Knackered and cold I stumbled through our front door. It was pitch black, which I found slightly strange. Peter should be back from work by now. I reached over and flipped the switch but nothing happened.

"Great." I whispered to myself. We'd had trouble with the electrics for over a week now; flickering lights, power outages. Electricians were useless, they came, they found nothing, they charged a lot. One corner of my mind noticed that there weren't any candles out either. I figured this meant Pete was working late, trying to replace the money we spent on our honey-moon. Something didn't feel right though. It was 10:30, he really should be back by now.

I pulled out my phone and lit up the screen to find my way to the kitchen and where we kept the flash light. As I walked down the hall I saw a light flickering from our bedroom. It was just like Pete to turn an annoying fault in the house into a romantic atmosphere. I walked up to the door and went to open it when I heard sounds coming from within the room.

My blood ran cold as I listened to the heavy breathing and rhythmic panting. I stood frozen to the spot, to scared to look in to the room and confirm my fears. As paranoid thoughts of infidelity flooded my mind I struggled to think rationally. Pete loved me, I knew that as well as I knew that I loved him. But…

But, I had always had that nagging worry, no, not a worry, more like a fear. If someone asked me; what is the worst thing that could ever happen to you? I would say without hesitation; Pete, finding someone else and falling in love with them.

"God… I love you." Pete's voice drifted through the air, tense and filled with the pressure of too much pleasure.

Bile rose in my throat and I could barely breathe. My head started to spin and I stumbled through the bedroom door, to see Pete in bed with everything I wasn't; pretty, sexy smart…flexible. Pete didn't even look up. The girl made a slight inclination with her head and he just replied;

"Ignore her, she's no one." The tone of his voice was the worst, it wasn't even hateful. It was completely indifferent and it cut through me like a knife. The bile I'd been fighting to keep down, rose and I fell down, heaving.

As soon as I had recovered the nauseous feeling was replaced with white hot anger. How could he do this to me? Didn't marriage mean anything anymore? Hot tears spilled from my eyes as I threw myself up and lunged at him. Amazingly, he was standing up, fully clothed in a split second. I landed on his back, grabbing at his hair, punching him with as much strength as I could manage. Screaming as loud as I could.

His hands came round and gripped me sharply by my upper arms. He swung me around and threw me to the floor, roughly. I banged my head hard. I felt dizzy and sick again. I tried to suck in a deep breath but as soon as I opened my mouth, Pete was there.

His knees dug into my chest as he leant on me. I tried to work up a scream but my breath was cut off as his large hands closed around my throat. I tried to fight against him, but he was too strong. He had a manic glint in his eye.

"You're a worthless piece of scum!" he spat. "Your parents didn't want you. I don't want you. You make me sick. I should have done this a long time a go. No one will cry at your funeral."

Tears streamed down my cheeks as my hands fought to release me from his grip. I knew as soon as he spoke the first words, I was going to die. Everything around me seemed to darken a shade. Suddenly he lifted my head and jerked me back towards the floor, a sharp pain exploded across the back of my head and then…and then there was nothing.

Across town, at a high class office building, Pete was still at work.

*****

That same night, in a small motel the other side of town.

*****

"Dude! Seriously!" Dean shouted from his position on the bed.

"What now, Dean?" Sam sighed without looking up from his laptop, at the little table the other end of the room.

"This is useless. There isn't a single connection between these deaths." Dean replied holding up handfuls of ruffled coroner reports.

"What did you find?" Sam asked finally looking up at his brother.

"Well, there's definitely a case here, but I don't know where."

"What makes you think there is definitely a case?"

Dean thumbed through the reports, checking details before he spoke.

"We have one drowning where there was no water, one…" Sam quickly cut Dean off.

"What do you mean? How can we have a drowning but no water?"

"Well, the guy literally drowned, his lungs were full of water, but he was in his bed when it happened. No water around, definitely not enough to drown in. Anyway the second guy had it worse, he was burnt to death."

"And let me guess… there was no fire?"

"Ding ding ding we have a winner." Dean said sarcastically.

"Well, you're right. There's definitely a case." Sam paused and thought for a bit. "Wasn't there a third victim?" He asked after a little while.

"Yeah… poor girl." Dean said. "They found her on the floor of her apartment. Every bone in her body, crushed, and she had a serious head wound. She was lying in a pool of her own blood." Dean said matter-of-factly as he read from the sheet he held in his hands.

"What happened to her?" Sam asked appalled.

"Says here that she had all the injuries or a severe fall, but she was found in the bathroom of her ground floor apartment." Dean was puzzled; he couldn't work out how any of these deaths could be linked and apparently nor could the police.

"Well, is there anything linking the victims?"

"Not that I can tell. Apart from this town, they all lived here. I checked to see if this was happening any where else and I couldn't find any thing suspicious, so whatever this son of a bitch is, this is its hunting ground." Dean slumped back on the bed, exhausted from a long day of driving, eating and research. "What you up to over there anyway?" He quizzed.

"Nothing much, researching town history, but I haven't found anything interesting. Just one murder case, but it doesn't link with anything here." Sam closed down the laptop and rested his forehead against its warm surface. "Man I'm beat." He murmured.

"Yeah me too," Dean sighed, "maybe we should look at this in the morning."

*****

The next morning it was back to business as usual. Breakfast at the nearest diner, then off to talk to the grieving families, only it was never Sam and Dean Winchester that did the talking. Today it was Agent Starls and his partner Agents Tenners. As Dean spoke his 'name' he whipped out his badge, held it out just long enough for the widow to see the picture before tucking it away and smiling in a self assured way.

"I'm sorry but do I have to go over this again. I already covered all of this with the other officers."

"We know, but if we are going to find out how this happened we need to be sure of the information. We understand that this is a very hard time for you." Sam said in his patented diplomatic, sympathetic voice. "Now, we see that you found the body. Could you tell us how?"

Dean looked around checking out the apartment; Sam was handling the situation with the girl and crying women made him uneasy, so he decided to scour the place for any hint of demonic or spiritual intervention.

"I just came home, it was dark, I thought she had gone to bed…if… if I had known I would have…" The girl broke down into tears, bowing her head but before Sam or Dean could do anything to comfort her; she composed herself and attempted to carry on. "I should have checked. I didn't even know anything was wrong until just after I got into bed." She finished.

"How did you discover something was wrong?" Sam asked tentatively.

"I was just drifting asleep, when…when I heard a scream. But it wasn't a normal scream. I have never heard anything so…pained in my life. I couldn't move for a few minutes. And then I found her. She was on floor in the bathroom…only…only." The girl sat down on the arm of the couch, heaving with the force of the tears that threatened to claw their way up her throat.

"Only, what?" Dean asked bluntly as he walked over from kitchen. He met Sam's eyes for a split second and shook his head. He hadn't found anything to indicate to a supernatural presence.

The girl continued to fight her tears while Sam shot Dean a dirty look for being so blunt.

"That's ok Holly, take you time. We understand that this is hard for you, but it is vital we have all the details." Sam put a soothing hand on her shoulder. He knew Dean would probably find some way to rag on him later but he didn't care…yet.

"I know," the girl sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand in an effort to compose herself. She took a deep breath and as if she was afraid that if she stopped she would never be able to start again, she launched into her story. "Only it wasn't her, it didn't look like her. There was blood everywhere and…and her arms were at weird angles and…and her face was all…was caved in and…and there was something wrong with her eyes."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked gently.

"There was no colour. At all, they were grey, stoney, more then…more then dead." Holly's voice broke on the last word. "It was as if… as if, there had never been any life there, as if they were glass." Holly melted in to tears once more.

After comforting her, the best they could, Sam and Dean left. Dean wanted to stop at a diner they had passed on the way back to the motel room.

"Dude this is hopeless. We've found nothing." Dean said around a mouthful of pie.

"There has to be something. This isn't nor…"

"No he had no idea," Sam's attention was caught by a gossiping waitress at the counter. "He just came home to find the cops surrounding his house. Neighbours called them, say they were woken up by the 'most painful scream' they had ever heard. Cops went in found poor Alicia on the floor, not breathing."

"That's awful." Said a random customer that Sam couldn't see without turning around. " Who was it? Do they know what happened?"

"It was Pete And Alicia Warclaft, poor things and not as far as I know. Though I did hear, her windpipe was completely crushed, but there wasn't a single mark on her neck. I think they said she had another injury but I didn't hear what it was. Poor Pete was staying a few extra hours so he could take them off the next night to take her out. Such a shame. I better get busy, got customers to serve and I've got a casserole in for Pete."

"Dude, you have to try this pie!! It amazing!" Dean said around a mouthful of sweetened fruit.

"Dean, didn't you hear that. There's been another death."

"Sound like our mysterious little friend?" Dean enquired suddenly serious.

"Could be, we should check it out." As Sam went to stand up Dean gave him alook Sam understood straight away. "I'm not trying the pie Dean. Come on, we gotta go."

"And where are we going?" Dean asked pulling Sam up short.

"What?"

"Where did it happen, who was it. Dude do you not know anything about this, man, this could all just be gossip." Sam stopped and opened his mouth to answer but he didn't have one to give. "Do you even know there names?"

"Yeah" Sam said quickly "Pete and Alicia Warclaft."

With a smug smirk Dean turned and walked back to the diner. "Wait here." He shouted back.

Dean returned two minutes later looking even smugger then he had to before. "92 High-water Avenue." Dean said with a triumphant expression.

"Dude, how did you?" Sam started to ask before Dean cut him off.

"We are Pete's cousins coming to help him through this tough time."

"And we didn't know where he lived?" Sam questioned.

"We've been travelling in Europe for the last year, when they moved out here." Dean waited expectantly. "Come on, I'm awesome! Say it!"

Sam just laughed and walked around to the passenger side of the Impala.

After driving for half an hour they eventually found the correct street. Still dressed in their cheap suits, Dean pulled over the Impala and started to rummage through the old tin filled with fake ID badges.

They got out the car and briskly made there way up the few steps that led to the small, non-imposing porch. Dean stood in front, subconsciously shielding Sam, though neither of them noticed him doing so. He knocks on the door sharply and waits rather impatiently for an answer.

"You won't get anyone over there," said a kindly woman's voice. The boys spun round to see an older woman on the standing on the porch of the house to the left. She was a slightly larger woman, in her mid-sixties. She wore a baggie pink night dress and rollers in her hair but she already had all her make-up on. Her hair was a vibrant reddish colour which clashed with the pink rollers.

"Why not?" Sam asked

"Poor guy is being questioned by the police, but I know it weren't him. Pete would never hurt a hair on that poor girls head. He loved her. And the sounds that were coming from that room, well lets just say you don't make someone you love make sounds like that." The woman lowered her head.

"Were you the woman who made the 911 call?" Sam asked trying to keep professional.

"Yeah, that was me." The woman said. "Why you boys here anyway?" She asked looking suspicious. "The police have already been here, already spoke to everybody."

"We're the FBI Mam." Dean said pulling out his badge and holding up, the woman leaned forward trying to read it but was too far away. Deciding she didn't want to be too rude she accepted there story. "We were wondering whether you had time to recount you version of events for us."

"Why does the FBI care about one tragedy in this small town."

"Because we think this might be more then one small tragedy." Sam answered, putting emphasis on the 'one.'

"Ohhh." Was all the woman said in reply before walking back towards her front door. Sam and Dean stared after her not sure whether they were busted or not. "Well, you boys gonna stand out there all day or do you want to know what happened?" Dean turned and smirked at Sam before stepping down the porch and off towards the woman's house. She was already sitting in the pink armchair and was pouring glasses of lemonade for Dean and Sam. Dean strode over and sat down on the couch opposite her while Sam shuffled in awkwardly and took his lace by Dean who was already chugging on a glass. Sam bit back a giggle as Dean choked and pursed his lips. Sour bubbles of flavour erupted on Dean's tongue as he choked on what would later be known as the world's strongest lemonade.

"So," Sam started while Dean continued to choke. He paused and sucked in a sharp breath before continuing, "you were the first person to discover the body, were you not?" Sam's blunt question caused Dean to cease coughing and stare worriedly at his brother. Sam ignored him and continued looking at the woman.

"Yeah, it was awful. I heard her first. Scream, manically, it didn't sound human, and then it kinda changed, it sounded more… more" the woman took a sip of lemonade as she searched for the right word, she sighed before continuing, "different, I don't know what it sounded like but it wasn't... wasn't… natural. Anyways, I was worried, Alicia was a lovely girl, always coming over to keep me company when Pete was at work." She suddenly fixed Sam with a stare that made him feel very uneasy. "My husband passed away a year ago and it gets somewhat lonely out here, all on your own." Dean saw Sam squirm out of the corner of his eye and it was his turn to fight back laughter. "Like I said I was worried. "The woman took her eyes reluctantly from Sam and began talking again. "I went over there and opened the door with the key hidden in the plant pot beside the front door. I could hear that the scream was coming from upstairs so slowly I walked up the stairs careful not to make any noise. Not that I was scared of bastard ohhh no, I'm used to looking after myself. But when I got upstairs the screaming stopped. I hurried over to their room and saw Alicia crumpled on the floor, floor and there was a something standing over her."

"What was standing over her?" Sam asked in a rush to get out of the house.

"I don't know, I didn't have my glasses on, but whatever it was, it was small. To begin with I thought it was a child but that would have been ridiculous. How could a child get in?"

"We don't know, anyways thanks for your help mam. We will be sure to inform you of any new leads that arrive." Sam said, jumping to his feet a little too quickly.

"Ohh will you. I worry so much about poor Pete and I do miss my little Alicia."

"Of course," Dean answered as Sammy headed for the door. He didn't stop until he got to the Impala, where he was forced to wait outside, as Dean had the keys. Finally his older brother got his arse into gear and unlocked the car. They drove straight back to the motel, Dean silently mocking Sammy the whole way there, and Sam knew it too.

"Don't even start, Dean." Sam said quickly as they entered their room and Dean began to say something. He closed his mouth a smirked at his younger brother, before walking straight into the bathroom and the shower.

Sam collapsed on the bed as the sound of the shower coming to life rattled through the dingey room. He heard the muffled sounds of Dean singing something that sounded suspiciously like AC/DC coming from the bathroom.

Sam would never admit it but he would miss the sound of Dean singing. He may not be the most tuneful, but he sounded more carefree when he sang, less like he had a sword swinging dangerously low above his head. Two months. That was it. Two months left with his big brother and then he would be alone. He had lived through six months already with his brother was dead (thanks to the trickster), he wouldn't do it again, he wasn't even sure he could. He had never experienced any pain to that degree before, even when Jess died. Yeah that almost killed him but slowly he had managed to move on, because of Dean. But now, the prospect of going it alone scared the living shit out of him and he knew he wouldn't be himself when Dean died. Bobby knew it too, he saw it in the quick glances Bobby shot him when Dean wasn't paying attention. And he was pretty sure Dean knew it to, he just didn't want to admit it.

Sam rolled over, and forced himself up. He knew there would be no chance of a shower tonight or atleast no chance of one with hot water. So he pulled off his suit and crawled under the rough covers. Switching off his light he closed his eyes and prayed that he would be able to sleep without nightmares.

Dean locked the door behind him and fell against it. He always liked locking himself in the bathroom. It was the only place he knew for sure that Sam couldn't walk in on his break-downs. He didn't like to think of them as break-downs though as that would suggest he couldn't handle it. And he could handle it. He pushed himself off the door and started the water running. He peeled off his clothes and stepped under the scolding water. Enjoying the feeling of it burning his skin. He stood there for a few seconds as his mind wondered to the day exactly two months from now. He shuddered as he thought about leaving Sammy, the painful way he was undoubtedly going to die in and what would happen if they managed to save him. That time the shudder was more violent and he had to lean against the wall as he pictured his Sammy dropping down dead as he lived. Fear pooled in his stomach as he contemplated his brother's death, he'd tasted it once he didn't want to again. He couldn't. Even if he died Sammy still had to live. He didn't have a choice. Dean was oldest and Dean said Sam had to live. Dean tilted his head into the running water and opened his mouth. When he lowered his head he started singing to distract himself. He didn't really know what he was singing it was just something to take his mind of his brothers death and the feeling of losing the person you care about most.

Outside, peering from the shadows was a small figure. Hair falling over its face, it peered through with vibrant blue eyes, but they weren't the conventional shade of blue, they were a metallic kind of blue, cold and emotionless but shocking in their vibrancy. Its vision looked on a miniscule movement coming from the third motel room from the left, and it zoomed in to the feelings of its occupants. Drinking in their thoughts as its sinister mind revelled in the Winchester's fears.