A/N: Hey guys! Again sorry it took so long but I didn't know how to get rid of Big Joe and have been battling writer's block. But talking to Wanderer the other day it finally hit me. I hope you enjoy...and did anyone else notice that they're on two different time lines? Really the Sam Dean stuff should be a few hours ahead of the girls...

Chapter Nine

Autumn bit her lip and watched Darcy disappear into thin air. She hated to admit it but this Big Joe guy had a nice set up. Only his victims saw him and no one ever sees them again. Not that that was going to be the case with Athena and Darcy, at least not while she still had a heart beat. She knew that they could see her even if she couldn't see them so she stayed in her car a moment longer, still trying to formulate a plan. Autumn never considered this situation as a possibility, nothing was supposed to touch her sister. She started to open the door when Darcy finally made herself known.

"Sit still, Teenie is fine and there's someone else in here. Until you think of something don't move." Darcy ordered. It drove Autumn mad to be being commanded by that little thing, but she obeyed none the less. Darcy was on the inside but how much protection could she offer, and how much good could Autumn be if she was in there too?

"Teenie, you look like shit," Darcy told her friend brushing her mind against Athena's. She ran quick scans of both the living passengers, a side from the fact that the guy, Cameron , was going to need a serious shrink they were okay. The nasty injuries seemed to be faked, not that they weren't sucking at their owners energy. "Don't worry, Autters and I are going to get you out of here." Darcy swore.

Athena reached for Cameron's hand, Darcy wasn't talking to him, it'd only upset him more, so she had to be his comfort. She'd never really tried the comfort thing with grown men, scared women and children were easy you just held their hands and walked them through everything pretending not to be as scared as you were. Cameron gave her a weak smile, he hair was blood matted too, one eye seemed to dangle from its socket making her want to vomit, his right arm was twisted in a way that was no where close to natural and judging by how he held his legs they were pretty messed up to. In the past few hours the pain had gone from a dull throbbing to making you want to scream for mercy and wish you'd just die already, the blood loss that wasn't real made her dizzy and light headed, and all Athena could really think about was going to sleep but the constant prodding from Darcy's mind kept her from doing any such thing.

Dean wasn't sure what had happened and wasn't sure he liked it. Well, not entirely true, he like that Bud wasn't conscious anymore, something about that kid creeped him out, he liked that the tension in the air had disappeared completely, what he didn't like was that for it to have stopped J.R. had been distracted or released, either way he wanted to hear from Sam and that wasn't about to happen. Dean hauled Bud's limp body up and slung him into the bed of the pick-up waiting in the drive, there was not way he'd violate his baby with this kid. He went for his first aide kit, with Bud out it'd be easier to handle the graze on his arm, it was a little deeper than he'd meant but still a nice clean cut. Bud started coming around about the time he finished up. The first thing the boy did was jump back shoving himself against the hot plastic bed liner.

"Who're you?" he demanded to know.

"You're fairy god-mother," Dean answered closing up his box.

"Where's Bets?"

"With my brother," panic filled Bud's eyes. "Sammy won't hurt her, don't worry about him. So kid what do you remember?"

"About?" he drawled.

"Let's start with the date?"

"May tenth we buried Iris and Scott yesterday."

"No, that was almost a week ago."

"Oh shit!"

"Hold that thought," Dean said as his phone started to ring. "What's going on?" he asked Sam on the other end of the phone.

"Keys are in her truck and the Impala won't make it out here. Come get us," Sam sounded too calm for everything to be alright so he gestured for Bud to move to the cab, which he did never taking his eyes off of Dean. "What happened?"

"J.R. paid us a visit, we're both okay. She's just in a little shock, gun went off I don't know how it missed her." Sam explained. "No Bets, I didn't say you were shot," he said kind of muffled. "Dean just come out here so we can get her back and finish this."

"On my way," Dean hung up as he swung up into the cab.

Darcy yawned watching the scenery, as if keeping her mind in four heads at once wasn't hard enough Big Joe's power was starting to wear on her. She'd caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, her neck was obviously broken by the angle, which gave her one slip of information. Even if your injuries deem you dead you have to withstand them until your fuel light comes on before you actually die. Athena was driving her batty trying to go to sleep, Cameron was slipping quickly into shock and she wasn't sure if it was worth it to hold him back, and Autumn was beating her brains out.

A stop sign with "war" spray painted under the big white letters came into view, it was identical to the one they'd passed about ten minutes ago. In fact for a road this far out of the way, so rarely used, it had a lot of stop signs on it. She looked to her left out the windshield as they picked up speed again and sure enough their lights reflected off something car sized and red. She wanted to laugh, they were like cartoon people, doomed to forever drive the same stretch until whoever was controlling their lives decided to put a new scene in. She pulled her mind from Cameron's not wanting him to hear what she was about to say to the other two hunters. This might be there way out, if either could confirm her thought on the reasoning for the short leash.

"Ladies we're hamsters in a wheel, what does that mean?" Darcy asked, Athena offered a mental yawn of disinterest but nothing else, her usefulness was quickly fading and Darcy sent her another burst of energy she herself was running low on. How long had she been at this?

"It means you're tied to the area," Autumn responded with a bored tone.

"Exactly, and why would that happen?"

"Because someone put something here the both Joe and Phantom are very close to, something that symbolizes them!" Autumn's mind was racing now and Darcy had to pull away from Teenie a little to keep up. "I've got a plan am I allowed out of time out now?"

"I need to do anything for this plan to work?"

"Yea, you've got your gun on you if things don't go how I need them to I want you to do a good old fashion hold up. Dean worried that you were some criminal hitcher for a reason, so act it." Autumn actually broke their bond. Something that unnerved Darcy a little, but considering her own lack of stores she really doubted she needed to put much stock in it. On their next loop around she saw Autumn in the ditch creeping toward the spot said to be the collision site.

Since a couple of friends had died in an accident in high school, Autumn knew all to well how the victims' family and friends were drawn to the place of death. As a symbol of their loss, and love they often left items by white crosses. She stayed low to the ground not sure how much attention the trucker would be paying and edged to the spot he'd died. Sure enough a weather beaten white wooden cross lay buried in the mud, it'd been ground in pretty well or it'd have been chopped up when the city sent out their crews to cut the grass along the roadside. She dug it out of the ground and used it to scrape away the mud around the area uncovering several other trinkets, odds and ends. A few laminated photos that had been sun bleached, toy Mack trucks, and a silver cross with stuffing stuck in its chain as if it'd been worn by a stuffed animal during its demise. Autumn hit something hard and metallic, using her stick she found its edges and popped it up. What could be closer to a truck and its driver than its license plate?

"Stay with her," Dean ordered Bud as he pulled the chainsaw out of the bed of the truck. Bud and Betsy were sitting back there. He had his arms wrapped around her so tight it looked painful, and was rocking her apologizing profusely though he wasn't sure what he'd done. Bud looked up from Betsy just long enough to nod.

"Sure they'll be okay?" Sam asked following Dean to the next tree they had to drop.

"Yea, we're only twenty feet away." Dean assured his brother. Sam cast another look at the two teens before explaining the trick to getting this saw going on one rip.

They dropped four more trees before heading in, by then Betsy had gotten her head back together, at least enough to be her cocky self on the outside, but if anyone knew what had to be going on in her head it was Dean. Sam drove them back to Bud's place, Dean following in his baby. It took a good hour to explain what had been going on, and the kids still had a million questions. Betsy demanded to have their phone numbers so if they hadn't taken care of the situation, which they believed they had, they could come back.

"You two watch each other," Dean instructed as they led the two hunters to the door.

"You're leaving?" Betsy asked sounding slightly heart broken.

"We've got Autumn to find, but we'll be staying another day or two just to make sure things have cooled down." Sam promised.

"Will we see you?" she asked.

"Only if things go wrong, otherwise we'll be gone just like it never happened." Sam told her gently.

"Right, we're only children now and last week we both had an older sibling. Just like it never happened," Bud scoffed.

"We don't bring them back from the dead we just make sure they stay that way. If you're smart you won't try it either, they won't come back the same. They'll be like J.R." Dean warned. Betsy nodded obediently.

"And if we ever need you"

"Just call," Dean finished for her. She smiled at him and opened the front door.

"You guys had better go, Bud's 'rents will be home soon we don't want you getting into any trouble." she sounded teasing. Bud and Betsy stood on the porch watching them walk to the Impala and pull out of the drive, just before they turned onto the road she yelled a 'thanks' after them.