And if they hadn't missed each other, then Sam could've done something. He could've made sure that the boy was still alive right now.
It was pointless, he knew it. He had to bury those thoughts in the back of his head – that was another thing that Dean had taught him, to pretend that you didn't feel the guilt until it finally went away. At first, Sam had fought with Dean over that one. He didn't want to pretend not to feel these things. He wanted to remember when he'd messed up, to make sure that it didn't happen again. But Dean had been right - there was no way to hunt while you were still mourning someone you didn't make it in time to save. If you tried, then you'd end up dead. Simple as that.
And Sam needed to stay alive until Dean and Cas made it here. The two of them had to be on their way. Cas had heard Sam's prayer, and knew exactly how to track him down, and they'd arrive as soon as they possibly could. Sam had to believe that. And there was no way that he was going to die before they got here, and force Dean to find his corpse.
No, they were going to track down Azazel, and they were going to kill him. End of story. Meaning that Sam couldn't lose it over the deaths that had already happened.
So he swallowed hard, and he pasted on a mask, forcing his face to stay calm, as if absolutely nothing was wrong. And he kept walking.
The closer that he got to the base, the harder it was to keep the mask in place.
He smelled the smoke before he saw it. All of them did, and they exchanged glances, speeding up by unspoken agreement, until they were practically jogging down the street, very nearly breaking out into a full-on run.
Then they turned a corner onto the road where their base was located, and froze.
It was the scene of a massacre. People had poured out of the building in utter terror, it looked like. He didn't think that any of them had made it. There had to have been more than one demon – this was the work of multiple monsters. Windows were shattered, wooden doors splintered and cracked. Blood covered everything. Behind the carnage, the building that had served as their base burned.
Lily had said that there were eight or nine other people in their group. Sam counted nine corpses.
"No," he said quietly, and shook his head. "No no no no."
"Sam," Ava said slowly, looking at him with worry in her face. She reached out with her right hand to touch his arm. "Are you okay?"
He didn't think that he could answer. Mutely, he shook his head.
"Sam?" Lily asked.
It was the fear in her voice that did it. Sam swallowed, and managed to find his voice. "We need to stop this."
Ava frowned. "What do you mean?"
Sam's hands clenched around his gun, and it was all he could do to keep himself from shooting. The only reason that he could hold himself back was because there was nothing for him to shoot at. But all of the anger at Azazel, the anger over his demon blood and the kidnapping and Mom's death and Jess – he could feel all of it rearing up, mixing with every other angry thought that he'd had in his life.
Someone had done this. And whoever that person was, they were going to pay.
He turned before he even knew what he was going, already starting to run off, completely ignoring the way that Lily and Ava called after him. A second later, he heard footsteps start up behind him, telling him that they were following after.
He didn't care. He didn't look back.
The clock tower. That was the center of the town, as far as he could tell, and it was the scene of the most deaths. And the most recent death, if Lily had been right about the boy. And the source of the tree symbol that he still couldn't get out of his head.
He didn't know if it would have anything, but he didn't know where else to start.
There had better be someone there. Azazel had better be there, so that Sam could make him pay. Weapons or not, he was going to find a way.
The door to enter the clock tower was wooden, and surprisingly flimsy. It only took him two tries to smash it down.
"Okay, come out," Sam called, stepping inside and turning a slow circle, his eyes flickering over every inch of the room. There was no response. He scowled, and lifted his gun, having to restrain himself from firing a warning shot just for the hell of it. He needed to conserve bullets, he knew that. He wasn't stupid. That didn't mean that they thought of shooting something – anything – wasn't tempting.
He'd never felt this way before. He'd been angry, yeah – he was always angry. But this was a whole new level of fury, simmering through his veins. He didn't know how to control it.
Right now, that didn't matter to him.
"I know you're in here," Sam screamed, his voice echoing through the room. Ava and Lily had followed him in by now, and stood in the doorway, looking like neither of them knew what to do.
Seconds passed. Sam almost started to think that he was wrong, that the amount of bodies here was nothing but a coincidence – but no, there had to be someone here. Azazel, or one of his henchmen. There had to be.
And there was.
A flicker of movement caught Sam's attention. That was all it was – just a flicker, barely visible in the corner of his eye, but he immediately spun and aimed his gun straight toward it. "Come out now or I shoot," he shouted.
For a second, nothing happened. Sam was just about to follow through on his threat when he heard a voice say, "You found me, then. Honestly, I hadn't expected that."
The voice was familiar, though Sam couldn't tell why, exactly. All he knew was that he had definitely heard it before. And it definitely wasn't Azazel.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
The person didn't answer. Instead, he just stepped forward. The clock tower didn't have any windows, meaning that the room was mostly in shadows, but there was enough light streaming in through the open door for Sam to see who it was. Even so, he almost didn't recognize him.
Andy had changed in the past month. Physically, he looked almost exactly the same. His clothes were much dirtier, and his hair was a mass of tangles, like it hadn't been brushed in all the time that he'd been gone. There was a scar across his cheek that looked like it hadn't quite healed completely. But it was more than that. The look in his eyes was different. The way he held himself. It was like he was a completely different person, and even though their features were identical, Sam almost couldn't make himself connect the guy in front of him with the Andy that had insisted on running off and trying to save his twin brother without their help.
"You're still alive," Sam said, the shock momentarily cutting off his rage.
"Yup," Andy said simply. He had a knife in one hand, and judging by the way that he casually shifted it in his fingers, he had learned how to use it.
"But that's great," Sam said, taking a step forward. "We couldn't find you anywhere. Bobby kept looking, I even asked our friend Ash- There was no sign of you." The something else occurred to him, and he asked, "What about the others? Everyone else who'd been taken before today?" There had been more than fifty of them. If Andy was still alive, maybe some of them could be, too.
Andy narrowed his eyes, and his face hardened. "I'm the only one left," he said.
It wasn't just the way he looked that had changed. His voice was lower, deeper, flatter. He sounded like a different person.
Sam still had the gun in his hand, still had it aimed straight for Andy's chest. Suddenly, he was grateful that he hadn't been stupid enough to lower it. And grateful that Andy couldn't know that it only held salt rounds.
"Andy," he said slowly, "what happened to you?"
Andy didn't respond, just kept watching them with narrowed eyes.
Sam took a step closer, watching Andy warily, like he was a wild animal who might spring any moment. The longer that Sam stared at him, the more that that seemed like an apt comparison. "How did everyone else die, Andy?"
Again, Andy didn't respond. He just continued to stare. Slowly, he tilted his head to the side, still studying Sam.
Both Ava and Lily screamed.
Sam spun around, shooting off rounds of salt straight into the demons who had manifested in the doorway. Lily and Ava both threw themselves to the ground just in time to avoid being struck. Ava screamed again as she hit the ground, and rolled over, hugging her bad arm tighter to her chest, pained whimpers coming from her mouth.
A second later, he felt Andy grab his arm. Sam twisted, ripping himself out of Andy's grip and stumbling back, seconds before Andy slashed the knife straight through the space where Sam had been standing a second earlier.
"You can get rid of my demons if you want," Andy said. "I can summon more. Azazel has an endless number of soldiers."
"You're working for Azazel now," Sam said.
"Was there any other choice?" Andy snapped, and took a step closer, knife in front of him. Sam backed up a step, keeping the gun trained on Andy, finger on the trigger. But he didn't shoot. Not yet.
"There's always a choice," Sam said.
Andy laughed. Really laughed, throwing back his head, shoulders heaving. He didn't sound amused. He sounded bitter, almost insane. "You can't really believe that," he said once he'd stopped. "I've been here for a month, Sam. Believe me when I say that he can get you to do whatever the hell he wants."
"No," Sam insisted. "Not if you don't let him."
"You think I let him do this?" Andy demanded. "You think I wanted to start killing people? You think I made a choice?" He shook his head, gesturing wildly with the knife. "I had to join him, Sam. Azazel tells you to kill, and you kill. That's all there is to it. Only one of us is getting out of here alive, and it's either going to be me, or it'll be someone who's just as terrible. So why not live, huh? Why not outlive everyone else? Might as well, right?"
He was advancing again, still waving the knife in front of him. Sam continued to back up, until his back hit against the wall.
He knew that he should be pulling the trigger, that he needed to draw his extra knife from his jacket sleeve and go on the offensive. He thought about the bodies of everyone that Andy had killed – all of them outside, all of them outside what used to be the base. He could still remember the anger thrumming through his veins. But he couldn't make himself feel it anymore. Despite everything, he didn't want to make this a fight.
"This isn't you," Sam said, changing directions and dodging out of Andy's reach. Andy just turned directions, too, and kept coming. "I met you, Andy, before," Sam continued. "This isn't you. It doesn't have to be. I know that Azazel forced you into becoming this, but you can fix it. Please, don't make me hurt you."
"You think that you could?" Andy asked.
"Listen to me," Sam urged. "You remember my brother? And Cas? They know where we are. They're on their way right now, and they have a knife that can kill Azazel. You can help us do it. You know him better than any of us. We can work together. End this."
Andy stopped moving, and Sam almost thought that he was going to agree. Then he shook his head. "A little late to redeem me now, don't you think?"
"It's not," Sam insisted. He swallowed hard. "I never meant for this to happen to you, Andy. I would have protected you if I could. If I had been there, I never would have let the demons take you."
"You couldn't have stopped them," Andy said.
Lily was backed against the opposite wall, clutching her fire poker tight, but looking like she had no idea what to do with it. Ava was still sitting on the ground, though now her head was bowed, eyes closed. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Sam almost thought that she was praying.
Andy stiffened, then spun to face her. "Stop that!"
Ava didn't respond, didn't even flinch. The only part of her to move were her lips, which continued to spell out words.
"I said stop!" Andy shouted, and then black smoke poured in through the door, swirling at his feet for a second before manifesting as a young boy with pale skin and clawed hands.
"No!" Sam shouted, and spun to aim at the demon. It was already pouncing at Ava, ready to tear her apart. Sam pulled the trigger.
A second before the salt round hit, another demon rose up, almost like it was pouring out of Ava's skin. It wasn't corporeal – it was just swirling smoke, without a physical form. But the Acheri demon struck it and then didn't move, like the black smoke was holding it off.
The salt round tore through both demons. The Acheri screamed, and unearthly noise that made Sam shudder, every hair on his body standing on edge. The black smoke flickered, and vanished completely.
An instant later, the Acheri was right in front of him, grabbing Sam by the throat. He gasped, and tried to get off another shot, but the demon didn't give him a chance. A second later, Sam was flying across the room, colliding with the wall and hitting the ground in a heap.
"That was a good try, girl," Andy said, his voice low, deadly. "It looks like I'm not the only one who's willing to work with Azazel. You've given into him, huh? Summoning his demons now?"
Ava whimpered.
Andy smiled. "But you're not nearly good enough."
Sam tried to react in time. The gun had fallen from his hand when he'd hit the wall, and he groped around, trying to find it in time.
His hand closed around the gun at the exact same moment that the Acheri demon plunged its hand into Ava's chest.
She didn't scream. She didn't even get the chance to. She was dead in seconds, her body collapsing. The demon pulled its hand from her chest, fingers still clutching her heart.
Sam was on his knees instantly, pumping the demon full of salt rounds, as many as it would take to make it disappear. He didn't bother to count how many it took. The moment that the demon was gone, he spun around, and started shooting Andy with just as many.
Andy screamed as the first round of salt exploded against his chest, but managed to throw himself to the floor before any of the others could strike him. Sam scrambled to his feet, and a second later he was standing over Andy, pointing the gun down at him.
Andy lifted himself onto one elbow, glaring up at Sam. In the dark lighting, his eyes looked almost black.
"What are you going to do?" he asked. "Shoot me full of salt until I smoke out? Doesn't work on humans, Sam. Not even ones like me."
Sam nodded slowly, and lowered the gun. He still had a Swiss Army knife in his jacket sleeve, the one that he always carried, in case he ended up tied somewhere. He drew it now, and opened the blade. It wasn't big, but he knew how to kill someone with it. Hell, he had killed someone with it before. It was the same one that he'd used on Jackson weeks ago, back when the witch had been torturing Dean.
He knew it was big enough to do the job.
Andy seemed to realize the same thing, because his eyes narrowed, face twisting into something that almost didn't look human. "Do it," he snarled. "Then you'll be just like me."
"I wouldn't join Azazel's side," Sam said, voice fierce. "And I wouldn't turn into what you've become."
Andy chuckled. "You think that now, but this is how you begin," he said. "You start off killing to protect someone, then to protect yourself. And the next thing you know, they've got your claws in you. You can't stop. You have to keep going if you want to survive. It's a slippery slope, Sam. You're going to slide down just as far as I did."
Sam shifted the knife in his hand, and didn't respond.
Andy pushed himself up, until he was sitting up straight, leaning forward to keep shouting at Sam. "You know how I started? I killed my brother, Sam. Do you know what that was like? He trusted Azazel right away – he'd been working for Azazel for months already, of course he would. And he kept telling me that Azazel would make an exception, that two people could survive as long as it was the two of us."
Andy paused then. He didn't sound angry anymore. Instead, he sounded broken.
"He was going to kill a girl. I stopped him." Andy broke off, scowling, one hand reaching up to trace the scar on his cheek. "The girl turned right around and tried to rip out my throat. I stopped her, too."
"I'm sorry," Sam said.
Andy swallowed, then his hands balled into fists. "So am I, but you don't see that doing me any good," he snapped. A second later, he was on his feet, coming after Sam.
Sam grabbed him by the front of the shirt, shoving him back until he slammed against the wall, the blade of his knife pressed against Andy's throat. "Don't summon any more demons," Sam said, "or I swear, I'm not going to hesitate."
"You shouldn't be hesitating now," Andy said. "Come on, Sam. Can't do it?"
"Don't try me," Sam said.
Andy shook his head. "If you were going to, you would've done it already," he said, then tilted his head, staring up at Sam. "What is it? You still feel guilty for letting me get taken? You still think that there's some way that you can save me? All of the above." He shook his head. "You don't get it, Sam. Maybe you liked me when we met, but that person's gone. There's nothing left for you to save." He reached up, closing his hand around Sam's wrist and squeezing tight. "You two are the last ones left. I'm not going to let you stop me now."
He sensed the demon before he heard it. There weren't any signs of its arrival, not yet, but still, somehow he just knew that it was behind him.
He didn't hesitate. He shoved the knife straight into Andy's throat.
Andy made a gasping noise, but he couldn't scream. His hands flew to his throat, and for a second, Sam remembered Jake's body, the way he'd died in that exact same position after Ave had struck him.
He pulled the knife from Andy's throat. Andy fell, and Sam spun around, just in time to see Lily strike her fire poker straight through the center of the black smoke.
"You okay?" Lily asked. Her eyes were wide, and she was gasping for breath.
Sam took a deep breath, and nodded. "Come on," he said. He wiped the bloody knife on his jeans and returned it to his sleeve, then drew his gun again, holding it in his right hand while he held his left one out to Lily. She didn't take it, but he didn't wait for her to. Instead, he just grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her out of the clock tower.
She didn't fight him, or try to break free. Instead, she just jogged after him, struggling to keep up. "Where are we going?"
"Away from here," Sam said. He didn't know if Andy had been telling the truth about them being the last three left. Maybe there was someone else out there, someone that Andy didn't know about, who had managed to keep themselves safe somehow. But it didn't matter. They couldn't stay here any longer, searching for someone who might not exist. If there were any other psychics hiding out, then he just had to pray that they'd manage to keep themselves safe until all of this was over.
He stopped walking abruptly, spinning to face Lily, grabbing her by the shoulders. His hands stained her jacket, leaving streaks of Andy's blood behind. "Listen," he said, leaning forward. "If Andy was right, and we're the last two left, then that means that Azazel is going to be coming after us. He's going to try to make us kill each other, so that only one of us is left alive." He squeezed her harder, fingers tightening around her shoulders. "We're not going to give in, okay? My brother and Cas are on their way, just like I said. They're going to get here, and we're going to figure something out, the four of us. You got it?"
She still looked panicked, but she didn't hesitate before she nodded. "Okay," she said. "You and me. Neither of us gives in."
"Good," Sam said, and let her go."
She didn't move back this time. Instead, she took a half step towards him, her face terrified and unsure. "How are they going to find us, though?" she asked. "I mean, as far as they're concerned, we could be anywhere."
Sam shook his head. "They know where we are," he said. "They'll be able to track us down."
That was when something in his mind finally clicked into place, and he turned slowly, tilting back his head to look up at the bell.
"Cold Oak," he said.
Lily frowned. "What?"
"That's where we are," Sam said. "Cold Oak, South Dakota."
"Okay," Lily said slowly. "And knowing this helps us how?"
He was about to say that it didn't, that all it did was mean that they could put a name to the abandoned town that stretched around them. Then he froze, suddenly remembering what else was in South Dakota. And if he was right – he thought that he was, that he remembered correctly, he thought that he knew what direction to go. And if he was right, then it was only going to be a few miles away.
"Come on," he said, and didn't wait for her response before he took off running. The sun was just barely starting to set now, but it was still enough to give him an idea which way to run, to make sure that he was heading in the right direction.
He didn't slow down, and after a few seconds, he heard Lily fall into step right behind him. He didn't stop to look back at her, though. Instead, he just kept going. He was running too hard to try to speak out loud, but he screamed prayers in his thoughts, practically begging Cas to be able to hear him, even if the prayers were only in his head.
He didn't know if it would work, if Cas would be able to hear him like this – or if Cas could hear him at all, for that matter. Maybe the prayers from earlier hadn't even gone through, and thinking that Dean and Cas were coming for him was just a fool's dream.
He couldn't allow himself to believe that, though. Not really. Dean and Cas were on their way, they had to be. He couldn't do this without them.
Please, Cas, he thought desperately, and he'd start begging out loud, too, if he had the breath. Instead, his mind was going to have to do. Please, please be able to hear me.
They were practically flying down the highway when Cas suddenly stiffened. He had been partway through telling some story about ancient Neanderthals at the beginning of time, or something. Dean had stopped paying attention a few miles back, and he was pretty sure that Cas knew it, too. But right then, Dean didn't so much care what the words were. He just liked hearing Cas' voice. Call him stupid, but it steadied him, helped keep him focused so that the hallucinations didn't turn worse. Cas could spend the whole trip babbling gibberish and Dean would be just fine with it. And Cas knew it, because he'd started going off on tangents about things that weren't even remotely related.
Now, though, Cas' voice cut off, one hand reaching up to grab the side of his head.
"Cas?" Dean asked, taking his eyes off the road for just a moment to look at him. "Cas, you okay?"
"Yes, I am," Cas said quickly, then frowned. "I know where Sam is. Exactly."
"What?"
Cas nodded. "He's praying to me again," he said, and tilted his head. "He sounds urgent. Terrified. But I don't believe that he has been harmed."
Dean looked over at him again. "That's great, isn't it?" he asked, and Cas nodded. "Then what's the problem?" Dean demanded. Because there had to be something. Cas was staring straight ahead, looking like his frown was practically etched into his freakin' face.
"You remember where I hid the Colt?" Cas asked slowly. "The devil's trap that Samuel Colt had made entirely out of railroads?"
Well, obviously Dean knew about it. It'd only been a few days, and he wasn't an idiot – he wasn't about to go forgetting about something so important any time soon. He didn't waste time pointing that out, though. Instead he just said, "Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Why? Is that where Sammy is?"
"Yes," Cas said, then amended, "Or, he is moving in that direction, anyway. He is only a few miles away, and intends for us to find him there."
Dean nodded, mentally running through the directions in his head. Okay, they were heading the right way if they were planning on meeting up there, then. Or, at least, Dean didn't know of a faster way to reach South Dakota fast. "Still haven't told me what the issue is," he added after a moment. "In my book, all of this is good news."
"Oh, I think so, too," Cas said quickly, the words tripping over each other, like he was racing to reassure Dean. "At least, it is good that we know exactly where your brother is. And if he reaches the railroads and crosses over them, the demons won't be able to harm him." Dean scowled at the word if, and after a moment, Cas seemed to realize what he'd just said, because he awkwardly amended, "When he reaches the railroads. Of course your brother will arrive safely. There is no reason to believe that he won't."
"Just keep talking," Dean said.
Cas frowned, and still looked concerned, but he nodded. "What worries me is that Azazel could have taken the psychics to anyplace in the world, and I'm sure there are many areas that would have been much better located, if he were just trying to hide their presence. So then, what is the purpose of taking them here, so close to a place where they would be safe from him?"
"You don't think it's a coincidence?" Dean asked.
Cas immediately shook his head. "No," he said, and Dean grimaced, but he couldn't exactly argue with that. He wasn't putting too much hope in coincidences, either. "There must be a reason why Azazel is staying so close to this place, and whatever it is, I believe that it is connected to whatever it was that Samuel Colt was trying to keep the demons from reaching."
Dean turned his attention back to the road, and tightened his hands around the wheel. "Well, then," he said, "whatever this bastard is after, we just need to make sure that we get to it first."
Cas nodded sharply. "Agreed."
Dean pushed harder on the gas pedal. The speedometer inched up to a hundred miles an hour, but even so, he couldn't shake the thought that they still weren't going to be fast enough.