In the library of the bunker, I was researching on my laptop, while Sam, Aiden and Amara sat nearby.
Dean walked in with a paper bag. "Any word from Cas?"
Sam nodded. "Yeah. Uh, he says he's still looking for Jack, working a lead in Tucson."
My phone rang. I saw that it was Jody calling, answering, putting it on speaker and the table. "Hi, Jody."
"Hi, Jody," Amara told her. "What's going on?"
"Hey, guys, I got something for you. Friend of mine from Bismarck PD called with a lead. He said that a local artist as found dead with his eyes burned out."
We were startled.
"Sounds angel-y," Aiden told us.
"Yeah, that's what I thought, except for that there was a witness. The victim's girlfriend. She pegged someone at the scene. She gave the police a description. I think it's your boy."
Sam, Dean, Aiden, Amara and I looked at each other consideringly, really hoping that Jack didn't kill anyone, but worried about the possibility.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sam, Dean and I were talking to the victim's girlfriend as FBI, Paula, showing her a photo of Jack.
Paula nodded. "That's him. He said his name was Jack, that he was a buyer."
"Um, a buyer?" Sam repeated. Paula pointed at the numerous paintings around the studio. "Ah."
"Some freaky stuff here," Dean told her. "Derek had quite the imagination."
"He hated that word," Paula told us.
"What, freaky?" I asked.
Paula shook her head. "Imagination. He liked to think of his art more as reportage."
Dean rolled his eyes, turning away.
"Reportage?" Sam repeated. "Reportage from where?"
"From the places he'd visit," Paula answered. Dean kept walking around the studio, stopping near a particular painting, now partially hidden behind a stack of other canvases. "Derek was a dream walker."
I knew what that meant, nodding.
"Sam?" Dean asked. "Ness?"
Sam and I looked toward Dean. Dean showed us Derek's painting, depicting the landscape from the apocalypse world that they told Aiden, Amara and I about.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Outside the art studio, there was a huge mural of wings painted on the wall in front of where the Impala was parked. Aiden and Amara were in the backseat. Sam, Dean and I walked toward the car with coffee and chips, getting inside, Dean in the driver's, Sam in the passenger, and me in the backseat next to Aiden and Amara. I handed them drinks and chips.
"Hey, thanks," Aiden told us.
"Yeah," Amara agreed.
"So the lore on dreamwalking is pretty inconsistent," I told them. "Uh, there are stories about are stories about it across numerous Native Ameri..."
Dean sighed. "Ness." I looked up. "We gonna talk about it?"
"What?" Amara asked.
"We saw a painting depicting the apocalypse world," Sam answered. "Where our mom and Lucifer are."
"Really?" Aiden asked.
"Yeah," Sam answered.
"And?" Aiden asked.
"Well, it looks like Jack gave up on us and he's looking for daddy," Dean told us.
"Dean, we don't know that," I told him.
"Don't we?" Dean asked. "A guy is dead. Look, I hate this too, but we've gotta be prepared."
"To kill him?" Aiden asked.
"Look, this isn't an 'I told you so', okay?" Dean asked. "I mean, I actually like the kid. I do. But, we're in worse case scenario land here."
"Yeah, but, Dean, we need more information," I told him.
Sam nodded. "Ness is right. We gotta figure out what Jack wanted."
"How dreamwalking even works," Amara added.
"Okay, well, then let's go to a reservation," Sam told us. "Let's talk to a--a chief or a tribal leader."
"Or we talk to a dreamwalker," I told them. "I hacked into Derek's email. He's been corresponding with another dreamwalker for months. A girl named Kaia Nieves. He had been trying to coach her, to teach her to control her power."
Aiden nodded. "All right. Where is she?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Still in the car, we pulled up to a center for rehab where Kaia was, getting out of the car, walking toward the building.
"So, Kaia never knew her father," I explained. "Her mom died in an accident when she was 12, so her aunt took her in and then she died. Cancer."
"Damn," Dean told us.
"Yeah, been on her own ever since, until her OD and arrest," I told them.
"Bad hand," Amara told us.
"Yeah," Sam agreed.
"No wonder she ended up here," Aiden told us.
We walked inside, but the people inside had told us that Jack had broken Kaia outside, running outside to see Jack grab Kaia's arm.
"Jack!" Amara told him.
"Amara?" Jack asked. "Aiden?" While distracted, Kaia kicked Jack to the ground. Jack let go of her arm. Kaia punched him in the jaw, running away. Jack stood, baffled. "She hit me."
"Yeah, good," Aiden told him.
Jack shook his head worriedly. "No. She's getting away. I... she can't..."
Sam and Dean grabbed Jack from both sides. Aiden and Amara held their hands toward him, but didn't use their power.
I walked closer. "No, no, no, no, no. Hey, we're not letting you near her until you tell us what's going on."
"No, I need her," Jack told us.
"You need her like you needed Derek?" Sam asked.
"Yes," Jack answered. Sam and Dean let go of Jack, exchanging a worried look with me, Aiden and Amara. "You don't... I'm--I'm doing this for you."
"Oh, you killed Derek for us?" Dean asked.
"Derek's dead?" Jack asked in shock.
"Wait, hold on a second," I told him. "Jack, tell us what happened. Everything."
"I left to try to get a grip on my powers," Jack explained. "I wanted to prove to you that I'm good. To do one good thing. So I did the thing you wanted the most. I experimented opening doors to other worlds. I could almost do it. I could get right to the edge. But I couldn't see. I could only feel around in the dark. I needed eyes. A seer."
"A dreamwalker," Amara told him.
"Yeah," Jack answered. "So I researched like you taught me. That's how I found Derek. I didn't know if it would work, but it did. He dreamwalked, and I joined him in the apocalypse world. I could see what he saw. And I saw... I saw her."
"Her?" Aiden repeated.
"Mary," Jack answered. We were stunned into silence with the revelation. "She's alive."
"What?" Dean asked.
"But she is in danger," Jack told us.
"What does that mean?" Sam asked. "What--what kind of danger?"
"It's easier if I show you," Jack told us, holding his hands out, offering to show us what he had seen with his powers.
Aiden leaned away, not knowing what he was doing. "What..."
"Aiden," I told him.
One at a time, Jack placed his hands on Sam and Dean's temples, then Aiden and Amara's, then mine. His eyes glowed golden yellow, which caused ours to do the same as he gave us the vision.
Mary was in the apocalypse world, trapped in a person sized cage that was causing her agony. "Help. Help. Help! Somebody help me!"
"Mom?" Dean asked.
"I was so close to her," Jack told us. "I could've touched her. But Derek wasn't strong enough to hold the connection."
"Wait," Amara told him. "You didn't burn him out?"
"No," Jack answered. "I stopped. Derek, he wasn't strong enough, but he knew someone who was. Kaia, she's the key."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now we were on the road.
I was on the phone. "Yep, all right. Thank you." I hung up. "Cops are looking for Kaia, too. We gotta find her fast."
"You were right," Dean told us. "About Mom. You were right. This whole time, we should've been looking for her."
"Dean, we were just hoping," Sam told him. "We didn't know. Anyways, it doesn't matter. Now that we do know..."
"We find her, no matter what it takes," Amara finished.
Aiden nodded. "Yep. Jack, you okay?"
"Jack?" I asked.
Jack was thinking. "You thought... you all thought that I could do that. That I could kill Derek."
Sam hesitated sadly. "Jack, we, um... we didn't know what happened. Wee figured maybe it was an accident or--or..."
"Like the security guard," Jack told us.
"Yes," I answered. "Exactly. Like that. Jack, we were worried, okay? You know, when you disappeared, you were in a dark place. And we didn't know where you were going and..."
"Thought you were looking for your dad," Dean told him.
"You mean Lucifer?" Jack asked.
Aiden nodded. "Mm-hmm."
"Yeah," Amara answered.
"I was scared," Jack told us. "I was upset. But... why would I look for him? He's no one to me. You, Castiel? You're my family."
We all smiled in relief at this response.
"Yes, we are," Dean agreed. "Finding Mom, you... you did a good thing, kid. You did a real good thing."
Jack smiled, but he suddenly groaned in pain, holding his head. Dean pulled over.
"Jack?" Sam asked worriedly.
Jack looked up. "That... it was angel radio. They've got Kaia."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
We got to the abandoned warehouse where the angels had taken Kaia, who was tied to a chair.
"Your plan?" Kaia asked. "It sucks. They won't come for me."
"What do you mean?" the female angel asked.
"I mean, you picked the wrong bait," Kaia told her. "I'm not the kid of girl folks come for. In this world, I don't even rank a milk carton. No one is gonna come for me. I'm not white, rich, blonde. No one's gonna fight for me. I don't matter."
"Of course you don't matter," the female angel told her. "But they think you do. They'll show. And when they do, we'll kill them and take the boy."
"That so?" I asked. Aiden and Amara used their power to throw the male angel to the floor, holding him down. Dean, Sam and I were holding angel blades. Jack walked in behind us. "You know, the girl's right. Your plan does kind of suck."
"Give us the girl," Amara told her.
"She's not what we want," the female angel told us. "Jack, I don't wanna hurt you. I wanna help you. You should be among your own kind."
"My kind?" Jack repeated. "The kind that kills people? That kidnaps people?"
"You don't belong with them," the female angel told him. "Come with us. Come home."
Jack looked at Sam, Dean, Aiden, Amara and me, but spoke to the angels. "I am home."
The male angel stood, headbutting Dean. The female angel dropped her blade into her hand. Jack let his eyes glow gold, holding the female angel with his power, levitating her, throwing her across the warehouse, through a window and a wall. Kaia watched on, stunned. The male angel used his power to throw Sam, Dean and me to the floor, punching Sam in the face, trying to stab me with his angel blade. Aiden and Amara used their power to stop the angel from stabbing me, forcing his hand to turn so that he was pointing the blade at his own chest. The moment that they released him, the angel stabbed himself, falling to the ground, dead. Kaia was even more shocked. Sam, Dean and I stood.
"I got her," Dean told us, picking up the dropped angel blade, running after the female angel that Jack had flung from the warehouse.
The rest of us ran to assist Kaia.
"Are you okay?" Aiden asked.
"No," Kaia answered. "What the hell was that?"
"They were angels," I answered. "Bad angels."
"Angels?" Kaia asked.
"Yes, and we're hunters," Sam answered. "We kill things like them."
Kaia nodded. "Right." She looked at Jack. "And he's the son of Satan?"
Sam, Aiden, Amara and I shrugged.
Jack nodded. "I am. Yes."
Kaia nodded to Aiden and Amara. "And what are they?"
"That is a long, complicated story," Amara told her.
"You're insane," Kaia told us.
Dean walked closer. "Yeah, the whole world's insane. You get used to it. She took off. She might be back, she might not."
"Yeah, we should move," Sam told us.
A train whistle blew in the distance as we walked outside.
Aiden looked at Kaia. "We'll protect you."
"I don't think so," Kaia told us.
"Wait," I told her. "Hey, hey. Kaia, look, I'm sure this is a lot. But..." I sighed, hesitating, not wanting to push too far right now. "Look, we need you. Okay, Sam and Dean's mother, Aiden and Amara's grandmother, my mother-in-law, Mary? She's trapped in--in another world, and if you can tell Jack where it is, then he can open a door..."
"And we can save her," Aiden finished. Sam sighed. "So what's the play?"
"Derek said there are sacred sites, places where the walls between worlds are thin, where it's easy to cross over," Jack explained. "I was taking Kaia to the wind caves."
"The wind caves?" Kaia repeated.
"Let's roll," Amara told us.
"No," Kaia told us.
"We just saved your life in there," Amara told us.
"Thanks, but they only wanted me because of you," Kaia told us.
"Kaia, we need you to dreamwalk for us, to use your gift," Jack told her.
"It's not a gift," Kaia told us. "It's a curse. When Derek walked, he was free. He could go see beautiful things, to worlds that were paradises. I wish it was like that for me, but it's not. I only go to one place. The bad place. It's just... blood and death and monsters."
"Well, it sounds like a lifetime of bad dreams," Aiden told her. "But--"
"Bad dreams?" Kaia repeated, pulling up her sleeve, revealing several long scars. "When I get hurt over there, I don't wake up sweaty. I wake up bloody. This scar, it's not the only one. I'm sorry about your mom/grandma, but I can't help you."
"All right, fine," Sam told her. "Um, we can find another way. We, um..."
Dean, desperate to save Mary, pulled out his gun, cocking it, scaring Kaia. "Get in the car."
"Dean," I told him, shaking my head. "Dean."
"Get in the car," Dean told her, snapping, yelling, advancing on Kaia, raising his gun. "Get in the damn car!" Kaia was afraid, but she relented. "We're going to South Dakota."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since we had to take more than one car for all of us, Dean, Aiden, Amara and I were going to be riding in the Impala, while Sam was going to be driving Jack and Kaia in my car, but we weren't on the road yet.
"So now what?" Sam asked. "We get Kaia to the wind caves, and then what? Force her to dreamwalk at gunpoint?"
"We get Mom back, no matter what," Dean told him. "Remember?"
Jack looked at Kaia. "I'm sorry about all of this. I was like you, Kaia. Afraid of my powers. But it doesn't have to be like that. You said that you wished that things could've been different, and that's why you reached out to Derek. Derek thought that you could help me, and I could help you."
"Why do you keep saying his name?" Kaia asked. "Derek's dead because of you."
Jack thought for a moment. "Five seconds."
"What?" Kaia asked.
"Give me five seconds to show you what Derek saw, what I saw with him," Jack told her. "It wasn't just the bad place. It was... everything. It's... amazing."
Kaia nodded. "Five seconds."
Jack touched his fingers to Kaia's temple. Both their eyes glowed gold. A look of wonder crossed Kaia's face at the vision Jack implanted in her mind.
Jack smiled, looking at Aiden and Amara, knowing that they were worried about what they could do with their dark powers, too. "Our powers can be good. We can do good in this world."
Aiden and Amara looked reassured, smiling a little. Sam and I smiled small smiles. Dean looked guilty for doing this to Kaia, but was desperate to save Mary.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
On the road, we almost made it to the wind caves in the two cars. A car without headlights approached headon, on the wrong side of the road. We had to squint into the dark to see when the headlights came on, blinding us. Dean and Sam swerved the cars to avoid collisions, ending up turned around on the road. The other car turned back toward us.
Aiden sighed in annoyance. "Oh, crap."
Dean steered the Impala down the side road into the Larsen Bros Shipyard, which was marked Closed. Sam followed us in my car with Jack and Kaia. We pulled to a stop beside a huge rusted out ship, getting out of the cars. I was getting a bag of gear and weapons from the trunk, tossing out weapons to Dean and Sam.
"Okay, let's go," Sam told us. "Let's go. Out, out, out, out. Jack, Kaia, come on."
"Hey, get them in the boat," I told him.
Jack heard an attack of angel radio in his head again, having to lean over in agony, holding his head.
"Come on," Sam told them. "Go, go, go. Come on. Go!"
Sam, Jack and Kaia ran up the gangway and into the ship. Dean, Aiden, Amara and I readied ourselves by the cars to face down the female angel, who pulled up a moment later and got out of her car.
"Need that boy, Winchesters," the female angel told us. "Heaven's running out of angels. Only he can save us."
"As far as I'm concerned, you dicks can fry," Dean told her.
"Yes, well, you first," the female angel told us.
Two additional cars full of angels pulled up behind the female angel. They got out. Amara used her power of darkness and shadow to throw blasts at the angels, making them fall to the ground with the amount of power they used to do it, shock waves of pure force. Aiden used his power to create and project needles/spikes of darkness/shadows around us to impale the angels to the ground, creating a trail of needles that allowed us enough time to run inside to get to Sam, Jack and Kaia.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
We ran inside to see Sam painting warding sigils on the walls around him, Kaia and Jack.
"We're screwed," Aiden told them. "There's too many of them. We gotta go up. Let's go."
We all ran upstairs. Sam stopped to spray paint additional warding sigils.
"How long will this warding hold?" Amara asked.
"I don't know," I told them.
Sam finished the sigil. We ran up another flight of stairs, reaching the end of the line, with nowhere else for us to go.
Sam painted more wards on the doors. "Hey, guys, maybe if we let them in and then we blast them all away."
"No, they get in here, we're dead," Amara told us. "Aiden and I are just learning the full extent of our powers, okay? It's sketchy at best, and we're not at our strongest."
"Jack, can you do anything?" Aiden asked.
"I can try, but they'll hit me with angel radio again," Jack answered.
We felt a shock wave released that started to blast away at the warding sigils, shaking the entire ship.
"Okay, all right, so then we go out guns blazing," Dean told us. "We take out as many as we can." He looked at Kaia. "Kid, sorry to drag you into this. This was not your fight."
The angels repeated the assault on the sigils, shaking the boat again.
"If they get up here, they'll kill you all and take me," Jack told us.
"No, they won't," Kaia told him. "You said I could help you find the door to another world, right?"
"Yes," Jack answered.
The angels attacked the sigils again, shaking the boat.
"Let's do it," Kaia told us. "Let's get out of here."
"Hey, can you take us to Mary?" I asked.
The angels attacked again.
"Can you do it?" Aiden asked.
"I don't know," Jack told us. "I think so."
"What if something goes wrong?" Sam asked.
The boat shook again.
"Something already is going wrong," Amara told us. "Jack, do it."
The boat shoot again multiple times as Kaia sat down.
Jack stood behind Kaia, ready for her to dreamwalk. "Are you ready?"
"No," Kaia answered. "Let's go." The angels continued to attack, and the ship rattled and shook continually. Jack placed his fingers on Kaia's temples, his eyes beginning to glow. "Okay, I'm there. I'm in the bad place."
The angels continued to attack outside, but Jack and Kaia tried to remain focused.
"Let's go," Jack told her.
"I can't," Kaia told him.
"Yes, you can," Jack told her. The angels attacked again. "There."
The angels attacked again. The warding sigils were almost completely breached.
"Guys, you gotta see this," Sam told us. "Come here."
"Jack, now!" Dean told him.
"I see her," Jack told us.
The angels sent several more attacks against the wards.
"All right, they're almost through," I told them.
Jack gasped. "No. Focus."
"I'm losing it," Kaia told us worriedly.
"Almost," Jack told us. "Almost."
The angels stepped up their attacks for a final assault on the wards. Aiden and Amara were preparing their power for an attack on the angels once they broke through, not knowing their full power but knowing that they had to bring it all to fight them off, starting to use their power of darkness and shadows to tear at the angels, until they finally turned to dust, to the shock of the rest of us. Whatever Kaia and Jack were seeing in their dreamwalking caused Kaia to scream, causing the entire interior of the boat to glow brightly, filling the room with a blinding light, tearing open a glowing portal, that took all of us through it to whatever place they were both seeing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sam, Dean, Aiden, Amara and I groggily woke up in what appeared to be woods surrounding us, looking around.
"Sam?" Dean asked. "Ness?"
"Yeah," I answered.
"Yeah, yeah," Sam answered.
"Aiden, Amara, you okay?" Dean asked.
"No, no, no, we're good," Amara answered.
"We learned we can turn angels to dust with darkness," Aiden told us. "Yeah, we're good."
We chuckled, looking around warily, trying to figure out where we were.
"Come on," I told them. We walked through the forest, jumping down into a ditch. "Where the hell are we?"
I looked around, seeing that it wasn't a ditch that we were standing in, but a massive footprint. We looked around, climbing out the other side, walking away. We heard a large creature roaring and heavy footsteps approaching, not sure what the hell was happening.