Anna and Cason
“Ow…”, Anna groaned as she came to. There wasn’t much light around her and her vision was fuzzy as she tried to bring her hand up to her head. The jangle of chains and the resistance against her wrist told her that she was chained to something, and as she flexed her fingers, she realized she had gloves on. “What the hell?”
“Be still.” Cason’s whispering voice rang out in the darkness, causing Anna to flinch. She turned to him, only to see that he was sitting right next to her. At that moment, she scanned his body in the dark, to see that he was bolted to the wall by a bracket around his neck, a bracket she could only assume was made of iron. If he was tied down, and her hands were covered, they were being held by demons. Great. “There are Hellhounds guarding us…”
“Hellhounds? Who the hell has us?”
“That part hasn’t been made very clear. But I don’t think I have to tell you that we’re in trouble.” Cason groaned, tossing a rock toward the Hellhounds Anna couldn’t see. Both the giant invisible dogs growled and stepped forward, their steps kicking up dust as they came to stand at her feet.
“Cason. Where is everyone else?” Anna asked cautiously, watching the Hellhounds footprints appear at random on the dusty floor in the moonlight. Cason groaned at the question, and it was only then that Anna’s eyes grazed over a white cowboy hat in the glare of the moon. There was a smear of blood along the rim, and Anna’s stomach fell. “Duke?! DUKE!”
The hellhounds nearly roared as she lunged forward, testing the strength of the bolts that held her chains. She shuffled backward as the hellhound in front of her breathed against her face, snarling and ruffling the hair on her forehead. Duke didn’t answer. She couldn’t see him and he didn’t answer.
“He was alive last time I saw him.”
“When was that?” Anna asked with a defeated sigh. But Cason didn’t answer. He simply put a finger up to his lips, and held his other hand out to her as the barn door opened and a man came inside. In a quick reach above his head, he pulled a chain and light flooded the room, causing Anna to close her eyes and duck her head for a moment. As she opened her eyes and looked around the room, she noticed Duke’s body in a pile in the corner, near his hat. He wasn’t moving. The scene caused her to stomp her foot and struggle against her chains. The others were nowhere to be found, and from what she could tell, they had killed Duke.
“Oh sweetie. I hate that we had to meet back up like this…” The man in front of her spoke, kneeling in front of her, but far enough away from her feet that she couldn’t kick him. She snarled and fought against her chains, her fingers stretched out as if begging to burn him to a crisp. “But after the little incident last time we met, I couldn’t take any chances. You understand. But won’t she be happy to see…you…”
As he finished teasing, he tapped his finger against her nose, sizzling his own skin in quick taps and with a bright smile, “Ah! No touching, see?”
“I will kill you. Which one are you, hmm?”
“Oh you don’t remember me?!” The man cooed at her, and Anna’s stomach dropped, as Cason called out the man’s name before she even had to shape her lips.
“Alastair.”
“You son of a bitch!” Anna cried out, yelping in pain as the cuff around her wrist tightened suddenly, and the chain wrenched back toward the wall, stretching her shoulder joint. Cason leaned forward, the iron bracket around his neck sizzling his skin which seemed to only make Alastair more amused.
“Oh, you guys are so over protective of one another. I’m not going to hurt any of you! That’s a job for my favorite boys. I just want to have a talk…make a proposition.” He laughed, shushing Cason. “No need to be her attack dog. She could have that handled all on her own, if not for my smarts.”
“I’m not making any deals with you. Where’s Sam?!”
“Oh Sam Sam Sam. All you think about is Sam. It would be awfully adorable if it wasn’t so pathetic. I mean…considering the prophecy and all that. You realize…your purpose…” Alastair began but Cason growled and called out to shut him up before he finished.
“Stop! Stop it right now. They will be here any second and you’re finished, you dumb bastard…”
“And not a word about your sweet, beautiful, fiesty pet human, hmm?” Alastair teased Cason, illiciting a low growl from his chest. “I’m working on that. She seems to have slipped through the cracks. Alive, yes. For how long? Who knows. If you’re a good boy, maybe we will just play with her a bit, and leave…the scraps. It’s not like you’re ever going to see her again anyway, right?”
“What?” Anna whispered in a small and weak voice as she realized the implications of Alastair’s words.
“Oh no..You thought we would let a filthy disgusting traitorous thing like him stay top side? No no no. You, I can’t hurt…much. Him…” He turned to Cason with a sneer, and showed every single tooth as he grinned, “He’s coming home with daddy, sans the pretty body.”
“So you’re going to let me go?” Anna asked innocently and once again Alastair laughed in her face, giving his best fake pout and then shook his head.
“Not exactly, pet. I’m helping you live your destiny! You have known for a while. Lilith is going to take your body and then offer herself…to Sam. I just have to hold you long enough for the Winchesters to fail at saving the seals! Until the time is right. You understand.”
“Sam will never kill me.” Anna whispered, shaking her head as she tilted her head down and stared at Alastair’s chest.
“Maybe not!” Alastair sighed, standing to his feet and wiping his hands on his pants. He then turned, and began to pace around the room as he spoke, “But to choose between a fleeting, bolting, uncommitted, two month relationship or the life of his brother and everyone he has ever loved before her…hmm. That’s a tough one.”
“Anna don’t listen to him.” Cason muttered, and in a blink of an eye, Alastair was on top of him, stabbing a fire poker through his entire body. The iron of the poker caused Cason to scream, his entire body sparking as Anna had only seen when demons were killed.
“NO! Stop it! Stop it please. Please don’t kill him.” Anna begged, struggling against her chains as she kicked her feet at Alastair’s legs. Cason’s desperate growls tore her heart from her chest as she began to cry and Alastair simply turned and smiled at her.
“I won’t kill him, yet. This is adorable, though. The girlfriend of a hunter, pleading for the life of a demon. It’s almost a book that writes itself.” Alastair gave another shove of the poker, wedging it into the wooden wall behind Cason, and then stood once again and walked toward the door, “I need to go check on the others. But when I come back, I’m expecting a bit more cooperation from you, princess. That, or we do things the hard way.”
With that, he left the room and Anna scooted as close as she could to Cason, listening to him breathe, “Are you okay?”
“No. I’m not okay. I’m skewered to the wall, Anna.” Cason’s sarcasm sent a spark of hope through Anna’s heart as she let a quiet sob leave her throat, a mixture of relief and anguish. There was literally no way for them to get out of this. Not a single way. Their only weapon was chained to the wall, sitting in a devils trap. Duke was presumably chained to the wall across the room, but he hadn’t moved in a while. He was likely dead and there was no way the others were nearby. They were probably dead. With another small sob, Anna tried to assess their situation.
“How are we going to get out of here? I don’t think I can break these chains, Cason. Even if I could, I couldn’t get that thing off the wall around your neck. I’m not strong enough. I don’t know what to do.” Anna sobbed, picking up the chain from the floor and following it to the loop it was attached to.
“Try.” Cason choked out, swallowing heavily as his body sparked again. “Just try.”
Anna wrapped the chain around her gloved hand, and then gripped it with her free hand, pressing her feet tightly against the dusty floor. A hellhound nearby growled at her, but she still pulled with every ounce of energy she had left in her body, until she began to hear the wood floor crack beneath the bolts. Suddenly, the Hellhound rushed forward and aggressively bit her shoulder, causing her to scream, echoing through the barn as she fell back and the giant dog released her, its mouth sizzling with its cries. As Anna lay on the floor crying, clutching her shoulder, Cason smiled and let out a chuckle.
“They can’t touch you, either.” He laughed, before coughing. “Come as close to me as you can.”
“Why?” Anna sobbed, sitting up on her elbows and crawling over to Cason, as her shoulder bled through her shirt and the blood began to spatter on the dirty wood floor. Cason didn’t answer, he just kept smiling at the dogs across from him.
“Because it’s time for you to learn a new lesson about your powers. Bite me.”
Dean
Dean furrowed his brow as the two demons he had been furiously fighting with suddenly turned, saw something and then ran away as if they had been startled by something in the dark. As far as he could see, there was no one there. He was alone, and the crickets were the only sound he could hear in the pitch black darkness of the farm. He turned in a full circle, trying to catch a sound of anything that could point him to the girls. But instead, he heard absolutely nothing…until…
Esme’s voice called out to him from the dark. His shoulders fell with a small bit of relief, just hearing another voice in all the silence. But that relief was only slight, as he only heard one set of footsteps. “Esme?! Where’s…?”
He broke his words off as she came into view, alone and seemed to have the same questions he did about everyone else. Sighing, he held his hands out and shrugged, “I don’t know where anyone is. One second we were getting ahead. The next second we were ambushed and then it was just quiet…like this.”
Dean looked around a bit, and then settled his eyes back on Esme. Her shoulder seemed pretty messed up and from the looks of it, things on her end had gone just as bad as they had for him. As she elaborated on what happened, however, Dean stepped closer to her and dipped his head, “What?! Duke got stabbed? What about the others. Did you see the others? And are you okay…that’s the big one. Your shoulder.”
His brain was now moving at a pace that caused a buzzing in his ears. The world seemed to be in tunnel vision as he watched Esme step away from him. He watched her with vague vision as she popped her shoulder back into place, and then walked back over to him. What if Mika was gone? Nat? Duke? Sam…
He took a deep and shaky breath as he heard Esme’s voice through the haze in his brain and nodded. “Yeah. Lets um…lets…lets go find the others.”
Dean took the lead in their mission, at least in his stride, walking as fast as he could without running and potentially running them right back into problems. They didn’t know how many demons were still out there, or what they wanted. They didn’t know if this was an ambush, or just a coincidence, but what HE knew, was that the others HAD to be alive. As if fate was answering their questions all at once, he turned the corner of the barn to see Mika, also alone, with demons scurrying off into the night all around her. The sight nearly took the air from Dean’s lungs as he reached down and grabbed Esme’s hand, pulling her along.
He dropped her hand as he reached Mika, and quickly brought both his hands up to her face. Any other time he would have worried about her seeing the blood and nastiness all over him, but right now, he was just happy that at least…the three of them were alive.
“MIKA! Holy shit. Are you okay? What the hell happened?! Where’s Nat?”