"A truck though?" Sam asked. "This is definately new."
"For us, maybe." Dean shrugged. "Anyway, doesn't matter. From what I see on this research, we're gonna have to talk to Cassie's mom."
Sam nodded, watching as Dean poured salt circles around one of the beds in the hotel room.
"Alex! C'mon! Hop up!" he said, patting the bed.
"But, Dean---"
"I'm making you a circle, okay? And you don't get out of the bed unless it's necessary."
Alex sat on the bed, sighing, as Sam put down the tv remote, a book, and a soda on the stand next to her.
"What if I have to go the bathroom?"
"No." Dean said.
"Dean." Sam chided, shaking his head.
"What? She's just arguing with me. Alex, sit. Stay."
"I'm not a puppy!"
"Just go to sleep. We'll be back soon." Sam said, following Dean out of the door.
Dean sat in the car, breathing heavily as the ghost truck had just driven through him.
"Dean!" Sam's frantic voice called on the other end of the line. "Dean! Are you all right?"
"Yeah... what the hell happened?" he panted.
"You stopped where Cyrus burned down the church! It's still hallowed ground; the ghost destroyed itself by driving over it."
"How'd you know that would work?" Dean asked warily.
"Didn't; just took a guess."
"You took a..." Dean shook his head, slapping his phone shut. "Gonna kill that kid, I swear..." he muttered, starting the car up to go back and get Sam.
Sam was waiting next to the old tractor when Dean pulled up, and slid into car.
"Okay, we can go back to the hotel, get out of here?"
"Yeah..." Sam said, looking at him. "But, I wanted to ask you something."
"Yeah, what?" Dean asked guardedly.
"How come you never mentioned Cassie before?"
"What?" Dean asked uncomfortably.
"Well... you never said a word..." he said carefully.
"Because I trusted her in a way that I shouldn't have." Dean said gruffly.
"You didn't know she was going to treat Alex like that..." Sam said gently.
"I don't mean just that..." Dean sighed. "Although, if I had known before this morning, something would've been done about it... Nah, I mean, yeah, that pisses me off that I didn't know it, but... I told her... everything. I was actually honest. 'Bout who we are. What we do..."
"Seriously?" Sam asked, raising his eyebrows up into his bangs.
"Yes, all right?" Dean spat, annoyed. "I told her everything, and she started throwing every kind of shit she could reach at my head! Which, is why I never bothered before..."
Sam sighed. "Dude, I'm sorry..."
"Yeah, I picked wrong, whatever." Dean tried to shrug it off. "Just let it go. Guys like us... we can't have that kinda thing."
"Dean, that's bullshit and you know it." Sam burst out. "Yeah, Jess is gone, but she wouldn't be if I'd've just been honest with her!"
Dean spun the car to the side of the road so fast Sam had to hold on.
"Dude!"
"Look, you know that's true! If she knew about my past, what I knew... that I'd started having those dreams... she might still be here!"
"Sammy... even if you were there, sleeping next to her, it still would've happened." Dean said softly. "If it was something that could've been stopped... then she'd still be around. Mom would still be around."
He didn't want to verbalize it, but left the thought they both had lingering in the air: If John Winchester couldn't stop it... what could?