We spend the rest of the day and most of the next morning researching a spell that will work for us. Finally we find one, and we set up a map on the table and stand around it.

"So what do we do first?" I ask Dean.

"Each of you needs to put a little bit of blood on our current location," he says, pointing to a spot on the map that he's marked with an X.

"Okay," I say. I pick up one of Dean's small knifes and make a quick cut on the side of my palm. I hold it over the X-marked spot on the map and let a few drops fall onto it. Sam does the same, and then Dean starts reciting the spell.

About halfway into the spell, something starts happening. The messy drops of blood slowly pull together as if to a magnet and then a thin stream of blood starts running along one of the lines on the map.

Dean glances up and then keeps reading, and blood keeps snaking along until Dean finishes the spell and it stops at a town in Kansas, where the blood then soaks into the map.

"Great," Dean says. "Only fifteen hours from here."

"Awesome. I'll take my car, you take yours, and I'll meet you there?" I say.

"Sounds good," Dean replies. Sam's still not saying anything.

We pack up and head out to our cars. I try to turn mine on but it just revs and then sputters out. "Shit," I mumble to myself as I climb out of the car. "Dean!" I shout to Dean, who's twenty feet away and just about to get in the Impala.

"What?" he shouts back.

"My car isn't working!"

He says something to Sam and then comes over. "What's wrong with it?" he asks.

"Won't turn on," I tell him.

He tries turning it on himself, opens the hood, checks a few things out before turning to me. "It just seems old," he says with a shrug. "This thing's gone so far, it can't go anymore."

"So… what does that mean?"

"It means there's no way you're driving it."

"Shit," I grumble, half-heartedly kicking the front tire. "I gotta ride with you guys?"

"If you wanna come with us to stop that demon," he tells me, but his furrowed brow indicates he's more concerned than his tone is letting on. Fifteen hours in a car with Sam? That's going to be tough for everyone involved. I look up at the Impala, where Sam is leaning against the hood of the car watching us, arms crossed.

"Fine," I finally growl. "I'll get my stuff."

And so it is, fifteen minutes later, we're cruising down the road with Sam and Dean in front, me in back.

"So what've you been up to while you've been gone?" Dean asks me.

"The usual. Hunting. Killing things. Hey, Sam, if I'm going to be the one talking to Dean anyway, can I just sit in the front?" I ask Sam, who's stubbornly ignoring the world and reading a book.

"No," he says flatly, flipping the page in his book and otherwise continuing to ignore us.

I let out a huff and flop back into my seat. "Okay, then."

The remainder of the fifteen hours pass incredibly slowly. I don't really have anything to do and Sam's being painfully quiet and it's hard to talk to Dean too much over the hum of the road underneath the tires, especially when he's up front and I'm stuck in the back seat.

About twenty minutes away from the town, Dean heads off the highway and into a residential area.

"Where are we going?" I ask him, leaning forward between the seats. Sam scoots a little to the side, away from me, and continues to pretend to ignore us, but I can tell he's listening. I wonder when he's going to cut the act.

"Just an idea I had as we were passing by," Dean says. "I don't even know if she still lives here. It's been a while since we've seen her."

"Her? Who's her?" I ask.

"An old friend," Dean tells me, and Sam glances over at him and narrows his eyes. I'm not sure he knows who Dean is talking about either.

I huff and lean back again, pulling up a map application on my phone because he didn't answer my question about where we're going.

Ah. We're in Lawrence, Kansas. The boys' hometown.

Dean pulls up in front of a house and turns off the car. He gets out and Sam and I follow him as he goes up to the front porch.

The door opens before we get the opportunity to knock, and a stout woman greets us with a smile. "Sam, Dean! It's been a while," she says, with a hint of a southern accent. She turns to me. "And your friend Eva, I see."

I look at Sam and Dean. "Did you tell her…?"

They both shake their heads.

When I turn back to the woman, she's holding out her hand for me to shake. I take it and shake it unsurely.

"I'm Missouri. An old friend of John's," she says, without giving context as to who John is. I mean, I know who she's talking about, but I don't know how she knows I know. "And I helped out the boys with a poltergeist back when they started hunting on their own."

"Are you… a hunter?" I ask. She doesn't look like one, but you never know.

"She's a psychic," Dean fills in for me.

"Which explains…" I start.

But she finishes for me. "Why I know your name, and that you know who John is. And, that you're searching for something that you don't know how to find."

There's a pause. "We know the town she's in, but that's it. You can help us find her?" Dean asks after a moment.

Missouri tilts her head. "Why don't you come in." She opens the door some more and we all file into her house.

She ushers us into the living room and seats us all on a couch before going to make some tea.

"Are you sure we can trust her?" I ask Sam and Dean.

"Yes," Dean says definitively.

"Okay," I say, not entirely sure about it, but I'll take his word. I trust him, but it's hard to trust someone that apparently can read everyone's minds like an open book while keeping their own thoughts completely private.

Missouri comes back with a tea pot and some cups on a tray and sets it down on the coffee table. She gives me a knowing and reassuring smile, like she knows exactly what I was thinking about not being able to trust her, and I shift uncomfortably.

"Do you know how to find her?" Dean asks her as she starts pouring tea.

"Maybe if I go with you to the town you located," Missouri says. She passes me a cup of tea and starts filling another one. "If I'm close enough, I might be able to sense where she is."

Dean stands up. "All right, sounds good. Let's go," he says.

"Sit back down, boy," Missouri says firmly. He sits back down. "We're not going anywhere until I finish my tea."

Missouri accompanies us to the town where we know the baby to be, but says she has to head back to Lawrence as soon as we know where to go. She has appointments with clients later today, and there's not much she can do beyond sending us in the right direction anyway.

She drives her own car down, and Sam goes with her. Obviously he wants to be around me as little as possible. At least I get to sit in the front seat of the Impala.

When we get there, Missouri and Sam get into the Impala so we can drive around the town hoping Missouri can pick something up. Probably pretty inefficient, but it's the best we can do right now.

We've been cruising around the suburbs with the neat houses and well-trimmed lawns for about half an hour when Missouri says, "Stop."

Dean pulls over to the side of the road.

"That's it," she says, nodding to the house across the street. "Seems inconspicuous enough, but there's demons in every adjacent house and spells all over the place."

I can't help but be a little impressed, but I'm uneasy at the same time. How can she tell?

Dean nods, and I can almost see the gears starting to shift in his head. "We'd have to draw the demons out first to be able to get inside." He taps his chin thoughtfully. "They don't know Eva's alive. Me and Sam could use ourselves as bait to lure them out, and Eva could go in. Is Bela there?"

Missouri nods.

"We'll just have to come up with something believable and tempting enough for her to leave too," Sam adds, finally stepping into conversation. We all exchange glances.

"I have an idea," I say.

And so it comes to be, two hours later, that I'm sitting a block away in my car with a pair of binoculars and Sam and Dean have gotten themselves captured by a demon somewhere in town.

"Good luck," Missouri had said with a smile after we finished coming up with a plan. "And Sam? Stop being so childish and move on," she adds, before taking off.

Anyway, I'm all on my own on this one.

I watch the house where Bela is supposed to be carefully. After a while, Bela and four of her henchmen rush out the front door and get in the car parked in front of the house and drive off. I wait until the car is out of view before climbing out of my own and hurrying towards the house.

I use my lock pick set to open the back door and slip inside, pocketing the lock picks and taking out the demon blade at the same time. I stand completely still and completely silent for a few moments to try to pick up any noises of human—or rather, demon—life inside.

"Bela forbade me from eating you," I can barely hear a voice from upstairs say in a cooing voice. That must be where the kid is. "Which is too bad. You look tasty."

I tighten my grip on the demon blade in my hand, disgusted. I'd almost forgotten how nasty demons are. I take a few steps towards the stairs when somebody says from behind me, "Nice try."

I turn around and look at the man standing in front of me. He's tall and imposing, dressed in a simple suit and tie, but his eyes aren't completely black. Yet, at least.

I try to play it cool. I have the demon blade with me just in case this doesn't work out. "Who are you?"

He smiles, his eyes glowing blue for a second. I stumble backwards in surprise. An angel? I'm fucked. I don't have an angel blade - I haven't even seen one in months. Because we haven't been dealing with angels.

"Uh, let's not do anything we'll regret, now," I say in a strained voice. "We can just talk it out."

He smiles and pulls out an angel blade, spinning it in his hand as he stalks towards me.

Fuck. What do I do now? Angel-banishing sigil. I can do that. I cut across my forearm, pressing hard and cringing at the pain. I hope it'll be enough blood.

"I don't think so," the angel says, grabbing my bleeding arm with his free hand. The skin burns where he touches and I cry out.

I'm not ready to die. Panicked, I stab at his chest with my demon knife. As expected, nothing happens. He laughs, but his laugh is cut short as his face goes blank and a blade protrudes from his chest. I glance over his shoulder and there's someone standing there, pulling the blade out of the angel as the angel drops to the ground. The man's face is impossible to see, completely lit up and his features drowned out from the bright light already starting to fill the room.

"Cover your eyes," the man behind the angel growls. The angel has light pouring from his eyes and mouth and a high-pitched noise is filling the air. I close my eyes and cover my ears, but it barely blocks out the sound, which feels like it's reverberating painfully through my head.

After what must be ten seconds, the noise subsides and I open my eyes and straighten up.

The man's standing there in front of me, the dead angel at his feet and a bundled-up baby in his arms.

And I recognize him.

"Cas?"