Losing Hope | {BOOK 4}

4| Demon Cure

After cuffing me in the backseat of the Impala and turning the First Blade over to Crowley, Dean started the long drive back to the Bunker. I was quiet, staring out the window.

"You know, I saw what happened back there," Dean spoke finally. "You could have killed that guy, and you didn't. You took mercy on him."

"You call that mercy?" I asked, turning to meet his gaze in the rearview mirror. "Imagine spending your whole life hunting down the girl that knifed your father. When you finally find her... she whips you like a dog. How do you think that feels? That kid's gonna spend his whole life knowing he had his shot and that he couldn't beat me. That ain't mercy. That's the worst thing I could have done to him. And what I'm gonna do to you, Dean... well that ain't gonna be mercy, either."

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Dean entered the dungeon of the Bunker where I was tied up to a chair in the middle of the Devil's Trap, setting a cooler of blood down on the table.

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow at him.

"For what it's worth, I got your blood type."

"Dean, I know you think you're gonna try and fix me, but... did it occur to you that maybe I don't want to be fixed? Just let me go live my life. I won't bother you. What do you care?"

"What do I care?"

Grabbing a flask of holy water, he began to splash it on the ground at my feet, chanting in Latin.

"You think I'm just gonna sit here like Crowley? Getting all weepy while you shoot me up? Well, screw that. I don't want this!"

"Yeah, I pretty much figured that out," Dean glared at me, turning back to the table.

"You don't even know if this is gonna work, do you? You know, I got a hell of a lot more running through me than just demon juice."

"Mark of Cain, got it," he said, not looking at me.

"That's right," I smirked.

He turned, walking toward me holding a syringe of blood.

"Buckle up."

"Dean... you know I hate shots."

"I hate demons."

I flashed my black eyes for a second before he hit me with holy water. I yelled out as my skin sizzled, and he plunged the needle into my arm. He emptied the blood from the syringe and I groaned.

"Look, we got a whole bunch of these to go. You could make it a lot easier for yourself."

I didn't respond, eyes wide as I grunted, already feeling some effects from the blood. Two shots later, I was in more pain than I'd felt in my life.

"For all you know, you could be killing me," I said to Dean.

"Or... you're just messing with me," he pointed out. "Either way, the lore doesn't say anything about exceptions to the cure."

I chuckled at that.

"'The lore'," I echoed. "Hunters. Men of Letters. What a load of crap it all is! Oh, you got nothing?"

"You want me to debate with you?" he looked over at me. "This isn't even the real you I'm talking to."

"Oh, it's the real me alright. The new real me- the me that sees things for what they really are. Winchesters. Do-gooders. Fighting the natural order. Let me tell you something- people like me, we are the natural order. It's the way it was set up."

"People like me still got to do what we can," Dean shot back.

"Don't be so full of yourself, Dean. 'Cause, see, from where I'm sitting... there ain't much of a difference from what I turned into and what you already are."

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"I know what you and Sammy did when you went looking for me. I know how far you went. Crowley told me all about it. So let me ask you... which one of us is really a monster? Hmm? Starting to come back to you now?"

Dean glanced away as he thought about what I was talking about.

"You were trying to get a twenty on Crowley and me from any demon you could snag," I continued. "But Crowley didn't want to be found, and no one showed when you summoned. But you found a way, didn't you, Dean?"

He swallowed hard, turning away guiltily, but I wasn't finished.

"You would have liked to have gotten there before the deal went down, but you didn't really care about poor ol' Lester, did you? Oh, and so you know, I killed Lester myself. And that wife of his married the tattoo guy."

Dean slammed a fist to the table angrily.

"I never meant-"

"Who cares what you meant?!" I yelled. "That line that we thought was so clear between us and the things that we hunted, ain't so clear is it? Wow. You might actually be worse than me! I mean, you took a guy at his lowest, used him, and it cost him his life and his soul. Nice work."

In a fit of rage, Dean came over and plunged another needle into my neck, and I screamed in pain. He tossed the empty syringe back on the table, face contorted in pain and regret.

"Let me ask you this Dean," I gasped, "if this doesn't work, we both know what you got to do to me, right? You got the stomach for that, Dean?!"

Dean slipped out in the hall to make a phone call, and when he came back in, I'd started to black out in the chair. He hurried toward me, slapping me across the face to wake me back up.

"Hey! Hey! ELLIE! Come on! Come back."

"No," I whispered.

"Come back to me," Dean begged. "You there? Hey! Ellie, you okay?"

"Yeah, if you... consider drowning in your own sweat while your blood boils 'okay'."

I coughed weakly as he rose to his feet and moved back over to the table to grab another syringe.

"Look, I can't stop doing this," he told me.

"Sure you can. You just stop! There's no point in trying to bring your wife back now."

"Oh, I will bring her back."

"In fact," I continued, "your, uh... guilt-ridden, weight-of-the-world wife has been MIA for quite some time now. But I'm loving the new model."

"Right," Dean said coolly.

"You notice I tried to get as far away from you as possible? And Sammy? And the brats we call kids? I chose the King of Hell over you! Maybe I was just... tired of dealing with your crap. Of always getting roped into cleaning up your messes since..." I laughed, "forever. Or maybe... maybe it was the fact that if it hadn't been for you, I would still be living a content life running my father's shop. That you showing up dragged all the life out of my life!"

"This isn't my wife talking."

"You never had a wife! Just some girl who was stupid enough to fall for you. Well guess what: I quit."

"No," he shook his head. "No, you don't. You don't get to quit. We don't quit in this family! This family is all we have ever had!"

"Well, then, we got nothin'."

"Would you say that to Sam? Or our kids?"

"Our kids," I scoffed. "Those brats were a mistake. They should have never been born."

Turning away, Dean prepared the next syringe, walking over and emptying the purified blood into my arm and leaving me alone, gasping in pain behind him.