CHAPTER NINETEEN

The three hunters pull up outside of an old house for the job that they've been working the past few days, and Dean cuts off the car's engine. Nyx gets out as quickly as possible, and they head to the trunk to get what they need to kill this sick bastard.

"What do you got those amped up to?" Sam asks his brother.

"A hundred thousand volts."

"Damn." Nyx mumbles.

"Yeah, I want this Rawhead extra freakin' crispy." Dean tells them. "Remember, you only get one shot with these things, so make it count."

"I'm a perfect shot. Or have you forgotten?" She smiles as he closes the trunk.

"You're a pain in my ass."

"It's all part of my charm."

"Come on." Sam says, and they start toward the house.

"Basement." Nyx says, and they immediately look for the entrance.

The three of them go down the stairs as quickly and as quietly as possible. Then they hear a tapping noise, and immediately turn in the direction that it's coming from. They see a metal cabinet and slowly walk toward it.

Dean counts to three and then opens it quickly. Two little kids scream, and the hunters immediately point their guns away from them.

"Is it still here?" Sam whispers, and the little boy nods.

"Grab your sister's hand. Come on, we're gonna get you out of here." Dean says, and the kids both stand up.

Sam moves the kids in front of him, and they head toward the stairs. "Alright, go." Sam tells them, and they run up as fast as they can manage.

Something grabs Sam's foot from under the stairs, and the little girl screams. Dean grabs Nyx as his brother comes falling toward them. He moves back, and she runs over to Sam once he stops falling.

"Nycole!" Dean yells, and she tosses him the stun gun.

"Are you okay?" She asks Sam as Dean fires off the shot.

"Yeah." He nods as he gets up.

"Get 'em out of here!" Dean says, and she ducks as Sam tosses him a gun.

Sam then runs up the stairs and gets the kids away from the thing they're trying to kill. They walk around the basement, looking for the big, ugly monster. Nyx hears Dean as he falls backward and then the monster's moving toward her and it's fast.

She shoots it, but the bullets barely slow it down. It grabs her by the throat and throws her backward. She lands about halfway up the stairs and groans in pain. She landed on her wrist, and it hurts like hell.

Nyx suddenly hears electricity buzzing, and she immediately turns to see where it's coming from. Dean's electrocuting the monster, but they're both in a large puddle of water so they're both getting electrocuted.

"Dean!" Nyx yells as Sam runs down the stairs behind her.

She quickly gets to her feet as the electricity stops flowing, and they both run over to his older brother. "Dean, hey. Hey." Sam's trying to get him to wake up, but it's no use.

—

"Sir, I'm so sorry to ask. There doesn't seem to be any insurance on file." The nurse says; they're at the hospital now.

"Right, um..." Sam starts going through his pockets. He pulls a card out and hands it to her.

"Okay, Mr... Berkovitz." She says, and Nyx looks up at the cops who are waiting for the two of them.

"Look, uh, we can finish this later." One of them says as Sam walks over to them.

Sam looks at him. "No, no, it's okay. We were just taking a shortcut through the neighborhood, and our windows were rolled down. We heard some screaming​ when we drove past the house, and we stopped, and ran in." He tells them, lying, and Nycole nods. One of the officers is writing his statement down.

"And you found the kids in the basement?" The officer asks.

"Yeah."

"Well, thank God you did."

Nyx turns around and sees Dean's doctor come out of his room. "Sam." She nudges him, and he turns around.

"Excuse us." He says to the officers, and they walk over to the doctor. "Hey, doc, is he..."

"He's resting." He tells them.

"And?" Nyx asks.

"The electrocution triggered a heart attack. Pretty massive, I'm afraid. His heart... It's damaged."

"How damaged?" Sam asks, and she bites her lip as she tries to keep her eyes from watering.

"We've done all we can. We can try and keep him comfortable at this point, but I'd give him a couple of weeks​ at most, maybe a month." He says, and Nyx grabs Sam's hand.

"No, no. There's... There's gotta be something you can do." Sam says as he squeezes her hand, trying to comfort them both. "Some kind of treatment."

"We can't work miracles." The doctor says as he looks between the two of them. "I really am sorry."

"Can we see him now?" Nyx asks, and the doctor nods.

"Of course." He says, and the pair walk into Dean's hospital room.

He's flipping through channels on the tv and he looks terrible. He's pale, and his eyes have bags under them. Nyx's​ grip on Sam's hand tightens, and he pulls her closer to him.

"Ever actually watch daytime tv?" Dean asks without looking up at them. "It's terrible."

"We talked to your doctor." Sam tells him.

"That fabric softener teddy bear... I want to hunt that little bitch down." He says, still watching​ the stupid tv.

"Dean." His brother gets his attention, and he actually looks at them.

"Yeah." He shuts off the tv. "Looks like you two are gonna leave town without me."

"What are you talking about? We're not gonna leave you here." Nyx tells him.

"You better take care of that car. I swear I'll haunt your asses."

"I don't think that's funny." Sam says, and she shakes her head. They're both trying not to cry as he makes light of the situation.

"Oh, come on. It's a little funny." The older boy says, and his brother looks out the window as she takes a deep breath and looks down at the foot of the bed. "Look, what can I say? It's a dangerous gig. I drew the short straw. That's it, end of story."

"Don't talk like that, alright. We still have options." He argues.

"What options? You got burial or cremation." Dean says. "I know it's not easy, but... I'm gonna die. And you two can't stop it."

Nyx shakes her head. "I can't— I'm sorry, I can't..." She pulls her hand away from Sam and walks out of the room.

She goes outside to get some air, but it doesn't help. She then pulls her phone out of her pocket and calls her house in Mystic Falls. "Hello?"

"John, can I talk to Jenna or one of my siblings please?" She asks him.

"Well, Elena hasn't been home all day, and Jenna's​ staying on campus. I'm not quite sure where Jeremy is." He tells her.

"Can you find him for me please?"

"What's wrong? Is everything okay?"

"I'm fine. Just call Jeremy." She tells him.

He yells her brother's name, but he doesn't get an answer. "Looks like I'm the only one home."

"I'll call their cell." She says and then hangs up on him.

Jeremy doesn't answer his phone, and neither does Jenna. Nyx takes a deep breath and calls her sister.

"Elena's phone, Damon speaking." He answers.

"This fight or whatever it is, it's over or it's on hold. I don't care. Where's Elena? I have to talk to my sister." She tells him, her voice shaky as she fights back tears.

"Elena—"

"No, Damon." The younger twin says. "She's​ refused to actually talk to me since Caroline told her—"

"Elena." He cuts her off. He heard the fear in Nycole's​ voice and the fact that she sounded like she's on the verge of crying.

"Nycole?" Elena's voice comes through a few seconds later. "What happened?"

"He's dying, Elena." Nyx says. "Dean's dying, and I don't know what to do."

"What? How?"

"We were working a job and the monster attacked us. He was electrocuted, and it caused a heart attack." She explains. "The doctor said that he has less than a month to live."

"Oh, my—"

"I was only a few feet away from him, it should've been me." She says as she holds back her tears. "Why do the people around me keep getting hurt?"

"Where are you? I'll meet you there."

"Are you sure?" She asks.

"You're my sister. You come before everything else." She says, and Nyx tells her where they are.

—

Nyx walks out of the bathroom to hers and Sam's motel room and looks over at him. "He didn't answer?" She asks, and he shakes his head. He just called his dad to tell him what's going on with Dean.

There's a knock at the door, and Nyx quickly walks over to it. She opens it and finds Elena standing there. "Oh, thank God." She hugs her.

"I'm so sorry, Nycole." Elena says as she pulls back and looks at her sister.

"We're gonna find a way to save him." She tells her. "With everything that we've learned... There has to be something."

"Damon offered his blood, but I figured that even if vampire blood could cure a heart condition—"

"Dean would never take it." Nyx says, and she nods.

"Maybe I can be of some help with something." John says, and Nyx looks at him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She asks as she looks at her uncle.

"If you plan on continuing your life the way that you have been, you're gonna have to prove to me that these two boys can actually protect you from these monsters." He says.

"I'm sorry. I was gonna bring Ric, but John heard us leaving." Elena says, and she shakes her head.

"I don't have time to argue. But if you're gonna be here, you are going to help." She tells John as she lets them inside.

"How exactly do you plan on finding a way to save him?" John questions.

"I've lost my parents and my best friend. Sam lost his mom and his girlfriend. We'll figure something out, because we're not losing Dean too." She hands him a book and he takes it from her. "Start reading. And tell me if you find anything that might be useful to us. And when this is all over, there just might some redemption in it for you."

"What happened to your hand?" He asks as he looks at the brace on her wrist.

"I landed on it when the monster threw me. It's just a sprain, it'll be fine." She says as she walks away from him.

"Is there anything that I can do?" Elena asks Sam, and he looks up at her.

There's a knock at the door before he can answer her. "Did you bring anyone else?" He asks.

"No." She says as he stands up.

Sam walks over to the door and opens it a crack to see who's outside​. "What the hell are you doing here?" He questions, and Nyx walks over to him as he opens the door even wider. Dean's standing there.

"I checked myself out." He says as he moves inside the room. He's having a hard time walking so she grabs his arm, and he wraps it around her shoulders.

"Are you crazy​?" Nycole questions.

"I'm not gonna die in a hospital where the nurses aren't even hot." He says. "I'd rather be with you, who is hot."

"Come again?" She raises her eyebrows.

"I'm dying. What have I got to lose?" He says, and Sam laughs as he looks between the two of them. "Why are there two of you? And why is the guy who wanted to arrest me here?"

"You remember Elena and our uncle, John."

"Yeah. Hi." He says. "Come to watch me die? It's probably more entertaining than anything on tv. I swear that little teddy bear—" Nyx puts her hand over his mouth, and he looks down at her.

"You know, this whole I laugh in the face of death thing, it's crap." Sam says then. "We can see right through it." He tells his brother.

Dean grabs Nyx's hand and removes it from his face. "Yeah, whatever. Have either of you even slept? You look worse than me." He says as she starts to help him to one of the beds.

"We've been scouring the internet for the last three days." He says as she and his brother sit on the bed. "Been calling every contact in Dad's journal."

"For what?"

"For a way to help you." He says. "One of dad's friends, Joshua — he called me back. Told me about a guy in Nebraska, a specialist."

"You're not gonna let me die in peace, are you?" He asks as he looks between the two of them.

"We're not gonna let you die, period." Nyx tells him. "We're going. We were just waiting for Elena to show up. Now that she's here, and she brought John..."

"He didn't really give me a choice." Elena says, and her sister looks at her.

"I have a few things to teach you, but in the meantime..." She looks back at Dean, and he sighs as he looks at her. "You know you lost all say when you agreed to bring me with you back in North Carolina." She tells him, and he shakes his head at her.