“I don’t know if anyone can hear this,” he rasped, his voice cracked and frayed from hours of whispering the same pleas into the darkness. His knees dug into the scratchy motel carpet, the stiff smell of mildew and old cigarette smoke stinging his nose. Tears slipped hot down his face, falling faster the longer he stayed here, trapped in this moment where reality had finally sunk its claws into him. “Please…” His voice broke again, the word barely more than a breath.

He swallowed hard against the lump lodged in his throat, tasting the metallic tang of blood where he’d bitten the inside of his cheek. His palms pressed together loosely, not out of ritual, but desperation. He wasn’t sure who—*or what—*he was talking to anymore. Once, prayer had been second nature. A quiet faith in something bigger, in the idea that if you called out, someone might answer.

That part of him was gone. Or maybe it had been dying for a long time, and now it was just a corpse rotting inside him. Every drop of Ruby’s blood burned through his veins like liquid fire, a reminder of the infection that had taken root in him. The boy with the demon blood.

She had him bound tight, not with chains but with the constant, suffocating awareness that she could crush him without even lifting a hand. Dean was dead. Bobby was too far gone into his own grief to risk this on him. Ellen, Jo… they were all collateral if he tried to run. So he did the only thing left.

He prayed.

He prayed until the ache in his chest throbbed like a wound. For his brother to come back. For someone—anyone—to tear him out of this spiral before he couldn’t crawl out again. And still, the silence was absolute. No angel. No sign. No hand reaching down.

Until—

A faint, crisp flutter cut through the still air.

Sam’s head snapped up, his breath catching. He was on his feet before he’d even realized he’d moved, turning toward the sound. The flicker of the dying lamp overhead wavered, shadows bending in impossible shapes. And then—there, on the wall—vast, inky silhouettes of wings spread wide, stretching from floor to ceiling.

An angel stood before him.

Someone had finally answered.