"You know, Dean, it's nice out. You could try walking back and forth out there. It would almost be like exercise."
Dean was in no mood for Sam to be calm. "It's been half an hour. Where the hell is she?"
"Maybe there was a line."
Since his tongue-lashing from Sam the evening before, Dean had been trying not to treat Ruthie like she was helpless. But every minute she'd been gone had brought a new, horrible scenario to his imagination: Ruthie dressed like Sleeping Beauty, dead. Like Cinderella, dead. Like the chick from Beauty and the Beast, dead. It probably didn't help that he was hungry. And his whole body ached from sleeping on that freaking sofa bed—if you could call it sleeping.
He kept pacing, watching Sam irritably for a few minutes, sitting there with his laptop, searching for leads on any artistic, potential witches in town. It wasn't right for Sam's hair to be so perfect right now. It mocked him, laying there all smooth and Fabio-ish, while he himself was too frazzled to even sit down. He almost turned toward Ruthie's bed to ask if Sam had been using her shampoo. But of course, she wasn't there.
Dean yanked his phone out of his pocket and scowled at it, willing it to sing "Chris-TEE-na" at him. But it didn't. He punched her name in his contacts, ignoring Sam's crossed arms and scoldy face. It rang until her cheery voice told him to leave a message.
"Screw it," he said. "I'm going to get her."
"Dean—"
Dean ignored him, and marched out the door and toward the bakery.
Once he got there, it took only a minute for his fears to be confirmed. He raced back to their room and burst through the door, panting.
Sam looked up at him, startled.
"She's not there. The guy said he hasn't seen her today." Dean's voice was taut, like every muscle and tendon.
Fear flashed through Sam's eyes as he stood up. "Where do we look?"
Dean raked his hands through his hair. "I don't know." He scanned the room, not knowing what he was looking for. Something, anything—
His gaze landed on her duffel bag. He hurried over, crouched down, and dug inside. He pulled out a folded newspaper. He stood, opened it, and froze.
Sam came over. "What is it?"
Dean turned the paper for him to see. Sam's face paled.
"She hid this from me," Dean said in a low voice. "She didn't want us to see it. Why?"
Sam still looked shell-shocked. "I don't know. We've been looking for this thing for months."
"No," Dean said. "She's been looking for months. Or that's what she's been telling us."
Sam frowned. "What are you saying?"
"I don't know, Sam." He waved the newspaper in the air. "All I know is, this paper shows up, she hides it from us and bolts."
Sam's eyes widened again. "You don't think she went after it alone?"
"She's not stupid." Even as he said it though, fingers of ice streaked through his chest.
Sam looked down at the floor. His voice dropped. "She's been trying to prove herself to you." His eyes jumped up to Dean's. "To us," he corrected, but too late.
She'd known Sam was on her side, that he believed in her. Sam had encouraged her, made her feel like part of the team. If she'd felt like she had to take on that werewolf alone in order to prove something, it was because of Dean. Because he'd tried too hard to protect her. Because he hadn't been willing to risk losing her.
And here they were.
Dean clenched his teeth and marched across the room, toward the door.
"Dean, wait," came Sam's voice behind him. "We don't know that's where she went."
Dean paused by the table, but the car keys weren't there anymore. He checked the chairs, the floor. "Where the hell are my keys?"
"Did she take them?"
"The car's still out there. I would've heard if she took it." Dean gripped the back of the chair, watching his knuckles turn white. He didn't have time to turn the room upside down searching for the damn keys. They'd wasted too much time already. He flung the chair to the floor and wrenched open the door.
"Where are you going?"
"To steal a car."
He strode into the parking lot, Sam at his heels.
"Dean—"
Dean stopped cold, but not because of Sam. There, on the ground at the back of the Impala, were his keys. He hadn't noticed them when he'd run past a couple minutes earlier. He scooped them up and held them out for Sam to see, his mind already racing through the possible explanations.
Sam's forehead furrowed. "So, she geared up, then dropped the keys? Maybe so we wouldn't hear the car?"
Dean pressed his lips together and shook his head. "No. She'd never leave the keys out like this." He gestured at Baby, black paint shining in the sun. "Someone could steal her." His hand closed around the keys, metal biting into his palm. "Somebody took her."
Sam's eyebrows jumped, then a deep V appeared between them. "How do we find her?"
Dean glanced around at the line of motel windows, the nearby road, the shops lining it. "It's broad daylight. Somebody saw something." He flipped through the photos on his phone and stopped on one of Ruthie, in the kitchen at the bunker. Her hair was pulled back in her usual ponytail, hands buried in a large bowl of ground beef, mixing a meatloaf. Her open-mouthed grin was only a smile in the photo, but Dean knew she'd been laughing at some dumb joke he'd made. He could still hear it, her apple pie laugh. His stomach seemed to shrink and harden. He tore his gaze from the picture and headed for the nearest motel door. "I got this one," he told Sam.
For once, he had a bit of good luck. A heavyset, suspicious-looking woman in a bathrobe answered the door. Dean showed her Ruthie's photo and asked if she'd seen her that morning. She jabbed at the screen with a thick finger. "Oh, yeah. I seen her. She was gettin somethin outta the trunk of that car there." She pointed at the Impala.
"Then what did she do?"
"Well, then she started talkin to some woman who come up behind her."
Dean forced himself to act calm. "And this woman, what did she look like?"
"Kinda tall and skinny. Long skirt. Gray hair. Couldn't say how old. Come to think of it, just the woman was talkin, not that girl."
"Then what?"
"Well, they just left. Your friend followed that lady right outta the parkin lot."
"Which way?"
The woman pointed west.
"Thanks." Dean turned to go, but she called after him.
"Is your friend a pothead?"
He faced the woman again. "Excuse me?"
She gave him a jowly, judgmental frown. "That girl looked baked. Little early for that, ain't it?"
He thanked the woman again, and yelled to his brother, who jogged over. "The witch has her." Sam went white, but Dean didn't stand around to talk about their feelings. He headed down the road in the direction the woman had pointed.
Showing her photo in occasional stops at stores yielded one of two results: either no one had noticed her, or they'd seen her walking west down the sidewalk, looking stoned. Two blocks went by, then three. They were nearing the edge of town, and Dean struggled to keep his cool. If she'd taken Ruthie into the woods, what then? How would they find her in time?
The final storefront was a barber shop. An elderly gentleman in an apron greeted them. Sam showed him the picture and asked about Ruthie—Dean couldn't stop darting glances out the window every other second.
The man adjusted his eyeglasses and inspected the photo. "Mm-hm. She went into the fort maybe half an hour ago, her and another lady. I noticed, because they're closed Sundays. Thought it was odd."
"The fort?" Sam asked.
The barber pointed through the large window, across the street and to the west. Sure enough, a solid-looking, two-story, wood building stood at the edge of town. Dean hadn't paid attention to it in his previous drives in and out of town.
"Been here 'bout a hundred and fifty years," the barber said. "Built during the Indian Wars, supposedly. It's a museum now."
Dean was already out the door. He heard Sam thanking the man, and the tinkling of the bell as the door swung open and shut again. They ran across the street, and found the large, wooden front door standing ajar, even though a "Closed" sign hung on it. Dean drew his gun, and Sam did the same. They stepped into the shadowy coolness of the fort. A hall ran left and right in front of them, and across it, a big set of double doors stood open. They silently crossed the hall and entered a large, dim, open space. Exhibits with old photographs and rifles lined the four walls inside, but there was no sign of anyone. The center of the room opened all the way up to the second floor ceiling. But along the four sides, through rough wooden railings, he could see doors on the second floor. Dean jerked his head up toward one of them, then toward the door they'd just come through. He'd take the second floor; Sam could take the first. Sam gave him a nod and disappeared.
Dean walked toward the far corner of the open area, gun still extended. He spotted a narrow staircase in the shadows, and took the steps two at a time. The first door he came to opened into a small room filled with taxidermied animals. The next was a restroom. Then he reached the corner of the building, and a very large, heavy-looking wooden door reinforced with two thin bars of hammered iron across the top and bottom. He tried the big iron handle, but it didn't budge. He banged on the wood with his fist. "Ruthie? You in there?"
"Dean?"
His knees went soft; he leaned against the door and took a deep breath. "Ruthie! You okay?"
"No, I don't think so." Ruthie's voice floated through the door, soft and dreamy.
"Is the witch still in there?"
"No. She left." She sounded half-asleep.
Her misty, drugged voice erased every trace of the relief he'd felt moments before. "Tell me what's happening."
Several tense seconds ticked by before she answered.
"I'm dying."
