Clubs like this was everything you remembered. Low ceilings. Filthy air. Purple neon that washed everyone’s face into a mask. The bass pulsed like a heartbeat, too fast, too loud. Somewhere beneath it all: sweat, desperation, and the same aching hum you’d tried to erase for years. Dean was talking. You weren’t listening. “…So he’s in the back office,” Sam was saying, nodding toward the corridor behind the stage. “Big guy, two security guards. We need the whole room focused somewhere else, or they’ll see us coming.”

Dean looked over at you, hesitant. “We, uh… need a distraction.” You knew what was coming before he said it. You just didn’t expect how fast the old shame would tighten in your chest. Dean’s voice dropped, almost careful. “If you could, just for a few minutes. Long enough for us to get through, gank the son of a bitch, and get the hell out.” You stared at him. Dean raised his hands like he was surrendering. “Look, they’re not paying to see me up there, sweetheart, sorry.” Your glare could’ve stopped time. Dean started to smirk, old reflex, but it died fast when he saw your face.

“You owe me.”

He opened his mouth, tried for levity. “I’ll pay you in singles-”

“Don’t.” The word cracked through the noise. Dean stopped. Your eyes didn’t move off his. “You don’t joke about this.”

His smirk vanished. He nodded once. Serious now. “Right. Sorry.” You leave him, and go backstage to strip down, and dress the part. You hated how easily it all slid back on. Like it never left.

You’d danced in places like this, because you needed to survive. And now, it was for revenge. Girls like you were dying. Sacrificed by some demon playing puppet master in a place no one dared look too closely at. You weren’t doing this for the hunt. You were doing this because no one else would save them.

You stepped out into light and noise and heat. You weren’t on that stage for their gaze, but take the thing that once broke you. You moved with fire in your limbs. Control in your fingers. The pole wasn’t a cage anymore, it was a weapon. Eyes followed you. Hungry. But you didn’t see them, you only saw two things: The guards, eyes locked on you now, oblivious. And Dean, frozen near the back, jaw clenched, watching like he’d never seen you before. His face wasn’t smug now. It was full of regret, respect, and a kind of guilt that looked like grief. While the crowd roared and you moved like storm and smoke, Dean and Sam slipped past the velvet curtain. They found the demon mid-deal, black eyes and bloody hands. The bastard never stood a chance. No witnesses. No screams. Just silence and sulfur. And then, they were gone.

You didn’t speak on the way out. Just walked until the noise died. Dean caught up to you, steps slow. You lit a cigarette with shaking hands. You hadn’t smoked in years. He stood a few feet away. “I didn’t want to ask you,” he said finally. Quiet. No defenses. “I swear. But we had to stop him.”

You nodded once. Kept your eyes on the stars you could barely see through the city haze. “I used to work places like that,” you said. “Just to make it through the week.”

Dean looked at the ground. “I know.”

You blew out smoke. “He was killing girls like I used to be. Ones no one misses. So yeah. I got on that stage. Not for you, or the job. For them.”

He stepped closer, but didn’t touch you. “I shouldn’t’ve joked,” he said.

You looked at him. “No. You really shouldn’t have.”

“You were…” He swallowed. “I don’t even have a word for what you were up there. Strong. Angry. Beautiful. And it wasn’t about them. I know that now.”