All in all, it takes about an hour and a half to find Gavin, the teenager sprawled out on the grimy floor and totally unconscious. "You think that's him," Sam asks. Elizabeth reaches out for Sam's hand and raises the flashlight he holds until the beam of it illuminates the kid's face.
"Looks like a dumbass to me. Can I kick him?"
"Not yet." Sam moves farther into the room while Elizabeth stays in the doorway with his flashlight aimed at the pair, free hand on her hip. "Gavin?" Sam gives his shoulder a gentle shake. "Hey, Gavin." The boy's eyes open slowly, gaze landing on the hunters. He takes a moment to register everything and then he's snapping upright, the top of his head damn near clipping Sam's chin. "It's okay, it's okay. I'm here to help."
"I'm here to offer sarcasm." Gavin's eyes flick between the two of them, wide and filled with horrified curiosity. "Oh, don't look so scared, we're the good guys and you're a complete dumbass."
"Liza, let it go."
"Who are you guys," Gavin asks, his breathing still a little labored from his shock.
"I'm Sam and that's Elizabeth." Sam helps Gavin up, playing the calm and thoughtful buddy in order to keep Gavin's freak out minimum. "We found your girlfriend. She's the one that told us you were still in here."
"Kat? Is she okay?"
"She's fine, just a little shaken up. What about you?" Elizabeth rolls her eyes, not in the mood to deal with idiotic teenagers when she could be doing something useful.
"Sam, I'm gonna go for a walk," she calls from the doorway.
"Aren't you the one that said splitting up is a bad idea?"
"Hey, it works in Scooby-Doo." She shrugs off the incredulous scowl that Sam shoots her, heading farther down the hall. Halfway down the hall and lying on its side is an old bed frame, the metal rusted from age and old water leaks. If nothing else, it lets her kick at something while waiting on Sam and Gavin.
She lets out a bored sigh, resting her foot against the frame and gazing up at the ceiling. It's as yellow as everything else, a few old wires hanging down and stripped of any protective casings. She's just starting to wonder if it really will collapse on the them when she hears some kind of weird whispering.
Down the hall, farther past the broken down frame, is the ghost of a young woman. She flickers in and out, movements slow and jerky but gaining a sort of fluid grace the close she gets. Her hair hangs freely down her back in curls, a few of the dark red strands matted to her head in places. Her outfit is a simple gown that hangs limply off one thin shoulder, a pale blue splotched with blood in places.
"What's your name," Elizabeth asks, watching as the spector comes a few feet closer. From this distance Elizabeth can see that her right eye is red and the left is so swollen that it's been forced shut, burn scars most of her left side.
"Cam," she croaks, right hand going to her throat with a wince. "He did this to me. It was before the riot."
"Ellicott?" Cam nods, moving forward again until barely a foot of space separates them. "My friends and I are gonna deal with Ellicott and then and the others will be free to chose new haunting grounds." Cam gives a small smile, lips cracked and bloody. She must have been beautiful way back when, her right side all smooth and creamy skin, eyes a dark gray that go well with her Elfin features.
"You're pretty." She raises a hand, gently tapping Elizabeth's nose with a faint giggle. "I used to be pretty, too." Cam shrugs, finger trailing over the apple of Elizabeth's cheek. "This place beat that out of me. Well, that and my morals. I just wish I could feel something other than pain."
"Why were you brought here?"
"A Vampire made me delirious after he took too much a blood, some bastard named Luther that kept rambling about making a new family and finding his daughter." She scoffs, a bitter smile on her lips. "I told my husband what happened and drove me here instead of to the cops. Can you believe that?"
Elizabeth goes stock still at the dropped name, one she'd heard only a couple of times while growing up. She vaguely remembers her dad getting too drunk one night, letting it slip that Alice had a brief affair with some guy named Luther. Bobby had dropped the name once, a passing comment about dead beats with an emphasis on dead.
"Luther," she asks, more to herself than Cam.
"Yes, Luther." Elizabeth locks her gaze back on the ghost as the bitterness there, the venom. Her expression is placid despite her tone, almost dreamy. She sways from side to side, a blade of grass in a light breeze as she brings up a hand to cup Elizabeth's cheek. "Can I keep you?" Elizabeth wants to back up but she's literally against the wall already, nowhere to go except forward.
"What you can do is get out of my personal space." She tires to side-step Cam only to trip over the bed frame and hit the ground hard enough to stun her. Cam giggles again, kneeling over Elizabeth with a chilling grin.
"I want to feel again, and you're the key to that. Just relax and it'll all be over soon." Things fade away after that, like Elizabeth is just a passenger in her own head with no control over what happens.
She's really wishing she'd stayed with Sam now.
Dean's pretty sure he's breathed in too much asbestos and is hallucinating. He's pretty sure because he's never seen Elizabeth walking around with such fluid grace before, colorful hoodie thrown to the wayside to reveal a black shirt. He rubs his eyes just to be sure, but Elizabeth is still walking towards him with her hips swaying like a pendulum.
"Liza? Sam and I have been worried sick. Where have you been?" She smiles instead of answering, getting closer and closer. It's not her though, it can't be because he knows her like the back of his hand. Despite all the similarities there's a dark shadow over her hazel eyes, a wrong twist to her lips.
She's on him in an instant, pressing her hips against his and tangling her fingers in his hair like she has any right. There's no playing tugging, no witty remark, just straight up biting his neck with blunt teeth. Nah, this isn't his Liza in the slightest. She tenses when he presses the barrel of his gun under her chin, forcing her backwards.
"What are you doing?"
"Pretty much what it looks like," Dean says. "How about you jump out of my friend and I don't pull the trigger?" She's frowning and even that's wrong, but he's not going to examine why exactly he has Elizabeth's expressions memorized like his favorite movie. That's a chore for another day when they're not in a haunted asylum with ghost high jacking bodies.
"But—" She shakes her head sharply and jerks backwards, letting out a retching noise before a gray mist is pushing out of her. The mist hangs there for a moment, vaguely human-shaped, before diminishing like fog under sunlight.
"Liza?"
"Yup," she says, breathing hard. "Ugh, possession sucks."
"I'll bet." He sets the shot gun aside just in time for Elizabeth to grab him by the front of his shirt, pulling him down into a long, deep kiss before breaking away. Dean clears his throat, staring down at Elizabeth with a goofy smile plastered on his face. "What was that for," he asks, not complaining.
"I didn't like her dry humping you." Her tone is curt and gruff and everything that makes Elizabeth so wonderful to him. "If anyone's going to make you hard, it'll be me."
"Aw, you were jealous." Dean's goofy smile turns into a smug grin as he removes his jacket and wraps it around her shoulders to keep her warm. Elizabeth looks up at him, the smile on her lips making him uneasy as she presses him against the wall with her finger poking his chest.
"I don't get jealous, Winchester, I just know what I want." She goes up onto the tips of her toes, sucking and biting his bottom lip in such a way that has him following after her when she takes a step back. "Shall we go meet back up with our gentle giant?" Dean watches her walk away, her hips swaying in a way that's more familiar to him and has him groaning.
"That woman will be the death of me." Shaking his head, he grabs his gun and trails after the blonde with a pleased smirk curling one corner of his lips.
Elizabeth Mayson is beautiful to him, a complete badass that loves to beat up monsters and brag about her manicure in equal measures. Her hair falls in a soft wave just past her shoulder blades, longer than she usually keeps it but no less tamed. She's particular about her hair, swears Cinderella would never leave without it done properly and neither will she, dammit.
"Hey, wait up." Elizabeth pauses until he's back beside her with her hand held in one of his, their fingers intertwined. "I had Sammy trying to find a way to get those kids out and then I went and found Ellicott's office."
"What'd you find out?"
"He was one sick son of a bitch, too. Did all kinds of tests on the patients to see how they'd react to it, said it was therapy to try and calm them down but it only made their tempers worse." He shakes his head, pointing the beam of his flashlight ahead of them so they don't trip over anything.
"Sounds like a real bastard."
"He was and I think he's trying to perfect his technique on the people that wander into his territory." Elizabeth lets out a soft sigh, not saying anything for a while as they walk through the twisting corridors of the asylum. "So, uh, what happened?"
"That ghost back there did some kind of..." She shakes her head, brow furrowed in frustration. "I don't know what it was exactly, but it's like I was stuck in my head and couldn't do anything about it until I got…."
"Jealous?"
"Pissed off is more like it." She shrugs, her lips pursed as Dean makes her stop walking and face him. "It brought back memories I've been trying to push down," she finally admits, meeting his gaze. Dean's never seen this woman break down since the funeral of her dog when she was nineteen, but there are tears in her eyes now and his first instinct is to wrap her up in a protective hug, her face snug against his chest.
"Talk."
"The last time I was knocked out like that I woke up with Clarke ready to strangle me and I just got mad this time that it was happening all over again." He can hear her sniffle, can feel her arms wrapping around his waist as her shoulders begin to shake from crying. "I hate crying, it's so fucking messy."
"I know, Liza, but you have to let it out sometime." Dean's voice takes on a soothing quality that only three people have ever heard—his mother, Sammy, and Liza. "It'll be okay, baby. Clarke is dead and you'll never have to see him again. Okay? I've got you."
He tightens his hold on the woman, never wanting to let her go again if it means she's protected from every cruel thing in the world. He loves her, goddammit, and he wants her safe. Is that too much to ask for? That the people he cares for most in this world be treated well and never be put in danger? He can feel tears stinging his eyes now and lowers him and Elizabeth to the dusty floor, leaning against a wall with her curled up in his arms.
"I love you, Liza."
"I love you too," she sobs, her head buried in the crook of his neck.