Thirteen hours later.

Images came flooding back to Alice. Doug holding her tight, Ellie's teeth against her neck, an unpleasant salty, iron taste in her mouth, fighting and gun shots. She tried to move and found that she was still tightly secured to a chair. She opened her eyes wide and found the lights in the room had been turned off and a couple of candles flickered on a rickety table.

"Sorry," said a gruff voice quietly. "It was for the best. Trust me. But you're going to be fine now, I promise."

"Who the fuck are you and what the fuck happened, and where the fuck am I NOW?" Demanded Alice. A part of her wondered why her overwhelming emotion was rage rather than fear.

The owner of the voice came into view. "I know you. You're whisky man. And, you, gigantor over there – you're drunk pool guy. Why in God's name am I tied to a chair. Is this some whole 'Deliverance' thing, because if it is, I'm going to… What the fuck is in my mouth?"

Whisky man looked grim. "How are you?" He asked.

"Fucking starving, since you ask. Which is peculiar as you'd think food would be the last thing on my mind as I'M TIED TO A FUCKING CHAIR."

"Which one of them fed you?" enquired gigantic pool guy.

Alice glared at the men. "What kind of idiot question is that? No one fucking fed me, what are you talking about you great big fool?"

Whisky man did kind of smile at that. He crouched to her level, "My name's Dean. That great big fool is my brother Sam and I absolutely promise you we mean you no harm. But you're in serious trouble unless you can think back to which one of those animals shoved their blood into your mouth."

Alice looked at Dean, Dean looked at Alice. Watching as she processed the events of the previous evening.

"Vampires? Really? I mean for absolute fucking real? That's not possible. I mean, they're fictional, right?"

Sam came over, put a chair the wrong way round in front of her and straddled it. He smiled at her kindly and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Here's the deal. There's things out there, bad things, and we hunt them. Vampires were rare, but these days they're on a recruitment drive which you unfortunately were caught up in. They, one of them, fed you blood and you're now… Well… one of them. But, don't worry, we do have a cure. It's nasty, but to do it you have to not feed at all – hence the tying you to a chair, and we need to know which one fed you their blood as we need it to fix you."

Alice looked at them, Dean first, then Sam. Trying to work out whether she was insane, they were, or if she'd been drugged and was on some sort of odd hallucinogenic trip. Then she slowly ran the tip of her tongue over her teeth, and felt rough and sharp lumps under her gum. Her face crumpled and tears spilled over her cheeks.

"Oh no, oh no… This is all manner of wrong," she whispered. Then taking a deep, shaky breath she closed her eyes and tried to recall who had forced their blood into her.

"They introduced themselves as Doug, Ross and Ellie. Doug was the one who'd bought me drinks in the bar. He held me, Ellie was the one who fed from me. I don't know where Ross was, he was to the left of me when we left the bar, but then, he kind of went. You came out, and Doug let go a bit which is when I shouted at you two to run. Thanks for not running, by the way." As she spoke she suddenly remembered Ellie thrusting her wrist at her as Doug let go to fight the hunters.

"Ellie" she said. "Fucking bitch."

Dean looked at her solemnly. "Ok sweetheart, we know where they're holed up. We'll kill them, get her blood then come back and deal with this. You need to wait here. I know you're hungry. I know it burns. The temptation to feed is going to be almost intolerable. But trust me, if you feed this is over. You'll turn completely and we'll have no choice, but to… "

"Kill me?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Best wait here then, hadn't I? Could you knock me out again maybe? It'd make it less likely I'll try and escape and frankly, much less painful. All I can see when I look at you two is food and your heartbeat is like a siren's call. Please. Just…" The world went black again.

"Sam!" Dean looked at his brother who stood behind Alice holding the piece of wood which he'd just hit her over the head with.

Sam shrugged. "She was right; it's less risky and less painful for her. We want to save her don't we?"

Dean looked at the girl slumped in the chair. Her dark hair hung loosely over her face. She was gorgeous. He winced as he fought the urge to touch her. It wasn't that long since Lisa had given him the ugly truth and although the whole relationship with her had ended badly to say the least, it clearly wasn't time to start banging almost-rescued vampire chicks. No matter how much he wanted to. "Fine, let's go and get it done" he muttered shrugging on his jacket and sticking his gun in its usual place.