Chapter Text
THEN
“Ge atraah oi gah od corpus de a tabaan ge Ascha ar ar ge may paid noan g tia londoh.”
The breeze battered the trees, making the forest come alive with whispers. The stars overhead were fading, and a golden light beyond the mountains was heralding in Earth’s longest day. Leaves turned upside down in the gust. The flames of candles trembled on their wicks and fires from the wall sconces bent toward the side.
His brothers and sisters were gathered around him within the grand stone walls of the temple. The tops of the walls formed five points stretching toward the sky, reminding those below to give thanks to their Father above. There was no roof, allowing dawn to spill in overhead.
The altar was erected with a bed of leaves and dirt, branches and bramble. The main offering rested upon it, the man stripped to nothing but a white shroud. His wrists and ankles were bound. His eyes were closed, but his chest rose and fell in life-giving breaths. The beat of his heart still thumped.
The three Elder Brothers surrounded the altar in a half-circle, their earth-toned robes sweeping the dirt floor. Their arms were raised overhead, giving praise to God.
Four more people were kneeling beside the altar, their robes all different colors: green, gray, orange, and blue. Gray-clad siblings stood behind them, silver blades posed over the offerings’ heads.
More whispers. The forest creaked and moaned. Ghastly screams were carried in on the wind from outside the walls, but they were unable to penetrate this holy place of worship.
“Ge geh el g a trian c Ascha.” As the congregation chanted, so did he. The words formed on his lips, measured and practiced.
Then, another shout broke through the din. “Stop! You can’t!”
His sister rushed through the entrance. Her face was stricken and filthy, blood trailing from her hairline down her temple and cheek. Her wrists were bruised and bare feet caked in mud. Her smock dress was tattered. The firelight bounced off her twig-tangled red hair that spilled out beneath her bonnet.
“Stop!”
“Silence her,” one of the Elder Brothers demanded.
He stood there, suddenly still, all those practiced words frozen in his throat. A few siblings came forward and restrained their sister. She struggled in their grasp.
“Ge geh el g a trian c Ascha.”
“This is wrong!” she yelled.
“Sister, we would not have these offerings if not for you,” another Elder Brother said. “You allowed this to happen. You always do.”
“And I’ve had enough of it!”
The Elder Brothers shared a look, a silent conversation. One of them turned to another in the congregation and nodded. Their brother came forward, his silver knife clutched in his hand.
“You know it has to end!” his sister screamed. She’d always been so willful, but he’d never thought she would be unfaithful.
She deserves her fate, he told himself. She strayed.
Her eyes found his, latching on. His breath was suddenly stolen.
The whispers and haunting moans from the dark forest drowned his senses. Dawn seemed so far away. His heart pounded.
Something told him to help her. To grab her. To leave together.
“Brother! Don’t do as they say!” she pleaded with him. “Run!”
He felt as if the dirt and rocks had opened up beneath him and he was falling.
“One day, it will be your turn,” she’d told him once when he was very young. She’d trained him, taught him everything she knew. “That’s your destiny. It’s important you take that seriously. Without us, our community will die. Remember to stay true to that—and to your instincts. God will guide you. He’s given you the heart of a warrior.”
It seemed she’d forgotten her own lessons. What if he did, too?
No. That wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t stray like her. He was faithful.
Their brother reached her. He placed himself in front of her. She spit in his face. Aggravated, their brother grabbed her by the arms, started dragging her toward the exit. Their siblings stepped out of the way, parting to let them through.
She kicked and yelled like a feral thing, like one of the forest animals they were sworn to protect.
“God will punish you!” she screamed. Her eyes snapped to him again, and the plea for help was no longer in them. All he saw was fierce anger. She said again, as if to him alone, “God will punish you!”
She was dragged out of the temple. Her shouts became indistinguishable among the trees, mixing with the other agonized wails. They receded further and further away.
He still heard them.
The Elder Brothers turned back to the offering on the altar. The Eldest raised his hands overhead and praised, “The time has come for the Communion for the Mountain. Oecrimi Ashcha!”
“Oecrimi Ashcha,” the congregation returned, praising God. He spoke the words, too, a step out of sync with the others. They got stuck in his throat.
The siblings behind the four kneeling offerings placed their blades over the people’s throats. They gave no resistance.
His sister screamed.
The blades cut through the offerings’ skin like butter. Blood unspooled from the gashes in ribbons. The four sacrifices thrashed and gagged before falling to their knees. Blood pooled and seeped into the earth.
He tried not to wince as the bodies stilled.
More siblings came forward, silver platters in hand, as the offerings’ bellies were slit open. The organs were removed and piled onto the platters, the shiny blood on them oozing and glinting in dawn’s light. They slid and slipped and squelched over one another as they were piled high.
“Take of the elements made flesh,” an Elder Brother said.
The congregation chanted, “Ge geh el g a trian c Ascha.”
Distantly, his sister was still screaming. The sound of it shook the canopy like a thousand frightened birds taking flight.
Those with the platters came forth, and the congregation gathered around them to pick pieces of the communion up. They placed the flesh in their mouths.
Dawn’s light was turning white, building brighter and brighter, so bright that its sound reverberated through the temple in a hum.
One of the siblings offering the communion reached him. She held up the platter to him. He eyed the wet, pink organs. The stench of iron blood and raw meat made him dizzy.
The white light was building and building. All around him, his siblings were rejoicing, smiling, red crimson staining their teeth and chins.
His sister wailed. He reminded himself not to be like her. He was faithful.
Heart in his stomach, he picked up a small piece of pink flesh. It squished slightly between his fingers. He placed it on his tongue, bit down. It popped inside his mouth.
The Eldest lifted a golden dagger. He held it in both fists and poised it directly over the main offering.
“Ge geh el g a trian c Ascha lap tol capimao.”
Blood escaped the corner of his lips and dripped onto the front of his shirt. He swallowed it down.
His sister’s shouts were abruptly silenced in the distance.
The Eldest plunged the knife into the offering’s chest.
The white light pierced his ears and filled his eyes. The earth quaked as if the mountain might split into two. The visages of those around him were swallowed up by its glow.
And then, as if someone had blown out a candle, it was gone.
He blinked the daylight back into his vision.
All was silent. Then, on the altar, the main offering sat up and breathed again.
The congregation spoke, and he spoke along with them, though the word felt hollow in his chest.
“Amen.”
///
FRIDAY
It wasn’t quite summer yet, despite the long weekend that happened at the end of last month, when everyone vacated town to sit on the packed beaches and look at the still frigid waters of the Atlantic. It wasn’t yet the summer light that streamed in, bright and white behind Castiel’s eyelids, through the bedroom windows.
The solstice was still six days away.
The morning sunrays woke Castiel up. Or maybe that was Dean’s hand caressing his scalp in steady, soothing strokes. The dreamlike comfort of it made Castiel want to fall back asleep. He tucked his face into his pillow to block out the light and let out a small, pleasurable sound to encourage Dean to keep going.
Instead, Dean’s hand stopped. The bed shifted, sheets rustling, and then came the solid, strong weight of Dean’s body pressed half-atop of him. Dean’s arm folded across his back, skin warm against Castiel’s. He laid a kiss to the back of Castiel’s neck. “Morning, sunshine.” His voice was low and sleep-rough.
Castiel smiled into the pillow before taming his expression and turning his head up. “Good morning, Dean.”
Dean dropped another kiss to his shoulder, and then another slightly lower—and another, trailing a line down Castiel’s spine. His hand rounded Castiel’s ribcage, thumb stroking skin.
Castiel sighed contentedly, wanting to stay like that.
And then he remembered what day it was. Friday. The Friday before the Summer Solstice. He needed to get to work.
He picked his head up urgently. “What time is it?”
“Who gives a fuck?” Dean murmured in between kisses. Castiel squinted toward Dean’s dresser on the other side of the room. The digital clock read 6:32.
He needed to be at the ranger’s station by 8 to meet the tour group. Beforehand, he had a dozen things he had to do to prepare for the excursion.
“Dean, I have to go,” he said, albeit reluctantly, especially when Dean pushed the blanket slightly further down and started mouthing at the dip in Castiel’s back. It took a lot of willpower to roll over, but Castiel prided himself on such a quality. It had gotten him this far, after all.
“Cas,” Dean complained, turning onto his side. He propped himself up by his elbow. His hair was soft and mussed up now that the previous day’s gel had worn off and his freckles were stark in the morning light. His eyes were a lovely shade of yellow-green today.
Castiel wished he could stay.
“I have to meet the hikers in an hour and a half,” he told Dean. “And I have to stop by my place first to change and pack supplies. I would have done that last night, if you hadn’t distracted me.”
A shit-eating grin slanted Dean’s face. He pounced forward again to pin Castiel down to the bed, and Castiel tried his best to bite down on a humored smile. “Well, I keep tellin’ you to leave stuff here. Then, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
Castiel lifted a challenging brow up at him. “Why would I do that when I can keep stealing your things instead?”
Dean’s chuckle rumbled against Castiel’s stomach. It sent a sensual feeling throughout the rest of him. The sensation only became more enjoyable when Dean pecked Castiel on the lips before setting in on the crook of his neck. Castiel’s head tilted to the side automatically to give Dean more room. His body shivered, knees opening, and Dean took that as an invitation to press his hips down on Castiel in slow, taunting circles.
In all his life, Castiel’s body had never been so responsive to anyone. If he lived forever, he’d never find another person who elicited as much pleasure as Dean drew out of him.
“Dean,” Castiel heard himself whisper. Felt the honey-curl of desire filling his lower abdomen as he rocked against Dean.
He didn’t have time for this. He had to stop before it got any further. Dean liked to take his time, and Castiel couldn’t afford that right now.
He had a job to do.
“Dean,” Castiel said again, more firmly. His hands patted Dean’s shifting back—and Lord, the way his muscles moved beneath his skin. He was perfect.
No. No time.
“Dean, you need to start packing, too.”
Tomorrow, Dean was going to visit his mother for the week, and while Castiel didn’t want to be away from him for so long, it was necessary. Castiel knew how much Dean missed Mary since she moved away a few years ago.
Dean grunted in slight annoyance and lifted his head up. “Alright, fine. But you wanna grab dinner tonight?”
Castiel frowned. “I can’t.”
“What? C’mon, we’re not gonna see each other for a week.”
“I did mention to you that this is a camping trip. I’ll be gone all weekend.”
Dean pulled a disgusted face and rolled off of Castiel to his side of the bed. Though Castiel missed the weight of his body, it was better this way. He sat up and peered down at Dean.
“Camping,” Dean grouched. “Still can’t believe you choose to do that for a living.”
Castiel rolled his eyes. He remembered Dean had once said, “If I’m camping, it’s because it’s the apocalypse and everything else was nuked.”
“I keep telling you to try it again,” Castiel said. Sleeping among nature, beyond the busy ways of human life—it was holy. God’s creation was apparent from the smallest insect to the vast blanket of stars.
“Yeah, no thanks. No showers? Bug bites? ‘Specially in the Hundred-Mile Wilderness. Who the hell knows what’s in there? I don’t wanna get mauled by a bear! No way! I’ve done enough camping for one lifetime,” Dean argued for the umpteenth time. “My dad wouldn’t let me quit boy scouts till I graduated high school.”
Castiel didn’t point out that Dean’s father hadn’t been around when Dean graduated high school. He’d chosen to honor his father’s wishes long after John Winchester had gone missing. From what Dean told Castiel, that happened the summer before Dean’s sophomore year.
Vaguely, Castiel recalled the local news reports and fliers that had been posted around the area with John’s picture on them. That was 18 years ago. It felt like an eon had passed since then, even though it was relatively short in the grand scheme of things.
Dean sat up, his warm touch on Castiel’s shoulder knocking Castiel out of his thoughts. Castiel turned his head to look back at him.
“You sure you don’t wanna come with me?” Dean asked—yet again. “You could reschedule the camping thing. Mom wants to meet you. And I want her to meet you.” He dragged his knuckles idly across Castiel’s shoulders. “I’ve only been talking about you for a year.”
Not quite a year. Just a little shy of 11 months. Castiel had never believed the ridiculous notion of love at first sight. In fact, he hadn’t known he’d been capable of romantic love at all. But after just a few weeks of knowing Dean, he knew he was going to fall swiftly and without hope of saving himself from it.
Dean was kind to open up his life to Castiel, to want to involve Castiel in his family. Already, Castiel was close with Sam. He wished he could give Dean the same thing, or at least give Dean what he wanted. Just… not this week.
“I’m sorry. The group paid in advance weeks ago,” he said. He swiveled around so he could put his hand on Dean’s jaw and keep his eyes. “Next time. I promise. I… would love to meet her.”
Dean brightened somewhat at that. Castiel wanted to kiss him again, but his eyes flashed to the clock. 6:40.
He really had to go.
He slipped out of bed and picked his clothes off the floor to dress. With even just a few inches’ distance from Dean, his mind was clearer. It was easier to mull over what he needed to pack for the days ahead.
“Text me some pics of trees while you’re out there,” Dean told him while Castiel zipped up the fly of his jeans.
“For the hundredth time, I don’t have any service in the forest,” Castiel reminded him. There were certain spots where, perhaps, he could get a bar or two if he was lucky, but they were few and far between.
“God, you really chose to do this.”
He was wrong about that. Castiel hadn’t chosen much of anything.
“Alright, well, at least take this,” Dean grunted. As Castiel buttoned his shirt, he watched Dean’s bare body stretch toward the drawers of his nightstand. The top of his ass peeked out from where the blanket was riding low on his lap. Castiel bit the inside of his cheek and tried to control himself.
Dean pulled something out of the drawer and sat up again, brandishing it. Brow knitted in curiosity, Castiel walked around the bed and sat down on the edge near Dean’s hip. Dean offered him a folded pocket knife. “In case you run into any of those bears.”
Castiel smiled gently at the offer and took it. It would be nice to have something to remind him of Dean while they were apart. It was a silly thing to think. They wouldn’t be away from one another for long. Dean was coming back, and so was Castiel. But it’d be the first time they were separate since they started seeing each other. It was already unbearable.
But necessary, Castiel reminded himself again.
“Do you really think this will help me defend myself against North America’s apex predator?” Castiel teased.
“Sure do! What’s the saying? Don’t bring a bear to a knife fight?” Dean wiggled his brows, grinning.
“Ah,” Castiel played along, smiling. His voice overlapped with Dean exclaiming, “Ah-ha.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind,” Castiel said, slipping the knife into his pocket. “Now, goodbye. I’ll see you in a week.” He leaned forward to kiss Dean again, unable to resist. Dean kissed him back easily, eagerly. He grabbed the front of Castiel’s shirt.
Castiel couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of him in between kisses. “I love you.”
He felt the curve of Dean’s smile. “You, too.”
“I miss you already.”
“You’re so fuckin’ corny,” Dean laughed, and he pressed another kiss to Castiel’s lips before releasing him.
Castiel stood up, walked toward the bedroom door, and opened it. Behind him, he heard Dean settle back into bed. He glanced over his shoulder, seeing Dean burying his face into Castiel’s pillow, his arms hugging it. Castiel’s heart tugged toward him.
He told himself to go. He’d see Dean again in a short time.
He closed the door behind him and walked down the hall, down the stairs, toward the front door in the kitchen. Sam was already up, his running clothes on and sweat pooling on the fabric of his gray shirt under his arms. He was pouring himself a mug of coffee when he glanced up. “Cas. Hey! Want some of this?”
Castiel wished he could stay to speak with Sam and ask after Eileen. “I have to go. I’m meeting a group of campers.”
“Oh, cool. Have fun,” Sam said. Then, “Hey, is the trail to Katahdin Lake open yet? You said you and me could go check it out this summer. I wanna make sure I get on your schedule before you get too busy.” He gave a friendly smile.
“Of course. I always have time for you, Sam,” Castiel said. “I believe the trail will open at the end of the month. I’ll let you know.”
“Yeah, maybe we can even get Dean and Eileen to tag along,” Sam chuckled. “We’d probably have a better chance at winning lotto.”
Castiel ducked his head into a small laugh. “You’re probably right.” His eyes flashed to the door. “I should…”
“No, yeah!” Sam said, waving him off. “Be careful out there.”
Castiel nodded before leaving, appreciating the kind words, even though he didn’t need them. He knew that forest better than he knew the back of his own hand.
He left the house and walked to where his pick-up truck was parked on the street out front. In the driveway, the tuxedo-black paint of Dean’s Impala glinted in the sunlight. Castiel watched it idly as he fished out his keys from his pocket.
The back of his neck prickled with the creeping sensation of being watched. It was powerful enough to make Castiel stop walking. Dread pooled in his gut. He brought his eyes up—and they landed on a woman standing on the sidewalk across the street. She was perfectly still, like a corpse in rigor mortis standing upright.
Blue veins like cobwebs lined her face through translucent skin. The rest of her was ashen and pale, all but for the blood on her cheeks and neck. Crimson stained the front of her white smock dress. It was the same color as her hair.
Veiled, cold eyes with murky films over the irises were fixed on him. Castiel stared back for a long moment.
An acute needling feeling pricked at his heart, becoming sharper the longer he allowed himself to look.
Castiel turned his attention back to the Impala, then again to the other side of the street. She was gone.
Castiel took out his keys and got into his truck.
///
It was five minutes to 8 o'clock when Dean rushed down the stairs into the kitchen. The backpack strung over his shoulder was heavier than he wanted it to be. He had to dig out his old sleeping bag that he hadn’t looked at since maybe 7th grade, a bandana, a flashlight with extra batteries, some first aid crap, and warm underclothes. It was probably overkill, but his dad always taught to be prepared for anything.
In any case, he was pretty sure Cas would have anything that Dean had forgotten. He was the professional.
Sam was sitting on a stool at the island counter, clacking away on his laptop doing God knows what since school was out for the summer and he didn’t have any papers to grade. He glanced up, looked back down again, and then did a double-take as if Dean had never walked down the stairs before. “You’re up early. And… dressed.”
Dean shrugged as he headed to the pantry and started fishing around for some food he could shove into his bag. All they had was a box of Sam’s gross granola bars, a bag of M&Ms, and some Cheetos. He grabbed a handful of granola bars and the M&Ms before making his way to another cabinet in search of a reusable water bottle.
“Hey, we got that 64ml bottle, right?” he asked, pushing a few other bottles out of the way. It seemed like another ten of them had cropped up out of thin air since the last time he opened that cabinet. “The green one?”
“Uh, yeah. Should be in there,” Sam said unsurely. “Why? You want it for the drive to Mom’s? Cause we’re not leaving till tomorrow morning. And it’s not even that far. I kinda don’t wanna stop ten times so you can pee. Since when do you drink water, anyway?”
Dean spotted the bottle he was looking for in the way back and snatched it. Then, he shot daggers at Sam. “Shut up. I drink water.”
Sam huffed out a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, only because that’s what they use to make beer.”
“Ha-ha-ha,” Dean mocked. He went to the sink and started filling up the bottle. The thing would probably make his backpack a hundred times heavier, but he’d deal with it.
“You gonna answer my question?” Sam asked impatiently. Dean looked over his shoulder, seeing his brother’s brows popped up in question.
Shutting off the faucet, Dean brought everything over to the island. “Yeah. About Mom’s… I’m gonna be a few days late.”
Sam’s brows knitted together, conveying another question.
Dean sighed. He couldn’t believe he was about to say this: “I’m going camping.”
He made the decision a few minutes after Cas had left.
That time, Sam blanched. “You hate camping!”
Dean tried to play it off with a grin. “Well, Herc and Megara said people do crazy things when they’re in love.”
Sam scoffed.
Dean waved it away. He unzipped his backpack and worked on squeezing his water bottle into it. “Thought I’d surprise Cas.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
“What are you talking about? He’s gonna love it,” Dean said. Or, at least, Cas would love it. Later. After the surprise had worn off. He’d thank Dean for coming eventually, even if he’d be pissed at Dean not running it by him first. Cas was like that. Sometimes, Dean had to tell him they were going to see a movie and then drive up to a party instead. Cas would bitch and moan, but he’d always end up having a good time.
“Maybe until you start complaining about how DoorDash doesn’t deliver to the wilderness.”
Dean threw his head back, already exasperated by all the jokes. “Dude. I’m trying to do something nice!” He whack-a-moled the top of the bottle in the rest of the way, and it was just far down enough for him to get the zipper closed. “So what if I have to get eaten by mosquitos for a couple nights? It’ll make Cas happy. He’s been trying to get me to camp for months.”
And maybe Dean just didn’t want to be away from him for a week. Did that make him clingy?
He tried to push that thought away. Licking his lips nervously, he said, “And, I dunno. After we’re done out there, me and him can jump in the car and drive down to Mom’s so they can meet.”
When he glanced up, a look of pleasant surprise lined Sam’s face. “You want him to meet Mom? Wow. I thought the camping was big, but… You’re pretty serious about him, huh?”
Dean couldn’t help that stupid butterflies-in-his-stomach feeling he got whenever he thought about Cas.
He’d been on a shit ton of terrible dates in his life. He’d been in relationships that ended in flames. Hell, he’d even had his fair share of bad hookups. Actually, right before he met Cas, he’d decided to pack it in and stop looking altogether. He didn’t think anyone would change his mind. But Cas was the exception.
As it turned out, Dean had made a pretty good call on that one.
“Yeah, guess so,” he said, feeling the smile pulling on his face. “I know I don’t usually say crap like this but… I dunno, Sammy. I’m kinda thinking maybe—” He pulled down the corners of his mouth and shrugged, trying to play off the enormity of what he was about to say. “Maybe he’s it for me.”
The one. Whatever the hell that meant. Dean really didn’t believe in any of that soulmates or destiny crap. But Cas was more than some hot guy he was sleeping with. He was even more than a romance. He was Dean’s best friend, too. He felt like family. Dean saw himself settling down with Cas, saw the two of them having a future.
He wasn’t getting any younger, either. He wanted to get started on that future ASAP.
“And, before you’re sure, you want Mom to approve of him?” Sam asked, reading Dean’s mind. He threw up one hand, gesturing to Dean. “You know she’s gonna approve of him, man.”
“I know,” Dean said, trying to get over the jitters of lingering doubt. “And I am sure. I just… want them to meet.”
“That’s good,” Sam said, fighting down a proud little smile so he didn’t make it awkward—and Dean appreciated that. “I’m happy for you.”
Dean tried not to squirm at that. “Thanks. I just wish Dad was around to meet him, too, you know?”
Sam looked down sadly at that. “Yeah. Yeah, me too.”
Dean cleared his throat, deciding that was enough emotion for one day. “So, you and Eileen take her car down tomorrow morning and me and Cas’ll see you guys in a few days.”
Sam nodded, taking the subject change in stride. “Okay. Yeah, sure.”
Dean pulled back the sleeve of his flannel and checked his watch. 8:05.
“Shit, I better go. I’m gonna have to catch up to Cas’ tour group as it is. Don’t wanna get lost out there.” Dean picked up his backpack from the counter and shrugged into it. He exhaled, readying himself for a few days among nature.
He’d make it work. It wasn’t going to be miserable. He’d be with Cas.
He checked his phone battery, just to make sure he was fully charged. 93%. Good enough. He slipped the phone into his pocket.
Nodding, more to himself than anything, he said, “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” Sam said, almost sarcastically.
Dean grabbed the Impala’s keys off their hook and headed for the door.
“Make sure you packed enough bug spray,” Sam called after him, teasing.
Dean grimaced on his way out.
///
The ranger station, which was little more of a booth, rested a few feet from the forest’s trailhead. A Closed sign was propped up inside the window. Nearby, there were outhouses, garbage and recycling bins, two drinking fountains, weathered stone benches, and a bus stop for day hikers heading to and from town.
Beyond, there was only the dense forest. Even on this sunny spring day, the tightly packed canopy didn’t let in any light. As Castiel drove into the parking lot, all he could see were shadows through the trunks.
There weren’t many cars parked in the lot yet, so he pulled into a space near the front. Killing the ignition, he kept his eyes on the green leaves that permeated his surroundings. The mountain range rose up through the blue distance like a sleeping giant, waiting to wake up after a long slumber for its feast. Already, he felt different, being this close to the forest. Something akin to an electrical current snapped at the inside of his veins. It had been growing in recent weeks, until it became a fever pitch.
His gaze strayed down from the mountain to the small group of people in a circle near the ranger’s station. Five people, to be exact, all of them dressed in hiking attire—long pants or shorts, boots with high socks, sweaters tied around their waists. Their folded tents and packs were placed on the sidewalk around them. They’d come in from Boston for the experience.
Castiel didn’t know how long they’d been waiting for him—but he was a few minutes late. They didn’t seem to mind though. He heard their bright laughter and cheerful voices the moment he opened the door of his truck.
He reached into the backseat to collect his own gear before striding toward them. His boots echoed softly on the cracked asphalt, bouncing off the trees. He tried to savor that. As soon as they entered the trail, the woods would swallow up all sound.
One of the hikers looked his way. The first thing he saw was her shock of red hair, and it almost stopped him in his tracks. Almost knocked the wind out of him. Until he got a better look and realized the face was different.
A broad, excitable grin formed on her face. She slapped the arm of the man beside her and said, “That must be him.” She stretched tall and waved over her head, as if it was somehow possible to miss her. “Castiel! You’re Castiel, right?”
Castiel tried for a friendly smile, but he felt how tight and stilted it was. His fists squeezed his backpack straps over his chest. “I am. Apologies for being late.”
“Ah, that’s alright. I don’t think ten minutes is gonna kill us,” one of the men said jovially. He reached his hand out in offering. “Name’s Victor. Nice to meet you.”
Castiel shook his hand and said, “Likewise,” before moving on to the others. They all introduced themselves in turn, even though he already knew their names. He’d familiarized himself with them weeks ago when he approved them for these dates, choosing them over the other groups that had put in requests for this weekend. Looking at them now, he knew he’d chosen correctly. They seemed the ideal group for this excursion.
More or less. No one was strictly perfect.
Charlie Bradbury, an IT employee for a large financial organization. Her hobbies included meeting up with various people she’d met on online social media apps and platforms. In fact, it seemed she spent most of her life on a plane, traveling from fan convention to fan convention all over the world. However, her life wasn’t always so high-flying. When she was a child, her parents died tragically in a car accident. She lived in foster homes until eventually aging out of the system.
Next, there was Charlie’s girlfriend, Jo Harvelle. A bartender at a watering hole frequented by drifters, truckers, and motorcycle gangs. Newspaper articles dated fifteen years ago from her hometown in the Great Lakes region of Wisconsin called her a missing person after a weekend trip to Lake Superior with her friends. It was believed she drowned—until it was found out that she ran away. She never returned, which told Castiel she wasn’t on very good terms with her mother.
There was Benny Laffite, a line cook originally from Louisiana. He left his home state years ago, after he was arrested there for arson of the house boat belonging to the man he claimed stole his ex-wife.
Victor Henriksen, a veteran whose plane was shot down over the Kavīr Desert. Everyone else had perished. He walked for ten days to the nearest town, surviving on insects and using sand to shield his skin from the sun. Now, he was a night security guard at the same company Charlie worked for.
The only point of concern was Garth Fitzgerald, who had a wife and a daughter with twins on the way. There were people who loved him. People who knew where he was.
But it was nothing Castiel hadn’t dealt with before.
“If everyone’s ready, we can begin,” he told them. Excited chatter went through the group, and they told him to lead the way.
Castiel walked toward the small dirt path that ran into the trees. A trail map was posted at the mouth of the forest, its weatherproof glass bearing scratches and graffiti. Another sign stood a few feet into the forest. It was wooden with a message carved into it:
APPALACHIAN TRAIL
CAUTION
There are no places to obtain supplies or get help until
Abol Bridge 100 miles north. Do not attempt this section
unless you have a minimum of 10 days supplies and are fully
equipped. This is the longest wilderness section of the entire
A.T. and its difficulty should not be underestimated.
Good hiking!
The group paused to read the sign. Benny whistled, impressed, and said, “Damn. They sure ain’t messing around, are they?”
Many times, that sign was enough to scare people away. It wasn’t new information to this group, who had all theoretically read and definitely signed liability waivers, but Castiel understood how daunting a sign like that could be when one was actually shrouded beneath the trees.
“If anyone would like to turn back, now would be the time,” he said, scanning each of their faces. None of them seemed afraid. Perhaps a small part of Castiel wished they would second guess their decision and turn back. He could return to Dean’s house, go with him to his mother’s home, have a peaceful week.
Jo snorted dryly and started walking ahead. “I’m not scared of some boulders and leaves.”
The others laughed and followed after her.
Castiel paused momentarily, watching them. They seemed vibrantly happy and excited, all of them smiling and talking as they embarked on their trek.
A faint, rasping whisper sounded in Castiel’s ears. Overlapping voices, too low to hear what any of them were saying.
He willed them away and went after the group.
This section of the trail wasn’t difficult. It was an incline on a dirt path lined with trail markers. Long grass and bramble bent toward the path only to be trampled by boots or brushed away by ankles. Birds called to one another overhead. Once, they saw a white-tailed deer through the trees. It quickly ran away before anyone could snap its picture.
Gradually, the terrain became more difficult. It got steeper as it sloped up the mountain. They climbed up loose rocks and waded through shallow streams, went over narrow but low manmade bridges. When they crested a particularly large boulder, Castiel had to go first and take a few of them by the hand to help them down the other side.
Victor refused assistance and accomplished the task with confidence and precision. Castiel made note of that.
Garth stumbled slightly on his way down. The others had laughed, and he joined in, as if silly blunders such as these happened to him all the time. Castiel noted that, too.
Along the way, the group mostly talked among themselves, but some of them made efforts to include him in the conversation. They asked him about the wildlife in the forest, what his favorite part of being a tour guide was, if they were his favorite group. He wasn’t quite sure how to answer that last one.
“It’s crazy to think places like this still exist,” Jo said at one point, gesturing out to the trees. “You’d think somebody would have torn it down and made a city by now. It’s just 100 miles of nothing.”
Castiel grit his teeth, his shoulders tensing at the words. The forest wasn’t empty space to be discarded and ripped down.
“Maybe nobody wants to get cursed by the Appalachia gods,” Charlie joked. “I wouldn’t wanna piss them off, either!”
Benny guffawed loud enough that it scared some birds away from their roost overhead. “The hell you talkin’ about?”
“Aw, c’mon,” Garth answered, “you know how many ghost stories there are about the Appalachian Mountains? Charlie’s got a point.”
“You mean like Bigfoot? Sorry, I ain’t much of a believer in that nonsense,” Benny said.
“Me, neither,” Jo agreed.
“Well, you should be! Show some respect!” Charlie told them, voice scandalized, and Castiel couldn’t agree more. “These mountains are like, old. Balls old. They’re older than bones!”
“What does that even mean, older than bones?” Victor protested.
“I dunno! But it’s true. Right, Castiel? Aren’t the Appalachians the oldest mountains in the world?”
Castiel glanced over his shoulder at the group. After two hours of hiking, they were all a little sweatier than they had been at the start. Jo’s hair was now up in a ponytail. Benny had put on his jacket to fend off the chill that came with the increase in altitude.
“One of the oldest,” Castiel explained, “second only to the Makhonjwa Mountains in South Africa. They call that range the Genesis of Life. It’s believed that’s where the first organisms and plants grew on Earth.”
“So, you’re sayin’ that range’s more impressive?” Benny said. Castiel tried not to bristle.
“So is this one,” he answered. “Charlie’s correct. The Appalachian Mountains are estimated to be 480 million years old. They’re older than Pangea, older than sentient life, certainly. They’re home to numerous species of flora and fauna. It’s believed, at one point, they were taller than the Himalayas, including Mt. Everest. There’s even evidence that the minerals seeping off the range into the ocean was the reason for the ice age.”
“Basically, what you’re saying is,” Victor said, “that place in Africa’s the cradle of life and this one’s death?”
Castiel pinched his brows together, considering the question. He supposed it was apt. He mused, “I’ve never thought of it that way.”
Not long after, they reached their first destination: a ridge which overlooked the rolling mountains that stretched on toward the horizon. Hawks rode the heatwaves only a few feet above their heads, circling listlessly around the blue sky.
The group let out various gasps of awe and delight before, without fail, they pulled out their phones and began taking pictures of the vista. The selfies followed, and then they asked Castiel to take a picture of all of them against the backdrop. Then, they asked for another selfie and for him to join.
They took a break at that location, eating snacks and drinking water, catching their breath. Luckily, none of them needed to be told to be mindful of their garbage. Many people were disrespectful of the mountain, leaving their wrappers and soda cans and cigarette butts. Castiel watched each member of this group carefully stuff their trash back into their packs when they were done with it, taking note of their reverence. Or, at least, their common courtesy.
Garth dragged in an audible inhale of the fecund mountain air and said, “Would you listen to that quiet?”
“I was trying to before you opened your mouth,” Jo teased from her spot on a boulder, her legs kicked over Charlie’s lap. Charlie brushed her knuckles up and down Jo’s bare thighs beneath her shorts.
“I’m just sayin’,” Garth defended sheepishly, “no wonder Castiel likes it so much out here.”
Castiel had only been half-listening. He’d been standing near the edge of the ridge, his eyes on the crest of the mountains that sloped downward toward a valley on their opposite side. Mist ghosted along the mountains’ peaks. He looked around at the mention of his name.
“I wouldn’t mind bringing the kids on this hike when they’re old enough,” Garth finished.
Beneath the conversation, Castiel’s ears piqued to a rustling on the trail through the trees. The gray trunks were too dense to see what had made the sound—if anything but the breeze had made it at all.
“Well, good thing for you, it’ll still be here,” Benny commented, getting a chuckle from the rest of the group.
“What about you, Castiel?” Victor asked. “You think you’ll still be giving tours by the time Garth’s brats are old enough?”
Castiel dipped his chin to his chest and said, mildly, “Yes. I’m certain I’ll still be here.”
“How long have you been doing this, anyway?” Charlie asked.
Castiel turned away from the edge and wandered closer to them. “A long time. Years. I’ve… lost count.”
“So, you’re from the area?” Victor questioned, and Castiel nodded. “You don’t say! So’s Charlie!” He gestured his upturned palm across the semi-circle at Charlie.
Castiel froze, bracing himself for the inevitable queries that would follow whenever someone from one of his tours was a local instead of a tourist from far away.
Surely enough, Charlie perked up and asked, “What town are you from?”
Castiel opened and closed his mouth a few times before deciding to say, “It’s a small village. You likely wouldn’t know it.”
“Try me! I was dungeon master of my high school’s DnD club. We played schools from all over the state.”
“Well, we didn’t have a… DnD club,” Castiel sidestepped.
Benny snorted. “Man of mystery over here. Looks like Castiel ain’t too keen on talkin’ about himself.”
“Ah, that’s alright,” Victor said dismissively. He was toying with a compacted, rocklike patch of earth, tossing it from one hand to the other as if it was a baseball. Soil coated his palms. “Man’s entitled to his personal life. We’re just his job, right? He probably can’t wait to get rid of us.”
“That’s not true,” Castiel assured them quickly.
At the same time, Charlie scolded, “Hey! Stop giving him a hard time. Castiel’s cool people. We like him.”
Castiel didn’t mention that they didn’t actually know him.
He went to his gear waiting for him against a tree and hauled it back onto his shoulders. “We should keep going.” On his cue, the others started climbing to their feet and brushing themselves off in preparation to continue onward. “We’ll stop again in a few hours for lunch when we reach—”
He was cut off by the sight of a figure emerging from the tree line onto the ridge. Castiel took one good look at the newcomer, ridiculously wearing jeans and a biker boots, and instantly felt as if he’d been pushed off the ledge and was careening off the side of the mountain.
Dean brought his head up, and a wide, victorious grin stretched onto his face. His eyes twinkled. “Finally! I found you!”
No.
Castiel blinked rapidly, wishing Dean would disappear like a mirage. He didn’t.
“Dean?” Charlie’s disbelieving voice broke Castiel out of his panicked stupor.
Dean broke eye contact to look at her, and he let out a shocked but happy sound. “Get out of here! Charlie? You didn’t tell me you were in town!” He gave a laugh, arms outstretched as he walked toward her.
She left the group to meet him halfway. “I was gonna drop in on you when I got back from camping.”
“Well, you woulda missed me. I was gonna visit my mom,” Dean told her. “Who the hell drops in on a person unannounced like that, you psycho?” Castiel gaped, because that was ironic coming from a person who had just dropped in unannounced.
“Get in here!” Dean exclaimed, wrapping Charlie in a hug.
When the hug broke, Charlie turned to the others and introduced, “Guys, this is Dean. He’s been my bestie since grade school.” It was at that moment that Castiel realized this was the Charlie that Dean had mentioned sporadically over time. He’d always assumed Charlie was a man’s name.
Nausea roiled in his gut.
“Oh! This is Jo!” Charlie said.
“Hey, Jo,” Dean greeted. “Heard a lot about you.”
“Same here. Don't worry, it was all bad stuff,” Jo returned.
"No, it wasn't," Charlie corrected urgently. She introduced the others before turning to Dean again and asking, “What are you doing out here? Are you… hiking alone?”
Dean scoffed. “Yeah, right. I was looking for—Well, I guess I was looking for you. I was gonna surprise him.” He pointed in Castiel’s direction, making eye contact again. He looked so proud of himself. Castiel was still frozen solid.
He had no idea what to do.
Charlie’s eyes popped like she was connecting the dots. “Wait. Castiel? You’re Cas? Oh, my God! Give me a hug!” She rushed up to him and threw herself at him with such force, Castiel almost stumbled backward right off the ridge. When she pulled away, she grabbed him by the shoulders, looked him in the eyes, and said with determination, “We’re gonna be best friends.”
Castiel doubted that very much. But, in any event, the shock to his system returned feeling into his body. His eyes flickered over Charlie’s shoulder, landing on Dean. Suddenly, he was livid.
“Everyone, gather your things so we can continue.” The words had come through his teeth, no matter how much he tried to contain his ire. He stomped closer to Dean and hissed, “Can I speak with you? Alone?” He didn’t give Dean a chance to answer. He grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him back in the direction of the trail.
“So, you surprised?” Dean asked smugly. Castiel didn’t think surprised began to cover it.
Once he thought they were far enough away from the others, he rounded on Dean. “What are you doing here?”
Dean smiled again, appearing so innocent despite the fact that he knew he’d gotten under Castiel’s skin. “I told you! To surprise you. Wanted to see you at work. Kinda bummed you aren’t wearing a little ranger outfit, though.”
Castiel shook his head. “Dean, for the last time, I’m not a ranger.”
Dean hummed like it was of little consequence. “Eh, you’d still look good in the uniform.”
Castiel felt the sickly pressure in his gut rising up into his throat. His esophagus was starting to close up. His eyes strayed back to the group, who were all gathered together speaking in hushed tones. Every now and again, one of them glanced at Castiel and Dean.
Castiel’s eyes bore back into Dean. “You can’t be here.”
Finally, Dean’s idiotic smile wiped off his face. He looked confused. “What d’you mean? Why not?”
Castiel opened his mouth, trying to will an excuse forward. All he came up with was, “I’m working.”
Dean shrugged. “Okay, so? What, you gonna report me to your boss?” He made a show of glancing around. “I don’t see him anywhere, do you? No? Oh, wait!” He looked back at Castiel, gesturing both palms at him. “There he is!”
Castiel bit down hard on his jaw.
“What’s the problem?” Dean asked. “You’re the one who’s been asking me to go camping.”
“Not now,” Castiel shot back.
“Yeah, well, beggars can’t be choosers.”
“I don’t beg,” Castiel corrected. Dean’s brows shot up, predicting a salacious smirk and an untoward comment. Castiel hurried to ask, “What about your mother?”
“I figured me and you could go down there after we get off the mountain,” Dean told him. “See? Compromise. You get me here and I get you to meet my mom. Sound good?”
No, it didn’t sound good. Of course, Castiel wanted to meet Dean’s family. He’d pictured it before, and he’d always hoped it would go well. Whatever the reality of it was, he was certain it would be the exact opposite of what would happen if Dean ever met Castiel’s family. That would be catastrophic.
Castiel was starting to get a migraine. He narrowed his eyes into slits. “Dean, I mean it. You have to go. I’m… These people paid for my time. They—they signed liability forms.” He didn’t even know what he was saying anymore. He was just trying any excuse he could think of and praying one would stick.
“Is that what you’re worried about?” Dean said. “I’ll be fine! I brought my own food, got my own sleeping bag.” He slapped the side of his backpack proudly. “If I break my leg, I promise not to sue your ass, okay? I know how to take care of myself out here anyway, remember? You don’t gotta worry about me.” He held up three fingers on his right hand. “Scout’s honor.”
Castiel’s mouth hung open, but he couldn’t come up with any protest that Dean would accept without raising questions. But he had to get rid of Dean somehow!
“What, you don’t want me here?” Dean asked, sounding a little guarded all of a sudden.
Castiel melted. The last thing he wanted was to hurt Dean’s feelings. He looked down between them, trying to come up with something. Anything. “It’s… not that. It’s… This group. They’re together. They chose to come together. The five of them.”
“Yeah, but I know Charlie,” Dean dismissed. “She won’t care. She loves me!”
Of course. Because everyone loved Dean.
“Look, I’ll show you.” Dean turned his head to the group and called, “Hey! You guys mind if I tag along?”
Castiel prayed as hard as he could that they would say no, even though he knew it was a fool’s hope.
“Are you kidding? I’d love that!” Charlie exclaimed.
“The more the merrier,” Benny chimed in, and everyone else seemed to agree.
Castiel withered haplessly.
“See?” Dean said conceitedly, turning back to Castiel. He must have finally noted the sullen look on Castiel’s face, because he sighed and said, “Okay, I’m sorry I surprised you. But you’ll get over it. It’ll be fun, sweetheart. You’ll see. Trust me.”
Of course, Castiel trusted him. That wasn’t the issue.
Dean clapped Castiel on the back, giving him another infuriating grin. He walked back to the others and shouted, “Who’s ready to see some nature?”
The others whooped and cheered. They started walking toward the trail, all of them chatting happily as they passed Castiel. Charlie had hooked her elbow into Dean’s at the front of the group.
Castiel lingered momentarily. He clutched the straps of his pack and wondered what he could do or say to get Dean to turn back.
Something wet landed on the back of Castiel’s fist. It dragged slowly down the curve of his hand. His eyes flashed to it—the stark red blood against his skin. Another drop of it plopped down to join the other.
Ice pooled in his gut. Slowly, he brought his eyes upward.
A man’s corpse was bent backward over a tree limb overhead. His legs dangled, arms stretching behind him toward the leaf-strewn ground. Milky, veiled eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open in a silent scream. His garishly colored windbreaker and parachute pants were filthy.
Blood slid from the wound in his gut where a pointed branch had impaled him. It formed a slow stream down his arm and hand, collected on his fingertips. Another droplet plunked downward.
The man’s eyes blinked.
Castiel glanced back down at his hand. It was clean now, the blood gone. He looked up. The corpse had disappeared.
Castiel walked after Dean and the others.
///
Dean dabbed the sweat off his forehead with his bandana and leaned back on his elbows on the plush green banks of the crystalline pond. Honestly, it looked more like a lake. The thing was huge, with the mountains on the other side of it stretching up to the blue sky. Picturesque mist sat around the tops of the peaks, but his focus was on the group of people around him.
Jo had taken off her shoes and was ankle-deep in the pond’s shallows, kicking up water and letting it cascade back down into the pool in foamy froth. A stunning smile lit up her pretty face. Charlie laughed and took pictures as the wind ruffled her red hair. Benny, Victor, and Garth were still digging into their packs for their lunches, which consisted of pre-made sandwiches, chips, and sliced veggies. Benny’s looked especially tasty. It was some kind of panini. Dean’s granola bars were looking pretty sad in comparison.
Jealousy about their lunches aside, everyone in the group was pretty cool. Dean hit it off with them, and they were already planning his trip to Boston so he could go out drinking with them some night. Cas was invited, too, obviously, but the dude barely reacted. He’d been a stick in the mud the entire time.
Actually, there’d been points when he’d been downright hostile, and Dean thought there were a few times he’d tried to ditch him. Like a half an hour ago, when they’d taken a quick break and Dean had gone into the trees to piss. He came back not two minutes later and everyone was gone. Dean rushed after them and, when he got there, Cas said, “I knew you’d catch up,” even though that sounded like a load of BS.
Dean didn’t really know what his issue was. He thought they would have fun together.
He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the guy in question. Cas was munching on his PB&J. He kept his squinted eyes on the pond. Dean watched him carefully for a few seconds, trying to figure out what his deal was. Around them, the ambient sounds of nature filled Dean’s ears.
“Hey, Cas,” Benny called, attracting Dean’s eyes as well as Cas’. “Garth’s got a question for ya.”
“What is it?” Cas asked.
“Are we camping at the Twin Lakes tonight? I hear that area’s beautiful!” Garth asked, endearing eyes going gaga in hope. Dean couldn’t help but smirk a little. Garth was fun.
“No, we’ll be a little north of there,” Cas answered, his voice flat.
“Really?” Victor asked. Meanwhile, Charlie and Jo walked toward them, Jo’s hiking boots in hand and droplets glistening on her ankles. “’Cause the map I saw said the Appalachian Trail led us along that lake.”
Dean glanced around at Cas in question. Cas didn’t look back. He said, “Our path will lead us a little off the main trail. Not many people take our route.”
“Oooh, a special hike!” Charlie cooed as she plopped down and started taking out her own lunch. “See? Told you guys he was worth every penny!”
“You sure going off the trail’s a good idea?” Benny asked, wariness in his tone. “Ain’t that asking for trouble?”
“We’re with a professional. Relax, worry wart,” Jo said, plopping down on the ground.
The others chuckled and went back to their conversations. Cas only sighed gently and took another bite of his sandwich.
Dean sat up and reached for his own pack, figuring it was time he choked down one of those granola bars. As he pulled one out, he said, “You always this grumpy with your tours? That’s no way to get five stars on Yelp, Cas.”
Cas eyed the granola bar and didn’t answer the question. “I thought you said you brought your own food.”
“This is food. Kinda,” Dean maintained. He could pretend it was food if it won him the argument.
Cas withered and reached into his pack again, pulling out an apple. “Here,” he said, holding it out in offering. “Eat that, too.” It was probably the nicest thing he’d done all day. Dean shot him a smile and took the apple from him. Cas immediately broke the moment when he continued, “Of course, you shouldn’t be hiking for three days without real sustenance. If you start heading back to the trailhead now, you could reach it by sundown.”
Dean huffed, fed up. “Really, Cas? What’s your problem today? I came out here to spend time with you.”
Cas didn’t say anything. He stared down at his sandwich held over his lap, but he didn’t take a bite either.
Dean was starting to think Cas didn’t just want to ditch him on the hike, but for good. Hell, maybe that’s why he’d been so reluctant to meet Mary. Guards up, Dean asked, “There something you’re not telling me?”
Cas pressed his lips together. “I just…” Dean tensed, bracing himself. “I thought our first time camping together would be more special.”
So, that’s why he was acting like a dick?
Dean felt himself grinning, mostly relieved but a little amused. “That right, Cas? What’d you have in mind? Nice picnic at one of these lakes, huh?” He leaned into Cas, teasing. “Sex on top of the mountain under the stars?”
Cas rolled his eyes, fighting back a smile. “You’re insufferable.”
Dean chuckled. Then, serious, “So, it’s not what you imagined. That’s okay. But you know what would make it more special? If you took that stick outta your ass.”
Cas exhaled, annoyed, but Dean wasn’t about to let him start sulking again. He slipped his hand under Cas’ jaw and made Cas look him in the eyes. “It’s gonna be great. We’re gonna have an awesome weekend, and then I’m gonna wanna go camping with you all the time. Deal?”
Cas closed his eyes slowly, his lips parting. He sucked in a long breath. “Dean—”
Nope. No arguing. Dean shut him up with a kiss.
The others started wolf-whistling and hollering, and Dean couldn’t believe he’d forgotten they had company. It was like that sometimes when he was with Cas. It felt like they were the only people on the planet. Cas had his own magnetic pull.
He drew away and gave them the middle finger so they wouldn’t notice how much he was blushing.
Soon, they all went back to their conversations. Dean turned back to Cas, and he found Cas already staring at him—but it wasn’t in the usual way. Dean swore he saw something in Cas’ eyes. Something scared, maybe. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, and it was gone so quickly, Dean second guessed that he’d seen it at all.
Maybe he hadn’t. What did Cas have to be afraid of, anyway?
///
The sun was setting by the time they reached the top of the mountain. The tree’s canopy casted shadows on the forest floor, not allowing much light to filter through the leaves. Everything was starting to look gray, which made their trek even more difficult.
Cas hadn’t been kidding when he said they were veering off the beaten path. Actually, there was no path at all. Mostly, they had to follow the animal trails of broken branches and flattened grass, but even that failed them sometimes. In those cases, they ducked beneath low-hanging tree limbs and did balancing acts as they hopped over the larger rocks across streams. Once, they were basically doing low-level rock climbing. Jo had scraped up her knee a little bit, but she was a champ about it.
They all were. And Dean tried to be, too, even though he wasn’t realizing until just now how out of shape he was. Maybe he needed to lay off the pie, especially now that summer was here.
In the meantime, he shut his mouth when he wanted to complain and tried to hide his labored breathing every time the incline got too steep. If he didn’t, Cas would give him the told you so look, and no way Dean was going home defeated.
He was glad when the terrain evened out a little when they got higher up. The trees weren’t growing slanted toward the summit anymore. Instead, they stood tall and straight as they stretched up to the darkening sky, so Dean figured they were at the peak. He’d do a victory lap if he had any energy left.
He wasn’t the only one who was tired. The laughter and talking had died down to minimum. Everyone trailed after Cas in a single-file line, weaving their way through the thick trunks. Dean was at the back of the line. Every so often, he heard something rustling behind him—probably squirrels. He kept his eyes forward, catching glimpses of the back of Cas’ head whenever he rounded a tree.
Eventually, the forest started to thin, and the gaps in the trees became wider, allowing people to walk side-by-side in twos and threes. Dean walked next to Charlie and Jo, and Cas was right ahead of them. As they kept going, a soft breeze started winding through the trees. It made Dean’s skin prickle. He peered through the trunks and thought he could see a clearing coming up.
And there was something in it. He wasn’t really sure what—not even when they reached it. It was some kind of ruins, chunks of gray, weather-beaten stone that looked like it had been there for centuries. A large, flat slab of rock sat in the middle of it all. The walls had crumbled, and nature was reclaiming it, weeds crawling up the stone and moss blanketing it. Only one of the walls looked to be in pretty good shape. The top of it was a pointed triangle.
“Whoa! What is this place?” Charlie asked, awed. She seemed to get a second wind, because she bounced toward the ruins.
Benny gave an impressed whistle. The rest of the group went forward, too, all of them wandering through the rocks and snapping pictures. Charlie was already sucking in her cheeks like a supermodel and striking over-the-top poses against the flat slab while Jo did a mini-photoshoot. Dean snorted and shook his head before his eyes strayed to the view over the ridge on the other side of the clearing. The sun was hanging over the spot where two shadowy mountains met. He bet, pretty soon, it’d set right in the middle of them.
“Nice view,” he muttered, moseying in that direction. The wind was picking up a little, getting under his shirt. Ignoring the chill, he took out his phone and tried to take a picture of the view, but it came out bad. Honestly, there was no way a camera phone could capture something like that. Maybe hiking was kind of awesome.
Cas hung back, watching everyone. Dean was only half-listening as he addressed Charlie’s question, “No one’s truly certain, but it’s believed this was once a place of worship—possibly dating back as far as the 1600s.”
“It was a church?” Garth asked.
“Or it was for the occult rocking human sacrifices,” Jo joked.
Dean turned back to the group, catching sight of Cas first. Cas was still standing apart from everyone, his hands in his pockets and a serene kind of smile on his face, like he felt right at home among such old things like nature and ruins. Dean couldn’t help but to admire the way the sunlight was hitting the side of his face and the way the breeze was carding through his hair.
Fondness bloomed in Dean’s chest. He lifted his phone again. “Babe, look.” Just as Cas was turning his head, Dean snapped the picture. Like the view, it was hard to capture how handsome Cas was on camera.
Damn, Dean had bagged himself a looker.
Cas shot him a faux-impatient look. “Dean.”
Dean chuckled, approaching him. He’d been taking pictures of Cas all day. “Just capturing you in your element,” he said, reaching for Cas. “C’mere.” He put his arm over Cas’ shoulders—really, across his backpack—and pulled him in until their sides were flush. He flipped his camera to selfie mode and held it up. He smiled, and Cas tilted his head into Dean’s and gave a little closed-mouth smile, too, even though it didn’t reach his eyes. Dean thought it was a good picture, anyway.
“Hey, Cas, what was this big rock in the middle for?” Garth asked. “Some kind of altar?”
Dean let Cas go, and Cas gave him one last lingering look before walking toward the group. “Likely. I’m not sure what other function it could have…”
Cas’ voice trailed off as Dean stopped listening. He did another sweeping look around, and his eyes snagged on a low rock wall at the back of the clearing. A lot of the structure had crumbled. There was a stone arch about midway down the wall, and it looked in pretty great shape considering how old it was. Beyond it, he could see some cracked, flat stones situated like stairs leading downward.
Something like ice formed in Dean’s stomach, and he had the weirdest feeling he was being watched. He tried to shake it away. He walked closer to the archway to get a better look. Along the way, the wind shook the leaves and twigs crunched under his boots.
“Hey, where do these stairs lead?” Dean called back to Cas, just to distract himself from that strange wariness climbing up into his chest. He got right up to the arch and stopped walking, his eyes on the stairs. They curved down the slope along the dirt, eventually, getting lost to the trees.
“Possibly down to the valley at one point,” Cas explained, his voice a little harder than it had been a second ago. “They don’t go very far anymore. Most of the steps have either been destroyed or buried.”
Dean skin was crawling. The wind flapped against his flannel and skirted cold across the back of his neck.
He lifted his boot, about to take a step forward through the arch.
“Dean, we’re not going that way,” Cas called quickly, stopping him.
Suddenly, all the weird feelings Dean had been experiencing snapped off like a light switch. He turned around to face everyone else. Cas was staring back at him, watching like a hawk.
“So, where are we going?” Jo asked, breaking the moment.
Cas gestured in the opposite direction of the arch. “There’s flatter land just beyond those trees—and it has a better view. That’s where we’ll make camp.”
That seemed to brighten everyone’s spirits. Benny’s voice boomed off the trees when he said, “Well, what’re we waitin’ for? I’m about ready for dinner.”
“Me, too,” Victor agreed. “And I’d say it’s gonna be a well-earned meal.”
They started walking again, soon disappearing into the small copse of trees. Dean heard them laughing happily again as they went.
He hung back, looking over his shoulder again at the arch. That cold feeling sat at the base of his spine once more.
“Winchester, you coming?” Victor’s voice called.
Dean jumped, knocked back into reality. He rattled his head, telling himself to stop being an idiot. “Yeah!” he yelled back, and immediately started walking.
Almost as soon as he did, another voice reached his ear. It was a whisper carried on the breeze, probably not even there at all.
“Dean.”
It sounded like it was coming from right beside him. Dean’s heart skipped a beat. He stopped short and looked around.
He was alone. And tired and hungry. He was probably just imagining things.
Letting it go, he hustled to catch up with the others.
///
The view at their campsite was pretty awesome, even though it wasn’t too much different than the one near the ruins. Before they lost the light completely, they made their camp—setting up a fire and getting wood, taking out their cooking supplies, pitching the tent—which was just as annoying as Dean remembered. Cas’ tent was especially tough because it had so many metal poles. They had to punch the stakes into the ground and tie them down with rope. There was some rope left over, and Dean thought they’d missed something somehow, but Cas said it was fine and put the excess in his pack. Dean was too tired to worry too much. He rolled out his sleeping bag next to Cas’ inside before joining the others at the fire.
After they ate, someone had the idea to start telling ghost stories. It was pretty stereotypical camping shit, but it was still pretty fun, especially in that setting. Apart from the crackling of the fire, the chirping of bugs, and the hooting of an owl in the distance, the place was dead quiet and eerie. It was dark, too. Outside their bubble of light, Dean couldn’t even see the shadows of the trees. It was just black out there in the absence of moonlight.
“And when she opened her bedroom door,” Garth wrapped up his story in a kitschy spooky voice, “she saw the hook on her bed—with the severed arm still attached! Oooooh!” He twiddled his fingers at all of them.
Various responses ranging from confusion to anger to downright disgust rose up from everyone around the fire.
“Oh, come on!” Victor said.
“That doesn’t even make any sense!” Charlie said over him.
“That’s really the best you can do?” Dean added to the cacophony. Beside him, Cas was the only one who didn’t say anything. At some point, he’d gone quiet again. Dean tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, because Cas was probably tired, too.
“I don’t see you doing any better,” Garth defended, indignant.
“Yeah, I don’t think anyone could top that one,” Dean told him sarcastically.
“Go ahead then, tough guy,” Jo challenged.
Dean snorted, not rising to the bait. “You’re gonna have to get a few more drinks in me first.” Or any drinks at all. “Kinda wish someone had brought some beer.”
“Just gonna have to buy you one when you come to Boston,” Benny said, leaning forward to poke the fire with a long stick. Embers flung up before quickly burning out. “Meantime, I’m kinda enjoying this. Cookin’ over the fire away from the city. Good to know it might be a little enjoyable if we gotta do this when the world ends.”
Victor groaned. “What are you, some kinda survivalist nutjob all of a sudden?”
Charlie giggled. “Dean knows all about that!”
Dean glared at her over the fire, pissed. She stuck out her tongue at him.
“No way,” Victor groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re a survivalist nutjob.”
Dean sighed. “No. My dad was—I mean, he wasn’t a nutjob, okay?” he corrected quickly. “He was special forces in the army.”
Victor perked up a little. “That so? Where was he stationed?”
“Kabul.”
Victor nodded. “Baghdad.”
Dean figured he was a soldier. He carried himself like one, like John used to. “Thanks for your service.” Getting back on topic, he said, “Anyway. After he retired, he did survivalist stuff to keep sharp.” He scoffed in memory, a little humored. “Always said we were gonna get invaded by North Korea or something.”
He looked out at the darkness surrounding them. The fire had gotten a little lower, making it seem like the night was pressing in on them on all sides. The temperature was dropping, too. Dean wished he’d brought more than just his flannel, but he doubted a jacket would help. Thinking about his dad always left him feeling a little frozen over with all those unanswered questions.
“Every year, him and a few of his buddies from the war would go to places like this all over the country,” he said, not really sure why he was telling them. His reverie was taking over. “No supplies or tents or anything, either. They’d just drop themselves in the middle of nowhere for a couple weeks and played Survivor, minus the getting voted off the island. Never told us where he was going, because that was part of it.”
Dean had always wanted to go with him. He thought it’d be cool, thought it would make his father proud. John always used to tell him when you’re older.
The trees were so dark. The blackness was starting to encroach in the corners of Dean’s vision the longer he kept from blinking.
“And then one day, he’s just… I dunno. Never came back. We don’t know what happened. Not to him, not to his friends. They were never found.”
He blinked, and realized just how quiet everyone had gotten. Everyone but the owl. Something in the trees rustled.
Next to him, Cas’ silence had shifted. It became loud. Deafening, almost.
Dean cleared his throat, tore his eyes off the trees, and forced a smile, trying to play it all off with humor: “Anyway, that’s probably part of the reason I hate camping so much.”
It seemed to work. Everyone laughed lightly, even though it was probably a polite pity laugh. But he didn’t want their pity. He continued, “But here I am anyway! All for this one.” He clapped Cas’ knee and gave it a squeeze. “‘Cause I’m an awesome boyfriend who decided to date a ranger.”
He expected Cas to take the bait and huff, “I’m not a ranger,” but Dean got nothing.
“Awww,” the others taunted in sing-songy unison.
Dean’s cheeks dimpled with annoyance. “Shaddup.” But at least they weren’t giving him sad eyes anymore. Taking his hand off Cas, he said, “Alright. That’s enough sob stories for one night. And enough not-scary ghost stories.”
“If you say so, muchacho, but don’t come crying to me when you have nightmares tonight,” Garth said coolly.
“I’ll take my chances,” Benny said, and clapped his hands to his knees to stand up, “I’m beat. Best turn in for the night.” The others climbed to their feet, too.
“Me, too,” Charlie agreed. “Today was super fun, though! Thanks, Castiel.”
“Yeah, thanks, Cas.”
“Thanks, Cas!”
Dean couldn’t help but feel a little proud of his boyfriend. He looked at Cas again, finding only the barest of pushed smiles on his face. Cas’ eyes barely flickered up to the others before he resumed staring at the fire. The shifting light played on his face, making him almost look like a dozen different people from one flicker to the next.
“Night, y’all. See you in the A.M.,” Garth said, and everyone else said their goodnights too. They disappeared into their tents. One by one, their flashlights clicked on, illuminating their tents’ bright colors from within like Christmas lights.
Cas didn’t move until everyone was tucked away inside. He didn’t look at Dean while he walked to the other side of the fire, eyes on the ground like he was checking to make sure no one left any trash or food behind. He said, “I’ll put out the fire and meet you in the tent.”
Dean nodded, even though Cas still wasn’t looking at him. He picked up his flashlight off the ground, got up, and followed the beam of white light as it moved along the dirt and exposed roots. Behind him, he heard Cas stomping out the fire, saw the orange light spreading over the soil get snuffed out until only darkness remained.
It was a lot colder now that he was away from the flames. He ducked into the tent quickly, having to stand on his knees and bend his head down so it didn’t brush the ceiling. He closed the flap to make sure no bugs got in. Then, he stood the flashlight up and took off his boots and jeans. Getting them off was awkward in the tight space, but he made it work. He left his t-shirt and flannel on and tucked himself into his sleeping bag. The fabric was cold at first, but luckily his body heat warmed it up pretty quickly.
Still, it’d be a lot warmer when Cas got inside. What the hell was taking him so long?
Bored, he took his phone out of his pocket and checked how he was doing on the battery front. The damn thing was already pushing 40%. He grimaced, figuring he should probably lay off the picture taking for a while. He put the phone away again.
As if on cue, the flap of the tent opened. Cas folded himself inside and zipped the tent closed behind him.
Now that Dean was laying down, all the soreness in his muscles from a day of exertion were catching up. His ankles and calves thumped with his heartbeat. Exhaustion was making him listless. Almost in a haze, he watched Cas pull off his boots, change, and get into his own sleeping bag next to Dean’s.
He was still quiet, laying on his back. Dean was on his side, watching Cas’ profile in the blue-tinted light bouncing off the top of the tent. They both stayed silent, but Cas’ brow was pinched like he was thinking about something. He didn’t say what, and Dean didn’t know if he should ask.
After a while, Cas moved again. He reached over his head to get Dean’s flashlight and turned it off. Suddenly, they were plunged into total pitch black. Dean couldn’t even see the impression of Cas’ silhouette, but he heard the familiar pattern of his breathing.
Then, gently: “Dean?”
Dean grunted in question.
Cas gave a heavy exhale before saying, “I… apologize. For the way I acted today. I hope you had fun.”
Dean smiled sleepily. He knew Cas would come around eventually. “Yeah, it was a good time.” He yawned and rolled onto his back. “Bet you’re happy I forced you to be around me, huh?”
“I always want to be around you,” Cas told him, sounding wide awake. Warmth bloomed in Dean’s chest, and he was glad it was so dark, because his grin probably looked really dopey.
He heard Cas’ sleeping bag move when Cas shifted, and then there was the press of Cas’ body half on top of him. Cas’ hand blanketed over Dean’s heart. “Dean,” he whispered. “I love you. You know that, don’t you?”
He sounded so goddamn sincere, and a little concerned, like he thought one day of being pissy would make Dean think Cas hated him. And, okay, maybe for a second there, Dean had, but that wasn’t Cas’ fault.
Dean reached up blindly and set his hand on Cas’ hair. He’d been aiming for the side of his face, but this worked, too. “Yeah, Cas, ‘course I do. Love you, too.”
“Promise me you know it, Dean,” Cas asked him desperately. His eyes were probably big and liquid blue right now, and the look in them would probably be enough to break Dean’s heart.
But Dean didn’t know why. He got that Cas was sorry, but this seemed kind of excessive for that. Dean was starting to get worried for some reason. “I promise,” he said, voice a little unsure.
“And you know I would never let anything bad happen to you out here?” Cas said.
Dean furrowed his brow. “Wait, is this about what I said about my dad?” Did Cas think Dean was scared of being in the woods? “’Cause I’m fine, man. Really.” Cas stayed quiet, pensive. Dean stroked his hand through Cas’ hair and wished he could see his face. “Are you?”
For a long second, there was just the endless quiet and darkness. Then, Cas let out a breath and said, “Yes. It’s just… been a long day. I’m tired. We should get some sleep.”
Some linger doubts festered in Dean’s chest, but he let it go. He nodded until he realized Cas probably couldn’t see him. “Yeah. You’re right.”
He felt Cas lean forward in such a familiar way. Dean pursed his lips, ready for when the kiss landed. Cas kissed him for a long time, even though it was pretty chaste. He pressed his hand a little more firmly against Dean’s chest.
Dean guessed, apology accepted.
When the kiss broke, he heard Cas give another breath, and that time it sounded a little too wet and shaky. Dean didn’t know if he was imagining things. He’d never seen Cas cry before, so he was probably wrong.
Cas’ weight left him, and Cas settled back on his side of the small tent. Dean wished they didn’t have these dumb sleeping bags so he could roll into Cas and hold him. Instead, he let his eyes slip closed, let himself be enveloped by the dark and the quiet and the rhythm of Cas’ steady breathing.
It was peaceful.
Soon, he drifted off to sleep…
He didn’t know how much later it was, how long he’d been sleeping, before he was violently ripped back into consciousness. Something was shaking the tent. At first, Dean thought it was a bear, but it was coming from all sides.
Nearby, he heard the muffled sounds of the others yelling and calling out for each other.
The shaking stopped.
A scream pierced through the night. It was distant, coming from somewhere on the mountain, but it was loud. It was followed by the sounds of moans and wails, all of them overlapping, closeby as if they were right outside the tent in every direction.
All of it happened so fast, Dean barely had time to react. He was laying on his side, his head pillowed on his bicep. He jerked his head up, suddenly wide awake. In the glow of the flashlight, Cas was the first blurry thing that swam into focus.
He was sitting upright on top of his sleeping bag, fully dressed again, staring at the closed flap with his back to Dean. The others were still shouting in panic outside. The wind battered against the tent.
“Wha’s goin’ on?” Dean slurred. He moved to get up, but something suddenly jerked him back down by the shoulders.
Eyes wide, he followed the line of his arms. His wrists were bound by his bandana, tight enough that his hands had gone red. The bandana was attached to the excess rope they used for the spikes. It was looped around the corner pole of the tent.
Panic rose in Dean’s throat. He tugged again. The tent buckled fractionally inward, but his bounds didn’t budge.
Breath trapped, he whipped his head around to look at Cas. That time, Cas’ eyes were on Dean. The blue of them was black in the lowlight. His shadow stretched tall behind him against the tent’s wall. There was a sad look on his face, underneath the calm.
Outside, someone screamed again, and it sounded like Charlie. Victor shouted something.
Dean needed to get out there. He needed to see what was going on and help his friends.
Instead, his mouth hung open until his throat grew dry. His ears were clogged with the pulse of adrenaline, and he didn’t know if he should be pissed or confused or terrified. Finally, he was able to eke out, “Cas?”
“You’ll be safe here,” Cas told him, and Dean didn’t understand what that meant.
He decided he was terrified. Shit scared, actually.
Those ghastly moans started up again. They rattled inside Dean’s bones, made his stomach hurt.
That deep fear suddenly took a hard left into anger. He twisted, doing his best to sit up with his hands still tied to the tent. He didn’t have a lot of slack to work with. His left shoulder pulled awkwardly across his chest as he looked at Cas.
“What are you doing? Get these off of me!” Dean demanded.
Cas shifted quickly onto his knees. He sat back on his heels and held up his palms in a placating manner. “Dean, trust me. This is for your own good.”
Charlie shouted again, her voice mixing with the others, and rage burned its way up Dean’s throat. “The fuck are you saying? Let me go!”
“Dean. Dean,” Cas said, picking himself up to a kneel again. He put his hands on Dean’s shoulders, and Dean wanted to wrestle him off. “Look at me. Please. Listen. You’ll be safer here. I’ll come back for you.”
Dean started thrashing, unintelligible shouts tearing from his throat. He kicked out his legs. The knot around his wrists slipped slightly, but nowhere near enough.
“Dean!” Cas said, trying to hold him still.
“God dammit, let me go, you dick!”
Cas sucked in a breath, his wide eyes on Dean. Then, he picked up Dean’s flashlight in his fist.
Dean froze, terrified Cas was about to leave him there. He didn’t know what was going on outside, but those horrible noises kept rattling against his ears.
“I love you,” Cas told him for the second time that night. “But I can’t take you with me.”
Dean furrowed his brows, fear and confusion making him mute.
The last things he remembered were Cas’ expression changing into something hard, a blur of light and motion as the metal end of the flashlight swung toward his head, and a sudden spike of sharp pain in his temple. Then, everything went black.
///
The flashlight’s metal handle glinted with a trace of Dean’s blood. Castiel did his best to ignore it, along with the guilt laden in his chest, as he emerged from the tent and climbed to his feet.
Quickly, he took a sweeping look around the campground. The phantom symphony continued to rise up from the spaces between the dark trees. Blood curdling wails and harsh, rasping whispers. The leaves were shaking noisily under the same wind that slammed against Castiel’s face and battered his clothes. It carried enough force to give off the illusion that a storm was on its way. The temperature had dropped significantly, biting against his skin.
Charlie and Jo’s tent had been swept away to be impaled high up on a tree limb. The bright yellow fabric tangled itself around the bark. A sharp, broken plastic rod hung down from it, twirling in the wind’s command like a body from a noose.
Garth’s tent was overturned, and he was shouting from inside of it. The plastic walls bulged and thrashed as he tried to fight his way out. Benny and Charlie were attempting to turn it upright again to free their friend. Meanwhile, Victor and Jo were frantically pointing their flashlights in the direction of the trees. The beams hit against the gray trunks and cast moving shadows against them, giving the appearance of dark figures rushing around inside the tree line.
Every time there was another scream, they would quickly snap their light in the direction it was coming from.
“What the hell is going on?” Jo shouted.
Castiel reached into his pocket and pulled out the knife Dean had given him. He rushed toward Garth’s tent, yelling to Benny and Charlie, “Move!” They sprang out of the way. He fisted the knife and tore through the tent’s wall. The plastic made a skin-crawling ripping sound as he cut through it.
When the rip was big enough, Benny and Charlie helped Garth out. Garth was rattled, his face pale and eyes spooked.
“Castiel, what’s happening?” Charlie had to yell over the cacophony around them, despite being right next to Castiel. There was fear in her voice.
Castiel didn’t answer the question. He shouted to the group as a whole, “We’re not safe here! We have to move!”
He began turning, the beam of his flashlight moving with him. It hit against the pale face of a figure standing less than a foot from him. She had tangled and dirty red hair. Her white eyes pierced through him like a blade.
Castiel stopped short, his breath catching in his throat. His fingers tightened around the flashlight, feeling the slick wetness of Dean’s blood.
“Guys!” Jo shouted as another distant shriek tore from the trees.
Castiel’s head snapped in her direction. She and Victor were standing together now, frantically waving the rest of them over. Charlie, Benny, and Garth ran toward them.
Castiel looked back at the apparition, but she wasn’t there. His flashlight’s beam spread through the darkness and fell into a puddle on the dirt.
Steadying himself with a breath, Castiel ran after the others. He flung his arm out for the trees and ordered, “Run!”
He rushed through the tree line, running in the direction of the temple’s ruins. The white beam of his flashlight jerked around uncontrollably in his grip. It bounced off of the fallen leaves that crunched under his boots, on the spindly branches, on the clothes and skin of the others as they threaded through the woods.
The haunting whispers were even louder among the trees. They seemed to be packed in all around, like water that Castiel had to wade through. The distance carried forlorn cries and menacing howls. His own heartbeat pounded like a drum in his ears.
A thin, low hanging branch snapped against Castiel’s forehead, momentarily stinging as it drew blood.
Wisps of mist began drifting toward him, the beam of his flashlight illuminating its milky color. The closer he got to the temple’s clearing, the thicker the fog became.
He emerged into the clearing, gasping for air as if he’d just come up from underwater. The other’s flung themselves out of the tree line behind him, stumbling and panting. The shrieks followed them.
The mist clung to the clearing like a specter. It wrapped around the ruins in ribbons. Swirls of it danced in the beams of the flashlights. Castiel pointed it around until it landed on the stairs beyond the archway.
A loud, piercing scream suddenly broke through the night, sounding as if it had come just behind them in the trees. The others jumped in fear and shock. Castiel’s heart jolted.
“Keep going!” he yelled. He started running for the archway. The others followed him. He paused right before the arch, beckoning the group forward. They ran through one by one and rushed down the steps. Some of them kept winding down the stone stairs. Others scattered down the hill and got lost in the trees.
Castiel pulled in a deep breath. He looked over his shoulder at the copse of trees separating the clearing from the campsite. Where Dean was.
Castiel told himself Dean was safer than he would have been otherwise. That he would be fine. He’d live. And then Castiel would have to explain everything.
No matter what happened tonight, it was the end of them.
Stowing those thoughts, Castiel ran through the arch and into the forest.
///
Slowly, the hushed, hissing sound of the forest’s whispering filtered back into Dean’s consciousness. They rasped against his eardrums like nails skimming over stone. The shrieks and moans followed. Then all he could focus on was the thumping pain in his head where he’d been hit.
Where Cas had hit him.
Dean winced against the headache that was lighting up his skull. He blinked his eyes open, and for a second he thought he was blind—but it was the all consuming, black night. He lifted his hands to scramble in search of his flashlight. The ropes on his wrists tugged him back.
Shit. How had he forgotten about those?
He gave another, stronger pull. The tent’s corner scraped across the ground, but the restraints didn’t give. Usually, it was fun when Cas tied him up, but Dean really wasn’t enjoying it this time.
As if something had heard the subtle noise the tent had made, a loud, agonized wail answered it. It sounded closer than the others. Dean’s heart kicked up about a thousand notches. His labored breaths filled the small space.
He needed to get the hell out of there.
Rallying himself, he struggled to get to his knees and sit back. His constraints didn’t make it easy, and every movement made his head hammer more. He felt blood on his temple.
“Cas!” he called, his first instinct, before he realized that was stupid. Cas was the one who had tied him up in the first place. He wasn’t going to help.
But why? Why had Cas done that?
Dean needed to find him. He hoped Cas was okay—that all of them were okay—but mostly Cas, because the second Dean saw him again, he was going to kill him.
Changing tactics, he yelled, “Charlie! Jo! Anybody!” His voice cracked with exertion around the last word. Nothing answered but the storm of shrieks coming from the forest.
A stick just on the other side of the tent’s wall snapped under somebody’s foot. Dean’s heart stopped. His throat closed up.
“Who’s there?” he demanded, trying to sound as tough as possible. “I swear to God, if you try anything, I’ll kick your ass!”
There were more footsteps. Lots of them. Pounding against the dirt. Like a hundred people were running around out there. The tent shook slightly as something knocked into it and ran off again.
“Screw this,” Dean hissed. He brought his wrists up to his mouth and started gnawing on the knot of the bandana with his teeth. Strings pulled off the fabric, and he had to spit them off his tongue before keeping at it.
Eventually, the material started to come apart. Dean loosened the knot enough to wiggle his hands free.
By that time, the sounds of running had stopped, but the whispers and the screams were still whipping up a hurricane out there.
Dean slapped around the sleeping bags, searching for a flashlight or knife or a blunt instrument or anything that could be used as a weapon. His hand hit against a thickly stuffed backpack, and for one heart-pounding moment, he thought it was a person before he realized what it was. He dug inside, but he didn’t find anything he could use.
He’d have to go out there—unarmed—and find a branch or a rock or something.
Trying to give himself an internal pep-talk, he pulled on his jeans and boots again. He got up to a crouch, his head brushing the top of the tent. He reached for the tent’s zipper. Dean sucked in a breath, readying himself—and he opened the flap.
Outside, the camp was empty. The rest of the tents were turned over or destroyed husks flattened on the dirt. The pots and utensils Benny had used for cooking earlier were strewn around. Dean saw the metal of them glinting in the lowlight. He dove for the pot, then held it up in defense when another scream pierced the night.
All around him, mist was floating over the earth, spooling around the trees, carrying the whispers.
The sounds of running started up again, this time inside the trees. Dean turned in a circle in a jerking motion, trying to follow the sound of every footfall. In the darkness between the trunks, he could see shadows rushing around.
“Who are you?” Dean yelled.
Whoever they were, they weren’t in the trees leading back to the ruins. Or at least, Dean didn’t think so. He had no choice but to take his chances.
Still clutching the handle of the pot, he booked it for the tree line.
As he ran, he kept his free hand outstretched so he wouldn’t run into a trunk or a tree limb. His palm slapped against the rough bark, making his skin sting. At one point, his pot hit against a tree trunk with a loud clang. It took the pot clean off the handle.
“Fuck!” Dean hissed, suddenly feeling way too vulnerable again. He tossed the handle to the side and kept running until he reached the ruins.
And then skidded to a halt at what he saw there.
The mist was even thicker, creating a white wall that overtook everything. Dean could barely even see the ruins. But what he did see were shadowy silhouettes walking through the fog. They drifted around, feet sweeping audibly against the grass and fallen leaves.
He felt a figure pass by close behind him. He jumped around to face it, but nothing was there. Another moved behind his back, making him whip back around again. It disappeared through the fog before he could catch a glimpse of its face.
The whispers were so loud now, but Dean still couldn’t make out a single word. Not until he heard, “Dean.”
Dean dropped low and snatched up a rock. He jumped back up and held it up in his fist, ready to use it if one of those psychos came after him.
“Dean.”
His name was a little louder that time, but still barely above a harsh whisper.
The figures in the mist started moving away until they faded from sight. The mist thinned, as if they were taking it with them. The shapes of the ruins started bleeding into focus. Dean swallowed hard, his eyes finding the archway.
He needed to get to lower ground, away from the fog. The others might have done that, too.
Dean tossed the rock back onto the ground with a dull thump and hustled in the direction of the arch.
Then, suddenly, a voice broke out at full volume over the whispers: “Dean, don’t!”
Dean felt like he’d been punched in the gut. All the air knocked out of him. He stopped on a dime, wide eyes looking around—searching.
He knew that voice.
There was a tremor running through the word when he whispered, “Dad?”
Everything was dark, and he was the only one in the clearing. Screams and snarls mingled with groans and gasps emitted from inside the trees. He couldn’t hear his name among the whispers anymore.
His stomach in knots, he turned back to the arch and ran for it.
His boot slammed against the top step. He bound down them, feeling some of them shake and quiver under his weight where they were coming loose from the earth. His thighs were burning as he kept running downward at full speed. The trees on either side of him closed in, blocking out the patches of stars. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he could see figures between the trunks as he passed. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end like he had a million eyes watching him.
Up ahead, the stairs ended, giving way for a steep slope. Dean tried to stop himself, but he wasn’t fast enough. He’d picked up speed beyond his control during his descent.
His boots hit the loose dirt and kicked out from under him. He landed hard on his back, eliciting a sharp yell, and slid down the hill. Fallen leaves, twigs, and rocks rolled down after him. His stomach had dropped out, and it was tumbling somewhere ahead of him.
He came to a stop at the bottom of the slope, and for a second, all he could do was lay back on the dirt and breathe hard. There was a stitch in his side. His breaths came out wet.
Somewhere in the distance, a panicked voice called out, “Jo! Where are you?”
“Charlie,” Dean realized. It gave him enough strength to get to his feet. His spine protested as he straightened out. He drew in a breath and yelled, “Charlie?”
There wasn’t an answer.
“Cas?”
Still nothing. Maybe his calls were getting swallowed up by the screams and whispers.
Gritting his teeth, he ran in the direction he’d heard Charlie’s voice coming from as fast as he could.
Every now and again, he thought he heard one of his friend’s voices calling for each other.
The mist was drifting back in again. It hung between the trunks, parted in wisps as Dean broke through it.
Up ahead, a dark silhouette was standing between two trees. Dean gasped and slammed his palms hard against a trunk to stop himself short. He gaped at the figure for a long second. He couldn’t see its face, just a head and shoulders and body among the mist and shadows. It stood perfectly still, staring back at him.
No way Dean was in any shape to take that on right now. He turned in another direction and ran.
A few feet away, he nearly barreled into two more figures standing ahead of him, watching him. He changed direction—until he saw someone else and had to turn in another direction again.
He sprinted as fast as he could away from them, feeling as if something would jump out of a tree at any second and grab him.
He ran and ran and then—all of a sudden, he emerged from the trees.
Grass was beneath him. Ahead of him, there was a rolling valley for as far as he could see in the darkness. The mountain on the other side was a black pit against the sky. Dean slowed his speed and turned around, watching the forest, running backward until he put enough space between himself and the tree line to stop.
Dean kept his eyes on the trees for another long second. He didn’t see anything moving around inside.
Belatedly, he realized he couldn’t hear the screaming and whispers anymore.
Trying to catch his breath, Dean spun around again and took another look at the valley before him. Mist was hovering over it, but there wasn’t anything walking around. Everything was still. All he heard past his own heartbeat was the chirping of crickets.
It was a lot chillier in the valley, too. Dean shivered as the sweat lining him cooled.
A twig snapped behind him. Dean whipped around again, his fists already held up in guard.
Benny was rushing out of the trees. His clothes were dirty, the bottom of his pants wet with mud up to his shins. There was bramble sticking in his hair and beard. He stopped momentarily when he caught sight of Dean.
“Dean?” he said like he couldn’t believe it. He hustled closer.
Dean dropped his guard and tried to relax. “Benny. You scared the shit outta me.”
“Really?” Benny asked, glancing warily over his shoulder at the forest. “’Cause the shit was already scared outta me.”
Dean sniffed in a deep breath, his eyes searching the tree line for anyone else. “You see the others?”
Benny exhaled heavily, still catching his breath. He shook his head somberly. “Not since the ruins.”
Dean’s attention snapped back to him. “What happened at the ruins?”
“We all ran off in different directions. Don’t you remember?”
Dean shook his head. “I wasn’t there.”
Benny gaped. “You weren’t?” Off another shake of Dean’s head, Benny leaned back in remorse and said, “I’m sorry, brother. Thought you were. It all happened so fast.”
Dean got it. They were freaked. They probably weren’t keeping tabs on anyone, let alone a guy they met a few hours ago. “Yeah, it’s alright.”
“Hang on,” Benny said. “If you weren’t with us, where were you?”
Dean paused, wondering what to say. He didn’t know if he should tell Benny that Cas tied him up and left him there—at least not until he knew why Cas did it.
He opened his mouth, trying to come up with something to say. It turned out, he didn’t have to. Two more people broke out of the trees. Both Dean and Benny looked over, both on high alert.
Charlie and Jo came to a stumbling halt. They looked a lot worse for wear, with their hair sticking up in every direction. Charlie’s flannel was ripped on the sleeve, and Dean could see a cut on her shoulder beneath it. Jo had hair-thin scraps all up and down her legs.
Charlie’s eyes widened, her moon-like face even more pale than usual. “Guys?” She sprinted forward and practically tackled Dean into a hug. Dean had to stumble back to catch his balance so they didn’t topple over. He wrapped his arms around her tightly, glad she was safe.
Jo walked up to them at a slower pace, her arms hanging at her sides. “What the hell just happened?” she breathed out, sounding exhausted.
Meanwhile, Charlie let Dean go and straightened out her Star Trek undershirt.
Benny muttered, “Good question.”
Dean had a better question: “You guys seen Cas?”
Both of them shook their heads. Dean withered, fearful Cas was still somewhere lost in the forest. If he didn’t come out soon, Dean would go back in there and find him. He didn’t leave his people for dead like that.
From their left, someone called, “Guys? That you up there?”
Dean looked over, seeing two shadows coming closer, walking a good distance from the tree line. He squinted, trying to see who it was.
Benny must have recognized the voice. He lifted up his palm and called back, “Over here, Victor.”
Soon, Dean was able to make out their silhouettes in the lowlight. One must have been Victor, and the other—Dean knew the shape of that outline. The two got closer, confirming it.
Cas.
Dean didn’t know whether or not to be relieved or start throwing punches.
Cas’ gaze landed on Dean. He stopped short, his eyes going wide with shock and mouth parting. He looked at Dean with something like horror in his expression—and yeah, Dean wanted to punch him.
Victor kept walking until he reached them, saying, “Aren’t you all a sight for sore eyes? I just found him about a minute ago.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate Cas. Dean’s eyes moved to Victor, then back to Cas, who was joining the group. His expression was mostly neutral again, but he kept his eyes downcast like he didn’t want to accidentally look at Dean again.
Dean bristled, but he stowed it for now. There were bigger fish.
“Everyone okay?” Victor asked.
Benny and Jo nodded, muttering, “Yeah.”
“No!” Charlie exclaimed. She flung her arm out to the forest. “There were—things in there!”
“We saw people in the forest,” Jo explained. “We couldn’t see their faces. It was too dark.”
Dean remembered the eerie figures standing among the trees. He said, “Yeah, me too.”
“Same here,” Benny said.
Victor nodded, silently conveying he shared the experience. He seemed pretty calm and cool, despite what they’d all just been through. He half-swiveled around and gestured behind him. “Okay, I saw some lights a little bit that way. Figure there must be a town.”
“A town?” Cas said, finally breaking his silence. His voice was gritty and groggy, like how he sounded in the morning before his first cup of coffee. He was looking at Victor like he was crazy. “There isn’t any town around here.”
Victor only shrugged. “Dunno what to tell you. I saw something. We should go there, see if anybody knows what’s going on.”
Dean nodded quickly, agreeing, and that seemed to be the consensus among everyone else—except Cas, who still looked dubious.
Before they could start moving, Benny stopped them: “Hang on a second. Anybody seen Garth?”
For the first time, Dean realized they were one man short. Everyone glanced around, staring at each other, searching.
“Fuck,” Jo hissed.
Dean swiveled in the direction of the trees. “Garth?” he shouted. His voice echoed across the valley.
“Garth?” Victor joined in, but there was no answer.
“Are we gonna have to go back in and look for him?” Charlie asked, dread lining her voice.
“Not yet,” Cas said. “We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. If there really is a town, it’s possible Garth saw the lights, too, and went there. He could be waiting for us. If he isn’t, there may be people there who can help us find him instead of wandering around ourselves.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Charlie said. “Good thinking, Cas.”
Dean’s eyes had been burning into the side of Cas’ face the entire time he’d been talking. Through his teeth, he echoed, “Yeah, good thinking, Cas.”
Cas’ eyes flashed to him, and he gave Dean a weary look—like he hadn’t just tied Dean up in the woods and knocked him out while something was attacking them. His expression shifted again when he turned back to the others. “Victor, lead the way.”
They all followed Victor back in the direction he’d come from, each of them keeping a safe distance from the trees. Every now and again, Dean’s eyes flashed warily to the woods, expecting to find something there, watching them. They remained still and quiet.
Dean tried to make sense of what had just happened, but he came up short. He didn’t know what to think. If the screams and shadow figures and whispers weren’t enough, most alarming was the fact that he thought he’d heard his dad’s voice—but that was impossible. He must have been even more strung out than he’d thought.
Trying not to dwell on that, he turned his attention to Cas walking a few paces in front of him, on the way he moved in the darkness and the thin mist with every step. The way his shoulders shifted and tightened, like he knew Dean was watching him.
Dean didn’t know what to make of Cas, either.
Five minutes later, they spotted the lights Victor had seen. “Told ya,” Victor said to Cas. In another few minutes, they’d reached the town.
As it turned out, those lights were gas-powered streetlamps. Flames flickered in them behind the glass. They lined worn cobblestone streets, which echoed softly under their footsteps. The fog collected around the lights and made the houses behind it look a little fuzzy.
All the houses up and down the block were wooden and sat on small, fenced in yards. The pungent scent of livestock wafted into Dean’s nose. He noticed pig pens on some of the properties, chicken coops on others. What he didn’t see were any cars in the driveways. He hadn’t even seen a road leading into town.
There were no powerlines or even phone lines, either, which was weird. A place this remote would need landlines and internet cables hooked up to the outsides of the houses.
“What is this place?” he heard Jo ask.
They came to an intersection, the mist spreading out in all four ways. Dean couldn’t see very far in any direction.
A light bobbed through the mist up ahead. The glow of it was faint and hazy until it got closer. A man holding a lantern was approaching them.
“Who’s up there?” he called as he came into focus through the fog.
He was wearing a brown bowler hat and a brown, pinstriped blazer over a white collared shirt. There was a paisley pattern on his tie. He also had a salt and pepper beard over a thin face, but Dean was mostly focused on the old-timey clothes.
“Oh, thank God!” Charlie said, bounding toward him. “You have to help us! We were attacked in the woods. Our friend might still be out there! Have you seen him?”
The man held up his free hand as if trying to settle her. He lowered both arms, letting the lantern hang at his side. “Slow down. What happened?” he asked while Dean and the others got closer to him.
“There a police station we can go to?” Benny asked instead of answering the question.
“That’s me,” the man said, opening up his blazer to show the tin star pinned on his vest. “I’m the town marshal.”
“Town marshal?” Dean echoed, at a loss for any other words. This was all too crazy.
“Ishim,” the man said.
“Ishim. Is that your name?” Jo asked, tone curt.
Ishim nodded before looking over all of them again, seeming to take in the state of them. He said, “Come to my office and we’ll talk. It’s just back this way.” He turned and started walking again—and Dean was pretty sick of all this walking. He was running on fumes. He felt like he would probably collapse if adrenaline wasn’t keeping him upright. Now that he wasn’t totally panicking, his headache was back, too.
The marshal’s office was another wooden structure, smaller than the rest. When they got inside, there was a woman there, also dressed strangely in a long, button down dress that went all the way up her neck. Ishim told her, “Benjamin, we may have a situation. Get Raphael.”
The deputy, Benjamin, nodded once and promptly left without a word. Dean looked around, watching her go with confusion written on his face. Benjamin was a weird name for a chick, but he wasn’t one to judge. Besides, that didn’t even make the top five list of weird shit that had happened tonight.
Even with one less person, the office was still a tight squeeze. The marshal rounded his wooden desk and sat down. Cas, Charlie, and Jo sat at the wooden chairs on the other side of the desk. Victor found another one along the wall and pulled it up behind Jo. Benny leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. As for Dean, he found a place on the window ledge. He leaned his back against the cool glass, and he was just happy to be off his aching ankles.
“Start from the beginning,” Ishim said.
At once, Charlie, Jo, and Victor began talking over each other.
Ishim held up his hand, silencing them. “One at a time.”
Everyone was quiet then, waiting for someone else to talk. When it became apparent no one would, Dean opened his mouth, figuring somebody had to do it.
Cas beat him to the punch: “We were hiking the Appalachian Trail and took a small detour to the ruins at the top of the mountain—”
“The old temple ruins?” Ishim confirmed.
Cas nodded. “We made camp not far from them. Some time in the middle of the night, we were awoken by… To be frank, I’m not sure what it was. Something attacked us. It shook our tents like it was trying to get inside.”
“An animal?” Ishim asked.
Cas shook his head. “No. I… We heard screaming. There were whispers. Some of us saw people in the forest.”
“Can you describe these people?”
“We didn’t get a good look at their faces. It was too dark.”
Ishim hummed. Then, “What happened then?”
“I thought it would be safer if we got off the mountain. I told the others to run,” Cas explained, and Dean narrowed his eyes at the back of his head. He remembered what Cas had said before he left the tent. Something about Dean being safer there. And now he was saying they hadn’t been safe at camp?
It didn’t make a lick of sense.
“We lost each other as we came down the mountain,” Cas was saying. “One of us may still be in the forest. If he isn’t here…” Cas shook his head mournfully down at his lap, but there was something in the line of his shoulders. Dean couldn’t place it. “I’m afraid he might be hurt.”
“Look, is it possible it was people from the town playing a prank?” Victor cut in.
Ishim sat back in his chair, not taking a second to mull it over. He shook his head immediately. “No. We keep to ourselves. We don’t get many outsiders.”
“You’re telling me,” Jo grumbled, probably thinking the same things Dean was.
The clothes, the streetlamps, the cobblestones, the town marshal? It all looked like something out of a 1800s period drama. Dean felt like he’d just stepped out of a time machine.
“Where are we?” Charlie asked.
Ishim said, “Nahaliel.”
Dean frowned. “That’s the name of the town? Kinda a mouthful.”
“It means Valley of God,” Ishim told him, shooting Dean a hostile look. Dean didn’t really care what the name meant!
Suddenly, the door swung open again. Dean jolted, at the end of his rope. He wasn’t the only one, because everyone whipped around, too.
Benjamin came back inside, two other people in tow. First was a slender guy who, even though it was the middle of the night, was dressed in a three-piece suit with a collarless shirt held together by a diamond stickpin. His shoulders were held back, making him look taller and more imposing than he actually was. Behind him, there was a stern-looking woman in a white blouse tucked into a long skirt. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun. An antique carved ivory cameo brooch was pinned to her collar.
Ishim stood up and said, “This is Raphael. He’s Nahaliel’s acting leader.”
Leader. Not mayor or governor. Leader.
Acting leader, actually. Dean didn’t know if it was worth it to ask what happened to their regular one. He really didn’t give a shit, anyway, considering how many other things were going on. Either way, these people were weird as hell.
Dean figured they must be Mennonite or something. That was the only explanation he could come up with.
“Raphael, these people were camping near the ruins on the mountain. They said something attacked them. One of them is still missing.”
“I see,” Raphael said. His tone was deep and dark, baritone. It shook inside the hollow of Dean’s bones. He spoke with absolutely no inflection at all. “Your friend?” He stood to the side of Ishim’s desk and gave them all the once-over. Dean felt himself tense when the guy’s eyes briefly passed over him. Like Raphael’s voice, his expression was unyielding and emotionless.
“Their friend,” Cas corrected. “They were on a tour. I’m their guide.” He said the last part sullenly, like he was blaming himself for what happened. For losing Garth. Dean’s heart tugged before he remembered he was mad at Cas.
Recovering, Cas looked up at Raphael again and said, “My name is Castiel.”
“Castiel,” Raphael repeated. “You were the guide for all…” He inspected everyone else again, like he was counting them. “Six of them?”
Dean’s forehead wrinkled. It was kind of a weird thing to say. Maybe the guy was just trying to figure out if everyone else was accounted for.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cas pull his shoulders back. “Yes. Including Garth.”
“The one who is missing?”
Cas nodded. “We thought, maybe, he saw the lights of your town and came here but…” He paused, and Dean could practically hear the cogs in his head turning. When he spoke again, he asked, “This town. How long have you been here?”
“A long time,” Raphael answered. “We were founded centuries ago.”
“That’s impossible. I’ve been this way hundreds of times. I’ve never seen this place.”
Dean tensed his fists on his lap, because Garth was still out there and they were getting off topic.
“Yet, here we are,” Raphael said.
“But—” Cas started.
Dean cut him off, “Who the hell cares?” He stood up, ready to go back into the damn woods and find Garth himself if he had to. “We’re wasting time standing around here with our dicks in our hands. Meanwhile, Garth’s still out there with who the hell knows what!”
“We will find your friend,” Raphael told him, slow and measured, and maybe Dean was just freaked out and overreacting, but this didn’t feel like the usual removed, calm public service guy attitude found in cops taking witness statements. Raphael was starting to piss him off.
Finally, Raphael turned to Ishim and said, “Form a search party and begin looking immediately.”
Ishim nodded, seeming ready to hop to it.
“Great!” Dean bit out. “I’m coming, too.”
“Me, too,” Victor said, his chair legs scraping on the wooden floor as he got up. Benny leaned off the wall.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve all been through an ordeal,” the woman who’d walked in with Raphael finally spoke. Everyone in the room turned to her. “You should rest. Let us handle the search.”
Dean told her, “Look, lady—”
“Naomi.”
“Right. Naomi,” he said, trying not to lose his patience. “I don’t think any of us are gonna rest very well until we find Garth. He’s our buddy.”
“And our people know these woods,” Naomi returned pleasantly. “There’s no sense in another one of you getting lost out there. Our marshal will find your friend quicker without you. In the meantime, there’s space for each of you at the inn. I’ll take you there. It isn’t far.”
Dean was still wary, even though the reasoning made sense. He looked at the others, trying to gauge what they were thinking. All of them shared uncertain looks with one another.
Cas sighed and relented, “Yes. Thank you.”
“Excellent. If you’ll follow me.”
Maybe all of them were just too bone-tired to do anything but go with the flow, but they all followed Naomi out of the marshal’s office. Together, they started down the street.
Ahead of him, Charlie and Jo had their arms around each other as they spoke in soft voices. Victor and Benny were looking around at their surroundings. Cas kept his head down, his shoulders tucked up to his ears.
Dean figured now was as good a time as any.
He rushed to Cas’ side and demanded, “You wanna tell me what the fuck all that was about at camp?”
Cas looked at him, expression drawn but eyes deep wells of emotion. “Dean, I promise, I’ll explain everything later.”
No way. Not good enough.
Dean stopped walking abruptly and grabbed Cas’ arm, manhandling him around. “Yeah, how ‘bout you explain now?”
Cas’ gaze roamed Dean’s face. His mouth was open, like he’d start talking at any second, but he never did. Dean didn’t know if he was searching for an excuse or what, but his patience was running out.
Cas inhaled. “Dean—”
“Please keep up! The mist is thick tonight. We wouldn’t want you losing your way,” Naomi called from up ahead, pausing to look back at them. The others did, too, all of them blinking Dean and Cas’ way.
Slight embarrassment uncurled in Dean’s gut. He looked back at Cas, whose face was shored up into a neutral mask again. Cas dipped his chin down and started walking after the others.
Dean flapped his arms against his sides in defeat and stomped after him.
When they reached it, the inn looked like any other house on the block. Wooden, old as hell. Naomi knocked on the door, and a few seconds later, a woman with wavy dark hair answered. She had a shawl on, covering her cotton nightgown. Her eyes moved over the people standing on her porch.
“Hannah, these people were attacked in the woods. Their friend is still missing,” Naomi explained. “They need somewhere to stay for the night.”
“That’s awful,” Hannah gasped. She opened the door wider and gestured them all inside. “Please, come in.”
Dean followed the others into the cramped entranceway. Once inside, he peered around at the rooms illuminated by candlelight. To the left, there was a sitting room with a fireplace and antique-looking furniture. To the left, there was a big kitchen with an iron wood burning stove, a dining table, and a beaten up butcher block with the points of about a dozen knives stuck standing up in the wood.
Naomi remained outside. She said, “I’ll leave you now. You’re in good hands with Hannah. She’s an excellent host.” She closed the door behind Dean.
Hannah picked up a candle in a brass holder, her thumb slipping into the loop. The orange light played across her face.
“Sorry, but we don’t have any money,” Charlie told her. “We kinda… left all our stuff on the mountain.”
Hannah offered her a gentle, sympathetic look. “Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t dream of charging you after what you’ve all been through.”
“That right?” Benny asked, voice a little wary of the kindness.
Hannah smiled at him. “Our Lord says to be kind to strangers, for they might be angels in disguise.”
Dean was a little too tired for bible study.
“Do any of you want anything to eat? Maybe some tea?” Hannah offered.
If you’d asked Dean a few hours ago, he would have eaten a four course meal. Now, his appetite was totally gone despite how hollow he felt inside. “Thanks, but I think we’re all just beat,” he answered, trying not to sound short, though probably failing.
Hannah took it in stride. She turned around and picked up the bottom of her nightgown so it didn’t trail on the floor. “Follow me. I’ll take you to your rooms.”
She led them down the hall to a closed-in, claustrophobic stairwell. The ancient floorboards cried and screamed under so many footsteps. All they had was the soft orange glow of Hannah’s candle spreading across the planked walls to light their way.
As they went, she said, “You’ll have to excuse the dust. It’s been a long time since the rooms have been used. We don’t get many outsiders here.”
Jo turned around, sharing a look with Dean, the two of them on the same wavelength.
The second level was nothing more than a barren, really narrow hallway with peeling wallpaper. Dean’s shoulders practically brushed both walls on either side when he faced forward. There weren’t any decorations, mirrors, or pictures hanging between the four doors.
Hannah opened the first door and turned to touch Charlie’s shoulder. “This can be yours.”
Jo shouldered her way to the front of the line, making Cas, Victor, and Benny squeeze against the wall to let her pass. She said, “Me and Charlie can share.”
“I’m sorry, but that isn’t possible,” Hannah told her, and Dean’s hackles went up, about to demand why. “The beds are small. They won’t comfortably fit two people. But don’t worry, there are plenty of rooms. In fact…” She opened the door directly across the hall and said, “This one can be yours so the two of you will be close.”
Dean guessed that ruled out him and Cas bunking together—which, honestly? Was fine by him. He needed time to think about what had happened. But, on second thought, that would give Cas time to come up with an excuse.
Maybe Dean would barge into his room after everyone was asleep and demand answers.
Meanwhile, Charlie and Jo shared an unsure look, but eventually Jo slumped to the other room.
“The matchbooks for the candles are in the top drawer of the dressers,” Hannah said.
“Err, right,” Charlie answered. “Matchbooks. Candles. Got it. Thanks.”
Hannah kept smiling, like she didn’t see anything weird about zero electricity. “And the bathroom is at the end of this hall. You may want to freshen up. There’s soap available, with a special lavender bar set aside for the ladies’ hair.” Hannah turned to Jo and reached for her hair. Jo tried to jerk away weakly, but it didn’t stop Hannah from twirling a strand of dirt-caked blonde in one finger. “Yours is so pretty.”
“Um,” Jo said, still trying to subtly back away. Her eyes flashed to Charlie for help, but Charlie only gaped. “Thanks.” When Hannah released her, Jo flipped her hair over her shoulder and out of reach.
“The linen closet is upstairs, if you need more blankets or towels,” Hannah continued, “Or you can ask me, and I’ll be happy to provide you with anything you need. My room is on the first floor at the back of the house. Feel free to knock on my door at any time.”
Hannah put Victor in the last bedroom on that level, across from the bathroom. Next, she took Dean, Cas, and Benny up a ship-ladder style flight of stairs to the third level, which must have been an attic at some point. The ceiling of the hallway was vaulted, and the window at the end of the hall was round.
There was the narrow linen closet door, as promised, and two more bedrooms. Hannah put Benny in the first one. Dean and Cas trailed after her to the last one.
She opened the door, revealing the austere room inside that looked like all the others. A twin bed with a metal frame pushed into one corner and a wooden dresser with a dusty mirror against the other wall. This place definitely wasn’t getting many stars on Hotels.com, that was for sure.
“This will be your room, sir,” Hannah told Dean, holding up her palm to gesture Dean inside.
“Uh. Thanks,” Dean said. He had to duck his head under the top of the doorframe to shuffle into the room. The floorboards creaked under him.
Once inside, he turned around—and it hit him that there weren’t any rooms left.
“What about Cas?” he asked. His eyes strayed over Hannah’s shoulder, where Cas was hovering. One side of his face was basked in the candle light. The other was in shadow.
Cas stared back at Dean with that same weary but blank expression, not even blinking. It made Dean’s skin crawl.
Hannah lifted her brows like she’d only just realized they were a room short herself. She looked at Cas and said, “Well… There’s a spare room in the carriage house at the back of the property. You’ll be comfortable there.”
Dean had the urge to speak up, to stop that from happening. He didn’t know if it was because Cas was giving him the heebie jeebies right now or if he just didn’t want to be in this weird place without his boyfriend nearby, safe, with him, but he didn’t want Cas sleeping in a whole other building.
He bit his tongue—because what the hell else was he supposed to do?
Maybe Cas would say something?
Dean didn’t know why, but he thought Cas not saying something would be the final straw.
Cas broke their staring contest to look at Hannah. He gave her a thin, polite smile and said, “Thank you.”
Dean simmered with annoyance. He glared at Cas.
“I’ll show you the way,” Hannah said. She wrapped her hand around Dean’s door and looked at him, said, “Goodnight.” As she slowly closed the door, the hinges whined.
Dean kept his eyes on Cas. Something in the back of his head prickled, telling him not to trust him.
Cas stared back. His eyes were black against the light of the flickering flame.
That was the last thing Dean saw before the door closed fully and the latch clicked.
///
Dawn was encroaching. It painted the sky crimson as its light stretched toward the purple zenith, like blood over a bruise. The mist that hung over the town had barely abated, even as summer’s heat drew ever closer.
The dewy grass crunched beneath Castiel’s boots, leaving shallow footprints behind him, as he followed Benjamin toward the tree line.
Not long ago, the deputy had knocked on Castiel’s door and informed him the marshal was looking for him. That there was news. Since then, anticipation and bone-deep fear arrested Castiel. Hope mixed fretfully in with it all. But he didn’t ask any questions. He’d been summoned for a purpose, and he assumed he’d find the answers to the questions that plagued him very soon.
Ahead, the forest was still cast in shadow. The mountain stretched up toward the sky, a beast that eclipsed dawn’s breaking. Castiel kept walking, a few steps behind the deputy. They went into the trees.
It wasn’t long before they came upon a small group of people hovering around one area at the bottom of a steep slope. Castiel spotted Ishim standing atop one of the larger boulders there. He noticed Raphael there, too, his back turned to Castiel as he spoke to one of the men next to him.
As Castiel got closer, a few people looked up, noting his arrival. Silently, they moved out of the way, parting like the Red Sea for Moses. Castiel caught Ishim’s eyes briefly before heading toward Raphael.
As he did, he heard Raphael saying, “He wasn’t the strongest of them.” The man he was speaking to nodded and walked away, leaving Raphael standing alone.
The crowd thinned—enough to reveal what they were all looking at.
Garth’s body was among the rocks. His lanky limbs were bent at awkward angles, one of his arms tucked behind him. A boot had fallen off and had rolled a little farther down the slope. Blood and dirt were on his ashen face and tangled in his hair. Most of it was dried on the side of his temple, where he’d hit against one of the rocks. His eyes stared blankly upward at the canopy of leaves.
Castiel froze at Raphael’s side. The air tripped out of his lungs, taking with it all the hope he’d foolishly harbored.
Garth was dead. All Castiel could think about was what this meant for Dean.
Someone approached Castiel’s other side, and his attention had been so fixed to the body, he didn’t realize who was there until Ishim spoke. “We found him about an hour ago. He must have slipped down the hill and bashed his head.”
Castiel could gather that much. He felt a hissing curse trying to form on his lips, but he bit it back.
Instead, he said, “I’ll… have to tell the others.”
“Tell them nothing yet,” Raphael said, finally deigning to turn his head to look at Castiel. Castiel frowned and looked back at him. Raphael’s eyes bore into him, his gaze cold and distant, as if he wasn’t really seeing Castiel at all. “As far as they’re concerned, the search for their missing friend continues.”
Raphael turned his face back to the body, regarding it something akin to disgust and apathy. Then, he nodded to Ishim, who gestured a few men over, including Benjamin. The deputy and two others lifted Garth’s body up and started carrying him away. Castiel watched as the corpse’s knuckles dragged on the dirt.
“This death of little consequence,” Raphael said. “There are five of them now. That’s all we need.”
Castiel hardened his jaw, his fists forming at his sides as he tried to keep contempt from crashing into him. His eyes slipped closed haplessly.
When there had been six of them, there had still been hope that Raphael would let one of them go. Would let Dean go.
Now, those hopes were dashed. Brutally, bloodily.
Raphael turned around, getting ready to depart. “Excellent work, Castiel, as always.” He paused, placed his hand on Castiel’s shoulder. His touch wasn’t warm in the slightest. Castiel made sure his face was carefully blank before looking into his Elder Brother’s eyes.
Raphael said, “Welcome home, brother.”