“I have no idea how you’re gonna run EMF in a hospital,” Izzy said quietly, chewing her lower lip in thought. “With all the interference, you won’t find much in the way of clues.”
“Cold spots?” Jesse asked. He had half a sandwich in hand but wasn’t really eating it. The diner had piled their plates high with food, but as good as it looked, it just wasn’t on his mind. Claire’s either, although her coffee mug certainly had a lot of her attention; she was on her fourth cup in the last twenty minutes, but it didn’t look like it was helping any.
“Thing had the look like it wanted to be seen,” she said, stirring a pack of natural sugar into the brew. “It just had that feel.”
Izzy chewed her lips thoughtfully. “Doesn’t really sound like a normal ghost. Maybe it’s a death omen?” Her hands twisted around the mug, soaking up the heat.
Jesse straightened immediately, looking at Claire, then back at Izzy. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Claire just kept staring at her mug. The words ‘it crossed my mind’ kept getting stuck in her throat, because then that would be admitting the idea that a death omen had just shown itself to her--around Ben, which meant either one of them could’ve been on the Reaper list.
“My gut says no.” That was all she could offer, punctuating the statement with a drink of hot coffee.
Quietly eating in the corner up until that moment, Jed nodded. “Go with your gut, then. You been around long enough to know.”
Izzy frowned a little. “Have you checked the morgue yet? If it died in the hospital, it’s possible the body’s on ice downstairs.”
Claire nodded, bracing herself on the table with bent elbows and looking up at Izzy. “S’a good idea.”
After a moment, Jesse said, “Why would it be one of them and not the others?”
Claire tiredly half-shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. Lots of people die violent deaths, but not all of them stick around.”
Izzy’s frown deepened. “Problem is, the staff knows the both of you now. It’ll be difficult gettin’ down there.” Her hand slid to Jed’s knee under the table as she turned to look at him. “Up for the challenge?”
The blond Texan quirked a smile at her. “Not much of a challenge, but sure. Always good to work on a job ‘round the home base.”
Jesse opened his mouth to say that wouldn’t be necessary, but quickly thought better of it. Claire, feeling some semblance of relief, offered them both a tired, genuine smile. It cooled a little when a waitress sided up to the table, checking on the status of everyone’s coffee.
“Can I get a to-go box?”
The smell of her untouched fries seemed to saturate the elevator on the way up to the ICU after she and Jesse said their goodbyes to Jed and Izzy. Claire’s stomach was reminding her that she hadn’t eaten nearly enough, and it’d been long enough that ignoring her hunger wasn’t an option. She popped open the foam tray and popped a fry in her mouth; her movements more autopilot than anything. With a small smile, Jesse stole a fry as the door opened.
“There’s nothing on this floor that could cause those kind of burns.”
It was obvious that the nurse had pitched his voice low, but it carried farther than he probably realized. Jesse and Claire couldn’t hear the response of the doctor he was talking to, but the nurse was clear enough:
“It had to have been an open flame. Security’s looking over the tapes now. Whoever did it last night is a sadistic bastard, and a fucking coward for attacking coma patients of all people.”
Claire watched the two continue on down the hallway past the elevator, feeling the blood rush from her face after catching the last ominous bit.
“Tell me you heard that,” she uttered, almost choking on her fry.
“Yeah,” Jesse breathed before taking off at a walk that was closer to a run straight for Ben’s room. Claire was right on his heels, almost chucking the leftover food on the table when they arrived.
He didn’t look any different; there were no new machines, no bandages. Claire picked up the cardboard clip at the end of his bed and flipped through it, also finding nothing new. The flare of panic in her eyes melted away, leaving her looking and feeling a lot more tired.
“He’s alright?” Jesse said, taking Ben’s hand and looking between the two of them. “Nothing different?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” she breathed, hanging up the chart and looking down at Ben. She leaned on the side of the bed, pushing her hand back over his hair. “We need to find out what that nurse was talking about, though.” Jed had said listen to her gut--and that is what her gut was telling her. She couldn’t let this go.
“I’ll do that,” Jesse said quickly, his lips pursed. “You stay here with him.”
Tracing back his steps, Jesse easily caught up with the nurse in another coma patient’s room. He went with his usual route.
“Hey there.”
The nurse looked up in surprise, a frown creasing his forehead. “Sir, you’re not supposed to be here,” he said, his voice somewhere between polite and agitated. “There are buzzers in each of the rooms if you require assistance--”
“Oh no, I’m supposed to be here,” Jesse reassured him firmly, but with a smile. “I heard there was something wrong with some of the coma patients. Tell me about it.”
The nurse blinked slowly at him, his eyes glazing over before he smiled faintly at him. “What d’you wanna know?”
His expression turning more serious, Jesse said, “I heard they were attacked. What happened?”
The nurse shrugged slightly. “Dunno. That’s what’s got the attending doctors in a tizzy, yeah? No way they could’ve been burned unless exposed to fire.”
“So you’re saying someone came in here, and burned them? How badly? Can I see one?” Jesse said in rapid succession.
The nurse blinked at him, confusion registering on his face, before he started walking out of the room. “They’re checking the cameras now. It’s second degree deep partials. That kind of exposure would only work if someone stuck a brand on someone.”
Jesse followed at his side. “A brand? How would someone get that kind of thing into the hospital.”
“Won’t know until we look over the footage.” They approached a room not too far down the hall and the nurse opened the sliding door, leading them through it. On the bed was a young woman, maybe fourteen years old at best. The nurse walked up to the bed, pulling her sheet back. The skin around her feet had blistered brown and shriveled back, the flesh beneath bright pink. Jesse recoiled, swallowing hard.
“Holy shit,” he breathed.
“It’s like someone lit her on fire and held her there,” the nurse said in a daze. “But we would have noticed. Alarms would have gone off; someone would have seen it. There’s two others like this.”
Clenching his fists, Jesse nodded. “Thanks for your help, mate. You take care of them.” As he headed from the room, his expression tightened. They were going to have to make this ghost pay.
***
“Do you love her?”
Ben watched as the sounds beneath the car suddenly stopped. Everything felt like it was moving faster than it ought to; he could hear the words before they were actually said, whispered echoes that made his pulse feel like it was pumping faster and harder. On the opposite side of the car and leaning against the far wall was his doppelganger; Ben could senses him there and see the shape of him, but he hadn’t made eye contact with him for at least twenty memories now.
“It’s complicated, Ben.”
“Don’t give me that crap,” he heard himself say, his hands going to Dean’s ankles and yanking. Dean’s body rolled forward, his face revealed and his expression unreadable. Or at least, it had been to his twelve-year-old self. At twenty-five, Ben recognized it: conflict.
“It doesn’t have to be complicated. You’re making it complicated.”
“Ben--”
“Do you have any idea what it was like before you showed up?”
Dean was silent, staring up at him from the ground. Ben felt his nerves skyrocket. He’d never felt so bold in his life until that moment, looking down at a man who normally towered over him and made him feel so small.
“Nobody ever lived with us before you, Dean.”
Something in Dean’s eyes changed, but he stayed silent. Ben felt his insides squirm.
“I know,” the older man said at last.
***
It was still dark out when something in the back of Claire’s mind started to drag her out of deep sleep. She and Jesse had passed out around midnight, scrunched up in the loveseat opposite Ben’s bed. Izzy and Jed’s trip down to the morgue had been fruitless, and most of the rest of the day had been spent looking for more leads on the Burned Thing that she was sure had been behind the attacks.
Her eyes opened, though they were still glossed over with sleep. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she pushed off of Jesse’s chest and turned her face toward the hallway. People were running. Someone was wailing. She watched the scene with a detached, almost drugged curiosity, slowly becoming aware of the warmth spreading through her bones, bringing with it another wave of extreme fatigue. She willed her feet to move, but they didn’t obey. Seconds later all her fuzzy resolve had melted away.
With a deep breath that felt heavy and acrid as smoke, Claire laid her head back down and closed her eyes.
The next thing she knew, she was being shaken awake. Jesse jerked awake also, his arms instinctively tightening around Claire. He looked up with blurry eyes into the concerned face of the nurse he’d talked with before.
“Wha’s happenin’?” he croaked out.
“Did you see anyone in here just now?” he asked in a rushed voice, his eyes wide. Claire worked to sit up and breathe at the same time. Her eyes darted around the nurse to the room, then back, shaking her head.
“Just--just us.”
The nurse pulled back and moved to Ben’s bedside. His sheets had already been pulled back, and his feet were exposed; the skin was deeply blistered and peeling, just like the teenaged girl Jesse had seen earlier. Claire’s eyes went wide, and all the air pushed out of her lungs. Immediately she was up on her feet, every scrap of energy and panic aimed directly at the nurse.
“How did this happen?!” she was on the edge of shouting, everything they had learned in the last day just wasn’t making it to her thought process.
Grabbing the back of her shirt, Jesse yanked her back into his arms, holding fast. “Easy, easy. It’s not his fault,” Jesse soothed. Then, quieter, “The ghost.”
“We don’t know, miss,” the nurse tried to explain, his voice strained for all that he was speaking calmly. “The police are here and are going to be interviewing everyone in this wing.”
Claire barely heard him, her spine rigid against Jesse and her eyes locked on the seared parts of Ben’s feet. Flashes of her dream from the last night strobed through her thoughts; people running, someone screaming. She looked out the room windows into the hallway, where the activity level was well beyond the normal walk and murmur of a typical ICU.
Jesse followed her gaze, then looked back at the nurse. “Who else has this happened to?”
The nurse’s jaw tightened. “We have confidentiality rules, sir; I can’t tell you. Please excuse me.” He immediately moved to the sliding door, opening it and moving through it before rushing down the hall. The moment he was gone Claire broke for Ben’s side, frantically checking the rest of him before getting close, brushing back his hair and examining his face. It still looked just like he was sleeping, as it had been for two days. The stress and worry were mixing toxically in her stomach, sour with a bit of the anger she almost vented on the nurse. Jesse stayed back, collapsing onto the loveseat and running his hands through his hair.
“Shouldn’t have fallen asleep,” he said towards the floor.
Exhausted inside and out, Claire pressed her brow against Ben’s and muttered something against his cheek. She stroked his hair and kissed his temple before straightening with a sniff, turning to snatch her bag from the nearby tray. Whatever ambiguous feelings she had about a hunt in the middle of dealing with his coma were now undeniable. She had the look of a tidal wave in her eyes, and headed for the door.
“I’ll be right back--getting something out of the car.”
****
Jesse sat on the end of Ben’s bed, watching as Claire lined every entrance with salt-tape. He opened his mouth when she went for the door but thought better of it. They needed to keep Ben safe, and Jesse wasn’t about to leave the room anyway.
Just as Claire finished up, he saw a couple of cops outside the glass, headed their way.
“Looks like we got a Q & A coming at us,” he said with a sigh, getting to his feet. Like they really needed to waste time on telling the police they’d been sleeping. Claire glanced up, then pinched the tape down to the door’s corner and stuck the roll in her pocket, right as the two officers crossed the threshold. It was the woman who spoke first, her eyes falling on Claire:
“Hello, I’m Officer Fisher, and this is my partner Officer Hamill. You’re Miss Greene?”
Claire didn’t bother hiding the stress in her eyes. She folded her arms mildly across her chest, settling in the chair across from Ben’s bed. “That’s me.”
Hamill took out a notepad from his pocket and flipped it open before starting to jot down notes. Fisher’s eyes moved to Jesse.
“And your name is?”
Jesse stuck his hands in his pockets, sliding automatically into a sulk. “Jesse,” he answered shortly.
Her eyes narrowed. “Your full name, please.”
“It’s Greene,” Claire injected, and not all that warmly. Call her a little on the aggressively defensive side, but she didn’t like the look or the tone. “He’s my step-brother.”
Hamill frowned, but remained silent as his partner continued on with the questioning.
“According to the hospital’s records, you’ve been here since 3:38pm yesterday afternoon, is that correct?” Claire nodded, dropping her hands to her lap.
“I came in a half-hour later, since you’ll probably ask,” Jesse piped up, his tone too helpful to be sincere.
Fisher pressed her lips in a thin line before she said, “Outside of the one-hour break yesterday evening, have either of you left the hospital?”
“No, we haven’t left,” Claire answered. She leaned back against the chair corner, and propped her head with steepled fingers. It was just about going through the motions with them, since she knew nothing would come of any investigation run by the local cops. Claire was just waiting for them to leave so she and Jesse could get back to work.
Hamill finally spoke up, looking between the two of them. “Have either of you noticed anything out of the ordinary about the staff? Strange behavior, that sort of thing?”
“Aside from them freaking out that coma patients are being attacked, no.” Jesse grinned at them. “But I guess that’s why you’re here.”
Fisher exchanged a look with Hamill, then looked at Jesse. “Have either of you experienced any sudden drops in temperature in the room?”
“What?” Claire blurted automatically, looking up from Ben to the two cops. Thankfully, she’d seen the same reaction in people when she was interviewing incognito, but it was that same familiarity to the question that snapped her to attention. Suddenly, she was looking at their uniforms a lot closer.
“Cold spots, miss,” Hamill clarified.
“Or seen any of the lights flickering,” Fisher added, her voice even.
Any smirking remaining dropped from Jesse’s face. He looked at Claire, wide-eyed and speechless. She caught the look and returned it with one that was much more subtle; simply the slightest turn to her head--the ghost of a head-shake. They were thinking the same thing; hopefully he’d get her cue to keep as low-key as possible.
“Fisher and Hamill, was it?” Claire said, looking to both of them without answering the question--yet. “They do that on purpose at the station? Put you two together?”
Fisher’s lips twitched, but it was Hamill who spoke: “Joke of the century, miss. Now please answer the question.”
“Yeah--both, actually,” she started. Her eyes lingered on the face of the man, then his partner slowly after, purposefully keeping the hard line of eye-contact. “And I doubt you’re looking for problems with the A/C or faulty wiring.”
Fisher’s brows arched, while Hamill’s eyes grew slightly wider. After a moment’s pause, Hamill turned and slid the sliding glass door shut. It was only upon looking down that he seemed to notice the salt-tape.
“Well there’s something y’don’t see every day.”
“Leave it there,” Claire warned, her voice flat. Not that she thought the two unknown hunters would cross that particular line, but she wasn’t leaving any wiggle room. Not with Ben involved.
“We didn’t know there was anyone else on this case,” Fisher said, sounding apologetic. Claire just rolled her lips together and shook her head, looking for the millionth time on Ben’s peaceful face.
“Yeah, well--it kinda found us.”
“We got it, though,” Jesse said firmly. “Got a couple local hunters helping us on it, too, so this case is plenty covered.”
Fisher pulled out a card from the depths of her front pocket and passed it to Claire, her brown eyes softer with unspoken sympathy.
“If you need any help at all, here’s my number. I’m Kate, by the way. And this is my brother Danny.”
Danny waved awkwardly and flashed a surprisingly boyish smile.
“We’ll get outta your hair, then,” he said. Claire nodded, loosening up just a little as well. It was good not to have to deal with the police at this point in time. Except one thing did cross her mind.
“I do have one question,” she said in earnest, sitting up straight in the chair. “How’d you hear about this thing?”
“Came up on the radio,” Danny said, pulling off his hat to scratch the back of his neck. “A few of the coma patients’ve died.”
“We’ve got a friend on the police force here, so we got an in through him,” Kate added. “He and his partner are working at the other end of the hall.”
“Died?” Jesse blurted. “When?”
“‘Bout an hour ago,” Kate answered. Her eyes moved to Ben’s bed, then switched between Jesse and Claire. “Is he with you?”
“Yes,” she answered hollowly. Claire’s stomach was digesting itself.
“Were they the ones attacked yesterday?” Jesse said, not looking at Claire or Ben’s unconscious form. Kate nodded solemnly.
“And the three of them have no connection that we’re aware of,” Danny supplied. “But we’ll pass on any information we get from our friend.”
Feeling like he was boiling up inside, Jesse gave a curt shake of his head. “We got this on our own.”
Kate frowned a little. “We’ll back off the case, no problem, but the least we could do is throw you a bone with the info from our cop friend. It’s one less thing you’ll have to hunt down, y’know?”
“We don’t need help,” Jesse snapped. Claire sent him a look. She understood his frustration, the stress that was tying her own muscles in knots was written clear in his eyes, but acting out only called more attention to their situation. That was the last thing she wanted.
“It’s been a long week,” she added to the others with a forced imploring look. “We’ll keep in touch, thanks.” Though gentle, there was finality to her words.
Kate and Danny exchanged looks, but Kate finally nodded again as Danny put his hat back on.
“Good luck,” he said his voice sincere.
“You too,” Claire returned, watching them leave. Her eyes then slid to Jesse, then onto Ben, where they lingered for a long, uneven breath.
“It’s not gonna happen to him,” Jesse said fiercely. “He’s gonna be fine.”
Something in Claire’s eyes wavered, like water, but they didn’t fall away from the man in the hospital bed. She said nothing, but the lines of her throat tensed in a thick swallow. She fished her phone out from her pocket, searched through the contacts, and called Izzy.
“Iz--” she said, having to clear her throat to make her voice work properly. “We got a bigger problem.”
****
Ben paced the floor of his room, having left three messages on Dean’s phone in six hours. It was pushing on two in the morning, and he halfway through a second message.
“I know you’re on a hunt,” he babbled thoughtlessly. “And I know mom’s cool with you bein’ gone, but--”
An incoming call beeped midway through his sentence, and Ben pulled the phone back. Dean’s name and number appeared on the Incoming Call screen. He beeped over.
”What is it? Are you all right?”
Ben immediately felt a rush of remembered shame. Dean’s voice sounded gritty, like he’d just woken up. His eyes rose to find his doppelganger standing ahead of him, but he quickly averted his eyes again.
“Yeah. I-- I’m fine.”
”Why the hell are you awake? It’s--” There was a pause, and Ben knew that Dean was looking for a clock to see just how late it was. ”2 am. You have class tomorrow--”
“What happens if something comes after us when you’re gone?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone, then the distant sound of a door opening and closing.
”Ben...”
“You wouldn’t let me learn how to use a gun,” Ben blurted.
”Your mom has a gun. I don’t want you usin’ a gun, d’you understand? We talked about this.”
“But what if--”
”Stop.”
Ben closed his mouth, feeling a shudder work its way under his skin. Dean sighed on the other end of the line.
”Listen to me. You know all the things to ward the house. You’ll be safe so long as you keep your cool, okay?”
“But--”
”And,” Dean interrupted, ”If anything ever happens, and the wards don’t hold or--.... Or something happens to your mom, I want you to go to Lawrence, Kansas.”
“Lawrence?”
”There’s a woman who lives there. Her name’s Missouri Mosley.”
Ben scrambled to get to his desk to write everything down. “What about Bobby?”
”Bobby’s been out on the field a lot more these days. He might not always be there, but Missouri’s still in Lawrence s’far as I know. She’ll know how to find me.”
“How?” Ben pressed. Dean laughed quietly.
”Just trust me, okay?”
Ben fell silent again, sitting down slowly in his desk chair and staring out the window.
”You gonna be okay?” Dean asked. Ben nodded even though Dean couldn’t see him.
“Yeah,” he said at last. “Just... come back soon. Please.”
”Soon as this case is over, I’ll come back for a few days. I promise.”
****
They had researched for going on ten hours straight with no breaks, but Izzy and Jed finally found the potential death resulting in the body of their ghost: Camilla Groff. She had been listed as one of the people brought into Shady Grove Advenist Hospital as an injury, when in fact she had been living in the apartment complex in a coma. Her parents had moved her from the hospital and hired a private nurse so that she could be cared for in their home. According to the file, she had been comatose for nearly two years from a horseback riding accident. All the pieces fit; now they just had to find the body. There were over 150 cemeteries in the Shady Grove area.
It was times like these that Izzy was so incredibly thankful for modern technology, as it only took ten minutes to type her name into a gravesite locator website, and that was because there were three C. Groff’s listed in the database.
Now it was just a matter of digging up the grave and keeping an eye out for the caretaker.
“Y’go ahead and call her. I’ll unload the truck,” Izzy said.
“Generally goes the other way around, but I’ll give you this one since you don’t get out much,” Jed said, giving her a grin as she threw a playful punch at his shoulder while trotting off before dialing Claire’s number.
”Tell me something good,” came Claire’s greeting on the other end of the line.
“We’re gonna start digging right now,” he said, pride in his voice despite the grim situation. “You two hanging in there alright?”
Back in Ben’s hospital room, Claire looked over at Jesse from her place by the window. It was late; the halls were quiet, though not as much as they would be had three patients not suddenly died on watch. She sighed, and rubbed at her eye with the heel of her palm. “As expected, I guess.”
“Don’t worry, darlin’,” Jed said quietly. “We’ll get this squared away and he’ll be fine in no time.”
“Means a lot, Jed,” she replied honestly. “Shoot me a text when it’s done.”
Claire pushed the phone back in her pocket and checked the tape on the window, making sure it remained unbroken with the pad of her thumb.
Jesse sat on the chair by the bed, tracing the bedspread around Ben’s hand over and over. He was tired, though he didn’t want to admit it. It was like admitting he was a failure. He had to protect Ben; he shouldn’t want to sleep.
“Any luck?” he asked, though he didn’t look at Claire.
“They’re digging now,” she replied, just as tired. Claire sat heavily on the chair on the opposite side, her eyes vaguely focused on the salt lingering on her skin, being rubbed between her fingertips.
Nodding firmly, Jesse finally looked her way. “He’s safe with us. It’ll be done soon.”
He wasn’t safe last night, Claire thought automatically, but folded her lips between her teeth instead of giving it voice. She put her faith in Jesse’s last words, though--that it’d be over soon. Then they could just go back to wondering why the man they loved was gone to the world, and if he would ever come back. Claire closed her eyes, her shoulders deflated with another long breath.
His eyes falling back to the bedspread, Jesse watched his tracing as it started to slow. It was like a lead blanket had been draped over him. He blinked, long and blissful, and was debating just shutting his eyes for a moment when a smell wrinkled his nose. It was something acrid and chemical and unlike anything he’d smelled before. Turning his head, he saw the burnt ghost standing in the doorway.
“Claire!” he shouted, jumping to his feet. His head spun with exhaustion and he grabbed onto the foot of the bed to keep upright.
She wretched a hard look over her shoulder and her stomach sank like a stone. Automatically getting to her feet to put herself between Ben’s bed and that Thing, Claire’s eyes shot to the tape at it’s feet to reassure herself it was still there.
“Wrong room, bitch,” she muttered dangerously. She forcibly ignored the too-warm sluggishness that had started to creep behind her eyes.
Cocking her head to the side, the ghost looked down at the tape. Then one side of it burst into flames.
“Shit!” Jesse raced forward, hitting the fire out with his hands, but it was too late. With a flick of her wrist, the ghost sent him flying into the wall as it strode into the room. Claire checked him with the corner of her eye, but didn’t budge. Her heart hammered against it’s cage of bone and muscle, fueling the frantic grab at the contents spilled from a take-out bag on the side table nearby.
Hurry up Izzy hurry up hurry up--her thought ran on loop as she watched the thing glide forward, locked in it’s hellish gaze. When her fingers found what she was searching for, she tore the paper between them and chucked a small handful of salt right at it.
The ghost gave a shriek of surprise, disappearing in a flicker. Stumbling to his feet, Jesse looked around. Was that it? Had Jed and Izzy done it?
Flaring up right behind Claire, the ghost raised white-hot hands, about to close them around the woman.
“No!” Jesse screamed, too far and too slow to do anything about it.
But then a flame burst from the center of the ghost with a scream. It jerked back, its head rolling as the fire spread, high and red. Claire instinctively jerked back, nearly tripping over the chair in the process as she watched the spirit burn.
When it was over, she just collapsed in the cheap leather substitute and finally breathed. She was dizzy from what could’ve been fumes, or the thing’s influence as it faded. Whatever the reason, the room needed to stop spinning. A second later, her phone started to buzz.
“You two have impeccable timing,” she said into the phone after answering it. Her tone was colorless.
Swallowing hard, Jesse’s eyes went from her to Ben. He hurried to the bed, grabbing Ben’s shoulder. “Ben?” he said, searching the other man’s face for so much as a twitch. “Ben, c’mon.”
But Ben remained just as motionless as he had when it all began. Jesse’s face crumpled, but he quickly took a breath, reining it back. Feeling more weighted than ever he straightened, looking over at Claire.
She was just hanging up with Jed and Izzy when she met his eyes, then looked on Ben. She lingered like that in silence as long as she could, before her chin dipped, her head too heavy for her neck. She buried her face in her hands, supported by her knees, and just stayed that way as the rush of footfall down the hallway signaled incoming hospital staff.
****
Regaining his lost memories had filled Ben with mixed emotions. Some of them had been wonderful, others bittersweet.
Nothing had prepared him for his reoccurring nightmare finally taking full length, with color, sound, and sensation. He could feel the bite of the knife his possessed mother held against his neck, the unnatural strength of her body holding him still, the heat of her breath on his ear when she said all the things he knew in his heart to be lies. He had screamed in protest when the demon riding her had stuck the jagged metal pipe into her liver. He knew the exorcism. He could have made a grab for her, held her arms back or her body down while Dean rushed through the words. But just like before, his body refused to bend to his will.
Everything inside him seared with renewed and remembered fear as his mother started to bleed out. It was only Dean’s stinging slap that snapped him out of his shock, and from there the nightmare continued all the way out of the door. His shoulder ached from the kickback of the shotgun, his heart racing as he watched the bodies of the demons collapsing. It knocked them back, but they didn’t stay down. It was only after Sam joined them that they even made it out of the warehouse and to the hospital.
Before he knew it, a man in a trench coat had touched two fingers to his forehead and everything faded to whiteness. He looked down at himself, finding his hands, torso, legs and feet. When he took a step, no sound reached his ears, but he could still see and feel the movement.
“So now what!?” He shouted into the wide, empty space. “It’s over! I’ve got them back now! Why am I here!?”
“I wanted to speak with you one last time, while I had the chance.”
Ben turned swiftly, finding his doppelganger standing just behind him, his stance loose and his hands in his pockets. Ben frowned at him.
“Who are you?”
“I told you--”
“No, dammit. Tell me your name. You’re in my head; I have a right to know.”
His doppelganger’s shoulders straightened.
“My name is Amitiel. I am an angel of the Lord.”
Ben’s hands clenched up at his sides, his lips curling back in a snarl. “Get the hell out of my head!”
“I’m not here to harm you, Ben,” Amitiel said calmly, taking a step closer. Ben recoiled automatically, and the angel sighed.
“I want to help you. That’s all I ever wanted to do.”
“Why?” Ben demanded. “And don’t go sayin’ it’s because it’s God’s will and all that other shit. Castiel said that to my dad too, and I read what happened. All of it was bullshit; God didn’t have anything to do with his orders.”
Amitiel frowned at him. Ben tried not to focus too much on how the angel used his own face to show his displeasure.
“You know as well as I do that a war is brewing,” Amitiel explained. “Sam and Dean Winchester may have averted the last one, but the apocalypse was always meant to happen. Nothing can stop it; it’s the natural progression of things. All that happened as a result of their actions was it being delayed.”
Ben felt dread seeping into his very bones. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Believe it or not,” Amitiel said. “I don’t want your world to end. If Belial is allowed to harness the full power of his army, he will bring that army to the gates of Heaven and millions will cease to be. The war will rage for all eternity, and the only way to keep it from happening is to be constantly vigilant; to cut off the head of the serpent before it strikes.”
“I’ll say it again,” Ben growled out. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you have the ability to stop this new threat.” Amitiel met his eyes with an intense stare. “But you can’t do it without me.”
Ben’s expression darkened. “No.” Amitiel took an unnecessary breath to speak, but Ben cut him off. “I won’t be your Vessel. Forget it.”
“Do you want your friends to die?” Amitiel argued. “Your mother? Your sister?”
“Everyone dies eventually!” Ben shouted.
“But they don’t have to die in agony, Ben,” Amitiel countered. “And they will. Everyone you’ve ever loved, everyone you’ve ever known, will burn.”
In spite of himself, Ben felt a shudder pulse through him.
“Find another fucking puppet to do your bidding. Angels and demons, you’re all alike. What’s it matter if it’s you who kills him or not? There’s gotta be someone higher up on the fucking totem pole than you--”
“There’s plenty,” Amitiel interrupted, his expression growing hard. “But they would just as easily let the war happen.”
Ben fell silent, swallowing around a knot in his throat.
“Don’t you understand?” the angel implored him. “Your Bible was wrong: when the end of days is upon us, that doesn’t mean the ones who are saved are safe.”
It was as though every vein in Ben’s body was flooded with ice.
“But I can save them,” Ben said quietly. “I can find another way. There’s always another way.”
“Any way other than this one will result in pain for you,” Amitiel told him. “It can be over quickly.”
“And then I die,” Ben said in a flat voice. “And it still doesn’t prevent it forever. It’ll still happen again.”
The angel nodded. “That is the life of the martyr, Benjamen Braeden: the death of one, to save the lives of many. It is not a dishonorable death. You will be a hero. In another twenty years, someone else will also have to make the same choice. So long as mankind wants this world to continue spinning, there will be those to help them do so.”
Ben felt an ache in his chest as the full weight of the angel’s words sank into him.
“What must I do?” he whispered.
“Belial is hidden from us,” Amitiel said. “He must be drawn into the open. I’ll be watching you. When you are ready, call unto me, and together we will strike him down.”
Ben closed his eyes, but he couldn’t escape. He was, after all, inside his own head.
“Rest now,” the angel said soothingly. “Be at peace. I’ll be with you again soon.”
****
The first thing Ben noticed as he started to wake was how incredibly uncomfortable he was. It was a slow process, but there was no ignoring the fact that his back ached. It refused to be ignored. His arm also itched like crazy, but when he tried to raise his hand to itch it, there was resistance.
“Ow,” he whined.
Claire half-stirred from her crumpled position on the chair next to his bed, dragged away from an exhausted attempt at sleep by the noise. Her eyes were still glazed by sleep when she opened them, just slits through her lashes that didn’t quite see anything they looked at. Until the noise that woke her up finally registered.
“Oh, God--!” She was on him in a breath, arms curled around his neck and the chair nearly thrown across the room. Her sudden presence was enough to make him wheeze in surprise as he became steadily more aware of everything that was attached to him.
Jesse jerked to his feet from where he’d lain, near dozing. He hadn’t heard Ben, but Claire was hard to miss. For an endless, terrible moment he thought something else had happened to Ben. Then he saw him moving. He rushed over, nearly squashing Claire in the process, his hand running up into Ben’s hair.
“Welcome back, you asshole,” he laughed, his vision swimming.
“There’s a tube in my nose,” Ben said, his good arm coming up to rest a hand on Claire shoulder. His mouth felt like a desert. “How long was I out?”
“Almost three damn days,” Claire said, sniffing before she pulled back from where her face had been buried in his shoulder. The wash of relief was almost strong enough to drown her, and the smile refused to leave her face.
“Freaked us out, mate,” Jesse said, wiping at his eyes but grinning. “You’re not supposed to do that to us.”
“Guess it was my turn,” the younger man mused, his expression unreadable. “Sorry if I scared you.” He pulled at the cannula still lodged in his nose. “Can we call the nurse or something?”
Claire looked like she’d forgotten her own name for a moment, though it was brief. Lack of sleep and the entire last three days and the way they ended--it was enough to blank her brain for a heartbeat before the dazed expression broke into a vivid smile. “Yes--yes!” She planted a quick, but needed kiss to the side of his mouth, then started off the bed. “God, yes--let’s do that.”
Jesse shifted out of the way before taking her place, squeezing Ben’s hand tight. He leaned in for a quick kiss. “You need anything else? I can make it happen.”
“Water’d be nice,” Ben answered, smiling weakly. “I just wanna get outta here. I really hate hospitals.” He started to say something about why they’d brought him there in the first place, but bit it back. They’d been in the pawn shop; it would’ve made sense that an ambulance would have been called. He squeezed Jesse’s hand back, feeling a rush of both pleasure and concern at how much the two of them were nearly tumbling over themselves to help him -- especially Jesse, who had barely even met his eyes back at Izzy’s place.
Quickly pouring a cup from the pitcher he and Claire had been using, Jesse handed it over. “You need help, sitting up?”
“You just want an excuse to put your hands all over me,” Ben said with a breath of a laugh, carefully tipping the glass so he could take a sip.
Jesse laughed but his eyes were unblinking and heated. “You have no idea.”
A flurry of movement suddenly slid passed the hallway window: two nurses in hospital scrubs came trotting in, followed very closely by Claire, whose eyes were still a little on the wild side. They were aimed down at her phone, her thumbs darting across the slide-out board in a text to Izzy and Lucas.
“How are you feeling?” the first asked. Ben squirmed.
“Like I have a catheter.” He said in a monotone, pushing himself up awkwardly before his hand found the button that made the top hospital bed rise a bit more. “Can we see about getting that taken out, please?”
“Sure,” the second nurse said, giving a smile. “Y’know, you’re going to leave this place known as Miracle Boy. First your feet heal, now you wake up sounding fine.”
Claire’s thumbs stopped moving, her eyes up from her phone. First they set on the nurse, then Ben, but very quickly moved to Jesse, a brow raised in silent questioning. Jesse’s eyes widened and he gave a shrug.
Ben blinked, looking between the two of them as he asked the nurse, “What was wrong with my feet?” One nurse looked to the other, who returned the look before turning back to Ben.
“There was some sort of--malfunction with equipment. They’re still looking into it. Really we don’t know exactly what happened, but you weren’t the only one.”
Claire pointedly tried to catch Ben’s eyes. When she did, she mouthed a quick ‘Tell you later’. Ben’s frown deepened, but he fell silent. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have simply been an “equipment malfunction” if they were calling him Miracle Boy.
****
Even after a night of sleep in the nearest hotel, they still hadn’t told him what had happened when he’d been unconscious. Ben felt the itch to ask, but it was merely background frustration to the driving need to leave. While Jesse and Claire slept, his mind had raced on, trying to piece together the overwhelming return of his memories. Already the unimportant ones seemed to be settling in his head, blurring and undefined, but one particular memory stuck out like a blaring neon sign: Lawrence. He had to get to Lawrence. If he could find the woman Dean told him about, maybe... just maybe he’d be able to find him, if for nothing else than to get the Colt. The question was, did he tell them what had happened to him?
Need to know basis, Braeden, he told himself. Get the gun. That’s the only thing that matters.
Because for all that he was willing to submit to Amitiel and let the angel kill the demon that had nearly been the death of his mother and sister -- nevermind the countless other vessels he had captured and warped into slaves -- Ben didn’t want to go. Not if there was another way. He had to try.
However, before they got back on the road, they needed to load up on perishables first. It was going to be a long drive, and hopefully one with few stops. The truck stop just before the highway entrance was just as good as any, and he volunteered to get the groceries while Claire and Jesse dealt with gas and lunch.
Outside by the pumps, Claire handed Jesse two of the three paper bags containing shredded beef tacos and fried chips that made up their lunch for the day. She sighed, squinting into the sun and tucking back her hair for the hundredth time, thanks to the highway wind.
“You know we have to tell him,” she said solemnly. Her hip leaned against the GTO door, a foot away from where it was attached to a metal nozzle. The smell of gasoline was mixing sourly with Mexican food.
Jesse’s expression tightened but he nodded. “I know. Kind of surprised he hasn’t pressed us on it. I’m beginning to think he already knows something, the way he made us get out of there so quickly.” Claire rolled her lips, and nodded.
“Something’s up,” she agreed quietly. What she didn’t say was that the undefined clouds behind Ben’s eyes were congealing in her stomach like a brick. It was going to be a long drive, but she forced herself to hope it could be used to clear the air. Her eyes set on him, quiet for a moment, before she shifted up on the toes of her boots to give him a quick, but hopefully comforting kiss.
“We’ll get it sorted out.” She patted his broad chest, then glanced toward the truck stop main building.
Jesse frowned but nodded. He lightly took her hand in his, eyes seeking hers. “Thanks for not yelling at me about it, as much as I deserved it.”
Something in his words, but especially in his voice and eyes, cut through her deep. Her chest constricted, and she swallowed thickly.
“We all mess up, Jess,” she said, her voice falling quiet and feeling painful. “And we all get scared.” She knew she was. Claire was terrified on a very deep, disturbed level. She didn’t even realize how she was squeezing his hand, a manifestation of how hard she was working to redirect that fear into something useful. Like finding the road that didn’t lead to disaster.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure what to add that would make him feel better. Claire just looked down at the hand that covered hers, and lifted it to brush her lips on his knuckle. “We also love you,” she added, looking up at him once again. “Sometimes that’s all that matters.” She offered him a hopeful smile, seeing the turmoil behind his eyes. She could relate in ways she’d never be able to explain to him.
Claire dropped his hand and backed around the GTO’s hood. “Gonna brave the bathroom--be right back.” It really was going to be a long drive.
Jesse watched her, his stomach turning hard. He dropped the bags into the front seat through the window, no longer anywhere near hungry. He’d known when he did the deal that he was risking himself. Only after what happened to Ben, after talking with Claire, did he realize how much danger he’d foisted on them.
There was a loud clunk, the gas pump letting him know the tank was full. With a sigh, he lifted the nozzle free and turned around to put it back. Except his vision exploded into stars, pain lancing through his temple. He fell to his knees, the world spinning in slow motion, sounds coming at him muffled as though he were underwater. He opened his mouth, trying to find the words, but something slammed into the base of his skull and everything went dark.
This truck stop bathroom was like every other side-of-the-building bathroom Claire had in memory, and smelled of moldy concrete and bleach, as well as the hint of paint fumes from the last time the owners tried to cover the graffiti on the stall doors.
The industrial strength force of the flush echoed too-loud, but at least it drowned out her thoughts for a second or two. Claire’s stomach had been churning over the last three days to the point to where she would be surprised if she didn’t have an ulcer. The smell of the bathroom didn’t help either; as she washed her hands, she looked dubiously at her sacked lunch on the mirror counter, having forgotten to leave it in the car. Maybe she’d eat later, but definitely not sooner.
The door opened just as she was drying her hands and a pretty brunette entered, looking entirely out of place at a rest stop gas station. Her expression twisted up in distaste just at the surrounds.
“On second thought, maybe I should just hold it until I get to Richmond,” she grumbled. The blond glanced her way, lips quirking slightly for her minimal reaction.
The brunette took a few steps closer to her, giving her a polite smile. “I don’t suppose you have any hand sanitizer on you? I’m afraid to even touch the door knob from inside.” Claire looked at the other woman a little more directly, though she didn’t square her shoulders. Friendly, for someone abhorrent to the surroundings, and to a perfect stranger.
“Nope,” she answered, putting an apologetic smirk on her face. She tossed the dispensed paper towel in the trash and angled back to the sink to grab the taco-sack. “Not on me, sorry--”
But then Claire felt a prick against her neck, followed by a distinct, fluid burn. She sucked in a hard breath, her hand shooting to the source of the alarming pain, and her eyes going wide. Two heartbeats was all it took; before she even had a chance to panic, someone turned the volume down on the world, and her vision tunneled.
The vibration of a noise caught in her own throat followed Claire’s suddenly drunken grab for the edge of the sink when the strength in her legs gave out. Before she fell to the floor inhumanly-strong arms circled around her, holding her firmly. A muted chuckle echoed of the bathroom walls.