Katherine's delayed arrival in Cold Oak set in motion a deep-rooted panic. It's ice in Sam's blood, lead in his bones. Dean's always telling Sam that everything is gonna be okay.

Somehow, Katherine's presence is a harbinger. The sight of her makes his hair stand on end.

Nothing will be okay. Not this time. Something wretched will come of this. Will she end up like Lily? Will Sam?

He gazes across the fire at her. The flames, their shadows, make her seem more severe. Her eyes seem distant, though, as she holds her hands near the heat. There's something off about her. Maybe it's in her features. That glint of danger he always knew lay quietly beneath the surface. Maybe it's coming out now, bit by bit. Maybe the voice in her head, whatever it may be, is whispering awful things to her, slowly driving her into the plane of insanity that the hunters are only beginning to trudge into. Will it get worse than this?

Everyone knows Katherine Donovan. Every hunter Sam's ever talked to has stories of Katherine. Chupacabra, werewolves, vampires, ghouls. They talk about her beauty just as much as they talk about her prowess. Her talent. A prodigy. They've said some vulgar things, too, as she's gotten older.

She stares at him in silent conversation, and he thinks they're sharing a singular thought. What awful thing is coming after us?  

But the fate of the other?

Her eyes are warm. They're tired, too. Not just her actual eyes, but underneath them, too.

The group splits up, lay salt down in a house that has room for all of them. When Sam returns downstairs with Ava, Katherine is said to be getting more salt from a house just down the way. Jake said she didn't want anyone coming with her, since it's hard enough to protect just herself.

First, he sees a pair of yellow eyes. Then, with the sound of a heeled boot coming up the stairs, comes the familiar face, the blonde hair, the smile that suddenly doesn't seem goading, but wicked.

"Jake, behind you!" Sam cries. But Jake doesn't hear him.

Yellow Eyes has Katherine.

"Hello, Sam," she drawls, stepping right over the salt barrier.

"I'm dreaming."

It's the only logical thing he can think of. Katherine...she can't...she can't be possessed. She's...

"Why don't we take a walk, huh?" She nods her head outside, hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, and turns on the toes of her boots with a smile.

"I think I did pretty well being Katherine. Would you agree? Oh, you even hugged me." She smiles. "You're uh...kinda quiet." She spins in the mud, pouting in her usual way, but with the eyes, it's different. "You're not mad at me, are you?"

Sam's voice is low and hollow as he asks, "What did you do to Katherine?"

She chuckles. "Don't worry, she's fine. All sorts of pissed off, sure, but she's fine."

"Is she like me?" Sam asks.

Yellow Eyes gasps, stops, and turns to face Sam again. "Sam, that is quite possibly the most intelligent you've ever been. I can't believe..." She lets out a growl, clenching her fist, then she smiles. "I can't believe I didn't think of that. How twisted, how funny, that would have been." Her grin is wicked. "Oh, the Man Upstairs wouldn't have been happy about that. No, no, no..." She shakes her head. "What a wonderful idea, Sam. But no. Katherine Louise is not like you children. She's...Divine." Her expression is sour. It pivots, though, when she looks at him. "But you are far more special."

"Where's my brother?"

"I'd worry more about yourself than I would Dean," she hums.

"What?" Sam challenges. "You gonna kill me?"

"I'm trying to help you. That's why we're talking." Everything is Katherine. Her tone, the body language. The demon is still walking like her. Why? Some weird mind trick? "You're the one I'm rooting for."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Welcome to the Miss America pageant. Obviously, I'm the winner. Have you seen her?" Her hands tug at her leather jacket, staring into her reflection in a dusty old window, and she lets out a sigh before turning to Sam. "Why do you think you're here, Sam? It's a competition. Only one of you crazy kids is gonna make it out of here." She smiles, sticking her hands into her jacket pockets.

"I thought we were supposed to be—"

"Soldiers?" Katherine interrupts. "That's true—you are—but that's not why you're here. I don't need soldiers." She takes a step closer to Sam and does a turnabout, trailing the tip of her middle finger along his chest, around his shoulder and back. She faces him with a smile. "I just need one."

"Why?"

She snorts. "Well I couldn't just come out and say it. Let everyone think they have a fighting chance. What I need, though, is a leader."

"To lead who?"

Katherine lets out a disappointed sigh, dropping her shoulders a bit. "Honestly, I'm surprised you haven't guessed it already. I'll have my army soon. And really, why do you think so many of the other children flamed out already?" She chuckles, starting forward into the mud. "Max Miller, and, uh...Andy's brother. What was his name? Anyway, they weren't strong enough. I'm looking for the best and brightest of your generation." Yellow Eyes sighs again. "Now you've got me seriously regretting not tracking down a Donovan." She shakes her head. "Oh, you and her...that would've been such a spectacle!"

"My generation?"

"Yes, well, there are others." She shrugs. "But I'm worried about yours, for now. That's why I'm here, Sam. I wanna give you the scoop, the inside track. You're tough. Smart. Well-trained." She grins. "Sam...Sammy," she sighs. "You're my favorite. Always have been. This one, too. She likes you a lot. You know, there was a time she actually preferred your company to your brother's. Now she's all soft and heart eyes for him." Her tone is flat as she turns away from Sam, almost sour.

"You ruined my life," he growls. "You killed everyone I loved."

"Oh, not quite. But that's the cost of business, I'm afraid. Jessica just had to die; you were all set to marry that little blonde thing. She got in the way. I needed you sharp."

"What about my mom?"

Yellow Eyes winces and clicks her tongue. "That was just bad luck. She, too, got in the way, but not in the sense that sweet Jessica did. She walked in on us." Katherine shrugs. "Wrong place, wrong time. No hard feelings."

"What does that mean?"

"It wasn't about her," Katherine chuckles. "It was about you. It's always been about you," she says, pressing her finger into his chest.

"What?" Sam asks.

She sighs again. "You've caught me in a charitable mood, Sam Winchester." She smiles a bit. "I'll show you." With a snap of her fingers, the both of them are in a room that doesn't seem so familiar. It's painted blue, with matching curtains, and shelves full of toys. A masculine figure hovers near a baby's crib. Once he realizes this is his room, he lunges. "Oh, relax," she snorts. "This is just a twenty-three-year-old replay. You can't change what's already happened." The yellow eyes flit between the shadowed figure and the baby's crib.

"John?" A woman asks, sleepily trudging into Sam's room.

"Mom," he whispers, watching Mary hedge in the darkness.

"Is he hungry?"

"Shhh," the figure by the crib whispers.

"Oookay," Mary hums, starting for the hallway.

Sam, feeling cold and lightheaded, takes a step towards the door. "Wait, Mom—"

"She can't hear you," Katherine hums as a reminder.

Sam watches the scene unfold before him. The demon has cut his own wrist, and blood drips into the baby's mouth. His mouth. "What the hell are you doing to me?"

"Better than mother's milk," Katherine whispers, her breath cold on his neck.

Sam's gut roils, threatening to empty at any moment. His head is [ounding, his palms feel slick. "Does this mean I have demon blood in me?"

Katherine lets out a chuckle, and Mary bursts back through the doorway with an expression fiercer than a mad wolf. "It's you."

"She knew you?!" Sam cries. Mary lunges, and the demon throws the woman up against the wall, and drags her up the ceiling. "No," Sam whispers. "No!"

"I don't think you want to see the rest of this," Katherine says in a singsong voice, and like that, they're back in the ghost town.

At least, Sam is. Katherine is gone. He's in the living room of the home everyone salted, crowded by Jake and Andy.

"Ava's missing," Jake says. "The other one, too."

"Yeah, that wasn't Katherine," Sam grunts. Still shaken, he pulls himself to his feet, and he and Jake take off to look for Ava. Due to his lack of training, Andy is forced to stay behind.

"I'll take the barn and the hotel," Jake volunteers. "You take the houses."

"Yeah, sure. Meet back here in ten minutes."

"Ava?" Andy asks. "Where'd you go? Sam and Jake are looking for you." Curiously, he watches Ava make a line in the salt on the window sill, and after a moment, a cloud of black smoke appears behind the window. It slips underneath it, and into the house. It looks like the same smoke from earlier. The demon smoke. "What are you doing?"

Ava has summoned a demon. An acheri. And it killed Andy.

Sam comes running as soon as he hears Ava's screaming. "What happened?!"

"I don't know, I just found him like this," Ava sobs. "I went to go get some water from the well—I was gone for, like, two minutes, and when I came back, I saw that—that thing attack him!"

"How'd it get in?" Sam wonders, looking at all of the salt lines. "You shouldn't have gone outside. We have to stay in here, Ava." His eyes catch the line in the salt on the window. "Who did that?"

Everything is happening too fast—

"Wha—I don't know, maybe Andy—"

Sam shakes his head, jaw growing tight. What the Yellow-Eyed demon showed him is momentarily forgotten. "Andy wouldn't do that. And that line wasn't broken when I left."

"Well what about that Katherine you seem so fond of, huh?"

"Katherine's not here. Ava."

She turns shrill. "What, you think I did it?!"

"I'll tell you what I think," Sam says. "Five months. You're the only one with time you can't account for. What happened to you?"

"Nothing!" But the game is over. The charade is up.

Ava wipes her face, then sighs. And then she smiles. "Had you goin' for a minute, though, didn't I?" Sam grits his teeth, and Ava chuckles. "Yeah. I've been here a long time—and not alone, either. People just keep showin' up." She shrugs. "Children like us. Batches of three or four at a time."

"And you killed them?" Sam asks. "All of them?"

She doesn't seem at all remorseful. She's...she's proud. Gloating. "I'm the undefeated heavyweight champ."

Sam feels dizzy, and sick to his stomach. "How could you?"

"I had no choice," she snarls. "It's me or them. After a while, it was easy. Even kinda fun. I just stopped fighting it."

"Fighting what?"

"Who we are, Sam. If you'd just quit your hand-wringing and open yourself up, you have no idea what you could do! The learning curve is so fast!" She laughs incredulously, snaps her fingers. "The switches that just flip in your brain? I can't believe I just started out having dreams. Do you know what I can do now?"

The way she's talking...like they're old friends playing catch-up over coffee.

"Control demons."

"Oh." Ava smiles. "You're quick on the draw." She holds her fingertips to her temples, and another cloud of black appears at the window. "Sorry, Sam, but it's over." Sam turns to the window, raising the iron poker in his hand. He hears something that sounds like a series of snaps, cracks that could only be human bone, and he turns around.

Jake killed Ava.

"She was gonna kill you," Jake says. Sam only nods, willing himself to keep it together, then starts for the door.

"Maybe we can make it out of here now."

"The acheri demon—"

"No, no. Ava was summoning it. Controlling it. Now that she's dead, it shouldn't come back. We've gotta go."

Yellow Eyes leans against the darkened wall of the saloon, staring at the two remainders. He's almost excited, sitting only the edge of his seat. Or maybe it's the meatsuit's anxiety.

"No," Jake says, shaking his head. "There's no 'we.'" Sam frowns. "Only one of us is getting out of here. I'm sorry."

Sam stops, staring at Jake long and hard. "What?"

"I had a vision. That yellow-eyed demon, or whatever it was—it was Katherine. She talked to me, told me how it was."

Sam shakes his head. What? "No, Jake, you can't listen to him!"

"Sam, she's not letting us go!"

"He is possessing my best friend—"

"Only one of us," Jake continues. "And if we don't play along, she'll kill us both. I like you, man, but think about it. What good is it for both of us to die? I can get out of here, get close to the demon, and kill the bitch—"

"If you kill him, you kill her," Sam snarls, shaking his head. "You're not gonna kill Katherine. Come with me, all right? I can figure out a way to keep her safe and we can kill the demon together."

"How do I know you won't turn on me?"

Sam shakes his head. "I won't."

"I don't know that." Jake shuffles forward, and panic sets in. Yellow Eyes stands up straight, arms crossed.

"Okay, look," Sam begins, raising his hands, and reaches into his jacket pocket for the knife, and drops it to the mud. "Just come with me, Jake. Don't do this. Don't play into what it wants." Jake nods once, and slowly moves to set the iron bar down. Sam recalls his power—super strength.

Almost in a sick cosmic joke, Jake puts it on display; swings up and hits Sam in the jaw, sending the hunter back upwards of ten feet.

It's fight or die, Sam realizes. Once Jake is close enough, Sam kicks him in the stomach, scrambles to his feet. Jake swings, punching him in the shoulder. Sam is sure he shattered a few bones. Another hit in the kidney. Jake backs Sam up into a wooden post, swings again. Sam dodges the hit, and Jake's fist lodges in the wood. Sam kicks and kicks and kicks, sending Jake through the fence and into the mud.

Sam crosses the mud, past Jake, and picks up the iron stake. Jake climbs to his feet, launches himself at Sam, but the hunter hits him in the jaw with that piece of iron.

Sam stands over Jake's unconscious body with the iron spoke in his hand. He can't bring himself to raise it over his head. He can't bring himself to kill another person. So he tosses the spoke to the side, jaw aching and red.

"Saaaaam!"

That's Dean's voice.

"Dean!" Sam shouts, turning around, and hurries through the mud. Yellow Eyes waits patiently in the shadows. Dean and Bobby round the corner, into the ghost community.

"Sam, look out!"

Before Sam can turn, Jake juts the knife up into his back, right into the kidney. Katherine saw all of it—Katherine, through Yellow Eyes. She leans against the wall of the small room she's in, her chest twisted with grief and pain. She can hardly get a breath in. This heartbreak is worse than anything she's felt before. Funny how every time she thinks this will be the end of her, that this will send her off the rails, something even more terrible happens. But Sam is dead. What's worse than that?

"Saaaaaaam!"