Gen had dropped her crossbow and jumped sideways, drawing the fight into a bit of space. She ignored Dean and Aaron already sprawled on the ground, punching and grunting. She and Paul danced and shuffled a little, one trying to stab and the other trying to disarm. Two bouts of contact and Paul had taken three slices to the torso, but he managed to grab her wrist and wrench the blade from her hand, almost breaking her arm. An elbow to her head, Gen came down on his leg, and they went on fighting, scuffling in the dust, both of them working hard. Gen used all the strength and focus she could muster, but Paul made the most of his unnatural power. In close contact, she was disadvantaged at every turn. They didn't notice Sam break the old lock from the cellar doors, or when he ran passed the hostages and yanked Aaron off Dean, being the closest fight to hand. Aaron barely had a chance to plead, but was going to, before he was killed.

That, Paul did see, and he quickly changed the fight. He scrambled around Gen, wrapping his left hand over her eyes and pinned her head to his shoulder. As he stood to renegotiate, Gen practically dangled from the hold. She was puffing and grunted at the pressure on her bones.

"Back off!" he yelled. A crisp dawn light now filled the room, dewy air flowing in and cooling their feet. The rankness was rolled away and the bound victims puffed in desperate hope. Paul grabbed Gen's right wrist and twisted it to straighten her arm, pushing her shoulder forward and presenting the side of her neck. She managed to hum her moan rather than cry out. "You won't kill me before I bite her," he warned, letting his pointed teeth slip down passed his lips.

"We can cure her," said Sam, "just like we'll cure the girl upstairs."

"What if I rip out her neck? Can you cure that?" he asked. "I don't mind taking her down with me."

Once again, Gen wriggled and strained to disguise the action of getting a bolt from her pants pocket. Sam and Dean held Paul's glare, pretending to think twice. Another twisting wriggle and she slammed the poison into his upper thigh. He called out, but didn't let go. She bashed down on it again, hitting the bone with the tip, and his grip weakened. She pushed her foot into his knee for leverage, folding herself forward, all her strength going into her forehead. Even as he held her arm, she slipped down, crying out against the pain in her shoulder. With Gen down and clear, Dean came at him, a double handed swing ready, and scooped his blade up, beheading the snarling vampire as he now gripped the arrow in his thigh.

The heavy head glanced of Gen's back and her arm was released. She made an aching noise of relief as she fell onto her side. Dean crouched down beside her, his hand on hers as it gripped her shoulder. He looked at her, and didn't ask if she was okay.

"Are you bit?" she snapped at him.

"No," he said quickly, "You?"

"No," she breathed. "I'm… I'm going to lay here for a while."

"Okay," Dean nodded. His instinct was to say "I'll be back in a minute", but he couldn't remember what he would usually say…

Sam was untying the hostages. He gave the injured one something to hold against his wound, and his friends wrapped their arms around his shoulders. "The girl upstairs, Emily," Sam began. "She was bitten by the screamer. There's a syringe in the car."

"You wanna park it out front?" Dean asked, fishing out the keys.

"Yeah, sure," Sam replied and caught them before running up to tell Emily what was going on.

The young boys put their injured friend in a chair and stood by him. Everyone rested for a bit. Gen rolled onto her knees and sat up. Testing her arm, she found it was very sore, but not changed. Dean didn't need to give her advice. As she held onto her jacket lapel with her injured arm, she used the other to help get herself to standing. Dean collected her short sword and wiped it against his jeans before slipping it into its holder. He found her other weapon and handed it over. She smiled, noticed her concussion and swallowed as her injuries made a roll call. Dean looked at her and realised that he couldn't recall what he usually did because he'd been letting Sam do it. These last months, he'd tended to Gen for little things – quick plasters and silly shit that he could joke over. When he'd worried, he'd hung back and now he really didn't want to.

Gen looked at the boys in the basement, cowering from their memories. Dean stood almost beside her, his back to them.

"We should drop them at the hospital," she said.

He held her wrist in his for a moment, running his thumb over its back. "No, we'll take Emily with us to do the cure, and call the authorities to the house."

"Yeah, ok," she shrugged, "That's a fair compromise." She began to walk toward a spare chair, but changed direction. "Ugh, I should probably go up and sit with Emily."

"I'll go," Dean offered, "I'm less bloody than you."

"Yes. Good," Gen sighed. "Really? I'm that bad?"

"Like an amateur cage fighter."

"Oh, you're such a bitch," she said, sitting down.

In the half hour that followed, Sam brought the car down to the house. The victims got some water and what was left of Gen's snacks, Emily was talked into going back to their motel, Sam collected some dead vampire's blood and Gen waited until the very last minute before getting out of her chair.

They'd told the boys to stay where they were and just wait. Maybe sit outside by the cellar door if they really had to leave. By the car, Sam called the authorities and suggested they check the last two houses again regarding the search and rescue. On the way back, Sam with Emily in the back and Gen slumped beside Dean, they did some cursory recapping.

"Damn," Dean sighed, shaking his head. "That was pretty easy."

Gen lifted her head up and put all her energy into a scowl at him. It was hard, with her bruised throat, swollen eye and cut eyebrow.

"For twelve vampires?!" he defended, "That was goddamn easy."

"Yeah, I know it was," she said and dropped her head. "God we were lucky. They were sleeping… they were fucking sleeping." Gen flopped her hands to emphasis the point. She closed her eyes and patted Dean's thigh before rolling away a little, missing him trying to catch her hand.

"Why the last two houses?" Dean asked.

"I had a quick look, just in case," Sam answered. "They'd dumped a body."

"Jeez, you're lucky there's wasn't more than a body, Sam," Gen grumbled.

"I didn't go in," he clarified, "just looked through the window."

"Okay," she conceded. "They must've been so young, all of them. So reckless... We have no food."

Gen began to remove last night's bobby pins from her hair and soon enough they were back at the hotel. Sam shepherded the rattled Emily into their room, talking and keeping her calm. Gen got out of the car as casually as she could, while Dean was collecting things from the trunk.

"You should go have a shower," Dean said. "We can do this without you."

"Sam can't be much better than me," she answered.

"Yeah, but he's good with Emily," he replied. "Seriously, Gen."

"I'll get some ice on me and have a sleep first I think," she said, pulling the last elastic from her hair. He wanted to do the ice, do the plasters. She wanted him to, too. She'd been daydreaming of a hot shower with company...

"Why didn't you undo that last night?" Dean wondered.

"It was really secure," she shrugged, "and hard to grab."

She'd plaited and pinned her shoulder length hair just twelve hours ago, and except for the coating of dust, it looked fabulously full and bouncy. "My goddam luck," she muttered, eyeing off a pretty lock beside her face. Dean tucked it behind her ear and looked at her punch-smeared mascara.

"Come find me when you wake up?" he asked.

Gen watched his face for a moment, but was too tired to think. "You too?"

"Deal." He smiled a little, leaned down and kissed her gently so that neither of them bled again.