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The entire trip to the cabin Erin and Sam had bad feelings about the trap they felt they were walking into but when they arrived and got out to scan the area with EMF meters they found nothing. Erin quirked her eyebrow at Chet and Sam while Sam shook his head.
“Nothing.”
“Ditto.”
“Yeah, that feeling I had is even gone,” Erin said as they checked their weapons before they headed toward the front door of the cabin while Chet looked around back.
The siblings walked quietly up the oak stairs to the porch with a nod for Chet as he stood guard. Erin tapped on the door as Sam eyed the area. The porch held a swing as well as a barbecue grill all looked relatively new.
Both of them were surprised when Alec answered the door with a huge smile but he looked as though he had not expected them.
“Christo,” Erin bellowed.
Sam jumped back in case the expected demon came pouring out of his cousin. Alec only blinked. Ben came in the kitchen from the bathroom a moment later.
“I’m sorry my son was raised in a barn, come in you guys,” Ben said as he sat heavily in the chair.
Sam motioned for Chet to stay where he was for a bit.
“But…” Erin began.
“I will try to explain,” Ben said before Alec sound down across from him.
“I have been waiting too, he wanted to wait until you all arrived.
Alec/demon had gone from ranting about how they were going to kill the Winchesters and teach the world not to mess with them.
“Suddenly there was a noise outside and the thing came out of Alex and that black smoke swirled then was gone ”
“What?” Erin asked.
Sam jumped up out of the chair and almost knocked over the table.
“Damn it, this is not good.”
Meanwhile, Dean heard a noise outside the house while he sat in the living room. He thought it might be a car going by but it stopped in their yard. He couldn’t see the drive from the living room so he went to the kitchen to check. He almost swallowed his tongue when he saw who it was.
“Daddy, who is it?” Amber asked as she came in the room to see what was happening.
“Um, never mind, go in the room with Mommy and the boys okay?”
“But Daddy, I want to see,” she pouted.
Dean raised an eyebrow at her, she was four and rarely listened, he dreaded her teen years.
“Amber, go please, and shut the door when you get in there, now,” he insisted in his fatherly tone.
“Okay,” she said as she stomped off to the room.
Dean waited until he heard the sound of the door shut before he went down stairs with the shot gun in hand.
He opened the back door with a frown on his face. The tall man stood on the other side of the screen as though he belonged there.
“How can I help you Milton?”
“Can you come out here please I just wanted to give you some news, I’m just being neighborly,” Milton said with a smile.
Dean did a check of the outside a bit slowly just by using his eyes. He didn’t see anyone else, he felt confident Milton was alone. Milton scooted back so Dean could come out as he began to open the screen door. Though Dean carried the gun with him as he was not certain how much he could trust the man. He had already warned Milton more than once to stay away from Ari and Amber but he had also insisted that he had no business at their home either.
They walked together out into the open area, it encompassed the parking spots as well as the front part of the barn, garage and storage. Basically it was one very large graveled location. Dean held the gun at his side while Milton leaned against his truck.
“What’s up?”
“Well I heard in town there were some men looking for you.”
Dean shook his head as he hoped it didn’t show how much his heart pounded. Oh God not now.
“Who? What?”
“Well they didn’t say who they were but they were asking over at the bank I was behind them in line, and the teller thought I was close with your family so she told me the gossip.”
“Oh, did she tell you why they were asking about us?”
“Nope just that they were. She told them she didn’t know you as a favor to me since she believes you know…”
“They we are your friends? Well thanks for that, um could you have done that over the phone?”
Milton leaned up from his truck and almost in Dean’s face.
“I can’t call your house,” he said as his smile fell.
Dean took a step back from the man, “I appreciate your good will,” he replied as he turned to go back inside.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t beat Milton to a pulp he just wasn’t in the mood to bother, he had a feeling the time would come and that he would have good reason to do it.
“Not a problem, neighbor,” Milton said as he got in his truck to leave.
Dean stood with his back to the screen door until Milton was gone. Afterward he started to check the perimeter to make sure the lines where in tack and saw that Milton’s truck had opened up a big gap in the outmost line. There was an additional salt line around the house but he figured better safe than sorry.
Dean hurried to get the salt from the barn to repair it, once that was done he looked for other problems. Ari watched Dean from the window as she wondered why Milton had come to their house. Braeden began to cry as soon as she turned from the window so she picked him up to change his wet diaper and when Dean came in the room she had begun to feed him his meal. Dean told her what Milton had relayed to him and he face scrunched up with worry.
“I think we’re fine according to him the teller didn’t tell them anything, I just don’t know why anyone would go to the bank to ask about us. Unless they were FBI or something. It sounds strange, maybe he only wanted to come by here to see if I was in town. You haven’t talked to him, right?”
She shook her head as she saw the worry lines crease his normally calm features.
“No I haven’t, I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Dean nodded before he headed into the shower. Ari had begun to regret buying the horses from the moment Milton had begun to act as though it gave him a right to intrude in their lives. She smiled grimly as she watched Braeden devour his dinner, how could an innocent purchase cause so much trouble?
All was calm until there was a bamming on the room door and the sound of footsteps could be heard before Amber’s voice which sounded muffled came from the other side of the door.
“MoMMY,” Amber screamed.
“Amber?,” Ari asked hesitantly as she got up to put the baby in his crib as she went to the door hesitantly. Her heart was racing as she wondered what was going on.
“DEAN!!” she shouted when she saw that the hallway and Amber’s room was empty, she didn’t notice the sulfur in her anguish to find her little girl. The little girls bed was over turned and her door open. The time it took Ari to understand something was very wrong was long enough for the dark shadows to grab her and be gone. Dean came out of the bathroom having been under the shower when Ari screamed.
“Ari?” he said as he heard Braeden’s cry which woke up John Michael.
Dean ignored the babie’s cries when he realized that Ari was not in the room or outside the door.
“Ari?” he yelled again.
He had the gun with the consecrated iron rounds in his hands as he went room to room searching.
“Amber?”
He scrunched up his face as he tried to think of what was going on. Then it hit him again that Milton had come to visit for another reason then what he had told him.
“Sh*t, I fell for the good neighbor thing.”
He stepped back into the room just as his cell phone rang.
“Sam?” he said aloud as he heard the name in his head.
He shook his head, What?
“Hello?” he said as he looked in the cribs to see his twins were also missing now.
He thought his heart stopped as he dropped the cell phone before he looked under the blankets for the boys. God no, please not this No No No...
“Dean what is going on?” Sam said in Dean’s head.
“Sam what is wrong with Dean?” Erin asked Sam.
Dean held onto the side of the crib only for a moment before he went into a rage.
“DON”T BE A COWARD YOU SON OF A BITCH, TAKING WOMEN AND CHILDREN Doesn’t SHOW me ANYTHING,” he screamed.
“Oh No,” Sam said into the cell and in his head.
“Stop it,”Dean shouted in his mind.
“Dean listen, we are on the way back, this was a ….”
“No Sh*t, a trap to get me alone with my family.”
Dean’s heart was not holding up well under the new stress. He leaned heavily on the edge of the crib as the tears came. He didn’t stop them. The thing he most had wanted to avoid, had happened. He let go of the crib to sit down on the bed. He could smell Ari’s perfume and he hoped she could forgive him for putting her in danger. God let them be okay. Dean’s head was down when a white figure engulfed him and he disappeared.
***
A day later, Sam and Erin arrived at the house and knew something was wrong. All the way back they had tried to communicate with Dean but it had not happened.
“I wonder why we were able to connect up over a distance that one time but not later,” Sam said as they got out of the car.
“Maybe it’s for emergencies only that we can do that,” Erin said as she bit her lip.
Sam reached in the window to wake up Chet who had slept most of the way back. They walked in the back door calling Dean’s name but with no reply. Sam checked all the rooms and there was no note.
“They got him too,” Erin said as she sat down at the table.
Sam refused to give in as he rushed downstairs to check it out. Chet sighed as he stood in the middle of the room.
“So Sam is the link here? They want to create a scenario where he will do their bidding?”
Erin nodded.
“That sucks, the poor kid has lost enough,” Chet said as he sat down too.
“Anything?” Erin asked.
Sam shook his head his mind raced a mile a minute then there was a noise under his feet. He looked down before he reached to grab the salt gun he had brought in the house with him. Erin followed as they raced down the stairs.
“I was just down here,” he said as she slowed up once they were half way down.
Collectively they held there breath. Sam touched the knob to open the door to the downstairs apartment slowly. They weren’t prepared for what the found.
Mary watched from the corner of the room as her two young children looked down at the body of the eldest. Dean lie crumpled on the floor of the room his hand to his chest.
“DEAN!” Sam yelled.
As Erin rushed to her brother’s side. She checked his pulse as she tried to stay calm. He was breathing but it was shallow.
“Sam, hey Sam. He is alive but we need to call for an ambulance. Quickly Sam.”
Sam couldn’t take his eyes from Dean as he dialed 911. Mary held her breath. She had orbed Dean from the Demon’s grasp because her children needed to be together to get the Demon and Dean’s family back. But the strain on Dean’s heart from the stress and the orbing may have been too much for him. She bit her lip as the siblings gently moved their brother to the sofa.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have moved him,” Sam said as he looked at Erin.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know his heart seem off, I’m no doctor but I did take a few nurses classes before I decided I couldn’t stand the sight of blood. You said he had heart issues and this does not look good.”
“Oh Dean you can’t die know, just when I am getting to know. Stay strong for your family for all of us,” Erin thought.
Sam looked up at Erin. He can’t die I’m the one he is always trying to save if anyone is going to die it has to be me.
Dean could hear their thoughts but he couldn’t think straight. He felt locked inside his own head. He wanted to be able to tell them he would be okay but the thought would not form and he could not talk. It was like he was not in his body any longer.
Mary leaned her head against his cheek, her tears fell on his face but they were not visible to the others. She touched his head then his heart.
“Mom?” Dean thought.
“I’m sorry for all of this, but you will be okay,” she said before she kissed his cheek before she faded away.
“Mom, don’t go.”
Mary gave him a great gift when she gave her all to repair the link that connected her three children, it was the last time she would be able to walk the earth. But, she knew with them reunited they would get the thing that killed her. Some day they would all be together as a family on the other side of the veil.
“Dean?” Sam thought.
“Sammy I saw mom but she is gone now.”
“She was here?” Erin asked.
Sam and Erin turned to see Dean was sitting up on the sofa with a determination on his face. The sound of the ambulance in the distance could be heard but it wouldn’t be needed.
“Hey, you two, we have work to do,” he said.
TBC