Dean had no idea where they were going now. He heard his Baby's engine groaning as she was forced to carry him farther away; he wasn't sure if he was relieved or furious that she had been kidnapped along with him. Now that Dean's head wasn't so muddled from the drugs, he hoped that she would at least be recognizable enough that Sam could track them down.

The knowledge that Sam was still alive after all gave Dean the last bit of strength he needed to hold onto his sanity. His skin prickled at the proximity to his captor, nearly sizzling with dread in the face of this psycho's delusional mind. It was all the hunter could do to keep his breathing in check, not to give in to panic as he was taken away.

Cas, I guess you probably can't hear me, he desperately prayed. But in case you can, I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do.

Urging a crazed killer to leave his best friend trapped inside a ring of fire that could actually kill him was one of the worst things Dean had ever done, but if the alternative was Cas's death by barbecue? No thanks. Cas was a tough son of a gun; at least this way he had a chance.

"Too bad about Cas," Psycho Boy said from the driver's seat, as though he knew what Dean was dwelling on. "I'm sorry, Dean. I didn't want to do it, either. But you know he's capable of killing us both without blinking. It's the curse, not his fault. I would have taken him with us, found some way to help him, but I don't know how we could have held an angel long enough."

"Yeah, you sound real torn up," Dean muttered under his breath. He'd rather not engage in conversation, especially when they weren't yet far enough away that Psycho couldn't still turn back and kill Cas after all. Burned alive by that fire… Dean shuddered.

"He's my friend, too, you know," Psycho Boy pressed. "But right now, I have to worry about you. You seem to be getting better, but there's still a long way to go. And in your condition… we're just gonna have to take this slow."

The fact that he was speaking in Sam's voice made Dean shudder again as he tried to force back the icy desperation. This was just sick, the way it created the illusion that Dean's brother was the one doing this to him.

"Where are we going?" Dean asked instead, trying to make it sound less like a demand.

"I don't know. It's getting on towards evening."

Was it? Dean had no sense of the time of day, no real idea how long it had been since this creep had kidnapped him. It wasn't like he could see the sun for cues.

"So I figure we gotta put some distance between us and Cas in case he breaks loose too soon, and find somewhere to hole up for the night. You still look exhausted. And kinda beat up, no offense."

"Wow, I wonder why."

There was a short pause, then Psycho murmured, "Don't worry, Dean. I'm gonna take care of you. I promise."

Goosebumps rose on his skin at the seemingly innocuous words that were—yet again—even worse to hear in Sammy's voice. Dean didn't respond, just shifted to turn away from his captor as much as possible while tugging furtively on the handcuffs he was stuck in again. Dean wished he could see where they were going. He wished his whole body didn't hurt. He wished he knew where Sam was, wished Cas could hear him urging him to hang in there, wished he would wake up and this would all be a nightmare.

But the road rolled on, the purring through the seat seeming like a reassurance from his Baby in their shared captivity. When Psycho Boy finally pulled to a stop, Dean couldn't say how many hours or miles had passed. He hadn't heard any cars passing by in some time and wondered how far off the beaten path they'd gotten to.

"Okay, I'll get us a room," Psycho Boy assured him with too much cheer. "Stay here."

"Like I can go anywhere?" Dean snapped back, gesturing to his eyes with cuffed hands. Not to mention, his feet hurt so badly that he'd make it all of two steps from the car before the crazy guy got back out.

"Jerk."

"B- Bite me." Dean managed to cut off the customary response just in time, furious that he'd almost let habit overpower his knowledge that this was not Sam. He ignored the sigh, stewing silently as the car door opened and then slammed.

The silence outside confirmed Dean's suspicions that they were definitely not on a major highway. Even if Sam knew which direction they'd taken, would he be able to find them out here? If only there was a way to signal his location.

Thinking quickly, Dean blindly groped in front of him until he found the glove compartment. He opened it and dug through the rubbish and cassette tapes until he identified the smooth, hard plastic of a cell phone. One of many burners that they normally kept as backup.

"Come on," Dean muttered to himself, flipping the older phone open and running his fingertips over the buttons until he found the one that he was pretty sure turned it on. He pushed it and held, gratified a second later when a little tone told him it was working. Dean paused to give it a chance to load up, again feeling the rounded buttons to figure out where the number 2 would be.

Huh. Never thought he'd be so grateful to have the old-fangled thing. He never would have been able to navigate a touch screen, blind. Pushing the button that would call Sam, Dean waited eagerly for the ringing on the other end.

It only rang once before the sound of crunching gravel made Dean flinch in surprise. Cursing softly, he snapped the phone closed again to end the call and swiftly thrust it back into the glovebox. A second later, the car door jerked open.

"Dean? What're you looking for?"

Continuing to shift through the glovebox, Dean retorted, "A pack of smokes. Got a light?"

"Hah hah. You don't smoke. You've got every other vice, but not that one. Were you looking for a gun?"

"Nope." Dean slammed the glovebox shut, heart still hammering at having been caught, but relieved the psycho didn't seem to have figured out what he was actually doing. He heard a sigh.

"Guess you're not completely back yet, huh? That's okay. We'll take it slow. Alright, come on, easy does it. Let me help you."

"You wanna help?" Dean snapped, trying unsuccessfully to pull away—damn it, he really was at a worse advantage when this creep had Sam's strength. "How about taking the cuffs off and giving me my shoes back?"

He choked out a grunt of pain as Psycho Boy got him on his feet, making them flare again from where the glass had cut him.

"No shoes until I can trust you're not gonna try running again," his kidnapper said. "We're gonna have to improvise as it is."

"Man, come on," Dean protested, limping slowly along where Psycho was directing him. The thought of being put into a cage again sent shivers up his spine. "Don't you think this looks a little suspicious?"

"Nah," Psycho replied. "There's no other cars in the parking lot. We're the only ones here except the guy in the office. I'll make sure he leaves you alone."

Yeah, probably by killing the poor bastard if he got too close. Which meant Dean couldn't call attention to himself to hopefully get help, damn it.

It felt like a thousand steps to get to the door of wherever they were, each one more agonizing than the last. Without his shoes, Dean's feet were still unprotected from the small stones and sharp bits of gravel in the parking lot.

"Almost there," Sam—or rather, Sam's voice—encouraged him, but the grip on his arm felt more like a threat than a support. "Let me grab the door."

They paused, giving Dean a moment to listen for a sign of anything, but all he heard was the fumbling of a key going into a lock and turning, and then a door creaking open. When a soft flick told him the light had been turned on, he could see no difference.

"Alright, this will work great," Psycho Boy exclaimed. "Here, let me help you over to the bed. Easy… easy does it."

If nothing else, sitting down was a relief, but this dissolved quickly into discomfort when Dean felt Sam's hands push him all the way down onto his back.

"Wait… No, I want to sit up."

The position made him way too vulnerable, especially since he couldn't see anything, but his heart gave an even worse lurch of panic when his kidnapper grabbed his bound hands and pulled his arms up over his head. Dean tried to pull back, but the metallic ratchet of a second set of handcuffs signaled that he'd already been secured to the headboard.

"What are you doing?" Dean demanded, testing his restraints to find no give. Despite himself, his breaths started coming quicker as the weight beside him disappeared.

"Dean, chill," his brother's voice insisted, but the rope that wound itself around Dean's ankle and pulled taut left him feeling anything but relaxed.

"Seriously? Where the hell do you think I'm gonna go?"

"Oh please, we both know you'd figure out some stupid move to try, and you'd end up getting hurt. So let's just play it safe, okay? Come on, humor me a little longer."

This time, Dean was expecting the grip on his remaining ankle, but could do nothing about it as Psycho Boy secured it as well to the opposite bedpost. The hunter growled in frustration, trying to find some wiggle room, but there wasn't much to be had. He fell still, taking deep breaths before seething, "You fudging touch me, I swear to god-"

"Dean! We're brothers," his kidnapper laughed. "Don't make it weird. I just figured you'd be more comfortable sleeping in an actual bed."

"You know what would make me more comfortable?" Dean snapped back. "You untying me and letting me go! I mean it, right now! Let me up, you sicko freak!"

"Dean…"

And damn it, Dean could not take that friggin' voice anymore! The exact level of exasperation and impatience that Sam would use, the comforting pat to his arm that only left him more freaked out, because now all Dean could imagine was his actual brother. Yanking at his bonds with all his might, Dean felt something in him snap.

"Let me go!" he shouted. "You son of a bitch!"

"Dean. Hey…. Hey hey hey. It's me, it's Sam."

"You're not Sam, stop calling yourself that!" Dean bellowed.

The sudden grip on his jaw took him unawares, squeezing so ruthlessly that Dean gasped. Something was pushed into his open mouth, fabric of some sort that muffled his yells. Sam's hand released him, but a second later Dean heard the distinctive schick of duct tape peeling off a roll. The sticky substance latched over his face, roughly slapped across his mouth and cheeks to keep the rag in place.

"This is getting old, Dean," Sam's voice snapped with frosty warning. "I need you to start behaving. I am your brother." The voice was now right in front of Dean's face, but filled with a level of insanity and threat that he couldn't associate with Sammy. "I've been patient, but pretty soon…"

The knife at his throat made Dean freeze, nowhere to retreat to when he was already flat on his back. The sharp edge traced over the thin line that had already been cut. Dean made a strangled sound that even he could barely hear, which was just as quickly bitten off when the blade pressed in more insistently.

"That's better," Sam's voice hissed. "Now for the last time, you're not going anywhere, because I'm not letting you go. Get some sleep, Dean. We've got a long drive tomorrow and I don't think you want to spend it tied up in the trunk, but if you don't knock it off, that's exactly where you'll be. Good night, big brother."

The weight looming over him disappeared, though the knife pressing against his throat lingered for a second before it, too, pulled away. Dean released a shaky breath. He tried to pull against the cuffs holding his arms over his head one last time, but slumped into the bed when this proved fruitless. Unable to see or speak or move more than an inch in any direction, Dean had little choice but to accept his helplessness and wait for his next chance to escape.

SPN SPN SPN

Sam took his eyes off the road only long enough to check the next number on the hastily scrawled list. With Cas's location as a starting point, and a rough idea that they would have taken off the opposite direction from Stanford, Sam had found a dozen or so motels that Thomas might decide to camp out in. The question was, would he even stop for the night, or just keep driving?

Though he'd hoped the APB he'd put out on the Impala using his phony FBI credentials would yield something, Sam was coming up with zilch. No hits on the wire, and nothing on the motels he was calling either.

Maybe Sam had been wrong. Maybe his quarry wasn't going to stop for the night. Maybe he was going in the wrong direction. Maybe he should have gone and gotten Cas first, after all.

Glancing at the clock on the dash, Sam noted that it was only half past nine. Given how far he'd been from Cas's starting point, and how much of a lead Thomas already had, he was probably lagging a good two or three hours behind, if he pushed the stolen Mustang to its max. Flying would be faster. He thought again about turning back for Cas, maybe continuing to put out feelers in the meantime…

Except by now he'd been driving all evening, far from the house up in the hills where Cas had found Dean. Sam wavered, then picked the phone up again. Instead of calling the next motel number on his list, he punched the speed dial for their angel friend.

But after the tenth ring, Sam's heart sank. Cas's ridiculously hopeless voicemail message was the only response he got, leaving the hunter to fear the worst.

"Cas, it's me," he said after the tone. "No luck yet. Why aren't you answering? Call me back, okay?"

Sam hung up, then slammed his hand against the steering wheel with a shaky curse. He licked dry lips. Dean was in trouble, Cas was in trouble, Sam was too far away from both, and he had no idea what condition either of them were in. How could this get any worse?

Helplessly, Sam continued tearing down the road, leaving message after message with various motel attendants, casting as wide a net as he could and hoping he wasn't too late.

It wasn't until after midnight when his phone finally rang. But when he looked at the caller ID, it was neither a motel, sheriff's office, or Cas.

Bruce Wayne… Sam's heart leaped into his throat. The backup phone! Eagerly, the hunter took the call, already guiding the car to a halt on the shoulder.

"Dean?" he gasped. "Dean, is that you?"

There was no response, only a hasty click and then silence. Sam frowned, pulling the cell away from his ear to check if he was within service range. He was. So what had that been? Sam twisted his mouth with a thoughtful frown.

He'd forgotten they even had that old thing. Not that it mattered, as they never kept the burner phone turned on, preserving its battery as much as possible. Should he try calling back? But no, because if it had been Dean, and he'd hung up because Thomas had interrupted, Sam would show his cards too soon. Thomas still didn't know he was alive.

Wait a minute…

"Dean, you're a genius," Sam murmured, pulling up his internet browser as fast as he could. His heart thudded in his chest. A lead at last. The burner phone was old, but still new enough to have GPS… Dean had just notified Sam that there was now a tracking device in the Impala.

It was the work of a moment to pull up the phone's coordinates. Sam leaned back in the seat with a breathless laugh, running a hand through his hair. "Gotcha," he sighed. "Ok. Hold on, Dean."

Copying the coordinates into his nav app, Sam saw that Thomas must have abandoned the main thoroughfares to end up in the remoter area the Impala was now. He'd also taken a course tipping more south than Sam had, which put him nearly four hours away. But the ping was stationary, and the map informed him the address belonged to a motel, which meant he should have plenty of time to catch up.

Finally, this was almost over.

Once again, Sam tried dialing Cas's phone. The fact that he hadn't heard back from the angel was starting to scare him; surely if Cas had a means of escaping, he would have done so by now, and come to join him. But if he couldn't get out, then why wasn't he answering his phone either? It wasn't going to voicemail right away, so it couldn't be the battery…

But once again, there was no answer.

"Cas, me again," Sam said when voicemail picked up at last. "Just hold on. I got a lead on Dean, going to check it out right now. Just in case you get out of there before I can reach him, I'm heading to… um, hang on…" He pulled the phone down long enough to find the coordinates, then read them off. Message delivered, Sam hung up with his throat already starting to tighten. He could only pray that by going after Dean, he hadn't cost Cas his life.

Pulling back onto the road, Sam gunned the accelerator as hard as it would go, tearing off down the moonlit road in search of his brother.

And when he got there… god help Thomas, because Sam intended to show no mercy.