CHAPTER THREE.
"SAM?" I called to the empty street, turning right round on the spot where I stood in the vain hope I might see the tall Winchester somewhere other than where I had left him.
Sam was nowhere to be seen, with no explanation as to where he had gone. Dean chose that moment to come out of the cafe, carrying several packages of food in overflowing arms.
"Dean? You seen Sam?" I asked him, falteringly. "Did Sam go in to the cafe to use the bathroom or something?"
Dean shot me a puzzled look, before he said - "No, Jenna! Sam didn't come in at all! He was with you the whole time! Wasn't he?"
I didn't answer, because he was, and then he was not.
He looked around at the otherwise too deserted street, as flurries of dead leaves blew past in September breezes. His brow furrowed in concern, before he shouted - "SAM? SAM? SAMMY?"
He got the same response as I did - nothing. There was silence all around us - the only sound coming from a herd of cows somewhere nearby, lowing rather ominously into the silence.
"This isn't right - where could he have gotten to?" Dean asked, setting down his food on the hood of his car to come stand next to me.
"I don't know. I left his side for no more than five seconds, yet when I turned back, he was gone!" I said, before telling him about the sound of a horse running past me, when there was no horse there to be seen.
Dean frowned, but didn't say anything. Unlike Cas, I didn't know his thoughts, his emotions, and found Dean hard to read. I didn't know what was going through his head right then, but I knew what was going through mine - a memory of Castiel telling me to watch out for Sam. I hadn't done a good job with that had I? I felt like I'd failed the angel, and I didn't like the feeling at all. I wondered how Cas would react when I told him, if he didn't already know.
Plus we all knew that the previous victims had all borne a similar description as Sam.
"Jenna? It looks like you have seen a ghost!" Dean commented peering into my face with some degree of concern.
I looked up into his large green eyes and swallowed past the lump in my throat.
"I haven't ... at least not yet!" I said, before telling Dean of Cas' warning from the week before.
The recriminations I expected from the other hunter didn't come, but that didn't make him look any less concerned or angry.
"You didn't know, Jenna. How could you have known when you were supposed to look out for Sammy, if Cas didn't tell you?" Dean asked quietly, anger turning his eyes a darker shade of green than normal.
I didn't say anything to that - there was nothing I could say, at any rate.
I went back to staring at the road, watching the dance of the leaves upon the tarmac, before I saw something that looked very out of place indeed ....