Chapter 19

Brooklyn

Garth's boat sat in front of Sam, Dean and I. A drastic call from Kevin a couple of hours ago made us act fast in hopes that he wasn't completely losing his mind yet. Not when we're so close to figuring out how to close the gates of Hell.

Dean pounds on the metal door, his voice loud so he can be heard, "Kevin, open up! Kevin!"

Kevin opens the door with a huge iron skillet in his hand, he looks haunted, tired, and unclean. Sam is quick to put his hands up while Dean holds one hand up to Kevin while the other one places in front of me protectively. An action I've grown used too.

"Whoa! Whoa. Geez," Dean says as Kevin lowers the pan and turns to walk deeper into the metal room. Following him inside, Dean asks, "What's going on? What's with the S.O.S.?"

"It's him."

"It's who?" Sam asks confused.

"Crowley," Kevin replies, seeming out of it.

My eyes scrunch in confusion, "What about him?"

Kevin points to his head worriedly, "He's in my head." By the look on his face, we know he's not playing a trick and honestly believes that Crowley is in his head.

Sam treads lightly as he says, "He's... in your head."

"Do you know what that means?" Kevin says panicky.

Dean nods, looking over the kid with worried eyes. "Yeah, it means we need to up your anxiety meds. Kevin, you're dreaming. Look, if Crowley knew where you were, he'd do a hell of a lot more than mess with your head."

It's Crowley, he has more fun playing with people's head then actually torturing them. But this isn't the time or place to be talking about that.

Changing the subject, I asked, "Okay, well, what did you want to tell us that you couldn't say on the phone?"

Dean notices the pan still gripped in his hand, causing him to gesture towards it. "Would you put the frying pan down, please?"

Kevin seems relentless at first but listens and set the pan down on the stove. He speaks as if he doesn't really want to talk, but pushes through anyways. "I translated the second trial from the tablet."

Dean is the first to praise him, "You... crazy Prophet, you. Nice work!"

Although, Kevin doesn't take Dean's praise and instead looks even more panicky, pointing to his head again. "And if Crowley's in my head, he knows."

"Okay, he's definitely not in your head," Dean and I say at the same time, making us glance at each other. Even Kevin and Sam gave us funny looks at first before shacking it off.

I guess great minds think alike.

Sam pushes the ball along, "He's not in your head, Kevin. It's okay. We know you're distressed. Just stay with us, all right? What's the second trial?"

Sighing, Kevin turns and walks over to his desk, "An innocent soul has to be rescued from Hell and delivered unto Heaven."

"What?" I asked, not really confused, just surprised.

Sam backs me up, "Rescue a soul from Hell? Like actually... Go to Hell? How do you get a soul into Heaven? I mean, how do you even get a soul out of Hell?"

A thought quickly comes to mind, making me shrug slightly, "I've got an idea." The brothers look at me, curious to know what my thoughts where, so I gave them a little sneak peek. "But we're going to need to get to a crossroads."

I could see the panic now rush to Dean's face, clearly thinking I was going to make a deal or something.

Hitting his stomach lightly, I said, "I'm not going to make a deal. I just meant that maybe we can get it out of one."

Seeming relieved, Dean let's out a breath he must have been holding and nods. "Yeah, sounds good. Let's go. We'll be back Kevin, and just... relax a little, okay?"

Kevin nodded, watching us as we left.

We drove to the nearest crossroads, finding it open for our use.

Sam thought it'd be best if he called up the demon, grabbing a box and getting to work. Once the hole was dug and the box laid securely inside of it, his foot covered up the remaining dirt.

A male crossroads demon appeared in front of Sam and Dean while I stood behind it.

"Winchesters," The demon said with a wicked smirk, clearly not noticing my own presence yet. "And Myers," He said, turning and looking over his shoulder at me.

I take it back.

"What happened to the hot chicks," Dean asked, hoping to annoy the demon enough to want to leave. He did.

Dropping his smirk, the demon was quick to scuff and say, "I'm out of here."

"That might be a problem," I said, causing the demon to turn and look at me. This time I was the one to smirk, crossing my arms as I nodded to the devil's trap that was painted around him.

He snarled, ready to sprint towards me only to be thrown back by the trap.

"Ouch," I said, enjoying the little show he was giving us.

"Brooklyn," A female's voice said, grabbing my attention. I turned around to find Rose, the angel that helped me out of Hell, the angel that hasn't been answer my calls for weeks now.

At first, I wondered if Dean and Sam could see her, but Dean's comment gave me my answer. "Who's this Brooke?"

Rose nodded to the devil's trap, "Let him go."

"Bullshit we are, we just got him and now we're gonna ask him a few questions," Dean said, making his way around the circle, over to us. Sam straggled around the other side, taking his time.

"The questions you want to ask him, he won't be able to answer. But I can, if you let him go."

Dean didn't seemed convinced, scuffing before turning to me. My face studied Rose, trying to figure out what was going through her mind. "Brooke, who is this chick?"

"I'm not a small bird, Dean Winchester," Rose shot at Dean. On any other day, I probably would have enjoyed her little comments. But today, I was tired of them. Or maybe I was just tired of all the unanswered questions Rose was giving me. At least Cas had tried to give us answers.

"You know what-" Dean started, taking a step towards her and pointing a finger at her. My hand reached for his chest, stopping him from going any further. "Wait Dean, she's an old friend. Sort of," My eyes glaring at the angel.

Dean seemed confused and slightly shocked, "Well, do you trust this "old friend" of yours."

At first, I didn't answer, truly unsure of my own answer. Rose stared at me, waiting to see what I would do.

"You better answer my questions," I said, looking straight at Rose before turning and looking at the demon. I knelt down, pushing the dirt aside so there was a gap in the demon trapping circle. "You're free to go," I said, causing the demon to glare at me before vanishing.

Turning back towards Rose, I was quick to ask, "Okay. So how do we get into Hell?"

"For a price, you can be smuggled across Hell's border," Rose said, putting her hands behind her back as she looked at the three of us.

"By who?" Dean asked, still not seeming convinced about this angel yet. Understandable, sometime I'm unsure of her too.

"Rogue reapers. They have secret ways, in and out of Hell, Heaven, even the Veil."

I nodded, "So that's why you know about it."

"We like to keep an eye on who's coming and going into Heaven. And Hell at times," She said, glancing over to Sam slightly before focusing back on me.

Sam looked at Rose slightly confused, "Rogue reapers smuggling people?"

"People, souls, a little bit of everything," She said with a straight face.

Taking a small step forward and shaking my head, I asked, "Okay. So why couldn't the demon go and tell us this?"

Rose fell silent for a moment before looking at the ground. "Because he would have told you that all three of you could make it across. But in this case, it can be like that."

"And why the Hell not?" Dean half shouted, clearly pissed that he can't go with his brother.

Not seeming to like Dean's attitude, Rose's eyes fell on him and glared slightly. "Because there are higher things in store right now, Dean. We can't risk you all going to Hell."

"So what? I'm just supposed to let my brother go to Hell alone?" Dean shot back.

Rose just stared at him, "Yes." Her eyes moved to move nodding down to my hands, "This is who and where the smuggler is." I looked down at my hands to find a piece of paper in them. "Be careful, Sam," She said, making me look up to see her looking at Sam.

With that, she vanished, leaving the three of us alone.

Following the directions, we found ourselves at the side of a street. Darkness had taken over but the street lights and building signs lit our path. It's raining lightly, just creating enough to get you wet if you stood out in it too long.

A yellow cab is in our sights and the three of us make out way over to it. A taxi driver is standing outside of it, lost in his phone.

Dean is the first to speak when we approach the man, "Ajay. Need to talk to you for a sec."

"You know my name," The taxi driver says, shocking his phone in his pocket as he looks at us confused and shocked.

Sam nodded, "And what you do. We want to do business."

"But you are mortal – flesh and blood," He gestured to Sam, looking at Dean and I in hopes we would clarify. We didn't.

Sighing, Sam continued, "But if we wanted to cross the border into Hell –" getting cut off again by Ajay.

"No one wants to get into Hell."

Damn right they don't.

Sam let out another sigh, "But could a coyote like you do it?"

Ajay thinks for a moment, as if he doesn't know the answer. He shrugs slightly, "It's possible. But I have special skills. I have overhead. It will be pricey."

"How pricey?" I asked, studying him closely in hopes of figuring out what he wanted.

Ajay smiled, looking at the three of us before stopping on me, "You three are resourceful. One day, you will owe me a favor."

"You say that like you know us," Dean said, even more nervous now.

Scuffing slightly and gesturing to all of us with his hands, Ajay spoke up. "Of course. You're the Winchesters. And Ms. Myers here is talked about a lot in Hell. And slightly in Heaven. You hear things quickly."

Great, nice to know I'm still the main subject to Hell's conversation.

Dean looked over at me for a second before looking at Ajay confused. His mouth opened, but no words were able to leave before Ajay seemed to read his thoughts and speak. "I am the reaper who took Bobby Singer to Hell."

Bobby Singer. I heard about him. He was a great Hunter and a great friend to Sam and Dean. Practically raised them; kept them in good condition so they wouldn't keep killing themselves for each other.

Dean and Sam were taken back by Ajay's words and, even though I didn't know him, I was too.

Sam's voice came out slightly shaky, "Bobby in Hell? We burned his bones. Once we did that, it was over. End of story."

Ajay hummed, tilting his head side to side, "Hmm... Not necessarily. It all depends on who you know, what palms get greased. If you're on the King of Hell's no-fly list, no way you cruise the friendly skies."

"Crowley," Dean mumbled, his hands rolling into fists.

My own words came out as a mumble, but mine were unheard by anyone, "Nice to know that there's no chance." My arms crossed over my chest and I looked off somewhere, feeling slightly disappointed. I mean, I wasn't expecting to die anytime soon but in this job, you never know.

Dean clasped his hands together, "Okay, let's do this. How much for three tickets down and four back?"

Ajay sucked in a breath, "Ah, see, that's where you're wrong Dean. See, you and Myer's can't go down to Hell"

"Why's that?" I asked, crossing my arms and glaring at the coyote.

He shrugged, "Meant to be. That's all I can say."

I swear, if I had a dollar for every time I heard the words "Meant to be" when it came to Dean and me, I'd be rich.

Dean let out a heavy sigh, looking around for a minute before Sam spoke up. "Hey, I'll be fine," He said, grabbing his older brother's attention. Dean looked at him, seeming ready to argue but when Sam opened his jacket, revealing the demon killing knife, he shut his mouth.

If there was anyway to be safe, it was with that knife.

"I'll bring Bobby back," Sam reassured Dean before looking at me. "Take care of my brother," He said, making Dean scuff. I crossed my arms, nodding, "Good luck."

Sam nodded to me, trying to reassure both of us before he nodded to Ajay, "Alright."

Dean quickly stops Ajay, "Wait, wait, wait. How does this... work?" He asked with a sigh.

Ajay smiled slightly at Dean's worriedness, "Not to fret. He'll be back in exactly 24 hours time. Return for him then." With that, Ajay leads Sam towards the back alleyway, leaving Dean and I.

"He'll be okay," I tried to reassure Dean who sighed again and checked his watch. He was silent for a moment, turning to the road before lightly placing a hand on my back, "Come on." I followed Dean as we headed to the Impala, climbing in, before driving off.

We headed back to the Bunker, Dean immediately heading for the fridge and pulling out two beers.

Though I wasn't much of a drinker, this was one of those situations where I needed a drink to get me through the day.

Dean broke off the caps, tossing them into the sink before walking over to the long, library table and sitting down. He sat one beer down next to him while the other he sipped occasionally. I took that as my cue to sit down, grabbing the beer and taking a swig of it.

Hoping to side track Dean slightly, I asked, "Do you think Kevin will be okay? He seemed a little... crazy."

"I don't know. Once he figures out the last trial, he's home free for a while," Dean said with a sigh, his eyes falling on the table while his mind was distant.

"Man. I feel bad for him, I mean he's just a kid. And to have all this pressure on him... it's not right."

Dean scuffed slightly, "This life isn't right. If we turn our back and try to live a life then we're letting people die. If we stay and fight then we're throwing a life away. Either way, we lose."

My eyes scrunched together in confusion, "People have lives in all of this. Maybe it's not normal, but it's a life. People still have relationships, get married, and have kids. Hell, some even live to be old men and women."

"Yeah, but at what cost? Looking over you and someone's back all your life? Always being on edge?" Dean asked, turning to look at me.

"No," I quickly said, leaning a bit on the table and looking at Dean square in the eyes. "It means that you have each other's back all your life. It means you're always prepared."

It hurt slightly to think that Dean thinks he can't have any life because he chose to be a hunter. I've known Hunters that live a full blown life with a full blown family. Sure, it's hard, but what life isn't? You lose people either way, might as well have a little fun and happiness along the way.

Dean was silent, his eyes moving from me to the wall as he took another swig of beer, throwing his feet up on the table.

Sorry it took so long to update but I finally have some up for you! Enjoy!