Police cars swarmed the jewelry shop, as well as an ambulance and a coroner. The sheriff was right about them having nothing better to do; Dean was fairly certain it didn't really take this many officers to deal with one dead body.

Dean found the sheriff coming out of the jewelry shop. "Sheriff. Fill me in."

The sheriff gave him a look. "Ah, Agent, I'm not sure this is part of your case—"

"I suspect a connection. Now, I don't want to pull rank, but if I have to get my supervisor on the phone—"

"No, no." The sheriff sighed. "Shop's been closed a couple of days. Word got around that Rose Greer—ah, that's the woman who runs the shop, she was sick and wouldn't be around for a few days. No one thought anything of it."

"And?"

"A local teenager got suspicious. A friend of Rose's daughter, I guess. She came looking for the daughter at the jewelry shop, came in through the back, and found Rose's body shoved into a cabinet. Neck snapped." He shook his head. "I just don't know what's happening in this town anymore."

Dean had seen this kind of reaction before. Small town cops tended to be more shocked when monsters came through and ravaged their towns, as compared to cops in big cities, where crime was more common. "Any prints found?"

"We're dusting now. We can let you know in the morning?"

Dean sighed. "Yeah. That's fine. Ah, you said there was a witness, a girl who found the body?"

The sheriff pointed past him, and Dean turned around. Of course. It was Chloe, the girl who had come to the mansion before. She sat a little ways down the street on the edge of the sidewalk, her arms wrapped around herself.

Dean had told her to stay out of this. She could have gotten hurt; she could be discovered by the shifter. Any number of things could have happened. Of course, his real annoyance was with the fact that she'd found the body first, and she'd alerted the police rather than him, so they'd tampered with the evidence and made his job harder. Not to mention all the police cars almost definitely would have alerted the shifter to run.

Some part of Dean's conscious mind knew that it wasn't her fault—she couldn't have known better—but she was still meddling in his hunt. And that was how people got killed.

Dean stalked over to her. "Chloe, what are you doing here?"

"I was—just trying to help . . ."

"What did I tell you about this investigation?"

She flinched. "T-to stay out of it."

"That's right." His voice rose steadily. "That's the one thing I told you. And what did you do?"

"Okay, but . . ." She stood up. "I was going off the lead I had, from the graphologist, and I was looking at attendance records from the school, and I found this one girl who had a rare bone disease when she was a kid, and I really think—"

"Stop. Just stop, okay?"

She winced. "I'm an investigative journalist. This is what I do."

"Yeah, well, that doesn't mean you break your way into crime scenes!"

"You don't understand, Agent Winchester. This town is weird, okay? It's because of the meteor rocks—"

"I know about the damn meteor rocks, okay?"

Her eyes widened.

He let out his breath. There was no harm in being honest with her. She already knew. "It's why I'm here. I know about the meteor shower, and I know what the stuff does to people."

Her voice caught, but it was almost closer to a laugh. "Then—then why won't you let me help you? You know I have information that could help."

"I also know this town is more dangerous than most."

"Dangerous? Is this because I'm a girl?"

"No. It's because you're, what, sixteen?"

She looked down.

Younger, then. He let his breath out. "Look. If you've found anything out, I'm happy to hear it." He took his card out of his pocket and handed it to her. "Let me be the first person you call, not these clowns." He gestured around at the police cars.

"You really believe me about the meteor rocks?"

"Yeah. I do."

"Is it a shape shifter?"

"We think so."

"We?"

"Me and my brother. This is kind of what we do."

She nodded. "I really thought it was Tina Greer."

"Rose's daughter?"

"Yeah. But I don't think Tina would kill her own mom. They had a really good relationship."

"We'll look into it." Dean sighed. "Why don't you get on home? You need a ride?"

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"No, my dad's coming to pick me up in a minute."

"Okay." He felt bad leaving her there, but the area was still surrounded by police. Nothing was going to happen to her. "Take care of yourself, Miss Sullivan."

"Thanks," she said, and she sat back down on the pavement.

Dean felt very old as he drove back to the mansion. He'd just been telling a teenaged girl to stay out of the hunt; it felt so recently that he himself was the teenager in over his head. Of course, Chloe wasn't just a teenager; she was an amateur. She hadn't been raised by a hunter who taught her how to fight hand-to-hand and shoot every type of weapon and identify creatures and defend herself. She was a normal kid, and he wanted to keep it that way.

Back at the mansion, Dean found Lex in his study, but barely spared him a look before going over to the decanter beside the desk. "You mind?"

Lex shook his head. "Have at it."

Dean knocked back a shot before remembering that he hated Lex's alcohol. It wasn't as intolerable as it had been the first time, two years ago, but Dean still sputtered and coughed. "I dunno how you drink that stuff," Dean said.

Lex smirked.

"Oh, before I forget." Dean took out his silver knife that he'd dusted with the meteor rock and made a small cut on his arm. Lex sighed, held out his own arm, and Dean cut him a little below the first line. No burning; they were clear. Dean set the knife down on the desk.

"So what happened?" Lex asked.

"Rose Greer. Local woman, runs the jewelry shop. Neck snapped, body shoved in a cabinet. Police are still dusting for prints and scouring for evidence; I'll drop by in the morning to see if I can find any more."

"Uh, you think it's the shape shifter?" Lex shifted his weight.

"Well, it's not really his MO, but the police'll let me know if the prints match the ones found at the bank." This case just kept getting weirder. They'd found no shed skin, seen no eye flares on the security cameras, and never found someone whose skin burned in response to silver. And he still didn't know if there was any connection to the meteor rock. Chloe seemed to think the guy had become a shifter because of the meteor rock, rather than having been a shifter already who was merely infected with it for extra abilities. That might mean the rules were completely different. "Sooner we gank this thing and get out, the better."

Lex swallowed. "Gank?"

"Kill."

He stood up slowly, coming around to the front of his desk. "You're going to kill them?"

"Well, yeah. That's kind of what we do."

"But—but what if Rose's death was an accident?"

"Luthor, you feeling okay?" Dean turned to face him. He didn't sound like himself at all.

"And you don't know why they robbed the bank. Maybe they really needed the money."

Dean took a step back. He felt for his knife, but he'd left it on the table. "Luthor . . . we kill monsters. You know that. It's what we did to the Djinn, and to those werewolves, and to that ghost at the island."

"You're going to find the shifter."

"Yeah, we are. I've got a lead, too. You ever heard of someone named Tina Greer?"

Dean didn't have time to react. Lex grabbed the decanter and swung, and Dean knew no more.

----------------------------------------

Sam had expected that Dean would call him sometime while he was eating dinner with the Kents, but long after the dessert plates had been cleared away, Sam hadn't heard anything. He tried calling the mansion, but Lex didn't pick up. Sam hoped they weren't drinking. He decided to stop by the mansion and check in on them, just to make sure everything was alright.

The security guard easily let him into the mansion after alerting Lex, who met him in the entry way. "Sam. It's good to see you."

"Good to see you, too," Sam said, and he pulled Lex into a quick hug. "Where's Dean?"

"Uh, he's . . . taking a shower. He'll be out soon."

"Oh. Okay." Sam thought about checking to make sure Lex wasn't a shifter, but he could see a fairly fresh cut on his forearm; Dean must have checked him pretty recently.

"So," Lex said, "you and Clark, you're helping . . . me and Dean, with the hunt, right?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. Last time I checked."

Lex nodded. "Have you found out anything?"

"Clark and I didn't see anyone acting suspiciously today." Sam realized exactly how lame that probably sounded; he really, really wished Clark would be up front about his secret.

"Are you sure you're going to be able to find them? I mean, the shifter could be anyone, right?"

Sam let his breath out. "Every year we hunt, there's a few that get away. But I don't think this is going to be one of them." It was only a matter of time before a skeleton turned up green.

Lex frowned. "Well, did you check Clark? With the, uh, silver knife and meteor rock."

Sam really hated lying to the people he was hunting with. He did it when he had to, but he still hated it. "Yeah. I did."

"Where's Clark now?"

"At the house, still."

"Okay." Lex fidgeted with his fingers.

Sam frowned. He could swear Lex was sweating. "Hey, you doing okay, man?"

"What are we doing, Sam? If this is a teenager . . ."

"A teenager who killed someone." Sam shook his head. "I dunno, Lex. I don't like it, but maybe Dean's right. Monsters are monsters, and we have to stop them, you know?"

Lex sighed. "I hoped you might understand. But I don't know what I expected. You're a liar."

Sam's breath caught. "I—excuse me?"

"You couldn't have checked Clark. He's allergic to the meteor rock."

"Wait, he told you?"

"So it's true?"

"Well, yeah, but . . . wait, how did you know?"

Lex sighed. "You're kind of cute. I wish I didn't have to do this."

"Cute?" Sam took a step back, then another.

Lex—or whoever it was—stepped toward him, and Sam ran.

He would have gotten away, if the shifter hadn't had a super strength to match Clark's.

----------------------------------------

Clark waited up for Sam out in the loft. The sun had long set, and there was no sign of him. Clark's parents didn't usually mind him staying up late, since he never really woke up tired the next day, but he had been happy when Sam had decided to stay at the farm, and he was a little sad that it seemed Sam had changed his mind.

Finally, when the sky was completely dark, Clark heard footsteps coming into the barn. He went down to greet Sam, but it wasn't Sam at all. It was Lex.

"Hey." Clark took a step toward Lex. "Where's Sam and Dean?"

"You all really like to ask about each other, don't you?"

"Uh . . ." That was really weird. Belatedly, Clark realized he was supposed to be checking everyone he saw. He used his X-ray vision to look at Lex's skeleton.

It was green.

Clark swallowed hard. "Who are you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Clark rushed at the shifter, but it held up a chunk of meteor rock, and Clark stumbled back, his stomach rolling with nausea as his skin crawled and burned.

The shifter stepped toward him, bringing the meteor rock closer, "I used to think Lana had the perfect life."

Lana? "What are you talking about?" he choked out.

"Then I overheard you and Sam talking in the barn. You were going to find me. But you were avoiding Dean, and Dean was protecting Lex, and I knew that's where I needed to be. So, of course, then I saw the mansion." He whistled. "Now that, that's the life I want."

Clark gasped in pain, lowering to his knees. "What happened to Lex?"

"Locked up, probably still knocked out."

"Alive?"

"I didn't kill him. I didn't kill anyone." Lex—the shifter—sneered. "But you all don't even care. You were going to kill me anyway."

"We weren't . . ." Clark doubled over. "I don't even—who are you?"

"You don't need to know," the shifter said. He came forward and grabbed Clark by the arm, dragging him out into the open and toward the entrance to the storm cellar. Clark didn't have the energy to resist, and the shifter was awfully strong, anyway.

"People will . . . look for me," Clark said.

"Nah." The shifter smiled and morphed into a new form right in front of Clark's eyes—all at once, it was like looking in a mirror. "I'm going to tell your mom I'm going to Lex's."

With that, Clark's doppelgänger dropped the meteor rock into Clark's jacket pocket, shoved him inside the cellar, and slammed the door, leaving Clark in the pitch blackness with nothing but the pain.