A/N: Found a screw-up I made that I got a kick out of. Halfway through the last chapter, Greg (the guy who got killed by the bowling ball) suddenly became Gary. Not sure how I didn't catch that! Lol. I've fixed it now.

Previously: Season 2, Sam has two visions in a row so the boys split up to try and save the victims from both. Sam drops Dean off at a diner to keep a girl from getting on her supernaturally-controlled bike and getting killed. He then goes to a bowling alley a couple of hours away and finds a telekinetic girl that he thinks is another of Yellow-Eyes's special kids. When he makes it back to the diner, Dean and the girl are gone.

CHAPTER 2 – SECRETS AND LIES

Sam stared down at the phone in his hand, his heart thumping so hard in his chest it hurt. The screen was open to the texting feature, a partial text to 'Sammy' that read "demo" staring back at him.

Demon. That had to be what Dean was trying to text him. Had demons attacked Dean? Was the blonde girl a demon? She had been in one of Sam's visions so she no doubt had something to do with demons and Yellow Eyes and his unknown plans for Sam and the others like him. When they had found the psychic kid Max, he had almost shot Dean. Andy's brother Ansem Weims had almost forced Dean to swallow a bullet from his own rifle. Gordon Walker had beaten and taken Dean in an effort to get to his little brother. Sam closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose for a second. He was the one Yellow-Eyes had 'chosen', so why did Dean always end up getting the shit end of the stick?

He couldn't lose Dean. He just couldn't. Sam had been the one who insisted they get to the bottom of this special children thing and now Dean was in trouble because Sam had refused to run. Dean had practically begged him to but, as usual, Sam had insisted on doing things his way, on throwing caution to the wind and going at this thing full on, on following up on both visions. If trying to save some stranger on a bike got Dean killed...

He shuddered and reined in his runaway thoughts. No, Dean would be fine. Sam just had to follow the clues and find him. They'd been in worse situations before. He gave the alley one last look over but found nothing. What other leads did he have?

The bike. The blonde's motorcycle was still parked out front. He made his way back through the diner and out the front door to the bike, lifting the seat compartment to find the registration. Finding it, he grabbed his laptop from the Impala and went back inside to use the diner's wi-fi and look the name up. It took him less than an hour to get her whole story.

Jenna Marie Harrison. Born December 12th, 1983 in Sacramento, California. Parents both doctors, both deceased. Older brother, also deceased. No criminal record. In fact, no records of any sort that he could find. No credit cards. No history at any power company, cable company, or phone company, at least not in California. All she had was a driver's licence, on which her current address was listed near San Diego. Some follow-up cyber-sleuthing uncovered that the address was actually an empty lot owned by a developer that hadn't done any developing since the economy tanked. Sam decided this girl was looking all kinds of shady.

Of course that shouldn't have come as a complete surprise. There had to be a reason one of the Yellow-Eyed demon's special kids, or something supernatural anyway, had tried to kill her. So did she do something to Dean? Or was it whoever had intended to steer her and her bike into oncoming traffic? Was she in on it? Had they hurt Dean? Taken him? What would they want with him?

The place was quiet so only a few patrons had come and gone during the entire time Sam had been at his booth and he paid them little heed. Giselle the waitress had insisted he order something to stay and he was on his third cup of green tea when a woman strode in. Sam kept digging for more information on Jenna Harrison but his hunter's instincts tingled when he caught the woman talking to Giselle at the counter and the waitress pointed over at him. The woman's head twisted around and her hard gaze met his for a fraction of a second before she returned her attention to Giselle. Sam spent the next minute studying the pair at the counter nervously before the woman suddenly straightened up and marched over to his booth, sliding into the bench across from him without waiting for an invitation.

"How do you know Jenna?" she demanded, not bothering with an introduction.

"Who are you?" he countered smoothly.

"The waitress says you came in here asking about Jenna." She leaned forward with her elbows on the table. She was older than him by a few years, probably in her late twenties or very early thirties, with dark hair and a no-nonsense attitude. "So how do you know her?"

"Uh, I don't actually," he answered carefully. "I was looking for my brother."

"Why'd you ask for Jen?"

"I saw her bike was still outside. I didn't know her name but I thought the waitress would be more likely to remember her."

"Did you find your brother?"

Sam shook his head. "No, not yet. Look, who are you?"

"Was your brother the guy sitting with Jen before she disappeared?"

"Are you a cop?"

She scoffed. "Do I look like a cop to you?"

"That's not exactly a 'no'."

"No," she said more definitively, giving him another hard stare. "What's your name?"

"Sam Winchester." The thought struck him that he probably should have lied about his name but he was out of leads and this woman was the only connection he had with the mysterious blonde. "What's yours?"

"Quinn."

"Just Quinn?"

"Just Quinn. So what was your brother doing here and why was he sitting with Jen?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "And how did you know he was sitting with her?"

Sam's brain scrambled to come up with a plausible reply that would put her at ease enough to end her accusatory questions and allow him to get some answers of his own. "I had some errands to run so I dropped Dean off here and she was just arriving at the same time," he explained. "Dean's... well, Dean's a bit of a flirt and Jenna's pretty. When I came back to pick him up and I saw her motorcycle was still here, I made an assumption."

She looked thoughtful, as if considering the validity of his response. Sam took advantage of the pause in her rapid-fire questions to get in some of his own. "Jenna a friend of yours?"

"Family."

Sam's digging on Jenna Harrison hadn't uncovered any surviving family. "I take it you haven't heard from her since this afternoon?" he pressed.

She shook her head. "This isn't like her. You haven't heard from your brother either?"

"No. Nothing."

Her eyes narrowed and she leaned forward on her elbows again. "Your brother better not have done anything to hurt..."

"Hey!" Sam cut her off defensively. "Dean wouldn't have hurt her. More the opposite. Whoever took them was probably after your friend."

"What makes you think someone took them?" she demanded, pouncing instantly on Sam's slip-up.

"Because Dean would have found a way to call me by now if he was able," Sam answered truthfully. "He had no car and her ride's still here so they didn't leave on their own."

They talked for a few more minutes, both asking questions and both being transparently evasive in their replies. Apparently Jenna was a 'model citizen' with 'no enemies whatsoever'. Yeah right. Sam got no more useful information out of Quinn and finally decided she was a dead end. They exchanged numbers and she left at the same time he did, exiting the diner just a few steps ahead of the tall hunter.

He stopped outside in the parking lot to take one last look around, contemplating where to go next and not sure if he wanted to leave the last place his brother had been seen. He glanced down at his watch to do the mental math. Eight hours - Dean had been missing almost eight hours. Eight hours and the damn trail was cold.

He glanced up to see Quinn had stopped short a few steps ahead of him and was staring across the street. He followed her gaze and his heart jumped at what he saw. A bank with an automated teller on the front of the building - an ATM machine whose video camera pointed right into the alley down the side of the diner. How the hell had he missed that? Judging by Quinn's reaction, she had seen the same thing. A passing thought of working together occurred to Sam but he changed his mind quickly, Dean's voice ringing in his head not to be so naive and trusting.

He had to get his hands on that camera's video footage. "So, uh, call me if you find anything," he said quickly, hustling over to the Impala and getting in. He was on the phone spouting a fake police badge number before he even made it out onto the street.

~X~X~X~X~X~

Half an hour later Sam was banging on the front door of the bank branch manager's residence, dragging him out of bed under the guise of aiding 'Agent Perry' in a confidential investigation. He escorted him to his workplace so he could show Sam the footage from the ATM overhead camera. After complaining nonstop for ten minutes that the FBI should have used the proper channels and just gone through the bank's security company, the older man finally found the password and logged into the archived footage from earlier that afternoon.

Sam watched the grainy video with bated breath, knowing this could be his last chance at finding Dean. He had called Bobby and Ellen and they had both said they were on it but truthfully, they had no leads to go on.

The video didn't give him much. A white van had backed into the narrow alley about fifteen minutes before Sam had dropped Dean off. It stayed where it was for twenty minutes or so before two people jumped into the front seats and it took off at a high speed. The back doors opened sideways so from the camera's vantage point, nothing going on behind the van could be seen and the video was so grainy Sam couldn't make out the front licence plate. He ordered the bank manager to put it on a flash drive for him, claiming he would get the bureau's IT department to enhance it, and let the man go home. He watched the manager's Prius drive away and sank into the driver's seat of the Impala with a frustrated sigh, pulling out his phone.

He was only three digits into his call when the car's back door behind him opened. He barely had time to lift his head when a cold, round object was pressing into the back of his neck.

"Don't fucking move!" a woman's voice hissed as someone climbed into the back seat. "Hands on the steering wheel!"

Sam knew right away it was Quinn and cursed himself for being distracted enough to allow her to get the drop on him. She closed the Impala's back door as he slowly placed his hands at the ten and two positions on the wheel. "Who are you?" he ventured, hoping the fact that she was using a gun at least meant she wasn't a demon.

"You don't get to ask the questions!" she snapped angrily, fisting the fingers of her free hand into his hair and yanking his head back against the headrest, pressing the gun harder into his neck.

"Okay, okay," he appeased, hating that she had him in a helpless position.

"Sam Winchester," she spoke into his ear, her voice dripping with disdain. "I looked you up."

Oh crap.

"And your brother, Dean."

Double crap.

"You forgot to mention he liked to tie-up women and torture and beat them to death. That he's a sick, twisted, perverted fuck with a rap sheet a mile long."

"No, no," Sam defended quickly. "That wasn't him. You've got bad information."

"I got it straight from the St. Louis PD! Seems he managed to fake his demise on that one only to reappear in Baltimore just in time for another couple of murders. Made quite the bloody mess." The cold steel of the weapon in Sam's neck combined with the lack of fear in her voice was making Sam more than nervous. This wasn't just some angry civilian – Quinn knew what she was doing. She never loosened her grip in his hair. "What did he do with Jen?" she demanded.

"Nothing, I swear," he repeated. "Dean didn't hurt her."

"She'd better be alright or I swear to God..."

"Listen!" Sam cut off her threat. "Back in St. Louis, that wasn't him, I promise. The real guy who hurt those women is dead."

"Tell me something," she continued, ignoring him, "Are you in it with him or just helping cover his tracks? Huh?"

"I swear, Dean's innocent and he didn't hurt your friend. Look, you have to believe me," he said, trying to stay calm, his hands still on the steering wheel. "What happened in St. Louis is hard to explain. I mean, you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me," she hissed. "You'd be surprised what I believe."

Sam swallowed, knowing no sane explanation of the events with the shapeshifter in St. Louis and the murders in Baltimore was possible. He was out of options. "You ever hear the old Indian legends about skinwalkers?" he ventured.

There was a pause before she answered. "Skinwalkers turn into animals."

Okay, that hadn't been the answer he'd been expecting but it was encouraging. "No, no you're right but there's this other thing that can take on human form..."

"You're talking about a shapeshifter?"

Sam felt her grip in his hair loosen ever so slightly.

"Yes," he said quickly. "That's exactly what I'm talking about. That's what hurt those women in St. Louis, not Dean." Only one type of person knew what a shapeshifter was. "Are you a hunter?" he blurted.

There was a long pause. "Yeah," she said finally. "You?"

"Yeah."

Another long pause, during which Sam waited patiently for her to release him. When she didn't, he figured maybe she needed a nudge. "Uh, do you mind letting go of my hair?" he asked politely, trying to hide his impatience.

Her hand withdrew but the barrel of the gun was still pressed into his neck. He could tell by the lilt in her voice there was a smirk on her face. "Not into the hair-pulling, huh?" she quipped.

Before he could come up with a response, a flask was held out over the seat. "Drink that," she ordered.

He took it slowly, keeping his hands up where she could see them. "Holy water?"

"Yup."

He unscrewed the top and swallowed a good size mouthful before finally turning to face her as he handed the flask back. "I'm not a demon," he said dryly. "You mind lowering the Glock?"

She did so slowly, still giving him a wary look.

"Your turn," he said, nodding his head towards the flask.

Her eyes narrowed but she took a noisy slurp of the cool liquid before tucking the flask back into her jacket. "Why didn't you just say you were a hunter?" she bitched.

"Not usually the line I open with," Sam huffed indignantly. "Besides, you didn't exactly ask."

"Whatever. Listen, since we've established we're all hunters, I need to know what your brother was really doing with Jenna at the diner."

Sam studied her for a minute. He wouldn't classify her tone as friendly, but the hostile attitude had been dialed back. "I'll tell you what I know if you tell me what you know."

"Fine. Spill."

He explained that he and Dean had reason to believe Jenna could be in trouble so he had dropped Dean off to watch out for her while he took care of some other urgent business. In response to the expected question 'What made you think she was in trouble?', he gave her a partial lie, describing the vision but saying it had been relayed to them from a psychic that helped them out from time to time. His description of the head-on collision caused her face to pale noticeably, even only with the pale light of the nearby streetlamp, and Sam decided she was genuinely worried for the missing girl.

Sam made a vague reference to the vision's connection to the Yellow-Eyed demon but much to his disappointment, Quinn claimed she had never heard of a demon with yellow eyes.

Quinn had a lot less information to share. She used to hunt with Jenna's older brother before he died, when she had been tasked with looking out for the girl who now had no blood family left. It became clear to Sam that Quinn looked upon the younger girl as a little sister and that she took her role as protector very seriously because she had found the Good Grub Cafe by means of a GPS tracker she had installed in the bike. Jenna had been visiting an old friend of the family in Sacramento and was supposed to meet Quinn in San Diego over four hours ago. She insisted Jenna was just an ordinary girl and didn't have any involvement with demons.

"So she's not..." Sam wasn't sure how to broach the subject without giving his own secret away. "She's not different in any way is she? Like maybe prone to... psychic abilities or something?"

"No," Quinn replied without delay. "Why would you ask that?"

Sam shrugged. "Just wondering why the psychic saw her in his vision." He sighed in disappointment. Not only was this Jenna Harrison not one of the psychic kids but it seemed Quinn wasn't able to offer up any more leads.

"I got the footage from the bank's camera from the security company," she informed him. "It's grainy as shit though. There was a van but I couldn't make out the licence plate."

Sam held up the flash drive the bank manager had given him. "Yeah, me too," he admitted with a chuckle. "But I have a guy in Nebraska. He works out of the back of a bar but he's pretty much a genius when it comes to computers. I'll send it to him and see what he can do with it."

"Okay, do it now," she said, sitting back in the rear seat.

He arched an eyebrow at her bossy tone but pulled his duffel up from the floor and reached for the door handle. "Okay, but I need the diner's Wi-Fi to email the file," he announced, stepping out of the Impala.

Quinn got out also and walked with him across the street into the diner, taking two steps for every one of his long strides. They slid into the same booth Sam had used earlier and Quinn flagged a tired-looking Giselle over to order a couple of coffees.

"Uh, make mine a green tea," Sam interjected absently as he booted up his laptop. "No sugar." He glanced up at the sound of Quinn's snort and caught the very Dean-like look of distaste on her face. He chose to ignore it.

He forwarded the file to Ash and called him up to explain what he needed. Ash took a quick look at the file while he had Sam on the line and said he might need until morning.

"What?! Ash, Dean may not have until morning!"

"Sorry, dude; that video's some low quality shit. Dr. Bad Ass is good but he's not God."

He pleaded with Ash to work as fast as he could and hung up, frowning as he tried to decide what to do next. "It could take 'til morning," he explained to Quinn.

She looked decidedly displeased with the news. "What are we supposed to do in the meantime?" she demanded hotly.

Figuring her harsh tone was aimed more at the situation than at him, Sam just pursed his lips and sat back in the booth. He knew exactly how she felt. Frustrated, worried, and helpless. "Diner's open all night," he said with a despondent shrug.

~X~X~X~X~X~

Dean felt a flicker of guilt as he entered the diner, cursing himself momentarily for letting Little Dean do the thinking and allowing Sam to take the wifebeater gig, the vision Dean had figured was the more dangerous of the two. The notion passed quickly though as he watched the blonde slide into a booth by the window and a wide grin spread over his face. Oh yeah, he was definitely better suited to this one; Sam could barely order coffee from a pretty girl, never mind stall one indefinitely without spooking her.

He strode over to her booth without pause, stopping at the edge of the table and flashing his best smile when she looked up. "Hi there. Mind if I join you?"

"Uh, yeah, actually," she declined, giving him the courtesy of looking apologetic. "I'm tired and not really up for company."

Dean's smile just widened and he slid into the bench seat across from her. "Don't worry, sweetheart," he said with a wink. "I won't keep you up."

She gave him an incredulous look. "Uhhh, I meant it," she stammered. "I don't want company."

"Aw, come on, don't be like that." Dean tried to dial up the charm. "I'm great company. I chew with my mouth closed and everything."

The 'leave me alone' expression on her face never wavered.

Dean kept trying. "This place is busy." He made a show of looking around at the over half-empty diner. "I could be waiting an hour for a free table." The cocky grin returned. "Besides, I'm a firm believer that pretty girls should never have to dine alone."

She rolled her eyes. "Listen, buddy, it's not that I'm not flattered. I mean you're a good looking guy and all, but I've been driving for six hours in the fetal position and I've still got two hours to go. I really just want to sit here, have a bite to eat, and relax in peace, okay?"

There was a beat of silence before Dean settled back into the booth with a triumphant smile. He managed to refrain from his natural instinct to offer his services working out her kinks. "So you think I'm good looking?"

She snorted but he finally got a smile out of her. "Is that the only part you heard out of everything I just said?"

Dean shrugged one shoulder, encouraged. "Selective hearing comes in handy," he chuckled. "Look, I promise I won't bother you. I just don't like eating alone." He spied the waitress heading towards their table. "I'm buying," he added in an effort to sweeten the deal.

The blonde groaned and took a deep breath. Dean got the feeling she was about to state her case for solitude again so he cut her off before she could speak. "Okay, I'll make you a deal. If I guess what you were going to order, you let me pay and you eat with me."

She pursed her lips, looking mildly amused. "And if you guess wrong?"

"Then you buy and I'll have to eat all by my lonesome."

She laughed. "Is this a hustle for a free lunch? You work this ruse all the time? Get the girls to buy you lunch just to get rid of you?"

The waitress reached the table and pulled out her notepad, looking back and forth between the two. "What'll it be?"

"I don't plan on losing, sweetheart," Dean smirked. "Your wallet's safe. But you gotta be honest. If I guess right, I win." He turned to the waitress, a heavyset, older woman. "I'll have a bacon double cheeseburger and fries and a coke and my friend here will have a slice of pecan pie with ice cream."

He was staring at the blonde as he ordered and chuckled when her eyes widened in disbelief when he nailed her order to a tee. Finally, a perk to Sam's weirdo visions.

The waitress, Giselle by her nametag, frowned at the girl. "That's it, honey? It's suppertime. We got a special – hot hamburger with fried onions only $5.99."

The blonde still looked a little stunned. "Uh, no," she shook her head politely. "That's alright, thanks. I just want the pecan pie."

"With ice cream," Dean added smugly.

Giselle grunted but walked away without another word.

"So, how'd I do?" Dean gloated.

She smiled through her feigned pout. "Fine, you can stay." She moved to slide out of her side of the booth.

"Whoa, where are you going?" Dean startled, his smug expression dissolving quickly. "The deal was you eat with me."

"Relax. Lemme guess, girls ditch you before dessert all the time, huh?" she teased. "Don't worry, I'm just going to the washroom to freshen up," she assured him, tapping her helmet to demonstrate she was leaving it on the seat. "It's been a long drive."

"So do you have a name?" he asked. "Or do I just keep calling you hot biker chick?"

She straightened up and extended a hand towards him with another roll of the eyes. "I'm Jenna."

"Dean," the hunter replied, shaking her hand and watching her as she turned and walked through the diner towards the washrooms. He took the opportunity of her absence to survey the place, look for anyone paying particular attention to Jenna or looking suspicious. He could stall her and keep her off her bike for a little while, an hour or two, but considering how hard he had to work just to buy her lunch, he wasn't liking his chances of sweet-talking her to a nearby motel, which would have been, of course, his preferred method of keeping her safe. Telling her some supernatural psycho was planning on mind-controlling her motorcycle and splatting her across some truck's radiator like a bug on the highway came in a distant second.

Nobody in the diner tingled his hunter spidey-sense. They were all families or bored-looking blue-collar workers. He drummed his fingers on the table waiting for Jenna to come back, getting more and more impatient as time passed. When she had been gone more than ten minutes, his impatience turned to worry. He slid out of the booth and headed to the hallway that led to the washrooms.

He waited outside the door of the women's until a lady with a small child came out. "Excuse me, ma'am," he said politely. "Is there anyone still in there? I'm looking for my sister."

The lady shook her head. "Nope, sorry, it was empty," she said and walked past him.

"Crap," Dean mumbled, thinking that Jenna, if that was even her real name, must have given him the slip. Maybe he wasn't as smooth and charming as he thought he was. He barged into the women's washroom, double-checking each stall and finding nothing. "Damnit!" he cursed. He dashed back into the restaurant but didn't see any sign of the missing blonde girl. Looking back down the hallway, he spotted the door to the outside and decided she must have taken off out that way.

He barged through the metal door and was greeted by a fist in the face. A hand wrapped in his shirt and yanked him forward before he could hit the floor, however, and the door slammed shut behind him, effectively cutting off his escape route as well as any potential witnesses. He shook his head clear from the stun of the hit to see five men standing in an alley around him, a white van with its back doors open parked between them and the street. One of them had a struggling Jenna's arms pinned behind her and a hand clamped over her mouth.

Oh crap.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the man who had hit him took a step back and blinked. His eyes were black. Full-on, creepy, solid, freaky-ass demon black.

Double crap.

Why the hell hadn't Sam seen this part in his vision? He raised one hand in the air in a gesture of peace while the other slid into his jacket pocket to thumb a warning text to his brother. "Lemme guess, Food Inspection Agency?" he stalled.

As usual, his smart mouth made things worse. The man that had pulled him outside punched him in the gut and swiped the .45 out of the back of his pants. A second man hit him in the face again, sending him reeling backwards into the hard metal door. The force of the swing ripped his hand out of his pocket and he heard his phone skidding across the ground. He heard a woman's muffled scream from the direction of the van but couldn't see past the man leering over him as he slumped to the ground at the base of the door.

"You're coming with us, Winchester," was the last thing he heard before another fist landed in his face and the back of his head slammed into the door, turning his world black.

~X~X~X~X~X~

A/N: Hi! Hope everyone loved last night's episode as much as I did :-) I won't say much to avoid spoilers buy yay! Mushy bromance moment! Sorry for the delay in posting this but I just discovered Sons of Anarchy and it has me by the throat and is seriously cutting into my fanfic time, lol. Hope you enjoyed this chapter – a reminder that I will be keeping this story entirely in Sam and Dean's POV. Reviews are always appreciated!