"Wait, so, you've been following us?"  Dean looked at me, his eyes wide and accusing.  "And stealing our food?"

"I...I was trapped in the Impala all night and half of the day, and I couldn't exactly order pizza."

"You're paying me for those fries."

I rolled my eyes, reached into my pocket, and handed him a five.

As he accepted it, Dean frowned as if he was expecting more, then shrugged and put it in his own pocket.

"Can we go somewhere...less public?" Cas asked.  He was obviously uncomfortable.

"What, you don't like girls?" Dean said.  As he was taking a sip of his drink, he muttered, "Even after he lost it, they still scare him."

Sam and I were the only ones that had heard his comment.  I watched a smirk rise on his face as he looked down at his hands and watched Dean from the corner of his eye.  He looked up, straight at me.

I stood to my feet, pushing my chair under the table.  I walked over to Cas, and then I heard Dean groan behind me as he got up as well.  He slapped a wad of cash on the table.

When we made it outside, Sam was the one full of questions.

"So, where are you from, exactly?"

"Athens, Georgia.  But not the one from here.  A different universe?" I was uncertain.  So many new things were being dumped on me, and I wasn't sure what to make of it anymore.

"In her prayer, she told us that Dean's amulet was the source of the power," Cas said.

"My...amulet?"  Dean subconsciously looked down at his chest where the amulet had been years ago.

I showed them the amulet around my neck.

"Nice tat," Dean said.

"It wasn't there before I put this on," I said.

"So you're saying, the amulet did that?" Sam asked.  I nodded.

"It seems like it is draining her energy to fuel its power, which she has no control over," Cas explained.  "She doesn't feel the effects of the drain quite yet, but she will very soon."

"How do I stop it?  How do I get it off?" I said, my heart rate increasing.  "It could flash me anywhere at any second!"

"I'm not entirely sure."

"What?" I felt my face getting hot as panic washed over me.  "So I have to live like this forever?"

"Nicole..." Cas said, but his voice was fading.  My vision was blurring, and I was growing dizzy.  "Nicole..."

I collapsed to the ground, and everything was dark.

-

I opened my eyes.  The room was blurry.  I struggled to sit up.

There were two figures by the motel door.

"Hannah, I have to stay here for a few days.  You go on.  Follow our lead."

"But, Castiel..."

"Don't worry about me, only the mission.  Just go."

"Okay."

One figure left, and the other came my direction.  I blinked several times, and I could finally make out his face.

"Cas?" I mumbled.

"You fainted," he told me.

"Yeah, I think I figured that out."

"It seems like intense emotions, yours being panic, jump-started the effects of the power drain."

"Oh, that's nice," I replied sarcastically.

I fell backwards onto the bed that I was sitting on with a sigh.

"So I'm going to die like this."

Castiel looked down at the floor.  "Not necessarily..."

I saw Sam step into the room. He looked over his shoulder, telling someone behind him that I was conscious.  Dean joined his side.

"The thief awakes," Dean said.

"You sure do hold a grudge, don't you?" I said.

Dean smirked.

"So you were saying something about how I don't have to die?"  I looked back at Cas.

"Objects with angelic power that come in contact with the mundane sometimes bond with them, like a host.  Leaving them together like you are, you will die.  But if I were to remove it, you still may die from the reaction and the breaking of the bond."

"Spectacular."

"But there is another way," Sam said. Castiel's face twisted.

"What?"

"You could...become an angel."

"What?"

"I don't like this option," Cas said.

"But...but angels are created by God, their father.  How could a human be turned into an angel?"

Cas sighed. "The amulet is taking such a toll on your body that it is causing permanent, irreparable damage, even if we were able to remove it.  The only way that you could possibly survive it, in full, is if you were to undergo an Angelic Turning."

"Okay, but how?"

"The first step is drinking angel blood," Cas explained. "The Turned Angel has to first be human; that's the only being that can undergo such a process.  And the only way that they can withstand the extreme effects of the angel blood is if they possess some angelic power already.  Since you have that amulet bonded with you, we don't have to worry about that part."

"Me...an angel..." I stared down at the bedsheets.  "But angels are dicks."

Dean laughed. "You got that right."

Cas looked over his shoulder at Dean with a frown.

"You're okay," Dean teased.

Cas looked back at me. "Of course, since Turned Angels were once humans, they are not holy, and they are angels of Earth, not of Heaven.  They aren't quite as powerful as Angel-Borns, but can still do pretty much the same things.  They have to develop their grace overtime as their body accepts the Turning.  They possess some human traits that angels do not, such as emotions, the necessity for food, water, and sleep, and mortality."

I blinked, taking it all in.

"Powers of an angel cannot be taken lightly.  These should not be given to just anyone," Cas said, staring at Sam and Dean with displeasure. 

"This girl is not going to die if I can help it," Dean said. 

Sam and Dean Winchester.  I was their weakness.  The young, the old, the helpless, the innocent.  They can't watch people like me die because of something they could prevent, no matter what the cost, or the risk.

Though, giving a random stranger the powers of an angel?  This was a new extreme.

"So, you have to decide what you want to do," Sam said softly.

"This is a decision?  I'm going to die if I don't!  And, plus, angels can do some pretty cool stuff, so hell yeah," I said.

"Okay," Cas said, his voice somber.  He pulled out his angel blade.  "I must warn you, the process is extremely painful, and you will sleep for days after."  I nodded, and he nodded as well as he decided to continue.  He sliced his wrist with the blade, and his cut glowed.  "I will have to give you some every hour for five hours, and then the first part is complete."  I nodded again, opening my mouth.  Cas whispered one more thing in my ear, too quiet for Sam and Dean to hear, before feeding me his blood.  "Grace, borrowed grace, or no grace, I am still enough of an angel for this part to work."

When the drops touched my tongue, it felt like someone had lit it on fire.  I groaned, my eyes watering.  Several more drops landed before Cas stopped, and I swallowed.

The burning sensation traveled down my throat and quickly spread through my entire body.  I gritted my teeth, shutting my eyes tight.

After several minutes of writhing in pain, it was finally tolerable.  My ass felt like a burrito gone wrong, and my eyes felt like I'd soaked them in my shampoo, and the rest of my body felt like I'd jumped into the Lake of Fire, but, hey, at least my breathing had reached normal.

Sam and Dean had left the room, ashamed of the pain they were putting me through. 

I chose it.  Sort of.

I turned my head, seeing Castiel preparing more blood, putting servings in drinking cups.

"You said that the blood was the first step.  What's after this?" I asked.

Cas looked up.  "Well, you sleep for a long time while your body accepts the change, and then you wake and allow your grace to develop.  At that point, angelic abilities begin to develop as well.  To ensure their prosperity, you must be given an angelic charge by an angel that has occupied their vessel for several years, and then you can finally overpower the amulet and drain its power completely."

"You make it sound so easy.  Except for the fact that I feel like I'm lying in a freaking oven!"

"Sorry," was all that Cas could say.  I rolled my eyes, gritting my teeth once more as what felt like a surge of white-hot electricity ran through my veins.

Once it was time for the next dose, my arms and legs had to be tied down.  Cas tipped the cup so that the blood trickled past my lips, and I cried out.  I forced myself to swallow, bursting into a coughing fit after.  I made fists with my hands, letting out a scream.  Sam joined Cas in the bedroom, watching me with sad eyes.

"She will survive this, won't she?" he asked Cas quietly, but I still heard him.

"If she's a fighter," Cas replied.

"What if you were to stop now?"

"My blood would most likely consume her until she is nothing more than ash."

Sam was quiet for several moments, trying to process the difficult news.  "Why are we putting her through this?"

"It was her choice."

"But surely she didn't know it was this bad."  He took a side glance at me.  "She is just a kid..."

Cas tipped his head down, staring at his feet.  "I know."

The third dose seemed to eat away my insides.  I screamed again, my eyes running out of tears.

There was a pounding on the door.

"What's going on in there?  I'm gonna call the police!"

Castiel placed his hand on the door, and it glowed bright white.  Once he took his hand back, it was normal again.

The voice at the other side of the door spoke again, "All right, man.  Just tone it down, okay?"  Then there was silence.

I coughed.  "What did you do?"

"I convinced him that I was preparing for a Halloween party."  I looked at him strange, given the fact that it was only July, but hey, it worked.

Sam and Dean entered the room, looks of sadness and pain on their faces.

"I can't listen to this anymore," Sam said.  He left the hotel, and Dean followed.

As Dean passed Castiel, he smacked his shoulder in a brotherly way.  "Take care of her."

Cas nodded, looking at me with a frown.

If I could have seen my face, I would have noticed that the black swirls had climbed my neck and were beginning to reach my right cheek.  They pulsed each time I felt a flash of heat.

-

The fourth dose was just awful, but there were less screams from me.  The burning sensation that I felt after it was worse, but actually swallowing the blood was getting easier.

The fifth dose?  I think I had a seizure.  I knew that, at this point, it was fight or die.  This moment was what Cas was talking about when he told Sam that I had to be strong to survive.  It was so awful, I don't even know how to explain it.

My breathing was heavy, and after half an hour of struggling to keep myself alive, I began to doze off.  Step two.  I had to sleep for a few days.

And I did.  For much longer than a few days.  Once I came to, Sam and Dean had killed a shape-shifter on a job.  Dean was sitting in a chair by the doorway, grinning at his phone.  That's when I realized that I was no longer in a motel, but the Men of Letters bunker.

Dean chuckled, replying to a text message he had received.  He received another message, and his mouth fell open; the corners of his open mouth turned upward.  He grinned and tapped the screen, enlarging a photo.

"Is that Shaylene?" I asked.  Dean looked up from his phone, his eyes wide and surprised.  "I tried to make my Twitter username Impala67, but it was already taken by another fan."  I struggled into a sitting position.  Dean opened his mouth to say something, but I continued talking before he could reply.  "She's a prostitute working for a group of demons trying to buy souls."

"Huh," Dean said.  He stuck his head out of the room.  "Sammy, you owe me twenty bucks!"

"I knew you'd wake up today, but he insisted that you would tomorrow."

Sam and Castiel came into the bedroom that I was in.

"How are you?" Castiel asked.

"Okay, I guess," I said.  All three of them looked relieved, but Dean was trying to be laid back about it for some reason.

My stomach growled.  "Do y'all have anything to eat?"

"There's some pizza in the fridge."  Sam left the room to retrieve it.