A/N: Sorry so long guys. I've been having some serious health travails. I am getting better and back to writing. Thanks for hanging in with me! Considered yourself hugged and handed a slice of pie!

Chapter 13

It didn't take long before Dean felt completely lost. The tunnel sloped down for a bit, then narrowed even further as they squeezed through natural clefts or widened galleries that twisted within the sedimentary rock. Lizzie went before him, still carrying his light. In many places he was bent nearly double, others he had to turn sideways to pass through, all the while trying to keep his footing on slick and uneven stone.

"How ya doin'?" Lizzie asked him over her shoulder. She was a head shorter than Dean, and more slender so the going hadn't been as arduous for her.

Dean only grunted in reply, engrossed in climbing over a nearly knee high lip of stone. His left thigh protested mercilessly as he tried to lift his knee high enough to pass through the narrow slot. He resorted to shifting his shoulders to the left and reaching down to grab a handful of jeans and hauling his foot up over the lip before bracing himself with his arms against the narrow walls to take the bulk of his weight off the left leg as he lifted his right foot over.

They continued down the low passageways as they leveled out and opened up a little. Before long Lizzie stopped and squeezed against the wall so Dean could come up beside her.

She shone the light on the dead end before them. "I think we're gonna have to go through there."

"Seriously? People in costumes crawled through that?" Dean indicated the narrow horizontal cleft about knee high.

"No," Lizzie said slowly, "I think they came into the kiva the usual way and just hid in the space under the seat."

He rolled his eyes, then prompted"And you thought there were tunnels under there because?"

"I was hoping." Her grin was a rictus made of the odd shafts of light and shadow thrown by the back splash of the flashlight beam probing the opening of the cleft. "It makes sense, though, with the stories of the skinwalkers. And this area is full of natural caves as well as mines. Plus, look," she pointed the flashlight beam at the lip of the opening and ran her fingertips over it. There were marks like a large tool, or, alarmingly, out sized claws had gouged out part of the opening, apparently enlarging it.

Dean leaned forward and they both bent to look more closely into the narrow opening. It seemed to widen just after the lip, the opening growing to about eighteen inches high, but the flashlight beam couldn't penetrate the darkness far enough to see where it lead.

"I'm gonna go in there and see if it goes through. Be ready to pull me back okay? In case it doesn't and I can't turn around?" Lizzie handed Dean back his flashlight and hunkered down, preparing to crawl through on her belly. She crawled in further, pushing off with her feet. Scraping noises and a few grunts of effort followed her back. He leaned down further, arm in the opening, trying to keep the flashlight beam to Lizzie's side where it might offer her some illumination as she crawled.

"Hey! Who's back there?" The stage whisper carried clearly in the narrow rock confines.

Both Dean and Lizzie jumped. The latter cursing roundly after hitting her head. Then, "Whoa, whoa! Let go!"

Dean immediately dropped the flashlight within the crevice and reached both hands in grabbing Lizzie's booted feet. He pulled back, but she only kicked out to free herself and disappeared further into the crack in the rock wall.

"Lizzie!" He hissed.

"Yeah, yeah, it's okay. There's some folks here." When she paused he could hear several muted voices bouncing back to him, but the words were not discernible in the echoing crosstalk. Then Lizzie's voice was clear again, as she leaned into the opening to call out, "I think you can make it through Dean. It'll be tight but it's not a long way."

He scooped up the flashlight again, and a shudder wracked his frame before he could suppress it. He really didn't want to go into a small, dark, enclosed space. He took several deep breaths, like a diver saturating his blood with oxygen before a long dive and, biting his lower lip, dove headfirst into the crevice.

Jagged bits of rock tore at his chest and back as he stuck the end of the flashlight between his teeth to light the way and pulled himself forward with his hands. He pushed, feet scrabbling on the uneven purchase trying to heave himself forward. He had only a few inches space around him, not quite enough to get into a true elbow crawl, so he was reduced to wriggling forward using his hands and feet. His left leg screamed at the awkward sideways position it was forced into, but he disconnected the pain and continued forward. Biting on the flashlight was hard since it's center of gravity was far forward of where he held it and when he had to squirm to one side to avoid a hump in the rock he lost his grip on it and it jammed up beneath his chest. He was immediately dropped into utter darkness and something caught in his throat. He didn't hear his own breathing as it grew rapid and shallow. But he did feel the whimper that started to escape just in time to bite it off.

"I dropped the light." He called out softly to Lizzie.

"I got you," she answered and he screwed up his eyes tightly closed as he felt her come partway into the passage and grabbed his upper arms near the shoulders, roughly dragging him forward.

Feet scrabbling he moved over the jagged stone and slid from the crevice catching himself on his right knee as Lizzie still controlled his arms. She didn't release her grip immediately but waited until she'd helped him rise, had a good footing and she was sure his bad leg wouldn't take him down. "I got you, Dean." She whispered, so close that he could feel her breath tickle past the side of his face and neck in the darkness. Then she released him and he felt her brush past him bending into the crevice, making small slapping noises against the rock as she tried to find the flashlight.

"Ah, got it!"

And a few seconds later the light illuminated the chamber they were in enough for them to see it had a high ceiling adorned with craggy outcrops and was about the size of a small bedroom. It had uneven, rough and jagged walls with a few prominences framed by shadowy hollows. Besides the slit they'd just squeezed through there was only one other exit made obvious by the wood and metal barred door that blocked it from a narrow corridor beyond.

Their two new companions huddled together near a wall, a young man nearly as tall as Sam held a lighter in a trembling hand so that shadows danced and shimmied all around them. Dean looked them over, assessing them, and recognized the girl. "I know you. We picked you up on the road the other night. Rainbow, right?"

Her eyes flew wide and she turned to look at him, but did not relinquish her stranglehold on the arm of the tall young man beside her. "Yeah. We...wait...you and your brother helped us! You're the crazy one!"

Dean nodded slowly. Awesome. "Yeah. That's me."

"How'd you get down here? Where's your brother? Are you really crazy from Iraq?" The questions erupted from her before she had a chance to think, judging by the instant look of regret on her face.

He sighed. "Fell in a hole. Not here. Always been." And he caught Lizzie's raised eyebrows and questioning look and rolled his eyes at her in answer. "How'd you get down here?"

"We just came out here to camp and, you know...uh...enjoy the desert." She shared a sideways glance with Tree who immediately became involved in inspecting the lighter that he was holding up.

Lizzie stepped forward, still holding the flashlight pointing up to illuminate as much of the chamber as possible. She headed to the door where she inspected the wall near it, running her hand over a vertical slab of dusty rock, revealing a grayish green face with small shiny dots of copper ore.

"Maybe we're in one of the old mines? Some part of Blackbird or Big Indian maybe?" She said, mostly to herself. Reaching the door she grabbed one of the bars and gave it a good hard shake. It rattled and she reached one hand through pulling a chain and padlock over to their side.

"So how'd you get back here behind a locked gate, then?" she asked turning toward Rainbow.

"Yeah, um, there were some other guys down here."

"And?"

"They brought us in here."

Rainbow was obviously skirting the truth, but Dean didn't care, time to go. Limping slightly he went to the door, beckoning Lizzie to shine the light on the padlock as he inspected it. After a moment he pulled the hem of his jeans up and fished down inside his left boot to retrieve a small leather case. He opened it and selected the tools he wanted, shoved the case into a front pocket, then, a small pick in each hand, he started to work on the padlock. It was a cheap, easy lock and Dean had it opened in seconds, dropping the lock to the ground at his feet. With the picks placed between his teeth he reached through to unwind the chain, then tossed it to coil near the lock on the ground. He looked back over his shoulder at Rainbow and Tree, still huddled together against the rock wall, shadows dancing above and behind them from the lighter flame Tree still held.

"You coming?" he asked as he replaced the lock picks to the case and the case to an inside jacket pocket.

"You need to rest your leg. If you think I don't see you trying to hide how much it hurts..." Lizzie's voice was soft, meant only for Dean, but her tone was firm.

It took Dean a second or two to convince himself that she was right and he could use a rest, but it galled him. He hated being less than a hundred percent. He sighed, deciding that conceding was the best option as he no longer had the energy to stave off Lizzie's nanny-like nature. He simply wasn't up to another argument. "Okay. Five minutes. Then we need to get the hell out of here."

Lizzie nodded and found a spot against the wall where she lowered herself to sit with her back against it. Before Rainbow or Tree could protest she told them, "we need to rest for a few minutes, okay?"

"Sure," Rainbow replied. And since they hadn't moved away from where they were huddled against the wall they only slid down to sit together, Tree's arm was tightly around her shoulder. His other hand holding the occasionally sputtering lighter.

Reluctantly, gingerly, Dean slid his back down the wall to sit an arms length away from Lizzie. He was careful to position his left leg with his heel on the ground and knee slightly bent, the position that seemed to hurt the least.

"I'm pretty sure we're in the old Big Indian mine," she said conversationally.

"Is that good?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. It means we should be able to get out if we follow the cart tracks. The entrance is only a couple of miles from where we left the truck."

Dean's leg throbbed painfully in anticipation. "Great."

"Yeah," she went silent for a moment.

Dean closed his eyes, struggled to disconnect the pain again.

"Where'd you get hit?"

"What?"

"She said you're crazy from Iraq. Where'd you get hit?"

"I don't know what's she talking about." He could feel Lizzie's eyes on him, but he kept his closed.

"So, what, you didn't get hit?"

"Wasn't in Iraq."

"Dude, are you ever going to give me a straight answer?"

Dean turned to look at her in the dim light, eyes narrowed. "I've been completely straight with you since we told you about the -" he flicked his eyes to the side, glancing at Tree and Rainbow sitting by the opposite wall. They seemed absorbed in their own whispered conversation, heads close together. "The Family Business." He finished.

"Whatever." She shook her head. Then almost under her breath. "I'm not some civvie, ya know."

He was silent for a moment, then, "we should get moving."

Putting action to words Dean rose, not even caring that he had to use the wall to get upright and remain there. His leg was throbbing painfully again and a;knot of pain had blossomed behind his forehead. And now he had two more people to take care of in tow. He just wanted to get out.

While the darkened tunnel had a somewhat flat floor they still stumbled over the dilapidated cart tracks and chunks of rock fallen from the ceiling. Lizzie tried to keep the flashlight on the way in front of them, but it was still rough going. As they progressed they began to hear small rustlings echoing off the walls, growing louder the further they walked. In the deep shadows the ceiling above them seemed to grow more jagged. Short growths hung down from the stone above them. Some trick of the light made them seem to wriggle and spin until suddenly they fell from the ceiling and the small party was surrounded by leather wings and furry bodies and screeches so high-pitched they couldn't hear most of them.

A high-pitched screaming joined the screeches, coming in short breathy bursts as Rainbow cowered and flailed her arms around her head at the small bodies flinging themselves around her. Tree flattened himself against a wall, arms crossed over his face. Lizzie stepped back, light on the cloud of bats staring up at them a smile on her face. Dean stood still. He'd been in enough bat infested haunted houses to know the bats were far more scared than the humans were and would orient themselves and leave soon enough.

The screeching quickly died down, and Tree grabbed Rainbow, putting an hand over her mouth, muffling the screams she still emitted, her face pinched and eyes squeezed shut in pure terror.

"Damn, girl!" Lizzie barked at her. "Quiet!"

Rainbow's eyes flew open, but she stopped screaming and burrowed into Tree's side, sobbing softly. "I think she's having a bad trip." Tree apologized.