Escaping Hell

Shattered

Ruby teleports me to the front door of Bobby's house. I turn to thank her for bringing me here, but she's gone before I can say anything. Rude.

Knocking on the door, I holler, "Hey Bobby! It's me, Lucy!"

Bobby opens the door a few moments after, and as I step inside, he asks, "It's been a long time. Where are your brothers?"

"Do you wanna sit down for me to explain everything? It will take a while," I sigh. He nods, and so I tell him everything. I tell him about the fake John, about Ruby possessing me to save my life, about my one-week death, and about how I can't help save Cas because Lucifer is after me.

Bobby is silent for a moment after I finish my story, and then he says, "Sounds like you're in a huge, steaming pile of sh-"

"Bobby," I sigh, cutting him off.

"Sorry. But still, what are those idjit boys planning on doing to stuff the devil back in his cage?"

"I don't know. The plan right now is to rescue Cas and then get him healed. After that, we'll come up with a plan," I explain.

"Okay, then. Well, if you don't mind, I could use some help salting the windows. Here, take these and line the upstairs," Bobby instructs me, tossing me two canisters of salt. I walk upstairs, lining every window in every room with salt. Unfortunately, I run out of salt before I can finish lining the last two windows.

"Hey Bobby, I ran out of salt," I call as I walk down the stairs. Halfway down the stairs, I hear a door open upstairs. Bobby isn't up there. Racing back up the staircase, I make my way to the unsalted rooms. Before I can get there, however, I come face to face with Lucifer in the hallway.

"Is this real?" I ask.

"That's the problem. You can never tell," Lucifer laughs. I lunge at him, and he disappears before I can hit him. I slam into a wall, and then I turn around.

"Missed me," he taunts.

"Is. This. Real?" I demand.

"You better believe it, kid," Lucifer smirks. He grabs me by my shirt and throws me to the ground.

"Stop!" I scream in agony. When I open my eyes again, the devil is gone. Bobby is just now running up the stairs.

"What happened?" he asks, helping me up.

"Satan was screwing with me again," I breathe heavily, trying to make sense of the real world.

"Come on, you go downstairs while I finish salting the windows up here," Bobby says, giving me a pat on the back as I go.

When I reach the kitchen, I sit down at the two-seated table by the window. I grab Bobby's silver knife - it was laying on the table - and I roll it over in my hands, inspecting it for no reason. It has a pentacle engraved on the blade, and I can see my reflection on the knife. Setting the knife down, I feel around on my back, trying to see if I can still feel where Cas's handprint once was. In a moment of disdain, I find nothing. It must've healed ages ago; I just never bothered to look for it until now.

"Hey, Cas. I don't know if the boys have sprung you out yet or what; just know that I'm still rooting for you. You can make it through this, I promise. Just...don't lose hope," I pray to Castiel. By this point, I don't expect him to reply. He's either still being held captive, or he's too weak right now to respond. Out of desperation, I suspect the latter.

I don't even remember falling asleep. I wake up, still in the chair, and I can feel the crease marks on my face from where I had been laying on my sleeve for so long. It's nearly dusk, and the vibrant colors of the sunset show through the windows. Yawning, I splash a little bit of water from the sink in my face to wake me up. Wiping my face off with a kitchen towel, I walk to one of Bobby's many bookshelves of demonology books. I pick up one called "Satan: Hell's Ruler", and I flip to the index. I go to a section titled "When Lucifer Hunts Men", but nothing useful shows up. Frustrated, I put the book back on the bookshelf. I'm about to go make sure that Bobby's awake when the phone rings. When Bobby doesn't answer after two rings, I pick up the phone myself.