Sam sat hunched over the laptop with a scowl on his face. "Do you know how many different types of divination there are? There are literally hundreds. Look at this: alectromancy, divination by a rooster pecking grain; gyromancy, divination by whirling around until dizzy and falling."

Dean grinned from where he was perched cross-legged on a bed, flipping through the television channels. "So that's how you do it."

"No, I'm clairvoyant, which is also listed here." With a sigh, Sam leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his temples. "Now we know what she's doing, but we still don't know how she's doing it, or why."

"Why ask why?" Dean paused on a basketball game. "Does that really matter at this point? Whatever her motives are, she's dabbling in something she probably shouldn't."

"But she could be perfectly harmless, Dean. There's a type of divination using onions for god's sake."

"Oh, now see, that is evil."

Sam shook his head. "Man, I don't know, maybe my radar is out of whack. That whole thing with Max...maybe I'm just stressed out, jumping at shadows."

Dean looked at him. He did seem very tired. There was sort of a "pinched" look to his face, and his shoulders were hunched in, making him look far older than twenty three. Sam bore a heavy burden these days, and it frustrated Dean to no end that he couldn't help him carry it.

"Look, Sammy," he said. "You picked up a bad vibe right away. It hasn't gotten any better, right? You felt it tonight too."

"Yeah."

"Obviously something is going on, because that chick certainly didn't seem to want us poking around. She doesn't want anyone poking around in her business or she wouldn't have that damn hound from hell guarding her. And she was hiding those books. Why hide them? If she's divining via vegetables, what does she have to worry about?"

"I guess," Sam admitted. "But is this our type of gig? Here we are again dealing with someone human."

Dean flipped off the T.V. and swung his legs around to sit on the edge of the bed. "We hunt evil, Sam. It takes a lot of different forms. If Lisa Holland is dabbling in the dark arts we need to put a stop to it, 'cause there's no telling what she might do. Maybe she's looking into the future today, but tomorrow she might be summoning demons, and that is our kind of gig."

Sam didn't answer right away. He sat at the table, head bowed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Yeah," he said quietly. "But we've got to narrow this down and I don't see how...ah, damn."

"Sam?"

"Uh..." Bracing his hands on the edge of the table, Sam bent over it further, his face twisted with pain. "Dean..."

"Sammy?" Dean winced in sympathy as his brother hunched over with his head in his hands. He'd been hoping that the waking visions would go away after the confrontation with Max and his subsequent death. Apparently that was not to be the case since Sam was obviously doubled up with one now.

Dean got off the bed, and knelt beside his brother, steadying him as Sam raised his head and "looked" at something only he could see. It was disarming to watch him do it. Dean felt that for the brief amount of time in which the vision occurred, Sam was completely gone. His face went slack, and his eyes grew vacant. It was an R.E.M. state falling somewhere in the gray area between conscious and subconscious, and no amount of shaking or shouting could snap him out of it. Dean's greatest fear was that one day Sam might not come back at all. He could only wait with baited breath for it to end.

Finally Sam blinked, and gasping, came up from his trance. He looked at Dean, horrified. "Missy Carter is going to be attacked tonight."

"By who?"

"I don't know, but you're going to find her and they're going to arrest you for it. Lisa has probably already told the sheriff she had a vision of you attacking Missy."

"Man...how come I'm always the one in trouble with the police?" Rising, Dean pulled his coat off the back of the other chair. "Did you see where it happened?"

Sam's expression was one of alarm. "Wait, you're not planning on going out there are you?"

"Of course I am!"

"Dean. If you find her the sheriff will be there to arrest you!"

"And if we hurry up," Dean said. "We can get there before she's attacked."

"But..."

"Sam. If we can prevent it, that's good. If I get arrested, we're just following destiny, right? Come on!"

Reluctantly, Sam grabbed his coat and followed. Dean already had the car running by the time he closed the motel room door behind him, and the Impala was already rolling as Sam shut the car's passenger's door. A flip of a switch and the headlights illuminated the road before them, a road Dean wasn't sure was taking them in the right direction.

"Where? Where?"

"The newspaper office." Sam rubbed his forehead again. If he'd looked tired before, he looked exhausted now.

"You okay?"

"Headache."

"One of those kind of headaches?"

"No." After a sigh, Sam raised his head. "I hate this, Dean. I mean, what if it just gets worse and worse. Max only had one ability and it drove him crazy."

Dean tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He'd known this was going to come up again. Like the waking visions he'd hoped it had been swept under the rug. No such luck.

"You are not Max, Sam. The kid had a screw loose before he even started tossing around the cutlery, okay. You're not gonna go freaky and kill people."

"Maybe we can say that now but what about a few months down the road, huh?"

Rolling his eyes, Dean shook his head. "You. Are. Not. Max. End of story, Sammy. Understand?"

Sam was mad. Out of the corner of his eye Dean could see him staring angrily out the window. Angrily, as if Dean hadn't just told him he wasn't crazy. No matter how hard he tried, there were some days where Sam was utterly incomprehensible.

"Sam?"

"I heard you. It's dropped. Just get us where we're going."

That was all right with Dean. Speed was something he did understand. He put his foot down on the gas and the Impala leaped forward like her namesake, tearing down the road well over the legal speed limit. They were only minutes from downtown. Dean shortened that time by half, but it still wasn't enough. When they pulled up to the Gazette building the lights were out inside and Sam's frantic banging on the door failed to produce an answer. He motioned to Dean to go around back, started to follow, but Dean cut him off with a scowl and a chopping gesture. Both of them could not risk getting arrested.

Sam stayed in front. Dean edged around the side of the building. Along the way he paused to pick up a broken broom handle leaning against a trash can. He hadn't brought the gun. If his fate was to spend a night in jail, he didn't want to complicate matters. Hopefully, however, they had made it in time to prevent the attack on Missy.

He quickly discovered they hadn't.

As he came around the row of trash cans, clutching the broom handle like a baseball bat, he saw her sprawled on the ground between the building and where her car was parked.

"Missy!"

There was no answer. Dean warily approached her, highly aware of the fact that her attacker might still be lingering. When he was sure there was no one else in the immediate vicinity, Dean quickly dropped to his knees beside the unconscious woman.

She lay face down, sprawled in a boneless heap on the pavement. Dean carefully turned her over, placing a hand to her neck to check her pulse and found it strong. There was an ugly, bloody gash on her forehead however, and her skin was freezing cold for obvious reasons. Her coat was gone, and her blouse had been ripped open, her bra torn to expose her breasts. Whoever had assaulted her might have had rape in mind; her pants were unzipped and pushed down to reveal pale, lacy panties. Stripping his coat off, Dean covered her to protect her modesty.

He was fumbling for his phone when the sheriff's car screeched up beside Missy's. The lights hit Dean full in the face, rendering him unable to see Sheriff Dunbar himself, but Dean didn't need to see him to know there was a gun in his hand. His tone of voice when he told Dean to drop to the pavement with his hands above his head was enough.

"Look, I didn't..."

"I said get down! Get down now you son of a bitch or I'll put a bullet in you, I swear to God!"

Dean rolled his eyes but he obeyed. He stretched out beside Missy, belly down, with his hands locked behind his head. Dunbar nearly ripped his arms off putting on the cuffs.

Sometimes, Dean thought as he was hauled to his feet and shoved head first into the back of a police cruiser, he hated Sam's premonitions with a passion.