Disclaimer – Not my characters, I just use them improperly

You like? You don't like? Review and tell me why! (Constructive criticism only please, if you don't like the subject, don't read the story.) If you haven't read Full Moon, Fast Cars and Cracks in the Glass yet, you'll probably want to read those first or this probably won't make sense… Betaed by the wonderful Phx :)

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, I loved hearing your thoughts :) There's only a few chapters left, but they're gonna be long ones, so I hope you guys enjoy…

Chapter 18

The pounding of his head pulled Dean slowly back into awareness. He felt like someone had smashed a sledgehammer into the top of his skull and his brain was leaking out of the cracks. His eyes didn't want to open, and he let out a low moan, wishing with everything he had for just a few more seconds of pain-free unconscious bliss.

His fingers were prickling with pin-and-needles and he tried to roll over, but his arms wouldn't follow his body, no matter how much he wriggled and tugged. The frown that creased his face made the ache in his head flare up bright and instantly he stilled, waiting for the multiple strange sensations to recede. It occurred to him that something was holding his hands together behind his back. He was strapped in place, sitting upright on a hard surface that pressed the seam of his jeans into his tailbone uncomfortably.

Stop. Investigate.

Cautiously, he cracked one eye open, tilting his head downwards so the dim afternoon light wouldn't hit him full in the face.

Light? It had been evening the last time he looked, night falling across Missouri's peaceful back yard.

Missouri. Missouri, with yellow eyes, bitch-slapping him and then knocking him out with a stamp to the head.

Fuck.

He lifted his head slowly, trying to keep his scrambled brains from sloshing about too much. It felt like he'd been on the mother of all benders; his mouth was sticky-dry and his entire body felt like it would shake apart if he wasn't tied up. Tied up to a bed post, he noted, numb fingers brushing against the round wooden shaft keeping them pinned behind his back. To his left, he could see the corner of a duvet poking off a mattress, a bright pink swirl assaulting his vision and making him wince. He craned his neck upwards, noting an abundance of pink fluffy pillows stacked on the bed, some with feathers stitched onto the edges, one with the words Hot Chick emblazoned across the front in silver sparkles.

Where the fuck was he?

He twisted his neck around, gritting his teeth against the groan. Stacked on top of the pink bed of ultimate girliness was another – bunk beds – and this one had a white bed sheet hanging over the safety bar. A white bed sheet with a smiling red car on the corner. Dean vaguely remembered Sam watching some downloaded Disney movie with that car in it.

A broken gasp to his left made him start, his head spinning to look. Unfortunately the movement only made his vision swirl in psychedelic patterns that felt like lightning sparks to his sore eyes. When his eyes cleared, he could hear quiet stifled crying coming from the other end of the bed.

"Sam?" The word felt clumsy on his tongue. He blinked, seeing a thin browned arm handcuffed back around the other leg of the bed. It didn't look like Sam's.

"Dean?" His name was a gasp at the end of a sob. Margaret's tear-stained face appeared around the corner of the bed. Her black hair was a tangle around her face, sticking to her clammy cheeks. There was a swollen bruise high on her cheekbone. "Is-is that…you?"

"Margaret. What the fuck?"

"Are you…" Her face crumpled for a second before she visibly pulled her emotions back. "If you're…one of them…"

"One of who?" He frowned, ignoring the ache in his forehead. "Did Missouri do this to you?"

Her lower lip wobbled and she held his gaze for a second before her breath hitched and her hair fell to cover her face. "Missouri…"

"She's possessed. By a demon." Dean glanced at the doorway. "Where are we? When did you see her?"

"She came…while we were having breakfast this morning. I thought…" Her voice dissolved. "She said she wanted to borrow some eggs. I…opened the door."

"She would have gotten in anyway." Dean said, swallowing back the urge to yell, demand answers she didn't have. "A demon is stronger than a human. If she wanted to get in, she would have broken down the door."

With a deep shaky breath, Margaret tossed her hair back. "We're in my…my childrens' room. I've been trying to free my wrists, but the handcuffs are too tight. The bed's too heavy to lift."

Dean squeezed his eyes closed, knocking his head gently against the bed frame. "Damnit." He muttered softly. After a moment, he sucked in a breath. There wasn't time to sit around feeling sorry for himself. Sam was in danger, and he didn't even know it.

It was ridiculous; Sam was probably less than thirty feet away from him right now, and he couldn't do anything. At least once he got out of here there wouldn't be far to go to get to the kid. It was just a matter of actually getting out.

His eyes drifted around the room, looking for anything he could use to pick the lock of his handcuffs. There were fluffy pink pens, pencils, a notepad with a wire-bound spine and a picture of a dog on the front that would probably work if it wasn't on the desk on the other side of the room. Most of the room looked like it had been taken over by Kiera, covered in little-girl prettiness. There was a toy garage that probably belonged to Charlie in one corner, a pile of toy dinosaurs surrounded by Lego in a neat arrangement beside it, like the little boy had left the toys in mid-play.

Something occurred to him as he looked over the room, and he turned to face Margaret again. Her head hung on her neck, her hair lank. "Margaret? Where are Kiera and Charlie?"

A stifled sob. "I don't know. She…she hit me. I didn't see…" Her small frame shuddered. "I don't know where they are."

The back door was open. Sam stood motionless at the kitchen table, his hand gripping the back of a chair. He took a long breath, forcing himself to step towards that rectangle of open air. Nothing was there, nothing would hurt him. No one was hiding just beyond the door, waiting to pounce.

"Sam? Would you like some supper? I've got some chicken thawing in the refrigerator? Or I could make you an omelette?" Missouri's voice made him start, but he hid the reaction before it could show on his face.

"No, thanks."

She sighed. "You have to eat something, sweetheart. I know you're upset, but there's no point in making yourself sick. You need to keep your strength up." The scrape as she pulled a chair out made him tense up.

"I'm fine. Thanks. I've made some coffee." He waved a hand at the barely-touched mug on the counter. Black, like Dean drank it. He'd tried to drink it bitter too, but it made his tongue curl. Loading it with sugar killed the bad taste but he couldn't take more than a couple of sips before putting it down, as if the act of sweetening his drink meant that he'd failed Dean in some way. He wasn't as strong as the older man, couldn't even take his coffee like Dean did.

Couldn't even step outside the door.

His headache had receded to a dull throb, like someone was knocking gently but repetitively on a door in his mind. He breathed through it, could almost pretend it wasn't there, except for the occasional sharp spike.

"I'll make you some food." Missouri stood suddenly, coming up behind him. He didn't turn to look at her, but he could feel the warmth of her body at his arm. "You don't have to eat it, but maybe you'll decide you're hungry after all."

He pulled his lips in a false smile. "Maybe."

"It's not the end of the world, you know. Dean's done a terrible thing, but at least now you know how far you can trust him." Sam could hear the disgust in her voice as she spoke.

He swallowed down the retort, forcing it to the back of his mind. He could trust Dean. He did trust Dean.

"I'll be here if you ever want to talk about it, honey. Anytime." Missouri continued to the accompaniment of drawers being opened, plates and cutlery being arranged neatly on the kitchen table. "You should know that I'm here for you."

Sam bit down on the inside of his cheek. "Yeah." He'd trust Dean to the end of the world. Dean promised he wouldn't leave him. He promised.

Where the fuck was he?

"Damnit!" Dean wrenched at his bound arms in frustration, ignoring the bite of metal around his wrists.

"Calm down, Dean." Margaret hissed, her eyes darting to the open doorway. So far, Missouri hadn't been back to check on them. "Just take a breath and try again."

He closed his eyes, sucking in a deep breath as instructed, and started to wriggle forward. His arms pulled painfully, but he used the leverage to shuffle his butt along the carpeted floor, his leg stretched towards the wheelie desk chair. It had slipped to the side on his last attempt, almost out of reach, but if he could just hook a toe around the bottom…

His booted foot brushed the plastic and he stilled for a moment, holding himself steady. It would be easier if he wasn't wearing boots. They were big and clumsy and he couldn't feel a thing through the leather. But he would make do.

He'd have to make do.

Across the room Margaret gasped quietly, holding her breath. Slowly, so slowly, he twisted the toe of his boot around the wheel of the chair. If he could position it right, he could maybe kick the back of the chair into the desk. Then that spiral-bound dog notebook might slip from its position on the edge of the desk. Once it was on the floor, he'd have to devise some way of reaching it, because he knew for damn sure his leg wouldn't stretch that far, but it would be progress. They'd be a step closer to escape.

Carefully, he nudged the chair over, rolling it in small increments towards him. The last thing he needed was to use too much force and kick the thing across the room. His arms burned from the strain and his head throbbed in sympathy, but he gritted his teeth and ignored it.

The chair eased its way into position, and he allowed a moment to chuff a breath of air – the closest thing he could afford to a yell of triumph – and then, aiming carefully, he kicked it forward with all his strength.

The back of the chair hit the desk at an angle and spun around on its pivot, the seat tucking neatly under the desk, out of his reach. The notebook didn't even wobble.

Margaret stifled a desperate sob, her face scrunching up as she tried not to give in to tears.

"God damnit!" Dean smacked his head against the bedpost behind him, not caring about the sparks it brought forth.

They sat unmoving for a long moment, both of them trying to control laboured breathing and emotions running wild.

"We have to get out of here." Dean spoke before he realised he was intending to. "I have to get to Sam. He doesn't even realise what Missouri is."

Margaret made a pained noise.

"Okay." He took a deep steadying breath. "Okay, new plan. We still need to get out of these handcuffs, so… Any ideas? Any ideas at all?"

Margaret didn't look at him. Her face was blotchy from crying, and her nose was running. There was a smear of dirt across the front of her rumpled white tank top. All in all, she didn't look her best.

"Margaret? C'mon, help me out here. You know what's in this room; is there anything we could use? Anything small and thin, metal, preferably?"

She swallowed, her throat working visibly. "Do you think my children are dead?"

Dean looked away. Honestly, he didn't know what to think. If he'd had to make a prediction before all this had happened, he would have said without hesitation that if the demon was here, it would kill him straight out. The very last thing he imagined happening was the demon taking him captive, and locking up the girl next door as well, for good measure.

He hoped Kiera and Charlie were still alive, god he hoped. But he couldn't see a reason why he was still alive, let alone what use two small children might be.

He met Margaret's eyes, resisting the urge to look away again at the frantic need and hope he saw there. "I don't know. I'm sorry, but I don't know."

Her lips pressed tight together. "What the hell is going on here, Dean? What is this?"

"I…I don't…really know." He closed his eyes, resting his head against the bedpost. "Look, there's this…thing. You know about Missouri, right? Her psychic powers?" When Margaret nodded, he continued. "Well, there's also…other stuff out there. Demons, monsters, that sorta stuff. And…I guess Sam and I, we hunt them down. Protect people. Except this particular demon, it wants Sam for some reason."

"Because he's psychic?" She asked. There wasn't any surprise on her face, which was understandable, Dean supposed. The woman was tied to a bedpost and her children were missing. She was probably willing to believe anything right now.

"Yeah, we think so. There's basically a whole bunch of reasons we're here, but the main one was to get Missouri's help," he choked on a bitter laugh, "to protect us against this demon. Only I guess she played us for fools the entire time." He banged his head against the bedpost again. "God, I'm such a fucking idiot. All this time, and I knew something wasn't right. I knew it. She set us up just to fuck with us."

"So the only reason I'm here, the only reason my children are involved in this, is because of you?" Margaret spoke in a dead voice, her face as still as if it was carved from stone. Dean watched her, her face in profile against the lurid background of a High School Musical poster pinned to the wall behind her. Her eyes were set on the floor in front of her.

The creak of footsteps on the stairs made them both catch their breath, eyes flicking to the doorway.

A second passed, and then two.

The figure that appeared wasn't who either of them were expecting.

Kiera was wearing a dirty pink tutu, a white lycra leotard underneath. Her feet were clad in filthy ballet slippers and she left scuff-marks on the carpeted floor behind her.

Margaret's breath hitched, held for a second, and then she let out a loud keening sound. "Oh god, Kiera, honey, are you okay? Honey, talk to me! Mommy's right here, it's all gonna be okay, I promise!"

"Kiera!" Dean raised his voice over Margaret's. "Darlin' you gotta find something to help us get these handcuffs off, okay? You gotta…" His voice trailed off. The little girl just stood there, her hands playing idly with the starched fluff of her tutu. "Kiera?"

She turned a smile on him, and he couldn't help the strangled gasp that escaped his mouth. Her face was dirty, her black curls in wild disarray around chubby cheeks.

Her mouth was stained with red, and her eyes were overtaken with black. She turned them on Margaret with a gleeful giggle. "Hi mommy. Are you and Dean having fun?"

Sam latched the door to the bathroom, standing with his head close to it for a few seconds, listening intently.

No sounds, no telltale creak that would tell him someone was standing in the hall, no hushed breaths. He was relatively sure he was alone.

Pulling out his cell phone, he quickly flicked through the contacts list to Stephen's private line, the line that never failed. The old man had designed it to withstand an apocalypse if need be, and Sam prayed to anyone that might be listening that it worked.

He pressed the call button, raising it to his ear. Listened to it ring, and ring, and ring. When the line clicked over to the automated voice telling him the number he was trying to call was unavailable, it felt like someone was leeching all the blood from his veins.

A knock on the door was followed by Missouri's best concerned-voice. "Sam? Are you okay in there?"

He closed his eyes. "I'm fine, Missouri. Just…washing my face." He tiptoed over to the sink, turning on the cold water faucet.

"Well, listen honey, I was thinking we should probably get started on your training again. I know you're not…in a good place right now, but I really think you should keep up your practise."

Sam swallowed, turning the tap off again and walking to the door. He unlatched it to find Missouri waiting in the hall for him. "I…don't know if I'm ready, yet. Do-do you have a customer coming, or something?"

She shook her head. "I've cancelled all my appointments for the time being. I thought you'd probably do better if it were just the two of us. Margaret's taken the kids to see their father for the week, so we won't be interrupted by anyone."

"Oh." Sam forced a smile onto his lips. "That's…good."

Missouri cocked her head. "Is that okay? I just thought…well, you're not doing too well around other people, so I thought it would be better if we didn't have strangers walking in and out all day long."

He nodded, ducking his head so his bangs fell in his eyes. "Yeah. That's good."

"So, shall we start practising then? I've cleared a space in the living room; I thought we could work on controlling that telekinesis."

Without any other options, Sam nodded meekly and followed Missouri back down the stairs. He could feel the angles of his cell phone in the front pocket of his jeans, just a useless piece of plastic.

"Where's Sam?" Dean demanded, jerking uselessly against his bindings. "What are you gonna do to him?"

Kiera didn't look the least bit bothered by Dean's show of aggression, her fingers pulling at the sagging frizz of her tutu until it stood out straight from her waist again. "He's with 'Missouri'. It's weird," she met his eyes, her red-stained lips twitching in a smile, "I would've thought after that awkward but oh-so-heartwarming speech you gave him – you know, the one where you promised to never ever leave him ever again – that he'd at least have some doubts when we told him you'd taken off. But no. He took one look at your empty room and started throwing himself a little pity-party. You know how he is; all angsty and nobody-loves-me, like a pathetic little baby." She pouted obscenely, the pink of her lower lip wet and shiny. "I thought he'd have a little more faith in you, to be honest."

"Shut up." Dean growled, rubbing the chain-link of the handcuffs against the bedpost like he could wear one down with the pressure.

Kiera giggled; the same light childish sound that she'd made when Dean pushed her on the swings. "It was really funny. I think he cried."

Dean lunged at the demon in the little girl's body, forgetting all about the cuffs until they wrenched at his arms. "Shut up!"

Margaret made a squeaking sound, a little cut-off scream. "Don't!" She cried, as if Dean might actually break free and hurt her child.

"Yeah, don't, Dean. You don't wanna hurt a little girl, do you?" Kiera tilted her head to one side coquettishly. "I bet you'd never forgive yourself."

"Where's Charlie?" Margaret choked the words out through her panting sobs. "What have you done to Charlie?"

Kiera took two steps towards her mother and bent gracefully to a kneel, just out of Margaret's reach. She leaned forward a little, smiling sweetly. "It's okay, mommy. Do you remember how you told us grandpa went to live with the angels?"

Through a mess of tears, Margaret's eyes went wide.

"Charlie's gone there too. He's with the angels now." Kiera nodded, the movement that of a serious child. Dean grunted, twisting his wrist in the cuffs. If he could just get free… Kiera didn't even bother to glance over at him.

"What…" Margaret shook her head, slowly at first and then with more conviction. "No. No."

"Yes, mommy." A pink tongue licked at some of the red staining Kiera's mouth, slowly and deliberately. "I sent Charlie to live with the angels. It's okay, I think he'll like it there better than he liked it here. After all, no one's gonna tease him about not having a daddy there, are they? No one's gonna make fun of him 'cause his mom can't afford to let him go on class trips with all his friends, or buy him clothes that didn't come from the second-hand store. I bet the angels won't spend the money put aside for his birthday present."

"Hey! Hey, shut the fuck up!" Dean yelled, uselessly; no one was paying any attention to him.

"I…I h-had to pay the-the bills…" Margaret stuttered, her chest heaving with uneven breaths. Her face was deathly white and her eyes had glazed over, too stretched-open and sucked of life.

"You should've just sent us to live with daddy." Kiera kept talking in the same easy voice, like she was discussing something she'd watched on TV last night. "Daddy always buys us nice presents, and his girlfriend is really pretty. The last time we saw her, she said we should call her mom."

Dean bared his teeth in a snarl. "Hey, leave her alone! You fucking-"

Kiera's head snapped towards him. The blackness in her eyes had faded back to their original dark brown, and she showed him her teeth. "Hey, at least Sam's not dead, right? That's what you're thinking, isn't it? Too bad about Charlie, but at least it's not Sam."

Margaret let out a broken whimper. Kiera continued in a sweet lilting tone. "Shame that Sam doesn't believe in you, though. Never mind, I'm sure he'll be perfectly willing to kill you when Missouri tells him you're possessed by the yellow-eyed demon. She can do that, y'know. She can make him think that you hate him, that you want to kill him. And he'll believe her. Because why would she lie? She never yelled at him about phoning his father. She never kept secrets from him." She giggled again, a tiny hiccup of sound bubbling from her throat. "At least, none that he knows about."

"Are you taking this seriously, Sam?" Missouri was standing in the middle of the living room, her hands rigid on her hips. Missouri had cleared a space in the room, moving the coffee table and the armchair to the walls and leaving the floor empty.

Sam stood opposite her, his shirt sticking to the sweat forming between his shoulder blades. Missouri had set him a 'simple' task; levitating a glass of water.

So far the nearest he'd gotten to moving the thing was accidentally kicking it over.

"I'm trying." He muttered, fixing narrowed eyes on the glass to avoid meeting Missouri's gaze.

"Not hard enough. Sam, you need to be prepared." She let out a heavy sigh, as if his incompetence was exhausting her. "If the demon confronts you right now, what are you going to do? Tell it to wait a second, you haven't quite got the hang of your powers yet?"

Sam pressed his lips together tightly, his fingers curling at his sides.

"Try harder, Sam. How did it feel when you made that knife fly out of the possessed woman's hand, back when the demon confronted you the last time? Do you remember? She was about to slit Dean's throat, and you stopped her."

His head snapped up to stare at her before he could control the movement. Remembering that moment, that split-second he'd thought it was too late, Dean was…

It had been like snatching the knife from her fingers; he'd felt it like he was holding it himself. Felt the cold of the metal, the sharp slip of a blade against his skin.

Missouri was watching him with a tiny mysterious smile. "Now come on, Sam. Try again."

The speed limit into Kansas was fifty; the needle in the GMC truck hadn't wavered from eighty since they'd crossed the border an hour ago. Caleb was shocked and horrified by the apparent leniency of the police in the state. Really, he was.

John drove with gritted determination, his back hunched over the wheel like the truck could be spurred on through forward weight distribution. It must have been killing his cracked ribs, but he wasn't saying anything. Not that Caleb could blame him; it was John's only son in deep shit. And Caleb couldn't quite disguise the jitter in his own hands whenever he thought about Dean in trouble; the man who'd grown from that little boy tagging along on his heels and begging to ride with him so he could listen to the loud music his daddy wasn't cool enough to like. And Sam – that whipcord-thin kid with eyes like a cat's and a quick shy smile – Caleb worried for him too.

The old guy, Stephen, had checked in with them half an hour ago. No word from either of the boys.

John hadn't been sure about taking direction from some random guy who called him up on his cell – his unlisted cell – while they were being stitched back together, but those three grizzled hunters Stephen'd sent to bust the two of them out of that demon hell-pit had convinced him the old man knew his stuff. And privately Caleb thought maybe the mention of Sam's trust in Stephen had gone a long way in convincing John. It made Caleb's lip twitch in a half-smile even now; John actually liked the kid, even knowing that Sam was probably doing gay things with his son.

But now wasn't the time to be musing on John's feelings about other people, mercurial as they may be.

A red light pulled them up on a busy junction, cars zipping by in front of them, and John swore under his breath, smacking a hand against the wheel. He was doing it again, blaming himself for the whole goddamn mess. Caleb would've attempted a heart-to-heart, tell the guy it wasn't his fault, he couldn't have known, but it wouldn't have done any good.

John hadn't known Missouri had been possessed when he sent the boys her way; hell, she probably hadn't been possessed when he told them to go.

Didn't change the fact that she was now, or that Dean, who usually had a good eye for this sort of shit, had probably only stuck around the place this long because John had been the one to send him there. As a somewhat impartial observer, Caleb had long ago come to the conclusion that both Winchesters were fucked in the head when it came to family loyalty. Dean had something to prove by following John's orders, whether he'd known it or not. He'd walked out on his daddy once before, and he was all about showing the man that he wouldn't do it again, that he was one-hundred per cent committed to the cause this time. If that meant sticking to John's instructions and ignoring his gut when it told him something was wrong, then so be it. And now John was halfway to killing himself to right his perceived wrong in sending Sam and Dean straight to trouble.

The light changed, and with a grumbled "finally" John stamped down on the gas, the truck tearing off down the street. They were less than five minutes away from the house, and Caleb thought it was probably time to start thinking rationally about how to deal with the situation.

"So. What's the plan here?"

John grunted without taking his eyes from the road.

"…okay then. The patented John Winchester 'run on in there blind and get ourselves gutted' it is."

"Jesus Christ Cale, you think this is a time for jokes?" John snapped, looking over long enough to shoot him a glare.

Caleb snorted, tapping the fingers of his good arm on the windowsill. "Nope. Do think we need a plan, though."

John let out a frustrated sound. "Fine, if you can think one up in the next three minutes, 'cause I'm not sittin' around in the front yard discussing tactics while my son and his…friend, are in danger."

"Well, you'll be needin' a minute to help me into my goddamn wheelchair before you go chargin' in there anyway, which is probably gonna screw with your righteous godly anger, so why don't you take a few breaths and think this through a little first, huh?"

The speech didn't seem to register with John. Spinning the wheel wildly, John steered the truck into a residential street with a manic, almost gleeful, expression. Caleb let out a sigh, wishing not for the first time that he wasn't reliant on a fucking crazy man to get him about. His shoulder was healing well, but the ripped tendons and muscles around his knees were taking their sweet time, and despite the hours of obsessive physio Caleb was putting himself through every morning to keep up the strength, his leg muscles were slowly going soft. If John decided to leave him in the truck, there wasn't much Caleb was going to be able to do about it.

They skidded down another street, probably breaking yet another traffic law because John hadn't taken the half-second to switch on his headlights when night began to fall. Caleb reached over and did it for him with another theatrical sigh.

John batted at his hand like he was a naughty child.

"Hey, just tryin' to keep us from runnin' off the road before we even get there." Caleb said, holding the hand up in a sign of surrender.

It turned out to be a damn good thing that he switched the lights on, because suddenly John was swearing and slamming on the brakes, spinning the wheel to avoid the small boy standing in the cross-path of the yellow hi-beams.

"Jesus fuck!" Caleb snatched at the door handle as the truck bumped up the curb, tyres screaming against the brake pads. The back end fishtailed across someone's neatly tended front lawn, grass clods and flowers tossed up in a shower that clattered against the front of the house, a hubcap flying loose through the air to smash a lower floor window.

John wrangled the car under control, bringing it to a juddering halt, and they sat there in silence for a long moment, the both of them panting like they'd run a marathon.

Until John smacked a hand against the seatbelt release, fingers groping until they found the button. He kicked the door open, swinging himself from the driver's seat with an energy fuelled by rage.

"John…" Caleb reached out, snatching at air and knowing it wouldn't do any good. He let out a heavy breath and unwound his window. "John! Leave it, willya? We got more important things to do!"

But, of course, John completely ignored the cripple stuck in the truck. He marched over to the boy, the poor kid still standing petrified in the street, big brown eyes watching John's approach, looking like a terrified baby rabbit about to be killed by a huge terrifying man, with or without a truck.

"Hey! Hey, kid! What the fuck d'ya think you were doin', standin' in the street like that? You know I coulda killed you?" John was hollering like he was trying to be heard through a hurricane, his arms waving in the air crazily.

The boy just stood there.

"John! Will you get back in the damn truck and let the kid go home? He's scared enough without you goin' after him, lookin' like you're gonna beat the damn shit outta him!" Caleb yelled, feeling worse than fucking pathetic leaning out of the car window.

John let out a grunt of frustration, and Caleb could see some of the fight deflate with it. With a rough shake of his head, the other man spun on his heel, striding back to the truck.

"That's a good boy." Caleb muttered, turning his head so John wouldn't catch it. "C'mon, back to the truck, now." And then he frowned. The little kid had mobilized like he'd heard Caleb's words, running full-pelt after John, his tiny chubby legs powering like miniature pistons. As he got closer to the truck, Caleb could see the scuff-marks on his dungarees, the tears at the knees. The white tee shirt underneath was grimy with mud and so was his face, like he'd been out playing all day and his parents had forgotten to call him in to take a bath. He must have been about four years old, and Caleb wondered at the kind of parents who would let a young boy like that run about in the street after dark.

John heard too, and turned in time to steady himself against the hood on Caleb's side of the truck as the boy hit him, arms wrapping around his legs like tentacles. "Whoa, what the-"

Caleb leaned back out of the window, feeling totally undignified. "Hey, what's goin' on?"

John shot him a mystified look, awkwardly reaching out to try and untangle himself from the kid's grasp.

The kid turned his face up to John's, and Caleb noted that the wide-eyed thing seemed to be more of a permanent expression rather than a reaction to almost being run down. The boy opened his mouth, his lips working on words that wouldn't come out.

John knelt down, the anger he'd been feeling towards the boy turned instantly into soft words. "Hey, hey, what's wrong, son? Where do you live?"

The boy blinked, tears coming to his eyes. "She…she…"

"Who, son?" John squeezed his tiny shoulder gently.

"She…hurt my momma. An' my sister. An' she…she…"

John shared a confusion-filled glance with him, turning back to the boy. "Someone hurt your mom? Where do you live, kiddo?"

But the boy shook his head frantically. "She made my sister bad. An' she stole Mister Dean."

John froze.

Mouth suddenly drier than a desert, Caleb sucked in a sharp breath.

"Who? What happened, kid?"

The boy's face screwed up tight. "'Sourri. She's a bad lady, an'…an' she hurt my momma, an' she made my sister bad too, an' she…she hid Mister Dean away so Sam can't find him no more." Like he'd exhausted all his words after his announcement, the kid stuck his thumb in his mouth and began sucking industriously.

John's fingers tightened in the sleeves of the boy's tee shirt. "Son, can you tell me your name? Do you know where Dean and Sam are now?"

The boy nodded, his thumb still firmly lodged in his mouth.

"Can you tell me?"

He nodded again, hard. Around the thumb, he mumbled out, "Yeah. Mis'er Dean's a' my house wi' my momma, and Sam at 'Sourri's house, only she bad. He don' know that, 'cause she lied."

"What's your name, kiddo?" Caleb called from the window.

The boy turned those big coffee-coloured eyes on him. "Charlie."