𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐀𝐍

𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘

"What's your name again?"

"Katherine," she strains through her teeth. She feels like her childhood dog, yanking tirelessly on his rope.

"Why don't you give it up, Kitty? There's no way out!"

"Don't—call me—that!" The metal enclosure snaps, and she drops to her back again with a sharp cry. Something metallic clacks beside her shoe, and she slowly reaches towards it.

"What is it?"

She squints at it. "A...bracket."

"Oh, thank God. A bracket. Now we got 'em!" Katherine just rolls her eyes and bites her tongue. Then Alvin's cage door pops open, and both of them rush forward. "Must've been a short. Maybe you knocked something loose." Tentatively, he creeps out of his cage.

Katherine glances to the door. "Um...maybe you should get back in there."

"What?"

"This isn't right—"

"Don't you want out of here?"

"Yeah, but that was too easy," she hisses.

"I'm gonna get out of here, I'm gonna send help, okay?"

"No! No, dude! Seriously, this might be a trap!" 

He's moving away from her. "Bye, Kitty."

"Oh my God." She holds her hands over her head and starts pacing. It's hard to hyperventilate with your arms overhead, but it sure is coming easy. "Oh my God." Alvin's cage door swings shut and locks.

You need to calm down.

It sounded so real, like Dean was right behind her. She whirled around, but there was nothing but darkness to be found.

She's in her own head. She's spooked. It's just a downward spiral from here.

Humans are smart, creatures are dumb. Well, not as smart. She knows monsters. Humans are tricky, manipulative. There's no telling what they want with her, but it's one of a few things.

The frosty Minnesota air chills her bones. Those freaks took her jacket, so she's stuck pacing to keep warm.

And then Alvin Jenkins is screaming bloody murder.

"Oh, Jesus Christ." She drops to her knees and starts praying.

"I don't mean to press my luck—"

"Your luck is so pressed." 

Dean glances to Kathleen on his right. "Right," he hums. "Why are you helping us out, anyway?"

"Seems like that Katherine girl has had a pretty tragic life," Kathleen says. Dean stares at her. "My brother, Riley, disappeared three years ago. A lot like Katherine. We searched for him, but...nothing." She sighs, lifting her eyes to Dean. "I know what it's like to feel responsible for someone. And for them..." She shakes her head. "Come on."

Sam is waiting in the back of her cruiser.

They pull into the first turnoff they've seen the whole trip.

"You stay here," Kathleen tells the boys.

"No way," Sam and Dean chorus.

"Hey!" They turn to her. "You're civilians—and felons, I think. I'm not taking you with me."

"You're not going without us."

Kathleen huffs and glances up the drive and to her car. "All right. But promise you won't get involved? You'll let me handle it?"

Dean shrugs. "Yeah, promise."

She nods and extends her hand. "Shake on it."

She cuffed them at the same time, then hooked them to the car door.

"Little..." Dean growls. "I gotta start carrying paper clips."

"Hey." Sam nods to the antenna on the top of the car. "Can you reach that?" Dean leans as far back into the car as he can and extends his arm.

Then there's that engine—the one from yesterday morning.

"Son of a bitch!"

"Come on, Dean."

"I'm trying!" It's slipping out of his fingers every time he grabs it. "Okay! Okay, I got it." He pushes himself up on that little rock and starts twisting the antenna.

There's male laughter coming up the hidden drive. "Dean," Sam hisses.

Dean ducks with the antenna in hand and gets to work. By the time the cuffs are open, it's almost too late to make a run for it. There's enough shrubbery to haul ass--they can uncuff themselves when they're away from the car.

They pause only briefly to do so, and they get to running once more.

"You're Katherine Louise?"

Alarmed, Katherine looks to the new woman in Alvin's cell. "Um...yeah..."

The woman laughs a little. Sounds like relief. "Your friends are looking for you."

"Oh, thank—" Katherine presses her palms into her face and tries to keep it together. "Where are they?"

"I, uh...handcuffed 'em to my car."

Katherine sighs, turning her attention into the blackness ahead.

The door creaks. Two sets of heavy footfalls.

Katherine wonders if she's going to get the same treatment as Alvin. One meal a day, eventually set freed...trapped?

One of them is humming Metallica...

Katherine listens for a few moments more, eyes tracking nothing in the darkness beside her. Then she leans against the wall of her cage.

Dean would recognize those hands anywhere.

"Dean?" Katherine breathes.

"Kat?!"

"Dean!" She laughs, her hands coming through the bars and up to his face. His hands grip her wrists. "Oh...Sam?!"

"Hey!" He reaches through and touches her arm—it's freezing cold, but she's slick with sweat and dirt. "Hey, are you hurt?"

"No...not really. I've never been so glad to see you two idiots, let me tell you."

"How did you get out of the cuffs?" The woman asks in amazement.

Dean and Sam whirl around to look at Kathleen in the cage across from Katherine. Dean doesn't let go of Katherine.

"I know a trick or two," he replies. Sam starts looking for a way to open the cages.

"The lock—you can't bust it," Katherine says, sticking her face as far through the grate as she can. "It's, um..." Her voice breaks.

"Hey, hey," Dean shakes his head. "You're good, sister. We got you."

"Yeah, okay." Her eyes are still welling with tears, and her lower lip is quivering.

"Tell me about the locks," he says.

Katherine nods. "It's...it's automated, like, y'know, jail cells?"

"Oh, God," Kathleen groans.

"This girl's never seen the inside of a cell," Dean assures her. "Keep talking' Kat."

"The control panel is over there, on that post." Dean moves for it with Sam, but she makes a whining noise and grips his arms tightly.

"Okay, okay," he nods. "I'm not going anywhere."

"No, no, listen," she hisses. "They're just people."

"And they jumped you?" Dean clicks his teeth. "Must be getting a little rusty there, kiddo."

"I know, I know, I'm a dummy."

"Dean?" Sam asks.

He looks at Katherine, and she nods, releasing his wrists. "What do they want?" Dean asks her as he starts for Sam.

"I don't know," Katherine evenly replies. It's like she just needed a three second meltdown and she's back to cool, calm, collected Katherine Louise. "They let Jenkins go, but I think that was some sort of trap."

"I don't know what any of this is," Sam mumbles. Dean flips a switch a couple of times.

"It doesn't make sense to me," Katherine continues.

"Yeah, that's the point," Sam says to her. "With our usual...playmates...there's rules, there's patterns. People—they're just crazy."

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing."

Kathleen looks at Katherine curiously and twists around to see if she can see the boys. They move towards the cages and see if there's a latch they can find.

"Is there anything else out there?" Katherine inquires, moving to the door of her cage to stand in front of Dean.

"Uh, just a bunch of junked cars out back. Plates from all over. I'm thinkin' when they take someone, they take their car, too."

"Did you see a black Mustang out there?" Kathleen asks. "About ten years old?"

"Yeah, actually," Sam says. "I did." Then he thinks for a moment. "Your brother's?" Kathleen nods. "I'm sorry."

"That thing take a key?" Dean asks, looking back at Katherine.

"I don't know," she answers.

"Okay. We better go find it." He moves to leave, and Katherine grabs his hand.

"Please be careful," she whispers.

"Doll, "careful" is my middle name." He winks at her and nods Sam along.

It's night time—the preferred time. They're not easily visible, so they can move at a careful pace without rushing. 

This key could be anywhere. There's so much junk. Stuff in jars and fluid...

"Yikes."

"Oh my...Dean, come look at this." Dean rounds the corner and looks at the chicken wire.

Gruesome polaroid photographs are taped to the wire and in a booklet on a barrel. They're like hunting pictures, only...with people. Throats slashed, faces beaten in to the point of not even looking human.

"Well, I'll say it again," Dean mutters. "Demons, I get. People are just crazy. Come on."

They have to sneak out of the basement and up into the house—not so easy to do, considering these wooden stairs are probably much older than their father.

Someone's clanging around in the kitchen. Piano music is playing. Dean, in the middle of his laser like focus to what's going on in the kitchen, bumps into a wind chime of bones, and quickly reaches up to steady it without realizing what it is.

A jaw and a hip.

Dean scrubs his hands against his jeans and keeps moving. They quickly advance past the open doorframe. Dean grabs the first thing he sees that could be used as a weapon—a wooden post about half as long as he is, with a two-inch nail sticking out. Sam grabs the baseball bat and follows after his brother before peering into the kitchen.

There's a man sawing. A meat grinder...it looks like a butcher shop.

Sam turns away from the scene with a curled lip. Then, eyesight within the kitchen, sitting atop an old dresser, Is a metal tin full of keys. Sam nudges Dean and nods to it. After a moment, they both move for the desk.

There's a jar of human teeth right next to the tin.

Sam slaps Dean on the arm as a little girl comes flying around the corner, face to face with him. Dean quickly sets the jar down and stares.

The girl looks wild. Like she's been living in a bush.

"Shh," Sam whispers. "It's okay, we're not gonna hurt you."

She grins. "I know." She swings at him, shoving a knife through the end of his jacket and pinning him to the wall. "Daddy!"

"Shh!"

"Daddy!"

They're ambushed. Thrown all over the house. Will probably need a few tetanus shots if they make it out alive...not to mention a deep clean. A vigorous scrub with a loofa.

When they snap back to consciousness, they're strapped to chairs in the room they tore apart in their tussle, surrounded by the crazy people.

"Come on," one of the men says. "Let's hunt 'em."

"Should be fun to hunt," another agrees. The oldest one—the father—laughs.

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me," Dean hums. "That's what this is about? You yahoos hunt people?"

"You ever killed before?" The old one asks. Katherine would be in a state if she could see the grime coated on these people. Then again, she probably has, and it's probably how she got so dirty--fighting.

"What?" Dean weakly laughs. "Well, I guess that would depend on what you mean."

"I've hunted all my life," the old one continues. His teeth are terribly yellow. Rotted. "Just like my father, his before him. I've hunted deer and bear...I even got a cougar once, huh, boys? But the best hunt is human. Oh, there's nothing like it...holding their life in your hands...seeing the fear in their eyes just before they go dark...makes you feel powerful alive."

"You're a sick puppy," Dean chirps.

The father licks his lips and stands up. "We give them a weapon. Give them a fighting chance." He shuffles towards Dean like he's going to explain something. "It's kind of like tradition, passed from father to son. Of course, only one or two a year...never enough to bring the law down--we never been that sloppy."

"Don't sell yourself short," Sam hums. "You're plenty sloppy." The old man leans down in front of him and breathes. Sam nearly passes out.

"You two with that pretty cop, then?" He leans closer to Sam's face. "You a cop?"

"If I tell you...promise you won't turn me into an ashtray?"

That gets him a good sock to the jaw. He tastes blood immediately.

"Only reason I don't let my boys take you right here and now is there's something I need to know," the father says, standing up straight, and moves behind the brothers.

"Okay," Dean chirps. "How 'bout it's not nice to marry your sister?"

"Tell me," the old man says. Sam watches him pull a white-hot iron poker out of the fire. "Any of the cops gonna come lookin for you?"

"Oh, eat me."

"Dean—"

"Oh, no, no, wait, wait," Dean wheezes. "You actually might."

One of the brothers grips Dean's head and yanks it back as the old man comes around with the poker. Sam thrashes against the ropes, long fingers seeking out loose ends. The bristles are rubbing his wrists raw.

"You think this is funny? You brought this down on my family." He crouches so he's eye level. "All right...you want to play games? We'll play some games...looks like we're gonna have a hunt tonight after all, boys. And you get to pick the animal." He points at Dean. "The girl or the cop."

"Okay, wait, wait, wait," Sam says. Everyone looks to him. "No one's coming for us, okay? It's just us."

"If you don't choose, I will." He rests the poker on Dean's shoulder, and it burns rather quickly through the fabric of his shirts.

"Dean!"

"Oh, you son of a bitch!" Dean strains. Then the poker is held close to his eye. Too close. It's blinding, it makes him sweat within half a second, and dries his eye out.

"Next time, I'll take an eye," the old man tells him.

"The girl!" Sam cries. "The girl, the girl--take the girl!"

Dean's head is released, and the old man stands up. "Lee," he says, removing a key from around his neck. Dean glowers at Sam. "Go do it. Don't let her out, though." Sam sits up. "Shoot her in the cage."

"What?" Sam whispers.

"No!"

"I thought you said you were gonna hunt her?!" Sam shouts. "Give her a chance?!"

"Lee," the old man calls. "When you're done with the girl, shoot the cop, too. We gotta clean this mess up before any more cops come runnin over here."

Sam knows it isn't the appropriate time to panic, but he can't help it. He can't even think straight.

Katherine sits up as the door opens again. They were gone so long. Peering through the hole in the wood, she can see it's not either one of the Winchesters.

He unlocks the cage, and white-hot heat shoots down her spine. "What are you doing?" She calls. When footsteps approach her cage, Katherine picks up the bracket.

A man stands in front of her door, and he opens it. "Hey!" Kathleen shouts.

Katherine throws the bracket at the gun right as he shoots.

"If you hurt that girl, I swear I'll kill you," Dean threatens. "I'll kill you all." The old man moves out of the room. "I will kill you all!"

The old man stops in front of the open door. "Lee!"

Katherine tackles the man into the pillar and grabs onto his gun. He swings it so it strikes her in the face. She rears her leg back and kicks as hard as she can between his legs before wrestling the shotgun from his hands, and knocks him in the head with it.

The pump is jammed.

"Dammit," she snarls. She throws the gun to the side and rushes for the pole with the control panel. She flips the switches a few times, unsure what controls what, until Kathleen's gate opens. "Hurry up," Katherine says, rushing for the man who intended to kill her. She unkindly drags him into her cage and locks the door before taking the key out.

"Lee!" The voice is just behind the barn they're in.

Katherine grabs Kathleen's hand and breaks into a sprint—just enough to get out of the area with the cages and into the actual barn.

She can't think for someone else right now. "Go find a gun," she whispers. "Quietly." Kathleen nods and disappears. Katherine runs to the back of the barn and clamors up one of the ladders to the loft and dives to the hay just as two men block the moonlight from the doorway.

It's certainly the most intense game of hide and seek Katherine has ever played. Right...just think of it like a game.

She rolls into a crouch and waits.

And then three shots are fired near the front of the barn, breaking the silence around her.

Katherine perks up just a bit to see who it was. Then more shots are fired, hitting right near her head. She takes off, and slides around the corner when another shot is released. She jumps down from the loft.

Near the entrance to the cages, one man has Kathleen on the ground, aiming his rifle right at her head. "You stupid bitch..."

Katherine glances behind her. The old man is running after her. She looks back to the one with Kathleen. "Hey!" She shouts. He aims. Katherine waits half a second before she takes off, when he's already fired the shot, and slips into the darkness. Then she comes around the side, Kathleen scrambles out of the way. Katherine launches herself into the man and gets both hands on the rifle before she's established her footing. He's easily caught off guard, she finds, and twists the gun up to hit him in the head before taking control of it totally.

And then she breaks his nose.

And then she knocks him out.

Katherine hands the rifle to Kathleen. "Shoot him if he so much as twitches," Katherine pants. Kathleen trains the gun on the old man on the floor while Katherine drags the next man into the cell with the other one. Then she locks it all up again.

She's unsettled and spastic. It's adrenaline, low blood sugar, dehydration, exhaustion.

"I'll watch this one," Kathleen says. "You go ahead."

Katherine doesn't need to be told twice. She breaks into a sprint towards the house.

There's a little girl standing in what must be the living room. Sam and Dean are in chairs.

"Oh," Dean whispers, rolling his head back. "Thank you."

Katherine looks over the little girl and uncertainly looks to Sam and Dean. "Um..."

"You're the girl from the picture," the girl chirps. She pulls a photograph from behind her with a strange smile.

"She's evil!" Sam warns.

She even bares her teeth. Katherine grimaces before rushing for her. The little girl swings a blade at her. "Whoa!" Katherine jumps back and laughs. "What are you, seven?"

"I'm thirteen!"

"Oh, wow," Katherine mocks. The girl swings again. Katherine grips her wrist and yanks the blade from her at the cost of opening up her palm. It's easy to wrestle the knife from her hand. Once that's done, she discards it and throws the girl over her shoulder in a fireman's carry. She's thrashing and screaming.

"Put me down!"

"Quiet, pipsqueak." Katherine slings her into a closet and shoves a chair up against the knob before running back into the destroyed living room. "Are there any more?"

"No, they all went after you and Kathleen," Sam says.

Then she grins and fumbles with the knife before rounding the back of his chair and sawing through the rope.

Katherine doesn't even wait for Dean to get up. She just pulls him close without realizing his burned shoulder.

"Sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry." She pulls away from him, meaning to look at his shoulder, but Sam gets his hands on her.

"Thank God," Sam whispers, hugging her to his chest.

"Yeah," Katherine murmurs. Her eyes well with tears, and she presses herself into his chest, glancing off at Dean again, getting an assessment of his shoulder from afar. She doesn't see any blood.

There's a gunshot form the barn.

"Come on." She tugs him forward and runs ahead of the boys back to the barn, but Kathleen is already out.

"Where's the little girl?" Kathleen questions.

"Locked in a closet," Katherine answers.

"Where's the dad?" Dean asks.

"Shot," Kathleen replies. "Trying to escape."

"Okay. Okay, I need my jacket." Katherine turns and runs back inside.

Dean finds her sitting close to the fireplace. He stoops down and picks up the folded photograph.

It's the most recent one he has. Taken on a disposable camera, since Katherine was out of film. It was in a dive a few weeks ago. He plopped down beside her and said, "hey," before holding up the camera.

All smiles.

Dean crosses over to her and sits down beside her. She's got her jacket slung over her shoulders, hands gripping her forearms as she warms up. The moment Dean sits beside her, she drops her arms and leans into him sideways, arms around his waist, cold face buried into his side.

"Thank you," she unsteadily whispers.

"You don't need to thank me, Kat," he murmurs, gently rubbing her back. "You're family."

She sniffs. "You almost died."

"How's that different from any other day?" He pats her shoulder. "Come on, we gotta get you in a shower and then in a bed." He gently tugs her up onto her feet and tucks the photograph into his pocket. "Say, you know where my jacket is?" She pulls it out from underneath her own with a small smirk, and Dean chuckles. "Nice and warm for me."

"Don't feel so special," She says, wiping the dried blood from her nose. "I got Sam's, too." He laughs and leads her outside with an arm around her shoulders.

"State police and the FBI are gonna be here within the hour," Kathleen says to the three. "And they're gonna want to talk to you." Katherine's fingers tighten around Dean's jacket a little. "I suggest the three of you are long gone by then."

"I can stay," Katherine volunteers.

"Kat," Dean warns.

"How else is she gonna explain any of this?"

"Start walking," Kathleen says, shaking her head. "I can handle it. And duck if you see a squad car."

The hunters start walking away from the property. "I'm sorry about your brother," Katherine calls, turning to look at Kathleen.

"Thank you," she replies. "It was...really hard not knowing what happened to him."

After a moment, Katherine nods. "I, um...I know the feeling."

"I thought it would be easier if I knew the truth, but...it isn't really." She swallows and lowers her eyes to the mud. "You all need to take care of each other...and get going."

Dean tugs at Katherine's elbow, and she trots along with him. "Don't ever do that again," he tells her.

She looks up at him wildly. "Do what?" She asks.

"Go missing like that."

Katherine grins widely. "You were worried about me," she taunts.

"All I'm saying is, you vanish like that again, I'm not gonna look for you."

She smiles and tucks her hands into her pockets. "Sure you will."

"I won't."

Katherine glances between Sam and Dean, smirking. "So you guys got sidelined by a thirteen year old girl?"

"Aw, shut up."

"Must be getting a little rusty, kiddo."

Dean and Sam share a laugh. "Shut up," Dean scoffs.