-Chapter 2-
The article seemed pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things. One seventeen year old boy in California had died. Police were calling it neglect due to the undernourishment and dehydration. The parents had been questioned but the charges had yet to filed. But the whole scenario stuck to the back of Sam's throat.
He read it over and over, looking for something he'd missed even though he knew he hadn't missed a single comma. But the warning lights in his mind were flashing red. Maps of the area showed a few small streets, labeled Sisquoc, nestled ten or twelve miles outside of a small city. The whole of the town could be no more 2 miles across with only a small store, a fire station, and a few houses with wide yards.
As Sam scrutinized the school yard and other sounding area's, heavy footsteps sounded on the polished concert floor of the hall outside of the library.
"Morning, Sammy!" Dean called jovially as he entered the room. Sam glanced up to see him, coffee mug in hand, lopping toward the table. "Don't you sleep?"
"It's 11 o'clock, Dean." Sam replied dryly, eyes returning to the original news article.
"This face needs a certain amount of beauty sleep to maintain." He said matter of factually, a cheeky smirk flashing across his features. With a laugh, Sam let it go. With the mark gone, Dean had finally gone back to a semi normal sleep pattern and with his brother returning to his old standard of health, he could hardly argue.
As Sam switched to another internet tab, attempting to hack into the police reports, Dean cleared his throat impatiently.
"Tinder profile need that much work?"
"Funny. No, I think I got us a case."
"A case? Like a regular case?" Dean sounded slightly annoyed but Sam ignored it, opened the article again, and spun his laptop across the table to his brother.
"Kid abuse is hardly our kind of thing." Dean slid the laptop away from him. "Don't you think that we might have better things to do?"
"Dean-"
"Come on, Sam. The Darkness is loose, and we haven't heard a thing about it. Cas has gone total radio silence, which would be concerning enough, but Crowley is off the radar too."
"You're right, we should be worried about the Darkness. But since we don't know what the Darkness is capable of, what it will look like, where it will show up, Don't you think we should check out any lead? Any thing out of the ordinary." Sam stared Dean down for a few minutes, each attempting to hold their ground against the other.
"Alright, fine." Dean finally conceded. "We'll check it out." It came out as more of a groan as he stood to go pack. "We'll hit the road in an hour?"
"Yeah, sounds good." Sam responded as he snapped the laptop closed.
