The Short Second Life of Mil Winchester - Book 2

Mannequin 3: The Reckoning

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MANNEQUIN 3: THE RECKONING

Sam was unresponsive, twitching on the floor. His eyes were open, but unseeing. I swear I could see hellfire flickering inside his paua eyes.

"Sammy, talk to me!" Dean cried, dropping to his knees next to our brother. He shook Sam's chest, pleading, voice cracking with emotion. "Sam? Sam. S-Sam?"

Our brother was dying.

"Sammy?" I demanded, watching my brother convulse on the floor. I could feel the fear a vice-like grip on my heart. "Oh, come on. Sammy!"

"Come on, come on," Dean muttered, shaking Sammy more forcefully. He'd stopped twitching now, laying motionless on the carpet. "Come on, damn it." I saw Dean check Sam's pulse, and watched his shoulders slump in resignation.

No! No, please. No! "Sam!" I heard my voice crack.

And then, as if in response, Sam's eyes shot open. The flickering hellfire was unmistakeable this time. Sam groaned. Dean sighed in relief, rocking back on his heels and staring back at me. Finally, I could let out my breath. Sam was alive.

"Hey, hey, hey, you with me?" Dean muttered, helping Sam to sit up. Sammy groaned again, taking deep breaths. "Come on," Dean urged, pulling his little brother up off the floor. "Come on, got to get you out of here."

Sam grunted.

Thankfully, we'd already been on our way out before the whole ordeal, so in under five minutes we were out the door, Dean and I hauling the practically dead weight Sammy between us. We drove, well, Dean did, out of town... until he found a food truck selling on the side of the street.

"Anybody feel like some food?" Dean asked, parking the Impala on the roadside. He was mostly talking to me, since Sam was nursing what looked to be a crashing migraine, and wasn't communicating more than a few grunts.

"Yeah, sure, food. Great, whatever," I muttered absent-mindedly. I didn't really care - I wasn't hungry, but I suppose I could eat if Dean was getting food anyway. My eyes were locked on Sam, watching him closely in concern. He'd collapsed, and I knew without questioning that it was Hell - exactly what both Castiel and Death had warned me about. Somehow, he was still alive, but a ticking time bomb waiting to go off again at any moment. As Dean shot me a look through the open window, shrugged, and headed to the trailer in front of us to buy his food - I turned to Sam.

"Hate to say I told you so," I said. The idjit.

"Oh shut up," Sam grumbled, rubbing his temples between his fingers.

"So, Hell, huh?" I prompted, hoping by some sheer miracle Sam felt like like talking.

He simply nodded, exhaling sharply and staring skyward out the window. Suffer in silence, Sam? Great. Not that I could say much.

"How do you feel?" I asked kindly.

Sam grunted in response. "Like I got hit by a... planet." He dropped his head into his palms with a pained groan. I leaned forward, squeezing his shoulder hard. Pain had helped me get back into reality, maybe it could help him too.

"Well, lucky for you, I'm a doctor," Dean said, arriving back with his head through the window. "I got joe, grub, and..." he held up a container from his pocket. When he shook it I could hear pills rattling inside.

"What are they?" Sam asked.

"Effective," Dean responded simply. Uh... I hope he knew what they really were, and I hope they were just tylenol or aspirin.