A.N.: So I have of course taken a lot of medical liberties with this story, mostly because I have never had any of this happen to me. I've been choked out, I remember what it felt like, I didn't have to Google it. Not trying to earn pity or freak anyone out just letting you know that this part of the tale is told to the best of my recollection. As always thanks so much for reading and reviewing, I'm speechless with joy every time I see that someone has reviewed or favorited or read this. :D Bless all of you!

Disclaimer: Nothing, but this experience is mine.

Chapter 7

"Kayla!" My name is barked out.

"How is she?" That voice is softer, but flooded with concern.

"I can't feel anything," a murmur and then there is a finger pressed into the side of my neck.

A heavy sigh. Sam. Sam and Dean?

"Anything?"

"I can't tell. My stupid hand is shaking, dammit!"

"You want me to,"

"No I got it, come on," desperation is laced in that voice.

"Did you?"

"Yahtzee!" The finger presses a bit harder and I feel my pulse flutter against his skin.

I sputter back into awareness, gasping for air as I am pulled up into an embrace; another hand reaches over and clutches my elbow. Mindless greedy gulping turns into harsh breathing as someone mumbles "Easy, easy." like I am a spooked horse.

"Sam is she..."

"She took a steel toed boot to the face Dean, she won't be getting up anytime soon." he confirms.

"Good." his voice sounds as harsh as the sounds I make as I come back a piece at a time.

Safe, I'm safe. Is Sam? Is he okay? What happened?

My whole body fights the urge to convulse as I struggle to realize that the girl no longer has her hands around my throat.

"The girl?" I croak out as Dean pushes away to look at me.

"She's okay Kayla, she's knocked out." the voice I recognize as Sam's states.

I nod into the leather and rasp "Good." not sure which fact I mean it for.

Deans' hands are at my throat, the tips of his knuckles brushing the skin.

Even that hurts.

"Sorry, just needed to check. You'll have some bruises, but..." he swallows hard. "It could be worse."

I raise a shaky hand to give him a thumbs up and he laughs, the sound wobbling as it escapes.

Another body moves by my side. Sam? Sam. Another set of hands check me. I feel like I am still drifting through blackness as Sam says. "She wasn't choked long enough for the trachea to close. Thank God."

"Only reason that bitch is still alive." Bitterness. Anger. Dean.

He moves from my side and I would have fallen if not for Sam's strong and steady hand on my arm.

Guess I am back to being weak and helpless, awesome.

"Dean?"

"What?"

"Don't do anything crazy okay?" Sam pleads, always so worried for his brother.

There is a noise of something being hauled from the ground and swung into what sounds like my computer chair before he plops down back by his brother. I can just see the top of their heads, as I try to move my head down to get caught in those hazel eyes. It takes too much effort and the boys just watch me as I work to slow my breathing and will their image to stop swimming into a blob version of the Winchester brothers.

I gulp down another two deep lungfuls of air and finally feel like I can stand up. There is a hand held out to either side of me. I place one arm in both of them and I am lifted gently to my feet. I wonder briefly if I will ever be able to get back to a life free of bloodshed and horror and death before Sam lifts my eyelids, shining a pen light into them.

"The hell?" I grumble, pushing away from the light.

"Her pupils are reactive, I think we dodged a bullet," Sam states, tucking the light back into his pocket.

"You sure?" Dean lets go from behind to move in front of me and I sway, one hand catching on my bookshelf to steady myself.

"Yeah," Sam gives my arm a light squeeze. "I'm sure. She's going to be okay Dean."

A hand on my throat again, no pressure this time. I still flinch.

"Just has a necklace to show for it." he says, rage still evident in his voice.

"I'm a huge fan of jewelry," I cough out and both of them stare at me.

Sam snorts first, then Dean and finally me. In this line of work you have to take your joy where you can find it.

It's fifteen minutes later and my throat is still sore as all get out, but more words make their way past my abused windpipe.

"What happened?" I ask before I take a drink from my water bottle.

Dean nods his head towards his brother.

"Sam here thought he heard something upstairs so he came to check on you. Unfortunately he was slow moving and drugged, but I was coming in from packing up the Impala and heard you cry out. Got here just in time to save the day." his smile is forced and Sam looks almost guilty, like maybe he thinks it's his fault that he isn't in the condition to come flying up those stairs and save me.

I reach across and take his hand. "Thank you guys, you saved my life." I hiss out a quiet huff of laughter. "Again."

"Another thirty seconds and you would have stopped breathing. We were almost too late." Sam admits, his head bowed.

"Almost," I agree and squeeze the long fingered appendage in my hand. "But not too late."

His smile doesn't quite make it to his eyes as he nods, but it's enough. For now...it's enough.

"What about you?" Dean begins. "What was Blondie here doing in your room?"

I shake my head. "I don't know. I woke up and she was just there, coming in through the window. We fought and then she got on top of me and," I pause, the feel of phantom fingers biting into my skin still too close for comfort.

"Kinky." Dean snorts eliciting a roll of the eyes from Sam.

"Dean! Seriously man, you have a problem." The only thing the comment is missing is a waggling finger.

I chuckle, taking more comfort from these two loveable idiots than I am willing to admit.

If I had been alone...

"Then what happened?" Sam breaks me out of my thoughts as he urges me to continue.

"Right. Um...you guys came in. That's it."

I gesture to the unconscious blonde. "Is she going to be okay?"

Sam bobs his head. "Yeah, we are just waiting for her to wake up now."

I think back to her eyes, so young, so scared, and so conflicted. The eyes of a person trapped.

"I feel bad for her." I mumble, as Dean lets out another snort.

"You sure pick the wrong people to have a bleeding heart for Kayla." he grumbles as I meet his eyes.

They are tortured, haunted, hope glimmering just below the surface, the same eyes of his brother.

I shake my head sadly. "No, I pick the right ones."

Neither one of them have anything to say to that.

When the girl finally wakes up Sam and Dean exchange looks before both moving off to the side. Sam leans in and whispers something in Dean's ear that makes him frown, before Dean takes my hand and leads me out of the room. I'm not really sure what is going on, but Dean has his mission face on again and I am not about to argue.

At the bottom of the stairs he releases my hand, face dark as he moves away from me. My compassion doesn't quite make it past my fear as I watch him go.

I need something to do with my hands, so I start cleaning. I'm dusting in the living room when Sam emerges from my room, coming down the stairs; his eyes hold a world of pain as I greet him.

"Is she okay?" I ask.

He shakes his head and the door clicks as Dean comes back in from outside. Sam looks at a loss for words as Dean calls out. "Sam?"

He looks at his brother, drawing strength from the eldest Winchester, and takes a long, slow breath before he states. "We've got problems."

'Problems' seem like such an understatement for the mountain of shit we are being buried under.

"The girls name is Anne Winters, she is 19," Sam pauses and I know he is thinking the same thing that I am. So young...how does someone end up trapped so young?

"She uh...she met the governor on a chat site, he talked to her for several months, lying about everything, telling her about how special she is and how much he loved her and earning her trust. He started off asking her to do small things, not tell her dad about them, text him every night, you know just to see if she would listen. Then he started asking her to do more and more for him. She got nervous and scared and tried to bail." Sam's voice lapses into silence.

"Sammy?"

"Yeah sorry, um…anyway when she didn't do what he wanted her to do he told her who he really was and then he threatened her mother. Her mother has been in the hospital in Albuquerque with leukemia for close to a year now, getting better and then worse, trying to fight through the chemo but her family doesn't have the money for much more care, a couple of weeks at best and he promised her that if she did what she was told he would have her mother given the best care available for the rest of her life...if not," He stops his face turning grim. "Take a guess."

"Fucking bastard!" Dean growls, and slams his fist on the table.

Tears sting my eyes. "That's awful." I gasp and Sam gives a nod, his puppy eyes on full blast.

"So what do we do now?" I ask.

"I don't know." Sam shrugs "But we have to do something."

"What do you mean?"

"He means we need to get rid of her." Dean states.

"What?"

"That's not what I," Sam begins before being cut off by Dean.

"They are going to come looking for her and soon I would imagine." His stance is back to regimental, his eyes cold.

I rise out of my seat. "So we let her go, she can tell them I'm dead,"

"It doesn't work that way, we let her go and we're dead. I'm sure they aren't going to send another girl to check and see if the job was done right. And I don't know if you noticed, but we aren't exactly equipped to deal with thugs."

"The good news is, she didn't know about us Dean. She was supposed to kill Kayla and then burn the house down that way people would just think it was another tragedy, they wouldn't think twice." Sam retorts from his side of the table.

"Great, see?" Dean throws back as he turns towards me. "We let her go and she'll crack. I mean the whole thing sucks, but it's what needs to be done."

"No," I say quietly.

"So," he runs a hand through his hair. "I'll take care of this and then we pack up and go."

Sam starts to argue and I feel like I'm going to be sick.

"Dean, there has to be another way,"

"Sam! Look I don't like this either, but it's her or us," he pauses and something tells me if it ever came down to Sam vs. anything, Sam would always win.

"NO!" I bellow and slap a palm onto the table. Both brothers look up at me in surprise.

"This is my fucking house and nobody is dying in it! If that means we have to get creative, bend some rules, do some crazy shit, than that's what we will do, got it!" I'm livid, my whole form shaking in anger.

Dean breaks the gaze first, Sam looks scared. Have they been around any women? Ever? Jeez...

"Scarier than Ellen," Sam whispers and Dean nods his head, his eyes wide.

I take their silence as agreement as I address Sam. "Sam, when was she supposed to meet up with him? Were they doing it over the phone or in person?"

"Um...In person. Tonight, after she finished the job she was supposed to meet up with him at the hotel. He said she could go home in the morning and everything with her mom's care would be arranged at the hospital." Sam rushes through the information.

Dean looks like he wants to hit something, a muscle working overtime in his jaw. "Sick fuck." he grits out and I am inclined to agree.

"Okay," I start, a plan already beginning to form in my head. "So if he has never met her, it's a good guess that he has no idea what she looks like, right?"

They both shrug with a look that says "duh."

"Sam, ask her what her profile picture was of." I order and Sam looks puzzled but trots back up the steps.

Dean stares at me confused, eyes tracing my face. What he is trying to read there I can't be sure and I might have asked but Sam comes back down at that exact moment.

"Well?" I urge.

"She said she was worried that no one would like her if she put up a picture of herself so she had a picture of true loves kiss from The Princess Bride."

"Dude!" Dean pipes up. "Love that movie! Rodents of usual size...classic." he shakes his head with a smile, looking years younger than he is.

Sam smiles back, just for a moment, his face softening. An unbidden image of Sam and Dean as children, fighting over a bowl of popcorn invades my mind, and I wonder if life was ever that simple for them.

I shake the image from my head, wiping the Winchesters as kids from my mind. Back to business.

"Okay good. That's perfect."

"For what?" Unison again. Did they know it was really creepy, or ridiculously cute? I haven't decided on which one yet.

"For me to go in undercover."

Deans face screws up with hatred of this plan and Sam looks at me with something akin to humor.

"I thought you said she was fine man." Dean hisses.

"She is." he retorts.

"Really because she seems pretty crazy to me. Like off her rocker type of crazy." Dean shoots back.

"You know I can hear you." I state, patiently waiting for them to quit their bickering. "You're like an old married couple I swear," I huff under my breath.

They both shuffle a couple of steps away from each other, crossing their arms over their chests. It's all I have in me not to laugh my ass off.

"Look I hate to agree with Dean here, but your plan is a little,"

"Crazy! It's crazy; it's had your head knocked around one too many times crazy."

I glare at Dean and choose to ignore his barb as I turn back towards Sam. "Look we disguise me, he has no idea what she looks like, and so it would be easy to pretend to be her. I avoid his goons, gather information, and find Bailey."

Sam cuts me off this time. "If he even has her." It is said gently, but the fact that his argument is discrediting my plan ticks me off a little bit. "Kayla, your plan is running on a lot of ifs. That's all I'm saying."

Yeah it is. If the governor doesn't recognize me, if he doesn't have Bailey, if he doesn't kill me just for the hell of it...oh yeah it's full of ifs, but it's all we have.

"If I can sell it Sam, it will work." I declare, daring him to challenge me.

Sam backs down, Dean doesn't.

"You're not going to be able to sell it; you're going to get yourself killed." Dean says, face stony.

"You don't know that." I reply, my comment heated.

He approaches me now, a breathe away.

"What good are you going to be to Bailey if you're dead?" he asks and his statement cuts me through the heart.

"What good am I to her here, chasing my tail?" I spit out before I can stop myself, rising up against him.

His hand shoots out and grips my arm, hard. "Can I talk to you for just a second?" The words are polite, the tone is not.

"Sure." I grit out and snatch my arm out of his grasp as he leads me to the laundry room.

He paces the floor before he lifts his head to stare at me with a bitter laugh.

"What is," he begins, shaking his head with another sharp chuckle. "You're a piece of work you know that?" It's not really a question so much as an insult.

I blow a breath out through my teeth. "Right back at you."

"You're not a professional, you're not a hunter, you're nothing but a scared little girl who's in over her head." he growls and keeps his distance, but his words hit home.

How dare he? HOW DARE HE! Just because he and Sam have been raised in this life it gives them the right to lay their lives on the line for each other. He should understand...the way he loves Sam, he should understand.

I can feel my eyes go hard. "So let me make sure I've got this straight, it was okay for me to go with you to track down the Tascona, but I'm completely inept at this?" My voice rings out.

Dean glances at me before talking very slowly, as if I don't have the ability to comprehend what he is going to tell me. "The Tascona is a monster, a monster that Sam and I know a little something about, we could back you up and make sure you didn't get yourself killed, but this..." he breaks off, his hands clenching into fists. "You want to rush in like you're friggin Rambo and fight a monster we have no information on, put your life in the hands of chance."

"It's not your job to give me permission Dean, I'm doing it."

"Like hell you are." He is a few feet away from me and God, the man is stubborn.

"What do you care anyway? I'm not your responsibility, and you're leaving soon. You'll be out of my life and back to your own in no time." It's said bitterly and I honestly had no intention of those words coming out of my mouth.

Damn you, subconscious.

He stops pacing meets me head on. "What the hell do you want from me Kayla?" he asks and I'd be a moron if I didn't hear the sliver of uncertainty in his voice.

I want him to trust me, I want him to let me save my sister, I want him to be able to rely on me to help him and Sam for once, and I want him.

"The truth," I start. "I just want the truth."

"Truth?" he laughs "That's not really something I'm familiar with." He moves a little bit closer to me.

"Please," I sigh. And it's a request for so many things.

His answering sigh is so deep and heavy it makes me feel like maybe I've made the wrong move and then he speaks. "The truth is I like you okay."

Like me? I mean I like him, what's not to like, but what could he possibly see in me? Maybe he just feels an obligation to protect me. Some built in Winchester gene to try and save all those around them.

"You're funny, you're kind, you're tough, you're bullheaded, and you are easy on the eyes." he murmurs and I wonder, not for the first time, if he can read minds.

My mouth is unable to fathom a response as my heart turns into pudding in my chest.

"You're sexy especially since you have no idea you're sexy, you're smart, you're quick witted, and you have me opening up like a damn fortune cookie."

More silence from me, my mouth agape, oh yeah I'm all sorts of sexy.

"So yeah, I'm not too fond of the idea of you running headlong into trouble. But you seem to be hell bent on it. You're worse than Sam." he jokes and he looks clearly uncomfortable now that the moment of truth has passed.

I let out a dry chuckle at that as Dean inquires "Kayla?"

I nod before smiling lopsided at him. "Yeah? Sorry, I got kind of stuck on the 'you like me' part."

His smile is cute and shy as his hands cup my face. I didn't even know he could look shy.

"See, what did I tell you? Sexy." And this time when he kisses me, I am more than happy to return the favor.

It doesn't last nearly as long as I would like, my hands are just moving to curl up into his hair when a cough from our side breaks us apart.

Sam looks embarrassed and triumphant all at the same time as he says. "Oh sorry, I was just checking to see if you guys were done with your conversation." And the way he sucks back a laugh has me thinking for the first time he's definitely a little brother.

I stumble backwards, away from Dean and his hands, feeling regret with every step I take. Dammit Sam, you have terrible timing.

Dean must be thinking the same thing because when he speaks up his voice is seething "Did you need something Sam?"

"No sorry, I'll just..." he doesn't finish the sentence just moves to get back out of the room.

We turn back towards each other and this time I place a hand on his chest and his fingers play with a rebellious lock of my hair.

"I can do this Dean." I say and hope it sounds as confident as I need it to.

"I know," the tip of his chin touches the top of my head. "I just don't want you to."

My heart clenches in my chest, but really there is nothing that can change my mind. It's not like he or Sam can take my place. We are running out of options and time and Bailey needs me. So I just whisper back. "I know."

Thank God I'm a bit of a pack rat, I think as I dig through my closet, coming up with a blonde wig and a tube of fake tanner. For the first time since the split, I'm thankful my ex was a nut for Halloween and made us spring for the expensive costumes. The wig looks about as real as you can get besides actually having blonde hair. I'm pulling out different dresses I have when my body alerts me to another presence in the room. I don't even jump this time, I know its Dean.

"Find what you were looking for?" he asks.

"Yeah," I turn to him, blonde wig in my hand. "I think so."

"Where the hell did you get all this stuff anyway? You have a secret job as a spy?"

I laugh. "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

He grins. "So what's the plan Kayla?"

"The plan is for you to get out of here so I can change." I shoo him out the door.

I slide the lock into place and drop my clothes to the ground. Anne has told me everything she knows, and unfortunately, that one piece of vital information I need, that Bailey is alive is not one of those things. She is a little bit heavier than me, with long blonde hair, and tan skin. Her eyes are brown underneath her blue contacts; blondes are prettier with blue eyes she had sobbed. Poor girl, she is just another person dragged into terrible circumstances by making one mistake. Her voice is higher pitched than mine and I have to practice several times before I get it almost perfect. She had called the governor right away and let him know that the job got a little messy and she is cleaning up and getting changed and would be a little late. She told him how sorry she was and that she would make it up to him. I am surprised by her ability to keep her cool since she is swallowing back bile as soon as the line disconnects.

The wig still fits very well, lying on my head like a golden halo as blonde ringlets curl around my shoulders. I attach a broad choker to my neck; I need something to cover up the bruises. I fluff the fake hair around my face and hear Dean say from the other end of the door. "So what, were you Barbie for Halloween?"

I chuckle into my palm. "What?"

"Well the blonde wig..."

"I was a zombie Paris Hilton."

He chortles from the other side. "Zombie Paris Hilton? Awesome."

"What did you dress up as?" I ask back.

There is a long pause.

"Dean?"

"Not really into the whole Halloween thing." he states.

"Why?"

"When you hunt people's worst nightmares it just doesn't hold the same appeal." he says.

"Yeah, I guess dressing up as Darth Vader would be pretty anti-climactic after you've bagged a baddie. Or whatever the hell you two end up hunting." I chuckle and slide into skin tight jeans.

"What haven't we hunted?" he calls back.

I shrug even though he can't see me. "I don't know, Casper?"

"Hey, that's not true. Been there, done that. That little bastard is far from friendly."

I giggle. "Oh really?"

"Well maybe not Casper. Sure as hell not the cartoony smiling gay looking blob version. You get the idea."

"Yeah." I retort. I'm beginning to.

There is a pause in the conversation as I zip up each of my boots. My mind can't even begin to conjure up when I am sure he and Sam have both seen.

As if he knows the turn that my brain has taken he coughs and then states.

"Anyway, I don't think I would ever be Vader, unless I got a light saber. That would be cool."

I adjust my hot pink tank top. "I see you more as a Han Solo."

"Yeah?" He questions. "I already have my chewbacca." he laughs.

"So the Impala is the Millennium Falcon." I muse.

"And you are," he pauses as I open the door with a smirk.

"Somebody has to save our skins,"

I can't read what's in his eyes as he leans in to close the door behind me.