It didn't make sense. Dean had come back to Sam and me from Purgatory; he'd only been with us a month and now he was getting ready to leave.
"And what exactly does that mean, you've got to go?" Sam asked, clearly annoyed.
"Which words are giving you trouble?" Dean asked, stuffing things into his bag.
"We're on a hunt, remember?" I joined in, taking Sam's side, but Dean zipped up his bag and walked out.
"Wait. Dean, seriously?" Sam stormed after him and I followed.
"You got some research to do and I got some personal crap I got to take care of."
"What does that mean? 'Personal'?"
Dean chucked his bag into the back trunk and turned to face us.
"Did you have a stroke? Vocabulary? Personal as in my own grown-up personal, I don't know, crap."
Me and Sam looked at each other and Dean took this pause to walk to the door and climb in.
When we heard the impala roar to life, we had no time to stop him before he sped away.
"Damn it," Sam cried out and stomped back into the motel room.
I just stood and shook my head, disappointed. I love it being the three of us and, so soon after he'd got back, it was back down to two again.
The next afternoon, we hadn't heard anything from Dean so Sam tried one of his numbers while I tried the other.
"This is Dean's other, other . . ." I sighed and ended the call.
"Voicemail," me and San said, both at the same time.
"What are we supposed to do?"
"Just wait. Dean will get in touch when he wants or needs to. You've known him for six months but, trust me, it takes a lifetime to really get to know him," Sam explained. "Lets focus on the hunt."
By early night, we'd done the research we needed and killed the monster.
Back at the motel, I got a text message off Dean.
Hunting vamps nest on Prentiss Island. Not alone.
I practically laughed at the screen.
Was he serious? That's all he'd told me and it was by text message.
"What's that?" Sam asked, and I showed him the message. "Get your stuff, gear up, we're going."
By the tone of his voice, I didn't mess around so I did as he said and we were in a hot-wired car in twenty minutes.
Not one word was spoken in the car until Sam got fed up of me looking at him.
"Will you stop looking at me? If you've got something to say, say it."
"Just cos your brother isn't here, don't mean you have to act like him, you douche," I snubbed and turned to face the window.
"I'm sorry but you should know by now that my brother is a huge jerk," Sam apologised.
"So I've heard," I laughed.
Sam joined in laughing but stopped when his phone started ringing.
"What?"
"What? Why did you ring me?" Dean whispered, too quiet for me to hear.
"Why are you whispering?" Sam asked.
"It's kind of hard to explain right now but I'm sort of in the middle of cleaning out a vampires nest, and it's sort of gone sideways on me," Dean confessed.
"What?! Are you an idiot, Dean?" Sam shouted and I looked at him, worry written on my face; my eyes widened when Sam spoke again. "You know better to go into a vamp nest alone!"
"I'm not alone, damn it. All right? I'm not alone, I've got back-up, guy who's been tracking the nest a while."
"What guy? Garth?"
'Please let it be Garth,' I mentally crossed my fingers.
"What? No, you don't know him."
"A friend? Dean you don't have any-all your friends are dead," Sam said and my insides sunk.
"That's not what I called to talk about," Dean still whispered.
"You want time alone? I get it but this is a hunting thing and we need to find that line-" Sam stopped talking for a second and then carried on. "Yeah, she got it, we're on our way. And listen, if you handle it, great, I'll buy your friend the first round. But Dean, listen to me. It-Dean? Dean, are you there?" Sam looked at his phone and I looked at him, biting my lip. "Dean. Dean, are you kidding me? Damn it!"
The phone got flung on the floor and I left it a few minutes before asking, "what's going on? What are we going to do?"
"We're going to get Dean off that island."
"Did he say who his friend was?"
"No," Sam said, not offering anymore so I rested my chin on my knees and stayed quiet for the rest of the way.
When we got to the destined harbour, we saw a boat heading towards us; an old-style motorboat with a shadow figure on that resembled Dean.
And next to Dean was another man, someone a little taller and wide, well-built and muscled.
They both pulled the boat up and Dean's friend threw his bags on the harbour while Dean threw Sam the rope.
"I'm Benny," he offered his hand to Sam.
Sam took his hand and seemed to stop dead and I saw his hand go to the knife kept under his belt.
I looked from Dean, who was very slowly and very slyly shaking his head, to Benny and really focused on him.
His hat, his eyes black in the dark, the three-to-four days growth on his face and wide, strong shoulders and chest.
One thing that I didn't see was his chest moving, his breath on the cold air, and that's when I realise what had caused Sam to reach for his knife.
Benny was a vampire.