NOTICE: THIS IS CHAPTER 32. FOR SOME REASON NO-ONE WAS NOTIFIED THAT I HAD PUBLISHED CHAPTER 31 on MAY 2ND AND IT WAS NOT SHOWING UP ANYWHERE EXCEPT FOR MY PAGE. SO IF YOU HAVEN'T READ CHAPTER 31, PLEASE GO DO SO NOW AND ENJOY HAVING 2 CHAPTERS TO READ BACK-TO-BACK!

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Once again, there is some dialogue from the Supernatural episode, "The Kids Are Alright", Season 3, episode 2, in this chapter. I just wanted to let everyone know, updates may be coming a bit slower right now. I'm using the episode a lot as a framework for this story arc, so I have to keep watching parts of it and looking at the script. And it's a lot harder for me to write about an actual investigation (so many details!) than it is to write about interactions between people! I want to make sure I cover all the bases and that I do justice to the episode and to Charlie's story, so I'm taking my time. Hope you are enjoying it!

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"Lottie, the pancakes are ready!" my Mommy called to me.

"Coming, Mommy!" I called back. I finished brushing my hair and ran out of the bathroom and down the hallway, colliding with my Daddy.

"Oof! Slow down there, sweetheart!" my Daddy said with a chuckle.

"Pancakes, Daddy! Gotta eat 'em while they're hot!" I told him. He ruffled my hair as we walked into the kitchen. I sat down at the table, where a plate had been set out already, and started to eat. My Daddy went over to the stove where my Mommy was standing, and kissed her. He poured himself a mug of coffee from the coffee maker and came over to the table, sitting down next to me.

"I wanted to remind you, Uncle Sam will be picking you up from school this afternoon," my Daddy said to me. "I'll drop your duffle off with him this morning when we leave."

He pulled something out of his pocket and held it up. "Here's a house key, I'll put in in the outside pocket in case you need to come back and get anything, all right?" "

"Okay, Daddy," I said, smiling at him.

"You be good for Uncle Sam and Aunt Jess this weekend, all right?" my Daddy gave me a look. "I don't want to get any reports about bad behavior."

"I will," I said.

My Mommy walked over and slid a small stack of pancakes onto the platter than was on the table. "Here's some more. Sweetie, Aunt Jess told me that she has a surprise for you. Something fun for the two of you to do together."

"Ooh, I wonder what it is!" I said excitedly.

"Eat some pancakes, hon," my Mommy said to my Daddy.

"Don't mind if I do," my Daddy pulled the platter towards him. "This is my plate, right?" he teased, grinning at me.

"Dad-dy!" I said, grinning back at him.

"All right, finish up, Lottie, the bus will be here in a couple of minutes," my Mommy told me.

I shoved the last couple pieces of pancake into my mouth and took my plate and fork over to the sink. Then I walked over to my Daddy. He scooted his chair back and pulled me into his arms for a hug and a kiss.

"Have a great weekend," he said.

"You too. I'll miss you guys," I looked into his green eyes.

"We'll miss you too...while we're relaxing in the hot tub with glasses of wine..." he teased again.

"No fair!" I did a pretend pout. He laughed and let me go, giving my bottom a pat. "We'll go on a family vacation this summer, but this time it's the grown-up's turn."

"I know," I said. My Mommy brought me my Hello Kitty backpack and I put it on. We walked outside and down three houses to the bus stop on the corner.

We stood there holding hands for a moment. The day was bright and warm and I could hear birds singing. We heard my Daddy calling down the street.

"Liz! Hey Liz, you have a phone call!"

"All right, be there in a sec," she called back. She leaned down and hugged me and kissed my cheek. "Be good and have fun, all right? We'll see you Sunday," she said. She started to walk back towards our house. I heard the engine of the bus as it came around the corner. My school bus came from the opposite direction so that I had to cross the street and walk around the bus to get on it. I watched as it came to a stop, and then I looked both ways and started to walk across the road. All of a sudden, a car came out of nowhere. I heard a screeching sound and a loud crashing sound, and I felt pain as the car plowed into me.

Then I was laying on the ground, and I was hurting all over.

"Mommy...Daddy..." I whispered.

A lady with short red hair was leaning over me. "Little girl...little girl...be still!" she said with annoyance, and I wanted to tell her that I was being still, but then the back of my neck hurt. She sat me up and leaned me forward and leaned down over me...the back of my neck was burning and throbbing...

"Charlie!" I heard someone calling, but it wasn't my Mommy or my Daddy. "Charrrlieeee, are you there?"

I could feel something sharp in the back of my neck, poking, and pressure. The burning sting went all the way down the back of my neck into my spine. I opened my eyes, back in the dark underground place where she had brought me and Ben. She had taken me out of the cage again and was...doing whatever she did when she attached her mouth to the back of my neck. My muscles were sore, and I hurt everywhere. I had fought her the first two times, and she had hit me to make me be still. Then she had tied me up so that I couldn't fight her anymore or try to get away again. I felt her release the back of my neck, and I closed my eyes so that I wouldn't have to see her mottled gray skin and dark empty eyes and sharp teeth. I felt her pulling me along the floor and then I heard the creak of a cage door, and I knew she was putting me back in. I heard the clank of the lock falling into place and then her footsteps walking away.

"Mommy...Daddy..." I whispered again, trying to go back into my mind, and then everything went gray...

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"So...Lis...I need to, ah, talk to you," Dean said hesitantly.

Lisa perched on the arm of the sofa and crossed her arms. "Okay," she nodded.

"So, I, uh ... met Ben, he's a cool kid," Dean told her.

"Yeah," Lisa smiled proudly and nodded again.

"Yeah..." Dean nodded in response to her. "You know, I couldn't help but notice that, uh, he's turning ten. You and me ... you know..."

Lisa chuckled after a moment, realization dawning on her face. "You're not ... trying to ask me if he's yours?"

Dean shook his head. "No... nah, of course not."
They both chuckled briefly, and looked at each other.
"Uh, he's not, is he? I mean...did you ever have any kind of...testing done?" Dean looked uncomfortable.

Lisa shook her head. "No, I never thought I would need it, you know, I never thought...well to be honest, I never thought I'd see you again. I'm happy with Ben, and we're happy with our lives the way they are."

Dean looked even more uncomfortable. "Well, here's the thing... I happen to know...that Ben is my kid."

Lisa stood up, turning towards Dean fully and drawing herself up. "And just how do you know this?" she looked at him suspiciously. "What are you, some kind of creepy stalker? Have you been—I mean, come to think of it, I haven't heard word one from you in ten years, and then all of a sudden you show up when my son is turning 10—what's going on, Dean? Who the hell are you, really? And what do you want with my son?"

Dean held his hands up, palms out, like he was surrendering.

"It's not- I mean, no, I'm not a creepy stalker. I just got- I mean," he sighed. "Okay, let me start further back. Several years ago I got 'involved' for a short while with this woman, Liz, and... a couple of weeks ago she called me out of the blue. Turns out she had gotten pregnant, and had a little girl, and just never told me. But the thing is, see, she'd been fighting cancer for a couple years, and she had just gotten new test results back that she was dying this time around because the treatments...they didn't take, or they stopped working, or the cancer was too aggressive, I don't know." Dean sighed.

"Oh my God, that's horrible," Lisa said softly.

Dean nodded. "Yeah. So she asked me, she wanted me to take custody of her kid- no, of our kid, and take care of her after...after she...well, you know."

Lisa nodded.

"So I met Charlie, and some things happened, and Liz...passed, so now I have her. Charlie, I mean. It's been kinda rocky, but she's great-"

"Yeah, she seems like a real sweetie," Lisa said.

"Yeah, and she's really smart too," Dean said proudly. "Anyway, one of the things...we discovered that Charlie, um, well, to put it plainly, she knows things about people when she touches them."

Lisa frowned. "What do you mean? Like a psychic?"

"Well, yeah. Apparently she started doing it when she was little, well, I mean, she didn't try to do it, she'd touch someone and would just know something and then blurt it out. She'd get in trouble for it too, like she uncovered when she was three that her great- uncle was a closet drunk and she blurted out that he took secret drinks from a little silver bottle."

"Oh geez, the poor little thing!" Lisa said sympathetically.

"Yeah, she said she tried really hard to make it stop, and she was able to for a while. But now it's started up again, and when she touches someone, she calls it "seeing", and she knows something about them, something that's secret or unknown."

"And she..."saw"...something about Ben?" now Lisa was hesitant.

Dean exhaled and nodded. "Yeah, she saw that there was a... connection... between him and me, that I was his father."

Lisa crossed her arms so that she was hugging herself. "My God, I have goosebumps. Is this for real, Dean? I mean, you aren't just pulling my leg?"

Dean spread his hands out. "It's as real as you and me standing here."

"Well...wow...that's, I mean, that's just..." she shook her head. She looked at Dean. "Well, what do we do with that knowledge?"

"I...I don't know, Lis. I don't know. I guess we both need to sit down and figure out what we want to do," Dean said.

Lisa closed her eyes for a long moment, and then when she opened them she exhaled deeply. "Well, I guess we have some talking to do. And we need to decide what to tell the kids. Acutally, what to tell my kid, yours already knows, I guess, right?" She smiled at him.

Just then the doorbell rang.

"That's probably Sam," Dean told Lisa. "I called him to come get us right before we started talking."

"Okay," Lisa said. They left the study and walked down the hall to the living room. Lisa went to the front door to open it, and Dean called, "Charlie? Uncle Sam's here. You can come out of time out now. Come here, please."

Lisa opened the door and let Sam come into the house. He nodded at her.

"Have you eaten dinner? We've got loads of leftover food, I can heat you up a hot dog or hamburger if you'd like," she offered.

"Thanks, um, actually, a hamburger sounds good," Sam told her. He looked over at Dean. "So...how'd it go?" Dean had told him briefly on the phone that Charlie had "seen" that Ben was his son and that he was going to talk to Lisa about it.

"I've got a lot to tell you, man," Dean said. "Hold on- Charlie!" Dean called, walking into the dining room. The room was empty.

Dean walked into the kitchen, where Lisa was taking food out and plating it. "You seen Charlie?" he asked, feeling mildly annoyed.

"No, maybe she and Ben went out back, or in the bouncy house?" Lisa said.

"She better not have," Dean muttered to himself, his annoyance growing slightly.

He opened the sliding glass door and walked onto the deck. The football that he and Ben had been tossing around was on the deck, and Dean felt a sudden pang when he looked at it. Charlie had had tears in her eyes during their confrontation, even though she was angry. He had been so angry and defensive that he hadn't even taken into consideration that she could be feeling anything else besides anger. He then realized that he had been too harsh with her, and he wanted to talk to her and apologize.

"Charlie? Ben?" Dean called. He glanced around as he walked, trying to figure out if maybe they were hiding. He listened for a moment, using his hunter's instincts, to see if he could hear any sounds that might be out of place, grass that rustled because a child was trying to keep still while they hid, or giggling. The only sounds were the motor of the fan on the bouncy house and the dripping of the hose.

Dean checked in the bouncy house, around the side of the house, and even in the shed and behind it for good measure. Charlie and Ben were nowhere to be found.

Dean walked around to the front of the house, peered into Lisa's car, and checked in the neighbor's yards on both sides. He was getting angry now, because dammit, his kid hadn't listened and had disobeyed him again, but underneath the anger, another emotion was blossoming- fear. He walked back around to the back and went into the back door. Sam was sitting at the island in the kitchen, eating, and Lisa was washing a platter at the sink. She turned when Dean came in.

"Were they in the bouncy house?"

Dean shook his head. "They're not anywhere...Lisa, I can't find them!"

She turned around quickly. "What?" she cried. She put her wet hands up to her cheeks and looked at him. "Oh, God, what do we do, what do we do?" she gasped.

Dean came over to her quickly and put his hand on her arm.

"Okay, first off, you take a deep breath and try to stay calm. Panic isn't going to help anything," he said calmly.

"Dean, where did they go? Where could they be? Do you think..." Lisa's brown eyes flicked back and forth between his green ones.

"Shh, let's not try and figure that out yet. Let's do a little more looking, maybe Ben went to a friend's house to show off some of his presents and Charlie went with him, huh? Does Ben have any friends in the neighborhood?"

"Yes, um, there's Seth four houses down but his family is away right now...um, Tyler lives on the corner, and he was at the party-"

"Okay," Dean nodded, "Let's walk over there first and see if they went there."

Sam had stood up. "You want me to stay here in case they come back? I can look around here too."

"Yeah, that'd be good," Dean said. He held his arm out to Lisa. "Let's go."

Dean and Lisa left the house and started to walk down the street towards the corner. Lisa happened to glance up the other way and noticed a figure walking towards them.

It was coming from the direction of the end of the block, where there were a couple of new houses under construction.

"Ben?" Lisa said hesitantly. "Ben? Oh my God, baby, where did you go?" Lisa turned and ran towards Ben, who continued to walk towards them. She grabbed him up in a hug and then leaned down. "Where did you go? Geez, you scared me half to death! Didn't I tell you to let me know when you were leaving the house, young man?" she took his arm and gave him a shake.

"Ben, where's Charlie?" Dean asked urgently. "Is she with you?"

Ben looked up at Dean. "She ran away," he said, and his voice was surprisingly calm. "She left and took off running...that way," he pointed in the opposite direction that he had been coming from.

Dean and Lisa turned and looked down the street.

Dean turned back to the boy. "Then why were you coming from this direction?" he questioned, raising his eyebrows.

"There was a truck, one of those big black ones, it stopped and someone jumped out and grabbed her, and they drove this way," he turned and pointed the direction that he'd been walking. "I ran this way, after the car, but I couldn't catch them," Ben explained.

Lisa closed her eyes for a moment. "Oh, my God." she opened her eyes and looked at Dean. "Let's go back to the house so we can call the police, all right?"

"All right," Dean agreed. The three of them went back inside.

"Oh, Ben, take your shoes off!" Lisa admonished. "Where did that mud come from?"

Ben had tracked a reddish mud into the house, and his shoe prints could be seen on the rug and the linoleum.

"Up the road..." Ben said. "Mommy, I'm hungry."

"All right, do you want a hot dog or a hamburger?" she asked.

"Both," Ben said.

Lisa chuckled. "You are a growing boy, aren't you?"

Dean had been talking quietly to Sam. He turned to her. "Sam and I are going to go out and walk around for a bit, and do some looking around. We'll be back."

Lisa nodded. "All right. Do you want me to call the police?"

"Not yet," Dean said. "Charlie was upset with me earlier, I want to see if maybe she ran into one of those empty houses up the street, to hide."

Dean and Sam walked out of the house together.

Ben looked at Lisa. "Mommy, make them go away," Ben said to her. "I want to play with you. Let's play, Mommy."

Lisa looked at Ben and a slight frown crossed her face. "All right, after I heat up your food. And what's with the 'mommy'? I thought you decided last year that you were too old to call me Mommy any more."

Ben walked over to her and hugged her waist. "I just love you, Mommy," he said.

Lisa smiled. "I love you too, Ben," she replied, hugging him back.

Sam walked over to Baby and opened the trunk. They got out flashlights and a couple of weapons. "Just in case," Dean muttered. Sam closed the trunk and they began walking in the direction that Dean had seen Ben coming from.

"He said that the car came from that direction," Dean pointed behind him, "But then why would he be coming from this way?" He glanced at Sam as they walked. "He said he was chasing the car, but I don't know...I'm wondering if he's trying to throw us off the scent because Charlie's hiding around here somewhere."

"Why would she be hiding?" Sam asked. Dean told him what had happened after the party had ended, and how upset Charlie had been.

"I was so shocked that she swore at me, Sam," Dean raked his hand through his hair. "I told her she had an appointment with the paddle and a bar of soap when we got to the hotel. I wouldn't be surprised if she's hiding to try and get out of that."

"Geez, Dean," Sam shook his head.

"Well, what else was I supposed to say? You know that Dad walloped us for things like cursing and attitude. And you certainly never cussed at John Winchester."

"Yeah, but Dean...you're not him," Sam reminded him.

Dean looked at Sam for a long moment. Then he sighed. "Yeah, you're right, I'm not. And I keep thinking about, "What would Dad do in this situation?", later, after I've already reacted, but...there were times he was pretty strict with us, and I should remember that I don't need to be that way with her-"

"Yeah, she's not a smart-ass, unruly little punk like you were," Sam said to him with a grin.

"Shut up, bitch," Dean gave Sam's shoulder a shove.

"Make me, jerk," Sam replied, shoving him back.

"Yeah, I was too hard on her, and I feel like shit because of it. After I hug her and apologize, I'm still going to spank her butt though, because she was really disrespectful and rude. And she ran off after I told her to stay in the yard and house!"

"Just- don't be too harsh with her, man," Sam told him. "you've got to remember, her life since she came to us has been nothing but upheaval, she just lost her mother, she was at the scene of her mother's death, she's living with people who were total strangers at first, then all that stuff with her aunt, and now she finds out that she's not your only kid? She was already insecure, that's got to be sending her insecurity through the roof."

"Geez, I didn't even think of it like that," Dean rubbed his hand over his face. "Now that you put it that way, I understand why she was so upset. When she was being nasty with me, I could see she had tears in her eyes, but I was so shocked and pissed off at her behavior that I ignored it. And she had already gotten upset earlier, about the party."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"When we were watching Ben open his presents, I could tell something was...off, with her, and she just got more and more upset. I asked her, and she told me that for the past 2 years they hadn't done anything to celebrate her birthday, because of her mom being sick. Not even a cake."

"Aww," Sam said sympathetically. "That poor kid. That makes me want to go out and buy her a cake right now," he shook his head, "she's been through so much, we don't even know the full extent of it yet. A 7 and 8-year-old taking care of their mom who's going through cancer treatments, and watching her mom lose her hair and throw up her guts, and she was doing their laundry and cooking food for herself? I mean, this kid's been through a lot, Dean, and she really is a resilient little girl," he shook his head again. "She's amazingly strong."

"Yeah," Dean said thoughtfully, "she is."

They had reached the end of the street where there were a couple of houses in different stages of construction. The first one had a 'Sold' sign out front and locks on all the doors, and looked to be almost completed. There were no broken windows or anything to indicate that anyone could have broken in recently. The second house was not quite built up, and they did a walk- through. That house also had a 'Sold" sign out front. The house on the corner was barely built, it had the outside walls built, but the inside drywall had not been installed yet and the walls were full of the fluffy pink insulation.

"Charlie?" Dean called, looking around. Sam had gone into one of the other rooms.

"Dean," he called, "check this out, I found something."

Dean ran into the room quickly. Sam had squatted down and was looking at something on the floor.

"What is it?" Dean asked.

"It's a Wolverine action figure," Sam said, looking up at Dean. "Did you happen to notice if Ben likes the X-Men?" He picked it up and stood, turning it over in his hands. "It looks brand-new," he commented.

Dean thought for a moment, "Yeah, I think I remember seeing some X-men stuff at the party. I know he did get a Batman toy."

"I think we have a little boy to talk to," Sam said.

"Yeah, someone's not telling the truth. Let's go," Dean said decisively.

They walked quickly back to Lisa's house and Dean knocked on the door and then opened it. Lisa and Ben were curled up on the couch together, watching t.v. Lisa stood up and walked over to them. "Did you find anything?" she asked, her brown eyes full of worry.

"Yeah, we did, and that's what we need to talk to Ben about," Dean held up the action figure.

"That's- that's the one he just got from his grandmother!" Lisa said, turning to the boy, "Ben, what do you know about this?" she asked accusingly.

Ben glanced over at them, seemingly unconcerned. "What, Mommy?"

"You told us that Charlie ran away, but we found this action figure in one of the empty houses," Dean told him. "Your mom's saying you just got this, so it has to be yours. And if you and Charlie were together, then it's likely that you were in that house together."

Ben had sat up and he looked back and forth between Dean and his mother.

"I—I-but I-" he didn't seem to know what to say.

"Benjamin Isaac Braeden!" Lisa's voice was loud and stern, "you'd better tell me the truth right now, young man! This little girl is missing!"

Ben blinked. "I—I-"

"Look, kid, you won't get in trouble, just be honest with us," Sam said gently.

Lisa made a "hmph" sound. "Yeah, he won't be in trouble with you, maybe," she paused and gave Ben a 'Mom look', "but he's been told more than once to stay out of those houses that are under construction. All of the kids in the neighborhood seem to be unable to stay away from them," She shook her head. "What is it with boys and construction?"

"Did you and Charlie go into that house?" Dean questioned. He looked at Ben, watching him closely.

"Okay!" Ben said tearfully. "Yeah, we did, I showed her the house, she said she wanted to live there by herself, but then she ran out the door, and that's when the car came and took her!" Tears began to pour down his face.

"All right, Ben," Dean walked over to him. "Just relax, can you tell me anything about the car or the people in it?"

"I told you, it was a big black car, a- a SUV!" Ben said quickly, "I didn't see anyone. Just the car."

"Did you see the license plate? Notice a bumper sticker or anything?" Sam looked at Ben.

"No! No, no, no!" Ben wailed, and then he got up and ran to Lisa, throwing his arms around her waist and sobbing. "Make them go away now, Mommy, I want to be with you!" he said.

Lisa put her arms around him. "I'm sorry, guys, I think this is it. Ben's clearly overwhelmed from all this."

"Can't we just ask one mo-"

Lisa interrupted Dean. "No, he's had a big day today, and I don't think you're going to be able to get anything else out of him."

Dean grimaced. "All right...Let me leave my cell number and you can call me if you need to. I'll be back tomorrow," he said. He took a small pad of paper out and wrote his number on a slip, tore it off, and put it in her hand. He looked at her. "What's your number?"

She told him her cell phone number as they walked towards the front door, Ben still attached to Lisa's waist by his arms encircling her. His face was buried in her side but he didn't seem to be crying. Dean jotted her number on the pad and stuck it back into his pocket.

"I'll try and talk to him while I'm putting him to bed," she told Dean quietly.

"Thanks...we'll talk later," he promised, and he and Sam left.

Sam's phone rang as they got in the car. "It's Dad," he said.

Dean listened to the car's engine, which still sounded funny, as he drove, and Sam's side of the conversation.

Sam disconnected the call and put his phone in his pocket. "Well apparently Dad's just in the next town over," Sam said. "He's investigating a case where the men in the family have all died under mysterious circumstances, three families. And all of the houses were sold by the same realty company as the one in this neighborhood."

"What, uhh...this one?" Dean fished the realtor's card out of his pocket and handed it to Sam.

"Cicero Realty," Sam read off of the card, "Yeah, that's what he said. Did you happen to overhear anyone at the party talking about anything like that around here?"

"Well...yeah, now that you mention it," Dean said. "I overheard Lisa talking to a woman, from what I gathered the woman's husband just died in some freak accident and she was upset, but she was also upset because she said her little girl wasn't acting right. Lisa was reminding her that grief makes people act differently sometimes."

"Hmm," Sam said. "Once we get back to the room, I'm going to see if there are any strange deaths in the area."

Dean spent the next hour pacing and shoulder-surfing as Sam worked on his laptop. They had driven up and down the road that Lisa's house was on, looking to see if there were any traffic cameras. There were a couple further out, so Sam had called their computer-genius friend Ash to get him to help hack into the traffic camera's computer system so they could view the footage and look for a black SUV. Ash talked Sam through the process and also looked with his computers, and they talked on the phone for the better part of an hour, but no black SUV like Ben had described had driven through any of the areas.

"Well, it looks like Ben was lying about that too," Dean said grimly. "What else is the kid hiding?"

"I don't know, Dean," Sam said. "We're going to have to tread lightly with him, though, and not go in with guns blazing, you know?"

"I know," Dean said with a sigh, "I'm just so—upset about this-" he walked over to the fridge and pulled out 2 beers. Sam had thoughtfully picked up a 6-pack earlier. He took one over to Sam and set it next to his elbow.

"Me too," Sam opened a new browser window and started to investigate any suspicious deaths in the area. He was quiet for a while, then he said to Dean, "There have been a couple of suspicious deaths here, but the local papers are downplaying them, there's barely any detail about them."

"What time is it?" Dean checked his watch. "Think we could go interview the families?"

Sam glanced at the computer screen, "No, Dean, it's too late, it's after 1:00 A.M.," Sam told him.

"Dammit!" Dean raked his hands through his hair in frustration. "Sam, I'm gonna go crazy if I can't do something about this. My little girl's out there—somewhere-" he choked for a moment on the emotion that was rising up in him, and Sam stood up quickly.

He grabbed Dean in a hug. "I know, man, I'm worried sick about it too. But right now we can't do anything, we should get some rest so that we can be fresh tomorrow."

They patted each others backs as they let go.

"First I'm going to call Dad," Dean said.

John picked up on the second ring. "Dean, I'm so sorry," he said sympathetically, "how are you holding up?"

Dean rubbed his hand over his face. "I think I'm still in shock," he said.

"I understand. We're going to find her, Dean."

"I know, Dad," Dean agreed.

"Sam told you what I'm investigating? Mysterious deaths?"

"Yeah, what are you thinking? Vengeful ghost?"

"No, none of the families are connected. I was thinking possibly shtriga, but then, the kids are not falling sick. A couple of the moms have, but that could be from the stress of having to deal with their's husband's death and all the issues that go with that."

"Well, keep searching. Sam found some suspicious deaths in this town too, I wonder if they're related to yours."

"A monster that travels between two towns? They'd have to be awfully busy," John said.

"Yeah...I guess we should sleep on it," Dean said.

"All right, I'll talk to you tomorrow," John hung up.

The next morning, Dean was just finishing up getting dressed when his phone rang. The screen showed that the caller was Lisa Braeden.

"Hey, Lis," Dean said, "How are you?"

"Dean, something's wrong," she said, and her voice was quiet, as if she was trying not be to overheard. "Ben is not...himself."

"Well, maybe he's just upset because of what happened, you know-" Dean tried to make her feel better.

"No, Dean," there was a rustling sound. "It's not...I don't know how to describe it," she sighed, "Dean, I think that whoever—whatever came back from that empty house yesterday- that is not my son."