Sam winced, curling in on himself to escape the pain. "Oh, shit."

He smashed his face into the pillow, squeezing his eyes shut against the sunlight. One hand came up to his temple, the other pinned awkwardly beneath his ribs. His mouth felt tacky and tasted stale. His arms ached. His stomach cramped and seized with nausea. If it were this bad now, Sam really didn't want to open his eyes.

"Fuck," he whimpered and tried to massage away the throbbing in his head. Even closed, his eyes felt ready to pop out of his skull. This was no hangover. A hunt gone wrong? He couldn't remember hunting anything…

"Dean?"

Silence rang loudly in his ears. Sam listened harder, shivering under the thin sheets.

He was alone.

Of all the times for his brother to not hover, this was the worst. Steeling himself, Sam inhaled deeply. Wait, what was that smell? It was familiar, metallic and thick; all encompassing now that he noticed it. Foreboding chilled his veins.

Blood.

Sam opened his eyes and the feeling increased tenfold. This was not the hotel room he and Dean had checked into. With apprehension twisting his gut, Sam heaved himself half-way upright, resting on his elbows as he blinked away the fuzzy vertigo.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, his elbows on his knees as he dropped his head into his hands. The mild change in altitude left him in a blind whirlwind and Sam swallowed past the nausea. When it at last subsided, he opened his eyes and looked at the blankets covering his lap.

Blood splatters stained the snow-colored linen in large and irregular splotches. Sam's breath caught in his throat as he straightened, taking it all in.

That's when he saw the hand.

It lay limply beside him; palm turned upwards, manicured fingernails caked with dried blood. An arm, smooth and tan. A delicate shoulder. Long, wavy hair, matted with dark blood. A painted face, lax and colorless in its innocence.

Nicole.

Sam leapt to his feet and tumbled backwards, banging loudly against the wall like a caged animal. She was dead; there was no question about it. So much blood, her skin so pale and greenish. Empty eyes pinned him to the spot, staring into the most private depths of his soul. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move.

Oh God.

Sam looked around the room, looked for help. His gaze fell to the nightstand beside him. A clock, an ugly brass lamp, a bible, his cell phone… and his jagged hunting scythe, coated in blood. His gaze dropped to his hands.

Covered in dried, flaking blood.

No. It wasn't possible. He couldn't have done this. He remembered being in the bar, being with Dean. Remembered Nicole flirting shamelessly. Remembered the fight. But the rest… it was blank. Why couldn't he remember anything?

"Dean?" he called again on instinct. "Dean!"

Silence echoed him, broken by the sound of his own heart racing. What happened? Where was he? Who did this?

He needed Dean. His phone. Where were his things? He would call Dean; Dean would know what to do. Dean would help him.

Numbly, Sam stretched forward and snatched the cell phone, careful to avoid the knife. Then, after casting one more look at Nicole's mutilated body, he staggered to the bathroom and shut and locked the door behind him.

Sam leaned back against the door, reveling in the feeling of solidness between him and the gruesome scene on the bed. His knees would no longer support him and he slid to the floor, coming to a stop on the unforgiving tile. He shivered again, his fist clenching around the phone, bile bubbling up his throat. He swallowed it down and brought the phone up to his face.

53 missed calls.

What? He frowned and blinked. That couldn't be right. 53 calls in one night? What the hell was going on? How? When? The pain made it impossible to think and he brought one hand to his head, rubbing at the knifing pain in his temple, and checked the caller ID.

Dean.

With trembling, blood-stained fingers, Sam pushed the 'call' button and brought the phone to his ear.

It didn't even complete the first ring.

"Sam?"

Relief flooded through him. "Dean."

"Thank God- where the hell are you? Are you hurt?"

Dean's voice was deep and sharp. Sam winced, closing his eyes. "Dean… something happened. I don't know where I am… and there's a body-"

"Sam, calm down! Tell me-"

Suddenly he was suffocating, trapped beneath a heavy blanket of fear and confusion. He crawled to the toilet just in time to throw up, violently purging his already empty stomach. His head hung low as bitter bile dripped from his lips.

Dean shouted so loudly the phone vibrated on the tile. Sam picked it up, shakily bringing it to his ear as he hung limply over the porcelain. "Dean, I think I may have killed her."

"What? Killed who? Where the fuck are you, it's been two days, Sam!"

He closed his eyes, praying his eyeballs didn't explode from their sockets. "Nicole. She's dead. My knife…"

"Nicole? Smokin' hot chick from the other night?"

He could still feel her cold, dead gaze upon him, as clear as any of his visions had ever been.

Visions.

Sam lifted his head, blinking against the bright light. That's exactly what his headache felt like, the after-affects of an onslaught of ill-fated premonitions. The pain was the same, if not more intense. Earlier… had he been stuck in a vision when Nicole was killed? Is that why he couldn't remember? Or had the demon finally found a way to use the visions against him?

"SAM!"

"I killed her, Dean," he blurted, his throat tightening painfully, staring at his hands. "It's my knife; the demon must have been controlling me during a vision. I can't remember anything, my head hurts-"

"Tell me where you are," Dean ground out. "I'm on my way, just tell me where I'm going."

Frustration swelled inside of him, pinching his throat. "I don't know," he whispered brokenly.

"Sam, stay with me. Look at the pad of paper in the drawer. Look at the back of the door, where the fire escape route is. Tell me the name of the hotel."

Sam got to his knees. "I killed her Dean. There's blood all over… I should call the cops."

"No! You didn't kill anyone, you hear me? Don't do anything- we'll figure this out when I get there."

Sam reached for the door, his hand crashing into the knob as his fingers refused to flex. He managed to get it unlocked, and the pulled it open, hitting his own foot. He stumbled around the door and seemed to float across the carpet. "This was his plan for me all along. I'm a puppet." The words resonated in his chest. The demon had gotten control. It had won.

"You are nobody's puppet but mine, Sam."

He found himself in front of the nightstand, staring at the 'Property of' stamp on the bible. His head swam. Sam relayed the hotel name to Dean and turned to face the wall, purposely avoiding the bloody corpse.

"Don't move, you hear me? Stay there, I'm ten minutes away."

Sam ended the call and the silence swallowed him. He squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in air until his lungs might burst, then slowly blew it out. It didn't help. He could still smell the blood, the faint scent of spicy perfume. His hands shook as he stared at the phone, at the dark lines of dried blood around his fingernails.

Sam brought both hands to his head, trying to rub away the pain. He should call the police but Dean had ordered him not to do anything. His mind swirled with indecision. To do what was right. To wait for his brother. She was dead. Nicole was dead. The cell phone fell from his limp fingers, landing with a soft thud at his feet. Sam grabbed his head, trying to stop the train of thought from its damning conclusions. He killed her.

As sudden wave of nausea brought him to his knees. He knelt on the thin carpeting, panting as his body rejected the lingering traces of evil in his veins. He couldn't do this. He couldn't live with himself knowing that he was a cold-blooded killer. The devil's pawn. Sam stared at the white wall in front of him, watching helplessly as his mind projected violent images of death and carnage.

His future.

Someone pounded on the door and Sam blinked, bringing the room back into focus. "Sam! It's me, open the damn door!"

Dean. Sam pushed to his feet wearily, his knees protesting from the passage of time, and made his way to the door, pulling it open just as Dean was preparing to kick it in.

Dean grabbed Sam by the shoulders, his grip tight, real. "Jesus, Sammy- thank God. Are you okay? Did you see the demon? Is it here?"

Sam heard the voice, heard the concern, but the words were blurred and muted. His brain was overloaded, shutting down. He stared blankly at Dean before saying at last, "The demon's not here. I never saw it. Dean-"

But Dean moved past him, standing at the foot of the bed. "Shit," he whispered, then glanced at Sam apologetically.

"I-"

"Stay there," Dean ordered, schooling his features. Taking control. He quickly pulled up the blankets on either side of the body, concealing her body and most of the blood. "We'll figure this out," he said, facing Sam. "First we have to get out of here. Are you hurt?"

"We have to call the cops," Sam shot back. "I have to turn myself in."

"No." Dean moved around, searching. "Did you bring anything with you?"

"Dean, I killed a person!"

"We don't know what happened," he said coolly. "Did you touch anything?"

"I killed her with my knife. The demon took control during a vision and he made me do this. This was his plan for me. It's finally happened."

Dean grabbed his shoulders, shaking him once. "Listen to me," Dean growled, "You did not do this. I don't know what the fuck happened here or where the hell you've been for the last two days, but this is not your fault, understand me?"

Sam tilted his head, noticing every line of stress and fatigue aging his brother's face. "Two days?" he asked quietly. What the hell had happened in those two days?

"Come on, let's get out of here."

They were in the Impala, speeding down the highway when Dean spoke again. "We were leaving Ellen's. We were helping her clean up from the fight, remember? We were almost done, you said you would wait outside, that you needed some air. You were only gone for five minutes, man, I swear. When I came outside, you were gone."

Sam struggled to remember but only succeeded in increasing the pain in his head. He winced, rubbing his temple. "No, I can't remember…"

And that was almost as scary as finding a mutilated body in bed next to him.

"It's okay," Dean offered, giving Sam a meaningful glance. "We'll figure this out later, okay?"

"No. I'm serious, Dean. I'm turning myself in. It'll be safer for everyone."

"Fuck safety. What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty', huh? I'm not letting you throw yourself to the wolves."

"I'd be doing what's right."

"Doing what's right would be finding out what the hell happened here," Dean snapped. He ran a hand over his head and stared at the road. "Okay, look. We'll call the cops once we get to Ellen's and report the body. Deal? That way, if we figure out what really happened and you still wanna incriminate yourself, half the paperwork will already be done."

Sam pictured the bundle on the bed, still and silent in the stark room. The police would take care of the body; see to it that Nicole's body was returned to her family. Dean was right- all he would have to do later is confess.

"Okay."

Dean smiled then, his shoulders dropping. "Okay."

As Dean urged the car to fly a little faster, Sam sat woodenly against the door and waited, absently scraping the blood out from under his fingernails.