Disclaimer All recognizable characters/settings belong to their creators. The stories listed here are transformative works, from which I've made/am making no financial profit.

Warnings Language; references/allusions to torture and non-con.

7. World Leader Pretend

Dean dreams about his black-eyed demon doppelganger taunting him about what he's going to become, clicking his fingers at him; gasps himself awake on the searing memory of what he did become. As he claws his way to full consciousness he knows he's near hysteria, and he holds his breath, wills himself still and quiet as he sighs out sickly, sobbing terror.

Bobby is splayed out on the other bed, dead to the world, and Dean feels warm bulk on his other side, his brother snoring, arms and legs outflung carelessly, Sam sleeping in the star position just like he always did when they were kids. He can't help the chill of frigid shock he always gets in those first few moments of not-quite-alert if his brother's sleeping up close and personal, that memory of Bender engulfing him with his sheer mass. Hell was worse, the voice in his head reminds him.

He eases himself out from under the sprawled limbs, butt-shuffles down to the end of the bed, rubs his face, and his hands are shaking. He blames it on the chill in the room, reaches for his clothes, piled haphazardly on the floor. "Fuckin' undressed me again," he murmurs, as he checks the clock, and Christ, he's slept sixteen hours.

He eases up and pads to the bathroom, pushes the door closed behind him before he flicks on the light, like he does every time he has that dream. He leans into the mirror to check his eyes. Still green, the whites bloodshot, and he blinks dazed relief at his ghost-white reflection for a minute, examines his nose in profile before he pulls on his jeans.

Back in the room, Dean flips the laptop open, pulls up the history, the faces, skims through the police report. He stares for a few seconds at Sam's folder then, clicks it open. And for a second he hovers the cursor over them, folders within folders, research, exorcisms, spells, Lilith, and he wonders where his brother might hide the evidence of how the fuck he can gank Hell's finest without breaking a sweat when he nearly had an aneurysm taking on Samhain. He opens them up one by one, just documents, too many to check, and he doesn't even want to look, really, doesn't want to see.

Journal.

Dear fuckin' diary, today I used my demon powers and screwed my demon girlfriend while demons made my brother scream my name in Hell.

It's password protected, he notes. Could be nothing. Could be something.

He senses he's being watched a few seconds before Bobby sits up, and he surreptitiously closes it all up again and gets the fuck out of Dodge.

"You really should have told me, son," Bobby murmurs.

"What? That I was one of those black-eyed monsters we hunt?" Dean says quietly. "You know, the fewer people know that the easier it is just to pretend it never happened."

"But you know by now that holding things inside like you do isn't good for you, boy," Bobby says, reproachful now. "Dean. Didn't you trust me? Did you think I might – do something?"

Dean honestly never has thought that, and he gets up, plants his ass on the bed next to the old man so they're sitting knee to knee. "No, I never have thought that, Bobby," he says, before he goes on, not even sure what he's going to say. As it is, the words come out, more easy than he ever thought they would, fuelled by guilt and regret. "Here it is. All my adult life I hunted that yellow-eyed bastard, and he played us. First my dad, then me and Sam. All my life I knew what was right and I never thought I would ever make the wrong choice. And I did, I chose, chose that, chose to get off the rack, chose to—"

"God help you, boy," Bobby chokes. "God help you if you thought you had any choice in the matter. Dean, for God's sake. I don't want to hear guilt from you over this, never. There was no choice. You hear me? There was no choice."

Dean's own voice breaks then, on hazy memories of things he never wants to see in his mind's eye. "But what I did. If you knew. What I did, you'd—"

"It don't matter to me, Dean." Bobby reaches out, grips the back of Dean's neck, shakes him gently. "An angel pulled you out of there. An angel. To fight for these seals, yeah, but they chose you, Dean. Out of all those souls in the Pit. That's got to mean something… forgiveness, or redemption, or righteousness, or something."

Righteousness, and Dean can hear Alastair's sing-song voice, and it sends icicles straight through his heart. "It's funny you should say that, Bobby," he whispers. "About righteousness, because—"

"What are you doing?"

Sam, surging frowsily up off the bed, looking from Dean to the laptop, still open on the table. Sam's laptop, and Dean can see his brother's eyes flitting back and forth from him to the computer, can see the gears clanking in Sam's head, can see something like panic in his gaze.

It must have been something after all, he thinks and there is no real surprise in the realization. "I was looking over the case," he covers. "Duluth. Hudak's werewolf."

Sam sniffs. "Possible werewolf. I still think it could be Lilith."

There's something dismissive in it, derisive, and it raises Dean's hackles in a way he can't help. "I guess it could be," he says, a little curt. "I guess this could be going on all over the lower forty-eight, Sam, since these United States must be home to eleventy-thousand thirty-year-old guys who vaguely resemble me. I mean, I assume you've checked this isn't just one cluster? Because if she's doing this a city at a time, I'll have died of old age before she finds me."

His brother tenses even more. "We can't keep running from her, Dean," he says, as he sits up. "Seals are falling all the damn time, where is the urgency? Just because you…" He trails off, exhales hard. "It could be her," he reiterates then. "This is an opportunity."

It's the same aggression Dean heard in his brother's voice before, and he's suddenly cautious, scrubs at his head, opens his mouth to reply even though he doesn't really know what to say because to be honest he expected an apology for the fact his blood-soaked, ash-filthy, sulfur-stinking laundry was aired when he least needed it. And right at the minute that occurs to him, he thinks, what the fuck, and says so before he can put the brakes on. "Yeah, Sam, I'm okay. Thanks for asking."

But it's like he never even spoke, words are tumbling out of Sam. "Can Castiel do some reconnaissance or something down there? I spoke with Ruby and she says she can't track Lilith, so she can't tell if it's her in Duluth or not."

The same distaste he always feels at the mention of the demon's name brings acid to Dean's throat, but his brother is up and pacing now, adrenaline flowing, seems wired. He tries anyway. "So what, we just tru—"

"Ruby says she's heard there's only one seal left," Sam jumps in. "Jesus, if this is Lilith, we could get her."

Bobby must have read Dean's mind, because his voice rings out firm, cool and rational even as Dean's own misgivings threaten to burst out of him harsh and antagonistic.

"How do you know you can really trust Ruby?"

Sam whips around, brows coming down as the old man continues.

"She was in Hell wasn't she? Courtesy of Lilith? Don't it seem a tad odd she just let her walk out?"

The reply is sharp. "Christ, Bobby, don't you start. She helped you fix the Colt for God's sake. She's been helping me track Lilith since a few weeks after Dean—" Sam stops, shoots Dean a look that might be considerate. "After it went down," he goes on, and his tone slopes down into something more conciliatory. "She's on our side. She helped us with Anna when Castiel would have ganked her, remember? And the hexbags, she gave us the hexbags that are cloaking us from Lilith."

Hexbags. It's a barbed reminder of the fact his brother wears the supercharged angel-proof version when he's with Ruby, and Dean surreptitiously lays his hand on his thigh because his leg is doing that jiggling up-and-down thing it does when he's nervous.

Sam's staring right at him now, and he gets a heavy lurch in his gut because it's one thing to be half asleep and spooked by his brother's size because some lunatic raped him three years ago in this dimension and then his ass was fucked raw by every demon who cared to join the line in the pit for forty years, but now he's wide awake he should know Sam isn't Lee Bender. And he damn well isn't Alastair and his buddies. But Sam's looming right over him, and Dean flips to what Azazel said about demon blood being better than mother's milk for growing big strong kids, fixes on it even though poor dim Andy Gallagher was five six if that, and he faces up to the fact his kid brother suddenly intimidates him. And he thinks he won't ever admit to the thrill of fear deep down inside, or the resignation that follows hot on its heels.

"Are you even wearing yours?"

It's back to barely civil, fuckin' petulant in fact, and Dean stalls. "Wearing mine? My what?"

"Your hexbag," Sam snaps, face twisting into a frown.

Dean doesn't need to be fluent in bitchfacery to know what that one meant, and he fishes the hexbag out from under his tee, raises his eyebrows. "Since you asked so nicely, Sammy," he replies thinly.

His brother frowns. "But Ruby could…" he starts, and then he stops, looks down at Dean with more calculation that he likes. "Make us new ones," he continues. "She said they expire. We'll need new ones for Duluth, just until—"

"Wait a minute, Sam," Bobby cuts in, and he's looking back and forth between them, his voice still controlled and calm. "This is a longshot, granted, but if there's even a snowball's chance this is Lilith then maybe walking into her trap isn't the best idea, it's like…" He flaps his hands. "Public enemy number one picknicking outside the J Edgar Hoover building."

Dean can almost feel the crackle of adrenaline bursting out of Sam in response, and he can't help himself, he blurts it out. "Are you high? Sam? Because I know the signs, and you're jumping out of your damn skin. Did you take something?"

Sam looks at him and for a second his face is shocked before he blanks it out. "No, I haven't, Dean. You know I don't do that," he says, and he's bringing himself back down again, voice is all patience, composed. He sits back down on the other bed, and his size is manageable again. "All I'm saying is that – this is a chance. To maybe end this, to stop the final seal from—"

"If your friend Ruby's right," Bobby says, and he's nodding slowly, sucking his cheek, like he's considering it seriously, but even so, Dean has a feeling he's putting it on, lulling Sam. "About this being the final seal, I mean," Bobby adds, and then he glances at Dean. "What's your angel said about that?"

Dammit, maybe not playing Sam after all. "He doesn't say anything," Dean mutters. "He says they don't tell him much. Seems like it's need-to-know."

And Sam's in there again, that edge of frustration returning. "But don't we need to know? They expect us to help guard these damn things. Shouldn't we be in the loop? I'm telling you Dean…" Sam is shaking his head, scowling. "This stinks like a dead fish, this whole thing. I don't think they know what's going on, that's why they aren't telling us. But this… this could be something, could be a lead. We could get her. We could get her, Dean."

Dean stares back at Sam, thinks dog with a bone again, thinks of those scary fuckin' seagulls in that movie about birds pecking people to death, and his brother's persistence stabs bloody holes in him just like their beaks would; thinks of the Terminator crawling through that machine press and wonders briefly if he should just flick the switch that brings it all down to flatten Terminator Sam, who never gives up. He leans on his leg and feels it tremble under his hand, and there is Bobby next to him again, barked out and utterly decisive.

"No. No, Sam."

Dean can see his brother stiffen as the old man continues. "Dean isn't going to Duluth. Like Kathleen says, this is likely something else, and it might not even be supernatural. Jesus. We know how cracked in the head humans can be. I'll go. Your brother heads home. As a precaution. And once I'm sure it isn't—"

"I'm going too," Sam grates out. "So is Dean. As a precaution. In case it is her."

Bobby doesn't explode, in fact Dean thinks his tone is fatherly exasperation more than anything, because all Bobby sees is Sam's concern, Bobby doesn't know what Sam's been doing, how he can hulk out and kill demon upper management with a flick of his wrist and a clench of his hand. Bobby doesn't know why Sam thinks he's the only one who can take Lilith on, doesn't know why it can't ever be Sam who confronts her.

"Sam, it doesn't make sense for your brother to go," the old man says. "Like I said, it's a longshot. But if it is her, I don't want him in the same state as her, let alone walking right into any trap she might have set up for him."

"But we can get her," Sam persists. "Christ, Bobby, don't you see?" He stabs a finger at Dean. "He has to come… we need him there to bait our own trap. If he's with us, she's more likely to show herself. I can keep him safe. We can do this."

"No, Sam."

Bobby's shoulders are squaring and Dean can see his patience is dwindling, he's almost as rigid and taut as Sam now, getting more twitchy and annoyed by the second. "You and me can check it out together while Dean heads back to the yard. It'll just take a day or so and then if it's a garden-variety fugly, Dean can head on over to help take it out if it looks like a big job."

"It's the end of the world Bobby. We need to see the bigger picture, see beyond keeping out of this because we don't have the guts to go down fighting."

Dean sits and watches the territorial pissing, listens to them plan it all out. The tremor in his leg is fighting its way up past his hips, he feels cold with dread, his tongue swells thick inside his mouth, and his throat is still sore. Too much fuckin' talking, he thinks, when he's supposed to be on voice rest.

"I'm going, Bobby," he says dully. And then he gets up, hauls his duffel up from the floor, starts ramming clothes into it. "It could be her."

Bobby stops mid-sentence, and his face creases in confusion. "Dean… just in case it is her don't you think it'd be wise to—"

"You don't understand," Dean mutters. "I have to go. If it's her… it has to be me. It has to be me who does it. Who stops her, stops it. I'm the only one who can."

Dean starts packing like he's sinking his fists into something, maybe even someone; wonders abstractedly if staying in Hell would have been any worse than this miserable half-chance at a redo that has him headed for that express elevator ride back down to the basement once he's fulfilled his side of the bargain.

He's only vaguely aware of movement behind him, but in the next second Sam is swinging him round, and he's up in Dean's face and demanding.

"What do you mean by that?"

For a second Dean gets this odd feeling, like Sam is pissed off, like he hasn't paused for long enough to think what facing Lilith actually entails because he's pissed that this isn't his gig; and maybe Sam confirms it with his next sentence.

"What makes you so special, Dean?"

Dean sees Bobby palm his face at that, shake his head behind his hand. The old man mutters, "Jesus, Sam," turns and walks over to sit down at the table.

Dean shakes Sam's hand off his arm, and his brother is looking from him to Bobby, bewildered, throwing up his hands. "What? What did I say? I just – why? Why is it you? Why spec—"

"Special," Dean snorts, nodding for emphasis. "Special. You're asking what makes me so special it has to be me that goes up against one of the monsters who tortured me down there, with no weapons, and no fuckin' chance."

He looks back down to his duffel, then across to the nightstand, reaches over for the Jack and stuffs it down in there, tucks a tee over it because he's damned if he's having it smash in transit, and his voice is so ragged he can barely choke out the words. "And you think it's all about being special. Sam, I can tell you it doesn't make me feel special. It makes me feel fuckin' terrified. But you can go on thinking how special it all is if you want to."

Sam's mouth opens and closes a few times and his expression is puzzled. "No…" he says then. "I didn't mean – special… God, Dean, that's not what I meant. I meant… specific. I meant—"

"Seriously, Sam?" Dean counters. "You seriously expect me to believe you're having trouble finding the right words to say exactly what's on your mind? College boy? I thought you were the smarter hunter."

His brother is gaping at him. "Dean… stop. I don't – I mean, why does it have to be you specifically? Why you, why not me? Why not us? You and me, together?"

Sam's voice trails off, shoulders slumping as he stares back at Dean, and it's like the clock spins backward because it's Sammy, it's his brother gazing at him earnestly and telling him, I'm going to save you, and they're shrouded in dead silence for a minute until Bobby clears his throat.

"Dean. Who said it has to be you?"

It breaks the spell and Dean's eyes flick away from his brother's. He rubs at his brow. "Cas. He said—"

"How do you know he's telling the truth, Dean?"

It's like some sort of Pavlov's dogs thing, as Sam switches it back on at the sound of the angel's name, this vibe, and for a second Sam seems to shoot up a few more inches, even get wider across the shoulders. Dean thinks it makes his brother seem overwhelming, almost threatening, and it brings back memories of down there, and the tricks Alastair used, the illusions of loved ones holding him down and wielding the knives.

"Well?" Sam prods, and he's suddenly assertive again, belligerent even.

It's happening too often and Dean has had enough of it. "Because Cas doesn't lie to me, Sam," he answers quietly, pointedly, and he stands his ground even as his brother looms, stony-faced, lets it hang in the air like the veiled accusation it is until Bobby coughs again and continues on himself.

"Well, when he said you especially, Dean… I mean, specifically." He shoots Sam a look. "Did he mean you alone? By yourself, I mean, with no help?"

"He didn't say." Dean retrieves a fabric ball that turns out to be his brother's hoodie, thinks, fuck it, he can freeze, tugs it on and glances at his wristwatch. "We should be hitting the road. We're a ways from Duluth. Sam, you packed?"

"Slow down, Dean," Bobby grouses. "So there could be other people in the room, potentially? Like, for example, me and your brother, holding her down while you do the actual ganking? So she doesn't send you into the light?"

And Dean thinks, I'm not going into the light Bobby, I'm going into the dark. I'm going back downstairs to rot in the Pit for eternity, because it's damnation without relief and that doesn't just mean there are no toilets in Hell. He doesn't say it. "I guess," he responds instead. "I didn't ask him if—"

"Well maybe you should," the old man returns, his voice is tight, worried. "Maybe you shouldn't be taking what this guy says at face value, Dean, maybe you should be considering that he might have an agenda of his own."

There is a second when an odd wave of defensiveness, protectiveness even, rears up inside Dean, and, "He's an angel of the fuckin' Lord, Bobby," he barks, regretting it instantly as his raw throat protests. "And he pulled me out of there," he husks more modestly then. "Do you even know what that means? To me?" He sidetracks, maybe on purpose, he doesn't really know. "Christ, my throat is killing me. I need to gargle. Maybe you should show Cas some respect. Some gratitude. And anyway, I wasn't exactly at the top of my game when he told me." He stalks into the bathroom, shakes a couple of aspirin into a glass of water, twirls the liquid around, sticks his head around the doorjamb. "Sam. Why the hell won't these dissolve?"

"They aren't soluble, Dean, you'll need to grind them up," his brother snaps back, Snappy fucking McSnappington and his famous snapping trick, and then Sam makes a dismissive noise and sits down. "He told you it had to be you at the hospital, didn't he?" he guesses balefully. "Castiel. When I was… out getting coffee. Bastard. I knew you'd been crying when I got back. I knew there was something wrong."

"Christ, Sam," Dean grates, because his throat is really hurting now, on fire, like in Hell, on fire from screaming through shredded vocal cords. "Leave some of my manly pride intact, will you? You may think I'm a gutless coward, but that wasn't why I was—"

"Jesus wept." Bobby shoots to his feet along to the scrape of his chair, slams his hand down on the table. "Stop this now. What the hell is going on with you two? You're both as tense as a priest in a brothel, and no!" He points at Sam before he can cut in. "No. I'm saying my piece, boy. You shut up and listen."

Not doing this, Dean thinks. He tips the glass into the can, pills and all, hefts his duffel off the bed. "We need to get moving," he announces matter-of-factly as he strides for the door, but Bobby steps in front of it.

"You too, boy."

The old man shoots daggers at Dean with his eyes, and he glances over at his brother reflexively. Sam goggles at him, grimaces, and it might be the first time Dean has felt genuine camaraderie with his brother since before Bedford. It makes him think of how they used to stand stoic together, shoulder to shoulder, in the face of a John Winchester smackdown, makes him think of how they used to have each other's backs.

"I know what you were going to say, Sam," the old man thunders on. "Feed me some crap about this demon and what happened to your brother. But no. Categorically, no. This is something else that's been going on for weeks." He stands there, looking between them both, eyebrows skyhigh. "Well?"

Dean hears his voice like he's standing outside himself, a mechanical monotone. "It doesn't matter."

Bobby snorts. "Well that's a relief. Since the end is nigh and all. Don't you think you boys should be keeping that in mind? And maybe quitting your bellyaching about whatever the hell has your panties in a bunch?" He sits down heavily on the bed, pulls off his cap, scratches his head. "Now. Let's figure this out, figure out a way to proceed. Did he say why?"

"Why?" Dean echoes the old man faintly, even tries to field it. "Who? Did who say why what?"

Bobby rolls his eyes. "Keep up, son. Your angel. Did he say why it has to be you? Because it seems to me that if he expects you to go up against this—"

"Because I started it. That's why."

Dean doesn't even mean to say it, because in his mind he quite clearly heard himself say, nope, no clue, let's hit the road, so he can only assume all of that took a sharp right at the top of his throat and got bogged down in the earwax Cas diagnosed in his deaf ear. He finds he's imagining the words, earwax like quicksand sucking them down and maybe nope manages to spread itself out on top and inch across the top of the earwax and makes it to solid ground. And for maybe a fraction of a second there's a chance for nope to squeeze out of his mouth just ahead of because-I-started-it-that's-why; but hot damn, nope is a hero, turns around and starts throwing branches back at the rest of them, trying to haul them out of there, and no and clue might even look like they're climbing out of there too. Not that it matters, he thinks dispiritedly, since he's already let this red hot flaming cat with cans tied to its tail out of the bag and—

"Started it?" Bobby is fazed, looks over at Sam, who shakes his head and throws up his hands.

"You're going have to give me more, son," the old man says then. "Started what? And what the hell is with the earwax?"

"I'm deaf on one side, Bobby," Dean mutters desperately. "I think it's upward migration of the condylar head, but Cas thinks it's earwax. And it's my fault. I started it. I destroyed the world."

In that moment, Dean feels wasted by it, feels it hit him again with his own acknowledgment, feels week at the knees. He drops his duffel on the floor, puts out his hands for balance, sits down heavily on the chair Bobby vacated, and now his brother is leaning in, kneeling down. Sam puts his big hands on Dean's knees, and now his voice isn't pursuing Dean in anger, it's coaxing him, Sammy the Dean whisperer, and if Dean looks up he knows he'll see his brother is using the puppy dog eyes on him, like before, but he doesn't look up.

"Dean. What does that mean?"

"It's my fault," he mutters. "Daddy's little girl broke in thirty." Almost by rote he finds he's rubbing at his brow, leaning into his hand and it's somehow soothing, pressing hard on his skin, back and forth with his fingers as he talks. "And it was written that the first seal will be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell." He heard it once and it's branded on his brain, Alastair's brand. "I gave in, Sam. And when I gave in, I broke the first seal. I started it. And Cas says the one who started it is the one who has to finish it."

He feels his Sam's hands tighten on his thighs, dig in for a second.

"Dean. Look at me."

Dean looks up, knows he'll see scorn, contempt, derision, knows he deserves it. But instead he sees his brother.

"I never again want to hear you say you gave into thirty years of torture, Dean," Sam says steadily. "Never. It wasn't your fault. And I don't give a damn what Castiel says, I don't want you going up against Lilith alone. I won't let you. I'm not doing New Harmony again. Ever. And I don't care what the angel says."

Dean should be comforted, he knows, but he isn't. He just doesn't know if it's because his brother promised to save him before and didn't, or if it's because of the hard edge of anger in Sam's voice, the sense that he's taking control, that he's handing out orders, that any concern he may feel, is because he's pissed at Castiel's nerve. Or if it's because it's so plain in his eyes and his tone that his brother thinks he's stronger than the angel now.

It's snowing when Hudak sees the girl, trip-trapping up west twenty-first as far as the sauna, where she pauses, starts to push the door open, and then steps back and paces up and down outside for a few minutes.

Hudak pulls over to the curb, honks her horn and rolls down the window, and the kid picks her way carefully over the ice and peers in, wearing that same insolent, knowing expression she had painted on her features before.

"You pickin' me up, lady cop?" she says, making her voice low and husky. "You like a little girl-on-girl action, maybe?"

Hudak rolls her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous… Mel? Was it? Get in."

The kid hesitates for a second, shrugs, pulls open the door and drops into the seat. She's shivering and her features are pinched, wan, lips blue with cold.

"What the hell are you doing out at five in the morning in weather like this?" Hudak snaps. "Is it really worth freezing to death to put out in some back alley for the sake of forty bucks?"

"Well," the girl considers. "Yeah, as it happens. When you don't have forty bucks and you feel like eating. It's damn well worth it."

Hudak jerks her head towards the sauna. "I wouldn't. I have it on good authority that little operation won't be around for much longer. It's going down, and not in the way you're used to. You don't want to be working out of there when it happens."

The girl nods slowly, raises an eyebrow. "Well thank you ma'am. I guess now I can blackmail you for tipping me off, huh?"

Hudak chuckles. "Well, you can try, kid. You can try." She pulls out. "It's five below. Where can I drop you?"

"West side. I can make my way from there."

Hudak drives, muses that it's strangely companionable and desperately sad at the same time. "You seem like a smart kid," she says on that thought. "Why the hell are you living like this?"

"I like the hours," the girl snipes back. "Even the people ain't too bad. I'm a people person."

She's rubbing her hands together and they're skinny, knuckles bony, fingertips pure white and bloodless. Hudak reaches behind herself grabs at smooth leather and tugs it out. "Here. Furlined. " She tosses them over onto the girl's lap, sees her glance across.

Her reply is part-cautious, part-suspicious. "Why would you give me your furlined gloves, lady cop?"

Hudak directs an eye towards the girl's hands. "Looks like Raynaud's syndrome."

"Say what?"

"Your fingers. The cold. Makes them numb, white like that." The girl's stare stays steely-flat, and Hudak huffs. "Look. Just put the damn gloves on."

There's a second when she thinks the kid might balk, but it's there and gone in an instant and then she complies, pulling the gloves on bit by bit. Her eyes shine as she does it, as if she's enjoying tantalizing her freezing skin with the promise of warmth, torturing the remaining exposed flesh by making it wait as long as she possibly can. She shoots Hudak a look. "Like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

Hudak's turn. "Say what?"

"You know… the way Charlie Bucket eats the chocolate," the girl says dreamily. "He's real poor, he don't get chocolate every day like normal kids. So when he gets this chocolate bar he makes himself wait… he bites off just a little bit at a time, lets it melt on his tongue. He ain't used to it, you see. It's special. So he ekes it out, denies himself, makes himself wait. For the pleasure. The release." She looks across again. "That's how I like to do it," she says, and suddenly her voice is cold, distant. "Eke out the pleasure." And then she starts, comes back to herself. "Not that I get to eat chocolate that often."

Hudak gets an odd feeling that it isn't chocolate the kid was thinking of at all. "Seems a tad masochistic," she retorts.

The kid shrugs. "When you wait a long time for something it don't do you no good to race through it. You want to just make it last. Wring every single drop out of it." She smiles hugely. "Let it melt on your tongue. Like Charlie Bucket does."

"You like to read then," Hudak says, wincing inwardly at how lame it sounds, but for some reason she's intensely uncomfortable and she wonders if this is the kid's pickup line, isn't naïve enough to assume the girl really does only swing one way when there's money involved.

"My dad read to me," the kid says. "Every night before bed. He'd read to me while I sat on his lap."

So simple, the image of some kid snuggled up close listening to bedtime stories, but something about the girl's words, her tone, says so much more than Hudak really wants to know. She sees her iin her side vision, holding her hands up in front of her face, flexing her newly black leather-clad fingers with relish, until the soft leather squeaks. From somewhere deep down, unbidden, it flashes just briefly through her Hudak's brain, killer's hands, black leather gloves, Dexter, and she shivers.

"You can drop me here," the girl announces suddenly.

Even with the atmosphere gone tense, Hudak frowns. "Are you sure? There doesn't seem to be much out here. Isn't all of this side slated for demolition?"

The girl's eyes are beady, calculating. "Not all of it," she says, and then she smiles again and maybe this time it's genuine. "Thanks for the gloves," she says. "I appreciate it. Maybe I can charge those asswipes more if I have warm hands."

She opens the door and an arctic blast blows through the interior before she slams it shut. She moves away, skinny and hunched, and before she can stop herself Hudak is reaching into her pocket, leaning on the horn for a second, two sharp bursts, until the kid appears by her window again.

"Here," Hudak tells her. "Spend it wisely."

The kid takes the fifty, staring in at her. "Why would you give me this, lady cop?" she asks. "And the twenty before? You adopting me or something? Because adoption didn't work too well for me first time round."

"I'm giving it to you because it's five below and tonight will be worse," Hudak says. "No one's going to be out looking to get laid in this weather. Stay out of it. Buy yourself a Hershey bar."

The girl snorts, wheels, minces off into the snow squall until she disappears and even though Hudak squints, she can't see where the kid is headed.

"Where the fuck am I?" she murmurs, as she u-turns and drives back towards town.