16

THE NAME OPHELIA SINCLAIR IS BLARING across Cas's phone screen and for a brief moment, he doesn't recognise it. His mother has not called him since he began boarding at Iverson and her name is a foreign word to Cas's preoccupied mind.

For another less than brief moment, he marvels at the fact that despite not being in contact with his mother for three months, the memory of their last interaction is still singed into the corner of his mind.

He watches his phone buzz against the table with a removed gaze, imagining that it's someone else's phone ringing.

"Hey, Ghostman," Victor calls from across the room, "You gonna answer that?"

Cas doesn't reply, but he does pick up his phone. Reluctantly, he accepts the call.

"Cassiel."

His mother's voice, notoriously clipped and formal, sounds even colder through the speaker of his phone.

Cas closes his eyes. "Hello to you, too."

"Judging by the absence of disappointing calls from the school," she says, unphased by Cas's bitter response, "I'm going to assume you're doing fine and cut right to the chase."

Between her words is the unmistakable sound of something being chopped with a steadily increasing amount of aggression. Though Cas knows Ophelia is averse to anything that even closely resembles cooking, he also knows that she makes an exception for her awful hand-blended juices.

"Your father and I are hosting this Saturday," she continues. "You will be attending."

Unlike his mother, Cas can not recall the last time he's spoken to his father — an enigma without the mystery, gone for days or even weeks on long business trips that Cas has never heard the details of.

Cas wants to say no, excuses he'll never use queuing up uselessly inside his brain. But he can't say no, so instead he says nothing.

The chopping continues.

"I'm glad to hear you have no objections," she says. "Also, for the love of God, wear a suit."

She hangs up.

For minute Cas just sits there, phone still pressed to his ear, eyes closed as he listens to dead air. With a sigh, he eventually tosses his phone onto his bed and gets up from his chair.

"I'm leaving," he says, swiping his keys from the upturned box repurposed as a table beside the door.

Victor who's seated cross-legged on his bed barely glances up from his phone as he waves in a vague sort of gesture. "Bon voyage," he says.

Cas leaves the room without another word.

- ✧ -

As Cas slides into the driver's seat of his car his eyes instinctively glance to the air vents. Less than a week prior, they had been a mess of melted plastic dripping with some hellish dark liquid. Cas has since had the vents replaced but it hasn't stopped him from checking them every time he drives.

With a sigh, he jams the keys in the ignition and car hums to life. A sombre riff of a song by The Smiths begins to play and for a moment he sits there slumped in his seat, gaze locked on the middle-distance, hands resting on the wheel.

When he finally pulls out of the parking lot of the student dorms it's 5:14 PM, and the sky is as colourful as a bruise. Cas isn't sure where he's going, he just knows that it's somewhere else. As he drives he lets his mind empty, thoughts of mortal peril and dinner parties left in the dust behind him as he surges forward and away. As the last of the day's light seeps from the sky, the houses and cars Cas passes become few and far between and street lights begin to give way to dense trees. Soon he's driving a road through the woods on the outskirts of Dawson County.

Cas isn't sure what brought him here but he continues to drive, his headlights casting flickering shadows on the trees like an old film reel as he passes them by. He considers turning around before he ends up in the middle of nowhere with no gas or signal, but his thoughts are interrupted by the sudden crackling of the radio. Cas doesn't think much of it at first, the CD is second-hand and was likely scratched in some places when he bought it. He waits it out just in case, but the crackling continues.

Cas pulls over off the road and puts the car into park. Frustrated, he presses the 'eject' button. Nothing happens so he presses it again, this time more forcefully. Then he remembers.

Before he got the vents replaced Cas had taken the CD out, and he hasn't put it back in since then. Cas pops open the glovebox and rummages through a stack of receipts and fast food wrappers until he finds it, The Smiths CD neatly packed away in its clear case.

Which means he's really been listening to the radio this whole time.

The white noise continues so Cas turns the dials in an effort to quiet it. Unable to pick up a station, he frowns and turns it off instead, only for the crackling to continue.

He cuts the engine but it does nothing to quell the noise. Frustrated, Cas goes to start the car again with the intent of driving back to where he can get a signal before the static drives him insane. As he turns the keys, the engine is silent. He turns them again and the silence continues, unbroken.

"You're fucking kidding me," Cas hisses, thumping the steering wheel with the heel of his palm.

He retrieves his phone from the console and calls Harrison. It rings until it goes to voicemail and Cas swears again. He makes it to the end of his brief contact list with no success and drops his phone in his lap. He considers calling road assistance but quickly decides against it, imagining the unruly conversion it would lead to with his mother.

The static continues to crackle as Cas goes to close the glove compartment.  He hesitates as his eyes land on a scrunched piece of paper, tossed carelessly beside his CDs. He reaches for it and smooths it out on his thigh. Cas stares at the phone number for a moment. These people,—strangers really—are his last resort. They had told him to keep in contact, though. Cas doubts this is what they had meant, but he's more than a little desperate.

Cas dials the number.