American Noise

26. Moriah

In the basement of the bunker, Jack was standing amid the rubble of the exploded Ma'lak Box. The emergency lights were glowing and smoke swirled around. Jack was in shadow in the middle of it all, his eyes glowing red. An alarm was blaring.

"You lied to me," Jack said.

"Jack," Castiel called.

Jack yelled, "You lied!"

Jack threw out his arms and a concussion blast threw Sam, Dean and Castiel across the room, crashing into the shelves at the back of the room. The alarm continued to blare.

"No! -No!" the boys grunted, looking around the room to find that Jack had disappeared.

"I don't understand," Castiel said. "The Ma'lak box can hold an archangel."

"Jack's not an archangel," Sam reminded them.

"Yeah, apparently, the kid leveled up," Dean told them.

"So, what do we do?" Castiel wondered.

"We find him."

"How?"

"I don't know, Cas. You tell me."

"Okay, the last time we found Jack, it wa — it was by praying to him, but that's not gonna happen again," Sam said.

"Yeah, you think?"

"You should never have tried to lock him away."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "You know what? You're right. I never wanted to put him in that damn box. I wanted him dead."

"Dean."

"He's dangerous, Cas, and you knew it! You've known it for a long time! But that's okay. You know why? Because me and Sam, we've killed just about everything there is. And this -- Jack -- oh, we'll find a way. Because he's just another monster."

"You don't mean that."

"The hell I don't."

Dean and Castiel stared each other down for a moment. Then, Castiel stormed out of the room.

"All right. So, I guess we got to find Jack," Dean decided.

"Yeah. Then what?" Sam asked.

"I don't know. Maybe we call Rowena, see if she can put together one of those, um, "soul bombs.""

"The... thing you were gonna use against the Darkness?"

"Yeah, might actually put a dent in the kid."

Sam looked troubled and replied quietly, "Okay."

"Sam, I know this isn't easy, okay? He -- I know how much he and Jayci meant to you. He meant a lot to me. He was family. But this? This is not Jack anymore. He's hurting, he's killing people. This isn't gonna be easy, but we're gonna have to do the hard thing. We're gonna have to do the ugly thing."

Sam sighed.

"Ain't like it's the first time, though, right? I suspect Jayci went with him. She was mad at us and it only makes sense."

---

Jack and Jayci, who had joined him, were walking down a city street. Several people were having conversations as he passed.

A man was on the phone with a woman on his arm. "No, honey, it's not like that. She's just a friend from work."

A second man was sitting on a bench talking with a woman. "You should've seen it. I caught a steelhead this big. I mean it."

"We went up to the cabin..." woman one said.

"Oh, my God. She's such a bitch," woman two complained.

Man three was sitting at a café table with another man. "Baby, it's not you. It's me."