╭-°—✞——✞—°-╮

𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗪𝗘𝗟𝗩𝗘

𝘺𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘧𝘵

╰-°—✞——✞—°-╯

Delaney stood with Sam inside of the jewelry shop to investigate the owener of the store since the victim of their newest hunt had been known to frequent the store. Dean could be heard flirting with the clerk a few feet away and Delaney had to keep herself from rolling her eyes. Leave it to Dean to flirt while they were trying to get information. Sadly, this meant Delaney had to be in her uncomfortable FBI costume and her heels were already pinching even though they had only been on for a half hour. Sam had already teased her twice for almost face planting when she tripped over two different cracks in the sidewalk during their walk over.

"Helena was our head buyer," the owner of the shop explained as he walked over to the two siblings, stopping behind the glass display case that also worked as a counter. "She - she was family, you know? She said it herself every year at the Christmas party. She said we were the only family she had."

"So there were never any signs that she would do something like this," Delaney noted.

The shop owner shook his head with a small shrug. "No... still can't believe it, even now. That night, Helena came back to the story after closing, cleaned out all the display cases and the safe. Edgar, our night watchman - he caught her in the act. He didn't know what to do. He'd known her for years. He called me at home."

"And that's when she took his gun?" Sam questioned as more of a clarification than anything. The owner had mentioned a few of the things the police said were in the tapes because he never got to actually see the tapes for himself.

"She shot him in the face," the owner recalled, a pained and disbelieving look on his face. "I heard him die over the phone."

Delaney chewed on the end of her pen as she heard more of the story that the footage didn't show. She didn't know what to think of the whole thing if this woman was so loved by the owner of the store and its clerks. It just didn't match up to her. "Is there any motive Helena could have had to rob you and shoot Edgar?"

"What motive? It makes no sense. Why steal all those diamonds, all that jewelry and then, what, just dump it somewhere? Just hide it and then go home."

-°—✞——✞—°-

A bit later, Dean stopped the Impala outside of a home a few minutes away from the jewelry shop. Delaney had found something out about a bank robbery not too long ago that was related to the events of the jewelry shop. With her hunches never being wrong so far, Dean had agreed to go to the bank security guard's home once they were done with their investigation work in the jewelry shop. 

"Freakin' cops," Dean huffed, stepping out into the rain with his siblings. 

"They were just doing their job, Dee," Delaney reminded her brother, pulling her suit jacket over her hair so it wouldn't get wet and get curlier than it already was. 

"No, Delaney, they're doing our job - which they don't know they are doing it, by the way - and they suck at it. Just tell us about this bank."

Delaney cleared her throat, trying to recall every detail so her brothers could understand it properly. "Um... Milwaukee National Trust Bank - it was hit about a month ago. It was the same story of the jewelry shop. Inside job, the never in a million years type. Dude robs the bank, then goes home and supposedly commits suicide."

"The guy Resnick," Sam began, gesturing to the home that supposedly belonged to Ronald Resnick himself. "He was the security guard on duty?"

Delaney dropped her suit jacket so it sat on her body again once she was in the cover of Resnick's awning above his front door. "Yep and he was beaten unconscious by the teller that heisted the place."

Dean grimaced as Sam knocked on the door to get Resnick's attention. "God."

Sam knocked a few more times when no response came and a bright floodlight to their left turned on, blinding the three siblings. They all cowered away from it and covered their eyes to block out the harsh light just as Resnick appeared in the doorway. He was around Dean's age or a few years older with shoulder length, curly brown hair.

"FBI, Mr. Resnick," Delaney greeted, flashing her fake badge along with her brothers. "We just wanted to talk about some of the things in your statement."

"You read it?" Ronald asked, eyes bouncing between the three siblings. "You come to listen to what I've got to say?"

"Kind of why we're here," Dean responded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Ronald seemed to hesitate for a moment before he decided to let them in and open up about what he told the police before them. He lead the three through a narrowed hallway that lead into a cluttered room, his walls full of alien photos and conspiracy theory paraphernalia.

"None of the cops called me back. Not after I told them what was really going on because, uh, they all thought I was crazy. First off, Juan Morales never robbed the Milwaukee National Trust, okay, that I guarantee. See, me and Juan were friends. He used to come back to the bank on my night shifts and we would play cards."

Delaney rose her eyebrows, gaze snapping from the littered walls and floors to the man in front of her. "So you let him in the bank that night, after hours."

"The thing I let into the bank...wasn't Juan. I mean, it had his face, but it wasn't his face. Every detail was perfect, but too perfect, you know? Like if a doll maker made it, like I was talking to a big Juan doll."

Sam eyed the man doubtfully. "A Juan doll?"

Ronald handed over a file to Delaney who cautiously took it and shuffled through the dozen pages of research. It was almost as if the Winchester siblings made this file themselves. "This wasn't the first time this happened. There was this jewelry store, too, and the cops and you guys... you just won't see it. Both crimes were pulled by the same thing."

Sam's eyes flickered up to the man from the file. "Oh, and what's that, Mr. Resnick?"

Ronald picked up a copy of a magazine called Fortean Times and held it to his chest, tapping the front cover with his finger. The headline at the bottom read BIRTH OF THE CYBERMEN. "Chinese have been working on them for years, and the Russians before that - part man, part machine. Like the Terminator, but the kind that can change itself, make itself look like other people."

Dean grinned and pointed at Ronald. "Like the one from T2."

"Exactly! So not just a robot, more of a - a man-droid."

Delaney ran a hand over her face, realizing they probably just hit a dead end in this case. This dude was just nuts. "A man-droid? What makes you so sure, Ronald?"

Ronald grinned a little wildly at the siblings before he motioned for them to sit on the couch. He walked over to the small TV, popping in a VHS tape labeled M.N.T CAMERA 4 - JUAN to the VHS player connected to his TV. Delaney didn't even know people still used VHS tapes with DVDs now being a thing. 

"I made copies of all the security tapes. I knew once the cops got them, they'd be buried. Here," Ronald hit fast forward through the non-important stuff and hit play about a minute into the tape. "Now, watch him."

Delaney watched as a stumpy and short middle-aged Spanish man appeared on the screen in a flannel and work pants. The man seemed pretty normal to her, laughing and speaking to Ronald who was off screen at the time.

"There it is!" Ronald announced, pausing the video and pointing to Juan's bright white eyes. "He's got the laser eyes."

The trio shared a knowing look with each other as Ronald seemed quite pleased with himself for figuring the whole thing out on his own. If only he knew. "Cops said it was some kind of reflected light, some kind of camera flare. Okay? Ain't no damn camera flare. They say I'm a post-trauma case. So what? Bank goes and fires me. It don't matter. The man-droid is still out there. If the law won't hunt this thing down, I'll do it myself."

Delaney quirked an eyebrow at the rambling man, rolling her lips into her mouth to hide the amused smile that wanted to break free. Now she felt bad for finding the whole thing humorous, but it was hard to blame her when this guy thought his buddy was a half cyborg thing. That's almost sounded crazier than the fact that this shapeshifter was a mere demon. 

Of course, it had to be the demon that would be tough to catch. She still had nightmares of the last encounter they had with a shapeshifter. So long as this thing didn't shift into one of her brothers and try to strangle her to death then it'll be fine.

"You see, this thing, it kills the real person and makes it look a suicide," Ronald continued on his rant, snapping Delaney out of her thoughts. "Then it sort of, like, morphs into that person, cases the job for a while till it knows the take is fat, and then it finds its opening. Now, these robberies, they're grouped together, so I figure this man-droid is holed up somewhere in the middle - underground maybe - I don't know. M-maybe that's where it recharges it's man-droid batteries."

Delaney choked on a laugh as she stood up, going into serious mode. They had to get Ronald off this case and it being some... man-droid thing. "Okay, Mr. Resnick, I want you to listen very carefully. 'Cause I am about to tell you the God's honest truth about all of this. There's no such thing as man-droids. There is nothing evil or inhuman going on out there. It's just people. Nothing else. You understand?"

Ronald stammered as he gestured to his eyes. "The laster eyes - "

"Just a camera flare, Mr. Resnick," Delaney cut the man off, shrugging lazily. "I know you don't want to believe this, but your friend Juan robbed the bank. That's it."

Ronald glared at the small girl and pointed to the front door. "Get out of my house! Now!"

"Sure, but uh... first things first..."

-°—✞——✞—°-

"Man, that has got to be kicker, straight up," Dean commented, taking a sip from his beer while Delaney set the TV up in their motel room which thankfully had a VHS player. "I mean, you tell that poor son of a bitch - what did you say, remand the copies he made? Classified evidence of an ongoing investigation?" He paused to laugh, turning to face his sister who took the seat in front of the TV to begin watching through the tapes. "That's messed up."

Delaney rolled her eyes and looked over her shoulder at Dean and Sam who were now both sat at the table behind her chair to also watch the tapes with her. "What, are you pissed at me now or something?"

"Nah, I just think it's a little creepy at how good of a Fed you are," Dean replied, leaning back in his chair and crossed his ankle over his knee. "Especially when you are the worst liar in the universe. I mean, we could have thrown the poor guy a bone, Della. He did some pretty good legwork here."

Delaney snorted and turned her attention back to the footage that currently showed Ronald running about. "Man-droid?"

"Except the man-droid part," Dean grumbled, flipping through the blue prints of the bank they got from Ronald. "I liked him. He's not that different from you, Sammy and I. People are always thinking we are crazy."

"Except he's not a hunter, Dean," Delaney countered with a sigh. "He's just a guy who stumbled onto something real. If he were to up against this thing, he would get torn apart. Better to stay in the dark and stay alive."

Delaney paused the footage on the white eyes again, running a hand through her hair. "Shapeshifter. Just like in St. Louis because it's the same retinal reaction in video."

Sam watched Dean trace over the blueprints with a sheet of tracing paper and red marker. "Eyes flare at the camera. Man, I hate those things."

Dean didn't even look up from his drawing when he shot back at Sam with, "Yeah, well, the thing didn't turn into you and frame you for murder. He also got our baby sister killed if you forgot, Sammy. That's two strikes against him already and all this other stuff is just strike three."

Delaney stood up from her chair and walked over to her brothers, glancing over at Dean's mapping of the sewage system between the bank and jewelry shop. "Well, if this one is anything like the shapeshifter from Missouri..."

"Then Ronald was right. Alright, they like to layer up underground, preferably the sewer. All the robberies have been connected so far, right? Well, in the main sewer main layout there is one more bank lined up on that same sewer main."

-°—✞——✞—°-

"Alright, you guys need anything else?" the security guard ask the siblings who had dressed up as technicians for the security cameras in the City Bank of Milwaukee. He lead them into the security room where there was a wall of TVs showing footage from multiple security cameras scattered across the bank.

"We'll be in and out before you know it. Just a routine check," Sam swiftly lied with a small smile.

The security guard nodded and offered the three a polite smile. "Okeydokey."

Dean chuckled as the three made their way over to the wall of TVs with the control center in front of them. "I like that guy. He says okeydokey."

"What if he is the shifter?" Delaney challenged, raising an eyebrow at him.

Dean sat down at the control center, followed by his siblings with Delaney being in the middle of the two boys. "Well, we follow him home and then put a silver bullet in his chest plate." He puffed out his cheeks as his eyes scanned the multiple screens. "Anyone got popcorn?"

A good half hour passed by with nothing going on that piqued the three siblings' interest. It was just a normal day at the bank with people coming in to take money out or put it into their accounts. A few had asked to use the bathroom which the security guard that let the three inside the security room pointed them in the direction of the rest room. 

"Well, it seems like Mr. Okeydokey is... okeydokey," Dean noted as the man seemed to be completely normal. His eyes remaining the same any time he glanced in the direction of the security cameras.

"Maybe we jumped the gun on this one, guys," Sam sighed, his eyes bouncing between the cameras to see if anything looked out of place. "I mean... we don't even know if it's here."

Dean distractedly nodded to his brother as he played with the zoom knob on the control panel. 

Delaney's eyes flickered to the screen that Dean's eyes were trained on and she rolled her eyes when she saw him zooming in on a woman's ass that was bent over behind the desk. She slapped his hand and fixed the camera so it was back to its normal setting. "We were supposed to looking at eyes, Dean."

"I was getting to it!" Dean defended and went back to playing with the zoom knob, freezing on a man on one of the other screens. "Wait a second. Hello, Mr. Freak."

"Got him!" Delaney said and rushed over to the door and stopped when Dean yelled for her. "What?"

Sam pointed to the top middle screen that showed Ronald rushing across the front doors with a chain and lock. "Hello to you too, Ronald."

The three watched as Ronald rushed into the bank with an assault rifle and shot the gun into air.

"This is not a robber! Everybody get down!" Ronald shouted.

"For the love of Christ," Delaney cursed rushing out of the security room with her brothers to, making their ways through various hallways so they can get to Ronald.

Dean shook his head at his sister with a disappointed frown. "And you said we shouldn't bring the guns in."

"I didn't know this would happen, Dean!" Delaney snapped. "Sorry my premonitions didn't tell me that it would come to this."

"Alright, children!" Sam scolded, cutting the two off from arguing.

"Just let me do the talking. I don't think he likes you very much, Agent Johnson," Dean said to his sister who shot him an annoyed glare.

When the three made it to the end of the hall that lead out to the main floor of the bank, Ronald stood in the middle of the floor and held up a key attached to a long rope. "There is only one way in or out of here, and I chained it up. So nobody is leaving, you understand?"

"Hey, buddy!" Dean called, slowly walking out towards Ronald with his siblings behind him. "Why don't you just calm down, okay?"

"What?" Ronald's eyes widened as he noticed the three siblings. "You! Get down on the ground now!"

The three immediately got to their feet and held their hands up to show they weren't going to do anything to him. At least, not yet. 

"See, we're listening," Sam said, gesturing between him and his siblings to show they weren't a threat. "Just don't shoot anyone, especially us."

Ronald help up the rifle at the trio, a look of fear in his eyes. "I knew it - as soon as you three left. You ain't FBI. Who are you? Who are you working for, huh? The Men in Black? You working for the man-droid?"

Delaney could feel her patience with Ronald dwindling and quickly at that. He needed to get off this belief in the man-droid. "We're not working for the man-droid! Who doesn't exist, by the way!"

"You shut up!" Ronald shouted, shocking Delaney at the intensity of his tone. "I ain't talking to you! I don't like you!"

Delaney ignored Dean's i told you so look and sat back on her heels. "Fair enough."

Ronald turned to the hostages that huddled together on one side of the room, pointing to a middle-aged man in a sweater and suit pants. "Get on 'em. Frisk them down, make sure they got no weapons."

The man quickly rushed over when Ronald pointed the rifle at him and began to pat down the three siblings.

"Hey, pal. At least buy me dinner first," Delaney squeaked when he touched around her hips and shins.

Dean coughed to hide the laugh that wanted to escape at his sister's comment since it was something he was thinking himself. He grimaced when the man's hand tapped around Dean's ankles. His lips rolled into his mouth guiltily when the man rolled up Dean's pant leg and removed a tiny knife from Dean's boot.

"What have we here?" Ronald asked, moving closer to see the weapon the man held up for Ronald.

"Dean!"

"I wasn't going to walk in here naked!" Dean whispered to his siblings who stared at him as if he had gone insane. He could have at least told them he was sneaking a weapon in because then they could have hid it better than that.

Ronald snatched the knife and ordered the man to go back to his place, dropping the knife in the deposit box which earned a noise of protest from Dean.

"We know you don't want to hurt anybody," Dean said, his face still scrunched up at the thought of his knife being lost. "But that's gonna happen if you keep waving that canon around. Why don't you just let these people go?"

"No!" Ronald protested, waving his finger defiantly. "I already told you. If nobody is gonna stop this thing, then I've got to do it myself."

"We believe you," Sam assured Ronald. "That's why the three of us are here."

Ronald shook his head as he quickly became defensive. "You don't believe me. Nobody believes me. Why would they?!"

"Come here."

Ronald froze at Dean's request and glanced behind him at the hostages. "What? No."

"You're holding the gun, boss," Dean reminded Ronald, motioning to the gun that could take any of them out if they did the wrong thing. "You're calling the shots. I just want to tell you something."

Ronald hesitated, but he obliged and crept closer to the siblings. He bent down so Dean could whisper to him without the other hostages hearing them. "What?"

"It's the bank manager," Sam informed, glancing around to see if he could see the manager in the room, but the man wasn't there amongst the hostages. "Why do you think we've got the getups on, man? We have been in the back monitoring the cameras. We saw the bank manager's eyes."

"His laser eyes?"

"Yes," Dean replied, but then backtracked quickly because they weren't lasers. Just a flare of the eyes because of how this demon's eyes were. "No! Look, we are running out time here. We got to find him before he changes into someone else."

Ronald raised his rifle again at the siblings. "Like I'm gonna listen to you. You're a damn liar."

Dean stood to his feet and held his hands up again when Ronald ordered for him to get down or he'd shoot Dean. "Take me with you, okay? Take me as a hostage, but we got to act fast because the longer we just sit here, the more time he has to change. Look at me, man. I believe you. You're not crazy. There's something in the bank."

Ronald stared at Dean for a long, tense moment as he weighed his options. It seemed he didn't have much choice as he lowered the rifle. "Okay, you come with me. Everyone else gets in the vault!"

The hostages, Delaney and Sam were all ushered towards the vault by Ronald, his rifle aimed again at everyone. Not like anyone was going to argue with the man who was armed to begin with, so he didn't need to aim it to scare anyone. The sight of it alone freaked out the hostages. The hostages all huddled into the vault and stood around the table that was placed in the middle of the large room.

"You lock it up!" Ronald ordered Dean, who looked like he wanted to do anything but lock his siblings in a vault.

Dean slowly began to close the vault and sent his siblings an apologetic look for having to leave them behind to sit like dogs. "It's okay, just stay calm everyone!" He assured the group before the vault door was officially closed and locked up.

"Who is that man?" a woman with blonde, curly hair asked the two siblings who stared at the vault door with matching worried expressions.

"He's our brother," Delaney replied, feeling the anxiety build up. She hated the idea of Dean being by himself on this one and her nor Sam could do anything to help him out. If something happened to him, she wouldn't know what to do.

"He is so brave."

Delaney groaned quietly and buried her face into her brother's chest, who rubbed her back soothingly to keep her calm and not spiral out of control. As if to make matters even worse, the lights in the vault cut out and whatever fan system they had in the vault shut off, the room already beginning to heat up with all the bodies in it.

"It's okay," Sam mumbled to his sister who he felt tense up at the darkness, worry flooding the two of them as Dean's danger only doubled at the cut of power. He assumed the cops figured out what Ronald did and this was their way of telling them the cops knew they were inside. Though, they could have done it another way and not set them into darkness.

As the temperature in the room grew, Delaney and Sam stripped from their getups and left them in their normal clothes. It only made Delaney regret wearing a flannel instead of a t-shirt like she had originally planned before they left the motel that morning. Some of the hostages took to sitting against the rows of mini vaults that held valuables and extra money the bank needed, fanning themselves with empty folders that had been left on the table in the middle of the room.

"Has your brother always been so... wonderful?" the blonde girl asked the siblings in an awestruck and flirty tone. "I mean, staring down that gun? Even the way he played right into that psycho's crazy head, telling him what he wanted to hear? I mean, he's like a real hero or something."

Delaney and Sam exchanged a look at the woman's fangirling over their brother. The word desperate practically engraving itself into her forehead. 

The door to the vault suddenly opened to reveal Dean who had also shrugged out of his getup and stood in his flannel and jeans. The desperate hostage exclaimed in delight when she saw Dean and thanked him over and over for saving them.

"Actually, I just found a few more," Dean corrected and ushered in the others behind him, one of them being the security guard from earlier. 

"What are you doing?" the blonde gasped as the room was now half full of hostages.

Dean cleared his throat and turned to his siblings, the two of them noticing the handgun in their brother's hand. "Sammy and Della, Ronald and I need to talk to you."

Delaney walked out of the vault followed by Sam and Dean closed the door behind them with a sheepish look spared to the hostages still in the vault. "What's going on, Dee?"

"It shed its skin again," Dean explained to his siblings as he lead them back out to the main floor of the bank where Ronald stood, nervously looking outside to the street that was flooded with cops, surveillance vans and flood lights shining into the darkened bank. "We don't know when. Could be in the halls, could be in the vault."

Delaney paced back and forth, chewing on her thumb nail as her nerves only sky rocketed at the sight of the police. "Dean, you do realize you are still wanted by the police."

Dean rubbed a hand over his face as he laughed nervously. "Yeah, thanks for that reminder, Della."

"So even if we do manage to find this damned thing... how are we getting out of here?" Delaney asked.

"One problem at a time please," Dean pleaded, running a hand over his mouth as he thought for a moment. "I'm gonna do a sweep of the whole place, see if I can find any stragglers. Once we get everyone together, we got to play a little game called Find the Freak." He hands over two silver letter openers to his siblings. "I grabbed these for you two. Stay here. Make sure Ronald doesn't hurt anybody. Help him manage the - "

"Help him manage?" Sam cut his brother with a scoff. "Are you insane?"

Dean shot Ronald a thumbs up and an innocent smile as Ronald glanced over at Sam's loud tone. He turned back to his siblings and lowered his voice so Ronald wouldn't hear them. "Look, I know this isn't the way we wanted."

"Understatement!" Delaney shouted and Dean shot her a look to quiet her voice.

"If we invite the cops in right now, Ronald gets arrested and so do we. The shifter gets away. Probably never find it again, okay?" Dean stopped when he saw Ronald in direct view of the cops and the flood lights. "Ron! Out of the light, man, come on!"

Delaney gave her brother a desperate and disbelieving look. There was no way they could keep both themselves and Ronald alive if the man was this dumb. "Seriously?"

Dean sighed and shrugged lamely, not knowing what else to do. "Ron's plan was a bad plan. It was a bit of a crazy plan, but right now, crazy's the only game in town, okay?" He squeezed his sister's hand as if to promise her he'd be fine and slapped Sam on the shoulder before he made his way further into the bank.

"I don't like this, Sammy."

Sam stared at Ronald who still stood by the front doors, but at least this time he was in the shadows. "We're doomed," he agreed, throwing his head back in frustration.

-°—✞——✞—°-

"Sammy, can we at least open the vault? You saw how hot it got in there," Delaney said, motioning to the vault that was situated behind the gated wall to their right. "Those people could pass out, get sick or die in there."

Sam nodded and pushed himself off the wall he leant against. "Yeah, but we have to make sure they stay inside."

Delaney sighed in relief and jogged over to the vault, spinning the dial on the door to unlock it and pulled it open. "Hi, guys. I'm going to leave this door open for you so you can get some fresh air in here and not melt into puddles. You guys have to stay in the vault though, okay? I just don't want anyone dying."

The phone to Delaney's right began to ring loudly and Ronald jumped at the sudden sound, aiming his rifle at it. Once he realized what it was, he walked over to the phone to pick it up.

"I don't understand," the blonde woman from earlier said, lolling her head to the side so she could look at Delaney and Sam. She had sat down against the opposite wall of mini vaults, her face glistening with sweat from the steaming room. "Why are you guys helping him?"

"You wouldn't believe us if we told you," Sam responded.

"I think I got to get out of here," the security guard panted, his security shirt now unbuttoned and he gripped at his chest.

Delaney chewed on her lower lip, hating that she had to keep these people inside of a steaming vault. However, she knew it was the only way they could narrow down who the Shapeshifter was. "I'm so sorry, sir, but you're just gonna have to stay put."

"What? What do you mean demands?"

Sam glanced over his shoulder at Ronald and gave him an are you serious right now look. "Ronald... hang up!"

"I... I... I'm not a bank robber."

"I got to really get out of here," the security guard begged, placing his hands on the ground as he bowed his head.

"Sir, you can't leave," Delaney repeated and sighed as the man began to struggle towards the vault door, the hostage beginning to help him towards it. "Look -"

"No I'm acting alone," Ronald lied and Delaney huffed, storming over to the phone and slamming it on mount.

"Ronald, the less the cops know the better, okay?"

The security guard finally made it to the door as he continued to gasp and groan in pain. The muscular man that helped hold him up mentioned that the guard might be having a heart attack.

"Great," Sam sighed, gesturing to the guard. "Could be a trick, could be our guy."

"You're just going to let the man die?" the muscular man snapped.

Delaney placed a hand on her hip while the other tugged through her hair in frustration, the situation escalating way too quickly for her liking. "No one is going to die in here. Sam, cover the door," she ordered before dialing the phone to call the detective guy back on the phone to get a medic into the bank.

"How many hostages has this man taken?"

"Look, one of the people could in here could be having heart trouble. You need to send in a paramedic," Delaney said, ignoring the man's question.

"Just stay calm, miss. We'll have you folks out of there."

"Just send in a paramedic, okay?" Delaney shouted over the detective, increasingly becoming more annoyed and frustrated. "Don't try anything else! Please."

The muscled man's eyes widened as his eyes bounced between Delaney and the guard he continued to hold up. "Paramedic? Guy don't have time for that, sweetie."

Ronald frantically shook his head, shaking visibly where he stood behind Sam and Delaney. "Listen, I - I'm sorry, okay? No one is getting out of here."

"He's dying right in front of you, man! Come on, you have to unlock the front door. We have to get him out of here," the muscled man stressed as the guard continued to pant and wheeze in his arms.

Ronald loaded the rifle and held it up at the crowd of hostages. "Both of you stay where you are!"

Seeing Dean walk back over to them, Sam and Delaney rush over to him when they notice his determined expression. "What, Dee?"

"It's the man holding up the guard," Dean mumbled lowly so only the two of his siblings could hear, all of their eyes landing on the muscled man.

Sam nodded and cleared his throat, stepping forward again so he was stood next to Ronald. "You know what, Ronald? He's right. We got to get this man outside." He walked over to the guard and held his arms out for him to take. "Come on, sir. I got you."

The shapeshifter offered to help Sam but he quickly shot the thing down, letting him know he had the guard. He wrapped the guard's arm around his shoulders and half carried and half dragged the stumbling guard out of the room.

"Della, stay close to me, got it?" Dean whispered to his baby sister who nodded, stepping forward with him towards the shifter who looked anything but happy with the situation. "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?"

The shifter scoffed and stepped out of the vault. "I mean, you got the gun, dude. Whatever." 

When the shifter was close enough to Dean and Delaney, he struck Dean and slammed him into the wall next to the open vault door. Delaney barely had time to react when he attacked her next and shoved to the ground, hopping over her body and rushed out of the room. She groaned, rubbing the back of her head that slammed on the carpeted floor and crawled over to Dean to check on him while Ronald rushed out of the room after the shifter with his rifle raised still.

"I'm fine, sweetheart, I'm fine," Dean assured his sister, grunting as he pushed himself to his feet and helped her stand up. "I swear I'm going to kill this thing for hurting you not once but twice!"

"It also killed people."

Dean glanced to his sister at her reminder and sheepishly grinned. "Yeah, that too."

The two siblings ran out of the room to make it to the main room just as Ronald got shot through the chest by some sniper that must have staked out on one of the roofs across from the bank. Dean grabbed Delaney and forced her to the ground with him as they pressed against the low granite wall behind them, staring wide eyed as Ronald dropped to his knees and then to the ground - dead.

Sam ducked down next to them and the three stared at Ronald's dead body for a long moment, not knowing what to make of this situation. The poor guy had died an innocent death because the cops thought he was robbing the bank when he was actually trying to save it. It broke Delaney's heart even though she thought the guy made stupid and irrational decisions. Even though the decisions got them this far into the case and helped them find the shifter.

"Here," Sam whispered and handed Delaney the key Ronald had earlier. "You guys take care of the guard and I will go after the shifter."

Delaney opened her mouth to argue with him about going alone, but it was too late because Sam was already half across the room by the time her brain processed what he said. Why were they always splitting up? That never ended well for anyone.

Dean took the key from his sister and motioned his head towards Ron, ducking around the floor so the sniper wouldn't get them next and hid behind a small table where people could write out their slips to hand to the tellers at the bank. "Sorry, Ron. You did a real good job tracking this thing. You really did."

"Thanks, Ronald," Delaney said to the man even though he was dead and couldn't hear them. She reached out and grabbed his rifle, dragging it across the floor towards her so she wouldn't have to stick her head out and possibly get shot through the head.

Dean grabbed the guard to help him bring outside while Delaney stayed pressed against the table until he came back. The two made it through the two doors that lead to the outside and Dean yelled for the SWAT team to move back, ushering the guard to walk over to the paramedics who would help him out. He quickly shut the outer door before stumbling into the inner door, locking up the door again while Delaney ran over to him.

"Della, we are so screwed," Dean grumbled before he grabbed her hand to drag her over to the staircase to go down further into the bank.

Delaney pulled on Dean's hand when her cell phone rang. She took it out of her back pocket to see it was Sam. "Sam?"

"Hey, it slipped its skin again."

Delaney and Dean shared an exasperated look. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Yeah the bastard shifts quick. Quicker than the one from St. Louis."

Dean made a noise of both frustration and distress, running a hand down his face. "It's like playing a shell game. It could be anybody again."

"I think most of the employees are in the vault."

"You search every inch of this place. Delaney and I will round up everyone," Dean ordered before hanging up on his brother and motioning for Delaney to follow him to find everyone.

It only took the two siblings about ten minutes to find everyone that ran out of the vault and herd them back into the vault, much to all of their displeasure.

"And I thought you were one of the good guys," the blonde woman tutted, turning to glare at the two siblings.

"What's your name?" Dean asked.

"Why do you care?"

Dean lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. "My name is Dean and that's Delaney."

"I'm Sheri," Sheri answered after a long beat of silence.

"Hi, Sheri."

The telephone from before rang again and Delaney walked over to answer the phone as Dean locked the vault back up. "Hello?"

"This is special agent Victor Hendrickson."

Delaney sighed as Dean walked over and pressed his ear to the other side of the phone so he could hear. "Yeah, I'm not really in a negotiating mood right now."

"Good. Me neither. It's my job to bring you and your brothers in - alive's a bonus, but not necessary."

Dean raised an eyebrow at the agent's words. "That's harsh for a fed agent, don't you think?"

"Well, you're not the typical suspect are you, Dean? I want you, Delaney and Sam out here unharmed, or we come in. Yes, I know about all of you - Bonnie to each other's Clyde."

"Yeah, well, that part's true, but how'd you even know we were here?" Delaney questioned the agent.

"Go screw yourselves, that's how I know. It's become my job to know about your brother Dean. I've been looking for him for weeks now. I know about the murder in St. Louis, I know about the Houdini act he pulled in Baltimore. I know about the desecrations and thefts. I know about your dad."

Dean's eyes narrowed even though the agent couldn't see him. "You don't know crap about our dad, pal."

"Ex-marine, raised his kids on the road and sometimes stayed at his buddy Bobby's house, cheap motels, backwood cabins - real paramilitary survivalist type. I just can't get a handle on what type of whacko he was - white supremacist, Timmy McVeigh, to-may-to, to-mah-to."

"You got no right talking about our dad like that," Delaney growled into the phone, grip tightening around the red phone in her hand as Dean seemed to become just as pissed as she did. "He was a hero."

"Yeah, right, sounds like it. You have one hour to make a decision, or we come through those doors full automatic."

Delaney huffed and slammed the phone onto the wall mount, letting out a small scream to let out the growing nerves and anger. She closed her eyes to calm herself down before she let her anger and frustration with the case take over. No one would benefit from her lashing out and acting on anger instead of logic. 

"We have a problem outside," Dean said and Delaney's eyes opened to see Sam ran back over to them.

"Yeah? Well, we got a problem in there," Sam answered, pointing to the vault. "It's that blonde girl now."

Dean didn't waste a second as he opened up the vault door again and stepped inside with his brother and sister. "Sheri, we're letting you go."

"What? Why me?"

"Um... show of good faith to the feds," Delaney lied with a fake smile. "Just come with us."

Sheri hesitated, glancing around the room of hostages. If that wasn't a sign then Delaney didn't know what was. Anyone else would have ran out the second Dean mentioned that she was allowed to leave. "Um... I think I'd rather stay here with the others."

Dean ventured into the vault when Sheri took a few steps back. "I'm afraid I'm gonna have to insist."

The shifter eyed them warily but stepped towards them anyway and Sam lead them over to where he mentioned seeing Sheri's dead body in the hallway. 

"I thought you were letting me go?"

Dean didn't answer, just pushed her forward so the shifter could see the dead body of Sheri who had been slit across the throat. The shifter screamed in horror as she stumbled back at the sight of Sheri's dead body.

"Is that community theater, or are you just naturally that good?" Dean remarked. "This is the last time you become anyone ever."

The shifter stumbled a few more times before she fainted to the ground. The trio exchanged a look before looking back down to the ground where the shifter laid on the ground, unconscious. 

Dean took off the rifle from around his shoulder and shoves it into his sister's chest, who quickly grabbed it before it toppled to the ground. He dropped to his knees before the shifter and raised the silver knife in his hand.

"Wait, wait, wait, Dean!" Delaney yelled, grabbing his arm before he could plunge the weapon into the chest. She glanced to the dead body of Sheri and tilted her head, her mind racing. Why would the shifter faint and not just out right attack one of them? It didn't make sense for the shifter to faint. "What does the shifter need to faint for? Fainting now wouldn't help it survive, would it?"

Dean paused as he turned to look at the supposed dead body of Sheri and moved to peer over it next. He didn't get to look long as a loud crash happened for somewhere else in the bank and three glanced over their shoulders with furrowed eyebrows. Suddenly, Dean was grabbed by the shifter who had been playing the dead body of Sheri the entire team, squeezing its finger around Dean's throat.

Sheri woke up in that moment and screamed when she saw her body double choking and fighting against Dean as he tried to stab the shifter in the chest. 

"Get Sheri out of here!" Dean yelled to his siblings and they didn't waste any time in pulling the girl to her feet, running out of the room with her.

-°—✞——✞—°-

Delaney rushed out of the bank with her brothers, dressed in the SWAT gear they stole off the men that tried to take down Sam and Delaney and Dean managed to take down the man that tried to take him in just after he killed the shifter. Luck was on their side for once and none of them complained as they climbed into the car.

"We're so screwed," Dean said as he three off the SWAT helmet and ski mask.

Delaney and Sam exhaled heavily, shoving off their own SWAT disguises. Their luck would only work for so much longer before something eventually went wrong. Delaney just hoped their luck lasted at least a bit longer than normal this time.

authors note

Hi hey hello

This wasn't necessarily an important chapter, more of a filler because I enjoyed this episode and one of the characters do make a return in the fourth book and so does Hendrickson! So it was important but also a small filler WHEEEE !!! Just nine chapters to go peeps till Season and Book 3 woop!