Title: Tainted

Chapter 4 – Gula

The second Dean pulled up at the parking lot, he noticed the huge crowd that had gathered in front of the diner.

Apparently Sam's sixth sense had been right; there definitely was something going on at this place and Dean was willing to bet it had something to do with their case.

He stopped the Impala mere inches before the ambulance that was parked in front of the ramshackle building and ignored the police officer who tried to guide the oncoming traffic around the crime scene with hectic gesticulations.

Pocketing his gun and phone, Dean's hand automatically went for the glove compartment where they kept their impressive collection of fake IDs, until he suddenly recalled what had happened at the Wichita Police Department and thought better of it.

Posing as an FBI agent probably wasn't the best idea after that mysterious caller had blown their cover at the police station the day before- especially considering what had happened afterwards…

Dean grimaced at the thought of having to go civilian on this one, but he really wasn't left with another choice.

Ducking out of the car, Dean made a straight line for the crime scene, when one of the officers took notice of him.

"Sir!" the cop yelled, chasing after him but Dean easily sidestepped the middle-aged man, his youth and agility clearly working in his favor. "Sir you can't go over there!"

He continued his advance on the scene, unfazed by the officer's warning.

This was their case after all. And they needed to get to the bottom of things, before more innocents could die.

The police had no idea what they were dealing with and they didn't stand a chance against the dark forces they were up against.

Jogging to a halt amidst the pack of curious onlookers, Dean tried to sneak a peek at the police men and pediatrics that were bustling around the diner entrance.

Pushing through the crowd, he attempted to get a better look at whatever was going on inside the building, when a heavy palm splayed against his chest, hindering his approach. "Slow down there, son. This is a private investigation. You can't go any further than this, alright?"

Dean swiped the police officer's restraining palm from his chest and bestowed him with a determined glower.

Time to dust off his acting skills.

"That's my girlfriend in there, I need to see if she's alright!" he urged, putting on his most desperate expression and hoping the officer would buy it.

"Please, I just need to see her… just to reassure myself that she's okay."

The cop's features softened for just a second before his face finally went blank with the kind of unsympathetic professionalism he was getting paid for. "I'm sorry, sir. But you'll have to wait until the investigation is over."

Dean balled his hands into fists, cursing himself for not having been here sooner. Because if the officer's display of grim sympathy was anything to go by, the girl hadn't made it out of that diner alive.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to convince the officer to let him through to the actual crime scene, Dean stumbled back into the crowd of people circling the diner entrance.

Time for a plan B.

Turning to his left, Dean found himself facing a bulky guy with scarce hair who was slurping greedily on a milkshake, holding a greasy doughnut in his other hand.

"Hey man, did you see what happened in there?" he asked, taking a step closer and grimacing when the guy burped in response. Other than that, the man barely spared Dean a glance, his whole attention directed solely towards the greasy food in his hands.

"Hey, I'm talking to you- have you been here during the accident?" Dean tried again, louder this time.

Finally, the guy seemed to rip himself out of his trance and glanced over at Dean. "Some chick offed herself…" the stranger trailed off monotonously, seemingly unaffected by what had happened.

Dean's eyes narrowed. "Offed herself? As in- suicide?"

The man took another bite from his doughnut, huffing. "What do I look like, a freakin' dictionary?"

"More like Jabba the Hutt, if you ask me…" Dean muttered under his breath.

"What did you just say?" the guy demanded around a mouthful of food, looking at Dean with in a mixture of animosity and suspicion.

"Nothing," Dean lightly appeased, biting back another sarcastic response, because this dude sure as hell wasn't far away from kicking the bucket himself if he went on devouring his doughnuts like this.

Dean was about to find somebody else in the crowd to tell him more about what happened, when a young girl with piggy-tails weaseled her way between chubby and himself.

She held a Mc Donald's bag in her hands and the area around her mouth was smeared with ketchup.

Apparently the curse had fired up all of these people's appetite.

"Hey," the girl said, munching happily on a handful of fries. "I'm Kyra… What's your name?"

Dean gave the fat guy another sideways glance before sinking into an ease crouch before the girl, painting a friendly smile onto his lips. "Hi, Kyra. That's a beautiful name you got there. I'm Dean."

Granted, maybe he shouldn't walk around telling strangers his real first name, but he'd always had a soft spot for kids and this girl seemed rather innocent despite what was going on around them.

Kyra smiled up at him with an excited glimmer in her eyes before leaning in to whisper into his ear. "I can tell you what happened to the lady that died."

Cold dread settled in Dean's chest and he swallowed before answering. "Yeah?"

"It's a secret," the girl responded in a hushed tone, giggling slightly before leaning back to grab another handful of fries from the brown paper bag.

Dean put on a playful smirk, testing the waters. "Well now that we're friends, you can tell me, right? I promise not to blab."

"Pinky swear?" Kyra prompted and Dean actually chuckled at that. Sammy used to make him pinky swear on everything when he was about Kyra's age.

Dean held out his little finger in a silent invitation until she hooked her grease and ketchup-smudged one in his and leaned in to let him in on the secret.

"The lady was feeling really bad. She made yucky-noises on the toilet. And then she started coughing really loud… my mommy said it was because of all the food she eated…"

Dean frowned slightly at the news, forehead scrunching up in concern. "Well thanks, Kyra. That was very helpful. Can you tell me where your Mom is now?"

Kyra nodded eagerly before pointing towards a young woman who was standing a couple of feet away from them, munching on what looked like a BicMac from where Dean was standing.

Seriously?

Was every single person at this place affected by that freaking gluttony-curse? Apparently Kyra's mother hadn't even noticed that her daughter was gone, talking to strangers and befriending them.

Freaking great.

Looking down into the trusting eye of an innocent girl, Dean gave her another friendly smile before reaching out to gently take the Mc Donald's bag from her hands.

"Hey Kyra, can you do me a favor and let me hold on to that? We wouldn't want you to get sick like the nice lady in the bathroom did, right?"

"But I'm hungry!" the girl protested, stomping her foot on the ground.

Dean sighed. "I know you are, kiddo. But you see- I'm playing this game and I was wondering if you wanted to play it with me? It's called… uhm… it's called Braveheart. And the goal is to not eat anything until tomorrow. The person who manages to not eat anything even though they're hungry wins the game and will from there on be called Princess of Brave uhm… of Bravery."

Kyra chuckled at that, biting her lower lip in contemplation. "So if you win, you'll be a princess?"

Dean's eyes widened slightly, mouth falling open at having been outsmarted by a kindergarten kid.

"Well, no… I'd be a Prince… obviously," he stammered and then shook his head at himself for actually having a discussion with a seven-year-old about whether or not he was a freaking princess.

Suddenly being thankful for the fact that Sammy wasn't here to witness this (seriously, the little bitch would use this as blackmail material until the end of days) Dean decided to steer their conversation back to the important things.

"So… do you think you can be brave enough to play?"

Kyra seemed reluctant, lower lip tucked out in a small pout as she longingly looked at the brown paper bag with fries.

Dean was already trying to figure out another way to convince her, when she spared him the effort by nodding bravely at his suggestion.

"That's my girl," Dean praised, silently thankful for her compliance. "Now go on back to your mom and stay with her, okay? Don't talk to anyone else unless it's a police officer or me, can you do that for me? That's very important Kyra, alright? It's the rules of the game."

"I can do it," Kyra nodded once more, before giving him a dimpled grin. "I am brave."

"Sure you are, kiddo…" Dean chuckled before gently nudging the girl towards where her mother was still chewing on her Burger.

He had serious mixed feelings about sending her back to a mother who was obviously suffering from the symptoms of a spell, but it wasn't exactly like he could take Kyra with him until the whole thing blew over.

He just hoped the kid would be able to rein her own hunger in until the worst part of the spell (or whatever this was) was over.

Just as the girl waved a hand at him in goodbye and trotted away, two paramedics suddenly appeared in the door frame of the diner entrance. Dean's eyes widened, gaze automatically dropping to the stretcher they carried out of the double winged door, white tarp covering the dead body as they pioneered through the buzzing crowd.

And then the unthinkable happened.

Just as the medics passed them, the guy on Dean's left- the one he'd been talking to earlier- grabbed for the white tarp with his grease covered fingers and lifted it up from the girl's body before anybody could do anything to stop it.

"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?" a police officer barked as he pushed through the crowd with a dark glower directed towards the cormorant, but the guy just continued to pull at the white sheet, until it had all but slipped from the dead girl's corpse and then lifted it to his glazed lips to wipe off his mouth.

"What the …" Dean groaned in disgust, taking a step back to avoid getting caught in the fall-out of whatever-the-fuck had just gotten into that disrespectful idiot when the police officer lunged at him.

Just before the medics were able to cover the body of the dead girl back up, Dean caught a glimpse of the bizarre scars that were visibly carved into the girl's skin beneath her throat.

INVIDIA.

Oh god… not again…

Dean felt sick as he took in the evidence of their next case victim.

There was no doubt in his mind about the fact that this young woman must have been the one Sam had been talking about earlier.

The girl that had thrown up in the middle of the diner… the one who later on choked and died in the bathroom… Gula… Gluttony…

Sammy.

Breath catching in his throat, Dean's heart started racing at the realization that his brother had been throwing up not too long ago in the motel room… what if he had never stopped?

What if he was equally as affected by this- this curse as the girl had been?

God, Dean should have never left his brother alone in the first place- should have never left his side when he was already in a weakened state.

Trying to get back to the car, Dean hurried through the masses of people all around him. In his haste to get away from the crime scene, he bumped into an elderly woman with thin grey hair who held her purse clutched tightly in her trembling hands and looked up at him with imploring eyes. "Are you working at the diner, young man? Are we allowed to get back in now?"

"Uh…" Dean threw a hurried glance back to where a police officer was restraining the fat guy who had tried to use the body bag of the dead girl's corpse as a freaking napkin and caught a glimpse of blond hair sticking out from beneath the rumbled sheet.

"I …-I really don't think so, Ma'am. Somebody just died in there, it's probably gonna take a little while for them to clean up the mess and get things figured out…"

The woman's expression turned sour in an instant. "But I'm starving. And I've waited for an hour already!"

Figures...

Realizing that she must have been equally as affected by the weird gluttony-related curse as the rest of the people he'd talked to, Dean mumbled a quick excuse and pushed forward towards the Impala.

There would be no reasoning with her until she was thinking clearly again. And Dean figured the whole Braveheart-game crap he had sold Kyra earlier wouldn't work nearly as well on an elderly woman as it did on a seven-year-old (or whatever her actual age was).

Taking a deep breath, he sank into the driver's seat behind baby's steering wheel and pulled his cell phone from his jeans pocket.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon…" he urged under his breath, as the engine came to life with a loud roar. "Pick up the goddamn' phone, Sammy…"

The phone rang three times and then went to voice mail.

"Hey, this is Sam. Leave a voicemail after the-"

"GODDAMNIT!" Dean ended the call with an angry yell and pulled out of the drive way with screeching tires. The prickling sense at the back of his neck was sending his brotherly protectiveness into overdrive. Something was wrong with Sammy.

He could feel it deep down inside.

There was no time to waste.

Flooring the gas pedal, Dean was pushed back into his leather seat, heart hammering away wildly and getting faster with every second that passed.

So maybe highjacking a car in the middle of a public parking lot hadn't been such a great idea in the first place.

Especially considering that Sam's stomach was still queasy and protesting painfully at every speed bump or pothole the rusty Honda he had stolen bounced over on his drive to the morgue.

But it wasn't until Sam searched his pockets for his cell phone and came up empty that he started having serious doubts about running off to go on his own little research adventure.

"Damn…" he cursed under his breath, pulling up at the back entrance of the massive grey complex that was situated about 5 miles from the city center.

In his hurry to get out of the motel, Sam must have forgotten to grab his cell phone from the motel nightstand which was probably gonna end up costing him his head if Dean's check-up calls went unanswered. Knowing his brother, there was absolutely no way that Dean wouldn't at least try to contact him once during his own research trip.

And yeah… Dean finding out about how Sam went out to do some research of his own despite being sick, wasn't gonna end well for him.

Nope.

Not at all.

Sam took a deep inhale, swallowing against another bout of nausea.

He could do this. Just in and out again.

Who knew? Maybe- if he managed to be really quick about this and wasn't going to be held up unnecessarily he could make it back to the motel room before Dean ever noticed his absence.

Yeah right… Sam snorted at his own trail of thoughts, knowing that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that he could hide his run-away act from his attentive big brother.

But there was no going back now.

Dean would just have to live with Sam's decision to go do some research of his own.

They needed to solve the case, after all.

Bearing that in mind, Sam walked up to the building, making quick work of the lock on the back entrance and slipping inside unnoticed.

The building seemed relatively abandoned to be honest, but when Sam stepped inside the barely lit hallway of the morgue, he ducked into the next best vacant room upon approaching footsteps.

It seemed to be some kind of office- equipped with all the standard furniture that came with a bureau. There was a row of book shelves lining the wall, crammed with folders and files in what seemed to be chronological order- bold letters categorizing the important files into different segments.

In the middle of the room was a large desk with a computer on top, processor humming softly in the background as Sam stepped further into the room and hid in a dark corner until the person outside had passed him by.

Releasing a breath Sam hadn't realized he was holding, he squinted through the blinds into the corridor, checking to see if the coast was clear, before heading for the computer and starting to work.

It took about 5 minutes for Sam to crack the password for the database and even less than that to find Annie Cooper's report file. The two cops weren't entered in the system yet- probably their deaths were still too recent.

Sam thought about printing the diagnosis at first, before he remembered that there were employees ghosting around somewhere in the hallways close by and that the noise of the printer suddenly going off would probably catch their attention.

He was just skimming through the entry, reading mostly stuff that he and Dean had already found out about during their earlier investigation when his eyes suddenly latched onto one particularly interesting part of the report.

There, right beneath the victim's name and personal data was a reference to a police record issued about physical abuse. Huh.

Apparently there was more to Annie Cooper than they had first expected. Instantly drawing a connection in his mind, Sam thought back to the two children of the family and how the mother had ironically screamed herself to death. That sounded suspiciously like someone tried to beat her at her own game.

Annie had been angry. But she'd been so before getting affected by the deathly curse.

That was definitely putting things into perspective.

Scribbling down some notes onto a blank piece of paper, Sam tried to ignore the lingering feeling of sickness in his chest. He still hadn't completely recovered from his earlier queasiness and the distinct smell of antiseptic and formaldehyde wasn't exactly helping to quench his sudden urge to throw up again.

Maybe coming here had been an even worse idea than he'd originally thought.

Dean was so gonna kick his ass.

And as if throwing up again wouldn't have already been bad enough, Sam suddenly felt a sharp pain course through his stomach.

Hand automatically shooting down, Sam cringed at the searing agony that ripped through his insides, instantly recognizing a certain familiarity to the painful sensation.

Nononono… he couldn't go through this again.

Not here.

But it was already too late.

Sam groaned when white hot agony set his body on fire, splitting the skin right next to his belly button as if cut by an invisible force.

Clamping down on the wound, Sam grunted as the cuts started getting wider, dampening the layers of his T-shirt and flannel within mere seconds.

He bit his lower lip against the sensation of getting fileted and pushed himself up from the seat with a little more effort than ussually.

A wave of dizziness hit him and black spots started dancing across his vision. Instinctively his hand went for his jacket pocket, searching for his phone in a gut-reaction to call his brother.

And then realization hit him.

He had forgotten the phone at the motel room. And Dean was miles away, investigating the diner he had visited earlier today with no possibility to contact him.

Gasping, Sam was hit by another wave of pain and clenched his fingers around the bleeding wound on his stomach, trying to stench the blood flow. The last thing they needed was for the police to find his blood in the middle of a freaking morgue after what had happened at the police station the day before.

They really couldn't afford the extra attention.

Stumbling forward, Sam slumped against a nearby wall for support, sliding down the grey wallpaper when his knees threatened to buckle beneath him. Jesus, why did this freaking curse have to hurt so much?

And where the hell was Dean when Sam needed him?

"Hey, Joe… do you mind if I print something out in your office?"

Oh no… shit shit shit… Sam banged his head back against the wall in frustration, biting down hard on his lower lip to hold back another grunt when the sound of approaching voices suddenly grew louder coming from the corridor.

'No. You really, really, really don't want to print anything in this goddamn' office right now, believe me buddy' Sam thought to himself. But his silent pleading went unheard.

"Yeah, sure man. Go on ahead. Computer should still be running anyways…"

Fuck you, Joe.

Didn't anybody ever tell you that you shouldn't let random people use your computer? You suck! And your password sucks too, Joe 1981! Seriously- who the hell still used their name and year of birth as a password in times of hacking and credit card theft? Freaking rookies…

Sam cringed in pain, biting back a grunt as wobbled over to the door and positioned himself in the darkened corner right next to the doorway, his hand still tightly clutched over the bleeding wound on his stomach.

He wasn't sure what he was going to do next, but whatever it was, Sam needed to be quick about it. He couldn't risk alerting the other employees in the building and he most definitely shouldn't let himself get caught or held up in the messed up state he was in.

So when the door to the office was cracked open a few seconds later and a man in his twenties stepped unwittingly into the room, Sam only hesitated for a second before hitting him over the back of his head with the butt of his gun.

The guy slumped like a sack of potatoes but Sam's arms wrapped around him before his body could make impact with the floor, cushioning his fall so as not to make any unnecessary noise.

Once the man was laid out in front of him, Sam quickly closed the door and ran shaking, blood-smeared fingers over his face. His heart was hammering wildly in his chest and the throbbing pain in his middle had ebbed out into a dull ache- much like the first time after he'd been attacked by the invisible force.

Staggering forward towards the small basin at the opposite side of the darkened office room, Sam pulled his shirt up and gasped out in shock at what he saw in the mirror reflection.

A second word had joined the ugly looking, blood-crusted IRA on his chest.

Sam mouthed the Latin inscription GULA as he took in the huge, bleeding letters that were carved squarely across the line of muscle right next to his belly button.

He winced when his thumb brushed lightly against the torn skin of the 'G', blood oozing sluggishly from the frayed cut and dripping down into the fabric of his jeans.

Great.

This whole thing was starting to seriously piss him off.

Pulling his shirt back down over the wound, Sam locked his jaw in determination and gave himself another second to fight off the lightheadedness that threatened to get the better of him, before redirecting his attention onto the unconscious man on the ground.

Right… he probably should take care of that, before he left.

Crouching down, Sam patted the guy down until his hand knocked against something solid in the man's jeans pocket.

Gotcha.

He pulled the guy's cell phone out and typed in Dean's current number without even consciously thinking about it. It used to be confusing and difficult to remember all of their different numbers and to be able to differentiate between their FBI phones, the ones that were specifically used for hunts and the secluded ones they kept mainly to interact with their friends and each other.

But they had learned quite early on how essential it was to keep each other's numbers in mind and Sam always made sure to memorize Dean's whenever his brother got a new cell.

Morgue. Don't freak out, m ok. Be back in 20. S.

He kept the text short and simple, not wanting too waste too much time on it and deleted it right after making sure it had been sent successfully.

Shoving the phone back into the guy's pocket, Sam got up with another barely suppressed groan and gathered Annie Cooper's and the two dead cops' morgue files from the book shelves.

Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself by propping an arm against the wall, before striding forward and spying outside into the corridor.

It seemed vacant.

Time to bail.

"Hey, this is Sam. Leave a voic—"

When his brother's mechanic voice rang out at the other end of the line for the seventh time in a row, Dean was about ready to throttle the kid.

Flooring the gas pedal, he broke every speed limit in existance in his attempt to get back to the motel in record time.

Seriously though, if Dean was going to find Sam asleep or having forgotten to charge his damn' phone or something, he would lose his freaking shit. The kid better not have caused him to almost have a heart attack over nothing.

"Sam. I'm not kidding, man, you better have a damn' good reason—"

A sudden beeping sound signaled that he had gotten a text message and Dean instantly quit the voicemail he was recording to see who had texted him.

Unknown number… huh.

Dean narrowed his eyes.

Nobody outside of their small circle of friends and Sam knew this number

He opened the message and briefly skimmed over the text, while trying to keep an eye on the road at the same time when his heart suddenly lurched in his chest and it was all he could do not to jerk the steering wheel around.

The freaking morgue?!

Sam had run off to the morgue without taking his cell with him and completely ignoring the fact that he had been weak as a kitten when Dean left him to freaking recover in their motel room…

Well wasn't that just freaking fantastic.

The Impala's tires screeched to a sudden halt, when Dean u-turned baby and steered her onto the other lane.

Now more than ever, Dean had realized that something was up with his brotther.

Because Sam- being a freaking grammar freak and all- had never been one for shortening words, not even for the sake of writing a simple text message, so this teenager-crap writing style? Totally untypical.

That could only mean Sam must have been under time pressure- probably needed to get out of the morgue before anybody could notice his presence- and if the fact that he had been texting from somebody else's phone was any indication, Dean also guessed that Sam had either found a stiff somewhere in there… or that he had knocked somebody out cold and then taken their phone.

Which was- again, nothing that his girlish little brother would do if it could have been prevented- which meant that he was forced to do so; probably because somebody had noticed his presence or posed some other kind of threat to him.

And then the shortening of the name.

S.

As if Dean needed that to recognize his brother's tone and wording the instant he laid eyes on the message.

The kid definitely wasn't in his right mind.

Dean was sure of that.

Something must have happened and he didn't think it was anything good.

Pressing the dial button of the unknown number, Dean figured that if Sam didn't have his own cell on him, he'd at least pick up at the one he had found.

"Sam, damnit, c'mon!" Dean pressed out helplessly when this call went just as unanswered as the others before.

His nerves were frayed, every fiber of his being on edge as he desperately went through all the different scenarios of what could have happened to his little brother in his absence.

He was pressing the recall button, speeding down the street as fast as humanly possible, when something on the side of the road caught his immediate attention and made him hit the breaks.

Hard.

The car's tires screeched in protest when Dean pulled the lever and jumped out of his seat, pulse racing and heart beating frantically in his chest.

"Hey!" he screamed, dodging a car on the other lane as he crossed the street. "Hey, Miss! What are you're doing?!"

A young woman, probably in her mid-twenties was sitting on the side lane, cradling a squirming bundle of fabric to her chest.

The baby's wailing was having an alarming quality to it- ringing of desperation and discomfort and it made the back of Dean's neck prickle.

But the woman was persistently nudging the flask against the baby's opened lips, trying to feed it even when it obviously didn't seem hungry at all.

She didn't react to Dean's screaming, didn't even raise her head as he approached her with hurried steps.

"Hey," Dean tried again, resting a heavy palm on her shoulder and squeezing it gently. "Can you hear me? Do you understand what I'm saying?"

That seemed to finally get her attention, as she looked up at him with clouded eyes. "What do you want from me?"

"Nothing," Dean raised his free hand in a placating gesture, not daring to startle the seemingly confused woman in the trance-like state she was currently in. Especially not when she had a baby in her arms.

"I don't mean you or the little one here any harm, alright? I was just wondering what you were doing sitting out here all by yourself? That can't possibly be comfortable for either one of you, can it? What do you say I give you two a lift somewhere nice and cozy and—"

"But Billy's hungry!" the woman wailed, rocking forward and back again on the patch of asphalt, ignoring Dean's offer and the rest of what he had said as if she hadn't even listened to a single word. "I need him to stop crying. But he just won't stop- he won't stop…"

"I think Billy's had enough for now, alright?"

Sensing an impending panic attack- Dean was quick to lift the screaming bundle from the frantic woman's grasp. The girl shot forward in an instinctive reaction of motherly protectiveness, but Dean kept his palm on her shoulder, grounding her as he met her gaze. "Hey now, it's okay. I've got him right here- I'm not taking Billy away from you, alright? Lemme just try and calm him down... Will you let me do that for you?"

The woman hesitated at first, but the obvious exhaustion from having to deal with a crying baby for so long finally won over her worries for the kid's wellbeing. Dean was thankful for it- but intrinsically he knew that this wasn't exactly a good sign. Because no mother in her right mind would ever let some stranger take her baby from her without fighting him tooth and nails.

Or at least Dean would have never let anybody touch Sam- not over his dead body. Never. Least of all some random stranger from the streets.

But from the dark circles beneath the girl's red-rimmed eyes- and the way her clothes were crumpled and dirty; her hair a complete mess, it was easy to see that she was barely holding it together at this point. And Dean was glad she was so compliant for the moment, because in the state she was in she was in no condition to take care of anybody- least of all some innocent, defenseless baby.

Lifting Billy up to nestle his squirming body against his shoulder, Dean gently supported the baby's back and head, rocking the crying kid back and forth in what he hoped were soothing movements.

It took a while, but finally the baby's wailing screams quietened down into a soft cooing and the kids head dropped to rest comfortably against Dean's jacket-clad collar bone. "There ya go, Billy-boy. That's it..."

"H-how did y-you—" Billy's mother stammered brokenly from where she was still sprawled on the cemented side lane, looking up at Dean with pure astonishment in her eyes.

Dean snorted softly, careful so as not to disturb the sleeping kid in his arms. "I guess I can say I've had some practice at this when I was still younger…"

And that was when it suddenly hit him.

Sammy.

He needed to get to his brother.

How much time had he spent here- was it ten minutes, or fifteen? Fuck.

He needed to get to the freaking morgue.

Just as he was about to hand the child back to the distraught mother, Dean's phone started ringing.

"Sorry, can you just—" Dean hurried to settle the sleeping baby against the woman's chest, making sure she kept her hands securely wrapped around the precious bundle Before ripping his cell from his pocket. "I gotta get this, okay? I'm sorry… just hold him for a second…"

Dean sighed a breath of relief- despite how the whole case had definitely spiraled out of control at this point and prepared himself to rip Sammy a new one.

But it wasn't Sam's voice that greeted him when he pressed the phone against his ear.

"Dean. Please tell me you haven't left the city yet."

Snapping his mouth closed in shock at the familiar voice of Deborah Winfried, Dean couldn't help but feel a wave of despair and worry flood his soul.

Not Sam.

It wasn't Sam.

Sam was still out there somewhere… probably hurt and throwing his guts up, while Dean was cradling babies and chatting with their Dad's old liaisons.

"Listen, Deborah- I really can't talk right now—"

"Shut up and listen, boy. This is important. It's about your brother."

Ice cold dread settled in Dean's chest.

He swallowed. "What about him?"

There was a pause.

"That Latin word that was carved into his chest? It's an omen. And it's only just the first of so many…"

"Omen?" Dean repeated, rolling the word on his tongue. "What's that mean?"

Deborah sighed. "It's not good, Dean… maybe you should come meet me somewhere, so we can talk."

Closing his eyes in frustration, Dean's heart thundered loudly in his chest. "We're out by Prairie Village. Come meet me at the local library as soon as you can."

"Gotcha," Deborah said and Dean ended the call without wasting a second of his precious time.

He looked down at the young woman and Baby Billy, knowing he would somehow need to help them and get them away from the side of the street while at the same time trying not to freak out over what Deborah had just told him.

Sam needed him. And with that thought in mind, Dean's determination grew, casting away all other feelings until the omnipresent need to protect his little brother was the only thing on he could think about.

Dean wouldn't fail Sam.

Not this time.

TBC...

I guess this is the point where I apologize for taking ages to update this story. I am seriously sorry for the delay, guys! I hope I could make it up to you with an extra long chapter :) Please tell me what you thought! Reviews are AWESOME and very much appreciated so please don't be shy. Let me hear it!
Thanks for reading! :D