Dean shot a sideways glance at Ruthie in the passenger seat. Her face was pale. She stared straight ahead. Six foot walls of snow bordered the road on each side, pushed there by Vern's plow. Poor guy. Dean remembered the small white truck he'd seen behind Vern's tractor when they pulled out of Ruthie's drive. Those bastards must have followed him up the road to her cabin. If he hadn't lost his knife, he would've slashed the tires.

He couldn't decide whether it was a good or bad sign that the werewolf hadn't been able to smell Sam anywhere.

Ruthie's voice pulled him from his thoughts. "So, the bodies that have been turning up in the woods. They were all killed by…werewolves?" She sounded calm, but a tremor in her voice betrayed her.

Dean nodded.

She turned to face him. "And that's why you came here? Because you and your brother are some sort of professional werewolf hunters?"

"Something like that."

"And you really use silver bullets. That's why your gun was better than mine, and why you freaked out when I joked about it."

"Yeah."

She stared at him for a moment, then out at the road again. "Werewolves are real." She seemed to have to force the words out. Then she gave a quick, hollow laugh. "Next you're going to tell me there are vampires and zombies, too."

He said nothing. She noticed. He kept his gaze on the road, but he could feel her eyes probing into him like a freaking surgeon. From the corner of his eye, he saw her mouth drop open. Then she sucked in a long, shaky breath and blew it out slowly. "Holy crap."

He waited a minute, letting her absorb the second earth-shattering revelation of the morning, before asking, "You okay?"

"I don't know. I guess so." She turned to him again. "So do you use garlic and wooden stakes on vampires? Head shots on zombies?"

He wasn't expecting rapid-fire questions. People usually reacted with shock and horror, not curiosity. "Uh, well, there are different kinds of what you'd call zombies. You have to figure out what works on them. Garlic and wooden stakes are myths, though. Vamps you gotta decapitate."

She sat silent, blinking at him for several long moments. "This is the most surreal conversation I've ever had." After another moment of silence, she added, "I keep waiting for you to laugh and point out the hidden cameras or something." She raised her eyebrows at him, apparently still holding on to this one last shred of hope.

He hated to disappoint her. "Sorry."

She took a deep breath and looked at the road again.

Her turned-up nose and top lip made her appear cheerful, even when her world was being turned upside down. A familiar, sour surge of guilt washed through Dean's stomach. "No, really. I'm sorry." He squeezed the steering wheel tighter. "I brought this mess—my mess—right to your doorstep. I screwed up and nearly got you killed. Got your friend killed." He clenched his teeth. "I'm supposed to save people. I'm sorry."

She sat quietly, studying his face until he squirmed in his seat. Finally, she asked, "Are you always this hard on yourself?"

"Didn't you hear me? I screwed up."

"How? You're here. You came here and put yourself between us and those…monsters. You fought things that nobody even knows exist. You got lost and hurt and nearly killed, all to protect people you don't know, who will never know what you did for them. Don't you think you should give yourself a little more credit?"

He'd heard speeches like this a handful of times over the years, and they usually made him uncomfortable. He was just doing his job. And this time he'd done a piss poor

job of it. But somehow, coming from her, it made him feel a little better. He relaxed his grip on the steering wheel, but didn't say anything. She didn't seem to need a response. They rode on in silence.

Dean watched the roadside carefully, looking for a particular spot where the pine trees gave way to smaller bushes and scrub. After a few more minutes making their way down the slick road, he pulled over alongside the wall of snow thrown up by Vern's plow.

"What are you doing?" Ruthie asked.

"This is where we left the car. Stay here." Dean grabbed the shotgun and jumped out, trying to ignore the shrinking feeling in the bottom of his stomach. No glimpse of shiny black anywhere. If the Impala was here, she was buried.

He walked toward the spot he'd noticed: an area where the wall of snow had cratered in. It was in the right spot off the side of the road, and it looked like there could have been a car there. He climbed the snow pile, but didn't feel anything hard underneath when his feet sank deep into the powder. He tested several spots by poking the shotgun barrel down into the snow, but found nothing.

Baby was gone.

He went back to the truck and climbed in. Ruthie looked at him, eyebrows raised in a silent question.

"How long would a car have to sit here before they'd tow it?" Dean asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe a day or two. Longer in this weather."

Dean pressed his lips together and started back down the road.

"Hey," she said, "this is good, right? This means Sam got out of the woods."

He hoped she was right, but he'd also thought he and Sam were hunting down the last werewolf of the pack. Making assumptions rarely worked out well in this line of work. All he knew for sure was that Sam wasn't here, and until he found the Impala, he was out of silver bullets.

Also, rushing Ruthie out of the cabin and climbing around on that snow pile hadn't done him any favors. He winced at the lancing pain skidding along his side and chest.

"If you ripped those stitches, so help me…" She didn't finish her threat. Instead, she leaned across the cab and pulled up his flannel and t-shirt to check.

"Hey, I'm driving! Get off me."

She ignored him. "You're bleeding again. Dammit, Dean."

"Yeah, real sorry about that." He swatted her arm away. "Next time we're attacked by werewolves I'll make sure to stay in bed so I don't rip my stitches."

She kept ignoring him. "When we get to town, we'll get you checked in somewhere so you can lie down before you reopen any more of them. I'll go to the pharmacy for supplies and antibiotics; then I can make a report at the station and ask about Sam."

He took his eyes off the road long enough to look over at her, to see if she was being serious. "Look, Ruthie, you don't know me very well, so let me explain something. Sam is my family. Okay? He's it. And he's been out there alone in a snowstorm for almost twenty-four hours. I'm not doing anything else until I find him. We clear?"

Her dark eyes held his gaze until he had to look back at the road. "Okay."

"Good." He had expected her to put up a fight. "And what do you mean by 'make a report?'"

She gave him a quizzical look. "I don't know how professional werewolf hunters deal with this sort of thing, but there are three bodies at my house. If I don't want to end up in jail, I have to report it."

"Two bodies. And what are you planning to tell the cops? That it was werewolves?"

Her eyebrows squeezed together. "What do you mean, two bodies? Are you forgetting Vern?"

There, in her tight voice, was the fight he'd expected. "I'm not forgetting Vern."

"But—" her eyes widened. "You don't mean the second one? You hit him from four feet away with a twelve gauge! I saw him go down."

"It wasn't silver. He'll heal."

She stared at him for a second, then sat back in her seat. "Holy crap," she breathed.

"We find Sam. Then we'll go back up there. Him and me, we'll take care of the body. After that, you can tell the cops about Vern. They'll say it was wolves."

"Okay. So, if we're not going to the cops, where do we start? Where would Sam go?"

"We got a room at the Four Feathers Inn. He might've gone back there to look for me. We'll start there." He pulled out his phone and checked it. "Once I can get a damn signal, I'll try calling him."

The woods on either side began to thin, and cabins appeared along the roadside. Soon, they came to a stop sign—the edge of town. The road was better cleared now, and more buildings rolled past. They'd be in the heart of town in another minute.

"You should have a signal now," Ruthie told him.

She was right. His heart sped up as he pulled out his phone and hit "Sam."

Straight to voicemail.

"Damn it!" His yell made Ruthie jump.

Beep.

"Sammy, where are you? I'm coming to find you, okay? Call me as soon as you get this." He stuffed the phone back into his pocket.

They passed the tiny library and the police station, and soon pulled up to the only stop light in town. He turned right, into the little parking lot of the Four Feathers Inn. Directly across the parking lot sat the town's one pharmacy.

The Impala wasn't there.

His already tense muscles stiffened even more. He parked in front of their room, jumped out of the truck, and headed for the door, leaving Ruthie behind. He unlocked it and stepped inside. "Sam?"

No answer.

Dean checked between the beds and in the bathroom anyway. Then he searched the beds, the tiny kitchen, the little table, the bathroom sink, for any clue. But there was nothing out of place. No sign that Sam had been here since they'd left early yesterday morning.

He tried Sam's cell again. No answer. He threw his phone onto the bed.

He sank down onto the end of the bed and raked both hands through his hair. He'd been trying so hard not to picture Sam, cold and stiff in the forest, frozen to death under some snow drift. Now he couldn't get the image out of his head.

"Dean?" Ruthie was standing in the open doorway.

The broken record in his head came out in a broken voice. "I gotta find him, Ruthie. I gotta find my brother."

She took a few steps inside. "We will. We'll find him." She glanced back over her shoulder. "Listen, I was just over at the pharmacy. I asked about Sam. And this guy I've never seen before got all interested when he heard me say 'Winchester.'"

"You used our name?" Dean stood up.

Ruthie didn't seem to notice his concern. "Yeah, he wanted to know if I knew you, and especially if I knew where you were. I know you're a big secret-keeper, Chrissy, but—" she gave him a sheepish grin "—he was super cute, so I invited him over. Hope you don't mind."

Dean's hand was already on the .45, drawing it, before he remembered it was empty. He'd left the shotgun in the truck.

He rushed at the door to close and lock it, but a huge shadow fell across the entry. Then the body it belonged to filled the doorway.

Dean skidded to a stop, ready to fight for his and Ruthie's lives. He braced himself, but not enough.

He was looking up into the pale, haggard, relieved face of his little brother.