Fear Itself

When I rushed over to the door, held back by Avery’s arm closing off the doorway, I caught a glimpse of Dean storming across the main room, dragging a stumbling Landon behind him with a fist clenched in the man’s shirt. Dean’s face was so red I thought smoke might have started to puff out of his flaring nostrils.

Landon tripped over his own feet in an attempt to keep up, and his eyes darted out like he didn’t quite know where to look. Apparently, the meeting hadn’t gone so well. “Dean, you don’t have to do this—“ he protested, but Dean didn’t even glance back at him. He was consumed by his own rage, he probably couldn’t hear a word the poor bastard fumbling behind him said.

“I don’t know who you think you are,” Dean snarled. “But you’ve got no right to just suddenly come back here and try to tell me how to live my life.”

“I’m your father,” Landon huffed, eyes narrowed as though he was offended. Though I had no idea what had taken place just minutes before, there wasn’t a reason for Landon to be offended. What did he expect? Did he think he could just disappear for eighteen years and his abandoned children would welcome him with open arms? If only the world was that simple.

“Oh, damn,” Cas muttered, suddenly appearing at my shoulder. “This ain’t good.”

“No shit,” I scoffed, watching as Dean pulled his father in front of him and began backing him up, right toward the wall.

“Would’ve been nice to have you around when I actually needed one,” Dean snapped. My heart froze, and my breath hitched; Dean’s right fist was beginning to clench at his side. Landon’s face was already smashed to hell. One more blow would knock him out. One more blow could kill him.

I don’t know which fear was more prevailing: the fact that Landon could die, or that my husband could quickly become his father’s murderer. Whichever the case, I shoved past Avery with enough force to make him falter and stumble back a few steps. I charged forward. “Dean, stop!” I shouted, pleading, but he couldn’t hear me. Only Landon’s eyes turned in my direction. “Don’t hit him!” Dean’s fist was already raising.

Cas called from the doorway behind me, “Remember what we just talked about? This is just foolish! Not even a little bit brave! Don’t be a hero!”

Chandler stood just feet away, watching the two men with his hand clasped over his mouth. I pressed forward as Dean’s fist rose into the air. I stopped running, but momentum slid me between them, right in the middle, and the rest seemed to happen within seconds.

I was knocked off-balance, or perhaps that was the room beginning to whirl around me. It tilted like it was on an axis and wobbled around. Maybe that was me. Maybe I was the one wobbling. Suddenly, the whole room seemed to flip in front of my watering, stinging eyes, and my upper body collided with something sturdy but gentle, something protective… somebody’s arms, maybe.

“And I’m the one you want to stay away from her?” Landon spat. “Look at what you just did.”

A man dressed in all black rushed in from above, placing his arms between Dean and his father. Shorter. Brown hair. Slender. It was Chandler. His head snapped to Landon. “You stay out of this. You’re just as guilty.”

“Princess,” Avery murmured. Callused fingers brushed against my face, and I whimpered incoherently. “Princess.” His voice slowly faded into background noise as the light above me grew so blinding that it simply turned black, and that was all.