Savin' Me

Chapter 9

She felt as if she may have struck a nerve. On the outside he didn't look like he had taken offense to her question and her unneeded response; but no man was great with his feelings. Even in the end of days, that didn't make them open themselves up. So Allison did the only that came to mind. "Ask me."

Castiel stared at her blankly, as if she were speaking some sort of foreign language.

"Ask me something, I'm an open book." Allison treaded lightly. Telling him to ask her something beat her making an awkward and less than sincere apology. She wasn't exactly an open book, but she couldn't think of anything the man could possibly ask that would get under her skin.

She couldn't read the expression on his face; it looked like he was lost in his own little world. Allison wasn't sure if he had heard her at all.

"Who is Brad?" Castiel asked lowly. Something new swept over what had previously been a blank canvas. Allison cringed.

She vaguely remembered when she'd woken up and practically choked Cas with his own shirt collar. The first words out of her mouth hadn't been "Who the hell are you?". She'd demanded to know where Brad was. Since the damn virus they had been inseparable to wake up in a strange place with a man who wasn't Brad close by – that was completely nerve racking.

Allison wasn't sure how to respond to the question, or If she should say anything at all. Cas was sitting there quietly – but he looked like he was expecting something. The woman let out a small sigh. Next time she wouldn't use the term 'open book' so loosely.

She licked her already chapped lips. An anxious action, it felt like she was preparing to address the nation or something. "Brad was – no is, he is my brother." She looked up at Cas and it felt like he was silently pushing her to spill more, something that she was uncomfortable with doing.

"I saw the pictures in your bag."

"You messed with my stuff?" Allison asked icily. In an instant, he could practically feel the invisible walls go up all around her. Suddenly there was an underlying tone of hostility to the room.

The idea of him, or anyone touching the things that had kept her alive since the world had gone to tell irked her. It irked her to a near-violent extreme. That explained why her weapons were missing, and why the expensive flask that had held whiskey at one point was empty. Her entire arsenal was in that damn bag. Holy water, the salt...the books. Dammit. What if they thought she was some sort of freak? Freaks didn't last, they got killed.

So this Brad guy was her brother. They had the same last name, after all. She wasn't wearing some sort of tacky ring to symbolize union. That cleared up sections of the picture. He'd been about to ask something else, but he'd messed up his own opportunity. Apparently reasons now caused issues.

He rolled his shoulders as if he were literally trying to shrug it off. "I did and I was impressed." A weak attempt to change the subject wasn't likely to kill either of them. Besides, in this state he was sure that he could take in her a fight.

"Impressed?"

Castiel nodded "Mhm. The texts you have? Most of those are incredibly hard to come by."

It sounded like a compliment, but they were on thin ice now. So he'd seen her books, and wasn't freaking out. Calling her a witch or something. "I want my stuff back."

He laughed, placing his hands on his knees. "We'll talk to Dean, he probably has it. Though you won't need them in the camp. It's safe here." He spoke with a pure tone of truth. The whole damn camp was safeguarded to the best of their human ( and slightly angelic ) abilities. Allison didn't look so easily convinced.

"Everything?" Allison was skeptical. The virus? Demons, other stuff? Did he even know about demons? Nowadays a lot of people did – but that wasn't always the case. She herself hadn't learned until they had aided a hunter, fighting off a horde of black-eyed bastards and getting a crash course at all the same time.

"Everything." Castiel repeated slowly. It looked like she wanted to ask something else, challenge his claims.

She rubbed her forehead, teeth gently gnawing on the inside of her cheek. "The things in the books?" Allison finally asked after an agonizing moment of silent debate.

He caught what she was trying to ask instantly. Only an idiot could have missed it. She was asking about demons for starters. The first few books dealt with possession and other things. "Especially the things in the books." Castiel assured her. So they couldn't safe guard against every supernatural creature out there, but they'd dealt with the biggest threats. She seemed to settle slightly when he responded. That brought up more questions though. He could only assume that she was a hunter, or her brother had been one. If she knew about demons did she know about everything else?

About vessels, Lucifer or angels? He planned to find out.