[h3] Cason [/h3]

Cason flinched slightly when Nat reached up and touched his face.  He couldn’t place why he half expected her to just slap him, or pull an Esme and shoot him in the head for not dragging her ass out of there.  But instead, her touch was gentle, and he leaned his face into it, opening his eyes to scan her eyes.

“I…”, he started, after her words, before she engulfed him in a hug.  At first he was still, but then he gently brought his arms up to wrap her up, placing one hand on the back of her head, blanketing his fingers in her hair.  

“Trust me, I didn’t want you to remember any more of that place than you were forced to.”, he answered back, flexing his hand against the back of her head, “But if any good could come of it, you should hear it from me.  You don’t owe me anything.  I know, weird to hear from a demon.”

He chuckled softly, before forcing her to pull back from him, cradling her face in his hands, “And I’ll go…if it’s too much.  I’m not sure your brothers would understand my side of things, as much as you might think.”

[h3] Dean and Duke [/h3]

Dean shook his head immediately as Sam began to blame himself after breaking the news to them and himself that Anna was likely going to be very hard to track down.  He reached a hand out to Sam and shook his head again, “No.  No, you’re not going to blame yourself for this.  We don’t know who got to her.  It’s not out of the question for it to be any of the sons of bitches we have dealt with.  Remember Alastair?”

He held his hand out toward Mika as she basically said the same thing.  This wasn’t normal for Anna.  She had been stuck to Sam like glue.  For her to just bail, it didn’t seem natural. It seemed forced.  

But then Esme spoke up, and Dean tilted his head.  She had a point.  Of all the people in the current group, Esme would be the quickest one to get information out of Cason.  Mika was probably the last person he should talk to.  Dean and Sam were a non starter and Duke barely knew him.

“I agree with Esme and Mika.”, he spoke finally, in agreement with Mika.  Duke however, was still frowning at Mika, as if he was genuinely confused as to what was wrong with the idea of bounty hunting.  They were quick and effective, and they wouldn’t hurt her…most likely.  But he kept his mouth shut and instead lifted his eyes to meet Mika’s gaze as she looked toward him.

“Sammy we’ll figure this out.  Esme can um…she can go over there and butter him up.  Maybe he’ll have an old address, or even just narrow it down to a state.  He can pop in and out of wherever.  It beats driving around with no lead.”, Dean explained with a shrug.

“I still think we should hire a bounty hunter and leave the demon out of it.  I mean…is there a reason we shouldn’t just kill him.”

“We’re NOT killing anyone.  Will you shut your mouth?  Nat will cut off your head if she’s found any sort of comfort in him.  Demon or not, he’s off limits.”, Dean quickly corrected Duke who held his hands up to each side of his head in surrender.

“Fine!  Fine.  But if he…”, he started, before Dean shook his head and gave him a hard look, “I’m not doing it.”

“Then that leaves Esme.  Go get dressed and we can get this show on the road.”, Dean said simply, waving Esme toward her room, before placing his hands on his hips.

“Only one problem, chief.  She ain’t got no clothes, here.”, Duke chimed in with a sigh.

“Where’s her bag?  Where’s your bag.”

“No bag.  No car.  No things.  We came here to get her patched up, man.”, Duke explained and Dean sighed loudly, wiping a frustrated hand down his face, before he turned to Mika with a stone cold face.

“Then Mika can lone her something.  Why don’t you go get her something to wear…I can make it up to you or something.”, Dean barked at Mika, before softening his face slightly with a sweet smile, “Please…”

“Honestly, with all this trouble, we should just hire a bounty hunter…”, Duke chimed again, shrugging his shoulders as he hid his eyes under his hat brim.