"Robin?" I heard someone calling my name from a distance. "Robin? C'mon, wake up, please." I felt the ghost of a touch on my face. Slowly, I regained my senses. A dull pain on the side of my head manifested itself and suddenly became violent. I heard a sound of something metallic jingling. And the pressure I felt on my wrists was released. I raised my hand to touch the painful part of my head. But a calloused hand gently stopped me. "Hey, don't touch it." I heard him say softly. It was a male voice for sure. When I finally opened my eyes, I saw a blurry face blocking the light from my vision. I heard him again "That's it! C'mon, Robin please. Try to focus your eyes on me. Show me you're okay." I recognized this voice.

"Dean?" I asked as I blinked more my eyes to get past the blur. Then I finally saw his face correctly. "Robin, what happened to you? Where's Sam?" I tried to sit up but Dean stopped me. "Easy, Robin. Just tell me." I saw the concerned look in his eyes. I tried to gather my memories as best as I could. Everything came back all at once. "The Sam who was with us today was a shapeshifter and he followed us since Lebanon's events. He works with Joe. He kidnapped Sam this morning. And he knocked me out before running away." I said as I rubbed the side of my head. Dean' eyes widened as he seemed to take all the information in. "Son of a bitch" he simply muttered while yanking the chains away.

He seemed to regain a bit of his cool when he glanced at me and asked "Okay. We'll get Sam back quickly. But first, I have to take care of you. Do you feel well enough to walk?" I slowly nodded my head. But then I got scared and asked suspiciously "Wait. How do I know you're not a shifter?" He looked at me incredulously, sighed and grabbed my silver dagger to hand it to me. I studied his face to try to detect any sign of pain. Thankfully, he didn't flinch. "See? Didn't burn myself. But now, I have to make sure you're not a shifter either. Your turn, sweetheart." I took the dagger from his hand. He looked at me intently and studied my face too. When he saw my lack of reaction at the silver touch, he sighed in relief. "Okay, so no one here is a shifter. Now it's time to go find Sammy. I'm going to lift you carefully and I'll help you out of here. Sounds good?" "Yeah, thank you."

Once we were out of the basement, Dean guided me on the stairs while holding me. He broke the silence by saying "We have no time to waste. We have to find Sam. I can drop you at a hospital, if you want." He paused for a second to glance at me. I just shook my head. Then I asked him "How did you find me?" He sighed and said "I waited for you in front of Baby for around ten minutes. But I didn't see you coming back. So I thought that maybe something bad happened to you. That maybe Joe was waiting for you. I sneaked into the flat but you weren't there. So I rushed to the basement. I found the door open and the trap door. I called for you but nobody answered. And when I landed, I found you chained and unconscious on the floor and Sam was nowhere to be seen."

We were finally out of the building when I decided to ask him "Did you look at that room?" "No. I mostly focused on you, to be honest." He said in a soft tone. He threw me a concerned look and he moved his hand to caress my back. He was back to the gentle Dean I always knew. Though his gesture was comforting, Dean's 'mood swings' were really disconcerting. But if he wasn't a shapeshifter, what else could explain his behavioral change, then? Was he a crocotta? I saw him on the phone last night and he wasn't there when I woke up this morning. No, it wouldn't make sense. He couldn't be possessed either. As much as it intrigued me, I had to leave this question aside, as we had more important things to do.

To get back to the important subject, I said, "Well, apparently someone knew that Glen was a werewolf judging by the chains and the claw marks." Dean seemed to think for a bit while opening Baby's door for me, then said "But no one was with him when he went all Cujo." As we both got seated, I replied "There must be an explanation. But first, we have to find Sam." Dean threw me a panicked glance as he seemed to realize something and replied "He could be anywhere at the moment." So I tried to reassure him, "The shifter told me that he kidnaped him this morning. So it was more than probably during his jogging. Anyone could have noticed some guy dragging another one in the streets. I'm sure his hiding place is close to the park where he went running." I barely finished my sentence that Dean immediately started the engine and simply said "The Golden Gate Park". I looked at him as he maneuvered Baby out of the parking place. All his muscles seemed to be tense and determination was painted on his face. "We don't have any more time to waste."

It was a miracle that we didn't get arrested or into an accident. Dean was driving like a mad man, completely off the speed limit throughout our journey to the park. And to make things worse, the traffic was terribly busy at this hour. I was used to Dean being reckless, but this was getting out of hand."Get off my way, damn cable car!" was all he screamed as he barely avoided it. Right after this close call, I decided to intervene. "Dean! Please, slow down a bit! We won't be of any help if we end up in an accident!" With his eyes still on the road and his hands gripping the wheel harder, he yelled at me "I know! Okay?! I know! But that son of a bitch could be harming Sam at the moment!" Though I felt the anguish in his voice, I rolled my eyes and replied "And you think that us possibly getting into a car wreck will stop him?! Dean, please, calm down. Slow down a bit. We're close to the park." I said, almost pleading with him as I gently put my hand on his arm and the other on the dashboard to steady myself. Dean was incredibly stubborn but my gesture and the desperation in my tone seemed to calm him a bit. He sighed and slowed down Baby's pace. "Okay. But I swear that if he touched as much of a single hair on Sam's head, he's dead!"

After a few minutes, many honking, near accidents and various insults and threats directed at pedestrians and other drivers, we finally arrived. Dean parked Baby in a haste and practically jumped out. I barely had the time to unbuckle my seatbelt that he was already away from the car. "Dean! Please wait, we don't even know where they are!" I screamed as I attempted to follow him. I knew it was nonsense to run like that and I was sure that deep down, Dean knew it, too. But I could never reason with him when it came to Sam. So I didn't argue and tried to run after him. We both rushed like idjits, trying to get through the crowd. With some luck, we could maybe spot something useful. But the crowd was getting thicker and only got in our way. I was sure we could have enjoyed this beautiful park in another circumstance. All around us, people were enjoying themselves in the heat of this late afternoon, strolling peacefully or maybe laughing at a very funny story. It was a huge contrast to our panicked state. Fear was rising in my blood with each passing second and seeing Dean in such distress worsened the situation. It felt surreal. Almost like being stuck in a loop: pushing people out of our way, trying to catch our breath, turning our heads to look in every direction and then realizing that we had no idea of the direction we should go and back to running again. Plus, time was running fast against us. We were progressively losing daylight and who knew what could be lurking here once the night had fallen.

We ran around for what felt like hours. Although we didn't know where we headed, we still made it quite far from where we parked the car. Well, at least judging by the almost complete absence of people around and the growing presence of trees. Though my lungs burned from the running session, I was glad to be away from the suffocating crowd. While running, I sometimes checked the sky, trying to know what time it was. The sky took beautiful colors, indicating that the sun had set for quite some time. After a time of running, Dean abruptly stopped and almost made me fall. He brought his hands in his hair, and he turned on himself to face me. Dean was out of breath, just like me. His eyes were gleaming with tears, and he seemed about to break down. "Dammit! This park is too big. This asshole could be anywhere. Even outside of the park for that matter. A stupid joke to lead us here!" Dean was frantic, restless. It seemed that nothing could calm him.

My own heart seemed about to explode, but that was my shot to try to reason with him. I carefully closed the distance between us to get him to look at me."Dean" was all I said to attempt to gain his attention. His eyes were roaming all over the landscape before finally landing on me. Even with his eyes on me, I could feel he wasn't fully paying attention to me. And who could blame him? So, I took another step closer to him and said softly "Dean, listen to me." But, he stepped back as if he was afraid of me. His expression seemed to shift from complete distress to an unreadable one. It wasn't like him at all. Though my heart sank, I deeply breathed and tried again "I know you don't want to hear that but we have to calm down a bit and to think. Running around leads to nothing. Now, breathe a little and try to focus." Judging by the look in his eyes, Dean seemed to finally have a moment of clarity in the hell he had in his mind. He seemed to think, a focused expression on his face. Then he turned his gaze toward me again. "You think they're here? In the park?" He asked, stepping in my direction. But before I could reply, he turned his back and began to pace around. "But where?" And he went to an alt and finally said, "My baby brother is somewhere and I can't find him. Lately, I was too caught up with…the case. So caught up that I can't even protect him from an asshole shifter." His voice broke a little and his shoulders slouched in defeat.

I swiftly approached him in an attempt of a hug. I was sure that he would push me away. But to my surprise, he didn't slip away from my touch and gladly accepted it. I then lifted his chin to make him look at me. "Hey, you didn't fail Sam. They know the books. They basically know everything about us. It's not your fault. He told me that he wanted to kidnap you at first but the diner was too crowded. If they are in the park, there aren't many places where he could hide him without getting noticed. I'm going to find a map of the park. But keep in mind that it's more than probably another trap. Plus, the night is falling. We'll have to be extra careful, okay?" He wiped a stray tear with the back of his hand and nodded his head.

We then looked thoroughly at the map. After a moment, I sighed "There's so many places" as I rubbed my forehead. Dean threw me a desperate look at those words but he redirected his eyes on the map and kept looking nonetheless. The more I looked at the map, the less hopeful I felt. I couldn't tell Dean such a thing, I didn't want to crush his hopes. But if it was a useless lead, we'd have to face it. Looking at this damn map was giving me a migraine. Then, Dean pointed his finger at an area and his face lit up. "Look, Robin! There's a lake named Elk Glen Lake. Do you think there's a correlation?" He said as hope seemed to fill his eyes. Thoughts were running fast in my mind. After all, this wasn't completely irrelevant to think about it, considering the weird game we were thrown into. "Well, it could seem far-fetched but with such a crazy mind as Joe's, anything is possible. We have to check it." "This whacko really loves to play with us." I then tried to look closer in the area. "Look! There's two separate sets of buildings around this area. One around Overlook Drive and the other next to Middle Drive W. Should we look in both?" Dean approached his head and took a good look. "We should go check both of them. We're too far from this place. Let's go fetch Baby. And there's no way I can leave you alone here." He said as he gently took my hand and we left.

We took a quick ride to get near Overlook Dr. As we couldn't drive on this road, we finished our journey by foot. Soon enough, we would be in the complete dark without any source of light as the new moon was tonight. And I could tell by the way he breathed that Dean was frustrated as hell. Well, it was more groans than breaths honestly. Our rapid footsteps made a terrible noise in the night, as did our irregular breathing. After a long walk in a wooded area with no one around, we finally arrived in a restricted area. At the moment we set foot in this place, we both grabbed our guns. It was a kind of construction site with various machines around. With poor lighting to top it all, it seemed straight out of an 80's horror movie. The air around us was perfectly still. I could almost expect a monster jumping out at us. I then realized that it was totally possible when you lived a hunter's my body temperature slowly got back to normal, I realized how chilly the air was. I couldn't help but have slight shivers down my spine.

As I looked around us, I noticed that there was only one building. Dean got closer to me and finally said "I think we'll have to check this building. This asshole could be here. Ready, Robin?" I looked around while getting a better hold on my gun. Then I replied, "As I'll ever be." Dean threw me a serious look and declared "Okay. Follow me." And we were finally moving toward the building. As we approached, I couldn't help but sometimes throw a look or two behind our backs. I definitely watched too many horror movies with Dean. When we arrived next to the door, I slowly put my hand on the handle and tried to open it. But I noticed that it was locked. "It's locked?",asked Dean, visibly surprised. He then gently pushed me to the side. "What are you doing? You don't think of breaking it, right?" I questioned him. He gave me a look and said "What? You have a better idea?"I got my picks out of my pocket and said "Yeah. The James Bond's way." He almost laughed when he asked "The James Bond's way?" I just rolled my eyes and picked the lock.

As we stepped in, I was shocked by the complete silence and darkness reigning here. It wasn't as big as it looked from the outside. Dean and I went immediately shoulder to shoulder, raising our guns and trying to be as silent as possible. After a quick look around in the dark, there weren't many places where the shifter could hide. It was just a big room with three doors leading to supposedly other smaller rooms. The building was mostly empty, if it wasn't for some tables here and there. As I kept looking around, Dean suddenly made a few gestures to tell me to take the door on my left. As he slowly walked away from me, I just glanced at him to see him preparing himself to open the other door. I, too, got closer to my door. Slowly grabbed the handle while preparing my gun with my other hand. My heartbeat was going crazy and a goosebump was forming on my arms. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for whatever could be behind it and pulled the handle down. As I finally opened it, a scream suddenly interrupted me. It was Dean. I quickly turned, raised my gun and ran toward him. He seemed to be fighting someone.

I was ready to aim at the enemy. Dean was kicking and screaming, wrestling with….a broom? "Dean, stop." I said, trying to pry the broom away from him. The look on his face was priceless. The adrenaline was visibly still coursing in his veins. "Something fell on me when I opened the door." He said, still panting from the surprise. I stifled a laugh and said while holding his attacker. "Of all the monsters that ever attacked you, the worst one appears to be a broom. It's a broom closet, Dean." he grimaced at my jibe. "Yeah. Ha ha, real funny" he scoffed as i helped him up. "You okay, though? No dust bunny on you?" I asked, not resisting to poke a bit of fun at him despite the current situation."You done?" he asked me with a bitch face that would make Sam proud. "Yeah, let's go". With that, we finished inspecting the other rooms.

As expected, it was a wild goose chase. So we moved to the next building on the map. It was now completely dark. The absence of light only thickenned the tension of the situation. Thankfully, the road to the old McQueen Plant wasn't long. The first thing I noticed when we set foot in the driveway was that the fences around the restricted place were left open. The path was finally lit by a few lamp poles here and there. As we walked in, we were greeted by a deafening silence. Indeed, this part of the park was eerily calm, too calm for my liking. There was barely a noise except for the few twigs we stepped on. We both acted cautious, looking around every bush and tree. If the shifter was there, he could have been with Joe. After a few more steps in deafening silence, I whispered "I think I see light by the window of the building on our right." Dean snapped his head to look in the direction of the square building with a greenish roof. "Someone's working the graveyard shift, huh?" He said as he readied his gun. As we were getting closer, Dean and I both spotted something weird on the ground. A shoe. I soon realized it was Sam's left shoe. We exchanged a concerned look.

There we were, in front of the old building. I noticed that, unlike the other building from earlier, the door was slightly ajar. This made me throw a nervous look at Dean. We got ready, guns in hands. My heart thumped loudly in my chest as the pressure increased and my hands shook a little. Before we could enter, Dean put his free hand in front of me to stop me from stepping forward. I curiously looked at him. While placing one hand on the door handle, Dean whispered, "Behind this door, anything could wait for us. There's probably two Sam inside. And worse, a wolfy bonus. But, at this point, we could only expect another stupid trap. The top priority is to get the real Sam and us out of this alive. So, be careful, okay?" I nodded my head. He breathed deeply and looked me in the eyes. "On the count of three." he whispered. My blood was almost boiling with anguish. Dean's countdown was over and we pushed the door.

When we stepped foot inside, I realized it looked like an old laboratory. The building seemed empty despite being fully lit. The greenish light of the neon made the lab seem almost looked like a morgue. Dean made a few gestures to tell me we had to inspect. Even though it was a fair size, the building was too small for us to feel the need to split up. Oddly enough, it was way more stressful to check a building with the light on. Indeed, it could only mean that the monster was waiting for us and it was clearly prepared. It seemed like a game and not just a monster trying to hide from us. It wanted us to find them. Another trap. By the way Dean's jaw tensed at every step, I could tell that he felt the same. The constant flickering of the neons and the water dripping from a faucet nearby only made the situation worse.

As I looked at the various glassware and samples miscellaneously placed here and there, I heard a deafening crash and various screams and groans. It sounded like someone throwing around someone else. Dean and I raised our heads, exchanged a look and began to try to locate the origin of the commotion. We then tried to follow the noise. Judging by the way we heard it It seemed to come from a door in the back of the building. But which one, exactly? The 'fight' seemed to keep going as we were getting closer . But, after another violent crash that made the walls vibrate, a complete silence fell again. What if it was Sam? Dean seemed to perceive my anxiety as much as I could feel his. We raised our guns again. It was the red door right in front of us. We didn't have a minute to , we swiftly ran to the door without making any noise. I was breathing deeply, getting ready for the possible fight that was awaiting us. But before I could do or say anything, Dean kicked the door open.