Sam is the only child of the great hunter John Winchester, but life under his father's thumb is miserable for him. When a scholarship gives him the chance to escape to college, he seizes the opportunity to leave the grim world of hunting behind for the promise of a normal life. But when the same unknown creature that killed his mother year’s earlier murders his fiancée, Sam, embittered and heartsick, returns to his father’s side. John seems strangely reluctant to have him there though, and soon Sam is hunting on his own. While stalking vampires in the central states, he is forced to strike a deal with one to save the lives of hostages. Now, torn between a hunting community that’s shut him out and a vampire that enjoys inflicting pain, his father missing, and innocent lives over his head, Sam finds that simple survival might be more than he can manage, and there are even darker things looming on the horizon…