"I'm not sure you realize just how much trouble you're in here."

Dean's brow shoots up. "Like...like misdemeanor, or 'squeal like a pig'?"

"You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall," Sheriff Pierce reminds the hunter, leaning his palms against the other side of the table to levelly gaze at the man. "Along with a whole lot of satanic mumbo jumbo. Boy, you and that girl are officially suspects."

"Yeah, 'cause that makes sense," Dean says with a sarcastic nod, a stern face and a smirk. He leans back in his chair. "When the first one went missing in '82, I was three and she wasn't even born yet." He gestures to the door leading out into the hallway.

"I know you've got a partner—another one, not the girl in the other room. An older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing. So tell me, Dean, is this his?" Dean watches a leather book plop onto the table before him. He frowns, leaning forward to inspect it.

"I thought that might be your name," the sheriff hums, and begins to leaf through the journal. "See, I went through this...pieced together what little I could. It's nine kinds of crazy, but I found this, too." The sheriff taps a piece of notebook paper in John Winchester's journal. Dean's name is written on it, along with five numbers.

35 -111

Coordinates.

"Now, you're staying right here until you tell me exactly what this means."

Dean sits back in his chair after studying the numbers and then smiles. "My high school locker combination."

The sheriff sighs heavily, rubbing his head. "Don't play games with me, son."

"No, I'm serious. I—"

The door wretches open and a deputy pops his head in. "We've got a 911 call—shots fired over on Whiteford Road."

The sheriff turns to Dean. "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" He asks.

Dean frowns a little. "...No?"

"Good." The sheriff cuffs Dean's wrist to the table and shuts the door to the room, leaving Dean, his father's journal, and a paper clip alone.

Dean smiles, picking the thing from the pages of the journal, and bends it with his fingers into a makeshift pick for the cuffs. It took only a few seconds of finagling to get loose.

He waits for the sheriff to leave and exits the room in search of Katherine.

She's sitting at a table in the other room at the back of the station. She's glowering, picking at her fingernails, and doesn't look up as Dean opens the door.

"Don't be such a sour kitty," Dean chirps. Katherine's head snaps up at the sound of his voice, and she sits up a little bit, interest piqued. A small smirk tugs at her lips. "I'm surprised you haven't broken out yet."

"They took my pins," she hums, nodding to a box on the other side of the room, smirking still. Dean chuckles and leans close to her, sticking the pin into the lock. "My hero," Katherine purrs. "I'm not usually so damsel-y."

"I'm sure, Kitty."

✕

"I didn't know your father kept a journal," Katherine says, thumbing through the thing with curious eyes as she sits in the back of the Impala. "My dad does, too, but I haven't seen it in..." She closes the notebook and taps her fingers against her chin. "So the Woman in White, Constance, is actually a really ugly bitch under that pretty face...and your dad got the hell out of Dodge but left this." Dean nods once.

The ghost has been busted, and now the Winchesters and Katherine continue on their expedition to find John with a new piece of intel, and perhaps an even larger mission than before. She wonders if something went south with her father and John. Or if the case was resolved and he just hasn't called.

Then why are his phone numbers disconnected?

Katherine reaches into her bag and pulls her little blue flashlight, a map, and GPS device from inside. She slouches, throwing her legs up over the bench seat. Dean groans, swatting at her leather boots. Katherine holds the flashlight between her teeth as she stares at the five numbers in John's journal and the roadmap. Her fingers make quick work of the little blue device.

Five minutes later, she's smiling. "Blackwater Ridge, Colorado," she proclaims.

"Sounds charming," Dean says. "How far?"

She glances at the scale on the map and frowns, looking back to her device. "Six hundred miles...ish."

"If we shag ass, we can get there by morning."

Katherine lets out a heavy sigh. "You're psychotic."

"Dean," Sam begins. "I, uh..."

The other two hunters look to Sam, cautiously analyzing him. He appears apologetic. "You're not going," Dean murmurs.

"The interview's in, like, ten hours," Sam says. "I've got to be there."

"Yeah," Dean says. "Yeah, whatever. Kat and I can find him—I'll take you home." Katherine glances between the two brothers and slides her stuff back into her backpack before curling up in the backseat.

She wakes as the Impala rolls to a stop in front of the apartment complex Sam lives in. "Hey," she croaks, sitting up as he shuts the door to the front. "You're gonna leave without saying goodbye?"

"Never to you, Katherine," he chuckles. The teenager smiles and stumbles from the backseat. She stretches onto her toes, wrapping the tall older boy in a tight embrace, and sighs as she releases him. "Maybe I'll come visit you at Yale one day."

"You freaking better," she says, opening up the front door, and sits down beside Dean. "Hey—we all made a helluva team back there," she claims, smiling broadly.

"Yeah," Sam chuckles. "Yeah, we did." He presses his lips together, frowning almost. "Call me when you guys find him?"

"Sure thing, Sammy," Dean says.

"And then you're taking her back to school?" Sam asks, gesturing to Katherine.

"I'm a consenting adult," Katherine proclaims, crossing her arms over the rolled-down window of the front seat. "I can do as I please." Sam grins and she smiles, waving at him. "Bye-a, Sam." Dean starts to roll away, and Katherine turns her gaze to her knees, fiddling with her fingers. Her phone starts ringing from somewhere inside her backpack. "Damn thing," she mutters. She glances at the caller ID and answers quickly. "Soph?"

"Heyo," Sophia Rowe greets. Best friend. Roommate. Soph.

"Everything all right?"

"Peachy. Uh...where are you?"

Katherine chuckles. "I left a note for you on the refrigerator."

Sophia clears her throat and and plucks the thing from the white surface. "'Soph,'" she reads. "'Went on a road trip. Be back soon.'" Her tone is impatient. "Katherine, that tells me nothing."

"I'm fine, Sophia," Katherine says. "Promise. I'm...on a road trip."

"Yeah, apparently."

"How was your mom's?"

"Oh, you know," her roommate sighs. "Mom-ish." Katherine chuckles. The hair on the back of her neck stands up, and her smile fades into a grimace. Dean notices. Then the radio switches on and everything goes haywire. "Soph?" After getting no response, Katherine turns to Dean. "Something's not right," she says.

She heard a voice when she was younger, in her head...A single voice, a familiar one—she's heard it since she was a little girl. And then an image in her head, forceful, like it's being shouted at her, rattling around in her skull.

Sam's apartment is on fire.

"It's Sam."

"Sam?" Dean repeats. "What's wrong? How do you know?"

"I just know," she says, glancing out of the window. "Dean, turn around." She holds the phone back to her ear. "Soph. Sophia?" Katherine hangs up and drops her phone into the console, holding herself in place as Dean whirls the Impala around and speeds back in the direction they came. "Drive faster, Dean," she says, tapping her fingers against the door. Dean doesn't have a rebuttal. She throws her seatbelt off and runs after the older hunter, bounding up the steps of the complex. Dean quickly picks the lock and Katherine follows him up the hall and the stairs, to another room—

"No!" That's Sam's voice. "Jess!"

Dean kicks the door in, and a wave of heat rushes over the two hunters, flames of a furious inferno licking down from the ceiling and towards the door. "Sam!" Dean shouts. Katherine runs towards the bed Sam is resting on. He's gaping up at the ceiling in horror. Katherine risks a glance up and wishes she hadn't.

Katherine pulls her shirt over her nose. "Dean!" She shouts, and the hunter runs over to her, grabbing Sam by the shoulders, and the two work together to tow Sam downstairs. The other residences have popped out of their doors, curiously peering up the stairs. "Call 911!" Katherine shouts. "Everyone get out!"

Katherine stares at the diffused inferno. It was only Sam and Jess's apartment. No other room was even licked by flame. Nobody else was hurt.

She yelps in surprise as Dean yanks her backwards and throws her up against a tree. "How did you know?" He growls. She gawks at his beautiful features, twisted into something more than anger, more than fury, as he holds her to the tree with a knife at her neck, elbow digging into her right shoulder and and a hand gripping down on her left shoulder so hard she's sure she'll bruise. "Did you do it?!"

She's so bewildered she can't help but stutter, "What?!"

"Did you start the fire?!"

"No!" Katherine snarls, grappling at Dean's jacket, and shoves him away. "I didn't do anything!"

He doesn't drop the knife, jaw as hard and sharp as the blade itself. "Why should I believe you?" Chests heave, filling the thick air with heavy, angered breathing. Dean steps towards her. "Why should I trust you?"

"Same reason you hunted me down in the first place," she quietly seethes, her blue eyes blazing. She takes a few steps forward, standing toe to toe with him, chin tilted indignantly, jaw set. "I didn't do. anything. but save your brother's life." Dean's jaw tightens, and Katherine moves away from him, down the road to Sam and the Impala.

She opens her mouth to express how sorry she is, and a dark thought flits across her mind. Before she can speak, Sam crushes Katherine into a hug, squeezing the breath from her lungs. "Thanks," he quietly says, releasing her from his grip. Katherine rubs his arm before moving away from him, to the back of the Impala.

"I think Dean's looking for you," she murmurs. Sam nods, setting the rifle down, and shuts the trunk before moving back to the house. Katherine makes quick work of grabbing her bags, and she starts down the ill-lit road, following her tracking device to the nearest motel.

Katherine dials Sophia again, nerves shot, hands shaking. Her anxiousness is put to rest, though, when Sophia answers in her usual taste.

"Hey, did you get into my wine?"

"Correction, I got into our wine," Katherine grumbles. "It wasn't your smile that got that corner douche to go in and buy it."

"Hmm," Sophia hums in acknowledgement. "How was it?"

"Very strawberry-y," Katherine chirps. "Take a picture of the label and send it to me. Was it a pinot?"

"It's a pinot," Sophia confirms. "So what's this road trip business? Your dad again?"

"Old family friend," Katherine corrects, shaking her head. "But I'm coming home now."

"A little short for a road trip."

"Soph, you just got home from your mom's. You don't know when I left."

Katherine's brow wrinkles as there's a sniffing sound on the other end of the line. "Well it's been a few days," she guesses.

She laughs. "Were you just smelling to see how fresh the ink was?"

"Maybe," Sophia defends. "Don't feel rushed to come home. I can have fun without you."

"I'm sure," Katherine hums, glancing to her watch. "It's way past your bedtime."

"Sure is."

"Don't you have class in a couple of hours?"

"Sure, but does that mean I'm going? Nooo."

Katherine chuckles. "Well, I'm on navigation duty, so I'll call you when I'm closer," she says.

"Oookay," her roommate sings. "I love you forever and ever."

"Yeah, you too Soph." Katherine smiles a bit and hangs up. She glances over her shoulder as a pair of headlights illuminate the road before her. A horn sounds a few times to get her attention.

"Katherine," Sam calls over the engine. She looks over in surprise, squinting to get a good look at the brothers in the front seat of the Impala. "Katherine, what are you doing?!"

She faces forward, continuing down the road with a set jaw, and hitches her bags a bit more over her shoulder.

"Kat," Dean calls.

"Piss off, Dean!" He groans and pulls forward, turning the car horizontal in the road. She turns on her heel and starts the other way. Dean throws the car into reverse and tracks easily with Katherine. He's smirking, arm resting on the door in that characteristically-cocky way, but Katherine glowers at him.

"What are you doing?" Dean asks her. She doesn't answer. "Katherine, get in the damn car."

"Go find your dad," she sourly calls to him, shifting her bags.

"Get in the car and we'll go find him. I'll take you back to Yale as soon as you want."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," she snaps. "So just—just go, all right? You don't trust me. Fine, fair enough. But don't make me stay where I'm not welcome."

"Sweetheart, you'd know it—"

"Don't call me that!" She cries, balancing on the white line at the edge of the road.

A few irritating moments of the Impala's thrumming engine fill the silence, the icy stare-down between pedestrian and driver. And then Katherine turns on her toes and continues down the pavement. Dean lets the car cruise down the middle of the road as Katherine stalks along the edge.

"Katherine, please get in the car," Sam requests. "It's late, we're all tired." She glances sideways at him, her resolve crumbling a bit. "Just...let's figure this out, get some sleep...and if you still want to leave in the morning, we'll take you home."

Sam's sudden shift is a bit intriguing to her. He's staying?

Of course he is, her subconscious says, scowling judgmentally over her tortoise shell glasses. His girlfriend just died. His brother is all he's got.

Katherine's lips twitch and she glances to Dean, whose eyes are focused so strangely on her. She hesitates. "Would you quit being so stubborn?!" Dean explodes.

She smacks her lips and turns right back down that line, jaw set.

"Way to go," Sam snarls.

"Pigheadedness isn't becoming," Dean calls to Katherine.

"Like you're not the most obstinate person in the world!"

Dean, struggling with his vocabulary, glances to Sam, quietly stuttering as he tries to form a comeback. His younger brother rolls his eyes. Finally though, Dean grits his teeth, sticks his head out the window, and shouts, "Katherine Louise, don't make me drag you!"

"Just let me handle it, all right?" Sam mutters. "Pull over."

"Sam—"

"Pull over," Sam repeats. Dean growls and stops the car on the shoulder of the road. Katherine's pace quickens. "Katherine," Sam calls, shutting the door, and jogs down the road to catch up with her. "Kat? Could you please come with us?"

"Dean doesn't want me with you guys," she says. "So I'm going home."

Sam frowns. "What makes you think that?"

"He thinks that I—" Katherine stops short, gritting her teeth, nostrils flared. Sam waits patiently. "He thinks I started the fire," she quietly says. Dean watches, perplexed, unable to hear anything over the roar of the engine.

How in the hell did Sam—non-pushy Sam—get the most mule-headed girl Dean's ever met to stop and listen?

"Of course you didn't," Sam says, pushing the tears from his eyes. "How could you have?"

"No, but I knew something was wrong," she murmurs. "I could feel it. Like what I felt on the bridge?" Sam's brow furrows and Katherine sighs. "It's just...this thing I have," she explains, and Dean watches her hands move as she speaks. He can't hear what she's saying, though. "I just...I can usually tell when something's wrong. Anyway, when the...radio started fritzing, I knew it was you."

"How?"

"Long story. Kind of freaky. Campfire and smores worthy, Sandlot style."

Sam sighs, glancing back to the car. Dean throws a hand up. "Please come with us," he says to Katherine. "Dean's not gonna say anything to you, all right? But...we're gonna stay in Palo Alto for a bit...investigate. I know that this isn't what you came all the way over here for, so I'll understand if you need to go home. But I'd really appreciate if you stayed with us for a little while longer."

Katherine frowns a bit, glancing to the older brother in the driver's seat. "Yeah," she whispers. "Yeah, okay."

An uneasy silence settled between the three of them. What is there to say, where to start? Sam's girlfriend had just died. Dean has his suspicions about Katherine—how did she know what was happening? And if she started the fire, why would she have told Dean to turn around? He can see the flaws in his accusations, but he's more stubborn than a mule and won't give on this.

Something's up with the Donovan girl, that much is true. But what? And how?

Nobody spoke in the motel—Katherine actually got her own room and felt comfort in the silence.  She contemplates calling Sophia again.

Katherine picks her cell phone up from the bedside table and scrolls through her contacts before staring at a name for a long minute. She sits down on the edge of the bed and presses down on the green button before holding the phone to her ear and a hand to her mouth. Her heart pounds in her neck. She's starting to worry.

Her father's number is out of service. Another one. Katherine hangs up and slides the phone back onto the table before rising to her feet and slowly settling into her nightly routine.

The week passed with no phone calls from her father. Sophia wasn't surprised when Katherine called her a few days later and announced her road trip would be slightly longer than expected, but she didn't know by how much longer.

Katherine and Dean hadn't spoken a word to each other, both too stubborn for their own good. They'd hold a cold glare in passing, but otherwise avoided each other when possible. Every little thing about him annoyed her. His smart-ass remarks, which she normally would've laughed at. The way he stared at her. The way he held his shoulders, his arrogant face, the back of his head—

Sam lurches in the front seat, arms flaying about his face, and Katherine starts, almost glaring at the older boy in annoyance at the startle. Dean's driving is steady—manic as hell with no destination, but still steady—so that couldn't be the cause of his sudden fit. "You okay?" Dean asks after a moment.

"Yeah," Sam replies, a little too quickly, as he massages the bridge of his nose. "Fine." He blinks the sleep from his eyes.

"Another nightmare?"

Katherine remains slouched, gaze low, but ears alert. She slept separate from the boys when they got a motel, and if they were in the car, usually she was asleep when Sam was. Showing his discomfort with the topic, Sam clears his throat, gazing out of the window. Katherine goes back to reading The Outsiders.

"You want to drive for a while?"

"In your whole life, you never once asked me that," Sam replies.

"Just thought you might want to," Dean defends, his voice rising in pitch. "Never mind."

"Look, man," Sam sighs. "You're worried about me, I get it. And thank you, but I'm perfectly okay."

"Mhm," Dean hums. Katherine knows just by the tone he isn't convinced. And if she's being honest, neither is she.

"All right." Sam clears his throat. "Where are we?"

"Just outside of Grand Junction," Dean answers in a grandiose tone. If he added a smile and a hand gesture or two, he could be Vanna White, Katherine sourly thinks.

Sam lets out a heavy sigh, and Katherine's eyes float back to the words of her book. "Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon."

"Sam, we dug around there for a week. We came up with nothing. If you want to find the thing that killed Jessica—"

"We've gotta find Dad first," Sam finishes, nodding. Dean has said this, Sam knows this.

Katherine looks up from her book once more to find Dean's eyes focused on her in the rearview mirror. She raises a challenging brow, snapping her book shut between her thumb and three other fingers, and sits up straighter. He moves his eyes back to the road and she rolls her own.

She knows that Dean knows she didn't do it. He's just freaking out because she knew something was happening to Sam and he's being unfair. Not giving her the chance to explain. But she's not willing to explain herself either, not this early in the business arrangement—even if it meant clearing her name.

"First Dad disappearing, now this thing popping up again after twenty years..." Dean clicks his tongue and shakes his head. "It's no coincidence. Dad will have answers. He'll know what to do."

Sam intakes a breath and opens his mouth, twisting around a bit to question Katherine. But he decides against bringing up her father and turns back around, electing to save it for when they were alone next. They should be stopping for gas soon, right?

"These coordinates he left us," he says instead. "This...Black Water Ridge."

"What about it?" Dean asks.

"There's nothing there," Katherine pipes from the back. It's the first time she's spoken around Dean in several days. He was almost beginning to forget the sound of her voice—almost.

It's silvery and smoky, like her. A bit of rasp to her words, the last dropping off a bit as she pursed her lips and gazed out of the window. Her tone is somewhat tight, and despite feeling generally uneasy about the girl having the shining or whatever, he's somewhat comforted in her dulcet voice. At least she's speaking to him, even if she does sound bored.

"Well, trees and bears," she revises. Dean rolls his eyes at the mention of the bears—again.

"Why would he send us to the middle of nowhere?" Sam asks.

"Bears," Katherine replies. Sam chuckles a little. "Hey, you think ghosts can hijack animals?"

"Well...vengeful spirits can hijack humans," Sam murmurs. "Maybe they can with animals, too." She nods ponderously. "Why?" Sam asks with a smile. "Is it something you have encountered?" He twists around to gaze at the beauty in the back. Blonde hair kinked from the braid she left it in overnight, spilling over her shoulders, full and shiny. Her eyes are beautiful and large, framed with long raven's wing lashes. Her eyes and the added factor of the delicate upward slope of her nose adds a touch of innocence, softness, to her chiseled features.

"Perhaps," she says with a demure shoulder shrug, the corners of her mouth moving in a similar gesture. Sam grins and so does she. "I got bit by a horse once." Sam's grin falls. "Not as bad as being tased."

"You've been tased?"

"Sam," the girl scoffs. "Innocent Sam." She crosses her arms, smiling a bit at the young man. He grins and turns around.

"Talk about it," he says.

"Uh...well, it's not pleasant." Sam laughs, but he realizes that's about all he's going to get out of her at the moment. And then he realizes that she's actually talking, on her own free will, so he keeps her going.

"Is that the craziest thing that's ever happened to you?"

"No," she answers after a moment.

"What was?"

"Well, there are several things," she says, leaning back into her seat with closed eyes. Dean's eyes are on the road but his ears are focused on Katherine and her voice. "More recently, I was ran off of a bridge by a self-driving car. Almost fell to my death."

Sam chuckles at her exaggeration. "Crazy," he agrees.

"Well, I like to live on the edge. Just not on the edge of buildings or, ya know, bridges, because of that whole heights thing." Sam laughs.