Chapter 1 - One Headlight

Dean was behind the wheel, and he was exhausted. He and Sam had been driving for what felt like days. Just driving aimlessly. No place to go, no case to work. Dean was staring at the highway, hypnotized by the lines and the single headlight casting its poor illumination on the dark road ahead.

Damn it, why the hell didn't I replace that light? Dean thought to himself. It wasn't like he hadn't had the time; he and Sam had done nothing but eat, sleep and drive for the last two weeks, without a whiff of any action.

Dean's eyelids started to droop even as his annoyance grew. The Mark of Cain burned on his forearm as it always did now, as if to remind him that such petty matters as boredom and burned-out headlights were unimportant. When you had Satan's tramp stamp etched permanently on your skin, you tended not to give a rat's ass about much else.

He glanced furtively at Sam in the passenger seat, as he almost always did when brooding about the Mark. Poor innocent Sammy, snoozing with his head on his chest and his hair hanging in his face. Dean smiled at the sight, but his smile became more of a smirk as the Mark took hold. Dean loved his little brother. He would, and had, lay down his life for him, but Sam had no clue how Dean was feeling most of the time. No idea how Dean's blood ran hot and his vision turned red these days at the slightest provocation, until he could just...

Dean shook his head slightly as if to chase away the thought, but it wouldn't go. As he regarded his brother sleeping like a lamb, Dean admitted to himself what he could not ever say aloud to Sam: That he was just about one piss-off away from becoming a raging homicidal maniac, taking out anyone and everyone who was unlucky enough to be in his vicinity at the time. Every now and then Dean caught Sam looking at him with a strange expression on his puppy-dog face; hope mixed with apprehension with a side order of...Oh hell, who knew what? The better part of Dean wanted to reach out to Sam at those moments and open up about how he was feeling and what he had become. Problem was, the Mark of Cain was growing stronger every day, and its influence was morphing any feelings of warmth and love Dean had for his brother into an intense ball of rage in the pit of his stomach. Dean had never been a touchy-feely, Cum-ba-ya kind of guy anyway, so it was all too easy for him to turn away from Sam and make a crude joke or check his laptop and pretend that everything was normal. But Dean knew that if they couldn't come up with a way to eradicate the Mark for good, the day of reckoning was on the way, and soon.

Dean drove on into the night, his eyelids growing heavier with every mile.

Sam slumped in the passenger seat, head nodding into a light doze. He too had been hypnotized by the monotony of the drive and by the single headlight shining on the road ahead. He was worried, more worried than Dean knew. They weren't always the chattiest of brothers, but Dean hadn't said anything for miles, the radio was turned off, and the silence was starting to feel unnatural. After a couple of sidelong glances at Dean to make sure he was still awake behind the wheel, Sam could only conclude that Dean had nothing to say. Of the two brothers, Sam had always been the more easygoing, so he decided once again to just let it go and let Dean drive. Dean loved to drive.

But that one headlight, that bothered Sam the most. There was a time not too long ago that Dean would spend many hours tending to the care and feeding of the Impala, which he called "Baby". Sam would just smile and shake his head indulgently, watching Dean practically make love to the car, and think: That's my brother. Not too long ago Dean would have replaced the burned-out headlight at the first sign of a flicker and then spent half an hour more polishing it to perfection.

But things had changed. Ever since he'd received the Mark, Dean had grown increasingly silent and withdrawn, and he didn't seem to give a damn about much of anything. It had always been like pulling teeth to get a conversation out of Dean that ran deeper than the subjects of booze, food or porn, but every once in a while, with a bit of patience Sam was able to mine a nugget of something more real from his brother. But not these days. The Mark was taking its toll on Dean, though he would not admit it. Sam was afraid for his big brother, but he didn't know what to say or what to do. He kept hoping that their research would unearth a way to get rid of or nullify the Mark but so far, nada.

Sam's head dropped further down to his chest and he slept.

Gail was terrified, possibly more scared than she had ever been in her life. Bound hand and foot, gagged and blindfolded, bouncing around in the open bed of what she could only assume was a pickup truck. She could feel the cold night air swirl around her and she wondered where the hell they were going and what would happen to her and Frank when they got there.

Her mind working furiously on any possible escape plan, Gail wriggled her body like a snake, trying to find an edge or anything on which to saw through the ropes that bound her wrists together behind her back. Dammit, if she could only see! Maybe that was what she should be concentrating on, loosening the blindfold. Luckily the Demon that had tied her up to begin with had seemed to be more interested in checking out her body than actually doing his job, she thought. The blindfold behind her head felt like it had a little bit of give, if she could only...

"Ow!" Gail cried out involuntarily as something slammed into her right side.

"Gail!" Her brother Frank's voice, muffled but there, alive. "Are you OK?"

She fought the urge to laugh in spite of the serious predicament they were both in. Overpowered and kidnapped by three Demons, trussed up like cattle and headed Lord knows where to look forward to torture and a painful death, but otherwise, fine.

"Yeah," she reassured her brother, "just trying to figure out how to get free. Any ideas? It'd be nice if we could see-"

Frank interrupted. "I got my blindfold off."

Great, a start.

"We're in the back of a pickup," Frank continued. "Stupid asses forgot to latch the tailgate, it's hanging open. At the count of three, I'm gonna roll you over there and off the truck. It'll hurt when you hit the road, so brace yourself. But you'll be free, and the idiots up front won't even notice you're gone."

OK, a plan, Gail thought, albeit a desperate and painful one. But it had to be better than what their captors would have in store for them.

It was indicative of her panicked state that she hadn't picked up on the implications of what Frank had said: YOU'LL be free. They won't notice YOU'RE gone. This would come back to haunt her on many sleepless nights in the future. But for right now, Gail assumed that since Frank could see, he would guide her off the truck first, then follow. SOP for big brothers; make sure the younger one is taken care of first. No different from any other time they had been in a jam.

"OK, on three..." Frank said. "One-"

He slammed his body into hers and she felt herself roll ass over elbow, gaining air, then THUD! as she dropped onto the road. Ouch! she thought, and would have said it out loud if there was any breath left in her lungs. Pain coursed through her body as she lay there on the road, her cheek scraped on the rough asphalt. OK. Try to get up and assess the damage, then give Frank holy hell for going on One.

Gail struggled to get to her feet. She knelt first, then after a breath or two she tried to rock back on her heels to stand. WHAM! She promptly did a face plant when she overbalanced. Crap! Tears sprang to her eyes as her head throbbed, joining the chorus of pain her body was already singing. Great. If those Demons want to kill my brother, they're gonna have to take a number, she thought.

Gail could taste the blood coursing down her cheek as she gingerly lifted her face off the road. She squeezed one last tear of pain from her eyes and peered out into the darkness...Wait! She could see! The blindfold had slipped down to her neck.

Not that there was much to see. As she pushed herself up to a kneeling position once again, Gail looked around the night sky to see only the outlines of trees. She could just make out the two-lane highway ahead. Gail's eyes widened as she turned her head first one way, then the other, looking for her brother. The good news? She saw no sign of the kidnappers' vehicle and heard no engine. They must have continued on, thankfully unaware of her escape. The bad news: no sign of Frank. Had he jumped further down the road? That must be it. She just couldn't make him out in the darkness.

"Frank?" She attempted to call out to him but with the gag still tied around her mouth, her cry sounded a bit like the mating call of a seal. Still, it was the only sound she could make and in the quiet of the night, she waited for a response. Nothing. She squinted, trying to focus on the road ahead, looking for any sign of movement. Still nothing. Wait, which direction had they been coming from? Maybe I'm looking the wrong way, she thought. She turned her head back and peered intently down the road in the other direction.

"Frank? Frank!" More seal noises, louder this time as fear rose in her chest. Dammit, where was he? Why wasn't he responding?

Then she did hear a sound, faint at first but growing louder...the sound of an engine, and she saw a single headlight shining on the road in the distance.

Thoughts raced through her head, doing battle with each other. Was it the kidnappers, coming back to reclaim her? Was it someone else, someone who could stop to untie her and help her look for Frank? Maybe the idiots had clued in and were doubling back to get her, and that was why Frank wasn't here. Could he still be on the truck? Or had they gone on, and was this a potential saviour, coming from the opposite direction?

Among Gail's greatest natural assets was an ability to reason things out, and she now pushed down the rising tide of panic to concentrate. As the vehicle came nearer, she thought: It looks like a car, not a truck. And that single shining headlight: Would the kidnappers have risked calling attention to themselves driving at night with a burned-out headlight, two trussed-up victims in the back? Though they hadn't seemed like the sharpest Demons she and Frank had ever encountered, the way they had surprised and overpowered herself and Frank suggested premeditation. Frank was an accomplished and experienced Hunter, who had taken down more than three Demons at a time while hardly breaking a sweat. Therefore, would they really have let a small detail like a burned-out headlight expose them to attention?

No, she decided. It's not them. I'm going with that.

As the vehicle drew nearer, Gail was now faced with another and more pressing issue: She was kneeling in the middle of the road! Would they see her in time? They certainly wouldn't be able to hear her, not with the noise of the engine. Should she roll over to the shoulder of the road? If she did, they'd probably pass her by, and she'd be stuck here for God only knew how long. And there was Frank to think about; she had to find him and they had to get away before the Demons realized their screw-up. The King of Hell didn't exactly let his minions off with a light tap on the cheek and a warning.

This last thought cheered her. Gail vowed to conjure up grisly scenarios for the Demons' demise at Crowley's hands as soon as she and Frank were rescued. She decided to hold her ground and trust that the driver of the approaching vehicle would see her and stop in time. The car was almost upon her now. Gail closed her eyes, said a quick prayer, and braced for the impact that she hoped would not come.

Dean's eyes were at half-mast, but they snapped open when he saw something in the middle of the road ahead. What the hell? His foot shifted to the brake and he stepped down, hard. With Sam yelling "Look out!" and the Impala's tires screeching, Dean had only a split second to realize the figure was a woman, and her eyes were wide with fear. He hauled on the steering wheel to turn the car, but it was too late. He was going to squash her like a bug.

Sam cried out as the tires squealed and the car fishtailed. He threw his arms up, preparing for the impact. What the hell was this woman doing in the middle of the road?

Gail was also screaming, her throat burning with the effort to communicate through the gag. I'm here, please don't run me over! Oh my God, I'm gonna die.

Then, at the last possible moment, a miracle; the car fishtailed to the side and came to a screeching halt.

For a moment, all was silent again except for the sound of the car's engine idling. Then Gail took a deep, hitching breath and as she let it out, the tears began to flow. They stung the wound on her face as she said another silent prayer in thanks for being alive.

She heard the car's engine shut off, though the headlight stayed on. She squinted to get a look at the car's occupants. As they approached Gail and were backlit by the headlight, she could see two men. The passenger was taller than the driver, with a handsome, open face and shoulder-length hair, and his forehead was etched with lines of concern.

"Oh my God, are you OK?" the man asked.

She was still too much in shock to respond, so she turned to look at the driver. He was also handsome, with an almost brooding, "bad boy" look, and his expression was unreadable. He must be in shock too, she realized. Guy was a hell of a driver, though. She must remember to compliment him, once she could speak again.

Sam bent down to help the woman and suddenly realized that she was gagged, and bound at the hands and feet. He could only imagine how she must have felt, incapacitated and alone and with a car bearing down on her. Thank God she was OK.

"Here, let me help you-" he began, but Dean took charge.

"Get something to cut those ropes, Sammy," he instructed his brother in a gruff voice. Sam obeyed, heading back to the car. He knew how shaken Dean must be and was content to give him a moment to regroup.

Dean knelt down behind the woman to untie the gag from the back of her head. He couldn't speak. He wanted to say something to this poor helpless woman, but what? "I'm sorry" would be lame. "What the hell were you doing in the middle of the damn road?", too harsh. Look at her. She was trussed up like a calf at a rodeo. There was obviously something fishy going on here.

He untied the gag, then stood up and moved around to have a look at her. She was dark-haired with big brown eyes, and she might be kind of cute without that huge bloody scrape on her face.

Gail coughed a couple of times and moved her mouth around, relishing the feeling of being gag-free again. She looked up at Dean.

"Thanks," she said huskily, clearing her throat. "Nice driving," she added with a weak smile.

Dean smiled back and, in that instant, his face was transformed. He's not just handsome, Gail thought, he's gorgeous. She knew zero about this guy, not even his name, but she could practically hear the sound of panties dropping when he flashed that smile. He seems OK...but why do I look at him and feel uneasy? she wondered. It appeared that these men were going to be the saviours she had prayed for, but if she could just touch each of them once, she could be sure...

Sam came back from the car with a knife in one hand and a balled-up piece of cloth in the other.

As the tall one leaned down to her with the knife in his hand, Gail felt a momentary flash of fear. Did she just escape capture by Demons only to meet up with maniacs? What was this man doing with a knife and a rag?

Sam saw the terror in the girl's eyes as he leaned toward her with the knife in his hand and immediately, he understood. He put the knife down on the asphalt and instead put his hand gently on her shoulder.

"It's going to be OK," he reassured her in a soft voice, gesturing to Dean and then to himself with the hand holding the piece of cloth. "We're OK. We're going to help you, not hurt you. I just brought the knife to cut those ropes, and this old T-shirt for the blood on your face." He paused and looked into her eyes. "OK?"

But the instant he had touched her shoulder, Gail knew it was okay. Her special ability to read people and their intentions had kicked in at the moment of contact and told her all she needed to know. He was Sam Winchester, and the driver was Dean Winchester. They were brothers and - it was more than she could have hoped - they were Hunters, just like Frank! Her heart leaped in her chest as she realized these were the good guys and she was in safe hands.

"OK," she answered Sam, smiling.

Sam moved behind the woman and began sawing through the ropes that bound her wrists. Meanwhile, Dean was looking at her. "There must be a hell of a story, here," he said.

Her expression turned serious. "'Hell' being the operative word," she said. "Guys, I need your help."