Sorry it's been so long since I've updated this story, but I have been getting some messages asking if I planned on updating, so I kicked my muse in the butt and told her to get working on the next few chapters so I could finish it up, so I've got another one! Don't worry, it won't be another six months until I update again! :)

Chapter 9:

"Hey," Dean grunted, looking at his cell phone. "I have two bars." He turned around. "Sam! I got reception! I'm gonna call Bobby!"

"Alright. Tell him to be on the lookout for any vampires and be careful," Sam called back.

"Sure thing," Dean replied. He dialed Bobby's number and waited as the phone rang. "Bobby."

"Dean, where are you?" Bobby asked. "Tried to call you. Couldn't get through."

"Got a little sidetracked. I'll explain when you get here. Impala's out of commission. We've been walking. I finally got reception. We're on Mills Road. We got attacked. Vampires. So keep your eyes peeled."

"Alright. I'm on my way."

"Thanks, Bobby." Dean hung up the phone, sticking it back in his pocket. "Okay. He's on his way." Dean looked to Booth. "We'll drop you off at a gas station or something."

"Thanks," Booth replied. "You guys will be alright? Don't need backup or something?"

"Bobby's our backup," Dean told him. "We're fine. Thanks." He paused. "Here, give me your cell, I'll put in my number."

"Okay. Same for you," Booth replied. The two exchanged cell numbers and kept walking. "These, ah…these kids," he said quietly, "if there are any that haven't been…."

"We'll bring them to the cops," Dean finished for him.

"How many do you think there'll be?"

"Well the nest is estimated at eight," Dean told him, "but we're not sure how many they've turned or how many they have locked up. They usually have a, ah…food supply on hand too."

"Food supply," Booth echoed tightly.

"It's how they look at us," he replied.

Booth pursed his lips. "Is it hard?" he asked quietly.

"What? Killing something that looks like a kid?" Dean muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Yea."

"I'd compare it to a cop working homicide," he explained. "You've gotta push it aside, make sure you can get the job done, but it affects you. If does. If it didn't, that's when you've gotta start worrying."

"That makes sense," Booth sighed. "So that's why you don't want the extra backup?"

Dean glanced over to him. "We don't need the extra backup," he told him.

"If there's anything I've learned in the military and FBI, it's that you can always use spare men," Booth shot back.

Dean worked his jaw. "In that case, yea, that's why I don't want you and Brennan with us. Cause when it comes down to it, if we do get kids who've been turned and already drank human blood, we don't need the extra pressure of two cops that are gonna freeze or at least hesitate before they shoot the vampire that's hiding behind the face of a kid."

"Already drank human blood?" Booth asked, furrowing his eyebrows. "You mean if they were turned—."

"We've know of a nest that doesn't feed on people," Dean replied. "Animals instead. The ones in charge, Lenore and Eli, we stay in touch with. If, ah…if we ever found ourselves with a vampire that hasn't fed on a human yet, they gave us the okay to put in a call to them and they can maybe take them into their nest. Sure as Hell beats killing something that hasn't done anything wrong yet."

"So there's a line?" Booth asked. "If they've drank human blood?"

"There's nothing solid," Dean told him. "It isn't black and white, having drank human blood or having not, but from the horse's mouth it's friggin' hard to go from human to animal blood. For one thing, the body doesn't want it. Plus it just doesn't seem worth it. Only two of Lenore's nest were brought back from the dark side, and it was tough."

"So you, Sam, and this guy Bobby are gonna go in, take down eight vampires, rescue the food supply they've got on hand, and make sure any kids that have been turned but haven't fed yet are restrained…or, what, die trying?"

Dean smirked, staring straight ahead. "That's the plan. We've got the experience to pull it off though."

"So you think me and Bones would be extra baggage."

"Yatzee."

"And what happens if you're wrong?" Booth asked. "If someone screws up or the plan goes south, someone gets killed, and you could have prevented it by having two more bodies available for the ambush?" Dean remained silent, just continuing to walk. "Bones goes with logic. If her life is in danger, she will protect it, even if the attacker is a child, as long as you tell her what we're going up against. If she knows the kids could be killers, she knows it, period. As for me, I'll do the job cause lives depend on it, human and non."

Dean let out a long breath of frustration. "Plus you figure if someone dies and they didn't have to, it's on you cause you could have helped."

Booth paused. "Yea, I guess."

"Damnit," Dean grumbled. He let out another sigh and slowed to a stop, turning around. "Sam?"

"Yea?" Sam called back, closing the space between them, Brennan by his side.

"I think we should use the backup we've got available for when we rush the nest."