╔⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷╗

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨

╚⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷╝

The demon screamed as Delaney threw another round of Holy Water into his face. He thrashed from side to side and his skin sizzled from wherever the water had hit. Much like the rest of the demons Delaney and the boys interrogated, this one seemed hellbent on keeping whoever held Dean's contract a secret.

"You ready to talk?!" Dean barked, standing over the demon with a harsh look.

"I don't know! I don't know anything!"

Dean scoffed and turned to Delaney and Sam who stood next to him. "Oh, you hear that, guys? He doesn't know anything."

Delaney crossed her arms and stared down at the demon like he was the scum of the Earth. "Yeah, I heard."

"I'm telling you the truth!"

"Oh, you are?" Dean remarked and bent down so the demon and him were eye to eye with each other. "My God, then I owe you an apology. Allow me to make it up to you." He stood back up to his full height and held the Holy Water above his head, pouring a large amount into the demon's mouth. "I'm gonna ask you one last time - who holds my contract?!"

The demon's head bowed and he was quiet for a long moment until his head slowly raised, revealing his black eyes and dark smile. "Your mother. Yeah, she, uh, showed it to me right before I bent her over."

Dean instantly held his hand out before Delaney could leap forward and attack him for bringing Mary into it. He slowly lowered his hand when he was sure Delaney wouldn't try anything and he placed his hands on either side of the demon's chair, their faces inches apart. "I want a name or else - "

"Or what, hmm?" the demon challenged, his eyes flickering back to his meat suit's brown eyes. "You're gonna squirt Holy Water in both ends? Please. Brother, that's like a fleabite compared to what's coming to me if I tell you jack. Do what you want. The only thing I'm scared of is the demon holding your ticket."

Delaney huffed in annoyance that this ended the same way the others had. No demon wanted to spill who held Dean's contract in fear of what would become of them if they spilled. Dean's time was speedily ticking down and they needed information from something in order to save Dean. Delaney had half a mind to summon Randy, but he had already lied to her about being able to save Dean. Who knew what else he'd lie to her about if she asked him for his help?

Delaney hadn't even realized Sam began an exorcism until the demon's agonized screams snapped her out of her thoughts and saw Dean slowly circle the chair the demon sat in.

"How does that feel? Does that feel good?"

Demon hissed and cracked his neck, his hands clenching into fists on the arms of the chair. "Go ahead. Send me back to Hell... 'cause when you get there, I'll be waiting for you... with a few pals who are dying for a little meet and greet with Dean Winchester."

Sam froze mid-way through the exorcism and spared Dean a worried glance. "Should I?"

"Just stick him someplace he can't hurt anyone else."

It wasn't long before the demon was exorcised out of the poor male it possessed. Unfortunately, the male seemed to be dead long before the demon got inside of him and Dean offered to bury him while Delaney and Sam cleaned up the room a bit, even though the cabin had been abandoned for years. Delaney had gotten a phone call once they had finished cleaning and collapsed onto the couch while she waited for Dean to come back, answering the phone call.

The phone call Delaney had received was definitely... odd. Apparently, a guy that had stumbled into and died in the E.R. had bloody fingerprints that didn't even belong to him. It belonged to someone who had been dead for twenty years. If that wasn't up their alley, then Delaney didn't know what was.

Dean walked into the room as Delaney hung up and Dean looked like he was about thirty seconds from passing out. He walked over to where Delaney sat on the couch and collapsed across her lap with his eyes closed.

"Bury the body?" Delaney asked, running her hand through Dean's messed up hair to fix it for him.

"Yeah. Poor schmuck. Looks like these demons ride 'em hard just for kicks," Dean sighed and glanced up at his sister with a curious expression. "What was the phone call about?"

"Remember that thing from yesterday?"

"Stripper suffocates dude with thighs?" Dean asked.

"The other thing."

Sam furrowed his eyebrows, trying to rack his brain for all the newspaper articles they poured over yesterday. "Oh, the guy that walked into the E.R. and kneeled over dead? His stomach was ripped out?"

"His liver, actually. Anyways, I just found out something pretty damn interesting. The dead body covered in bloody fingerprints - not the victim's"

Dean rolled his eyes and made himself more comfortable on the couch, propping his feet up on the arm of the couch. "Okay, great. My man Dave Caruso will be stoked to hear it."

"Those fingerprints match a guy who died in 1981," Delaney continued, earning equally interested looks from both of her brothers.

"Really?" Sam balked, his eyes widening at the new information. "We talking, like, a comic of The Walking Dead?"

"Zombies do like the other other white meat, but what do you care about zombies?"

"What do you mean?" Delaney asked, flickering her eyes down to Dean.

"Well, you've been on soul-saving detail for months now. We're three weeks out and all of a sudden, you're interested in some zombie action?"

Delaney rose an eyebrow at Dean because he never turned down a potential job. Sure, there were still only three weeks left until Dean's time was up, but maybe if they took this job it could lead them somewhere. Plus, Delaney was mentally and emotionally exhausted and needed a distraction for at least a day or two. 

"Dean, you're the one who's been all gung ho to hunt. I just thought I'd be doing you a favor."

"Hey, no, no, no. I didn't say I didn't want to do it, okay," Dean quickly defended and sent a grin Delaney's way. "Of course I want to hunt some zombies."

"Okay, fine, whatever."

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"Yeah, the rest of the body was intact. The live was the only organ missing," the coroner explained to the three siblings who posed as FBI agents.

"Now, where the liver was ripped out, did you happen to notice any teeth marks?" Dean asked. 

The coroner eyed the three as if they were all insane. "Can I see your badges?" He inspected the IDs the Winchesters held up for him, but still gave them an odd look. "Fine. So you're cops and morons."

"Excuse me? No, no. We're very smart," Dean defended, tucking his ID back into his inner suit jacket pocket.

"The liver was not ripped out. It was removed," the coroner corrected, walking over to the wall of body cabinets and rolled out the one that belonged to the victim. He pulled back the sheet to show the Winchesters the long cut from the man's side to the middle of his stomach. "By someone who knew their way around a scalpel. Didn't you read my report?"

"Of course we did. Oh, it was riveting. It was a real page-turner, just delightful."

Delaney slapped a hand to her face and groaned quietly to herself. "Dean, please stop talking."

"You done?" the coroner inquired, anything but amused by Dean's statement.

"I think so."

"Please go away."

Delaney didn't have to be told twice and quickly exited into the hospital hallway, trying to hide the smile on her face. "Guess that puts a snag in our zombie theory, huh? You know, the whole scalpel thing?"

"Yeah, zombie with skills. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Zombie," Dean mused, chuckling at his own joke.

"Maybe we're on the wrong track, guys, looking for hacked-up corpses," Sam suggested.

"What should we be looking for?"

"Survivors. This isn't zombie lunch. This is organ theft."

⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷

Delaney sat at the table in the motel room with Sam's laptop opened up in front of her. They had gone to interview one of the other victims who had gotten their kidney stolen, but didn't get much out of him. He was pretty irritable the whole time and just kept complaining to them about his missing kidney. It didn't give them much to go off so Delaney had done about an hour of research before she came up with anything useful.

"I got a theory."

Dean unfolded the wrapping around his burger and picked it up. "Yeah?"

"I talked to Mr. Giggle's doctor. Turns out his incisions were sewn up with silk," Delaney informed her brothers and swung the laptop to face Dean and Sam who sat across from her at the table. "Silk used to be suture of choice back in the early nineteenth century. It was really problematic. Patients would get massive infections. The death rate was insane."

"Good times," Dean quipped.

"Right, so doctors, they had to do whatever they could to keep infections from spreading. One way was maggots."

Dean shot Delaney a deadpan expression. "Della, I'm eating."

"It actually kind of worked because maggots - they eat bad tissue and they leave good tissue," Delaney continued as if Dean hadn't spoken at all. "Get this - when they found our guy, his body cavity was stuffed full of maggots."

"Della, I'm eating!"

"Alright, so let's get this straight. People are getting ganked, right? A little Antiques Roadshow surgery, some organ theft, but why does this all sound familiar?"

Delaney leant back in her seat and waved John's journal in the air for the boys to see. "You heard it from Dad before. Doc. Benton - real life doctor, lived in New Hampshire. Brilliant and obsessed with Alchemy, especially how to live forever. So in 1816, Doc abandons his practice and - "

"Right, yeah, nobody hears from him for like twenty years, and all of a sudden people start showing up dead," Dean finished for Delaney.

"Dead or missing an organ or a hand or some other kind of part."

"Cause whatever he was doing was actually working. He just kept on ticking. Parts would wear out, he'd replace them, but I thought Dad hunted him down and took his heart out," Sam said, eyes furrowing in deep thought.

"I guess the Doc must have plugged in a new one," Delaney offered, not really knowing how else to explain the whole situation.

Dean sighed and took another bite of his burger. "Alright, where's he doing the deed?"

Delaney flipped open John's journal and skimmed the notes John had taken on Benton. "According to this, Benton's picky about where he sets up his lab. He picks dense forest with access to a river or stream or some kind of freshwater. He likes to dump the bile and intenstines and fecal matter from his victims in them." She chuckled when Dean gagged on the burger that he still chewed on in his mouth. "Lost your appetite yet, Dean?"

Dean was quiet for a long moment and stared down at the burger in his hand before eventually shrugging. "Oh, baby, I can't stay mad at you."

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A bit later, the three Winchesters had spread out a map on one of the beds in the motel room and circled any area they thought Benton would be hiding. 

"So these are all cabins. Most of them have been abandoned for years," Sam informed Dean and Delaney, pointing to a small area circled in red. 

"What the hell are we waiting for?" Dean asked before his phone rang and cut off whatever response Sam would have had for him. He picked it up, greeting Bobby on the other end and exchanged a few words with him. One word that stuck out the most was Bela. 

"Come on, we're going after Bela," Dean announced, hanging up with Bobby.

Delaney scoffed and grabbed Dean's arm before he could move more than a few steps. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a second, Dean."

Dean shook her hand off his arm and grabbed his jacket. "Come on, get your stuff. Clock's ticking."

Sam stepped forward and stood next to Delaney, crossing his arms. "Delly's right, Dean. We should stay here and finish the case."

"Are you two insane?"

"Dean, there's no way she has the Colt still. That was months ago and probably sold it the second she got it," Delaney argued.

Dean shrugged and pulled his jacket on. "So, I'll kill her - win-win. We're going."

Delaney crossed her arms and a defiant look crossed her face. No way was she just going to ditch this place when there was a psychotic doctor running around stealing people's organs. "No."

"Why the hell not?!" Dean barked, dropping the weapons duffle onto the bed and shoving weapons into it that they'd need. 

"Dean, this - this here, now - this is what's gonna save you," Delaney countered.

"Chasing some Frakenstein?"

"Chasing immortality."

Dean and Sam both glanced to her with odd expressions, neither one knowing where she was going with that. Sam just wanted to stay behind and make sure they could get rid of Benton somehow, or at least send him some place he couldn't hurt any more innocent people.

"We find out how he did it and we can do it to you," Delaney concluded.

"What are you talking about?" Dean asked, freezing in placing more weapons into the bag. Though, part of him was scared to know what Delaney's rational was.

"You have to die before you go to Hell, right? So, if you can never die - "

Dean held his hand up, effectively cutting off Delaney and tossing the shotgun in his hand back onto the bed. "Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait a second. Did - did you know this was Doc Benton from the jump?"

"Wha - no, Dean," Delaney replied and cowered at the stern look he shot her that told her he didn't believe her for a second. "Look, I was hoping - " 

Delaney had scoured John's journal hundreds of times and that particular hunt had stood out to her every time she passed it by to figure out how to save Dean. When she had heard about that article in the paper, Delaney had made sure to call up the hospital and have them give her any information they could about the victim that stumbled in with a missing liver. She didn't think it would amount to anything, but when the lab tech told her about the fingerprints... she just knew it was Benton. 

"So, the whole zombie thing, you were just lying to Sammy and me?" Dean cut in.

"I... I didn't want to say anything until I was sure. All I'm trying to do is find an answer here. We've always protected each other and that's what I'm trying to do now."

Sam shook his head, seemingly disappointed with his baby sister. "No, you're just trying to chase Benton and to kill him? No, you want to sit him down and study him."

Delaney frowned and didn't like the third degree she was getting from her brothers. All they cared about the past few months was trying to save Dean and now that she had an actual plan, the boys wanted to jump down her throat about it? "I was just trying to help."

"Well, you're not helping, Delaney! You forget that if I welch on this deal, you die. Guess what - living forever is welching."

"Fine, then whatever the magic pill is, I'll take it, too!"

"Aw, what is this Sid & Nancy? No, it's just like Bobby's been saying. We kill the demon that holds the contract and this whole damn thing wipes clean. That's our best shot."

Delaney placed her hands on her hips and huffed. "Even if you had the Colt, Dean, who are you gonna shoot? We have no idea who holds the ticket."

"We'll shoot the HellHounds before the slash Dean up. Now, I think we should go with Dean because there's no stopping this Benton guy now, obviously."

"I'm staying here," Delaney muttered and turned back to the map on the bed. If Dean and Sam didn't want to stick around to find the magic pill, then Delaney would do it herself.

"No, you're not... 'cause I'm not gonna let you wander in the woods alone to track some organ-stealing freak," Dean argued, stepping closer to Delaney who rose a challenging eyebrow at him.

"Oh, and how you gonna stop me, Dean?" Delaney challenged, staying toe to toe with Dean who looked taken back at her rebuttal. "I'm just trying to do the same thing you are."

"I know..." Dean trailed off, clicking his tongue and walked back over to the duffle on the bed. "But Sammy and I are going. So if you want to stay, Delaney, then stay."

Sam sadly stared at the side of Delaney's face who refused to meet either of the boys' gazes at this point. He frowned when Dean merely grabbed the duffle bag and stormed over to the motel door. "Just... be safe, Delly."

Delaney finally met Sam's eyes and forced a small smile onto her face. "You guys, too."

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Delaney pulled up the car she had rented to where she was pretty sure the spot Sam had circled on the map was. She pulled the map down from the visor above the driver's seat and double checked she was in the right place. When Delaney was positive she was on the outskirts of where Benton hid, she shut off the car and stepped out to make her way through the miles of forest.

It definitely took Delaney a lot longer to find the correct abandoned cabin and it was well past dark when she finally got to the last of the four cabins in the forest, quietly pushing the door open and peeking inside. She slowly circled around the room and pocketed a red, leather bond journal on the desk to her right. 

To her right, Delaney heard a slight noise from down below and found two doors that lead down to the dusty and grimy cellar. Across from the stairs was a dead body still strapped to the table, a bloody sheet covering it from the chest down. She pushed her way through ragged curtains and saw yet another body strapped to another table like the body in the other part of the room. Upon closer inspection, Delaney saw that it was a woman who was strapped down and her arm was stretch out with maggots covering the horrific wound on it. She slowly reached her hand out to feel if the woman still had a pulse, but the woman suddenly jolted awake.

"Sh! Sh! It's okay. I'm here to help you," Delaney whispered, glancing around the room for any sign of Benton. "I'm gonna help you." She turned to grab the small sheet behind her, gingerly lifting the woman's arm and wrapping it around the woman's wound while she whimpered. "I'm sorry."

The woman continued to whine and whimper when Delaney heard a door upstairs creak open. Benton must have came back from wherever he had gone in the forest, not leaving Delaney much time to get this woman wrapped up and out of the cellar before he could come back downstairs. Delaney swiftly undid the binds around the woman and noticed a small window just a few feet away, small enough for both girls to get through and escape.

Helping the woman through the window, Delaney followed after her just as she noticed the feet of Benton begin their decent down the steps. She wrapped the woman's around her shoulders and went as fast both she and the woman could back to the rental car in record time. Delaney helped the woman into the passenger seat of the car before she rushed around to the driver's side, switching it on and pushing the woman to sit back up straight from where she slouched.

The driver's window broke open and Delaney whirled around to see Benton behind her. He reached for her head and slammed it against the steering wheel, sending her vision blurry for a second. However, Delaney didn't waste time on flooring the car backwards to get Benton out of her window. She stopped the car short and threw it into drive, speeding right over Benton and leaving him behind in the forest.

⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷

Delaney had dropped the woman off at the hospital, not even explaining what happened to her and just handed her off to the E.R. nurse. The woman profusely thanked Delaney before she was whisked away. In her rearview mirror, Delaney noticed Benton get right back up and she had no idea what her plan really was at this point. She flipped through the the journal while she waited for the word that the woman would be okay and it had the formula in it.

The sound of her phone ringing on the nightstand next to her bed, snapped Delaney out of her thoughts. She picked it up when she noticed the caller ID. "Hey, Dee."

"Hey, Della."

"Did you get the Colt?"

"What do you think?"

Delaney closed her eyes and ran a hand down her face, looks like none of the Winchesters had much luck that day. "So, does that mean Bela is..."

"No, no, she deserves to die a dozen times over, but I couldn't do it."

"Aw, when did you grow so soft, Dee?"

"Della, I'm really screwed this time. You were right, Bela was a goose chase. The Colt's gone and this time I'm really screwed, baby girl."

Delaney slowly sat up in bed and leant back against the headboard, chewing her thumbnail in deep thought. "Maybe not.  I found Benton's cabin. He was there, but I didn't kill him."

"What do you mean, you didn't kill him?"

"Dean, just listen to me for a second, okay? I found his lab book and it has the formula."

"The live-forever formula? Great, let me guess. I got to drink blood out of a baby's skull?"

Delaney scoffed softly and ran her hands along the top of the journal that laid on the bed next to her. "Yeah, right. It's not black magic. There's no blood sacrifice or anything. It - it's just science, Dean. Very, very extremely weird science, but..."

"Wait, wait, wait. What are you saying? You think..."

"Dean, I think it might be doable. I mean, I know we've hit a lot of walls, but I - I think this formula - I think it might be it. This could save you," Delaney breathed, hoping against all hope that this could actually be the thing that finally saved Dean. 

"Okay, so, this formula..."

"Well, I mean, look, we're not in the clear just yet. There are just some things I don't get," Delaney admitted, walking over to the table and plopping down near the rest of her research.

Before Delaney could explain any further, a rag was suddenly placed over her mouth and she dropped the phone. She struggled against whoever held her tightly, but her fight quickly gave out when black formed around her vision and took over her fully.

⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷

Delaney eventually woke up strapped to a table and her eyes were taped open. Her head, wrists, torso and ankles were all strapped down to the wooden table beneath her. Dr. Benton stood above her and soothingly rubbed her arm.

"You can relax. It's all gonna be okay. Ain't nothing gonna happen here that you got to worry about, Laney. Your chances of coming out of this procedure alive - very, very high," Benton assured in a gravely force, his ghostly pale face stitched up in multiple places.

"How do you know my name?" Delaney asked.

"Oh... I know," Benton said, holding up the eye scoop he he had just heat up with a small blowtorch. "You think I'm some kind of monster, don't you? Well, I got to tell you, I have never done one thing that I did not have to do. This whole eternal life thing is very high-maintenance. If something goes bad - like my eyes here - you got to replace them." He ran a hand gently along Delaney's forehead with the eyeball scoop clutched in the other hand. "And sometimes things get damaged, like when your father cut out my heart. Now, that - that was very inconvenient. So, I'm sure that you can understand all the joy I felt when I read all about myself here in his journal."

Benton reached John's journal on the table behind him and held up the section on him up for Delaney to see. "Kind of makes this whole thing like a family reunion, don't it? Well, I guess it's about time that we get this thing started." He brought the eyeball scoop down to Delaney's eye and was just about to dig it in when three gunshots rang out through the room. Benton slowly turned to face whoever shot him and Delaney could see the three holes in Benton's chest from the corner of her eye. "Shoot all you want."

Two more gunshots were heard followed by a grunt and a crash in the other room. Delaney heard Sam call out for Dean before another crash was heard. A squelching sound was heard and Delaney silently prayed that the boys were okay.

"A knife?" she heard Benton chuckle. "What part of immortality do you not understand, son? Pity about the heart, though. It was a brand new one."

"Good," Dean rasped. "It should be pumping nice and strong... sending this stuff throughout your whole body." Delaney heard the sound of glass clinking along with the sound of liquid sloshing around inside something. "See, I picked up your little bottle upstairs and dipped the knife in it."

Sam rushed into the room once Delaney heard the sound of a crash and he sighed in relief at the sight of her. He stopped next to the table and gently pried the tape away from Delaney's face. "Hey, little one. You okay?"

"Yeah," Delaney breathed and let out a sigh of relief when Sam undid the binds around her torso and head first. She shook out her wrists once they were released and sat up, rubbing her wrists since they were a bit sore when she struggled against the binds earlier.

Dean came in with the now passed out Benton in his hands and ushered for Delaney to get off the table so he could place the doctor on it, strapping him up just like Delaney had been. He had just finished tying up the bonds and double checked on Delaney when the doctor slowly regained consciousness. 

"Oh, hiya, Doc," Dean quipped, standing above Benton with Sam and Delaney on either side of him. "Wakey, wakey, eggs and bac-y."

"Please..." Benton rasped.

"Please what? You've been killing poor bastards for over a hundred and fifty years and now you got a request. Shut up."

"No, you don't understand. I can help you. I know what you need."

Dean glared down at the doctor, now sense of remorse on his face for what he wanted to do to the man. "We might have to cut him up into little bits. You know, this immortality thing is a bitch."

"I can read the formula for you," Benton offered, gaining Delaney's attention for a moment. "The whole immortality - forever young, never die."

"Dean."

"Della."

Delaney motioned for her brothers to follow her out of the room and stepped out just beyond the curtains to privately talk to both of them. "Guys, we are talking Hell in three weeks or needing half a pancreas in half a century."

"You can't exactly get those in a Kwik-E-Mart," Sam reminded Delaney.

"It's not perfect, but it buys us more time to think of something better. We just need time. I mean, please, just - just think about it."

"No."

"Dean, don't you want to live?"

Sam shook his head and pointed behind him to where Benton was still strapped up. "Delly, unless you haven't noticed, he isn't living at all. This is simple."

"Simple?" Delaney repeated in shock.

"To us it is, okay," Dean barked, not wanting to have this discussion with Delaney. He couldn't believe she still suggested the idea still to him even after she was captured and nearly got her eye taken by the psychopathic doctor behind them. "Black or white - human, not human." He turned to make his way back into the room and stood by the doctor again. "See, what the doc is is a freakin' monster. I can't do it. I would rather go to Hell."

Benton watched as Dean poured some more chloroform into a rag. "You don't under. I can help you!"

Sam walked over to help Dean out with the doctor and glanced over his shoulder at Delaney. "We're gonna take care of him. You gonna help us or not?"

⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷

Much to Delaney's dismay, she helped the boys drag Benton's body deep into the forest and buried him in a chained up refrigerator along with his journal on how to make yourself immortal. Delaney still felt Dean should have done it just so they could buy themselves more time to find the demon who held his contract, but she did understand where Dean came from. He didn't want to live the way Benton had because it wasn't humane. At all. So, Delaney couldn't be too upset with her brother, even though her anxiety steadily began to rise. 

Sam had sat in the back of the Impala with her and helped keep her from being swallowed up by her anxiety while Dean ran into the motel room and placed sex dolls in the two beds. Bela had known where they were and Dean had a feeling she'd be coming to kill them sooner or later. He had felt her take the motel receipt from his pocket and would find the motel in no time.

The boys had explained to Delaney how Bela had killed her parents at the age of fourteen to gain their inheritance and become rich. Her name wasn't even actually Bela, it was Abby. She had burned her fingerprints off years ago, but according to Rufus, ears are just as unique to each individual as fingerprints were. It wasn't used much in America, but apparently England used both fingerprints and ears to determine who a person's identity was and all he had to do was send over a clear photo from a security camera. 

Dean rang the motel room in the hopes that Bela was there and, thankfully, she was. "Bela, here's a fun fact you may not know - I felt your hand go into my pocket and take the motel receipt."

"You don't understand," Bela's voice drifted through the speakers on Dean's phone that he had placed on speaker for Sam and Delaney to hear.

"You see, Sammy noticed something interesting in your hotel room, something tucked above the door. An herb - devil's shoestring. Well, there's only one use for that - holding HellHounds at bay. So, you know what we did? Sammy and I went back to take another look at your folks' obit. Turns out they died ten years ago today. You didn't kill them. A demon did the dirty work for you. You made a deal, didn't you, Bela? And it's come due. That's why you stole the Colt, huh? To try and wiggle out of your deal? Our gun for your soul?"

"Yes."

"But stealing the Colt wasn't quite enough, I'm guessing," Dean noted.

"They changed the deal. They wanted me to kill Delaney."

Delaney shouldn't have been shocked by the fact that the demons wanted her dead. It seemed all of Hell wanted her dead at this point because they'd rather Lilith be in charge of the apocalypse instead of her. As if Delaney even wanted to lead the demons in the first place. No thanks.

"Really? Wow! Demons untrustworthy - shocker. That's kind of a tight deadline, too. What time is it?" Dean mused and glanced to the clock on the dashboard that read 11:57. "Oh, look at that. Almost midnight."

Bela began to sob on the other end and none of the Winchesters even bat an eyelash, none of them caring all that much about the British girl. "Dean, listen, I need help."

"Sweetheart, we are weeks past help."

"I know I don't deserve it."

"You know what? You're right. You don't, but you know what the bitch of the bunch is? If you would have just come to us sooner and asked for help, we probably could have taken the Colt and saved you."

Bela's sobs became shallower and she tried to regain her breathing on the other end. "I know, and saved yourself. I know about your deal, Dean."

"And who told you that?"

"The demon that holds it. She holds mine, too. She says she holds every deal."

"She?"

"Her name's Lilith."

Delaney tensed up next to Sam and felt the claws of her anxiety scrape their way up to her lungs and squeeze tight, making it difficult for her to breathe properly. She could even hear the wheeze in her breathing and Dean glanced at her through the rearview mirror while Sam rubbed soothing circles into her back to get her to calm down. The same demon that wanted Delaney dead, also held the contract to Dean's deal. This only made the situation that much worse.

"D-did you s-say... Lilith?" Delaney stammered through wheezes.

"I know you shouldn't believe me, but it's the truth."

Dean exchanged a glance with Sam before his eyes focused back on Delaney who went white as a sheet at the mention of the demon. "That can't help you, Bela. Not now. Why are you telling me this?"

"Because just maybe you can kill the bitch."

Dean was quiet for a long moment and his jaw was clenched so tight that Delaney half expected his teeth to shatter. "See you in Hell, Bela."

Delaney's eyes welled with tears and felt like her whole world had stopped around her. "Dean - "

"It's gonna be okay, baby girl," Dean promised, knuckles going white from how hard he gripped the wheel beneath his hand. "I'll make sure of it."

However, Delaney knew that this was going to be anything but okay.

AUTHORS NOTE

Hi hey hello

JUST ONE (1) CHAPTER LEFT BEFORE WE MOVE ON TO BOOK FOUR!

Whew, that chapter was a ROLLERCOASTER. We finally found out that Lilith is behind Dean's contract and that doesn't exactly bode well for the Winchesters since 2 out of the 3 of them are hunted by the demon. Time has officially run out for the Winchesters and Lord only knows how they'll get out of this one. Or, at all.