CROSSROADS ☁︎ Supernatural

PART 30 - RILEY

The eternity of Riley's possession, all the pain and tyranny she had to go through were forgotten. Dean's wrath was righteous from where he was standing, but Riley couldn't believe they were right where they started. Once again, all she seemed to bring out of him was anger. It did not matter if the fuel of his rage was actually him caring about her this time around.

These were her last moments on earth and all she got was yelling from Dean. And the worst part was, he was doing the same to her. He turned her into a harpy and she needed to calm her racing heart from their last altercation.

She got into the shower, hardly remembering last time she could close her eyes while being under the stream of water. But now that the Winchesters had her back, she could relax for a couple of minutes.

The drops were falling down, soaking her hair, she was catching them into her hands. The water pressure slowly washed away all the tension, the warmth seeped right to the marrow of her bones. She liked her showers hot, steam rolling around her.

She got lost in those clouds, eyes still closed underwater, but her rest didn't last for so long. She must've lost the track of time, the shower head hissed above her and the flow of water subsided. The fluid seeping down on her was too dense and sticky, slowly slithering down her spine.

The substance stung in her eyes as she opened them disturbed by the strange sensation making her skin crawl.

The substance falling down on her was not transparent anymore. Heavy droplets hardly squeezed their way through the small holes in the shower head.

Blood.

It stained her skin and got stuck in her hair.

She reached for the shower knob leaving crimson prints all over but the thing wouldn't move. Her hands were too slippery.

The gooey mass kept flooding down and it already created a puddle at her feet.

Riley fought the knob frantically putting in all her strength to stop the nasty downpour but all she got was even more horrid scene.

Molten metal gushed out of the pipeline setting Riley on fire. She screamed, tried to get away from under the scorching hot stream but the wet surface didn't let her. She slipped leaving the walls of the shower painted red.

___

Sam still couldn't believe they were ten years too late to realise Riley was not dead. They just went with what their dad had to say, never looked back, only because it was just too painful.

Sam did the math. It was not hard to put together that Riley made a deal for John. The part he was missing were motives, the red string connecting the dots.

Back then, Riley must've uncovered more than she let on after the spontaneous exorcism. She knew about the crossroads, deals, that kind of demons... So she went and took John's burden upon herself. He healed, woke up and rushed them away leaving her in the ten-year trap.

They had messed up, but their dedication to save the day in the last possible minute was unwavering.

Dean got ahold of Castiel, he had been speaking to him on the phone for a while now. They needed him there with them, but Cas running on borrowed grace couldn't just snap himself to the bunker. He had to use more mundane means of travel.

Sam wasn't even sure how much would the angel help without his special abilities, but his knowledge could lead them down the right path. Getting Riley out of John Winchester deal was not going to be a child's play. Hell was not going to let that slide without a proper blowback. Winchesters were always on its radar.