Dean wasn't sure what he had been expecting the meteor rock to do to the werewolves.

It was clear the silver was piercing their skin, injuring and hurting them, but it wasn't enough to kill them. Based on the summer before, Dean had believed that the meteor rock might be necessary, somehow, to killing the werewolves. Subconsciously, Dean had somehow expected that a werewolf who had already been hit with a silver bullet would be vulnerable to the meteor rock; one more bullet would pierce through its heart and kill it.

His theory wasn't even close to the truth. The meteor rock slug didn't break the werewolf's skin at all.

Only when Sam ran away did Dean realize how little he'd thought through this fight.

He hadn't done enough research; he didn't know what his equipment would do; he hadn't even known how many werewolves there were. They'd been incredibly lucky—had there been just a few more of the monsters, their guns might not have been enough to take them out. Aside from that, Dean had taken directions from a ten-year-old to find the pack in the first place. Worse still, instead of giving Sam a clear job and direction, he'd tried to take him off the hunt. What had he expected Sam would do in response?

Dean's father would have been absolutely livid with him, but no punishment could have amounted to the utter shame, the sheer disappointment that would be in his eyes if he knew that Dean had run into a hunt half-assed and failed to protect his little brother.

But Dean wouldn't have to tell his dad any of that. They got lucky.

Because the meteor rock didn't just transform the werewolf it hit back into a human. It transformed every werewolf within a few feet away from itself.

Werewolves were more vulnerable in human form; Dean hoped that killing them would take no more than another silver bullet. As it turned out, it didn't even take that. The silver bullet wounds they had weren't enough to kill them in wolf form, but in human form, they dropped to the ground, their injuries bleeding out.

Lex fired off no more than a half a dozen shells, and the next thing Dean knew, they were surrounded by dead human bodies. Dead bodies that looked human, anyway.

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Why had Sam run away?

"Sammy!" Dean called, and he ran in the direction where he thought Sam had gone. He reached a clearing with a little cabin; there was a small pool of blood just outside the front door. "Oh no . . . Sam!"

Dean burst through the front door of the cabin. "Sam!"

Sam stood over three bodies. These ones hadn't even been transformed into human form—apparently, Sam had just shot them so many times, they'd succumbed to the silver. "Dean! Did you get all the ones outside?"

"Yeah."

Sam smirked. "I saw these ones trying to get away. I was afraid they'd attack us later, so I came after them."

Dean could feel his stomach sinking. An hour ago, he had punched Sam for trying to follow them. Now, he had saved their lives.

Sam could have been killed. And if he had been, it would have been Dean's fault for not trusting him, not equipping him. Not following after him when he ran. Dean had one job, only one job that really mattered—taking care of Sam. He hadn't even done that.

Guilt overwhelmed him, and for a moment, Dean almost wanted to be honest with his dad about how badly the hunt had gone. Dad would kill him, but he deserved it.

Dean breathed in to thank Sam, but he couldn't get the words out. What came out was, "Hey, Sam? Slug me."

"W-what?"

"Come on, you get a freebie. I won't even hit you back." Dean held out his arm.

Sam rolled his eyes. "You're nuts." He walked out of the cabin. "Let's get back to the farm."

Dean sighed and followed Sam out of the cabin. Lex was waiting just outside. Sam ran out ahead of them, and Lex walked beside Dean.

Dean glared at Lex. "How much of that you listen in on?"

"Enough," Lex said.

"Sam saved my life last summer," Dean said. "I shoulda let him come with us today."

"Yeah, you should have."

"We needed a third person. I shoulda trusted my brother. Shouldn't've hit him."

"True," Lex said, then he coiled back his left fist and punched Dean in the arm.

Dean gasped. The force of the hit caught him off guard—he'd forgotten that Lex was left handed. "The hell, Luthor?"

"Now that's done. So you can stop beating yourself up over it."

Dean gritted his teeth. "You're gonna pay for that."

"No, I don't think I am," Lex said, and he ran out ahead to catch up with Sam.

Dean might have half-assed the hunt, but one way or another, they'd done it. They'd taken out a pack of werewolves, saved a whole lot of people from having their hearts ripped out. The local police might never come to understand what was going on with the pile of bodies in the woods—that was a part of every hunt.

He might have missed a few things along the way, but his first solo hunt had been a success in the end.

And no one had been hurt.