Kali's keys were not on the hook. Gabe scanned the neatly labelled board of keys to see if they were just misplaced, but there was no sign of the familiar cheesy heart shaped fob he had bought her in a scabby little boutique gift shop on their honeymoon. So shoot him, he was a cheesy romance kind of guy.

Maybe Kali had let Gregory drive it, or just taken the keys with her changing her mind at the last minute to be chauffeured to the office. With a sigh Gabe pulled open the drawer of the hall stand and fumbled around until he found his own spares for her car. He stumbled out of the door to the corridor towards the private elevator. It pinged it's little welcome immediately, the car already at his floor and the doors slid open. They were half-way down when his bleary eyes finally focussed on his reflection in the half height mirrors and he realised what was tickling the underside of his chin. A label. He had his T-shirt on backwards and inside out.

He pulled it off and was dragging it back down over his head even as he moved on autopilot out of the elevator and across the floor of the car deck. He blinked. Rubbed his eyes. And looked again. It's in the usual spot. That's what she'd said. The 'usual spot' was not occupied with anything.

He scanned along the lines of vehicles. The deep purple Lexus GX was not in any 'spot'. That paint job had cost him a bomb, but Kali liked purple. He dragged his phone from his pocket, picking up that unfamiliar number he hit dial, linked with the hotel wifi, he could hear it bleeping instantly as the call connected.

"Hm?" She was distracted.

"Are you sure you left the Lex in your usual spot?"

"Gabe, we're right in the middle of something."

"Your Lex, Kali. Are you sure Gregory parked it in your usual spot?"

"Gregory? No. I parked it myself, yesterday." Her voice was suddenly alert and he knew he had her full attention.

"Maybe Greg took it to the valet…" he mumbled.

"At 4.30 in the morning?" she sounded exasperated. "And how could he, you have the keys."

"I don't have your keys… I had to… use...mine." A suspicion began to build in his mind.

"How's Cas doing?"

"Tired. Quiet…"

Too quiet.

"He took himself off to bed early…"

Michael, too. No, no, no, no, NO! He groaned. The fucking idiots.

"Gabe? Gabe! What is it?"

"I gotta go, Kali. I need to check on Cas," he was already stabbing a finger into the elevator buttons as he disconnected the call.


Dean yanked off his shoes and socks, knotting his laces and letting the soft shoes hang from one hand. They weren't much of a weapon, but they were something to throw and his footfalls would be softer with barefeet. He would worry about grit and stones if and when he made it outside and he no longer had his shoes.

He ran along another stretch of the corridor, pausing to try a couple of doors including one marked cleaning store. Everything was locked. Some of the doorways sported little electronic boxes with softly shining red LEDs. Maybe he should have risked a few extra seconds to grab Alastair's key card, but he was too damned worried that the asshole would get lucky with the taser.

He had run through four turns already, Benny had told him the prison buildings were laid out around a ring of corridors forming a dodecahedron with two large bulbous sections at each end, cross sected by one long corridor. This meant at most he had one more corner and two lengths of corridor until he hit that central corridor, running all the way from High Security through to the holding pens and the Admin block.

He remembered shuffling along the corridor when he arrived, one long straight stretch with two intersections and a series of electronic doors. He had expected the escape siren to start sounding, it seemed unlikely that it would be disabled during a power failure. Surely it had to be considered a vital function. Reduced power or not. He turned the next corner and slowed, ahead he could see the change in the colour of the concrete. A square of yellow and black chevrons painted on it to denote the crossing of two open corridors. He bent double, catching his breath. There were no sounds of pursuit behind him. And judging by the slight pounding in his own head and the tingle of bruising to his knee he has done a sight of damage to Alastair. His jumpsuit felt vaguely sticky under his hand, a wide patch soaking into the stiffened cotton, rendered almost black under the weird green lights, probably blood from a (hopefully) broken nose.

He slowed as he approached the corner, gulping air into his lungs as quietly as he could. It wasn't worth the risk of running blind into the main corridor, no corners, just a straight line of sight.

He glanced round the corner. A figure stood just yards away, had the man made him? On first glance he looked like a guard, but no-one Dean recognised. But then he'd only been here a few weeks and the guards didn't all work in HS.

"Come out Dean. Hands where I can see 'em." Well that answered that question. The guy's accent was pure Minnesota.

He tucked the cuff dangling from his wrist up into his sleeve and set his shoes down where he stood, just out of the line of sight of the man in the corridor. He stepped back into the corridor with his hands, not raised, but visible, palms up. The man was tall, easily as tall as Dean himself, a lot older though, well built, maybe even running to fat and definitely alone. But he had something far deadlier than a taser aimed at Dean's heart. He stared into the black o of the barrel, still wondering how the hell this man knew his name.

"Hands behind your head, then turn around, nice and slow and drop to your knees."

The man moved closer, but Dean dared do nothing just yet. Once he was in strike range, could he risk the headbutt trick again? Not if this man had already watched him do it once.

"Drop your hands down behind your back. One at a time." As he moved his arms into position, he watched the shadows around him, they were thickening and getting darker as the man moved closer, Dean tensed ready to strike and something hit him with terrific force right at the base of his already tender skull. Groggy and stunned he fell forward, just bringing his hands round in time, hearing a metallic scrape on concrete, he had just enough time to realise it was the cuff around his wrist, clattering past his own nose as he hit the floor of the tunnel. The last thing he saw was his own shoes and socks, a few feet away.


Gabe pounded his fist with frustration on the door to Cas' suite. He had left his master key on his bedside table. "Dammit." He turned back towards the elevator and bumped into a sleep addled Bal. Another time he might have had a great time making fun of the silk pyjamas and dressing gown (were those flamingoes?) but now he was intent on finding one or the other of his brothers. Just to confirm his worst fears weren't actually true.

"What ARE you doing?" Bal muttered. "Is it Dean? Has something happened?"

"NO!" Gabe snapped. "It's Cas. I think he's gone after Meg and I think Michael has gone with him."

Clarity snapped into Bal's eyes and they widened. He reached into his pocket and handed Gabe one of his own master keys. Gabe blinked and stared at it stupidly for a second. "What?" Bal said a little defensively. "I swiped it from the maid… you never know when you're gonna need it. Oh, don't look so shocked, I do it in every hotel I stay in."

Gabe shook his head, but slid the plastic card into the lock. "Cas? Cas?" They both walked through the expanse of sitting area, calling to him. A blanket was crumpled on one of the sofas but it was otherwise as neat as if housekeeping had just visited. The door to the bedroom was shut. Gabe didn't wait to knock, just throwing it open and striding in, his heart gave a little surge of relief at the outline of a body in the bed, until cold reality struck, no way would Cas sleep through all that pounding and yelling, no matter how tired he was. "Fucking hell," he growled under his breath. "You're not 10 anymore." He yanked the carefully moulded duvet and pillows off the bed and stamped on them in frustration.

"You go and see if Michael is gone," Bal said. "I'll try ringing them. Oh Cas, what were you thinking?"

Gabe sprinted along the corridor to the rooms he had given to Michael.


His hearing, as ever, returned first. He caught the last snippet of a conversation stilling even as he started to stir.

"...your own fault. You were hardly an oil painting before anyway… ah… welcome back Mr Winchester."

The pony shake was instinctive to fix his swimming vision and clear his nostrils. He winced at the pain in his head. Would he ever learn not to do that? It always seemed to be such a good idea, until a couple of shakes in. He swallowed to clear his mouth and managed to just about wipe the drool from his chin on his shoulder, wincing as cold metal bit into his wrists where they were fastened behind him.

He cleared his throat and screwed his eyes shut, blinking a couple of times against the brilliance of lights that fractioned and formed rainbows and glares through his damp eyelashes.

A hard chair back dug into his armpits and felt solid under his legs. He tried to straighten his legs to ease the stiffness in his knees, his ankles resisted stubbornly, leaning over slightly he could see the buckle and leather strap of a belt. Looping round two legs, his own and that of the chair to which he was comprehensively fastened. His vision focussed briefly on the mess of blood on his knee… whoa, bet Alastair was feeling worse than he was.

He feigned confusion, all the while thinking quickly. Three sets of legs in his peripheral vision. Two heavy booted. Stitch creased. Uniform Pants. The third… heeled, delicate looking. Not bad ankles as it happened. Two guards and a woman? What the fuck was going on?

"Now, Mr Winchester… Dean… may I call you Dean?" The question was rhetorical, clearly as the soft voice continued on. "I knew you were coming here Dean. We've been watching Benny for quite some time now and we know he was getting close. That's when we decided to look a little closer at his background, and there was that lovely reference from his naval commander, it didn't take much to connect the dots after that. But what I need to know Dean is just how much information you have been able to get back to the Mishpacha?"

He rolled his head from side to side, glancing left and right surreptitiously, while he bought time to think. Mishpacha. The family. She thought he was Bass. Or that Bass was him… no… the first one.

"Dean!" The sing song voice held a note of impatience and as set a of booted feet drew closer to his side, he flinched, moaning softly as his head was yanked up by the hair. "The Mishpacha, Dean, how much do they know?"

"The whatnow?" He blinked at the woman, giving, he hoped, the glazed appearance of a concussed man momentarily fascinated by a bobble of curls that seemed to shift independently of her head movements. "I jus' … I was jus' tryna sleep, an' then 'm here… whe's here?"

The firm set of her jaw and the tight line of her lips implied she probably wasn't buying it.

"Really, Dean. You think I don't do my research. You stood out like a sore thumb on that intake sheet. Did you really think that hokey background story was going to wash? I'm actually a little disappointed I was lead to believe that The Family was a professional outfit. But huge gaps in your record? Brushes with serial killers? A shambolic hobo lifestyle? Was the idea to make it all seem so preposterous that it was too unbelievable not to be true? The ultimate double bluff. Never mind that ridiculous car."

"Hey," Dean said, eyes narrowing sharply into focus, no-one got to talk that way about Baby. "That's my life you're dissing, lady."

The sigh she gave was exaggerated to say the least. Behind her, Dean could see Alastair, his nose a pulpy swollen mass, the grimace (hopefully of pain), showing teeth stained with blood.

"Hey Alastair," he said with mock cheeriness, "You made a real mess o' my jumpsuit, there's gonna be hell to pay when Crowley has to requisition me a new one." With a growl he started towards Dean, but a simple flung out arm and a slight turn of her head, froze him in his tracks. She met eyes with the guard beside him and the grip in his hair loosed. He had the brief chance to recognise him as the man from the corridor before the blur of his hand loomed large in his eye and he took a solid backhander to the side of his cheek.

He groaned, but raised his head defiantly. Keep 'em talking, keep 'em off track, buy himself time. He gave the woman, his best shit-eating grin. "What? Everyone knows Crowley hates paperwork!"

"Crowley," she said softly, "is an imbecile. Easy to manipulate and simple to control. I've been tying that fool in knots for years." She seized Dean's chin, fingernails biting crescents into his skin. "You will tell me what I want to know Dean, one way or another." The tone and accent of her voice changed suddenly, still sing-song, but dropping into the distinctive cadence that was pure Minnesota. "What you don't understand is that you're not the only one who learnt their trade from their family. Daddy had some pretty exacting standards. My brothers and I were well trained. Daddy always said the best hunt was human, but I don't think even he ever realised just how much more fun it is to play the long game. Far less messy than all that running around in the woods. So you see, I learnt from the very best and then I just got better. I know just what you can do to toy with your prey. And no amount of counselling or well meaning social workers can take that away. All those fools taught me was how to pretend."

She took a step back, demurely, voice once again soft. "Alastair, why don't you soften our guest up a little. I'm sure you need a little session to de-stress."


Bal hurried back into his own room, grabbing his phone from the charging table. He wondered for a moment about the wisdom of ringing Cas. How long had he and Michael been gone? What if he rang and gave them away? Surely Cas would be smart enough to put his phone on silent. He ran his fingers through his hair, calming his pounding heart and chastised himself for panicking. He would text first. Give it 30 seconds and then ring. He sent a message to the cell number of the phone Gabe had lent to Cas. Then one to Michael's number.

He found himself wandering back into the Cas' suite. His subconscious feeling that maybe this was all some mistake and Cas would be there perhaps. He didn't really know. Breath bated, he dialled Cas' number.


His breath sounded jagged and wheezy even to his own ears. He was fairly certain he was carrying at least one busted rib and he spat a good measure or two of blood and spit onto the floor as Alastair took a step back.

"Feel better now?" The woman asked.

"Peachy," Dean answered lifting his head. He blinked a trickle of blood out of his eye. It smarts, surprisingly enough, does blood.

"She wasn't talking to you, Deano," Alastair grumped, his voice even more nasal now, Dean was satisfied to notice.

Sidestepping the splatters of blood on the floor, clearly not wishing to dirty her shoes, she moved back into Dean's eyeline, using one outstretched index finger to press under his chin and tilt his head. He let her. Giving her a little wink and his best come-get-me smile.

She frowned. Delicate little lines appearing between her exquisitely plucked brows. "Clearly he's not been softened enough. Perhaps we should start breaking fingers…"

The guard beside him shifted a step closer menacingly. "All right, all right," Dean said. "Just remind me. What was the question?"

"Dean, Dean, Dean. How much have you managed to tell the Mish…"

"Nothing. Sweet FA." He held her gaze and she looked confused. There's nothing like total honesty to confuse the bad guy, Dean thought.

"Nothing? You honestly expect me to believe that you've been here all these weeks and you've told them nothing."

"I can honestly say, I've not. Until tonight I had no idea who any of you were. Still don't really," he added cheerfully, and her eyes narrowed. She shot a glare at Alastair. And there it was. The chink in the armour, the crack in the shield, the… oh, crap, his ribs hurt.

"He has to be lying," Alastair snapped. "Why would they have pulled that stunt with the taser, if they weren't on to me?"

"Ah," Dean conceded. "Him, I do know a bit about. Besides him being a total douche and all. He has to be about the worst operative, in the history of operatives, and that's even allowing for the fictional ones who do it for comic effect like Clouseau and Johnny English…" Missy grabbed his chin again and he winced this time, as she deepened and widened the split on his lip. Eyes boring into his. "Much as I love all this foreplay, sweetheart. I do at least like to have the name to forget after we get to the main event…"

She slapped him. The sting was nothing among the other sensations raging through his abused body, but he still made a play of pulling up sharp.

"As if I would ever let a player like you touch me."

"Saving yourself for Daddy?" Dean asked, enjoying the flare of anger he provoked until, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, she grabbed his throat and squeezed. He gasped. She was surprisingly strong, blocking his airway with an iron grip. His head began to buzz, ears burning, eyes rolling, breath rattling through his restricted airway. He saw a hand close over her wrist, and a surprisingly gentle voice said. "Missy. He can't tell us anything if he's dead."

She relinquished her grip with a look of disgust. "Sorry Lee," she mumbled, the Minnesota creeping back into her voice. "You know I don't like…when folks diss Pa."

"Oh Christ," Dean choked, "Is this hulk your brother, or your sister?"

The arm gripping Missy's wrist tightened further, "Pa's dead, Missy. This boy's just riling ya. Think on, now."

Dean stared up into a pair of sharp eyes, shining with animal cunning and pleasure at what was happening. Three on one. The story of all his defeats just lately. There was always one damned smart ass, just when you were starting to get somewhere.


Michael's suite looked even less lived in than Cas' if that were possible. Gabe didn't even bother to call out to his older brother. In his heart of hearts he knew there was no point. He pushed open the bedroom door, at least Michael hadn't decided to make a pretence that he was in the bed. It was untouched. That meant in all likelihood they had left not long after their 'early night.' Christ, they had a seven, maybe nine hour head start.

Somewhere in the corner of the room a jaunty tune jolted him. The eerie, ethereal glow of a phone screen illuminating a section of curtain. He launched himself at it and stared at the screen. Cas (temporary number). Michael and his ever methodical ordered mind.

"Hello?"

"Dammit." Bal's voice growled. "They've both left their phones behind."

"Despite being an idiot, my little bro is no fool," Gabe said softly. "He knows we could track their phones."