Detective Sullivan glanced between his notes on the arson case and the trembling young man in the bed.

Jessica Moore, James Wilson and Sam Winchester had been the prime suspects in the Palo Alto arson case. The Warren siblings and Tyson Brady also became suspects in the fire because they repeatedly hung around the site.

The case became even more suspicious with the discovery of the body of an elderly man, Gregory Lyle, a ten minute walk away from the apartment building. The last known whereabouts of the man had been in the building, on the third floor outside of the apartment.

Detective Sullivan didn't know what to think. His best guess was that someone had murdered the man in connection with the fire. The three who had been hospitalised had an excellent alibi, the siblings were visible on security cameras before the fire and had been at the sight of the fire only after it started and they had been surrounded by witnesses at the time of the old man's murder.

Tyson Brady had no alibi which made it possible that he was involved with Lyle's murder, but it still left the question as to who attack the three in the apartment. They all claimed ignorance, but someone had attacked them.

The only thing that Detective Sullivan knew for sure was that everyone involved was lying to him about something. But, he believed that Sam Winchester was genuine right now.

"You don't know anyone who would have taken your girlfriend and friend?" He pressed.

Sam shook his head, one hand pressed to his mouth, devastated. His brother had pulled his chair up close and hand an arm wrapped protectively around his shoulders. Clearly, the older one was very protective of the younger, despite years of no contact between them.

If he hadn't seen the brother sitting the waiting room from the moment that Sam arrived to the moment that he was able to have visitors, Detective Sullivan might consider the brother a suspect in the old man's death. There was every chance that the old man had been the one to attack the students and he had been murdered in response.

Although, that was only one of the possibilities.

"Considering that Jessica and James left town while they were being investigated for arson," Sullivan said, "it leads us to believe that they were responsible and that they ran."

"They didn't run!" Sam protested, shooting him a red rimmed glare. "James couldn't even leave his bed and Jess -" he cut himself off. "I'd proposed to her. She said yes. She wouldn't just leave."

"Not without you," Detective Sullivan filled in, with a raised eyebrow.

The brother - Dean - tightened his grip on his brother's shoulder. He glared. "They didn't start the fire," he growled. "Stop accusing my brother because you've got no ideas. Go out there and find Jessica and James."

The detective swallowed. "The footage that we have cuts out a few moments before the nurses noticed that the room was empty. But, we do have footage from across the road that shows some people entering. Your friend Rebecca Warren identified your former roommate Tyson Brady as having entered the building seconds before the cameras cut out."

"Brady?" Sam repeated, incredulous. He shook his head. "Why would he…? He introduced us," he said.

Dean shifted, uncomfortable.

Detective Sullivan narrowed his eyes. "Something that you need to say, son?" He asked.

Dean frowned at being called son by someone who was probably only five years older than him. But he did shoot Sam an uncertain look and decide to speak. "Becky mentioned that Brady might know if anyone had been following Sam in the last couple of weeks." He paused. "She said that he had been hanging around the apartment ever since the fire."

"But… Brady," Sam said, again. "Are you sure? Have you found anything?"

Detective Sullivan shook his head, a wave of sympathy welling up within him. Whatever the Winchester boy might have had to do with the fire or the old man's death, he didn't abduct his friends or have anything to do with their disappearance. "No, I'm sorry." He wrinkled his nose. "Which is surprising because I don't think they've cleaned those rooms in years. They stink!" He exclaimed, shaking his head. He certainly wouldn't be bringing his mother in here the next time she was sick.

"Of what?" Dean asked.

Detective Sullivan blinked, surprised, but people focused on weird things to cope with stress and upset. "I dunno," he muttered, wrinkling his nose again at the memory. "A bit like… rotten eggs? Maybe like sulphur? It's probably just some vomit that wasn't cleaned up, or maybe some sort of medication," he suggested with a shrug.

"Sulphur?"Sam repeated, shooting his brother an anxious look.

Sullivan thought it was weird, but he decided that he wouldn't find anything new from the brothers. It was looking more and more like someone had taken the pair. It would be wildly out of character for either one of them to have left without informing either brother. If this was a kidnapping he would need to put out alerts and file paperwork and tell his bosses.

"Alright boys. If either one of you see anything or think of anything, or if this Brady contacts you, give me a call," he advised, pulling out a card with his name and phone number and leaving it on the side table when neither brother moved to take it.

He hesitated. "Whoever took them had to put in a lot of effort to do so. It's unlikely that they'll hurt them," he tried to reassure, but he doubted that it helped. He gave the brothers a final nod before he left himself out of the room, ignoring the way that they immediately put their heads together and began whispering furiously.

~An Unlikely Friendship~

"Dean," Sam said, as soon as the detective was a semi reasonable distance away.

"I know, Sammy, I know," Dean hissed. "Something took them."

"It was a demon," Sam insisted. "Probably the Demon. There's no way that this is a coincidence. First it shows up and tries to kill us, then it just takes Jess and James? No way."

"I know, Sam," Dean said again. "But what are we supposed to do? We've been hunting this thing out entire lives and we've never been able to pin it down. Dad's never been able to pin it down."

"I don't know, but we've more info now. The stuff about the fires. We know that it did this to more people. Maybe it'll take them too, or try to. All we need to do is find them. There's gotta be a reason that I've been seeing this thing before. Maybe it's connected to the fires? We can track that!" Sam insisted, a fanatical gleam in his eyes.

Dean wondered how he'd look if someone took someone that he cared about, if this thing had taken Sam. There would probably be much more destruction. "Sammy, you need to stay here. You can't leave."

Sam shook his head. "I can't find it from here. You said that Dad couldn't find this thing, but we can find out what he knows. We still need to find him."

"Sam," Dean tried but Sam just glared.

"I'm not letting my friends die. Not where I know that they're out there. Not when I probably led that thing right to them. Do you want to do this or not?"

Dean stared hard at his little brother. As much as he had missed Sam over the last few years, he had been relieved that he didn't have to worry about his brother being mauled or eaten or slashed by some nastie out in the world. He had been a little bit relieved that Sam was going to settle into a white-picket fenced life with a beautiful woman and a couple of kids one day. But Sam had lost that chance at a 'normal' life. Again.

He wasn't willing to lose the people that had made up that life.

Dean nodded. "Fine. Let's do this."

~An Unlikely Friendship~

Jessica opened her eyes in surprise. She was surprised for many reasons. One of them was that she had honestly never expected to wake up again after Brady - her friend - had looked at her with demonic black eyes. The other was that, wherever she was now, there was a hard, cold surface underneath her which felt nothing like hospital flooring, and she knew that from experience.

The first thing that she saw on opening her eyes was a wide blue sky. Jessica hated camping so she knew for certain that she hadn't decided to sleep on the ground. The second thing that Jessica saw when she turned her head was James, lying on the ground beside her, unmoving.

She swore, quite loudly and quite violently, the sound echoing the stillness around them. Distantly, she noticed that there was no sounds of cars or people or animals. Wherever they were they seemed to be the only ones there.

"James!" She said, shaking James. "Wake up!" All things considered, the best thing would be to let James sleep, let his body heal, but they were God only knew where and they were outside, defenceless.

A feeling of helplessness and hopeless was beginning to settle over Jessica. They were alone. They were up against something that was stronger than them, far more powerful and definitely knew more than they did. In their current states, Jessica doubted that they would be able to fight against anything that came after them.

James groaned, temporarily distracting Jess.

"Oh thank God," she muttered, brushing her hands across his face and neck. "James, wake up. Something's happened."

James opened bleary and dazed eyes and moaned again, but he caught on fairly quickly that something was wrong. He was already trying to push himself into a sitting position before Jess could stop him.

She pressed her hands into his shoulders using her weight to try keep him still, even as pain lanced across her stomach. "Don't move just yet. You're hurt."

James shook his head. "Where are we? Where's Brady? Where's Sam?" James asked.

Jess didn't have an answer. She bit her lip at the thought of Sam, of her fiance. She had no clue what was going on, if Sam was ever alive, if he had any idea what happened to them. She had no doubt that he would go to the ends of the earth to find them, but he had to know that they were alive first.

"Where are we?" James repeated, his voice lower and flatter.

Jessica glanced at him, noticing that he was looking at something in the distance. She followed his gaze and noticed a bell. She shook her head. "I don't know, James. We just woke up here. What's so important about the bell?" She wondered.

James swallowed and Jessica watched the visible strain it took for his throat to move. He wasn't even supposed to be out of bed yet.

"This is Cold Oak."