Chapter Thirty-Nine

Retracing Sam's steps led them to a storage unit outside the motel. It felt familiar, Sam said, so they checked it out. Sam even had a key for the door, so they didn't have to pick the lock. Inside was a blue Volkswagen Beetle. It was a little dirty, as if he'd driven in mud.

"Please tell me you didn't steal this," Dean said, emphasis on what Sam had taken and not that he'd stolen something in the first place.

They checked the car thoroughly and found more odd not-Sam-like things. Cigarettes . . . a bloody knife in the backseat.

Sam picked the knife up and stared at it. "You think I used this on someone?"

"I'm not thinkin' anything," Dean said, shaking his head.

"I am," Alyson said. "Just for the record."

Sam looked at her. "You think I hurt someone, don't you?"

"I didn't say that. But either you used the knife or someone wants you to think you did."

Actually, now that she thought about it, the blood didn't even have to belong to a human. Animals had red blood too.

Sam looked even more worried than he'd already been, and Alyson was sorry she'd said anything. She watched as he used his jacket to wipe the prints off of the knife. He tossed the blade into the backseat and then cocked his head to the side before picking something up off the floor.

"Gas receipt," he said. "Few towns over."

"We should check it out," Dean said.

"We should," Alyson said. "We need to get rid of this car, though. Sam's prints will be on the steering wheel, not to mention DNA, hair fibers. If someone reports this car, the manager could give a description."

"I hadn't thought of that," Dean said.

"Can we check the gas station first?" Sam asked. "Maybe find out what's been going on? We can get rid of the car when we leave. We can't stay here."

The receipt led them to a Tasty Express that wasn't even fifteen minutes away. They all went in and when the man behind the counter saw Sam he began freaking out. Apparently, Sam had become violent with him the night before. Sam had chucked a bottle of alcohol at his head and had stolen a pack of cigarettes, lighting up in the store and not paying for them.

The guy threatened to call the cops if Sam didn't leave, so Sam went outside to wait in the car.

Dean could hardly believe it. This was not Sam-like behavior.

Sam wasn't a hard drinker. He could barely drink two beers without getting tipsy and now he was drinking malt liquor?

No way.

"Ya know, your buddy didn't pay for the booze or the smokes, which he illegally lit up."

Dean ended up paying for both, but it helped get more information out of the guy and they now knew which direction Sam had gone after leaving the gas station the night before, and it hadn't been towards the motel.

They really needed to ditch the Beetle. Dean knew they would have to either stage a car accident by submerging the vehicle in a body of water or by setting the thing on fire. There would be less suspicion if they drove the car into water, however. Either way, they couldn't let the police find the car while they were still in town.

It was getting late now, almost dark. And they had just plunged the stolen car into a lake outside of town. They'd found an incline where boats were lowered into the water; it really helped the car keep moving without them having to do anything.

Sam had checked out of the motel he'd been staying in and they were now a few towns away trying to find a decent place to eat at. They finally did and they went in to order.

Dean ordered his usual burger with fries; Alyson ordered a salad; Sam ordered sweet tea without food – or at least he tried until Dean demanded he eat something. Sam gave in and requested a salad as well.

"Low calorie freaks," Dean teased.

"At least I'm not going to die of heart failure by the time I'm fifty," Sam said.

"I'm eating a salad because I want dessert," Alyson said. "I saw hot fudge Sunday on the menu."

Alyson did wish Dean would make healthier decisions about his food, but he'd been making these choices on his own for a while now. She wasn't about to tell him what to put in his mouth.

In the middle of dinner Alyson was struck with the need to pee, so she left the brothers alone to talk or do whatever they usually did when she wasn't there. However, Dean was waiting for her when she came out of the bathroom.

"So . . ." Dean began. "Do you think he's okay?"

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "He still feels weird."

Alyson didn't say what she really thought. She knew Dean couldn't handle it just yet. What she thought was that even though Sam was acting normal enough, they might just have to get used to the fact that Sam was different and things wouldn't be the same anymore.

Back at the table, Sam was nursing a refill of tea. Alyson's and Dean's drinks had been refilled as well, and Alyson began drinking hers.

An hour later they were parked in front of a nice house with a wrap-around porch. If it hadn't been so isolated, Alyson would've liked it there. The house was located in the middle of the woods on the side of an unmarked road.

Sam had said the road looked familiar so they had followed it to the house, which also looked familiar to Sam.

The porch light came on automatically when they reached the door.

"Whoever lives here, I'd say they don't like surprises," Sam said.

The windows beside the door were shattered, but the glass was on the ground outside. That meant the window had been broken from the inside and the glass had fallen outwards. Why would someone have broken out? The door was right there.

This screamed 'set up' and 'trap' to Alyson, but she followed Sam and Dean inside anyway. There was no way she was staying outside by herself.

Inside, the house was a mess. Pictures on the walls were crooked; chairs were missing legs as if they'd been thrown or hit against something; china dishes were in pieces on the floor; cabinets had doors that were barely hanging onto their hinges.

"Remind you of anything?" Alyson asked Dean, who nodded once in her direction.

"What?" Sam asked.

"The motel room in Missouri," Alyson said.

In what had probably been the office or study area they found a dead body. It was a man, probably the owner of the house. The stench of blood had hit Alyson's nose before she'd even seen the body, and she was now covering her mouth and nose with her shirt.

Sam flipped the light on and Dean bent to roll the guy over. The entire right side of his face was covered in blood. The guy's throat had been slashed. The blood had already turned black, but it wasn't completely dry, so Alyson had no clue how long the guy had been there.

A forensic expert she was not.

"Dean, I did this," Sam said.

"We don't know that."

"What else do you need? I mean, how else do you explain it? The car, the knife, the blood . . ."

"I don't know," Dean yelled. "Why don't you tell me?"

Alyson went to the desk and began rummaging through the drawers. There were a few letters from the guy's daughter, who was in college and asking for care packages. She found out the man's name was Steve Wandel.

"Look, even if you did do this, I'm sure you had a good reason," Dean said. "You know, self-defense or something."

Alyson sat down then at the desk, right in front of the computer. She rubbed her hands over her face. She felt weak and tired. Being around Sam was beginning to wear on her. To try and shake it off she began going through the unlocked files on the computer. She would need help with the other ones.

"I need your lock-pick," Sam said, and Dean handed it to him.

While Sam was busy unlocking two doors on the left side of the room, Alyson was busy trying to open the locked files on the computer, but she really had no idea what she was doing. She was knowledge girl, not tech girl. She was pretty sure, though, that the locked files contained footage from the security camera blinking in the top right corner of the room.

"Dean," she said and pointed out their new problem.

"Crap," he said.

"Dean, I think I killed a hunter," Sam said.

He'd finally gotten the doors open only to find that the thing was loaded with weapons. There were maps and research, too, taped to the inside of the doors. The maps were marked with X's where there were supernatural hot spots.

Dean didn't know what to think, but he did know they needed to get rid of any incriminating security footage. Sam hacked into the system from the computer. They went backward until they came upon footage of Sam killing the guy. He had come into the office, attacked the guy, who had fought back only a little. He'd been taken by surprise, it seemed.

Sam had dragged Wandel to the weapons cabinet, which had been open, and grabbed a knife, which he'd then used to slit the man's throat. The guy had died quickly.

"I killed him," Sam said. "I just broke in and killed him."

"Sam, we don't know everything," Alyson said. "He could've been evil or something. The only thing we know for sure is what we saw. Maybe you knew something and you just can't remember."

"He was human. What else matters?"

Dean pointed at the computer. "How do you erase this?"

"Dean –"

"Listen to me. Whoever this guy is, he's a hunter, which means other hunters are gonna come lookin' for his killer. We've gotta cover our tracks, okay?"

"If you take the thing out of the back all the files will be gone. Get rid of the hard drive."

They really didn't have time to take the computer apart and put it back together again, so Dean grabbed the CPU and threw it on the ground. It broke apart, but Dean stomped it into even more pieces, not wanting to take any more chances than they already had.

Dean vaguely wondered if the security system was a private one. He hoped so. If it wasn't, the company would have backup footage that Dean couldn't touch.

Then again . . . if the security was from a company, it must suck. No police had been called.

"A'right, we're gonna get a few hours of sleep and then we're gonna put this place in our rearview mirror."

Sam didn't move at all. He seemed to be in shock. He had seen himself kill someone; he'd seemed to enjoy killing the guy as well, which had been the scariest part for Dean. It had also proven to him that the person hadn't been Sam – or not the Sam he knew.

"Look, I know this is bad, okay? But you've gotta snap out of it." Sam remained silent. "Sam, say something."

"What do you want him to say?" Alyson asked. "He killed someone, Dean. We all saw it, so there's nothing else to say."

Dean realized then that Alyson would know how Sam was feeling perfectly. She'd killed someone, too, recently, someone innocent. If she could help Sam in some way, he was all for it, but he didn't want her alienating him in the process.

"What happened to we don't know everything?" he asked. "You said that."

"We don't know everything, but that doesn't change the fact that someone is dead."

"Because of me," Sam said. "Because I murdered him."

"Sam –"

"I murdered someone. That's what I did."

"But it wasn't you. I mean, yeah, it might've been you, but it wasn't you."

"Well, I think it was. I think maybe more than you know."

"What does that mean?" Dean asked.

"For the last few weeks, I've been havin' . . . I've been havin' these feelings." Sam paused and took a deep breath. "Um, rage. Hate. And I can't stop it. Day by day, it gets worse."

Dean flashed back to Sam telling him he needed to believe in God because he needed to believe he could be saved. Had Sam been feeling that way when he'd said those things?

"You never told me this."

"I didn't wanna scare you."

"Well, good job," Alyson said. To Dean she said, "We need to wipe our prints and leave. Now."

Once in the car, on the way to the motel, Alyson began speaking to an almost despondent Sam.

"The last time you were with us you didn't send out any vibes, but now you are. Something must've changed. So . . . are you sure you don't remember anything?"

"No, I can't remember anything."

Alyson sighed and settled back into the seat. She grabbed at her head, the movement having made her dizzy.

She really needed to sleep. Neither she nor Dean had gotten a good night's rest since Sam had been gone. Something told her that with Sam's sudden strange behavior that she wouldn't be getting sleep that night either.

"Are we stopping soon?" she asked. "I'm not feeling so great. My head's all spinny."

Sam turned so he could see her from the front seat. "It's because you're near me, isn't it?"

"I don't know. It feels different than when I'm around something supernatural. I think it's because I'm tired."

"We're almost there," Dean said. "You gonna be okay until then?"

"Probably."

"Uh-huh. Well, let me know if you're gonna hurl so I can pull over."

"Your concern is inspiring. Thank you."

At the motel Dean had to carry Alyson to the room. She'd gotten out of the car and had to keep hold of the door to keep from falling over. She must not have been joking about not feeling well.

Dean put her on the bed and sat beside her. She seemed out of it, but she didn't seem sick – dizzy, yes; sick, no.

"Dean . . . the Yellow-Eyed Demon . . . you know he has plans for me, and we both know that it's turned other children into killers."

"No one controls you but you."

Alyson had said that many times before, but Sam had never really believed it. Dean wished John had never told him about Sam needing to be saved or killed, and he wished he'd never told Sam about it.

"It sure doesn't seem like that. It feels like no matter what I do, slowly but surely, I'm just becoming who I'm meant to be. I mean you said it once yourself, Dean. I've gotta face up to who I am."

"I didn't mean this!" Dean yelled, standing up to face his brother.

"But it's still true! You know that. Dad knew that too! That's why he told you if it ever came to this –"

"Shut up, Sam."

"Dean, you promised him. You promised me."

Dean couldn't believe Sam was bringing this up now.

"No. Listen to me. We're gonna figure this out, okay? I mean, there's gotta be a way, right?"

"Yeah. There is."

Sam picked up a gun out of the weapons bag they'd brought in with them and handed it to Dean.

"I don't wanna hurt anyone else. I don't wanna hurt you."

"You won't," Dean said. "Whatever this is . . . you can fight it."

"No, I can't. Not forever." He pointed at the gun. "You gotta do it."

"No," Dean said. "I can't." He placed the gun on the bed. "I'd rather die."

"You'll live," Sam said, grabbing the gun himself.

Sam didn't say or do anything for the longest time. Dean thought he was contemplating whether or not he should finish himself off. Dean even readied himself to wrestle the gun from his brother's hands. But then Sam looked at him in a way that Dean had never seen before. He'd seen Sam angry before, but this was worse. This look was cold, devoid of any real emotion.

"Sam?"

"You'll live to regret this," Sam said.

Before Dean could react, Sam swung the butt of the gun at Dean's head. The shot connected and Dean was out for the count within seconds.

He hadn't noticed that Alyson had fallen unconscious about a moment before.

When Alyson woke up, she quickly realized that her hands were bound together behind her back. Her limbs felt heavy, as if she'd been drugged, and she didn't feel strong enough to move.

Wherever she was it was dark, and she was laid out on the floor. She was pretty sure it was made out of stone.

There was nothing covering her mouth, which meant that she was probably in the middle of nowhere – or that whoever had her was confident that they wouldn't be caught. She hoped that was the reason.

She knew she wasn't alone. Sam was with her; she could feel him. She didn't know where Dean was. What if Sam had had another episode? What if he had hurt Dean?

"Dean?" she whispered without thinking. Now Sam would know she was no longer unconscious.

"Dean's not here," Sam said. Only it didn't sound like Sam. This guy was snarky. Sarcasm basically rolled off his words. "But don't worry. He's not dead. Not yet, anyway."

Alyson searched out the voice, but she could barely see more than six inches in front of her. She tried moving, but it was no use. The more she moved, the more the ropes binding her hands together rubbed her skin raw.

She'd woken up on her side, her shoulder feeling as if it were about to pop out of place. She didn't want to lay on her back because she might hurt her wrists, but she didn't want to make herself even more vulnerable by turning onto her stomach either.

"What'd you do to Dean?"

"He's not dead. Isn't that all that matters?"

A flashlight was turned on, and Alyson realized that Sam was right above her. He was sitting on a coffin. They had to be in a mausoleum or something.

"Where am I?"

How long had she been unconscious? How far had they gone?

"You're here with me." Sam smirked.

"Where's here?"

"Oh, just an old mausoleum in the middle of nowhere."

There was no way she was getting out of there by herself, she realized. Panic began setting in. What was Sam planning on doing to her? Why had he tied her up? There was no way she could have overpowered him physically, and she was still disoriented from whatever she'd been drugged with. She was weak and shaky; she didn't know if that was from being in Sam's presence for so long or from the drugs, or even from the fear she'd been feeling since waking up.

She was helpless; it made tears fill her eyes, so she turned her face away from Sam.

"Oh, don't cry. We can have fun together. You don't have to be afraid."

She clenched her jaw so as to keep from letting out a sob. She didn't know if Dean was okay or where he was, and Sam was different. She was unable to do anything about either problem.

Sam hopped off the coffin and squatted beside her.

"Dean will get here soon," he said softly. "For me and for you . . . and we're just gonna wait for him here."

He sat her up and the pressure from lying on her shoulder eased a bit.

"How did you drug me?"

Sam smiled. "Never leave your drink unattended."

The restaurant. She'd gone to the bathroom and Dean had followed. The fact that she'd ingested it was probably why it had taken so long for it to kick in. When she'd been dosed with drugs with a syringe it had worked automatically.

"Why are you doing this?"

"To see how far I can push Dean before he'll kill Sam."

Sam's eyes flickered to black, and Alyson's eyes widened in realization. A demon was possessing him. In a way, Alyson was relieved. Sam hadn't done any of the awful things they'd found out about.

"I think hurting you . . . will do the trick."

"It won't," she said. "Sam is Dean's priority."

She'd accepted that when she'd realized she was in love with Dean. Sam came first. It didn't mean Dean loved her any less, but he'd been taking care of Sam for longer than she'd been alive. He couldn't just change his ways, and she'd never ask him to.

"Dean's not stupid. You have to know that he'll figure out that you're not Sam."

"He hasn't yet. But maybe you're right." He shrugged. "It's still fun to try, so who cares?"

Sam reached behind him and pulled out a gun. Alyson suddenly found herself strong enough to move. Adrenaline could be a life-saver.

Sam, however, mockingly rubbed her back to soothe her.

"This isn't for you." He reached behind him again, this time bringing out a knife. "This, however, is."

Alyson flashed back to a few months ago when she'd been held by demons in San Francisco. This couldn't be like that. She didn't know if she could survive another torture session.

Sam – no, the demon – laid her down on her back. She instantly felt both of her wrists bend painfully. If she wasn't careful, she might break them.

"You've been in this position before. At the end of a blade." The demon used the knife to cut through her shirt right down the middle. "I see the mark is gone."

Mine. The word had disappeared not too long ago. She hoped the demon wasn't going to mark her again.

The demon grabbed her hair and yanked her head up. It leaned down to whisper in her ear.

"Feel free to scream all you want. No one will hear you."

"Sam! I know you're in there. Please fight. Don't let it do this to me."

She didn't know if that would help at all, but she knew John had been strong enough to fight when he'd been possessed. He'd stopped himself from killing Dean.

"Sam is in here. And he's angry, if that's any consolation."

She felt the point of the knife at her throat. It nicked her skin and she flinched. The trickle of blood made its way down her chest and stopped at her bra.

Alyson began struggling anew, but the Sam-demon straddled her waist then and put enough weight into it that she had trouble breathing. He backhanded her and she let out a cry, but she went still. She was rewarded by some of the weight being lifted off of her.

The knife was sliding across her right cheek now. She didn't scream, but she did begin to sob. This couldn't be happening to her. Not again.

When the demon moved the knife to her other cheek Alyson saw an opportunity to maybe stun the demon enough to get away, find a way out, and hide. Sam's arm was close enough to her mouth for her to bite, so she did – hard enough to draw blood.

Sam jerked back and lost his balance, toppling off of her in the process. She used her feet to scoot back a little, enough to reach a wall. She was able to get up, though her balance was not at its best.

She was able to take only a few steps before the air around her thickened. The demon was holding her in place. It was just as strange now as it had been when the yellow-eyed demon had done it when he'd been possessing John.

"That wasn't very nice."

"You're not very nice," she said and spat out the remaining blood from her mouth. Maybe biting him hadn't been the best idea. Who knew what swallowing a possessed person's blood would do? She might catch a demon flu or something.

Focus, she told herself.

"It's true," the demon answered, moving – almost stalking – forward. "You know I was only going to rough you up a bit, but now I'm angry."

A sudden sharp pain filled Alyson's abdomen. She couldn't scream because her breath had been taken away. The demon had stabbed her. Tears filled her eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks as her knees gave out on her.

The demon caught her and sat her back on the floor.

"You be good and maybe I'll take that out."

Alyson moaned then. She wouldn't be able to heal as long as the knife was still inside her, and the longer the knife was there the more blood she'd lose. The more blood she lost, the weaker she'd get and the slower she'd heal.

"Sam . . ." she whimpered.

There was so much blood. She could see it, smell it, and taste it. The demon must have hit an organ. She would die if the knife didn't come out soon.

"You promise to behave?" the demon squatted beside her again. "I'll take it out if you do."

She quickly agreed. It wasn't as if she could go anywhere in the state she was in.

The demon was surprisingly gentle while pulling the knife out. Alyson assumed it was because she couldn't be hurt much more without threat of not being able to heal. That was the end of being gentle, however, because the next thing Alyson knew she was being thrown onto her back. She felt and heard her left wrist snap. She screamed from the pain of breaking a bone and from jarring her already open wound.

If only she could control her abilities, if only she knew how. She didn't even know how to start them up. Maybe it was because she'd been drugged, but her emotions weren't bringing her powers to the forefront like they normally did.

Sam sat on her legs then, not enough to hurt her, but enough to ensure that she didn't move. She screamed again, this time from pain, fear, and everything else that was bad in the universe.

"Stop," she said. "Please."

She did not like feeling trapped; she didn't like the heaviness of Sam's weight on her legs. She didn't like anything about the situation she was in. She especially didn't like feeling helpless, but she couldn't think of anything to do that would help her get away.

The demon brought the knife back to her throat but put no pressure on it. She thought it was more to keep her from trying to move, not that she could.

She heard a bang then and a familiar voice yelled "Let her go. Now."

Dean had come.

Alyson couldn't help but let out a cry of relief. He had come and he had a gun; she'd heard him cock it.

Alyson saw that Sam was smirking. This was what he'd been waiting for.

"What are you going to do?" The demon yanked her up, forcing a moan of pain from her lips, and turned them both to face Dean. The demon was using her as a shield. "Kill me?"

"Just because I'll shoot you doesn't mean I'm going to kill you."

Dean was willing to hurt Sam for her. Sam still came first, but he really did love her. If she had ever doubted it, she didn't anymore.

"Dean, he's possessed," she said, hoping he could perform an exorcism without having to read from a book. She also made a mental note to ask Sam or Dean to help her learn the Latin required to do one on her own.

"If you shoot me, you shoot her," the demon taunted.

Alyson tried focusing on Dean only. He seemed relatively unharmed aside from the gash above his left eye.

Sam bent forward a little and grabbed the gun he'd had earlier. Alyson had forgotten about it, to be honest, but now the gun was being pointed at Dean. The demon held the gun in one hand, using his other arm to keep Alyson pressed close against him. In fact, he was holding her so close that he was irritating her wound.

She heard the gun as it was cocked, right beside her ear, and she instinctively shoved his arm away. A shot rang out and Dean fell to the ground, dropping his own gun.

Alyson tried moving then, wanting to get to Dean, needing to make sure he was okay. She hadn't seen where the bullet had hit him. He hadn't screamed, though, so she assumed he'd passed out. She couldn't let herself believe that he'd been killed.

"Dean!" she yelled. She could barely hear herself. The gunshot must have rendered her partly deaf – she hoped it was only temporary.

Something fairly akin to hatred boiled through her. This demon had tortured her, had shot Dean, was possessing Sam. It had been playing with them since they'd found Sam in that motel room, covered in blood. This had been the end game all along.

A wave of heat passed through her. It was the same feeling that had taken over when she'd gotten rid of the succubus thing a few months back.

Sam's body was flung away from her and into the mausoleum wall. Within seconds she heard him get up and run out. She'd obviously scared the demon off – or it wanted her to give chase, or Dean maybe.

No matter the reason, with the demon no longer holding her up she didn't have the strength to stay upright. She fell flat on her stomach. The pain took her breath away, but she knew she was healing because she was no longer bleeding from the mouth.

"Dean!" she cried. "Dean! Please was up."

Tear filled her eyes again, this time from frustration, and she couldn't control the sobs that wanted to come. She quickly became loud and messy, but she didn't care. She was in pain, she couldn't move, her hands were still bound, and she still didn't know if Dean was okay.

Finally, Dean began to stir. He got up slowly; she couldn't see him, but she did hear him.

"Dean!"

He moved towards her and squatted down beside her. He untied her wrists and helped her to her knees. She cradled her wrist in front of her over the wound in her stomach.

"Aly, what happened? Did you not heal?"

"M-my wrist is broken. He stabbed me. It's s-still open, but I am healing. I'll be okay."

Dean moved the best he could to take his overshirt off so Alyson could use it since hers was torn down the middle. She noticed that the bullet had hit Dean in the shoulder; he was still bleeding.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, reaching for but not touching his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I couldn't do anything to stop him."

"It's not your fault. None of it is. Besides, you may have saved my life. He was aiming for my chest."

"You need to have your shoulder looked at," she said.

"The bullet is still lodged in there. It'll be fine once you get it out."

Alyson was not a doctor. She hoped she'd be able to do what he needed her to do. They couldn't leave the bullet in there.

"Hey," Dean said. "Come here."

He gently pulled her to him, ever mindful of her wounds, and she melted against him. She began sobbing again, this time from relief. She was safe, Dean was alive, and Sam would be okay once they found him and got the demon out of him.

"Sam stole the Impala to bring you here," Dean said. "If he left, he probably took it again."

Alyson didn't respond vocally, but she did wrap her right arm around Dean and cling to the back of his shirt.

"We'll need to stop somewhere and get a few things, okay?"

"Mm."

"I hotwired a car to get here, so we'll have to be careful." Dean began playing with her hair. "You think you can drive?"

"Probably."

She didn't really feel like driving, but her dominant hand was okay, and Dean didn't need to drive while a bullet was in his shoulder. She hoped he wasn't losing enough blood to pass out.

She couldn't do this alone.