"Dean."

"Hmm."

"Get. Your arm. Off of my neck." Katherine turns onto her stomach, tucking her hands underneath her pillow. Dean's arm falls across her back and she grunts. "Dean." Sam sucks in a deep breath of air and Katherine jumps, fully waking up. "Sam?" She squints, staring at him as he flies up on his bed on the other side of the room.

"We have to go."

"What?" She rubs her face and turns to look at the alarm clock. They'd only gotten into Michigan— "It's two AM. We've been asleep for two hours—Sam what's going on?" She quietly asks, curling into a ball. Her brow is furrowed, and she presses herself into Dean's warm side. 

"We have to go," he repeats.

Katherine sits up with alertness she didn't have before. Her heart hammers in her chest. "What's going on?"

"Right now." He grabs his bag. "C'mon."

"Dean." She nudges the man harshly and throws her legs out of bed and stumbles for her toiletries. She's in the middle of brushing her teeth and Dean still hasn't woken up. "Dean," she says around her toothpaste, wiggling his arm.

"Dude," he grunts.

"Dean, we gotta go."

"Why?"

"Something's up with Sam." Dean practically flies out of bed. Katherine turns to the sink and rinses her mouth out. She doesn't bother with contacts, knowing her eyes will sting to hell if she tried to put them in with only a few hours of sleep, and shoves her glasses onto her nose. She throws her shorts into her bag and tugs on a pair of her cropped leggings, knowing Dean isn't wasting his time ogling her, and grabs her coat and bag before running for her car. She throws her bag into the trunk and waits for Dean, following behind the Impala.

Katherine radios in on the road. "You know what the hell is going on?"

"Sam had a nightmare," Dean tiredly responds.

She huffs and jams the button down once more. "We're driving in the middle of the night because—"

"He said it's like the ones he had before."

Katherine frowns. "With your guys' old house?"

"Yeah. Sam, that plate's not gonna check out." Dean's voice drops from her radio. Katherine waits for a moment holsters the walkie and sighs, leaning against the door with her left elbow, and puts her temple in her hand. 

Dean picks up the pace and she presses down on the accelerator to match him. "It matched," he says to her.

Katherine presses down on the side button, glowering at the back of the Impala. A smile tugs at her mouth, though, when an idea pops into her head. "Unit One to base, I've got a speeding 1967 Impala, plate KILO-ALPA-ZULU TWO-YANKEE-FIVE. You copy?"

Dean picks his walkie up and sighs. "Shaddup."

She giggles, holstering her device. A few hours later, they roll into town in Saginaw, Michigan, and Katherine is still in the dark about the whole operation.

She can't keep her eyes open. Once they pull up to a house surrounded by ambulances and police cars, she crawls into the back, feeling like death. Her gut twists with something strange.

Dean knocks on the window. Katherine leans forward and cranks it down. "Hey, kid—you all right?"

"No," she sighs, resting her chin on the seat. "I feel horrible." He frowns. "I ache, I can't stay awake. I'm burnt out, man." She nods to the house. "What's going on?"

"Suicide is what they're saying." Dean slips into Katherine's car and she lies down again. 

"Sam's dream?"

"He said he saw the guy...get locked in his car. Like something trapped him there. Shut the garage, turned the engine on." 

"Damn," she groans, rubbing her forehead with the heel of her palm. 

"In the morning, Sam and I are gonna come back and talk to the family." The girl nods, but he can't see it. "Man, you're zonked." She doesn't answer, already slipping into unconsciousness.

She pulls herself back out, though, and sits up with a deep breath. "Get out."

He frowns, twisting around to look at her. "What?"

"I'm gonna go find a motel. I need sleep."

Dean appraises her for a moment. "You're not driving."

"Dean—"

"I'm not letting you drive when you're barely keeping your eyes open just having a conversation." He snatches the keys and slips out of the car to hand his off to Sam. The younger Winchester operates Katherine's Charger as Dean drives around in search of a decent place. 

Katherine is just barely conscious enough to drag herself from the car. Dean scoops her up as if she weighs no more than a feather and places her on the bed of the connecting room before he crashes on the other side of the door.

By eleven, the girl hasn't woken up yet. "You think she's dead?"

"No, she's not dead." Sam removes his hand from her forehead. "She could be sick." Sam gently shakes her shoulder. "Kat?"

"Hmm?" Her grunt is no more than a harmless squeak, like a tired child. 

"What are you doing?"

"She'd castrate us if we didn't clue her in." Dean nods in agreement. "Kat, Dean and I are going to the Millers' place." She doesn't nod or respond—at all. Sam sighs, rising from the bed, and follows Dean outside. 

✕

"Looking sharp."

The Winchesters look to the table, where Katherine Louise looks a bit more like herself and less like the walking corpse they saw just hours ago. She's eating a weird soup, legs folded up underneath her, and she still wears her silk teal camisole and leggings. Her torso is bundled up in a cardigan, dirty blonde hair pulled back into a bun, fringe and all. Dean wonders if this is what she looked like when she still attended Yale. Weekends spent studying. 

Then he finds himself wishing he knew Katherine in a different life. Meet in a lecture, go out for coffee—except she doesn't particularly like coffee, so she'd get a hot chai. And then they'd find places to study. Under trees in the quad, little hole-in-the-walls she'd find, at each others' apartments.

"You're eating," Sam observes. Katherine raises a questioning brow.

"We thought you were dying," Dean supplies. "You know, fever, barely able to keep your eyes open. You looked like death, anyway."

"You sure know the way to a girl's heart," Katherine jests with a soft smile. That little apostrophe at the corner of her mouth appears again.

"What is that you're eating anyway? Barf?"

"Funny," she mutters. "It's broccoli cheddar soup. And I'm not dying. Sometimes when you're sleep-deprived, your body produces flu-like symptoms." She sits back in her chair with her arms tightly tucked over her chest. She nods to the boys' disguises. "Go to church without me?"

"Did some investigating," Dean says, turning up his collar to get out of the monkey suit. 

"Oh, don't take it off at my expense," she tells the boys with a smile. "I like a man in a suit."

"Don't objectify me."

She laughs. "Whatever. What've you got?"

"Well, a lot of nothing," Sam sighs, shrugging out of his jacket. "Max Miller, Jim and Alice's son, found Jim in his car in the middle of the night just a few hours before we showed up. We talked to him, scanned the house."

"And?"

"No freaky stuff."

Katherine raises a brow above the tortoiseshell frame of her glasses. "So what if it's a legit suicide?"

"I don't think it is."

With that, the two of them dig up as much as they can about the Miller house, and by nightfall, an entire wall is filled with print-outs and sketches and theories—and Dean is cleaning his guns.

"House is pretty clean," Katherine says, staring at the mess on the wall. "No freak stuff, like Sam said. Nothing's wrong with the land either. On or near it." 

"Told you," Dean says, assembling his shotgun with quick and precise motions. "I searched that house up and down. No cold spots, no sulfur scents—nada."

"And the family said everything was normal?" Katherine asks. The Winchesters nod. 

At that moment, she pauses to think not about the case, but her own situation. She marvels at it, like she has a few times before this instant. Her dad taught her to never go along with other hunters, one because some of them are sketchy sons of bitches, and two, because there's no one you can rely on like family—at least that's what he told her before he skipped out. So much for family. But now she finds herself willingly going along with these brothers who always kept to themselves, like the Donovans. Something like a new dawn of their families, turning their backs on some old "we work alone" attitude. 

And everything works. No one is getting too grabby, like her father said the men would. They're completely polite and respectable.

For the most part.

And she's found someone she likes. Who, underneath all of that hostility and prickle, is actually a very nice guy.

"If there is a demon or poltergeist, don't you think somebody would've noticed something?" Katherine sighs, nodding in agreement. "What?"

"I dunno." She sits on the edge of one of the beds. "I think Sam's right. I think there's something going on here, and whatever it is, it's hiding." Katherine shrugs a bit. "I mean, he said something trapped Jim in the car."

"All I'm saying is, I'm pretty sure there's nothing supernatural about that house."

"Maybe it's not the house," Sam suggests, rubbing his temples. But he's frowning. Like he's in pain. "Maybe it—gosh—maybe it's connected to Jim in some other way."

Katherine sits up and leans over. "Sam?" He grips the bedsheets, eyes squinted shut as he winces.

"Ah—I—my head!"

Katherine rushes over and crouches before him, holding him up from the floor. "Sam, what's going on? Hey, look at me." Her first instinct is to make some sort of medical diagnosis. He's still, but staring off into space and gripping her shoulders. "Dean, get my kit—hurry! Sam, talk to me." Dean tosses the black pack across the room and she rips it open, searching for her penlight. Something with the brain—pressure, impossible pain. Brain bleed? When did he hit his head? He hasn't been acting concussed—Debilitating migraine? "Sam." She tilts his chin up and flashes the light in each of his eyes—his pupils dilate normally and return to average size. 

"Katherine, what's going on?" Dean demands.

"I don't know," she answers, and Sam's eyes bore into hers with such an intense pain it almost flickers inside of her. Part of her wants to experience what he is, just so she knows if it's something she can diagnose and hopefully get him to a hospital. But she feels nothing. 

"It's happening again," Sam growls, clutching at her shoulder. "Something's gonna kill Roger Miller!"

"Roger—who the hell is he?" Katherine asks, tugging Sam off of the floor with Dean's assistance. 

"Jim's brother," Sam says, breathless as he pushes himself off of the bed. "We have to get to him."

"Where?"

"His house or something, I don't..." Sam shakes his head and moves for the table. Stumbles, rather. 

"I'll go find a phone book or something." Katherine snatches her coat and keys before she runs from the motel room and to the front desk. She commits the address provided to memory, reciting it under her breath over and over until Sam and Dean meet her outside. She slips into the back of the Impala and the three are on their way. 

"What was that medical stuff you pulled?" Dean asks, speeding down the road. 

Katherine shrugs. "His intense sudden pain and the way he was holding his head had me thinking migraine at first, but then he wasn't speaking. I was thinking subarachnoid hemorrhage maybe."

"Sub-a-what?"

"Subarachnoid," she repeats with a smile, leaning onto the front bench seat. "It's a space between meninges on your brain. Brain bleed."

His eyebrows knit together, staring out at the blacktop flying beneath the car. "And you can tell by flashing a light in his eyes?"

"Well, a symptom could be dilated pupils. There's really no way to know that kind of thing for sure without running tests. Stuff like MRI or spinal taps." Katherine rubs her fingertips together, staring at the back of Sam Winchester's head. "I thought you only had visions like that when you were asleep." Her tone isn't quite accusatory. 

"Me too," Sam sighs. "I mean, as if the nightmares weren't already bad enough, you know? It's getting more intense...more painful. And what is it about the Millers? Why am I connected to them? Watching them die? And why is it happening to me?"

"I don't know," Katherine says, shaking her head. She reaches forward and rests a hand on his shoulder. "We're gonna figure it out." Dean hooks a right onto West Grove and comes to a sudden halt, cranking the window down.

"Hey, Roger!" He shouts.

A man in a dark jacket, armful of grocery bags, turns to squint at the car. "What are you guys, missionaries?" The bald man cries. "Leave me alone." He continues into the apartment building.

"What the hell did you do to that guy?" Katherine asks as Dean pulls into a parallel parking spot. 

"He isn't churchy," Dean replies, twisting the key out of the ignition, and Sam is already out of the car, bounding after Roger.

Sam turns around at the door, running up the street. "Where are you going?" Katherine calls.

"Fire escape!" She and Dean bolt after Sam, easily catching up; Katherine trails just a bit behind. Her legs, while quite long, aren't as long as theirs. A gate restricts access to the fire escape with a tall, iron gate. Katherine scales the fence, and just as she reaches the top, Dean kicks the gate open. She huffs and carefully drops to her feet with a grace no one has time to appreciate. However, she is the one who's able to leap onto the dumpster and up onto the pull-down ladder. She kicks it down by the rung and the Winchesters follow after her. After several flights of stairs, her legs feel hot and she's out of breath. And struggling to keep her gaze level, away from the ground.

"Where the hell is his apartment?" 

"It would be just by the railing," Sam calls up. Katherine takes the stairs two at a time. She looks down to ensure her footing and the iron wobbles. She lets out a cry, moving to the wall as the railing falls over the side, down to the ground. She's paralyzed. 

"I can't," she says, shaking her head as she meets the gazes of the perplexed Winchester brothers staring down at her. "Go!" Sam keeps going.

"Come on," Dean says to her, quickly moving back down the stairs.

"No, no, no!" She cries, her palms flying up to stop him, eyes locked on a wobbling bolt. 

"Kat, c'mon."

"Dean, I literally...can't move." She presses her back into the wall, suddenly fearful of the platform giving out beneath her. She squeezes her eyes shut and exhales through her nose. Warm, calloused hands take hers.

"Do you trust me?" Dean asks.

"When we're not six stories above ground," she whispers. "I mean, humans aren't even meant to be this high up, otherwise God would've put it in the instruction manual—!"

"Just keep your eyes closed."

"I don't think that's a good idea—"

"I'm not gonna let you fall."

"Guys," Sam calls just one platform above them. "He...Roger..." Dean peers over the edge and looks up. "He's dead."

"Wipe your prints from the rails," Dean hisses up to him, pulling a rag from inside his jacket pocket. "How you doin', Kat?" Her eyes are still closed and she's frozen, sweat beading her forehead. Her hands are trembling. "What are you afraid of?"

She lets out a wry, uncomfortable laugh. "Well, there's the falling, structure giving way, losing balance...or you're actually hired help from someone I pissed off in the past and you're gonna throw me over."

Dean smiles a bit and reaches forward to grab her trembling hand. "I'm not throwing you over. But you might want to open your eyes—going down."

"You didn't deny the hired help."

"I'm not an assassin."

"Arguable," Katherine hums. She releases a deep breath between her lips and peels her eyes open. She slowly shuffles forward, gripping Dean's forearm like a vice as he pauses to wipe down the railing. It goes like this all the way down, Sam walking silently behind the two. "See? You're fine." 

Katherine's expression is sour and sheepish at the same time as she gazes up at the stairwell. "There was nothing inside," Sam says. "But I saw something in the vision—like a dark shape. Something was stalking Roger."

"Well whatever it was, we can be sure it isn't connected to their house," Dean says.

"What if it's connected to the family itself?" Katherine suggests. "What about a vengeful spirit?"

Dean shrugs. "A few have been known to latch onto families. Basically like a curse." Katherine sits in the back seat again, listening to Dean as she rests her chin on top of the front seats. 

"So," she begins. "You're thinking maybe Jim and Roger got into something heavy and now the Miller guys are dying?" Dean nods his head side to side, agreeing to Katherine's suggestion in a noncommittal way. "Does that mean Max is next?" 

"Let's figure it out before he is," Dean suggests, starting the car.

"Well, I know one thing I have in common with these people," Sam sighs.

"What's that?"

The younger brother scoffs. "Both of our families are cursed."

"Our family's not cursed," Dean easily disagrees. "We've just...had our dark spots." 

"Our dark spots are pretty dark," Sam chuckles.

"You're...dark," Dean retorts.

"Wow," Katherine slowly pronounces, nodding sagely in mock appreciation. "If I ever want to win a playground fight, I'm going to Dean." 

"Can it, Donovan."

"Bite me, Winchester."

"Don't have to tell me twice."

Katherine rolls her eyes, smirking, and leans back into her seat. 

✕

Sam and Dean sent Katherine to do recon on the Millers' old house; she doesn't know why the brothers are suspicious, but they show up and give her the lo-down just as she's about to take off. 

So Dean accompanied her. He'd gotten rid of the priest garb and dressed in street clothes before he and Katherine embarked on their own mission.

Sam stayed behind to do some reading on the neighborhood—any strange occurrences. 

Dean eyes the diamond ring on Katherine's hand. "Hey," he says, twisting the key out of the ignition, and nods to her right hand. "Put that ring on the other hand."

"At least take me to dinner first," the girl jests, but complies, watching him slip the silver band from his right hand to his left. "Any story behind that?" She asks.

He smirks. "Bottle opener." Katherine lets out a musical laugh, throwing her head back. It's a nice sound. 

Then she stares at her own, twisting the band with her thumb. "Mom threw her wedding ring out when I was ten years old, leaving this one and a bunch of other ones from her mom behind," she tells Dean. "I have 'em all somewhere in my bag." The girl shrugs. 

Dean has a few more questions, but doesn't press it. He doesn't like talking about his mother, and he knew her for far less time than Katherine knew hers. She must be sensitive to it, too.

"You can ask, you know," the young woman says with a delicate smile. Dean looks over to her to find her gaze has shifted to the windshield. 

"Ask what?"

"You're observant," she states in a matter-of-fact tone. "I know there's one part of what I said you're just itching to discuss at length."

Dean takes the bait. "Your mom threw her wedding ring out?"

"Called my dad a bastard when she did it, too," Katherine says, nodding. 

Dean frowns. "Why would she do that? I thought they were happy."

Katherine shrugs. "They were, for a time." She sighs shortly. "He's not the best person, putting it simply."

After a moment, Dean throws his door open, and Katherine follows suit. 

They encounter a man not far down the road; he claims to have lived in the neighborhood for nearly twenty years and asks if they were looking to buy. Katherine opens her mouth to speak, but Dean beats her to it.

"Maybe," he says. "We just got back from our honeymoon. Seems like a good place for kids. Right honey?" Katherine smiles as Dean's arm rests comfortably at her shoulders. 

"Actually, we, uh...we were wondering if you might recall a family," she says. "Right across the street, I think. The Millers? They had a little boy named Max." 

The neighbor shifts on his feet uneasily. "Yeah, I remember 'em. The brother had the place next door." Katherine twists around to glance at the two houses. They seem innocent enough, despite looking a little dull on the paint job. "What's this about? That poor kid okay?"

She whirls around to face the neighbor. "What do you mean?"

"Well in my life, I've never seen a child treated like that. I'd hear Mister Miller yellin' and throwing things clear across the street. He was a mean drunk." Katherine looks down to the toes of her boots and swallows thickly. Dean glances away from her. "He used to beat the tar out of Max--bruises...broke his arm two times, that I know of."

"And this was going on regularly?" Dean asks.

"Practically every day. In fact, that thug brother of his was just as likely to take a swing at the boy, but the worst part was the stepmother. She'd just...stand there, checked out...never lift a finger to protect him. I must've called the police seven or eight times. Never did any good."

"You said 'stepmother.'"

"I think his real mom died in some sort of accident—car accident, I think."

Slowly, Katherine nods and glances at Dean. "I think we're good," she murmurs. Dean turns to the man with a smile and reaches out to shake his hand.

"Thanks for your time, uh..."

"Kenny."

"Thank you," Katherine says, flashing him a smile, and starts back to the car with Dean. Katherine looks over to him as his phone starts ringing.

"Yeah," he answers. He stops at his door and looks to Katherine and she raises a brow. "It's Max?"

"What is it?" She questions.

"He says Max is gonna kill Alice next." Katherine reaches across the hood and Dean tosses his phone to her; they both climb into the car.

"Sam?" She says. "We're gonna come get you and go—"

"No, there's no time! Go, I'll catch up!"

"Take my car, we'll meet you there," she tells him. "We're not far." There's a brief pause as Sam hurries on the other end of the line. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes," he says.

"How's he doing it?"

"It looked like telekinesis."

Katherine's brow furrows. "Well what happened?"

"The kid launched a knife into Alice's skull."

She nods once. "Not alarming at all." Dean's hand flails. "Dean's throwing a tantrum. We'll meet you there." Katherine hangs up and blows air between her lips, handing the phone back to Dean. "Sam said it looked like telekinesis—throws a knife into his stepmom's face."

"Gross." Dean makes a face. "So he's a psychic. A spoon bender."

"A monster nonetheless," Katherine says. "I feel for the guy, but killing your whole family?" She shakes her head.

"So we're on the same page, then," Dean says. "We end it."

"I don't know what else there is to do." They wait impatiently in the car for Sam to show up. "You think we should clue him in on it?"

Dean shrugs. "He's gonna flip either way."

Katherine rolls her eyes and steps out of the car with Dean just as Sam's feet land on the pavement. "You got a plan, Miss Cleo?" She asks.

"We just talk to him." Katherine and Dean raise a brow each and Sam glances between her and his brother. "I'm serious."

"What if he throws the knife at us?" Dean asks.

"He won't. We're just talking."

"You know that whole 'America doesn't negotiate with terrorists' thing?" Katherine asks. "I say we apply that to this scenario. The dude's killed two people and now he's gunning for a third—"

"If we could find out why—"

"His dad and uncle beat the shit out of him when he was a kid," Katherine sighs. "We talked to a neighbor. Said he called the police umpteen times and nothing ever happened."

"Why is he going after his mom, then?" Sam asks.

"Stepmom," Katherine corrects.

"Because she didn't do anything," Dean says with a shrug. "We've got to put him down, Sam."

"We're not killing a human being," Sam states. "Promise me you guys will follow my lead on this."

The other two glance between each other and sigh. "Fine," Katherine says. 

"If he makes a move, though, I'm pulling the trigger," Dean threatens. Katherine slides her abdomen into her car and pulls her beretta from the glove box. She jams the muzzle into the back of her pants and adjusts her jacket.

"Guys," Sam protests.

"I'm with Dean on this," Katherine says, shaking her head. "We'll try it your way first, but he's not hurting anyone else."

Dean waits for the other two before he kicks the door in, and Sam and Katherine rush inside. "Fathers?" A woman asks, staring at the three with a puzzled expression.

"You couldn't have knocked?" Katherine whispers. Dean shrugs, smiling widely at the woman in the kitchen who Katherine presumes to be Alice. The boy in the kitchen is shorter, but looks older than she. His hair is dark blond and fluffy, skin pale and eyes rimmed with red.

"What are you guys doing here?" He asks—Max.

"Uh...sorry to interrupt."

Max looks to Katherine. "Who is she?"

"Max, could we talk to you outside for just one second?" Sam asks, disregarding his question. 

"About what?"

"It's private. I wouldn't want to bother your mother with it. We won't be long at all, though, I promise."

"Okay." Max hesitates before following the three hunters to the door. 

At that moment, Katherine doesn't know what set him off, but when Dean opened the door, Max lost it.

The door slammed shut and the shutters closed. "You're not priests!"

Dean and Katherine reach for their guns at the same time. Her grip on the weapon is so tight that once it was ripped from her grasp by some unseen force, something in her hand popped. 

"Max, what's happening?!" Alice cries.

He picks Dean's gun up and kicks Katherine's off to the side. "Shut up!"

"What are you doing?!"

Katherine lunges as Max glances off to the side, but Dean grips her shirt collar, yanking sideways to keep her close. When Max looked away, Alice was thrown into the island and out cold on the floor. "I said shut up!"

"Max, calm down," Sam says. Max whipped around to glare at the hunters.

"Who are you?!"

"We just want to talk to you—"

"That's why you brought these?" Max scoffs, holding up Dean's gun. 

"That was a mistake. So was lying about who we were, but no more lies, okay? Just, please, hear me out."

Max's grip on the gun is wrong—one-handed. You can never be accurate with a one-handed grip on a gun. "About what?" 

If she went for him and lunged, she—in theory—would knock the gun out of his hand in less than a second. Humans react to a visual stimulus in approximately a twenty-fifth of a second. Since he's one-handing it, he wouldn't shoot her since she's the outermost of the three hunters, but one of the Winchesters. Or her shoulder, if he got lucky. But would that be enough to stop him? Assuming he actually shot.

As if Dean can read her mind, his grip on her shirt tightens. "Don't even think about it," he lowly says.

"I saw you do it," Sam says to Max. "I saw you kill your dad and uncle right before it happened."

"What?"

"I'm having visions about you, Max."

"You're crazy," he accuses. 

"So you weren't gonna launch a knife at your stepmom?" Sam challenges. "Is it that hard to believe, Max? Look at what you can do. Max, I was drawn here, all right? I think I'm here to help you."

"No one can help me."

"Let me try," Sam coaxes. "We'll just talk, me and you. We'll get Dean and Alice and Kat out of here—"

"No way," Katherine seethes, and the chandelier directly above them begins to rattle.

"Nobody leaves this house," Max says through his teeth.

"And nobody has to, all right?" Sam asks. "They'll just go upstairs."

"Sam, I'm not leaving you alone with him," Dean says.

"Yes, you are. Look, Max—you're in charge here, all right? We all know that. No one's gonna do anything you don't want to do but I'm talking five minutes here, man."

"Five minutes. Go." Dean maintains his grip on Katherine's shirt, which is strong enough to keep her no more than an inch away from him as they pass Max. Katherine rolls her shoulder to break his grip and helps pick Alice up and assist her upstairs. 

"Do you have a first aid kit, Mrs. Miller?" Katherine asks. 

"Under the bathroom sink."

Dean watches the younger girl move from the room, her hands trembling. She pauses in the bathroom, collecting her thoughts, and takes a deep breath before coming back into the bedroom. She sits beside Alice and flips the kit open, selecting alcohol, gauze, and bandages quickly. She doesn't speak as she quickly and efficiently patches Alice up. The door squeaks, opening on its own, and Dean pulls Katherine up beside him as Max enters the room with a particularly angered expression. 

The door shuts behind Max and Dean moves in front of Katherine. "Listen, Max—" Dean is propelled backward, slamming both him and Katherine into the wall. The girl rests on her knees and forearms, struggling to get her diaphragm working properly again.

"Max!" Alice cries. Katherine gasps for breath, tears welling in her eyes from the force, and she slams the heel of her palm into the floor as if it could help her. She's pushing Dean away, though, and when she finally sucks in a deep breath, Dean moves in front of Alice.

"Stay back," Max threatens. "It's not about you."

"You're gonna kill her, you gotta go through me first." 

"Okay." Katherine lunges as the hammer is pulled back, but Sam bursts through the door; she couldn't discern in that moment if she'd been shot—the gun went off—or it missed. She glances down at her t-shirt—it's clean.

"Don't!" Sam cries. "Max, please. We can help you, all right? But this, what you're doing, it's not the solution. It's not gonna fix anything."

Max seems to think about this for a moment, staring at Sam, and Katherine feels the conflict within her building and building and building. Finally, though, resolution—a decision has been made, and not knowing what it is puts her on edge. "You're right," Max whispers. The gun whirls around and fires once more before dropping to the ground.