The air in the dingy motel room sat thick and heavy, clinging to the walls like an unshakable presence. The scent of old wood and stale coffee mixing with the static hum of the buzzing overhead light. Shadows stretched long and restless across the cluttered table, where crime scene photos, autopsy reports, and hastily scribbled notes lay scattered in organized chaos.

Dean exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand down his face as he flipped through yet another stack of police reports. The details were starting to blur together—too many bodies, too many questions, and not a damn thing lining up the way it should. It didn’t make sense. Hunters weren’t easy targets, not by a long shot. And yet, someone was picking them off like it was nothing.

Across from him, Sam leaned over a faded map, elbows braced against the table, his eyes scanning the red ink crisscrossing state lines. The kills were scattered, almost random—but not quite.

“This is a pattern,” he muttered, flipping through a fresh report, his brow furrowed in concentration. “It has to be.”

Dean snorted, arms crossed, his expression tight. “Yeah? ‘Cause all I’m seeing is a pile of dead hunters with no damn connection.” He grabbed a photograph and shoved it toward Sam. A man, mid-forties, throat torn open. “This guy was found in Maine. Two weeks before that, another in Vermont. And before that? A woman. You tell me how that adds up.”

Sam didn’t answer right away, his jaw working as he tapped his fingers against the table. The motel room suddenly felt smaller, the walls pressing in as the weight of the case settled deep into Dean’s bones.

Someone out there was hunting hunters.

And they were good at it. Too good.

Dean leaned back in his chair, gaze flicking toward the motel window, half expecting to see something lurking in the dark beyond the glass. Because whoever was doing this—whoever was cutting through hunters like they were nothing—wasn’t just some random monster on a spree.

They were watching. You were watching.