Ketch Me if You Can

Chapter 14

I paced back and forth in front of the map table. I was going to put a rut on the floor if I wasn't careful. But it had already been three weeks since Elly had been taken, and I was getting desperate. I wouldn't let myself fall into alcoholism or drugs like Dean tended to. And I wasn't going to bury myself in hunt after hunt like Sam did. No, I was looking everywhere I could think of. Turning over every stone and looking in every dark crevice. Cael had never come back so I'd figured he'd ditched as soon as he'd left the bunker, I'd have to deal with that another day. Right now, I was waiting for Cas to return, hoping that he had good news this time.

"Anything?" I bombarded him with as he appeared in the room. I briskly walked up to him and took fistfuls of his jacket, "Tell me you found something. Anything."

Cas shook his head and I fell against him. "You need to sleep." He said, placing a hand on my back, "You're going to make yourself sick if you don't." Cas took my weight and helped me to a seat at the map table. "I have some news, though it's not what you were looking for."

I hung my head in my hands, barely watching the angel as he moved to Dean. My brother had stayed up with, or at least had tried to. Now he was asleep, head lying on the table.

"What's the point Cas?" I said, "You didn't find her."

Cas gingerly touched Dean's shoulder and shook him a little, waking Dean from whatever dream he'd been in.

"Did you find her?" My brother asked when he was fully conscious.

Cas again, shook his head. "No."

"But he has different news." I sighed.

"And it's not good." Cas looked between Dean and I, making sure he had our attention, "Lucifer escaped sometime last night."

"What?!" Dean and I said together.

Dean was quicker to his feet than I was. "Great!" He yelled, "That's exactly what we needed to add to our plates!"

"Dean...you'll wake Sam," I mumbled. But he was right to be angry. The damn archangel had been a thorn in our side for years now, ever since he'd come looking for his perfect vessel, and it had taken all we'd had to get him locked up again. To know he was free, again, was frustrating, to say the least.

"Too late.." Sam said with a yawn, entering from the hallway, "Do you know how he got out? I thought we made sure the angel warding was going to be enough this time?"

Cas shrugged. "The demons weren't sure. And the angels are in such hysterics, they won't be much help anytime soon."

I groaned, "Great. That's just fucking amazing." I laid my head on the cool table, "Anyone heard anything from Crowley?"

When no response came I sighed again. I kept my head on the table, now closing my eyes, only to open them when Sam placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. His hazel eyes held worry, and I knew it was more for me than anything else right now. I had been a wreck since Elly had gone missing. I had barely slept, barely eaten, and hadn't been on a hunt since I'd gotten home. The only thing I wanted to do was find her and bring her home. Nothing else mattered.

"Have you heard anything from Ketch or Cael?" Dean asked, sitting down again.

"Nope." I made a popping sound at the end of the word, "Ketch is doing what he can with the limited contacts he still has. And Cael went MIA."

The room was silent for a long moment. I could feel the tension thick in the air and it was going to drive me mad. We had been nowhere close to finding Elly. Every lead we had ended in a knot. Any demon we'd caught had no information to give, they didn't even seem to know why Asmodeus would want Elly in the first place. So we'd given up on asking them. And now we add an escaped Lucifer to that and we have a giant steaming pile of dog shit to dig through. I had even lost hope in Cael again. I thought maybe I'd finally gotten through to him a little, but now that he hadn't returned with or without Elly, I wasn't sure.