It was a few fuzzy minutes before Sam realized the banging in his head was really banging on the motel door. Pushing up until he was mostly sitting, hands braced behind him, against the bed, Sam shook his head a few times to further clear things. The power had gone out and there wasn't much more he and Dean could do in the way of research until morning, and natural light came, so they'd called it a night. They had a few destinations to check out, the top of the list being a school across town which, like the one in New York, had more than its fair share of tragic events. The power finally punked out on them before Sam could get more details about the building and land itself. What he had was sketchy at best.

Sam had no idea how long he'd been asleep, but it was long enough every muscle he owned stiffened and locked. His back was a slow, steady throb of ache, making breathing uncomfortable, bordering on painful.

The insistent banging was joined by a harsh shout from outside the door.

"Yeah, yeah. Coming." Sam grumbled, pushed himself up and off the bed. "Dean?" He hadn't intended to bump the end of Dean's bed as he navigated the murky dark of their room, but his best intentions went awry.

Hearing his brother shift up against the headboard, a sharp hiss accompanied the rustle of sheets. "Ya…Sam…don't…" Dean's voice was gravely and thick, catching in time with his breathing. Though his wound was minimal, he still probably suffered the same as Sam, stiffened up and sore.

Despite Dean's protests, Sam opened the door.

"Ow." One hand immediately covering his eyes, the other gripped the door handle, leaning his weight against it.

The light dropped to his chest. "Oh, sorry, kid."

The cop standing opposite Sam had held the flashlight over his own head, aiming high, obviously not expecting to shine it in someone's eyes.

" 'S'okay." Sam offered the startled cop a half-hearted grin and didn't mention he was used to it. He followed the officer's gaze to the floor and watched as the man took in the fact there was a line of salt across the doorway. Sam shrugged, "Rats. Big ones. They hate that stuff."

"Huh. Learn something new every day." The light swung away from Sam and into the room, landing on Dean as he clambered from the bed. "You and your--"

"Brother."

"Yeah, your brother, need to pack up and move west and north. We're evacuating this area. It's just been upgraded to four, and there's still another day before it hits. The surge is moving in."

Sam blinked at the man, confused.

"Are you listening to me?" The cop snapped out.

Dean limped across the floor, stopped close enough behind Sam that he could feel his brother's every movement, and grumbled out an irritated, "Hey." It wasn't a greeting, Sam knew, but a warning to this stranger. Sam's brain finally kicked in, and he remembered. Hurricane coming! Now the conversation and the cop's presence made sense.

The light moved to Dean, then down to his leg. "Are you hurt? Do you need a doctor?"

Fingers gripping the door, Dean eased it away from Sam's control and insinuated himself between Sam and the cop, even though he didn't physically move in front of Sam. "Na, we got mired down. Raked my leg on the bumper of my car getting out, just a big scrape."

The cop glared at Dean. Dean glared back.

The flashlight beam moved across their room, his gaze following, before both came back to settle on Dean again. The cop looked Dean up and down. Dean returned the favor. Sam bit back a smile when the cop's free hand moved to his gun and he stepped back. Little did this poor man know, he'd committed two grievous errors. He'd woken up Dean, and then spoken harshly to Sam. While Dean made a career out of waking people up, and speaking harshly to Sam, it was a different matter entirely when someone else did those things.

"We never really unpacked much, figured we'd have to move out quick." Sam put all the innocence he could muster into his voice and face. The cop relaxed some, gaze shifting away from Dean and back onto Sam.

"Then you'll be out shortly. The road is marked, be sure to follow it." Giving their room, and belongings, another swift visual the cop said, "No detours."

"Mind if I take a piss first?" Dean snarled out.

Sam rolled his eyes, mumbled, "Yessir," and tightened his fingers around the doorknob, pulling the door away from Dean. "We're leaving."

"Sure. Just be quick and don't decide to take a dump too." The cop snapped out, spun on his heels and headed to the next room.

Sam was forced to let go of the door, and sidestep to keep from being hit by when Dean shoved it closed. "He was only doing his job, Dean."

"He didn't have to be such an ass. What did he expect, waking people up in the middle of the night?"

Shoving his wrist against his mouth to stifle his chuckle, Sam headed for their duffels. "You're such a charmer." He watched Dean limp across the room. "Where are you going?"

Dean threw both hands in the air, "To take a piss. Sheesh."

By the time Dean was back out of the bathroom, he was moving with more of his usual fluidity. The grumbling, however, was on the upswing.

"What?" Sam was getting a bit annoyed. He was dressed and ready to head out.

"You gotta stop that shit, Sam."

Sam looked down at the pile of duffels near his feet, then raised his eyes to meet his brother's. "Packing?"

Dean's frustrated growl caught Sam off guard. "No. Shit like opening the door without knowing who is on the other side."

He looked from Dean to the door and back again. "I don't think they'd knock. They'd just bust through. They didn't strike me as that smart."

"They might be. That one, the older one, he might be."

"Sorry." Sam was willing to admit when Dean was right, even if in a round about way.

"Just…be more careful, don't do it again."

"Did you recognize him?"

Dean shook his head. "No." Sam watched as his brother drew in a deep breath, rubbed at the back of his neck, and focused on a point over Sam's shoulder as he pulled on his jeans. "Did you?"

Sam had to wonder which was more difficult, Dean asking the question or Sam having to answer it. "He knew me. I didn't know him." His voice barely made it out of his tightening throat. A shiver wormed its way through him. He was acutely aware of Dean's eyes on him.

"He said he knew Steve Wandell."

Sam nodded. "Were there any…did you see pictures…or anything?"

"No, nothing. What do you remember?"

Expecting that, Sam shrugged. It'd been Dean's way ever since he'd been possessed, skirt around the details until he knew what Sam remembered, which parts Sam had seen, what things Sam hadn't been awake to experience. "I remember sitting at a desk, watching myself-" His breath unexpectedly catching, emotion welling up, Sam stuttered to a stop.

Dean finished dressing, all the while keeping quiet, watching Sam, giving him time, waiting for him to get the words out.

"I saw how I killed him."

"Meg killed him, Sam. Not you." Dean was adamant, firm, on reminding Sam he hadn't been in control. He wasn't who'd committed those acts.

Sam swallowed roughly, nodded once and met Dean's eyes. He took in a deep breath. "On the computer, the recording of Wandell being killed, you asking me about clearing the hard drive, then…" he shrugged, "Blank."

Dean glanced at the floor for a second, before looking back up. "Then I guess you didn't see me smash the computer. I kept asking you how to clear the hard drive, when you didn't answer I busted it into pieces."

"She'd let me see things, snatches here and there."

Reaching down for one of the duffels, Dean snorted when Sam took it from him, and shouldered the rest, but didn't make any further comment. "I find that bitch and I'm sending her so far back down into Hell she'll never find her way out."

Sam smiled shyly when Dean's fingers wound around his bicep, ushering him out the door. Dean pulled the motel door shut, gave the knob a jiggle to be sure it was locked. Sam gave his head a slight shake. Leave it to Dean to worry about looters.

Once inside the Impala, Sam immediately relaxed; sliding down until he could rest his head against the back of the seat.

He sat silently, staring out the passenger window while Dean maneuvered their car onto the road, at first following the signs and directions for the evacuation route.

It seemed to Sam, no matter how much time went by, that week would forever come back to bite him in the ass. At more than one turn Sam was a reminder, he'd spent a week, lost a week, and knew very little of what he'd done. There people out there wanting retribution for actions not his own, but committed by him all the same.

Sam gave himself a pep talk. He could do this, he really could. He'd had his doubts the first few weeks after Meg, after being possessed, and it still hurt, still haunted after all this time. Sam spent a lot of time at first, pouring over newspapers, tracking things online, watching them on TV, searching out any detail that might lead back to him. Scrutinizing any description of wanted men with even the vaguest similarity in description to him. He hadn't followed through with Jo, Dean saw to that, but maybe with some other poor girl? Maybe he'd beaten someone, or robbed them. Sam himself wouldn't do those things, but he wasn't a fool. His body was quite capable of inflicting more than a little damage on someone.

He'd seen the after affects of what he'd inflicted on Dean.

Dean let him do those things, hadn't fought back. Sam had no delusions, if Dean needed to, wanted to, Dean could beat him. Others, however, there were plenty of innocent people Sam could overpower with out breaking a sweat. It was those people, the store clerks, or the people in a bar Meg decided to use Sam to get some cheap thrill from. Those were the ones, the unknown faces that haunted him.

His brother's constant reminder, Sam had no choice, wasn't responsible and hadn't been who'd committed those unknown, forced acts, became an anchor. It took Sam a while to get used to himself again. He felt like a stranger in his own body. How Dean had even put up with the jumpy person Sam was in those first weeks, Sam could only guess.

Dean had a side to him, a way about him, few others ever saw. Sam saw it, so did the occasional child they'd met during their hunts. He had a stability, a sturdiness that simply exuded calm and confidence. If Dean Winchester said it was so, Sam believed him. He often wondered did people who tamed wild horses, or melt in with lion prides have the same quality. Dean projected a calm that offered by its mere existence a safe spot to lick one's proverbial wounds, to rebuild and regroup and heal.

Sam had sure felt like some wild animal, captured and unsure, he'd been more nervous and outright skittish than ever before. If it hadn't been for Dean, he'd have never gotten beyond that, or most other things in his life, Sam was sure.

Dean's hand thumping his chest, made him push straighter. "Hey, give me a hand here? You still in there?"

Straightening farther, Sam coughed and cleared his throat. "Yeah. Sorry."

"There's not as many cops along this part, now is the time."

Fumbling between his feet for the maps, Sam finally found the one he wanted. He unrolled it and spread it over his lap. Digging for a minute in the glove compartment, he extracted their GPS and flicked it on.

"That thing isn't going to work," Dean snorted. "Hell it got confused when we drove through some thick trees last week."

What Dean had against some of the newer technology like MP3's instead of tapes and GPS instead of paper maps, Sam would never know. It was dark, raining and the car was constantly rocked and buffeted by winds. Squinting through the windshield, Sam spent a minute getting their bearings. Smiling, he quietly clicked the GPS off, and laid it on the floor between his feet.

"Told ya."

A quick shrug, "Whatever. For the record, it didn't get confused, you did. It works fine. I want to save the battery charge."

Trailing his flashlight beam along the map, Sam glanced up and back down a few times to the beat of Dean's impatient huffed breaths. "Sam."

"I'm working on it." Another look into the wet, murky night before he pointed past Dean's nose, "There, another couple of blocks, on the left."

Shoving Sam's arm down, Dean growled then muttered, "I see it."

Before Sam could stop him, Dean flicked the side of his head. Fingers winding in Sam's hair, he gave a quick tug and drew his hand back to the steering wheel. Sam pretended not to notice; though by the way the corners of Dean's eyes crinkled for a few seconds, Sam knew he hadn't covered his quick grin fast enough.

As he eased the big car to the left, Dean cut the lights. They slipped off the main evacuation route to a side street, heading west but south, not north. After a few false starts, turning down streets either blocked or plain wrong, they finally found their way. Going farther inland, but still heading into the rain bands, they found the school they'd pegged as having activity consistent with the boogeyman demon.

This school wasn't an abandoned orphanage, this was a modern, and much to Sam's relief, sturdy looking building. They'd found a few around the area, this one being the center of activity outside the orphanage.

"Think we were followed?" Sam reached in the back, snagged his jacket and the laptop bag. Not only did it carry his computer, but the paper files as well. He stuffed an extra flashlight in it; the other, smaller flashlight went into his pocket.

"I have no idea. It's impossible to tell." Dean guided the Impala around the building, to the side facing away from the street.

They stopped and sat looking at the building. Dean squinted through the window. "One story. Not a lot of wiggle room if the flooding gets here."

Sam clicked the GPS back on. "We're four miles from the coast." Smirking at Dean before turning the GPS off, Sam whuffed out, "Works fine." He took another glance around. "Look over there, by that building, a parking garage."

Dean nodded, driving that way. There wasn't much water on the street yet, but they knew that would change in the next few hours. The part of the city they'd come from, the more eastern section, already had water rushing the roadways. In the dark it was nearly impossible to tell the depth. The car finally came to a stop on the third level of the garage, well in the middle, away from the open sides.

"Think that school is old enough to have a bomb shelter?"

Sam shrugged one shoulder, shoved out of the car and moved to meet his brother at the trunk. "I don't know. I didn't get far enough to find out when it was built. It should have plenty of inside rooms though."

Each of them had a few duffels, carrying not only weapons and hunting equipment, but survival supplies as well. Sam rolled his eyes at Dean's instructions to stick close because it was expected, not because he intended on doing otherwise.

The winds tore through the parking garage; bits of debris, street signs and things Sam couldn't identify blew between the garage and surrounding buildings. The school was maybe a football field in distance away, but it looked like a million miles.

"The water starts coming in; we're getting out and back here. The only place we'll have to go is the roof, and I don't know about you, but I don't want to sit this thing out on a roof." Dean was talking to Sam, but stalking around the car, giving it one last inspection before they left.

Sam repositioned the duffels, hiking them farther up on his shoulder and ignored the way Dean turned, sized him up and down the same he did the car. Checking for cracks, making sure everything was in working order. Sam trailed Dean down the three flights of stairs to the entrance of the parking garage. They were hit nearly at once by winds strong enough to push them back, make them struggle for footing.

Dean had a length of rope around his shoulder, he slid it down and unwrapped it part way.

"It's not long enough." Sam shouted over the wind.

Nodding, Dean looked up and down the street. "It would be a dead give away where we are anyway."

Hitting Dean's shoulder for his attention, Sam pointed to a group of cement dividers running the length of the street between the garage and school. He took the end of the rope Dean shoved at him, moving back into the garage, finding a place to secure it. Dean moved into the open, taking a minute to check all directions. Sam smiled, most kids learned to look both ways while crossing a street. Dean, ever the hunter, taught Sam to look more than left and right, there was up and down too.

The rope whipped in circles, but held fast tied between the dividers and the garage. If they had to come back in deep water, they only needed to make it half way before they'd have the rope guide.

Getting across to the school wasn't nearly as bad as the return trip might be, Sam was sure. After making fast work of the locks, no power so no alarms, they slipped inside. At once the roar of wind and the pelting of sharp water against his skin stopped. A few steps into the building muted the churning environment outside.

The majority of the outer windows were glass block, and the construction was cement and stone cinderblock. This place had been made to survive the storms assaulting it over the years. The natural ones at least.

The unnatural storms inside the school's walls slammed into Sam with force far greater than any hurricane. Fear, desperation, loathing, utter helplessness rolled over him in waves, halting his progress down the main hall. They'd been preyed upon, the children here over the decades. The unloved, unwanted, unprotected. His eyes trailed up the walls, to the ceiling, across and down the opposite wall.

"Not exactly Rydell High, is it?" Dean's flashlight scanned along the walls, the drawings done by one class adorned a large section between two doors. "It's here, isn't it?"

The skin along Sam's spine took on a life of its own, prickled and raised. Damp, cold beads of moisture oozed under his shirt. Dean's back was to him; his eyes focused on the artwork, yet he'd known, sensed the change in Sam immediately. Exactly how Dean did that, Sam had never been able to work out. Right now it was on the top of the Dean Winchester fine qualities list.

When Dean turned to look at him, Sam finally managed to croak out, "Yeah."

Sam's mind skimmed back over what he knew to be truth, he actively projected the thoughts and emotions back into the maelstrom of evil and hate assaulting him. He and Dean, they were loved, wanted, protected. Even if only by each other. That was enough, more than enough.

Strong, sure fingers wound around the back of his neck, making him start. Even though he had neither heard nor felt Dean moving, he'd sensed his presence closing in, growing stronger, and enveloping the both of them in his bubble of steady calm. The hand settling on him was more unexpected and sent a shiver through Sam. It was as sure a sign of Dean's fear as anything. It'd been Dean's habit as long as Sam could remember; if Dean was scared, Sam was reeled in, kept close. Dean was consistent if nothing else, forever the hunter, the warrior, the protector.

It was something about his brother Sam truly blessed.

He was close enough to his brother that when Dean spoke, Sam felt the vibrations snarl out of his chest.

"Not us. Not us. You can't have us."

Sam watched as Dean's eyes glittered bright and skimmed the hallway around them, issuing his own challenge right back at the thing they faced.

As if some blanket was pulled from the air, the oppressive weight pushing in on Sam from all sides evaporated and he could breathe again. He took a few minutes, simply relishing in the ability to fully expand his chest, pull air into his lungs that wasn't cold and putrid with despair. As before they'd stop the immediate threat using herbs and wards, however, finding a place to hide them in the cinderblock walls was going to be tricky. Spreading any seeds outside right now would be useless, and the odds of them being around after the floodwaters receded were small. Sam knew they'd have to return to the orphanage, the center of activity of the entire area.

Dean had moved away a few feet. The beam from his flashlight glided over the drawings hanging on the wall. "Some of these kids are really good." He shrugged one shoulder. "Disturbed, but good." Pulling a paper from the wall, Dean swiveled on his heels, holding it out to Sam. "There's more of the same here, this one has one more detail than the others."

Sam took the offered drawing. It was done in comic book style, though what the story was being told was lost on Sam. It was the faces of the characters that drew his attention. Of the three on the page, to a last they all had solid eyes, two with black eyes, one with red. No pupils, just solid color. In the background was an image that made Sam pull in a fast breath and clamp his fingers down on the page to steady the sudden shake of his hand.

Forcing his eyes away from the paper and up to meet Dean's, Sam had nothing to say. Dean took the paper, folded it carefully and put it in his pocket. "I'd say there's no question now, it was here."

"It still is."

Sam's mind shuddered at the thought of why some thirteen-year-old child would be drawing a picture like that, a picture with an oily black thing slithering in the background. A thing that several times now assaulted both Sam and Dean, had slithered over Sam's skin, leaving in its wake still a feeling of slime, cold and humiliation. A monster capable of infiltrating his mind, forcing pain and violation while trying to provoke the same.

He couldn't help thinking of some poor kid, boy or girl, he had no idea, and it didn't matter, sitting alone, afraid night after night, enduring until every last defense was stripped away, gone. A child feeling unwanted was the prefect prey for this predator.

This type of possession was far worse than anything Meg could dish out, Sam was very sure. Even if the act wasn't physical in the traditional sense of the word, but an emotional, mental act, rape was still rape.