Like Air.

Castiel's Pov

Wake up.

Go pee.

Shower.

Brush teeth.

And now for the hardest part: getting dressed.

I stood before the wardrobe, still in my briefs as I clamped down on the toothbrush. After some meticulous choices, I decided to go all black: Black tee, black skinny jeans, black skateboarding shoes, and my BFMV fingerless gloves.

Fingerless gloves are the shit. 'Nuff said.

I looked in the mirror on the door of the wardrobe and studied my appearance. I ran a hand through my long hair a couple of times to neaten it and checked my breath.

I went to brush my teeth again.

Grabbing a couple of candy canes for the trip and slipping on my cross necklace, I walked down the hallway with a duffel bag slung over my shoulder. Then I ran back and gathered up all of my sketching pencils and my sketch pad.

Now I was ready to go.

Heading down the stairs I was hailed by my roommates Logan and Emelina. Even though we were best friends, you could see that our personalities clashed. Logan had on an open flannel shirt, and Emmie had a weird cashmere-hoodie-dress thing on with the sleeves rolled up and some black shorts. Logan was eating some Captain Crunch and Emmie was drinking coffee- most likely black. She says black coffee stimulates her mind. Bleh.

I took out the orange juice and poured a cup.

"Someone's looking spiffy today," Em commented as she scanned the Utah newspapers to find a lead on all of the killings going on there.

"I'm going to see Micky today," I replied coolly so as not to sound too eager.

Logan paused. Emelina looked at me warily.

"...What is it?" I asked, sensing their hesitation.

Logan stood up slowly. "Uh... Dude... There's something you should know... before you think of leaving..."

"What is it?" I repeated.

Emmie answered instead. "...About Mickaela..." she bit her lip. "I-I'm sorry, Cas."

"What about her?" I pressed, trying to ebb out the impatience and anxiousness seeping into my words.

Logan sighed. "She... She..." he tried one more time. "She's... gone."

I tightened my grip on the paper cup. "What?" It seemed as if the rest of the world had quieted.

Emmie put a hand on my shoulder in attempt to comfort me. "The Monitors reported her... missing... as of 3:55 this morning."

The cup slipped from my hand.

---

I stalked down the road to the building angrily, Emmie and Logan straggling behind. Currently, our group of angels have set up a station in Bozeman, Montana, in one of the most secluded, private locations we could find. There we studied disaster news, tracked other angels, and so on. It was like a fort.

I burst through the main entrance dramatically. Fellow angels looked up from their coffees at the rude awakening.

"Castiel," nodded our squad leader, Uriel.

I scowled in reply. Emelina and Logan pushed through the glass door.

"Now why be so rude?"

"Who is in charge of the Monitoring?!" I barked, ignoring Uriel. I could hear a couple of titters at my outburst, which irritated me. Everyone was used to my anger.

"Calm yourself, Castiel. Lane is not to be blamed of the disappearance of Archangel Mickaela."

Lane.

I swiveled around in realization. "YOU!"

He was Logan's twin brother who had the same dark brown hair, but younger by 15 minutes. I wanted to strangle that stupid smirk off of his face.

"Hey, Cassie," Lane sneered, leaning back in his chair.

In a split second I was in his face, his collar bunched up in my fist.

"What..." I started in a low, menacing voice. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!"

"GET THE HELL OUT OF MY FACE!"

"BOYS! Boys, watch your language!" Uriel warned in his booming voice, swatting down his newspaper.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO HER?!" I screamed.

Logan put a hand on my shoulder. "Calm down, Cass. This isn't going to get you anywhere," he said in a mollifying tone. "Now, we've told you before-

"Piss off," I snarled. "It's your brother's fault that Mickaela is gone."

Logan put his hands up in defeat. "Fine."

I turned my attention back to Lane, gripping his collar tighter. "Now. Answer my damn question," I growled. My hair shadowing my face, giving me a dangerous appearance.

"Your little girlfriend went bye-bye," Lane sneered, "What part of that don't you understand?"

I dug my nails into his throat. "YOU FUCKING PRICK!"

"I SAID STOP SWEARING!"

"WHY IS EVERYONE YELLING?!"

My voice quieted. "What the fuck is wrong with you?! I fucking love her," I spat. The room fell silent. I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. No, no, not now...

"Yeah," I said quietly, my voice wavering, "That's right; I do. A-and... And you killed her."

I let go of him and straightened up, wiping away the tears in my eyes with the back of my hand as I scanned the room. Complete silence. Something caught my eye. I had provoked Emelina into crying. Logan put an arm around her and patted her on the back.

"I'm sorry, Cas, I'm so, so sorry..." she said in a hushed voice. "I-I knew how much she meant to you..." The tears streaked down her face.

But it was like I couldn't hear her. I was still on my tirade.

I turned back to Lane one last time. "Fuck you," I said softly. "Fuck you and the person that brought you into this world."

"You son of a-

"FUCK ALL OF YOU!" And on that note, I swiftly left the room.

---

Alone in the database room, I wallowed silently as I scanned the victims of Utah.

After reading the description of the fifth victim, I saw the obvious trend. I scrolled down the numerous names. Everything was relatively the same. Every murder was around the Wasatch Mountains/Salt Lake area, every victim had dark characteristics and pale skin.

And every single one of them was female.

This database is updated every day.

The door creaked open. I turned around sullenly.

Emmie.

She slowly walked over to me, then stopped halfway and stuck her hands in her hoodie-dress pockets.

I cleared my throat. "I... I'm sorry about what I said."

She nodded understandingly. "It's okay," she said quietly. She dried her cheeks and hesitantly walked over to me and sat down on a neighboring chair.

"I found a trend," I said softly.

She nodded again and cleared her throat. Sad time was over.

"Lay it on me."

After pointing out all of the similarities, Emmie furrowed her brow.

"It's funny..." she said. "There was a case just like this, about 8 years ago."

"Same place too?"

"Yeah... That's weird, isn't it?" I nodded in agreement. "Here," she said, "Scroll down; it's probably still there."

I did so, and there they were; data eight years old that matched the current data with uncanny accuracy. The only thing different were the names. And the fact that there was only about thirty or so murders back then before it just... stopped.

I looked at the last murder of year 2000. Simbeck. Mother. Black hair; Dark bluish-purple eyes; Pale skin. Missing for three days, then body was found in the forest.

"And that was the last one?" Emmie asked.

"Yeah. I guess that's what they were looking for."

"You wanna know something else I noticed?"

"What?"

"Someone-the murderer- had totally skinned her clean." Em rested her elbows on the desk and her hands moved in a flurry as she talked. "I was there when they gave us the bodies to study- you know, to find out how they were killed." I nodded. "Every victim had a cut that started right here-" she said, pointing at the center of the back of her head. "Though we never really did find out how they were all killed- most likely something supernatural- we did find out how Simbeck was skinned."

"How?" a voice suddenly asked. We turned around. Logan moseyed over and sat on the chair on the left side of me.

Emelina, even though she was the youngest out of all three of us, had been on this Celestial level before both of us, and thus knew all of the past cases.

She pointed back to the back of her head. "The murderer would start here." we nodded. "Then the would cut four sections in the back of the head- really really deep cuts.

"Then..." she continued to explain how the murderer would cut the skin all the way down the spinal chord, down each arm, the back of each hand, down each leg, and the bottom of each foot. "And voila; After a soak, they peel off the epidermis from the entire body and then you have a skin."

"If we're dealing with something supernatural," Logan said, "They could make the skin knit itself back together and it's like nothing happened."

"What about the fat and the blood vessels- and everything else?" I asked.

"Ripped clean. Nothing but muscle on top."

"And you guys never found out who was doing it all?"

"Nope; It's a Croatian mystery."

The three of us stood up as I clicked out of the database and turned off the monitor. "At least we've solved it. Now all we have to do is track this sick son of a bitch down."

"Piece of cake," Emelina said with a wave of her hand.

"We'll see about that."

I turned to leave, and suddenly realization slapped me when I remembered where I should have been right now.

"I-I think I'll go take a nap or something," I said soberly. "I don't want to think about... everything that's happened today."

"We understand," Logan said, patting me on the back. I withdrew myself from him, and was almost to the door when Emmie said, "Hey, come back for a minute."

"What is it?"

"I dunno about you two..." she said, "But I want to fly over to Rock Springs and see what happened for myself." I looked up sharply.

"I'm coming with you," I said with a final voice.

"Good. Logan, are you up for it?"

He shrugged. "Sure... Why not?"

"Okay. Let's meet back here in an hour with everything ready." And the the three of us departed.