Spencer had calmed down somewhat by the time the car came to a stop. By his estimation, the drive had taken about ten minutes. He'd tried his best to memorize each and every turn the car took and compare it to his mental map of the city, but lying sideways in a trunk while being jostled around at every bump had made his job considerably harder.

When the trunk was opened, Spencer flinched back instinctively, expecting hands to roughly pull him out of the car. Instead, the bag was removed from his head, and he blinked rapidly to clear his blurry vision. Sam stood in front of the opened trunk. He had a gun in hand, but he made no move to grab the young agent. Instead, he offered him a hand.

"Just cooperate and nothing bad has to happen, okay?" he said. His voice sounded almost sympathetic. Spencer carefully maneuvered himself out of his cramped position. He avoided the offered hand as he climbed out of the car, all the while keeping a careful eye on the younger Winchester. Was this a trick?

Once he was out, the trunk was closed forcefully behind him, and Spencer flinched at the sudden appearance of Dean beside them. "Room's ready," was all he said, before motioning the agent forward with his own gun.

Spencer had no choice but to follow their lead as they directed him to an open motel room door. The walk was short, but he still used the time to take in as much information about the place as possible. The motel was old and rundown. The kind of place that likely wouldn't ask too many questions. The parking lot was deserted, the lights barely worked. He doubted that he'd find any help in this place, even if he'd manage to get away or call out.

The room that they entered matched the exterior of the motel. There were two single beds with the ugliest comforters Spencer had ever seen, the wallpaper was equally tasteless and the carpeted floor was stained. What made him freeze barely inside the door, however, was the chair that had been pulled up to the center of the room. It was wooden and old, but still seemed sturdy enough to tie someone to. In the front there was a pair of cuffs secured to the chair with ropes.

A dark cabin. Wooden walls. An old chair with a pair of cuffs…

Spencer was pulled out of the sudden flashback and back to reality when a hand roughly pushed him towards the chair. He could feel himself trembling, and his mouth was suddenly dry as sandpaper. "Please, no…" His whispered plea was barely audible.

The hand seemed to hesitate for a moment, before it gripped him again and pushed him down into the chair. Spencer closed his eyes and tried to control his frantic breathing. You're not back there, he reminded himself. He flinched nonetheless when the cuffs clicked shut around his wrists.

When he opened his eyes again, he was confronted with the image of the Winchester brothers instead of Hankel. For a moment he was relieved, before reality crashed back into him. These two were arguably more dangerous than Hankel had been. He shivered in fear and ducked further into his chair, dreading what they'd do now that he was restrained and at their mercy.

To his surprise, neither of the brothers made any move to hurt him, instead they'd turned towards each other and were talking like he wasn't there at all. He tried to concentrate on their words over the blood rushing in his ears. He needed to gather all the information that he could get.

"The room's secured, and I also put some soundproofing wards up," Dean said. "You should probably check those again, though. You're better at that witchy shit than me."

Sam nodded at his brother's words and threw a look towards Spencer. "What should we do with him?"

Dean shrugged. "Dunno, keep him here, I guess. Can't exactly let him leave, now that he knows our location. I made sure he won't get away, and even if he screams, no one should be able to hear him now."

Spencer swallowed hard at those words. That didn't sound good for him. His brain instantly recalled every single crime scene photo of the Winchesters' he'd ever seen. Gruesomely brutal photos…

So Sam's next words surprised him. "Okay. Then let's pack up and get out of town as soon as possible." The younger of the brothers started picking up multiple weapons that had been stashed around the room and throwing them into a duffle bag. God, there were so many weapons… "We can call in the Fed's location anonymously once we're out of dodge."

"Hell no!" Dean grabbed Sam's arm, stopping him from putting a pair of honest to god machetes away that had Spencer's stomach clenching at the possibilities of what they might be used for. "We're not done here! We need to finish the case!"

"We can call up some other hunters to take care of it. Someone who's not on the FBI's radar."

"No! We're not running away like a pair of cowards! Anyone else would need at least a day to get here. We're already close, so let's finish this thing!"

Spencer's head was reeling with all of the new information. Not done yet? Close? Were the Winchesters the unsubs that the BAU'd been chasing? It sounded like they had business in this town. And wherever they turned up, they left a trail of bodies in their wake. Actually, if he thought about it, the signature in this town fit the brothers' perfectly. Seemingly unexplainable circumstances of death, weird religious or satanic symbols, no forthcoming witnesses, and suspects that had no visible connection to the crime.

Oh shit. It seemed he had just solved the case. Except that it wouldn't do him any good, if he'd end up being their next victim.

Spencer knew that he should try and talk them out of their plan. It was his job, his duty. He should use his brain and the profile to stop them from murdering anyone else, like they were clearly planning to do, but he was simply too terrified. There was nothing he wanted less than to draw more attention to himself.

And what had that been about 'other hunters'? Were they part of some bigger organization? A cult of sorts?

His attention was drawn back to the brothers' argument, when Sam threw his arms up in frustration. "So what do you suggest we do then? Just leave an FBI agent in our motel while we take care of this? Great idea! We don't even know how much longer this case will take!"

"I didn't say we're leaving the fed alone! Who knows what he'll do!" Dean threw a dark look at Spencer that had him instinctively flinching back in his chair and his heart beating faster. His captor's rising level of irritation was putting him on edge. "One of us'll have to stay back and keep an eye on him."

Sam instantly protested. "No, Dean! We're not splitting up again! Remember what happened last time? Neither of us will go after them alone."

"Well, then what do you wanna do with him?!"

Spencer cowered into himself. Were they gonna decide that he wasn't worth the trouble now? Both brothers had turned towards him and were eying him. They were clearly on edge, and as far as Spencer could tell, he was the only thing in the room to take that frustration out on. Dean's look was cold and calculating, while Sam looked at him with something close to pity. The young agent liked neither of those expressions and could feel his heart racing in fear. They were going to kill him! Any moment now, they were going to put a bullet in his brain-

"Let's call Cas to take care of him," Sam's words interrupted his spiraling thoughts. "He can make sure he won't remember any of this, and we can drop him off somewhere. Then we can all focus on taking down that demon."

At the word demon, Spencer flinched hard. There it was, the religious delusion, the thing he'd been worried about. For a moment, he could have sworn he smelled burning fish and rotten meat. He was trembling now.

"Cas doesn't have that much juice left, he shouldn't waste it on something like this," Dean argued.

Spencer pulled in a gasping breath. Who was this Cas guy? And how was he gonna 'take care of him'? Was he a torture specialist? Someone so well-versed in creating pain, that he could literally alter memories? Or did this have to do with their religious superstition? Did they think he was possessed by an evil force and were planning some kind of peculiar exorcism?

He was so caught up in his spiraling thoughts, that he almost missed Sam's response. "Well, Cas can at least watch him while we get rid of that demon before it causes any more damage."

The words sent him over the edge. Spencer gasped as suddenly all air seemed to have evaporated from the room. He wanted to scream, beg, cry. Tell them that he wasn't a demon. He wasn't possessed. He was just a man.

I'm not a sinner. I haven't done anything.

But it wouldn't make a difference. It hadn't to Hankel; it wouldn't to them. They wouldn't believe him. Hankel hadn't.

It was getting more and more difficult to separate the past from the present as blood rushed in his ears and the room spun around him.

"No, no, no… Please, I'm good," he barely registered his own whispering.

The floral wallpaper of the room was beginning to blur as it transformed into wooden walls. The carpet under his feet was turning into hard floor and dirt. His breathing was too fast and irregular. Distantly, Spencer realized that he was hyperventilating, but even though he knew all the theoretical steps to calm someone down in this kind of situation, he couldn't make himself stop. Tears were beginning to gather at the corners of his eyes, and near silent sobs wracked his slim frame.

A sudden hand on his shoulder violently snapped him back to reality, and he stared up into the concerned face of Dean Winchester. Winchester not Hankel. "Hey, kid. You okay?"

A new wave of fear and despair washed over Spencer, and he croaked, "Please… I'm not a d-demon. I-I'm not possessed, I s-swear. I'm g-good, I promise. Please…"

"Kid! Kid, calm down. It's okay. It's okay, I believe you." Dean looked almost panicked himself as he carefully removed one of Spencer's hands from the cuffs and rubbed his wrist in a grounding circular motion. "It's alright. We're not gonna hurt you, kid."

His comforting tone, combined with the soothing motion of his fingers on his wrist, helped Spencer slowly calm down. He was able to draw in longer breaths, and his heart rate gradually lowered again. He stared at Dean in surprise and confusion. He didn't understand. This man before him was a vicious serial killer, a profiled sexual sadist, and yet he was helping Spencer come down from a panic attack, effectively comforting him.

Once Spencer had mostly calmed down, Dean quickly backed up and put the stoic expression back on his face. He turned to his brother and cursed, "Son of a bitch. What are they doing to their agents at that fucking FBI nowadays? This kid can't be more than twenty-three, and he's already traumatized. Since when are they sending literal children into the field?!"

Spencer should probably have protested by saying that he was twenty-seven, but he was still recovering from the panic attack he'd just suffered. The whole exchange left him puzzled. What had that been about? Where was the sadistic killer that he'd been expecting?

Dean exchanged a look with Sam, who'd been hovering nearby, not interfering, but clearly ready to jump in if necessary. With a sigh, Dean pushed a hand through his hair and then carefully kneeled back down to re-cuff Spencer's loose arm. "Look, kid. I know you're scared, but we won't hurt you. I promise," he said gruffly. "We'd let you go, but we really can't have the feds on our asses right now. You probably won't believe a word of this, but there's a demon on the loose in this town that's killing people. We need to get rid of it, before we can leave. Once we've ganked that black eyed bitch, we'll let you leave unharmed. Promise."

Spencer eyed the older serial killer cautiously. He was clearly delusional. He seemed to genuinely believe what he was saying. A quick glance at Sam confirmed that the younger man didn't look the least bit surprised or doubtful of his brother's words. He seemed to believe in the same thing.

The young agent swallowed and licked his lips nervously. Usually, with subjects on a psychotic break, he'd play into the delusion. He'd make them trust him, establish a bond of understanding. But these two seemed to expect him to not buy a word they said. So why even explain? Everything they did or said stood in direct contradiction to the profile as well as every profiling handbook out there.

The causal way they handled weapons as well as their crimes suggested sadistic psychopaths, yet they were clearly capable of empathy (or at least faking it incredibly well). They hadn't hurt him so far and had promised not to do so. Though he knew not to trust their words, they'd seemed weirdly genuine. Dean, especially, appeared to switch between a cold and calculated mood, and a caring, almost protective one. Normally, Spencer would guess split personality disorder, especially combined with the deep-rooted delusion, but they both were much too clear minded for that. Neither brother appeared to experience episodes of irrationality or extreme mood-swings.

The profile was more than confusing. Add to that that Spencer wasn't able to figure out who was the dominant of the two. At first glance, one would think Dean to be the leader – that was also how it was noted in their files – but the longer he was with them, the more unsure the young agent became of that. If anything, the two brothers were the most balanced team in terms of leadership that Spencer had ever seen in a serial killer duo.

He simply didn't know how to approach this situation. The profile was basically useless. But he had to do something. Dean had clearly stated that they were planning on murdering someone later. Spencer had to stop them; and with the threat of harm to himself at least lessened for the moment, he decided to just give the most basic negotiation strategy a try. Sympathize. Agree with their belief system.

So he quietly cleared his throat to regain his voice after his attack from before and chose his words very carefully as he said, "Hunting demons must be difficult. Especially, if nobody acknowledges the sacrifices you make to protect all those innocent people. I can understand that that must be frustrating. But maybe I can help you in your…hunt."

To his surprise, Dean let out a loud laugh at his words. "Nice try, kid. But we know you're not buying shit here. People almost never do until they see a demon, ghost or vamp first hand."

Spencer stared at Dean open-mouthed for a moment, before he slowly turned his head to gauge Sam's reaction. The younger Winchester also had an amused look on his face, though his expression turned sympathetic when he noticed Spencer's stunned look. "Don't worry about it," he said. "You did a really good job with that speech. I bet it would have worked on any other criminal in this situation."

Spencer suddenly, weirdly, felt like a rookie in training again, being encouraged after a good attempt that still ultimately failed. It was surreal, how from one moment to another, the brothers' stern exterior could shift to casual banter and back.

"I'm gonna call Cas," Dean announced. "You can stay, keep an eye on the kid and continue to let yourself get psycho-analyzed." With that he left the room, casually throwing the keys to the cuffs at Sam, who caught them one-handedly.

Spencer was stunned. He didn't know how to classify what had just happened. His attempt to sympathize with the serial killers had failed spectacularly. But still they hadn't gotten angry or retaliated in any way.

He supposed he should be glad. At least he hadn't angered them with his words. They hadn't broken their promise not to hurt him.

At least not yet.

The BAU marched into the local police station well after 11 pm. There were just two lonely officers left on night shift, who looked up in surprise at their entrance. "Agents?" One of them asked. "What are you doing back here? The case is closed."

"We're not sure yet, if this is about the case," Hotch said shortly, not even stopping to talk to the men. "One of our agents was taken. We'll be setting back up in the conference room."

"But you can't just-"

"I wasn't asking," Hotch interrupted sharply. He went straight into the room, where they'd been set up in the days prior, his team right behind him.

They made quick work of pushing aside the materials related to the case that was still strewn around the room. JJ pulled up a blank evidence board and wrote 'Winchester brothers' in big black letters on top. Morgan had already called Garcia again and put her on speaker. "Give us everything you've got on the Winchesters," Hotch said.

"Right away, sir!" They could hear a keyboard clicking in the background as the technical analyst pulled up the corresponding files. "Here we go. Sam and Dean Winchester, brothers. Dean is four years older. Both parents are deceased. Oh…their mom died in a house-fire when they were just little kids. Dad went off the rails after that; kept moving the boys around for their entire childhood. Multiple schools made reports to CPS, but the family was always gone by the next day. Doesn't seem like a sunny childhood…"

"That doesn't excuse becoming serial killers," Morgan growled. "Many people grow up in bad homes and they don't all start killing people."

"No, but the dad raised them in the belief that the world is filled with monsters and that it's their job to kill them. That's been their mission ever since. The delusion was passed down to them by their father. Whoever they perceive as a monster, they kill."

For a moment, there was silence. Hotch knew what they were all thinking. How utterly similar this was to Georgia. Reid had been taken by religious fanatic killers once again. He could see it in the faces of his team that they were all fighting against the memories of those horrible two days. Morgan was grinding his teeth, his hands clenched into tight fists. JJ seemed to be holding back tears, her hair a mess from where she'd had her fingers buried in it. Prentiss looked relatively collected on the outside, but Hotch could see the pain in her eyes. Rossi was the only one who hadn't yet been with the team back then, so it was unsurprising that it was him, who eventually broke the silence.

"What about criminal history, Garcia?"

They could hear her clearing her throat on the other side of the line, and her voice was slightly choked when she answered, "Right, yes. Dean was arrested for the first time at sixteen for stealing. Spent a few months in a boys home. After that there are a few run-ins with officers, usually at his father's side, until he's officially arrested again at twenty-six. Sam actually went to college for a while, Stanford. Oh wow, full ride. He suddenly dropped out only a few days after Dean's arrest after his girlfriend died in a fire that is eerily similar to their mother's death."

"Do you think Dean set that fire to get his brother to join him again?" Prentiss asked.

"We can only speculate at this point," Hotch answered. Personally, he thought that it was highly likely. He still had some details about the Winchester's file in his head. Dean had always been the more dangerous of the brothers and more invested in their delusional world-view. Hendrickson had profiled him as the dominant of the pairing.

"After that," Garcia continued, "their crimes spiral out of control. They up their game from break-ins and grave-desecration," they could hear her shuttering over the phone, and the rest of the team also made varying degrees of disgusted faces, "to murder, and yes, also torture. They've been arrested a few times since, even been to prison. But they always escaped quickly. They've been declared dead multiple times, the last two years ago after they made the FBI Most Wanted list following a wild killing spree. I'm sending all of this to your tablets now."

For a few minutes, there was silence as everyone went through the pictures and evidence files. The quiet was interrupted by Morgan banging his fist down on the table hard. "Fuck! These guys are animals! And they have Reid!"

He cursed again. The rest of the team exchanged concerned glances. Hotch could feel an uneasy knot curling in his stomach. Reid had already been through so much, and the thought of what the Winchesters could be doing to him right now, made worry and rage boil inside of him. Despite the feelings inside of him, he forced himself to remain calm. "We don't know what they're planning yet. Everything points to them having taken Reid spontaneously. Maybe he recognized Dean. They appear to have a strict rule-book on who they kill. If he doesn't fit into their fantasy of monsters, they probably won't harm Reid."

Morgan's eyes, when they met his, were pained. "We can't know that, man. They're clearly sexual sadists. There is no guarantee they'll be able to hold themselves back with a victim within easy reach."

"But are they?" Rossi chipped in. "I'm just saying. Dean's textbook behavior, but what about the younger brother? Nothing points to Sam having a sadistic steak. Actually, whenever they've been arrested, Dean has been the only one directly associated with the killing blow. Until their spree Sam had actually only been deemed an accomplice."

Morgan shook his head. "To witness his brother commit this level of torture and still stand by his side, he'd still have to be at least a psychopath."

There was something they were missing, Hotch could feel it. Something about all of this wasn't adding up, but he couldn't tell what it was. Thoughtfully, he studied the board and everything JJ had been writing on it while they were talking. The crime scene photos she'd pinned up were making his stomach churn. Many were covered in religious symbols. Worry for his youngest agent kept interrupting his thoughts, his mind conjuring up images of Reid in the position of the victims. What was he missing?

"Guys," JJ interrupted Morgan and Rossi's discussion. "Shouldn't we focus on the most important thing: Where did they take Reid? And how do we find him?"

The rest of the team agreed. Rossi suggested looking through the local motels, which the Winchesters were known to stay in, but Morgan shot the idea down, arguing that they'd need more privacy than that with a kidnapping victim. They argued back and forth whether it was still worth a check and how to even narrow down the number of motels in the town.

Time dragged on as minutes turned into hours with no new information turning up. Hotch was on his second cup of coffee and had gone back to studying the board, only listening to his team's discussion with half an ear.

"Can we even assume that they're still in town?" Prentiss asked eventually. "For all we know, they were just passing through."

At that moment, Hotch's gaze drifted to one of the case-boards that had been pushed aside. The symbol. The symbol from the crime scenes that they hadn't been able to place. The Winchesters were known for leaving religious drawings wherever they went. He quickly rolled the board back into the middle of the room.

"They aren't. If we assume that these murders have been committed by the Winchesters, then we can find out where they'll be next. Throw out everything about the case's original profile and apply the Winchesters' MO to it."

Everyone turned towards him. "They follow a very specific pattern," Morgan said.

"They're mission based killers and wouldn't deviate from it," Rossi added.

JJ stepped up to the board and circled the house of the woman that had been arrested today. "She didn't fit the profile. Because she isn't the unsub, her family is the next victim."

Hotch looked over his team. They all looked back at him with determination. "Let's go. We'll get Reid back!"