Stage of Salvation

1.04 Stage of Salvation

Sam immediately runs a line of salt at the bedroom door. Dean, John, and I are already out on the fire escape.
"Sam, let's go!" Dean calls over his shoulder. Sam tosses him the duffel bag and goes through the window out onto the fire escape. He runs another salt line along the window sill. Dean and I help John down onto the street and Sam moves ahead of us. Sam is suddenly attacked by another man who is definitely a demon. He pins Sam down on the street and starts beating him to death. Dean and I put John down and Dean goes to his little brother's aid while I lead John to the safety of the Impala. Dean runs over and kicks the man in the face, but it has no effect. Dean is suddenly thrown onto a parked car, shattering the windshield, and the man goes back to beating Sam. Suddenly there is a gunshot and the man gets a bullet through the head. He falls off of Sam, dead. Dean is standing with the Colt. He puts it away and comes over to his brother. I watch as Dean gets Sam onto his feet and they look at the dead man. The demon is dead and so is the man it was possessing. The brothers go back to John and I, we get into the Impala, and leave the area in a hurry. The Impala is now parked outside of a small cabin in the woods. Inside, Sam is pouring salt along the window sill. His face is a mess; bruised, bloody, and swollen. Dean is in the room too while I'm doodling again to relax myself.
"Hey Dean, you... saved my life back there." Sam finally says.
"So I guess you're glad I brought the gun, huh?" Dean replies with a small chuckle.
"Man, I'm trying to thank you here." Sam shakes his head.
Dean softens, and I can see he takes that in and it's meaningful to him. "You're welcome."
"And Toralei, thanks for getting our dad to the car safely." Sam said, turning to me.
I smile at his gratitude. "You're very welcome, Sam." Dean then  turns away a little, contemplative.
"Know that guy I shot? There was a person in there."
"You didn't have a choice, Dean."
"Yeah, I know, that's not what bothers me?" Sam asks, what does? "Killing that guy... killing Meg... I didn't hesitate, I didn't even flinch. For you, Toralei, or Dad, the things I'm willing to do, or kill, it... it scares me sometimes." Dean confesses. John joins them and says it shouldn't scare him, that he did good. Dean is shocked, asking why he isn't mad at him for using that bullet.
"No, I'm proud of ya. Sam and I, we can get pretty obsessed. But you, you watch out for this family. You always have."
"Thanks," Dean says, who looks surprised and confused. Ever since we've rescued John I've been getting bad vibes from him. Like my gut instinct is telling me something is wrong but I don't know what. The lights in the cabin glitch. We look out the window, the wind is violently blowing outside. John turns to Dean and holds out his hand.
"They're here, Dean, you got the gun? Give it to me." Dean hesitates and John asks again.
"This is me, I won't miss. Now the gun, hurry!" John demands, sounding more impatient than usual. I watch as Dean looks at his father, still hesitating.
"Dean, it's me!" John pleads.
"I know my dad better than anyone, and you ain't him." Dean raises the gun, pointed at John. Sam comes back from making salt lines at every window and door in the cabin and takes in the scene, asking Dean what the hell is going on.
"Your brother has lost his mind." John said. Dean insists that's not their father, that he's possessed. That he's different and I agree with him. "Sam, you gotta trust me." And right now I definitely don't trust him. This isn't John. Not at all. Sam looks back and forth. At his brother; at his father. And then he turns to John and says no. He and I move behind Dean and stand at his shoulder. Then something changes in John. John scoffs, saying if we're both so sure, go ahead, kill him. Dean can't do it, though. "Thought so." John says, smirking. He looks back up and John's eyes are unnaturally bright yellow. Like the demons' we confronted in Monica's house. Who told me that I shouldn't have been there. He throws us three up against the wall and gets the gun, and Sam and Dean also realize who it is. He laughs when they say they threw holy water on him and he didn't react, saying you think holy water works on something like me? Sam, Dean, and I all try to fight the force that has us pinned to the wall, but we fail.
"I'm gonna kill you!" Sam threatens.
"Oh, that'd be a neat trick. In fact..." The demon puts the Colt on the table. "Make the gun float to you there, psychic boy." Sam looks at the gun, but nothing happens. Then the demon walks over to me with a smirk. His piercing yellow eyes darted towards me and I screamed in pain as I felt the most excruciating headache I have ever felt in my entire life. Dean and Sam both wince at the sound, anger seething through them. 
"I thought I told you that you shouldn't be here. You should go home and whine about this to your sister.... Oh wait. It's a shame though. Being stabbed by an Oni is a nasty way to go out."
"How the hell do you even know that?" I ask in anger, trying to struggle free.
"I'm a demon, sweet thing. I know lots of delicate things." The demon touches my cheek with his finger as he says this and I jerk away from his touch. He then walks over to the window beside Dean. "Well, this is fun. I could've killed you a hundred times today but this was worth the wait. Your dad, he's in here with me. Trapped inside this meatsuit. He says hi by the way. He's gonna tear you apart. He's gonna taste the iron in your blood." Dean struggles, but is still pinned to the wall. The demon looks at him.
"Let him go, or I swear to God–" Dean calls out.
"What? What are you and God gonna do? You see, as far as I'm concerned, this is justice. That little exorcism of yours? That was my daughter. In the alley? My boy. You understand?'
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me." Dean sighs in defeat.
"What, you're the only one who can have a family? How would you feel if I killed your family? Oh, that's right, I forgot, I did. Still, two wrongs don't make a right." Dean is absolutely seething, struggling to break free, cursing the demon but is    helpless.
"I wanna know why. Why'd you do it?" Sam speaks up.
"Kill Mommy and pretty little Jess? Because they got in the way of my plans for you, Sammy. You and all the children like you." The demon fills in the blanks. Dean and I can see how distraught Sam is and attempts to intercede, all bravado with a complaint about how Dean can't stand the monologuing and neither can I, but the demon is brutal in his comeback. "That's all part of your MO, isn't it? Mask all that nasty pain. You fight and you fight for this family, but the truth is they don't need you, not like you need them. Sam, he's clearly John's favorite. Even when they fight it's more concern than he's ever shown you. And even though he's just met sweet little Toralei here, John already appreciates her more than he ever would you."
"Bet you're real proud of your kids, too. Oh wait, I forgot, I wasted them." Dean says in an arrogant tone. The demon gets right in Dean's face, menacing, the two staring at each other, the tension so thick you can cut it with a knife. Then the demon lowers his head and Dean cries out, screaming in pain. Sam and I cry out too, screaming "No no Dean!" as Dean gasps. He begins to bleed from the mouth, sagging against the wall, finally using the last of his strength to try to reach his father.
"Dad... dad, don't you let him kill me... Dad, please..." Dean pleads in desperation. Sam and I are agonized watching, straining to break free, both of us trying to move to the gun to save Dean but failing. Finally Dean goes limp, bloodied, definitely dying. Then suddenly John's eyes blink open and they're not yellow anymore. I let out a sigh of relief. Sam and I break free, I get the Colt, pointing it at John.
"You really think a little inexperienced hunter like you is gonna shoot a demon like me?" John scoffed as he turned to me, eyes yellow once again.
"No... but he sure is." I say as I throw Sam the gun. Sam catches it and aims the Colt at him.
"You kill me, you kill Daddy."
"I know." Sam fires the gun, shooting John in the leg. He falls down and so does Dean. Sam and I get up and go to Dean's aid. "Dean? Dean, hey? Oh God, you've lost a lot of blood."
"Where's Dad?" Dean asks.
"Your dad's right here, Dean." I reassured him.
"Go check on him." Sam gets up and goes over to check on John while I stay with Dean. John is lying motionless on the floor.
"Dad? Dad?" Then John suddenly looks up.
"Sammy, it's still alive, it's in me! You shoot me in the heart, son. Do it now!" Sam aims the gun at John.
"Sammy, don't do it!" Dean calls out.
"Hurry, I can't hold onto it much longer. Sam, I'm begging you. We can end this here and now. Sammy!" John says.
"Sam, no." I said.
"You do this! Sammy!! Sam—" The demon suddenly leaves John in a black cloud of smoke from his mouth and it disappears through the floor. John looks at Sam accusingly.
A few minutes later, we're all in the Impala driving to the hospital. Sam is driving in the front with John while Dean and I are in the back. John gasps in pain, Dean is just slumped in the back seat. I'm trying my best to keep him up right, to keep the blood flow to his head.
"How far is the hospital?" I ask.
"It's only ten minutes away." Sam remarks with a worried sigh.
"I'm surprised at you, Sammy." John said. "Why didn't you kill it? I thought we saw eye-to-eye on this? Killing this demon comes first, before me, before everything."
Sam looks in the rear view mirror at Dean and I. "No, sir. Not before everything. Look, we've still got the Colt. We still have one bullet left. We just have to start over, right? I mean, we already found the demon and—" Then out of nowhere an eighteen wheeler suddenly slams into the passenger side of the Impala at full speed and everything around me goes dark.