A/N: Ok, here's the second chapter. Am getting through the third – should be up in a couple of days. Thanks so much to you guys who reviewed! Hope you continue to enjoy.

Disclaimer: Still no ownership here. Not even close.

Chapter 2

Dean had pushed any guilt and regret to the back of his mind and was back in full-on hunter mode as he thumped on the front door of Julia's house five minutes later. He yelled the young woman's name as he remembered the terror he'd heard in her voice over the phone. When there was no answer from inside the house, Dean took a step backwards, tensed up to prepare himself, and burst through the front door with one ferocious kick.

He winced at the jarring shock that shot through his whole body at the impact, but quickly pushed the pain to the back of his mind and re-focused on the most important thing – getting Julia out of that house.

He started creeping slowly down the eerily silent hallway, his eyes constantly darting from side to side, on full alert, ready for anything.

As far as he could tell, the spirit seemed to have let up for a minute – he saw no evidence of any poltergeist activity, and the first sound he heard was a stifled sob coming from the kitchen. He pushed open the door slowly and his heart went out to the clearly traumatized young woman cowering in the corner of the room. She was huddled against a cabinet, hugging her knees, rocking gently back and forth, her blonde hair hanging down and covering her face. She flinched and looked up as she heard the gentle creak of the opening door. Tears had marked streaks down her face and she looked petrified. It was a look Dean knew far too well but that still made him feel the same burning rage every time he saw it.

Julia's eyes lit up, her terror lessened by the hope of escape that she saw in the confident, strong young man standing in the doorway, his figure framed by the shadows from the hallway beyond. One of the only people who'd been willing to really listen to her without that patronizing look that she'd seen from so many people since she had started worrying about what was going on in her house. Sure, he was sarcastic and way too self-confident, but he and his brother had been more reassuring and made her feel safer than anyone she knew.

Dean moved quickly across the room, still not letting his guard down for a second despite his concern for Julia, and crouched down in front of her. He placed his hands gently on her shoulders, looked directly into her eyes, spoke softly and calmly: "Hey, it's OK. Don't worry, we're gonna get you out of here." He could see that she wasn't coping – she was breathing in shaky gasps, and the last thing he needed was for her to start hyperventilating or have a panic attack.

"Hey, hey, come on, look at me. It's OK – I'm getting you outta here. Come on, Julia, you with me?" The calmness and softness in his voice seemed to have the desired effect – he saw the determination set into her eyes as she steeled herself to cover the distance to the front door.

"OK," she replied as steadily as she could. Dean admired her attempt to keep control, but was still aware of the telling waver in her voice.

"OK then, come on, let's go." He kept a reassuring hand on her shoulder and maintained steady eye contact as they slowly got to their feet. "Just stay with me now," Dean said softly as he started to guide her back towards the hallway. He could feel her trembling under his touch, and the anger that he'd so far suppressed as much as possible started rising to the surface. It was the same resentment he felt every time he saw a spirit make a victim out of another unsuspecting, innocent person. In that moment he knew it – any lingering doubts he may have had about this hunt, especially about finishing it alone, were out the window. He was going to kill this son-of-a-bitch for what it had done to this woman, and he was going to do it that night.

He set out towards the front door, a renewed determination in his movements, gently encouraging Julia with soft reassurances all the way.

There was still no sign of activity from the poltergeist as they stepped over the now-demolished front door and outside. Dean led Julia quickly down the steps, fixed her with his most determined, what-I-say-goes-and-there-will-be-NO-argument stare, learned from his father, and instructed her: "Right, I'm going back in there to end this thing. You run straight next door and you stay there until I come get you. You hear me?" Dean allowed himself a moment of smug satisfaction as Julia nodded and ran off across the drive. No-one had ever dared to stand up to that look and that tone of voice. No-one but his little brother, and even then, it had taken Sam years to finally build up the courage to face off against their father and argue for his right to his own life. A small smile tugged at the corners of Dean's mouth at the memory of that day. Even though it had broken his heart to see Sammy walk away from them, from their mission, he'd never been more proud of his brother than at that moment.

Snap out of it, he berated himself, interrupting his thought pattern before it wandered off on some ramble through the memories of some of the most emotional, painful moments of his life.

He popped the Impala's trunk, grabbed an axe and started heading back towards the house. With a quick check of his pockets to make sure he had the packets of angelica root he needed, he stepped over the threshold.

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Sam forced his eyes open and reached over clumsily to grab his watch off the table and stop the insistent beeping of the alarm. He suddenly wasn't sure if he was happy he'd decided to set it. Considering the ease with which he'd fallen asleep, he was pretty sure he could do with more than the 45 minutes of rest he'd allowed himself before getting down to some research. He was awake now, though, and so resigned himself wearily to staying that way. He knew his older brother still refused to understand the logic that working at this time would let him sleep all day so he could be refreshed to face the spirit the following night.

He pushed himself up to a sitting position using his elbows and swung his legs down to the floor. Just as he was about to stand up, two things happened to alert Sam that something wasn't right.

First, he realized that Dean wasn't there. He definitely wasn't in the room - there had been no muffled protests from a face buried in the pillows of the other bed at the beeping of the alarm. There was no sound coming from the bathroom either. No running water, no out-of-tune attempts at singing some obscure Metallica single... He wanted to assume that Dean had just gone for a walk to cool off or buy some junk food, but Sam was a worrier, and years of living as their family did had left him with an amazing capacity to jump straight to the worst possible conclusion. Especially when a family member was unexpectedly absent in the middle of the night.

Second, there was the pain. That blinding, head-in-a-vice type migraine, pounding against his skull, the short-notice warning that something really not good was about to happen and he was getting a front-row seat. Recognizing the sensation, Sam attempted to get to his feet – the wave of nausea that accompanied the visions was never fun, and he wanted to at least be near the bathroom, just in case. But the pain intensified even more as he tried to move, and his knees buckled under him. He sank to the floor, clasping his head tightly in his hands as he began to lose focus and everything blurred around him.

"Ah... Dean," he groaned, desperately hoping that he'd been wrong and his brother might still be there. But for once, there was no concerned voice, no older brother rushing immediately to his side to reassure him, to break his fall, to talk him through the pain. Damnit, where is he? "Dean?" he called out one last time, then everything faded to black for the briefest moment before the vision appeared.

Sam could never have prepared himself for this. The horrifying scene that he saw made his blood run cold. Usually it was the details that he tried to focus on, that would lead him and Dean to the person they wanted to help and the thing they wanted to kill. But this time all he could take in was the sickening sight of a room engulfed in flames, a shadowy figure pinned to the ceiling, blood dripping to the floor. Sam could barely cope with the sickeningly familiar horror he felt. And then he registered the scream of anguish, unmistakeably his brother's.

Dean was slumped against a wall of the smoke- and flame-filled room, his face a mask of terror, pain and rage as he stared at the ceiling and cried out. It was an almost inhuman sound, filled with frustration and utter devastation.

Suddenly, the horrifying vision disappeared and Sam once again saw nothing but the murky hotel room. His stomach was churning and it still felt like someone was crushing his head in a vice. For a few moments, he couldn't force himself to move. He would have felt relief that the vision was over and he had the chance to prevent it from coming true, but the look on his brother's face seemed seared into his brain. The worlds of pain and helplessness in that look had terrified him.

It was that image that spurred him into action – that, and the memory of Dean's scream in his mind. He needed to find his brother and they needed to figure out how to stop this, fast. He needed to stop the echoing threat of those two words that had torn from his brother's throat as he'd stared at the figure on the ceiling:

"Noooooooo!!! Sammy!"

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Oh yeah, btw, forgot to mention... I'm way too fond of using cliffhangers as a dramatic device! Yes, I'm one of those evil people...