Dean opened the motel door and Bobby pushed in. "Any word?"

Dean shook his head silently and Bobby frowned with concern. "You look like hell, boy," he said bluntly. And Dean did. If he'd slept at all in the last two days, it didn't show. Kid was white as milk, his eyes sunk deep into his head.

"You reach your dad yet?"

Dean turned away with another shake of his head and sank down on the couch, lowering his face into his hands. "I don't know what the hell to do, Bobby. I've looked everywhere. Sam - I can't find him."

Bobby sat down next to him, ran a hand soothingly over his back. "What do the cops say?"

Dean laughed bitterly. "Nothing. Just that they've had some kids go missing over the last year or so. None of them were ever found, alive or dead, and there's nothing to show whether it's our kind of gig or not - could be demons, ghosts - could be just freaking people."

"I don't know why Sam left our room that night, so I can't go to wherever he disappeared from. I got nothing to follow!" He leaned back, closed his eyes, drained. "Christ, Bobby, where the hell is he?"

))))))))))))))))))))

A voice pulled Sam out of the darkness.

Groggy, disoriented, he raised his head and looked through the window straight into Mitch's eyes. With a sharp cry, he jerked back, then, feeling the empty sky yawning behind him, threw himself forward, plastering himself against the glass.

Mitch's voice, though pitched to reach him through the glass, was gentle. "Let's get you in here, kid.",

He reached for the window, stopped when Sam cast a wild look at the street far below. "No! If you open the window, I'll - I'll -"

"What, you'll jump?" Mitch asked sardonically. "It's a long way down, wildcat."

Sam glared at Mitch. "Joey! He - you-" Tears started down his face and he brushed them away angrily.

Mitch shook his head. "I'm not the one who took him out on the roof." He shrugged as Sam flinched. "If you'd just stayed put, that boy would be on the way to Florida, not spread out all over the street."

No! Sam's face twisted. Joey. He moaned, low and guttural. My fault - my fault!

"Let me help you, kid." Mitch's smile was feline, his voice coaxing.

A sudden movement behind him and Ma Jenner appeared in the window beside her son. She was disheveled, haggard - her cream-colored pantsuit spotted with blood. "Mitch!"

The big man stared at her, aghast. "What the hell –" he stopped short in sudden suspicion. "Where's Jerry?"

"Where do you think?" Ma answered acidly. She handed a gun to her son. "Shoot that little troublemaker."

Mitch paled. "What?"

"That boy is dead. This one knows our faces." she said coldly. "Accident or not, they catch us, we go down for murder. Do it!"

Her son shook his head stubbornly. "No, Ma. Give me a minute. We can take him with us. I want - "

"We don't have a minute!" she snapped. "The cops are already on the way!" Seeing that he wasn't going to obey, she tried to take the gun back so she could take care of it herself, but he held it up and away from her.

Breathing hard, Ma Jenner stepped back from her son. "Damn you for a fool, boy!" She stomped away, turned back at the door. "I'm leaving in five minutes!" she shot at him. "If you're not down by then, you can find your own damn way home!"

When she was gone, Mitch turned back to Sam. "Got a temper, don't she?" he called out to the boy. "We'd better get going, before she leaves us!"

Sam didn't respond. Mitch laid his hand against the glass next to Sam's face. The boy didn't react, simply stared, pupils blown wide.

"Kid?"

Through the window, he could hear the whooping wail of approaching sirens.

"Damn it!"

He stepped back from the window, stared at Sam - the wounded hazel eyes, shaggy brown hair hanging down into his face, the trembling mouth - his stomach clenched tight with want and need.

The sirens stopped in the street below.

Mitch took a reluctant step away from Sam, then another. "I'm coming back for you, wildcat!" he said fiercely.

With a final searing look, he turned and followed his mother.

))))))))))))))))))))

Detective Hector Portillo crouched down next to the boy's broken body. "Son of a bitch."

"From the description, it's probably Joseph Adrian." His partner, Roberta Loggia, pushed an errant lock of red hair back from her face. "No sign of the Cade boy yet."

Portillo straightened up. As he stepped back from the body, the waiting medical examiner and two paramedics came forward, surrounding the body.

"Anyone inside?"

"We found a body right inside the front door. Male, probably in his fifties. No i.d. Shot in the face. Nothing else, yet. We've got men searching, but it's ten, twelve floors, so it'll take a while." Robbie sighed. "Damn it, six kids missing - and now this."

"We've got the dead guy. We'll find out who he is," Portillo said determinedly. "If anyone else is involved, we'll get them, too."

"So you don't think he was on his own."

Portillo shook his head. "This is feeling like something more than just one predator. Something bigger, organized."

Robbie nodded in agreement. Her face was grim, thinking of Joey Adrian's mother. It was her turn to do the family notification; it would be rough. The woman was about to get the worst news of her already hard life and she definitely wasn't the suffer in silence type.

And what about the identification? No way was she dragging that poor woman into the morgue to identify her son, not when the kid looked like -

"What the - Hey!"

A sudden shout from one of the paramedics brought both cops spinning around. Their eyes followed the woman's eyes to the front of the building and up -

"Oh, Jesus Christ!" Portillo breathed. "Robbie, get fire/rescue up there, right fucking now!" He ran for the building.

))))))))))))))))))))

The small crowd below watched with baited breath as the fire truck's extension ladder creaked slowly up the side of the building. It came to a halt right next to Sam's ledge.

The sound of the ladder momentarily roused the semi-conscious boy. "Dean," he murmured desolately. Dean, I'm so cold. With a little moan, he pressed his face to the window - blood from cuts on his cheeks and forehead smearing the glass - then sank back into a dazed stupor.

The fireman on the ladder leaned over the boy and touched his shoulder, ready to grab him if he made any sudden moves. "Hey, kid, can you hear me? Kid?"

When Sam didn't answer, the fireman eased him away from the window, holding him firmly, called to the man waiting inside. "I've got him. Open up!"

The window squealed slowly open. Portillo reached outside and took Sam by the shoulders, and then he and one of the waiting paramedics maneuvered the boy in through the window. The movement roused Sam and he stirred weakly, moaning.

"It's okay, kid. We got you."

They laid Sam on the waiting stretcher and the medics started their examination. At the feel of their gentle hands, Sam's eyes blazed into startled awareness and he reared up, knocking their hands away. "Get off of me!"

"Calm down, sweetie." The senior medic, Joanie, spoke soothingly. "We just need to check you out, make sure you're okay."

Looking frantically around the room, Sam gasped, "Where is he? Where is he?"

Portillo's eyes narrowed and he took a step closer. Sam twisted around to face him, hands raised defensively, and Portillo stepped back at a look from Joanie.

"We're paramedics, kid, and this is a police detective," she said. "We're here to help you. Listen, you need to calm down -" Joanie put a hand on Sam's shoulder.

At the woman's touch, Sam snarled and struck her in the face, sending her reeling back with a startled cry.

"Joanie!" Her partner, Greg, grabbed for the boy and got a well-placed foot to the groin; he folded to the floor, clutching himself, whining and gasping for air.

Wild-eyed, Sam threw himself off the stretcher, scrambling for the door and escape.

Stunned at the boy's attack, Portillo lunged forward, grabbing hold of the back of Sam's jacket. Sam sent a blow to Portillo's face. The detective blocked the blow and grabbed Sam by the arm, spinning the struggling boy around and pressing him up against the door. "Easy now, Sam. Take it easy."

At the sound of his name, Sam's body jerked, stilled.

"Aren't you Sam Cade?"

Sam didn't answer, didn't look at him. His breath came in quick pants.

Portillo tried again. "My name is Hector Portillo, Sam. I'm with the Evanston Police Department. I've been looking for you for a couple days now."

"I met your brother, Dean," he added. "He's pretty worried about you."

At those words, Sam shuddered.

Portillo patted the boy's shoulder. "You okay now?"

"Please," Sam said brokenly, closing his eyes. "Please. I need my brother."

))))))))))))))))))))

The automatic doors to Evanston Memorial Hospital swished open and Dean ran in, Bobby right behind him. Skidding to a halt in front of the nurses' station, Dean gasped, "My brother, Sam Cade! The cops told me he was being brought here!"

"Cade?" The receptionist typed the name into her computer, stilled for an almost imperceptible moment, then she picked up her phone, dialed an extension and spoke quietly for a moment. When she hung up, she smiled reassuringly at the frantic teenager. "Dr. Drake will be right out."

"What? Just tell me –" Dean stilled as Bobby laid a calming hand on his shoulder, spoke quietly into his ear. "Okay. Okay."

It wasn't more than a minute before two men came through the inner doors to the emergency room. One was a doctor in scrubs, a man in his mid-thirties, short, with thinning hair and kind, brown eyes. The man accompanying him was clearly a cop. Hispanic, about John's age, with a thick build and graying black hair.

The doctor looked at Bobby. "Mr. Cade?"

"I'm Dean Cade! Sam's my brother. Is he – is Sam okay?" Dean was so terrified he could barely get the words out.

"He's going to be fine." Dean's breath whooshed out with relief. Bobby patted his shoulder reassuringly.

"I'm Doctor Drake. I've been treating your brother. He has some cuts and bruises, and his hands are a little torn up," the doctor continued, "but we're taking care of that. Emotionally, of course – " he stopped himself, gestured to the man beside him. "This is Detective Portillo."

The detective nodded, looked at Bobby. "And you are?"

"Bobby Singer. I'm the boys' uncle," Bobby answered gruffly. "Their dad's on the road. We haven't been able to reach him."

Portillo nodded. "I'm going to need to speak with you." He turned to the doctor. "If you could take Dean to see his brother?"

Dean wanted to find out what had happened to Sam, but more than that he needed to get to his brother, make sure he was okay. Nothing else mattered, not right now. With an anxious glance at Bobby, he followed Dr. Drake through the swinging doors.

Bobby looked grimly at the detective. "Tell me."

))))))))))))))))))))

Dean followed the doctor down the hall, past cubicles with drawn curtains, the smell of antiseptic, blood and bleach strong in his nostrils. Approaching the last cubicle, outside of which stood a uniformed policeman, the doctor started to pull the curtain back.

"No!"

There was a loud crash. "No! No!"

Dean pushed past the doctor and ripped the curtain back, the policeman right behind him.

Sam stood, back pressed against the wall, eyes dilated and gasping for breath, facing off against a male nurse with a hypodermic.

"Sam!"

His little brother's gaze flashed over to him, eyes hazy, trying to focus.

Dean stepped closer. "It's okay, Sammy, I'm here," he said gently. Assessing green eyes flicked down to his brother's bandaged hands, then back up to his face, the dark bruises and nasty cuts, the agonized eyes. "I'm here."

Sam swayed, gulped. "Dean?" His legs buckled and he went down.

With two long strides, Dean was across the room and down on the floor next to his brother. He pulled him into his arms, onto his lap. "It's okay, Sammy. I got you."

"I got you."