“Sam!” Dean called out as he scanned the street for any sort of lead to where his brother might have been taken. There was an alley, just ahead. A prime spot for…his heart rose into his throat he charged into the alley in an uncharacteristically unplanned move, prepared to rescue his brother from things he didn’t even want to think about. But the alley was empty. Damn it. “Sammy!” he bellowed in borderline panic as he changed direction and returned to the street. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. Wasn’t one psychotic backwater family of brothernappers enough to face in one lifetime?

He came to a halt mid-street and slowly spun around, taking a mental inventory of everything. His sight and hearing acutely tuned, he sought anything that seemed out of place. There was nothing but plain old small town silence.

His frown deepened as he tried to keep the increasingly bad thoughts from distracting him. He couldn’t stop them completely, though. The idea that his brother was out there--hurt, possibly unconscious, and probably in the clutches of the worst kind of human slime--was almost too much to bear. And thanks to his not-so-funny-after-all prank, there was a whole new set of worries for him to consider.

There was only one small consolation and that was that at least Sam’s disappearance didn’t fit the same modus operandi as the other women who’d vanished. The others were gone without leaving any trace, while whoever had taken Sammy hadn’t made any attempt to cover their tracks. He had faith that he would find his brother; he just wasn’t sure he was ready to face what state he might find his brother in. Sam’s disappearance had ‘stupid bumpkins’ written all over it. Dean’s gut twisted as his mind flashed back to the attack at the diner. He’d flown into a rage as he’d seen the blatantly sexual nature of their assault.

Dean knew his brother and if Sam had still been conscious at all he would have fought with everything he had to get away from them. The only way they could have taken Sam is if they’d knocked him unconscious and unable to defend himself. Which meant he was currently completely at their mercy, which Dean doubted much that they had much of. And this time Dean wasn’t there this time to help him.

Oh gods, he was going to be sick. 

But he didn’t have time to waste on that. He couldn’t let Sam down any more than he already had by putting him in this position in the first place. He’d conduct a house-to-house search of the whole damn town if he had to. He stormed back to the Impala and popped the trunk, not caring who witnessed his foraging for weapons. Holstering a revolver in his belt and sliding a blade into his boot, he slammed the trunk shut.

Now he just needed to figure out where to start. He scanned the eerily empty street again, his sight settling on the inn where Sam was staying. He considered for a moment. Maybe Sam had gotten into a fight with the creeps and then made his way back over there to patch up.

He surveyed the damage to the car, his attention focused on the ground where the few drops of blood remained. His hope for Sam’s escape diminished as he saw what looked like drag marks leading away from the Impala, most likely to where another car was waiting.

As he crossed the street to the inn, Dean hoped, against all the evidence to the contrary, that Sam had somehow managed to break free from his assailants and return to the safety of his room. Dean never should have let Sam out of his sight. And he never should have laced his drink with the serum from Mme. Louisa, he admitted silently. He swore that when he got Sam back, he would never again make jokes at his brother’s expense. And he would apologize. Profusely. Hell, if anything bad happened to Sam, he would spend the rest of his life making it up to his brother. If that was even possible. Regardless, his guilt was not going to go away. Ever.

He stalked into the inn, doing his best to keep his temper and his fear under control as he made his way to the counter. There was a small sign on the desk alerting him that he’d need to ring the service bell if there was no one at the desk. Before he did so, however, he took an opportunity to scout the area. His heart tightened as he noticed that there were four key hooks for the rooms…and there were four keys hanging. He closed his eyes for a moment, his fear gnawing at his gut as the implication of that sank in. Sam was gone, and it appeared that he’d been checked out of his hotel room. Maybe they kept a record of when that happened. There had hardly been time for Sam to have gotten beat up and kidnapped and checked out of his room in the short amount of time that Dean had talked to Lila. It just didn’t make sense. Unless someone else had checked him out of there.

He didn’t even bother to make sure there would be no witness as he leaned over the counter and grabbed the log book. He clenched his jaw as he flipped it open to the last used page and saw Sam checked in to Room number 4 that morning, but there was no indication at all that he’d checked out. At least there was no sign of anyone covering up his even being there.

Dean shoved the book back into place and leaned farther over the counter, snagging room key number four from the hook and showing himself up the stairs to the room.

He barely even took in the pink frilliness of the room, focusing instead on the fact that Sam’s gear was still there. He did a quick inventory, but found nothing pertinent missing from his brother’s belongings. He wasn’t sure if that should reassure him or not, but really it just made him feel all the more helpless.

Someone here had to know what happened, though; how else would they have gotten Sam’s key back? He locked the door behind him, and pocketed the key, heading back to the counter where he rang the service bell, and worked at reigning in his temper while he waited for the attendant to appear.

“Can I help you?” the elderly matron inquired as she made her way out from the back room.

“Yes, I’m looking for my br…” crap “..ide. Well fiancé actually,” he stammered, mentally cursing himself. “She checked in this morning. Brown hair, really tall.” He held his hand up to approximate Sam’s height. He frowned as he saw the really sad look spreading across the woman’s face.

“Oh dear.”

“Have you seen her?”

The woman nodded slowly. “Yes, such a sweet girl. I just didn’t realize that she was…well, poor Ben will be disappointed,” she groused. “He seemed so happy this morning, too. I’m afraid your fiancé has stepped out, but I can take a message for her if you’d like?”

Dean shook his head, frowning as his intuition kicked into overdrive. Ben. The man had self-professed contact with at least a few of the victims, was even engaged to one of them. It made sense that he’d have followed that case, but how had he known what to look for with the other victims? And surely he hadn’t been reading newspapers from all over the state just randomly discovering that these other girls he’d talked to had disappeared as well. Had he? Given he could have gone up to the library in Jackson just as Sam and he had, but how likely was that? Especially considering that he hadn’t then forwarded the information he’d gotten on to authorities. No one in their right mind would just sit on that information would they? Damn, why hadn’t he seen it before? He pushed back the guilt as he realized he’d been too busy making fun of Ben’s definite interest in Sam to really consider the possibility that there was anything sinister about it.

Dean paused at the entrance to the inn and looked back at the attendant. “You wouldn’t by chance know where I’d find Ben would you?” he asked, keeping the fury from his voice.

The woman shook her head. “I’m sure if you walk around a little you’ll find him, he’s always busy around town. He usually stops in a few times a day to check up on me. I can leave him a message if you’d like.”

“Where does he live?” Dean requested, ignoring her suggestion. He didn’t have time to wait for Ben to just show up. He made his way back to the counter.

 The woman shook her head, a stern look on her face. “I really don’t think I should--"

“Please. I need to talk to him right away,” he gave her an earnest look, hoping that his charms worked on older women as well as it did on the younger ones.

“I’m sorry young man, but no. I can’t give that information out."

“Damn it!” Dean blew his cool and his fist slammed down on the counter. He let out a frustrated hiss of air as he saw her cringe away from him looking frightened. Aw hell. He decided it was time to take a page from Sam’s book and try leveling with her. Well, some of it anyway. “Look, I’m sorry, but it’s really important. There was some trouble this morning at the diner, these guys were giving Sam a hard time. Now h-she’s missing and I’m afraid something has happened to her. It’s really important that I see Ben right away. He saw these guys harassing her, and might know who they are and where to find them.”

The woman’s fearful expression slowly melted into a compassionate one and she stared at him for a few moments. He could feel her judging. He was about to give up waiting for her to make her decision when they were startled by someone opening the front door.

Ben.

Dean’s expression turned stormy and he was across the foyer and grabbing Ben by the shirt and slamming him against the wall in a split second. “Where’s Sam,” he demanded.

Ben blinked and gaped at Dean for a moment, confusion clouding his expression. “Sam?”

Oh hell no. This guy wasn’t going to play dumb. Dean pulled Ben away from the wall and slammed him against it again, secretly delighting in the small thud as the man’s head bounced off the hard wood.  “You know who I’m talking about. Where is Sam?” He stared into Ben’s eyes, his own blazing.

“O-of course I know Sam,” Ben stammered, still gaping at Dean, a look of distress crossing his face. “She was with you, last I knew. Did something--?” He shook his head. “I swear I don’t know where she is.”

Dean stared at him, his fury stepping down a notch as he saw no sign of dishonesty in the man’s eyes. Crap. He let go of Ben’s shirt and stepped back slightly, closing his eyes and absently rubbing his temple. Okay, so if it wasn’t Ben, he calculated, it had to be his original suspects. He blew out a slightly calming breath. “I think she’s in trouble. The guys that were bothering her this morning--do you know where I’d find them?”

Ben hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah. I’ll take you there.” He turned and looked over at the woman at the counter.  “Shirl, I think you better call the state patrol. Tell them we’re headed out to Crocker’s Farm and they might want to send someone to meet us there.” He turned back to Dean grimly.  “Let’s go.”