Up at the front of the bus, the driver casually adjusted the rearview mirror, locking his gaze on Henry's reflection in the back row.
A slow, malicious smile stretched across his face, and his eyes rolled back, turning solid, pitch-black.
In the blink of an eye, the speeding bus vanished completely from the empty Ohio highway, leaving nothing behind but the faint scent of sulfur on the asphalt.
***
Miles away in a cheap motel room, Dean zipped up his duffel bag.
They'd just finished burning a funeral for Adam Milligan — the half-brother they never knew they had, whose corpse a flesh-eating ghoul had spent the last week parading around town.
"I'm going to get a drink, Sammy," Dean muttered, snatching the Impala's keys off the dresser. "My mood's crapped."
Sam gave a tired wave from behind his laptop, didn't look up.
The door slammed shut. The moment it did, the tension in the room shifted. Sam closed the laptop, rubbed his face. When he looked up, Ruby was standing by the window.
"No matter how many times you show up, my decision isn't changing," he said flatly.
"I'm not joining whatever you demons are cooking."
"Still playing the good little brother, Sam?" Ruby stepped into the dim light.
"What if I'm not here to make some vague offer? What if I'm telling you we're out of time? You know about the seals."
"Yeah, I know."
"Then do you know how many Lilith's actually broken?"
Sam stayed silent. Heaven wasn't giving them progress reports, and they'd been too buried in ghouls and prophets to track the bigger picture.
"Sixty-five," Ruby said, voice dropping to a dead-serious whisper.
"Almost all of them. One more seal snaps and Lucifer walks. And your feathered friends upstairs? Doing a shit job on purpose. They're losing, Sam. And they don't care."
Sam's eyes widened. Sixty-five. The apocalypse was standing on their doorstep.
"So," he said, reluctance finally cracking under the weight of it. "You'll help me stop Lilith?"
Ruby smiled, something cold and calculating behind it. "Yes."
She needed him to kill Lilith to break the final seal. That was the only endgame that mattered. If she couldn't push him there directly, she'd point him at the target like a loaded weapon and let circumstances do the rest.
"So, Sam. Prepare the Colt."
Sam blinked, the defensive wall he'd built cracking a fraction.
"The Colt?"
"Yes." Ruby stepped back toward the door.
"Make sure you have bullets. You get the gun ready, I'll track her down. I'll help you find the exact right moment to put a bullet between Lilith's eyes before she finishes this."
"Okay. Deal."
Ruby smiled warmly, turned the door handle.
The second her back was to him, the warmth vanished, replaced by a cold, predatory smirk.
After sometime door swung open and Dean walked in, bringing the sharp smell of cheap whiskey and stale bar smoke with him.
Before he could even toss the Impala keys onto the laminate table, Sam dropped the bomb.
"You agreed to what?" Dean stopped dead in his tracks, staring at his brother like he had just grown a second head. His hand dropped to his belt, hunter instincts completely overriding his exhaustion.
"Where is she? Tell me she's still in the building so I can stab her right now."
"Dean, back off and listen to me." Sam stepped squarely into his brother's path. "Sixty-five seals."
Dean froze, his hand hovering over the hilt of his demon-killing knife. "What did you just say?"
"Sixty-five seals are broken, Dean." Sam's voice dropped into a grim, desperate register.
"Lilith has broken almost all of them. Only one more needs to snap and Lucifer walks out of the cage. We are entirely out of time."
"Sixty-five?" Dean ran a hand roughly over his face, shock morphing into explosive fury.
"What the hell have those feathered dicks been doing this whole time?! They're constantly popping in, preaching about destiny, and they just let sixty-five locks break?!"
"They aren't stopping her — they're losing, or they just don't care." Sam grabbed his brother's jacket to keep his attention focused. "But Ruby actually knows where Lilith is going to be. She's offering to tee her up for us. We just need to prepare the Colt."
"And you actually believe a black-eyed bitch from Hell?" Dean violently shoved Sam's hands off him.
"She is playing you, Sam! We summon her back, trap her under a devil's trap, torture the location out of her, and send her back downstairs where she belongs."
"We don't have time to play interrogator, and she's too smart for a trap!" Sam's desperation bled through.
"Dean, look at me — we do not need to trust her. I don't trust her! But she is our only active GPS to the biggest target on the board. We prepare the Colt, we let Ruby point us to Lilith, we put a bullet between her eyes, and we ignore everything else."
Dean paced the small room, jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek. He hated this. He wanted to gut the demon on pure, practical principle.
"She's not asking for your soul? A favor? A blood pact? Nothing?"
"Nothing. We just use her like a tool to get the job done."
Dean stared him down, searching his brother's eyes for a trap. Finally he let out a harsh, exhausted breath, entirely boxed in by the apocalyptic ticking clock.
"Okay." His voice dropped to a dead-serious, unforgiving register.
"We use her to find Lilith. But you listen to me — the absolute second she gives us the location, before the smoke even clears from Lilith's corpse, I am putting a bullet in Ruby too. I'm not leaving her breathing. Understood?"
"Understood," Sam nodded.
*****
🔥 For Advanced Chapters Join My Patreon 🔥
👉 patreon.com/DeathNote4455
🚀 Get early access to 24 Advanced chapters.