The End | {BOOK 5}

48| Heart Wrenching Pain

Dean's POV

Ellie was a mess. She put on a front through the hunter's memorial service we had for her mom, but she was well and truly broken. I wasn't doing much better myself, but I was definitely better at hiding it. Maddie and Zep were dead. Jack had killed them. There were no words to describe the pain I was feeling. I hadn't been around when Ellie had originally miscarried Maddie since that was the night I went to Hell. She had experienced that loss without me. This time around, we were both experiencing double the loss.

Nothing can ever prepare you for the pain of losing a child. We'd seen and experienced all sorts of deaths in our lives; family, friends... this was different. After the memorial, I put Ellie to sleep in my bed. I'd begun slowly moving all her stuff back over the days following Emilie, Maddie and Zep's hunter's funeral, for as much her sanity as my own. When I'd made her sign the annulment papers, I hadn't really been thinking about the consequences. Ellie had been pulling away from me; was scared of me after seeing me possessed by Michael.

Now, the loss of Maddie and Zep had forced us back together. That was, I supposed, the only good thing to come out of their deaths. Sam tried to get me to stick around and talk, but I wasn't having that, so instead I went for a drive. I ended up in the woods somewhere, letting the misting rain dampen my skin while I sat on the hood of the Impala and allowed myself to break down. I'd stayed strong in front of the others for Ellie's sake, but here, by myself where no one could see me, that's when I could let the feelings out.

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"Hey. You just getting back?" Sam asked several hours later when I finally returned.

"Yeah," I nodded numbly.

All I wanted was to head to my room and curl up next to Ellie and sleep.

"How you feeling?" Sam asked me.

"What you working on?" I asked, deflecting the question.

"I, uh-" Sam swallowed, eyeing me. "I'm trying to find Jack. We got to find him before Bobby and his crew, 'cause if they find him first-"

"He's gonna kill 'em all?"

Something in me nagged that I should care more, that I shouldn't sound so cold and heartless when I said it, but I ignored that part of me. I honestly couldn't care less if Bobby and the others got themselves killed by Jack for going after him. The kid was out of control and there was no stopping him.

"I don't know," Sam shifted in his seat, staring at me with his sad puppy dog eyes. "You know... I-I can't stop thinking that most people, it's- it's- it's hope and faith, right? That's all they have. But we know the truth. We know God is real. We know angels are real, too."

"God writes paperback books in his underwear, okay?" I bit out tonelessly. "And angels are dicks."

"But they're real, right? We know that Emilie, Maddie and Zep aren't sitting on clouds playing a harp. They're in a good place. Or they're in a great place. Maddie and Zep are with each other."

"Hmm," I nodded. "You know what else? There wasn't enough left of them to even try and bring them back."

Sam flinched, still staring at me with those damn puppy dog eyes. I rolled my own, heading down the hall to my room. I would have slammed the door, but I didn't want to wake Ellie. She already wasn't sleeping great, and even now she was tossing and turning under the covers and whimpering in her sleep. As quietly as I could, I shut the door and made my way over to the bed. Joining her under the covers, I pulled her into my chest and was rewarded by her body relaxing under my touch. She was still whimpering a little and there was an adorable little pout in her brow.

Pressing my lips to her forehead, I began to hum Metallica softly under my breath. Again, it had the desired affect as her whimpering gave way to steady breaths. She still had the pout in her brow, but I had at least gotten her to settle. I wished I could do more for her, but I had to content myself with this. She'd had such a rough year, and most of it was my fault. The happiest she'd been was during the two months after Michael let me go before he repossessed me.

I laid awake, holding Ellie in my arms and humming to her, until my eyes burned and I couldn't keep them open any longer. Only then did I allow sleep to overtake me, wrapping me in its dark embrace and taking me away from the heart wrenching pain in my chest.

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Ellie's POV

"So, the angels- they're gonna help us?" Sam asked.

I sat at the table, staring numbly into my untouched cup of coffee while Sam, Dean and Castiel talked nearby.

"I was promised every effort would be made to, uh, locate Jack," Cass responded.

"Oh," Dean bit out sarcastically. "Heaven promised? Great. Well, we should take that to the bank."

"Jack's powers could also be a threat," Cass continued, ignoring Dean's tone. "It serves them to help find him."

"Yeah, about that," Sam interrupted before Dean could argue further. "Um, I've been looking for anything weird. And a university professor was found dead in his office in Ohio. His body was crystallized into a block of salt."

"Salt," Dean repeated. "Why does that sound familiar?"

"It's a pillar of salt," Castiel elaborated. "It's Biblical. Lot's wife. Punished by Heaven."

"This guy was an atheist."

"He wrote a bunch of best-selling books trying to disprove God and Heaven," Sam added.

"Okay. So you think an angel iced him?"

"No ordinary angel could do something like that," Cass shook his head.

"Just wait," Sam told us. "There's another. A few hours after the professor was killed, a lady in Texas fell into a crevice that opened up, and she was killed."

"Like a sinkhole," Dean stated.

"That's what I thought, too. But a witness said it was more like 'a fissure opened under her feet then closed back up with her inside'."

"'And the Earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah'," Cass quoted. "It's Numbers 26:10."

"The lady was a- a TV evangelist," Sam explained, reading from his laptop. "Um, she was under investigation for stealing thousands of dollars through fake charities."

"So, either Chuck came back, which- that ain't gonna happen," Dean scoffed, "or J-"

"Jack," Cass finished.