When I regained consciousness, the very first thing I felt was pain. That pain, in the back of my head, which was still as strong as when I had first felt it. I opened my eyes with difficulty and discomfort, and when I did so, I instantly noticed I was no longer at the Ambassador Hotel. I was no longer with Crowley, either. In fact, I was all alone. I forced myself to open my eyes more, even though it hurt me, and my blurry vision eventually came to stabilize: once it did, I looked around me and at my surroundings, and my first interrogation was obviously to wonder where exactly I was. The room was very dimly lit and seemed to be quite old, almost as if the place had long been abandoned. It was dark, but lit enough for me to see it was empty, not furnished in any way, aside from the sole decoration present: myself. But I knew well it was not: I looked down at the ground beneath me and although the concrete floor was dusty, clear footprints were visible here and there, trailing a path from where I was to deeper into the room.
Only then, by looking down at the ground did I realize my feet were not touching the floor: I swiftly looked up at the ceiling and saw my arms were hanging above my head, with my wrists tied together in a knot with a rope attached to a beam high above my head. I started to move my arms with all my strength, in hopes of loosening the knot, weakening the rope, or even breaking the beam, but to no avail. I exhaled a shaky sigh as I let my head drop.
Just as I closed my eyes, I suddenly heard the sound of metal slowly creaking, which I then understood to belong to a door opening when I heard it close a few seconds later; I opened my eyes back and looked in front of me, only to see multiple pairs of footsteps emerge from the shadows and walk toward me. I looked at the group of men standing in front of me, I looked at their faces, one by one, and instantly recognized them all: no doubt, these were the men who had broken down the front door of Crowley's penthouse suite back at the hotel. The men who had kidnapped me and dragged me all the way into this dank shack.
I stared down at them, right in the eyes, and it made my blood run cold to see that none of them expressed emotions of any kind. The only one of them who did let his emotions show was the one standing the closest to me, and who, by his aura alone, I assumed to be the leader at the head of the group; a twisted smile was shaping his lips in a way that made my skin crawl.
"Would you look at that, the little worm has finally awoken..." He spoke in a voice that sounded as wicked as he looked.
The man took a step forward and looked up at me while he tilted his head.
"D'you sleep well?"
He stared into my eyes intensely, and although my mind was overflowing with questions, I could not bring myself to talk and ask him any of them: I was paralyzed by fear, by his gaze, and did not dare speak. After he understood I would not answer him, he shook his head while he took a step backward.
"You're not much of a talker, eh? Well, it doesn't matter. We didn't capture you to make conversation."
Seeing him begin to walk away from me, all the questions stored in my brain grew louder, and in fear of not being given the opportunity to ask any of them, I felt a sudden rush of bravery flow through me.
"Who the fuck are you guys?" I asked loudly. "And why did you capture me? What do you want from me?"
Upon hearing my questions, the man stopped walking and scoffed with his back turned to me: when he turned back around to face me, the same twisted smile was still visible.
"Who are we?" He repeated with a very slight hint of curiosity. "Now that's an odd question coming from you. I would've expected your precious little boyfriend to have told you aaaall about us already."
I listened to him replying to my question ominously, but instead of finding answers, I found myself even more at a loss and felt confused, not understanding what he was talking about.
"After all, Crowley's had it coming for a while, now..." He added as he looked up at the ceiling and rubbed his hands together.
Hearing him mention his name made me even more confused, but also even more frightened.
"C-Crowley?"
The man and I stared at each other for a few seconds, until I furrowed my eyebrows slightly.
"... It was you freaks who attacked him back at the hotel, wasn't it? The ones who jumped him and riddled him with bullets?"
He closed his eyes and scoffed while he smiled; a self-satisfied smile, as if he was enjoying hearing me talk about what they had done to him.
"Of course, who else?" He said as he opened his eyes back and opened his arms widely.
"Why didn't you psychopaths just finish him off while you were at it?!" I shouted with unfiltered anger, not hiding from them or myself how much resentment I felt toward them. "Why did you have to leave him there to rot?!"
The man smiled further, seeming to take pleasure in my hatred as he slowly made his way in front of me.
"Because, my little worm..."
He stopped walking once he had arrived face-to-face with me, then reached for my face with one of his hands: very delicately, he rested his ice-cold palm against my left cheek, which sent shivers down my spine.
"... It's all part of the plan." He finished in a slow whisper, as cold as his touch.
He let go of my cheek in a way much less delicate than the one with which he had grabbed it, pushing my head back and making me grunt in pain. He began to slowly walk in circles around me, his heavy footsteps echoing throughout the room.
"Oh, believe me, we could've ended him back there. And believe me when I say we really wanted to."
He kept on pacing around me, but was now looking straight at me.
"But you..." He started while he slowly shook his head and opened his hands at me. "You're the perfect pawn in this game. You're the best thing we could've hoped for."
He came to a stop in front of me and I stared down into his soulless eyes.
"The little worm at the end of the hook... The bait."
Hearing his last word, I gulped out of instinct: a voice inside my head told me such a word was never a good sign.
"Heh, after all, why simply kill Crowley in cold blood when we can inflict so much more pain on him in the process?" He said with a chuckle. "So much more pain, that goes even beyond the physical plane..."
The longer I heard him speak, the more terrified I became, but not for myself: for Crowley. But I did not dare speak a word, so I simply listened to him talk in silence.
"First, keep a close watch on Crowley, and track his movements to know exactly where he's headed at any time." He declared as he raised his right index finger. "Second, launch a surprise attack on him as he's alone and injure him. Not enough to kill him, but leaving him wounded enough for him to have to resort to asking for the help of the human female who's unfortunate enough to have captured his heart."
I felt confused to see and hear him bluntly tell me what his plan was, but what was even weirder to me was why he would feel the need to point out that I was a 'human female'.
"Third, wait for her to get to the hotel and to help him out with his little Devil's Traps situation."
Upon hearing these words, I could not help but furrow my eyebrows in confusion, wondering what he was referring to: but I was too focused on registering what he was telling me, so I set my interrogations aside.
"And that's when the fun really starts." He said as he slowly nodded while his lips twisted into a perverted smile. "After she's finished rescuing her prince, snatch her away from him. Make him watch in helplessness as she's being dragged away from him. And hide her away... long enough for him to start realizing this is all his fault, that he was the one to have called for her help... and that she's now a dead woman walking because of him."
Uncontrollably, I began to feel tears form in my eyes: this man was heartless, he had set his mind on destroying Crowley from the inside, on an emotional level, and he was using me to do so. And there was nothing I could do about it.
"And after you've cast the line, what does that leave you with? Someone who's too attached, and now additionally too guilty to let go, to give up on her."
The man took a few slow steps in front of me, after which he stopped and furrowed his eyebrows in an overly dramatic way.
"Crowley has grown too fond of you now. He won't stand back and wait for us to return you back to him."
He approached his face even closer to mine, and at that instant, as I was forced to stare at him, his inhumanly stern face made me shiver.
"He will come for you. And that's when the big fish will bite. That's when we'll lure him to fall right into our meticulously-planned trap... when he'll finally be ours."
The tears I had felt take form were now slowly rolling down my face, which did not escape the eye of the man, who delicately cupped my cheeks before he wiped them off with his thumbs, all while he shushed me in a voice that was meant to sound soft, but which made my soul ache instead.
"Oh, my dear... You're already so touched, but I haven't told you about the grand finale yet."
He marked a pause, during which he removed his hands from my cheeks, which allowed me to turn my head away from him and close my eyes.
"After all is said and done, we'll bring him here and we'll set him down. And we'll make him watch as we slit your throat right before his eyes."
I opened my eyes wide as my tears grew unstoppable.
"And then... we'll move on to his throat. But before that, before we put him out of his misery, we'll give him some time. Some more time to think about how this is all his fault... how your death is on him... and how he'll never get to see the end of your pathetic romcom."
I listened to his words, yet refused to accept them; but deep down, I knew he was right. I knew his plan was flawless, and that he was the master of this game: and I was nothing but the pawn, unwillingly helping him achieve his sick, twisted goal.
A heavy silence then filled the space around us. From my side of the room, the only noise I could hear was my shaky breath. The other men present were quiet, as quiet as they had been since they had first stepped inside; the only sound that came crashing against the deadly silence was that of the man swiftly turning around, before he walked a few steps away from me, after which he dived his hands into his pockets, then looked down at the ground.
"You asked us earlier why we captured you, and what we want from you."
I heard him speak in a tone of voice that I had not heard from him yet: a tone of voice so grave, so serious that it made me hold my breath.
"You're going to help us make Crowley suffer. For what he did to Abaddon."
Another silence followed. The man's words held such emotion, such importance, which made me believe they had been said with the intent to have an impact on me: and yet, they did not affect me in any way.
"... Who?" I finally asked after having caught my breath.
The man looked up and turned his head to me, before he shook it slowly as he scoffed.
"Don't play dumb with me." He said with a low chuckle.
"I'm not." I instantly fired back. "I have no idea what you're talking about, how am I supposed to know who that is? I understand you hold a grudge against Crowley, for... whatever he did to that Abaddon. But he's never mentioned that name to me before."
The expression on his face shifted drastically. His eyes were wide open, his eyebrows had risen, and his smile had vanished, replaced with a slightly open mouth.
"... The name 'Dean Winchester' ring any bell to you?" He slowly asked me, as slowly as he walked toward me.
I felt confused as to why he was asking me this question, and shook my head with a sigh.
"No. Look, I told you-"
"What about the First Blade?" He added without having left me time to finish.
Anger started to grow and accumulate inside of me the longer this guy asked me questions I knew nothing about.
"No! I told you, I don't know what or who you're talking about!"
The man's surprised expression went up a notch as he took a short step backward.
"... Wow..." He whispered as an excited smile slowly took shape on his face. "Now that is a plot twist."
He turned behind him to look at the other men, one by one, who exchanged a few glances with one another. Then, he turned back around to face me and stared right into my eyes with what I could have sworn to be pity.
"... Crowley hasn't told you anything, has he?"
He made his way back toward me, and the pity in his eyes progressively turned into enjoyment.
"About us, about himself, about what he is...?"
He stopped just a few inches away from my face and scoffed almost inaudibly.
"... You don't know that he's a demon."
At that instant, he lost all credibility: this man was not a psychopath or a lunatic, he was just a Satanist who probably did not even know Crowley all that well and who had decided to label him with the term 'demon' the second he had started to hold a grudge against him.
"Yeah, right." I spoke with a scoff I could not help but let out.
"You think this is a joke?"
The man seemed somewhat offended, but he did not scare me anymore.
"There's no such thing as demons."
To that, all the men present in the room chuckled in unison: and as their combined laughter surrounded me, I saw the man in front of me blink slowly to reveal a pair of empty, black eyes.
"Is that so?"
I gasped in utter shock at the sight. This whole time, his eyes had seemed soulless to me, but now, more than ever, I was convinced it was not just an impression.
"T-That's... N-No..."
"Yes..." He whispered while he shook his head very lightly. "Just look around you..."
The thing standing before me took a step to the side and opened his arm wide in front of me: across all corners of the room, the men standing silent had all taken on the same black eyes, and they were all staring right at me, like a void ready to consume me whole. Not daring to look into their eyes for too long, I lowered my gaze to the ground.
"Y-You're... You're all demons?"
"Bingo." I heard him answer me without looking at him.
I silently stared to the side, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath.
"... And you're saying... that Crowley is also one?"
"Yes. But he's not just any demon. He's the King of Hell."
The demon's heavy, resentment-filled words made me open my eyes swiftly and gasp once more, then I gulped before I looked up at him; his eyes were no longer black, but I could still sense a void of emptiness inside of him.
"And you, my little worm..." He started as he reached for my face. "... Are going to help us snatch the crown from his head."
He slowly traced my jawline with his fingers, after which he tilted his head.
"Speaking of which, we have to carry on with the preparations. I'd love to tell you aaaall about the Abaddon-Crowley drama, but our trap isn't gonna make itself."
With that, he retracted his hand and turned his back to me.
"What a pity, you'll die without even knowing the full story." He told me as he started to walk away from me.
He made his way out of the room, followed closely by the other demons, still as silent, still as heartless, then the door creaked once more. And I was left all alone.
The atmosphere in the room became heavy and I started to find it hard to breathe.
This isn't possible, it can't be, it's just-
The muscles of my arms were starting to feel tired, and I could sense the pain increasing within them, but I was too overwhelmed by my thoughts to pay much mind to it all.
T-This fucker was lying, demons don't exist, they can't exist...
I closed my eyes for a split second, and in this short amount of time, a memory of Crowley overlapped with the darkness: he was sitting at his usual seat at the Golden Cross, behind the counter, smiling tenderly at me.
No, no... I refuse to believe it...
But as I closed my eyes once more, for longer this time, the memory was shortly followed by another: the time we had spent together at the Ambassador Hotel, during which I took care of him in such a bizarre way, by carefully carving bullets out of his flesh. And recalling this moment made me open my eyes back slowly.
But... if Crowley was to be a-... a demon, then... it would explain why he was so calm back at the hotel, even when he should have been on the brink of death.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I tried to look in front of me through my blurry vision.
... And it would explain why his phone number is '666'... I suppose.
I sniffled before I exhaled a deep breath.
But... Who's Abaddon? Who's Dean Winchester? What the fuck is the 'First Blade'?
I felt anger and confusion boil inside of me, until it rose all the way up to the surface.
"God, I don't understand anything!"
Without having meant it, I spoke aloud, surprising even myself; hearing my anger flow out made me focus on trying to remain calm, and so I did a series of breathing exercises, until I felt better. But my thoughts were still as loud, and had no intention to quiet down.
Wait... If the men who have kidnapped me are demons, and so is Crowley, then why are they trying to kill each other? Shouldn't they be united as a... species?
And that was when I realized.
... They are trying to kill each other... They're on opposite sides.
My tears came to dry as I looked down at the ground.
Crowley may be a demon, the King of Hell even, but... he's never hurt me. He's never had evil intentions toward me.
I looked back up and straight in front of me with a hint of resentment in my eyes.
And what that demon told me is proof of it.
The animosity in my eyes slowly died out as it was replaced with bittersweet love.
... Crowley loves me. He truly has fallen for me, and he didn't mean for any of this to happen. He didn't mean to put me in danger because of some demon-on-demon business.
At that instant, I wished he could have been in front of me, so I could have told him that I forgave him, for everything, and that his nature did not alter the feelings I had for him; I smiled faintly to myself as I closed my eyes and imagined him standing before me. But in the dark, I suddenly heard a creaking. A creaking that had by then become way too familiar to me. I opened my eyes and watched the leader of the demons walk back into the room, but this time, he was only accompanied by two other demons.
"You'll be delighted to know Crowley is drawing near, my little worm." He said as he adjusted the sleeves of his jacket. "But you see, the problem with traps is that they can sometimes drag on."
He marked a pause, during which he turned around and sent a look to one of the two other demons, along with a sign of the head, gestured in my direction: to this order, the demon walked past his boss and up to me with determination.
"... Some of my boys are getting impatient." The leader stated sternly.
The quiet demon was now standing in front of me, a twisted smile on his face, which I could only interpret as excitement on his part.
"So, I told them they could have some fun and lash out at you until the big fish gets caught."
He had barely finished speaking when I suddenly felt a hard fist throw my face to the side, making me shout in the process; but before I could even start to register the pain, the strong hand that had just hit me grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and made me look back in front of me, into the demon's manic eyes, before he punched me one more time.
"Hey!"
Although everything was a blur to me, I still heard the leader's voice call out to the demon.
"Go easy on the face!" He ordered him as his voice echoed throughout the room. "Break whichever part of her body you want, but mind the face. I want Crowley to be able to recognize that precious little mug of hers when he watches her die."
I closed my eyes with pain as a single tear escaped my eye.
"There's no fun in completely destroying her if he's not there yet."
My eyes were forced open by the demon standing in front of me, who had stopped hitting me while his boss had been talking, but who was now getting back to it: one after the other, he landed brutal blows to my upper body, making me scream and groan repeatedly. I felt as though my ribcage was in pieces, and my stomach felt like it was going to implode. The pain was unbearable, and all I could do was yell. Let it all out. Throw at the world everything that had been building up inside of me up until this very moment, in the form of agonized screams.
But even my screams were quieted down: the longer the pain lasted, the more I endured, the less energy I had to fight back. My neck grew too weak to support my head, which fell slightly backward and to the right side. My eyelids felt heavy, but I fought back against the urge to close my eyes: because only a few feet away from me was the monster that had made my life a living hell. And I was ready to stare him down with the last of my strength if that was the last thing I would have ever done.
It's all over...
I stared into his eyes with burning hatred, and those soulless black eyes stared back at me. I felt my flames die out, but refused to look away: and that was when his gaze suddenly looked away from mine, when I saw him swiftly turn his head around. His unexpected movement instantly woke up a part of me, as though some of my batteries had been slightly recharged, and I found in myself the physical strength to straighten my head, only to see the door of the room open wide in a single swing. And out of it came barging in two tall men, led by a shorter one, standing proudly before them in a suit and tie. A suit and tie I could have recognized over any other.
Crowley?
I wanted to call out his name, but my vocal cords were too weak to even make a sound, and all I could do instead was stare down at him with a broken expression. For a short second, I felt as though his eyes had met with mine, but my head was spinning too fast for me to be certain; things began to blur again in front of me, and the only things that managed to somewhat keep my head out of the water were the occasional grunts and physical sounds of fighting I could hear. But eventually, it all went silent again. And my brain could no longer resist: I closed my eyes as I faintly heard the sound of heels quickly walking the floor, before feeling as though my body had grown lighter. And I let out a sigh as I felt myself being wrapped in a tight pair of warm arms, along with the strong aroma of a cologne.