To Fight in the Shade - Part 4
There was nothing Sam could do. He was all out of ideas about how to cheer Dean up, or make him not mad at Sam. Instead he got a piece of paper and a pencil from the shelf along the wall and bumped a little bit into Dean as he opened the fridge. The only thing in it was some old cheese, one lone egg in a mostly empty carton, and a plastic bag of string beans that they’d forgotten about and that had long since turned to black mush.
Sam sat in Dean’s seat at the table, facing the breeze from the open window, and wrote down what they needed. He made sure to include Dean’s favorite cheese (cheddar) and requested fresh peaches for himself. He didn’t dare write down Otter Pops or marshmallow fluff because that would only set Dad off. Then Sam wrote down the dried goods that they needed, which was everything, since they were all out of rice, and the little bin of new potatoes had all spoiled in the heat.
“What are we going to eat for lunch?” asked Sam. He wasn’t complaining, just asking. “I’m starving.”
“Me too,” said Dean, almost under his breath. As he washed and dried and put away the few dishes they’d used, his stomach growled along with Sam’s. “You got that list done?”
Sam chewed on the end of the pencil a little bit and scuffed his bare foot along the wooden floor as he finished the list. Then he sat up and handed the list to Dean. After wiping his damp hands on his t-shirt, Dean took the list and looked at it.
“You forgot spagettios,” said Dean.
Sam thought that Dean was just trying to be nice by mentioning this because he knew they were Sam’s favorites.
“They’re there,” said Sam. He pointed to the bottom of the list.
“Huh,” said Dean. He looked at the list as if thinking about what to add. Then he said, “I’ll show it to him.”
Then without another word, he walked across the floor and out the screen door and down the steps, fast and firm, like he had someplace he needed to be. Sam went up to the screen door to watch.
“Here’s the list, Dad,” said Dean. He held out the list to Dad, who took it and folded it in his hands, like he meant to tuck it into his pocket without reading it.
“Sam’s still hungry, Dad,” said Dean.
Dad just looked at the folded list and Sam wondered if this would be the time, the one time, that Dad decided they needed to learn what deprivation was all about. That was a big word Sam had learned in school and it was a good one all about starving and doing without. But Dad had never made them go hungry, not if he could help it; he always made sure they ate and he was always talking about how an army couldn’t function on an empty stomach.
Dad looked up and Sam knew that he could be seen through the screen door, or at least his outline could.
“Dean’s still hungry, too,” said Sam, boldly, through the screen door. He wasn’t trying to lay blame by including Dean, it was just that Dad might care more if he knew that Dean was hungry, too. Sam was about to add the part about armies and stomachs when Dad shoved the list in his back pocket.
“Me too,” Dad said. “I had just about figured we ought to go out to breakfast before we all ate our own arms.”
Sam’s eyebrows shot up. Breakfast out was almost unheard of, and while it wasn’t a whole day off, by the time they got back from breakfast and grocery shopping, the morning would be long gone.
“Get your shoes and socks,” Dad said. “I’ll change my shirt, and we can all listen to the carburetor on the way.”
Dean raced back up the stairs and Sam went to grab his sneakers which were under the bed with the socks still in. Dean came into the bedroom and scrambled for a clean t-shirt, and bumped into Sam as they tried to get through the bedroom doorway at the same time. By the time they came out, Dad was waiting for them, jingling the keys in his pocket.
*
Dad drove them through the bright, hot morning, down the side of Lookout Mountain. Sam leaned out the back window on the passenger side and took in huge breaths of the fresh, moving air as they sank ever lower under the shady green trees. Dad was about to take a right at the intersection where the peach stand was, then he stopped to get directions for a good place nearby for breakfast.
Sam looked at Dean and smiled. Dad knew that there was a breakfast buffet at the Mentone Inn in town. But the last time they’d eaten there, which had been when they’d first arrived in Mentone, the food hadn’t been very good. Besides, Dean didn’t like buffet breakfasts, which Dad probably remembered.
“You want Rafferty’s,” said the man at the peach stand. “Just past the crossroads but before you get to the highway.”
As Dad nodded and pulled out of the dirt lot, Sam asked, “Dad, can we get peaches on the way back?”
“Sure,” said Dad. “As long as you remember to share them with your brother.”
*
As Dean put away the groceries and supplies, Sam sat at the kitchen table and, and with a contentedly full stomach, ate his second peach. Breakfast had been perfect, and he’d been able to order exactly what he wanted: pancakes and bacon with maple syrup over everything and Dad hadn’t said one word about it. Sam had even let Dean have a piece of his bacon.
And afterwards, on the way home, they’d gone to the peach stand as well as the grocery store; the cupboards were bursting. It would be ages before they ran out of anything, even though Dad had glared at Sam when they passed the Otter Pops display in the frozen foods aisle, as if daring him to ask for some.
Sam wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and threw the peach pits in the trash. As he moved around Dean and washed his sticky fingers at the sink, he heard Dad come in the door from where he’d been working on the car.
“Dean, you’ll stay here and give this floor a good sweep and scrub; Sam you’ll be with me.”
Sam couldn’t figure out if this was a good thing or not.
He didn’t like scrubbing floors all that much, but he didn’t want to go anywhere alone with Dad. Something bad always happened.
He didn’t know what Dad wanted with just him. Maybe some special training. He didn’t like that because then he would be the sole focus of all of Dad’s glaring attention, and Dad yelled a lot more when it was just Sam. When it was Sam and Dean, Dad had to divide his attention, but this, whatever it was, probably wasn’t going to be any fun.
Dad jingled the keys to the car. “C’mon Sam, get a clean shirt on, and let’s go. Hustle.”
“Where are we going?” asked Sam. He went into the bedroom as he asked this and slipped on a clean shirt. When he came out, Dad was giving him the maybe-this-is-a-need-to-know-situation expression so maybe Sam would be forced to sit in the car and wonder till they arrived at wherever they were going. But Dad’s glance flicked over him and he seemed to relent.
“Ft. Payne,” said Dad. “I have more phone calls I need to make.”
This was worse than one-on-one training. Sam would rather do a zillion laps or a whole day of rope training with just Dad than to go to Ft. Payne. Even the name of the place sounded bad.
“Isn’t it Dean’s turn to go?” Sam didn’t mind if Dean went this time, and it was his turn, after all.
“I decide whose turn it is, Sam, not you,” said Dad.
Sam opened his mouth. He was going to say something like, no, or I don’t want to go, but Dad’s gaze remained steady and Sam had the feeling that Dad wasn’t going to budge on this one. Or maybe he was testing Sam to see how obedient he could be.
“Have fun, Sam,” said Dean, as he walked past him on the way out of the door to put one of the kitchen chairs on the porch.
Sam watched Dean carry the chair out and set it down, and then come bounding back in to get the rest of what could be moved for the sweep and mop job.
“Now, Sam,” said Dad, as he turned and walked out the door.
Sam glanced at Dean, but there was no sympathy there, and Sam could bet that Dean was jealous of Sam right about now and that Dean would give anything to be in Sam’s shoes. That was because Dad liked Dean and the two of them lived for all of this. Well, Sam didn’t. The drive would alone be awful and now he really didn’t want to go.
“Sam!” Dad’s bellow came from the driveway. “When I said now, I didn’t mean tomorrow.”
“Better move,” said Dean in his best older brother voice. “You don’t want to make him mad.”
“He’s already mad,” said Sam, trying not to let his frown turn into a pout because if Dean saw it he’d tease Sam and call him a baby.
“Sam!”
Sam hurried out and down the stairs. Dad was in the car, gunning the engine a little to express his displeasure. The engine already smelled hot under the baking sun.
Hurrying, Sam scrambled in the passenger seat and attempted to buckle himself in as Dad backed the car up and drove down the dusty gravel lane to the main road.
“Make sure that door is locked,” said Dad.
Sam reached back and tapped the button down with the heel of his hand and fiddled with his seatbelt. By the time he was settled, they were already at the bottom of Lookout Mountain. The peach stand was open as the drove past, but Dad didn’t slow down or ask if Sam wanted more peaches to eat along the way, he just drove as fast as he could because he had some place to be and there was nothing for Sam to do but be dragged along for the ride.
(The dusty, gravel road that leads away from the cabin.)
Sam took a quick peek at Dad. Maybe it wasn’t Sam he was mad at. The speedometer already said 60 even though they’d just gotten on the highway. And Dad was focused on the road and his driving and not on Sam at all. Maybe he was mad about all the phone calls he had to make. Maybe. Sam didn’t want to ask or find out. He decided he would make himself small and silent.
*
As the hardware store in Ft. Payne loomed into view, Sam sank back in the passenger seat and didn’t say anything to Dad. Dad hadn’t said anything except lock that door the whole way, so that was fair, wasn’t it?
Dad parked the car in the lot and Sam got out, careful not to slam the door too hard or Dad would yell at him. He felt as though he was hiding in his own shadow, only a handbreadth away from getting in trouble. He felt wound up tightly, like the cocked spring of a cross bow, the bolt ready to fly at any moment.
He didn’t like feeling this way. It was one thing to try and be good for Dean’s sake, but Dad didn’t care and would never notice. And anyway, Dad’d be more likely to find fault in Sam as anything else.
He trailed after Dad across the narrow parking lot. As they got to the door, Sam opened his mouth. “Dad-”
“In, Sam.” Dad held the door open and the bell jangled as he gestured to Sam to go in first.
As Sam hurried past Dad, he said, “I only wanted to know how long-”
It was a reasonable question, but of course Dad didn’t want to tell him anything.
“It takes as long as it takes.”
The door jangled again as it shut behind Sam and Dad and once again, as the cool, rushing air of the store swept over his skin, Sam was enveloped right away by the smell of oil and the bright smile of Russ. Russ came up to Dad like they were old friends and he shook Dad’s hand, taking it in his two hands, gripping it tightly like he’d just as soon be hugging Dad.
“Welcome back, John,” he said. He even, when he finally let go of Dad’s hands, put one hand on Dad’s arm to pull him toward the office. “You brought your boy, Dean, again, that’s nice. My wife will be bringing fresh homemade donuts by - hopefully you’ll still be here by then. They’re not to be missed.”
Dad cast a little grin Sam’s way, but he didn’t correct Russ outright. All he said was, “Appreciate the offer; Sam loves donuts, but we’ll see.”
Which meant that Dad was planning to be long gone by the time those donuts arrived and probably on purpose just so Sam couldn’t have any.
Russ smiled at Sam as he led Dad away, but Sam couldn’t even pretend to have any manners; he just glared instead, and he didn’t even care if Russ told Dad.
The door to the office shut behind Dad. Russ came back to the front and went to the cash register where a customer was waiting to be helped. Sam ignored them and went straight to the bin where the large tacks were kept.
They were still as shiny as ever. Each tack was about as big around as his thumb, and he wanted to see how many he could hold in the palm of his hand without getting poked. He managed to get eight in hand before the ninth one stabbed him.
He dumped the tacks back in the bin and sucked on his finger for a second as he trailed his hand along the tops of each bin and peeked in to see if there was anything new or interesting. But nothing had changed, every bin was filled with shiny, oily things, the same as last time.
Idly, he wandered to the back of the store where the huge coils of thick rope and stacks of folded, green canvas sat on sturdy shelves, which were arranged on either side of the office. Sam peeked into the large window and saw that Dad wasn’t on the phone; he was writing on a piece of paper. The overhead lights gleamed off his dark hair and after a moment of being watched, he must have felt Sam there because he lifted his chin and beckoned Sam to come in.
Sam opened the door and walked as quickly as he could over to the desk and he didn’t know what he was going to say until he said it.
“Can I go to the park? I promise I’ll stay there.”
Dad looked at him for a minute, still poised to go back to writing, as though he meant to do that and not answer Sam. His eyes were shadowed in the overhead light and he really did look like he was going to say no. He had that expression that said that what he was about to do was going to be for Sam’s own good. Like he was going to say no to such a simple pleasure to teach Sam a lesson in self-denial.
“Sam.”
Sam never begged with Dad because it never worked. It sometimes worked with Dean, depending on how bad Sam had pissed Dean off, and sometimes in spite of that. But with Dad, never. Still, Sam had to get out of the hardware store or go crazy. There was nothing to play with that wasn’t sharp. And it was possible, just possible, that there were kids playing in the park, and maybe they were even playing soccer.
“I won’t kick the ball so good, so nobody will notice me, I promise.”
Something dark flickered across Dad’s face. Sam thought about offering never to ask to play soccer again if he could just do it today, but that wasn’t going to work because the second Sam got the chance, he would play and kick the ball as good as he knew how.
“I just want to play with the other kids, please Dad? Please?”
He almost did the face, the one that could usually make Dean give in and beg for Sam to stop with the face, but that would probably just push Dad too far and he would say no on principle.
Dad looked down at his paper and wrote something and the silence stretched on till just when Sam was about to say something, Dad nodded, almost to himself.
“Fine,” said Dad. “The park and nowhere else. I do not want to have to go looking for you, understand?”
Dad looked up but Sam didn’t have to even see the glare to get it. Dad meant it, but Sam was out of the office and running along the shiny linoleum floor before Dad could say another word.
*
Sam rushed out from under the green trees, the leaves separating like curtains as he stepped out into the blazing sun. The park was there and as green as ever, but there were no kids playing, and Sam figured that was maybe because it was so hot. Not that had ever stopped Dad from making Sam and Dean train, but here, all the doors were closed against the heat and except for the low hum of the nearby power lines, there wasn’t any sound or movement.
He walked onto the grass anyway and kicked at some thick, green tufts that might have been what had marked the foul line the last time he’d been there, playing with those kids and having fun. He even thought he could see the faint outline of where the t-shirt goal posts had been on his team’s side, but that was probably his imagination.
What wasn’t his imagination was what he saw: the flash of white and black, shaped exactly like a soccer ball.
He hurried across the grass, shivering all over, his heart thumping, because finder’s keepers, right? The ball was his, except for the fact that he had no idea how to make Dad let him keep it so he and Dean could play with it.
The ball was in a depression at the edge of the park, something that must have been a ditch for water but which now was merely a long hollow place. It looked like someone had left the ball out or had kicked and couldn’t find as his mom had called him in to supper.
Sam bent over and picked up the ball and tossed it in his hands. Even though he wasn’t in a game at the moment, he still felt like some invisible referee was going to call a foul because he was touching the ball with his hands. He tossed it high in the air and then caught it, smiling as it smacked loudly in his palms.
“Hey!”
Sam looked in the direction of the voice. The kid from before, the same kid who had invited him to play, was walking quickly toward Sam. Behind the kid, a screen door slowly swung shut on one of the houses.
“That’s my ball,” said the kid, all sweaty and mad as he marched up to Sam.
“Well, I found it,” said Sam. After dealing with Dad so many times, standing up to another kid was easy.
“Well, give it, it’s mine.”
“Finder’s keepers,” said Sam, drawing back, holding the ball out of the kid’s reach.
“Give it back,” said the kid, reaching.
“Hey, maybe we could-” began Sam. He was about to suggest that they place some soccer only it would be a pretend game because there were only two of them. Still, they could kick the ball around and run and chase each other across the open green grass and under the brassy, blue sky and he’d be doing exactly what he said he’d be doing when Dad picked him up. And maybe, just maybe, Dad would see how much fun Sam was having and reconsider and let Sam play on a team next year.
But the kid came up and tried to grab the ball out of Sam’s grasp. Any thought of sharing or offering to give the ball back if they kicked it around some first went right out of Sam’s head.
“I found it and I’m keeping it.” Sam held the ball high over his head. He and the kid were the same height, but Sam had slightly longer arms, so this was easy.
The kid jumped for the ball and banged right into Sam. Sam almost lost his footing on the slippery grass, but he shifted his weight back on one foot. This sent the kid tumbling to the ground and when he got up, he was mad. His face was red from the heat and his hair was sticking straight out from his ears.
“I said give it!” said the kid. He bunched his hands into fists and lowered his shoulders, ready to charge.
“And I said no.”
That’s when the kid punched Sam. At first Sam didn’t realize what had happened, because the punch was a lot softer than any punch Dean had given him; it almost wasn’t a real punch at all. But it sparked something in him just the same and now he was mad too.
Sam easily blocked the next punch with his arm and could hear Dad in his head saying keep your arms up like I told you. But then the ball flew of Sam’s hand and he was off balance trying to catch it when the kid smacked him in the jaw really hard. Sam knew he had to show the kid who was who here because that ball belonged to him now. He’d found it. Plus he could imagine Dean’s teasing if he ever found out that Sam had been bested by someone who was only a little heavier than Sam.
Still, without the ball in his hands, Sam could move more easily. As the kid continued to flail, Sam angled his body to present a narrower target, pulled his right hand back, and slammed into the kid’s chin with the palm of his hand. He was about to add a quick snap-kick that Dean had taught him, but the kid’s eyes rolled up in his head and he fell back flat on the grass with blood pooling from his mouth. Then he lay absolutely still, white as a sheet.
Was he breathing? Had Sam killed him?
Guilt swamped through him like a bad chill. He realized too late that he’d hit the kid as hard as he would have hit Dean or Dad during a sparring session, that he’d used the same punch Dad had taught him to use when you wanted to simply take the other guy out and not mess around. He’d done it like it had been second nature to him. Dad would be proud, at least Sam thought he would be about the technique. Fighting with some kid over a lost and found soccer ball would probably bring a totally different reaction.
Sam dropped to his knees and touched the kid’s face. It was still warm and his chest rose and fell softly, so he wasn’t dead. Feeling a little better, Sam patted the kid’s face.
“Hey, kid,” he said.
The kid blinked, eyelashes fluttering as some color came back into his face. “Ow,” he said. He reached up to touch his mouth. When his hand came away red, he made a face and then rolled to the side to spit out the blood.
“You okay?” asked Sam. “Can you get up?” He was starting to hear a siren in the distance coming closer, and a sense of haste was growing in his stomach.
He held out his hand and the kid took it, but when Sam started to pull, he heard the siren again, even louder now. Then there was the sound of a door, slamming hard.
“Get away from him!”
Sam looked up. A woman ran at him in a house dress and slippers, her fluffy blonde hair flying behind her as she came closer. Her mouth was open and she was screeching.
“You killed him, I’ve called the cops-”
She was right on Sam now and threw herself practically on top of the kid, mashing him against her chest and smearing blood everywhere.
“You killed him, you animal!” She rocked and cried at the same time and hugged the kid close, shrieking. “Oh, my poor baby” over and over.
Meanwhile, the kid struggled for air. “Mom, let me go, I’m fine.” The kid pushed at her arms.
There was blood now all over the mom’s arms and her flowered blouse and on the kid’s face; Sam didn’t know moms were like that. But seeing as the kid was probably in good hands and having a very scared feeling about those sirens and her threat about the cops, Sam stood up. He figured he ought to head back to the hardware store anyway, before Dad came looking for him and found Sam being accused of trying to kill someone’s baby.
But just as Sam held out his hand, he heard footfalls behind him. When he turned around, thinking it was Dad, he was suddenly and quickly grasped by two policemen. They had him by each arm and their hands were hard and sure.
They turned him to face the mom and the kid.
“This the boy who attacked Will, Mrs. Cooperthwaite?”
“Boy?” Mrs. Cooperthwaite asked, screeching. “He’s a killer, and he nearly cracked my little boy’s jaw; I saw it from my window.”
“Will looks pretty alive to me,” said one of the officers, a little dryly.
Sam looked up at him; his badge said his name was Ed Foster. He looked fresh and young under the severe blue hat and looked at the woman with direct, calm eyes. Like Dad or Dean would have done.
“It’s only by a miracle!” she shouted. She patted Will’s face, messing the blood into smears that turned brown as it dried. “Can you talk, sweetie? Tell these nice officers-”
“I said I’m okay, Mom,” said Will. He struggled to pull away and sit up on his own. “Let me up.”
With one monstrous move, Mrs. Cooperthwaite got to her feet, still clutching her boy to her bosom, holding him close at her side.
“He might be alive, but he’ll be traumatized for life!”
Will rolled his eyes at Sam and Sam realized that the officers could probably see his expression too. Will wasn’t traumatized in the least, but Sam felt the heat on the back of his neck as his mind raced to find a way to get out of it before Dad showed up.
“Just boys fighting, Mrs. Cooperthwaite,” said Officer Foster.
“It’s what boys do,” said the other officer, whose badge said his name was Harold Johnson. He was a little older and had dark hair and a mustache and his voice was deeper. “Now, I suggest that we tell these boys to shake hands and let them get back to playing soccer.”
This sounded like a great idea to Sam. He figured if he and Will got into another fight over the ball, he’d pull his punches and make it a more equal fight. Not that Dad was likely to appreciate it in any case; the enemy was the enemy after all. Except the way Will was making faces at Sam, bloody mouth and all, made Sam think that Will wasn’t really the enemy. The mother was, but not the kid. Dean would probably agree with him, if he were here.
“No!” said Mrs. Cooperthwaite. She pointed her finger like a spear at Sam. “I called 911 because his hooligan was killing my son. And he would have too, if I hadn’t stopped him.”
“I wasn’t going to kill him-” began Sam, but Officer Foster tightened his grip on Sam’s arm and Sam snapped his mouth shut.
“I demand that you arrest him!” Mrs. Cooperthwaite said, increasing her squeeze on Will and making him gurgle for air. “I know my rights, I’m a prominent citizen and my taxes pay your salary. So arrest him right now or I’ll see you both get fired. My husband knows the mayor, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Sam felt both of the officers stiffened at this.
“Okay, Mrs. Cooperthwaite,” said Officer Johnson. “We’ll take care of it.”
Take care of it? What did that mean? What would Dad say?
“And I’ll check later, and I better see an arrest record or you’ll hear about it from my husband!” Mrs. Cooperthwaite grabbed her boy by the arm and stomped off towards the houses.
Sam figured that once she was out of earshot that the officers would let him go. He figured wrong.
“Let’s get this over with,” said Officer Johnson. He looked down at Sam. “We’re going to take you to the police station.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Officer Foster. “We can call your folks from the squad car and let them know where you are so they can pick up.”
Sam looked up at each one of them. Both of them had guns and neither one of them had let him go. It was going to be hard to stay in the park like Dad told him to if the officers wanted to really take him to the station. Sam knew what would happen there. They’d book him, which wasn’t about any book, it was about the paperwork they’d do. And then they’d take Sam’s fingerprints and then they’d put it on the wires.
That’s what all the cop shows did, but it didn’t work the way Sam first thought it did. He’d asked Dean and Dean had told him that it was a way for police stations to talk to other police stations and authorities to see if you had any “priors” on your “sheet.” Which wasn’t like a bed sheet at all, it was a piece of paper with all the crimes you’d ever committed on it.
And while Sam figured that he didn’t have a “sheet,” maybe Dad did and maybe Dean did too, because both of them did things like dig up graves and break into places, and Sam knew all that was against the law. And maybe there wasn’t just “sheets” on both of them, but also a big red stamp on the top that said Guilty or Wanted or something like that that would alert whoever Dad always said was looking for them. Maybe even the FBI.
Sam felt cold all over.
Foster let go of Sam and gave him a little pat. “This won’t be so bad,” he said.
Johnson turned him around, still gripping hard, and the three of them started walking towards the police car. The engine was still running, and the red and blue lights on the top were rolling lazily around and around.
“What’s your name, kid? Do you live around here?”
“No,” said Sam. He wiped his free hand on his shirt. “I have to go now.”
“You’re not going anywhere, kid.”
Sam twisted his body to try and break free, but it didn’t do any good. Officer Johnson was strong, as strong as Dad.
“Maybe we can just take him home and fill out the paperwork later,” said Officer Foster.
Officer Johnson eyed Sam, his eyes thoughtful. “Maybe,” he said. “Tell us your name, kid. Tell us where you live so we can take you home.”
Sam knew that if he told them where Dad was and they took him back to the hardware store, that Dad would be mad. He might even give Sam a whipping for fighting over a soccer ball because he never liked the attention those kinds of fights brought. The whipping would be bad. Dad might even use a switch this time.
But worse than that, it would bring Dad into someone’s notice. Dad had just told Sam this was bad and Sam knew why. Dad broke the law all the time and if they arrested him, Dean and Sam would be taken away by Social Services. Sam would be placed in foster care, but Dean was too old for that and would be taken to a place Dean had told him about, Juvie Hall. It sounded bad, and though Dean had bragged that he could tough it out if he had to, Sam didn’t want Dean in a place like that.
“Tell us your name, kid, and it’ll be okay.”
“No,” said Sam, dragging his feet. He shut his mouth tight and shook his head. He couldn’t give them his first name or his last name or anything because they would ask around and find out who they all were and then they would take Dean-
“That’s enough, kid, let’s go.”
Officer Johnson hefted his hand on Sam’s upper arm, probably to tighten his grasp and when Sam felt it, he shifted low and got away and started running as fast as he could. It was towards the police car, towards the flashing lights, and it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do but it threw the officers off balance enough for Sam to get his chance and sprint away to freedom.
But only for a minute. Officer Foster was young and fast and caught up and grabbed Sam in a bear hug from behind and lifted Sam clean off the ground.
Officer Johnson came up and tried to grab Sam’s legs. “Just give us your name, kid, and we can make this a whole lot of easy.”
Johnson was close enough and his grasp was loose enough and Sam lifted both of his feet and stomped on Officer Johnson’s chest, leaving two grass-stained, feet-shaped marks. Officer Johnson grunted and was almost shoved off balance. Then Sam kicked him again, hard, in the shoulder, and twisted in Officer Foster’s arms.
Officer Johnson stepped back and adjusted his hat; his face was hard. “Lower him down,” he said. “You’re not helping by holding him like that.”
Officer Foster lowered Sam, and Sam squirmed as hard as he could but the officer didn’t let him go. Sam kicked backwards and it felt like he’d hit solid bone.
“Ouch, damnit!”
“Here, I’ll get him.” Johnson reached into his back pocket to pull out a pair of shiny handcuffs. The smell of well-oiled metal whapped Sam in the face.
“Do we need those?” asked Foster, his voice loud in Sam’s ear as he hung on to Sam.
“We do, unless you want to sit in the back seat and hold him like that all the way back to the station.”
Sam rocked back on one foot and kicked Johnson hard in the thigh.
Johnson grunted again, and any sense of kindness was completely gone from his face as he looked at Sam. His eyes glittered. “That settles it,” he said.
He pulled Sam’s wrists together in one hand and slipped the cuffs each wrist with sharp, ratcheting clicks. The cuffs felt like cool wire, almost soft for a minute, not like the rope at all, but Sam started to shake just the same. He had to get away, he had to get away, but sharp spikes poked up from his stomach, because if he couldn’t get away now, he wasn’t going to be able to.
Foster didn’t let Sam go, but his grip loosened and Sam managed to wiggle free. But the grass was slippery and he couldn’t get his balance. He would have fallen but Officer Johnson caught him and hauled him up. “You get the legs this time.”
They carried him to the squad car and Sam kicked and struggled, puffing hard breaths from his nose, not making a sound. What if he yelled for help? Would Dad hear him, would he come? Would the police ask around and find Dad? Would that be worse than getting booked and having his sheet checked? Sam didn’t know, but maybe-
“I’ll tell you my name,” Sam said. “Let me go.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t kicked me,” said Johnson, bluntly. “You’re going downtown and that’ll teach you.”
Johnson opened the back door of the squad car and with a grunt they hefted Sam into the long, slippery back seat and slammed the door behind him. Sam scrambled up and his palms across the vinyl door, but there were no handles, and no door locks, there was no way to roll down the windows even. There was a heavy grill between the front and back seats and as the officers got in, Sam threw himself at the grill, fingers curling through the wire. The cuffs jingled around his wrists.
As Foster revved the engine and popped it into drive, Johnson reached up and slammed the grill with his fist, nearly smashing Sam’s fingers.
“Let go of that and sit back.”
Sam let go and sank into the seat, pressing himself into the cushions as far as he could.
Foster raced along the street, and turned on the siren as the squad car sped up, making Sam’s heart race just as high and just as fast. At the corner, the squad car turned right and headed toward downtown. If they’d gone left, past the hardware store, Sam didn’t know what he would have done. He might have screamed for Dad, except the windows were probably soundproof and Dad wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway.
But he figured that couldn’t let anyone see him in the car. He couldn’t let anyone point at him or notice him, but he was already so high-profile that he could imagine the look Dad would give him and the scowl and the lecture; Sam had them all memorized. But he didn’t cry. He couldn’t cry; the police would probably make fun of him and think they could push him around because he was just a kid.
He sank down in the foot well and pressed himself against the door and tucked his hands up against his chest and pulled up his knees and tried to breathe in and out slowly, one-two, three-four. Like Dad had taught him, and he tried to pretend he was sitting in a shady glen under the mountain laurel trees with Dean and Dad, and Dad was talking in a low calm voice and he and Dean were both concentrating on doing it well, doing it right.
But his teeth were clicking together and he was shaking. He was shaking so hard the cuffs were rattling. He spread his hands a little further apart on his chest, but the cuffs were linked, so there was only so far he could do this. Through the windows he could see the trees whipping past, and hear the siren as it bounced off the buildings and the people and the air and he knew that nobody was going to be able to find him. Not even Dad.
Then the squad car pulled up and stopped and the siren turned off, but the sound was still ringing in Sam’s ears.
“Where’d he go?”
“He’s in the foot well, I think.”
“What the hell?”
“I don’t know, let’s just get him inside and take care of this.”
Sam heard footsteps and the door on the other side opened. Hot air swirled into the air conditioned car, making Sam shiver even harder. He looked at Officer Foster and Officer Foster looked at him.
Then that door was shut, and the door next to him was opened and Officer Johnson stood there.
“Alright kid, let’s make this as easy as we can, okay?”
Johnson was using that voice that sometimes Dad did, the one that said that Dad was at the edge of his patience and was using his last bit of niceness to make Sam do what he wanted him to do. Except this wasn’t Dad and Dean wasn’t here and Sam didn’t owe any obedience to a perfect stranger.
Sam thought for a second. If he could move really fast and make it past Johnson, then he could run as fast as he could and get away. He didn’t know how far it was to the hardware store, or even where it was located, but if he could find the railroad tracks (and those mostly always ran through the center of town), then he could follow them to the hardware store. And Dad would know how to get the cuffs off, though what he was likely to say about Sam getting picked up by the police was, at this point, simply beyond him to imagine.
He thought about it a second too long. Johnson reached in and picked Sam up by the shoulders and turned him around so fast that Sam didn’t have time to think. Foster grabbed his legs and they carried him into the station, a low, concrete building that was connected to the town hall tower that Sam had seen before. He knew where he was, he was oriented, but it was too late.
The officers carried him into the air conditioned building. It felt like everyone was staring, like layers of him were peeling away in the cool air, the eyes on him, the shiny floors, and the pictures of presidents on the wall and flags in the corner, and all at once, they let him go and shoved him into a chair.
He was in an office; the sun was streaming in the wooden-framed windows and there were plants everywhere, and man sat behind the desk. But he wasn’t looking at Sam, he was looking at Foster and Johnson.
“She already called me,” said the man behind the desk. “That woman, I swear-”
“Same as always,” said Johnson. “And here he is, the killer. But don’t let this baby face fool you, Sergeant Moss, he’s already kicked me several times.”
“That why the cuffs?” Sergeant Moss had a grey crew cut, and he filled out his shirt so that his buttons were straining. He talked like people did in Alabama, sort of slow and curly, but the way they talked was deceptive, Dad had said, because it made them sound casual and friendly even when they were doing business and weren’t friendly at all.
“Yeah,” said Foster. “Do you want us to-”
“No, I got it. Just get me the paperwork and I’ll fill it out.”
Foster and Johnson left and closed the door behind them, leaving Sam was shut in with yet another stranger.
The air conditioner whooshed in the dust-filled air, and brought the heavy smell of Sgt. Moss’s after shave, which made Sam want to cough.
“Don’t be scared son,” said Sgt. Moss. “I just need to ask you some questions.”
“’m not scared,” said Sam. He shut his mouth after that because he really didn’t want to be tricked into saying anything. He used both of his hands to move the hair out of his eyes, and as the cuffs clinked against his sore wrists, he settled them in his lap, prepared to wait it out.
Sgt. Moss looked him over, head to toe and nodded to himself. “Okay, then. Mrs. Cooperthwaite said you tried to kill her son, is that true?”
Here was his chance. He could tell his side of the story and clear it all up and then they’d let him go. Except the problem still remained; if he told them who he was, they would check for his sheet and when they found out he didn’t have one, they’d give him one. And Winchester was such a long last name, it would stand out, and they’d find Dad and Dean’s sheets, and Sam couldn’t let that happen.
He just shook his head no, and kept his mouth closed so tightly his lips started to go numb.
“So it was just a little fight, between you and Will? Over, what was it, a soccer ball?”
Sgt. Moss seemed nice, nicer than Officer Foster even, and he was in charge because he had a big office like a principal would.
But Sam knew that a sergeant was different than a principal, so Sam shook his head no again and flexed his fingers in his lap. The sweat drying on his skin felt chilly in the cool air and his jaw throbbed a little where Will had hit him, but he felt fine everywhere else and his feet were free too, so why didn’t he just run? He felt pretty sure the door wasn’t locked behind him.
“You going to say anything, son, like to tell me your name or where your folks are?”
Sam shook his head.
“You ever going to do anything but shake your head at me?”
Sam had to think about that a minute and then nodded, changed his mind, and then shook his head no.
Sgt. Moss picked up a pencil and did that thing that Dean sometimes did with pencils when he was working through a math problem: he put the point on the desk and then slid his fingers down it and the turned the pencil to stand on the eraser and did the motion all over again. Sgt. Moss did this several times and Sam watched him and then realized Sgt. Moss was watching him watching.
“You do realize now, don’t you son, that if you don’t give me any information, that I’m going to be forced to hand you over to Social Services, and they are very likely going to find a place for you in a children’s home or in foster care? And you’re covered with bruises and cuts, son, so I might have to turn you over to them anyway.”
Sam tracked Sgt. Moss’s words in his head and then realized what Sgt. Moss was actually saying: tell me your name or I’ll call Social Services on you, and I might anyway. But if Sam wasn’t going to tell Sgt. Moss his name, he sure as heck wasn’t going to try and explain Dad’s method of teaching his sons not to panic when they were tied up.
Behind him, the door opened. Sam could hear the click click of typewriters and the lighter tick tick of computers, a phone ringing, and someone talking about the water cooler and how it was out of water. Except they said it wuhtah coolah is outta wuhtah.
“Here’s the paperwork-”
Sam flew out of the chair and was going to go right out the door, and race past the water cooler and the phones and the people, but Sam barreled into Johnson and the paperwork flew out of his hands. Johnson picked Sam up, like he had before, but Sam was ready and tucked his head. He wasn’t supposed to bite people anymore, but this was an exception and he was sure Dad would think so, too. His hands were cuffed together, and kicking hadn’t worked, so this was his last option. He bit down hard on the hand that was closest to his mouth.
“For fuck’s sake!” said Johnson, loudly, dropping Sam.
“Holy Christmas,” said Sgt. Moss. “Would you grab him? Don’t be scared of him, he’s just a kid.”
“He just bit me!” Johnson grabbed Sam in a neck lock and yanked back till Sam was pulled against his chest.
“You’ve had your shots, haven’t you?” Sgt. Moss didn’t seem so nice as he looked at Sam with narrowed eyes. “He’s like a feral child or something. Put him in that holding cell and let’s figure out what to do with him. I don’t aim to have Old Lady Cooperthwaite calling me with no arrest record to show her. But I want his parents to come and pick him up, durn it. Get him out of here.”
Sgt. Moss waved Johnson away, and Johnson picked Sam up roughly and carried him through the halls and past everyone. Sam struggled to get away, but Johnson was using one of those holds that Dad had tried to teach Sam only Sam hadn’t listened so now he had no idea what kind of hold it was or how to get out of it.
Johnson carried him through a narrow grey door that buzzed when he opened it and shut quickly behind him. Then after a few steps down a very short corridor, Johnson opened another door, a heavy thick door with a narrow panel of glass in it, and threw Sam to the floor and slammed the door shut.
Sam landed on the shiny floor, smacking so hard on his hip that everything in front of his eyes went black for a second, and pain jagged up his leg. He could only lay there and listen to Johnson locking the door and his footsteps as they went down the corridor. Then the other door buzzed open and then slammed closed behind him.
Sam counted his heartbeats and stayed still until he could take a deep breath without it hurting.
He sat up slowly, breathing through the charley horse on one side. He’d gotten charley horses before and Dean or Dad had always brought him ice to put on it (sometimes a bag of peas if there was no ice), and sometimes Dad would massage his leg a little and urge Sam to walk it off. But Sam could barely get up to do the walking off part, and there was no ice to be had. So he scooted back till his back was against the wall, and tipped his head till it rested on the wall, too, and closed his eyes for a minute and just breathed in and out, one-two, three-four.
When he opened his eyes, his leg still hurt like crazy, and in the fall, he must have jerked his hands because both of his wrists felt cut through, almost all the way to the bone, but when he looked at them, cuffs jingling, they were just cut a little bit, and the skin was raw. Add to that the rope burns on his legs, and he felt like he’d been flayed all over with razor wire, but he had to figure out where he was and find a way to get out of here.
The walls were made of cinderblock that was painted a pale yellow and there weren’t any windows. There was a metal toilet and sink that stuck out of one wall and a desk that seemed like it was nailed to the same wall. At the far end, beneath a high, narrow ceiling light was a pair of bunk beds like the kind he’d seen of pictures of summer camp. It seemed strange to think of someone deciding to put summer camp bunk beds in a jail, but Sam hoped he wouldn’t be here long enough to have to sleep in one. Not without Dean to argue with over who got the top bunk.
(Actual holding cell in DeKalb County Courthouse, Ft. Payne, Alabama)
Trying not to strain his leg, he drew up his knees and put his arms around them, holding on to the links of the cuffs so they wouldn’t bite into his wrists anymore than they already had. Then he sunk his head against his bent knees and told himself that the heat in his eyes wasn’t because he was going to cry, it was because he was tired.
He was tired because it had been a long day and sometimes, after training really hard with Dad, Sam’s eyes got hot, and it meant that he was thirsty. Except if he wanted a drink of water, he’d have to get up and drink it out of the sink that was attached to the toilet, and he just couldn’t make himself do that. Eventually he’d be so thirsty he would have to even though he didn’t want to.
When he felt the hot tears on his thighs, he knew he was crying, but at least there was nobody to see him do it. Didn’t matter anyway, if someone was watching, because neither Dad nor Dean knew where he was and Sam had no idea how to tell them, how to get to them, without setting up one of those red flags Dad was always going on about.
He drew himself up as tightly as he could and cried until he couldn’t cry anymore.
*
Sam heard the key in the door and the rattle of something against the floor in the short hallway. He lifted his head and rubbed his eyes, blinking the salt from his tears from his eyelashes, and all the while his cuffs jingled and bounced against his raw wrists.
When the door was wide open, Officer Johnson came in carrying a tray. He walked all the way in the room and placed the tray on the desk. While he was doing this, Sam tried to get up, because the door was wide open and Johnson’s back was to him. Sam put his hands on the wall and tried to prop himself up till he could stand, but his legs were very stiff and his left hip was throbbing, so he could move only slowly.
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” said Officer Johnson.
Sam froze against the wall as Johnson turned around. He had a bandage on one hand and a sour look on his face.
“There’s about three yards between that open door and the next locked one. Sgt. Moss is off for his dinner break, so you’re stuck with just me here until he gets back and we figure out what to do with you. And you don’t want to piss me off, no, you don’t, or at least not any more than you already have.”
With wide eyes and a thumping heart, Sam stood all the way up, and pressed his back against the wall, fingers curled around the links of the cuffs. He wanted to ask if they’d found Dad yet, or if they could take off the cuffs, but he figured the answer to both of those would be no, and suddenly his chest was all out of air, and he wanted someone he knew to be there with him. Preferably Dean, even if he would only yell at Sam and call him a little bitch and an idiot and anything else he could think of for getting into such trouble. Anything would be better than having Johnson stare at him like he was.
What was it that always happened in those cop shows Dad and Dean liked to watch? The good guy, wrongly imprisoned, was always trapped alone with the bad cop and then the bad cop did mean things, except nobody believed the good guy because he was the prisoner. Did they do that to kids too?
Part 5
Master Fic Post
Sam sat in Dean’s seat at the table, facing the breeze from the open window, and wrote down what they needed. He made sure to include Dean’s favorite cheese (cheddar) and requested fresh peaches for himself. He didn’t dare write down Otter Pops or marshmallow fluff because that would only set Dad off. Then Sam wrote down the dried goods that they needed, which was everything, since they were all out of rice, and the little bin of new potatoes had all spoiled in the heat.
“What are we going to eat for lunch?” asked Sam. He wasn’t complaining, just asking. “I’m starving.”
“Me too,” said Dean, almost under his breath. As he washed and dried and put away the few dishes they’d used, his stomach growled along with Sam’s. “You got that list done?”
Sam chewed on the end of the pencil a little bit and scuffed his bare foot along the wooden floor as he finished the list. Then he sat up and handed the list to Dean. After wiping his damp hands on his t-shirt, Dean took the list and looked at it.
“You forgot spagettios,” said Dean.
Sam thought that Dean was just trying to be nice by mentioning this because he knew they were Sam’s favorites.
“They’re there,” said Sam. He pointed to the bottom of the list.
“Huh,” said Dean. He looked at the list as if thinking about what to add. Then he said, “I’ll show it to him.”
Then without another word, he walked across the floor and out the screen door and down the steps, fast and firm, like he had someplace he needed to be. Sam went up to the screen door to watch.
“Here’s the list, Dad,” said Dean. He held out the list to Dad, who took it and folded it in his hands, like he meant to tuck it into his pocket without reading it.
“Sam’s still hungry, Dad,” said Dean.
Dad just looked at the folded list and Sam wondered if this would be the time, the one time, that Dad decided they needed to learn what deprivation was all about. That was a big word Sam had learned in school and it was a good one all about starving and doing without. But Dad had never made them go hungry, not if he could help it; he always made sure they ate and he was always talking about how an army couldn’t function on an empty stomach.
Dad looked up and Sam knew that he could be seen through the screen door, or at least his outline could.
“Dean’s still hungry, too,” said Sam, boldly, through the screen door. He wasn’t trying to lay blame by including Dean, it was just that Dad might care more if he knew that Dean was hungry, too. Sam was about to add the part about armies and stomachs when Dad shoved the list in his back pocket.
“Me too,” Dad said. “I had just about figured we ought to go out to breakfast before we all ate our own arms.”
Sam’s eyebrows shot up. Breakfast out was almost unheard of, and while it wasn’t a whole day off, by the time they got back from breakfast and grocery shopping, the morning would be long gone.
“Get your shoes and socks,” Dad said. “I’ll change my shirt, and we can all listen to the carburetor on the way.”
Dean raced back up the stairs and Sam went to grab his sneakers which were under the bed with the socks still in. Dean came into the bedroom and scrambled for a clean t-shirt, and bumped into Sam as they tried to get through the bedroom doorway at the same time. By the time they came out, Dad was waiting for them, jingling the keys in his pocket.
*
Dad drove them through the bright, hot morning, down the side of Lookout Mountain. Sam leaned out the back window on the passenger side and took in huge breaths of the fresh, moving air as they sank ever lower under the shady green trees. Dad was about to take a right at the intersection where the peach stand was, then he stopped to get directions for a good place nearby for breakfast.
Sam looked at Dean and smiled. Dad knew that there was a breakfast buffet at the Mentone Inn in town. But the last time they’d eaten there, which had been when they’d first arrived in Mentone, the food hadn’t been very good. Besides, Dean didn’t like buffet breakfasts, which Dad probably remembered.
“You want Rafferty’s,” said the man at the peach stand. “Just past the crossroads but before you get to the highway.”
As Dad nodded and pulled out of the dirt lot, Sam asked, “Dad, can we get peaches on the way back?”
“Sure,” said Dad. “As long as you remember to share them with your brother.”
*
As Dean put away the groceries and supplies, Sam sat at the kitchen table and, and with a contentedly full stomach, ate his second peach. Breakfast had been perfect, and he’d been able to order exactly what he wanted: pancakes and bacon with maple syrup over everything and Dad hadn’t said one word about it. Sam had even let Dean have a piece of his bacon.
And afterwards, on the way home, they’d gone to the peach stand as well as the grocery store; the cupboards were bursting. It would be ages before they ran out of anything, even though Dad had glared at Sam when they passed the Otter Pops display in the frozen foods aisle, as if daring him to ask for some.
Sam wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and threw the peach pits in the trash. As he moved around Dean and washed his sticky fingers at the sink, he heard Dad come in the door from where he’d been working on the car.
“Dean, you’ll stay here and give this floor a good sweep and scrub; Sam you’ll be with me.”
Sam couldn’t figure out if this was a good thing or not.
He didn’t like scrubbing floors all that much, but he didn’t want to go anywhere alone with Dad. Something bad always happened.
He didn’t know what Dad wanted with just him. Maybe some special training. He didn’t like that because then he would be the sole focus of all of Dad’s glaring attention, and Dad yelled a lot more when it was just Sam. When it was Sam and Dean, Dad had to divide his attention, but this, whatever it was, probably wasn’t going to be any fun.
Dad jingled the keys to the car. “C’mon Sam, get a clean shirt on, and let’s go. Hustle.”
“Where are we going?” asked Sam. He went into the bedroom as he asked this and slipped on a clean shirt. When he came out, Dad was giving him the maybe-this-is-a-need-to-know-situation expression so maybe Sam would be forced to sit in the car and wonder till they arrived at wherever they were going. But Dad’s glance flicked over him and he seemed to relent.
“Ft. Payne,” said Dad. “I have more phone calls I need to make.”
This was worse than one-on-one training. Sam would rather do a zillion laps or a whole day of rope training with just Dad than to go to Ft. Payne. Even the name of the place sounded bad.
“Isn’t it Dean’s turn to go?” Sam didn’t mind if Dean went this time, and it was his turn, after all.
“I decide whose turn it is, Sam, not you,” said Dad.
Sam opened his mouth. He was going to say something like, no, or I don’t want to go, but Dad’s gaze remained steady and Sam had the feeling that Dad wasn’t going to budge on this one. Or maybe he was testing Sam to see how obedient he could be.
“Have fun, Sam,” said Dean, as he walked past him on the way out of the door to put one of the kitchen chairs on the porch.
Sam watched Dean carry the chair out and set it down, and then come bounding back in to get the rest of what could be moved for the sweep and mop job.
“Now, Sam,” said Dad, as he turned and walked out the door.
Sam glanced at Dean, but there was no sympathy there, and Sam could bet that Dean was jealous of Sam right about now and that Dean would give anything to be in Sam’s shoes. That was because Dad liked Dean and the two of them lived for all of this. Well, Sam didn’t. The drive would alone be awful and now he really didn’t want to go.
“Sam!” Dad’s bellow came from the driveway. “When I said now, I didn’t mean tomorrow.”
“Better move,” said Dean in his best older brother voice. “You don’t want to make him mad.”
“He’s already mad,” said Sam, trying not to let his frown turn into a pout because if Dean saw it he’d tease Sam and call him a baby.
“Sam!”
Sam hurried out and down the stairs. Dad was in the car, gunning the engine a little to express his displeasure. The engine already smelled hot under the baking sun.
Hurrying, Sam scrambled in the passenger seat and attempted to buckle himself in as Dad backed the car up and drove down the dusty gravel lane to the main road.
“Make sure that door is locked,” said Dad.
Sam reached back and tapped the button down with the heel of his hand and fiddled with his seatbelt. By the time he was settled, they were already at the bottom of Lookout Mountain. The peach stand was open as the drove past, but Dad didn’t slow down or ask if Sam wanted more peaches to eat along the way, he just drove as fast as he could because he had some place to be and there was nothing for Sam to do but be dragged along for the ride.
(The dusty, gravel road that leads away from the cabin.)
Sam took a quick peek at Dad. Maybe it wasn’t Sam he was mad at. The speedometer already said 60 even though they’d just gotten on the highway. And Dad was focused on the road and his driving and not on Sam at all. Maybe he was mad about all the phone calls he had to make. Maybe. Sam didn’t want to ask or find out. He decided he would make himself small and silent.
*
As the hardware store in Ft. Payne loomed into view, Sam sank back in the passenger seat and didn’t say anything to Dad. Dad hadn’t said anything except lock that door the whole way, so that was fair, wasn’t it?
Dad parked the car in the lot and Sam got out, careful not to slam the door too hard or Dad would yell at him. He felt as though he was hiding in his own shadow, only a handbreadth away from getting in trouble. He felt wound up tightly, like the cocked spring of a cross bow, the bolt ready to fly at any moment.
He didn’t like feeling this way. It was one thing to try and be good for Dean’s sake, but Dad didn’t care and would never notice. And anyway, Dad’d be more likely to find fault in Sam as anything else.
He trailed after Dad across the narrow parking lot. As they got to the door, Sam opened his mouth. “Dad-”
“In, Sam.” Dad held the door open and the bell jangled as he gestured to Sam to go in first.
As Sam hurried past Dad, he said, “I only wanted to know how long-”
It was a reasonable question, but of course Dad didn’t want to tell him anything.
“It takes as long as it takes.”
The door jangled again as it shut behind Sam and Dad and once again, as the cool, rushing air of the store swept over his skin, Sam was enveloped right away by the smell of oil and the bright smile of Russ. Russ came up to Dad like they were old friends and he shook Dad’s hand, taking it in his two hands, gripping it tightly like he’d just as soon be hugging Dad.
“Welcome back, John,” he said. He even, when he finally let go of Dad’s hands, put one hand on Dad’s arm to pull him toward the office. “You brought your boy, Dean, again, that’s nice. My wife will be bringing fresh homemade donuts by - hopefully you’ll still be here by then. They’re not to be missed.”
Dad cast a little grin Sam’s way, but he didn’t correct Russ outright. All he said was, “Appreciate the offer; Sam loves donuts, but we’ll see.”
Which meant that Dad was planning to be long gone by the time those donuts arrived and probably on purpose just so Sam couldn’t have any.
Russ smiled at Sam as he led Dad away, but Sam couldn’t even pretend to have any manners; he just glared instead, and he didn’t even care if Russ told Dad.
The door to the office shut behind Dad. Russ came back to the front and went to the cash register where a customer was waiting to be helped. Sam ignored them and went straight to the bin where the large tacks were kept.
They were still as shiny as ever. Each tack was about as big around as his thumb, and he wanted to see how many he could hold in the palm of his hand without getting poked. He managed to get eight in hand before the ninth one stabbed him.
He dumped the tacks back in the bin and sucked on his finger for a second as he trailed his hand along the tops of each bin and peeked in to see if there was anything new or interesting. But nothing had changed, every bin was filled with shiny, oily things, the same as last time.
Idly, he wandered to the back of the store where the huge coils of thick rope and stacks of folded, green canvas sat on sturdy shelves, which were arranged on either side of the office. Sam peeked into the large window and saw that Dad wasn’t on the phone; he was writing on a piece of paper. The overhead lights gleamed off his dark hair and after a moment of being watched, he must have felt Sam there because he lifted his chin and beckoned Sam to come in.
Sam opened the door and walked as quickly as he could over to the desk and he didn’t know what he was going to say until he said it.
“Can I go to the park? I promise I’ll stay there.”
Dad looked at him for a minute, still poised to go back to writing, as though he meant to do that and not answer Sam. His eyes were shadowed in the overhead light and he really did look like he was going to say no. He had that expression that said that what he was about to do was going to be for Sam’s own good. Like he was going to say no to such a simple pleasure to teach Sam a lesson in self-denial.
“Sam.”
Sam never begged with Dad because it never worked. It sometimes worked with Dean, depending on how bad Sam had pissed Dean off, and sometimes in spite of that. But with Dad, never. Still, Sam had to get out of the hardware store or go crazy. There was nothing to play with that wasn’t sharp. And it was possible, just possible, that there were kids playing in the park, and maybe they were even playing soccer.
“I won’t kick the ball so good, so nobody will notice me, I promise.”
Something dark flickered across Dad’s face. Sam thought about offering never to ask to play soccer again if he could just do it today, but that wasn’t going to work because the second Sam got the chance, he would play and kick the ball as good as he knew how.
“I just want to play with the other kids, please Dad? Please?”
He almost did the face, the one that could usually make Dean give in and beg for Sam to stop with the face, but that would probably just push Dad too far and he would say no on principle.
Dad looked down at his paper and wrote something and the silence stretched on till just when Sam was about to say something, Dad nodded, almost to himself.
“Fine,” said Dad. “The park and nowhere else. I do not want to have to go looking for you, understand?”
Dad looked up but Sam didn’t have to even see the glare to get it. Dad meant it, but Sam was out of the office and running along the shiny linoleum floor before Dad could say another word.
*
Sam rushed out from under the green trees, the leaves separating like curtains as he stepped out into the blazing sun. The park was there and as green as ever, but there were no kids playing, and Sam figured that was maybe because it was so hot. Not that had ever stopped Dad from making Sam and Dean train, but here, all the doors were closed against the heat and except for the low hum of the nearby power lines, there wasn’t any sound or movement.
He walked onto the grass anyway and kicked at some thick, green tufts that might have been what had marked the foul line the last time he’d been there, playing with those kids and having fun. He even thought he could see the faint outline of where the t-shirt goal posts had been on his team’s side, but that was probably his imagination.
What wasn’t his imagination was what he saw: the flash of white and black, shaped exactly like a soccer ball.
He hurried across the grass, shivering all over, his heart thumping, because finder’s keepers, right? The ball was his, except for the fact that he had no idea how to make Dad let him keep it so he and Dean could play with it.
The ball was in a depression at the edge of the park, something that must have been a ditch for water but which now was merely a long hollow place. It looked like someone had left the ball out or had kicked and couldn’t find as his mom had called him in to supper.
Sam bent over and picked up the ball and tossed it in his hands. Even though he wasn’t in a game at the moment, he still felt like some invisible referee was going to call a foul because he was touching the ball with his hands. He tossed it high in the air and then caught it, smiling as it smacked loudly in his palms.
“Hey!”
Sam looked in the direction of the voice. The kid from before, the same kid who had invited him to play, was walking quickly toward Sam. Behind the kid, a screen door slowly swung shut on one of the houses.
“That’s my ball,” said the kid, all sweaty and mad as he marched up to Sam.
“Well, I found it,” said Sam. After dealing with Dad so many times, standing up to another kid was easy.
“Well, give it, it’s mine.”
“Finder’s keepers,” said Sam, drawing back, holding the ball out of the kid’s reach.
“Give it back,” said the kid, reaching.
“Hey, maybe we could-” began Sam. He was about to suggest that they place some soccer only it would be a pretend game because there were only two of them. Still, they could kick the ball around and run and chase each other across the open green grass and under the brassy, blue sky and he’d be doing exactly what he said he’d be doing when Dad picked him up. And maybe, just maybe, Dad would see how much fun Sam was having and reconsider and let Sam play on a team next year.
But the kid came up and tried to grab the ball out of Sam’s grasp. Any thought of sharing or offering to give the ball back if they kicked it around some first went right out of Sam’s head.
“I found it and I’m keeping it.” Sam held the ball high over his head. He and the kid were the same height, but Sam had slightly longer arms, so this was easy.
The kid jumped for the ball and banged right into Sam. Sam almost lost his footing on the slippery grass, but he shifted his weight back on one foot. This sent the kid tumbling to the ground and when he got up, he was mad. His face was red from the heat and his hair was sticking straight out from his ears.
“I said give it!” said the kid. He bunched his hands into fists and lowered his shoulders, ready to charge.
“And I said no.”
That’s when the kid punched Sam. At first Sam didn’t realize what had happened, because the punch was a lot softer than any punch Dean had given him; it almost wasn’t a real punch at all. But it sparked something in him just the same and now he was mad too.
Sam easily blocked the next punch with his arm and could hear Dad in his head saying keep your arms up like I told you. But then the ball flew of Sam’s hand and he was off balance trying to catch it when the kid smacked him in the jaw really hard. Sam knew he had to show the kid who was who here because that ball belonged to him now. He’d found it. Plus he could imagine Dean’s teasing if he ever found out that Sam had been bested by someone who was only a little heavier than Sam.
Still, without the ball in his hands, Sam could move more easily. As the kid continued to flail, Sam angled his body to present a narrower target, pulled his right hand back, and slammed into the kid’s chin with the palm of his hand. He was about to add a quick snap-kick that Dean had taught him, but the kid’s eyes rolled up in his head and he fell back flat on the grass with blood pooling from his mouth. Then he lay absolutely still, white as a sheet.
Was he breathing? Had Sam killed him?
Guilt swamped through him like a bad chill. He realized too late that he’d hit the kid as hard as he would have hit Dean or Dad during a sparring session, that he’d used the same punch Dad had taught him to use when you wanted to simply take the other guy out and not mess around. He’d done it like it had been second nature to him. Dad would be proud, at least Sam thought he would be about the technique. Fighting with some kid over a lost and found soccer ball would probably bring a totally different reaction.
Sam dropped to his knees and touched the kid’s face. It was still warm and his chest rose and fell softly, so he wasn’t dead. Feeling a little better, Sam patted the kid’s face.
“Hey, kid,” he said.
The kid blinked, eyelashes fluttering as some color came back into his face. “Ow,” he said. He reached up to touch his mouth. When his hand came away red, he made a face and then rolled to the side to spit out the blood.
“You okay?” asked Sam. “Can you get up?” He was starting to hear a siren in the distance coming closer, and a sense of haste was growing in his stomach.
He held out his hand and the kid took it, but when Sam started to pull, he heard the siren again, even louder now. Then there was the sound of a door, slamming hard.
“Get away from him!”
Sam looked up. A woman ran at him in a house dress and slippers, her fluffy blonde hair flying behind her as she came closer. Her mouth was open and she was screeching.
“You killed him, I’ve called the cops-”
She was right on Sam now and threw herself practically on top of the kid, mashing him against her chest and smearing blood everywhere.
“You killed him, you animal!” She rocked and cried at the same time and hugged the kid close, shrieking. “Oh, my poor baby” over and over.
Meanwhile, the kid struggled for air. “Mom, let me go, I’m fine.” The kid pushed at her arms.
There was blood now all over the mom’s arms and her flowered blouse and on the kid’s face; Sam didn’t know moms were like that. But seeing as the kid was probably in good hands and having a very scared feeling about those sirens and her threat about the cops, Sam stood up. He figured he ought to head back to the hardware store anyway, before Dad came looking for him and found Sam being accused of trying to kill someone’s baby.
But just as Sam held out his hand, he heard footfalls behind him. When he turned around, thinking it was Dad, he was suddenly and quickly grasped by two policemen. They had him by each arm and their hands were hard and sure.
They turned him to face the mom and the kid.
“This the boy who attacked Will, Mrs. Cooperthwaite?”
“Boy?” Mrs. Cooperthwaite asked, screeching. “He’s a killer, and he nearly cracked my little boy’s jaw; I saw it from my window.”
“Will looks pretty alive to me,” said one of the officers, a little dryly.
Sam looked up at him; his badge said his name was Ed Foster. He looked fresh and young under the severe blue hat and looked at the woman with direct, calm eyes. Like Dad or Dean would have done.
“It’s only by a miracle!” she shouted. She patted Will’s face, messing the blood into smears that turned brown as it dried. “Can you talk, sweetie? Tell these nice officers-”
“I said I’m okay, Mom,” said Will. He struggled to pull away and sit up on his own. “Let me up.”
With one monstrous move, Mrs. Cooperthwaite got to her feet, still clutching her boy to her bosom, holding him close at her side.
“He might be alive, but he’ll be traumatized for life!”
Will rolled his eyes at Sam and Sam realized that the officers could probably see his expression too. Will wasn’t traumatized in the least, but Sam felt the heat on the back of his neck as his mind raced to find a way to get out of it before Dad showed up.
“Just boys fighting, Mrs. Cooperthwaite,” said Officer Foster.
“It’s what boys do,” said the other officer, whose badge said his name was Harold Johnson. He was a little older and had dark hair and a mustache and his voice was deeper. “Now, I suggest that we tell these boys to shake hands and let them get back to playing soccer.”
This sounded like a great idea to Sam. He figured if he and Will got into another fight over the ball, he’d pull his punches and make it a more equal fight. Not that Dad was likely to appreciate it in any case; the enemy was the enemy after all. Except the way Will was making faces at Sam, bloody mouth and all, made Sam think that Will wasn’t really the enemy. The mother was, but not the kid. Dean would probably agree with him, if he were here.
“No!” said Mrs. Cooperthwaite. She pointed her finger like a spear at Sam. “I called 911 because his hooligan was killing my son. And he would have too, if I hadn’t stopped him.”
“I wasn’t going to kill him-” began Sam, but Officer Foster tightened his grip on Sam’s arm and Sam snapped his mouth shut.
“I demand that you arrest him!” Mrs. Cooperthwaite said, increasing her squeeze on Will and making him gurgle for air. “I know my rights, I’m a prominent citizen and my taxes pay your salary. So arrest him right now or I’ll see you both get fired. My husband knows the mayor, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Sam felt both of the officers stiffened at this.
“Okay, Mrs. Cooperthwaite,” said Officer Johnson. “We’ll take care of it.”
Take care of it? What did that mean? What would Dad say?
“And I’ll check later, and I better see an arrest record or you’ll hear about it from my husband!” Mrs. Cooperthwaite grabbed her boy by the arm and stomped off towards the houses.
Sam figured that once she was out of earshot that the officers would let him go. He figured wrong.
“Let’s get this over with,” said Officer Johnson. He looked down at Sam. “We’re going to take you to the police station.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Officer Foster. “We can call your folks from the squad car and let them know where you are so they can pick up.”
Sam looked up at each one of them. Both of them had guns and neither one of them had let him go. It was going to be hard to stay in the park like Dad told him to if the officers wanted to really take him to the station. Sam knew what would happen there. They’d book him, which wasn’t about any book, it was about the paperwork they’d do. And then they’d take Sam’s fingerprints and then they’d put it on the wires.
That’s what all the cop shows did, but it didn’t work the way Sam first thought it did. He’d asked Dean and Dean had told him that it was a way for police stations to talk to other police stations and authorities to see if you had any “priors” on your “sheet.” Which wasn’t like a bed sheet at all, it was a piece of paper with all the crimes you’d ever committed on it.
And while Sam figured that he didn’t have a “sheet,” maybe Dad did and maybe Dean did too, because both of them did things like dig up graves and break into places, and Sam knew all that was against the law. And maybe there wasn’t just “sheets” on both of them, but also a big red stamp on the top that said Guilty or Wanted or something like that that would alert whoever Dad always said was looking for them. Maybe even the FBI.
Sam felt cold all over.
Foster let go of Sam and gave him a little pat. “This won’t be so bad,” he said.
Johnson turned him around, still gripping hard, and the three of them started walking towards the police car. The engine was still running, and the red and blue lights on the top were rolling lazily around and around.
“What’s your name, kid? Do you live around here?”
“No,” said Sam. He wiped his free hand on his shirt. “I have to go now.”
“You’re not going anywhere, kid.”
Sam twisted his body to try and break free, but it didn’t do any good. Officer Johnson was strong, as strong as Dad.
“Maybe we can just take him home and fill out the paperwork later,” said Officer Foster.
Officer Johnson eyed Sam, his eyes thoughtful. “Maybe,” he said. “Tell us your name, kid. Tell us where you live so we can take you home.”
Sam knew that if he told them where Dad was and they took him back to the hardware store, that Dad would be mad. He might even give Sam a whipping for fighting over a soccer ball because he never liked the attention those kinds of fights brought. The whipping would be bad. Dad might even use a switch this time.
But worse than that, it would bring Dad into someone’s notice. Dad had just told Sam this was bad and Sam knew why. Dad broke the law all the time and if they arrested him, Dean and Sam would be taken away by Social Services. Sam would be placed in foster care, but Dean was too old for that and would be taken to a place Dean had told him about, Juvie Hall. It sounded bad, and though Dean had bragged that he could tough it out if he had to, Sam didn’t want Dean in a place like that.
“Tell us your name, kid, and it’ll be okay.”
“No,” said Sam, dragging his feet. He shut his mouth tight and shook his head. He couldn’t give them his first name or his last name or anything because they would ask around and find out who they all were and then they would take Dean-
“That’s enough, kid, let’s go.”
Officer Johnson hefted his hand on Sam’s upper arm, probably to tighten his grasp and when Sam felt it, he shifted low and got away and started running as fast as he could. It was towards the police car, towards the flashing lights, and it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do but it threw the officers off balance enough for Sam to get his chance and sprint away to freedom.
But only for a minute. Officer Foster was young and fast and caught up and grabbed Sam in a bear hug from behind and lifted Sam clean off the ground.
Officer Johnson came up and tried to grab Sam’s legs. “Just give us your name, kid, and we can make this a whole lot of easy.”
Johnson was close enough and his grasp was loose enough and Sam lifted both of his feet and stomped on Officer Johnson’s chest, leaving two grass-stained, feet-shaped marks. Officer Johnson grunted and was almost shoved off balance. Then Sam kicked him again, hard, in the shoulder, and twisted in Officer Foster’s arms.
Officer Johnson stepped back and adjusted his hat; his face was hard. “Lower him down,” he said. “You’re not helping by holding him like that.”
Officer Foster lowered Sam, and Sam squirmed as hard as he could but the officer didn’t let him go. Sam kicked backwards and it felt like he’d hit solid bone.
“Ouch, damnit!”
“Here, I’ll get him.” Johnson reached into his back pocket to pull out a pair of shiny handcuffs. The smell of well-oiled metal whapped Sam in the face.
“Do we need those?” asked Foster, his voice loud in Sam’s ear as he hung on to Sam.
“We do, unless you want to sit in the back seat and hold him like that all the way back to the station.”
Sam rocked back on one foot and kicked Johnson hard in the thigh.
Johnson grunted again, and any sense of kindness was completely gone from his face as he looked at Sam. His eyes glittered. “That settles it,” he said.
He pulled Sam’s wrists together in one hand and slipped the cuffs each wrist with sharp, ratcheting clicks. The cuffs felt like cool wire, almost soft for a minute, not like the rope at all, but Sam started to shake just the same. He had to get away, he had to get away, but sharp spikes poked up from his stomach, because if he couldn’t get away now, he wasn’t going to be able to.
Foster didn’t let Sam go, but his grip loosened and Sam managed to wiggle free. But the grass was slippery and he couldn’t get his balance. He would have fallen but Officer Johnson caught him and hauled him up. “You get the legs this time.”
They carried him to the squad car and Sam kicked and struggled, puffing hard breaths from his nose, not making a sound. What if he yelled for help? Would Dad hear him, would he come? Would the police ask around and find Dad? Would that be worse than getting booked and having his sheet checked? Sam didn’t know, but maybe-
“I’ll tell you my name,” Sam said. “Let me go.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t kicked me,” said Johnson, bluntly. “You’re going downtown and that’ll teach you.”
Johnson opened the back door of the squad car and with a grunt they hefted Sam into the long, slippery back seat and slammed the door behind him. Sam scrambled up and his palms across the vinyl door, but there were no handles, and no door locks, there was no way to roll down the windows even. There was a heavy grill between the front and back seats and as the officers got in, Sam threw himself at the grill, fingers curling through the wire. The cuffs jingled around his wrists.
As Foster revved the engine and popped it into drive, Johnson reached up and slammed the grill with his fist, nearly smashing Sam’s fingers.
“Let go of that and sit back.”
Sam let go and sank into the seat, pressing himself into the cushions as far as he could.
Foster raced along the street, and turned on the siren as the squad car sped up, making Sam’s heart race just as high and just as fast. At the corner, the squad car turned right and headed toward downtown. If they’d gone left, past the hardware store, Sam didn’t know what he would have done. He might have screamed for Dad, except the windows were probably soundproof and Dad wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway.
But he figured that couldn’t let anyone see him in the car. He couldn’t let anyone point at him or notice him, but he was already so high-profile that he could imagine the look Dad would give him and the scowl and the lecture; Sam had them all memorized. But he didn’t cry. He couldn’t cry; the police would probably make fun of him and think they could push him around because he was just a kid.
He sank down in the foot well and pressed himself against the door and tucked his hands up against his chest and pulled up his knees and tried to breathe in and out slowly, one-two, three-four. Like Dad had taught him, and he tried to pretend he was sitting in a shady glen under the mountain laurel trees with Dean and Dad, and Dad was talking in a low calm voice and he and Dean were both concentrating on doing it well, doing it right.
But his teeth were clicking together and he was shaking. He was shaking so hard the cuffs were rattling. He spread his hands a little further apart on his chest, but the cuffs were linked, so there was only so far he could do this. Through the windows he could see the trees whipping past, and hear the siren as it bounced off the buildings and the people and the air and he knew that nobody was going to be able to find him. Not even Dad.
Then the squad car pulled up and stopped and the siren turned off, but the sound was still ringing in Sam’s ears.
“Where’d he go?”
“He’s in the foot well, I think.”
“What the hell?”
“I don’t know, let’s just get him inside and take care of this.”
Sam heard footsteps and the door on the other side opened. Hot air swirled into the air conditioned car, making Sam shiver even harder. He looked at Officer Foster and Officer Foster looked at him.
Then that door was shut, and the door next to him was opened and Officer Johnson stood there.
“Alright kid, let’s make this as easy as we can, okay?”
Johnson was using that voice that sometimes Dad did, the one that said that Dad was at the edge of his patience and was using his last bit of niceness to make Sam do what he wanted him to do. Except this wasn’t Dad and Dean wasn’t here and Sam didn’t owe any obedience to a perfect stranger.
Sam thought for a second. If he could move really fast and make it past Johnson, then he could run as fast as he could and get away. He didn’t know how far it was to the hardware store, or even where it was located, but if he could find the railroad tracks (and those mostly always ran through the center of town), then he could follow them to the hardware store. And Dad would know how to get the cuffs off, though what he was likely to say about Sam getting picked up by the police was, at this point, simply beyond him to imagine.
He thought about it a second too long. Johnson reached in and picked Sam up by the shoulders and turned him around so fast that Sam didn’t have time to think. Foster grabbed his legs and they carried him into the station, a low, concrete building that was connected to the town hall tower that Sam had seen before. He knew where he was, he was oriented, but it was too late.
The officers carried him into the air conditioned building. It felt like everyone was staring, like layers of him were peeling away in the cool air, the eyes on him, the shiny floors, and the pictures of presidents on the wall and flags in the corner, and all at once, they let him go and shoved him into a chair.
He was in an office; the sun was streaming in the wooden-framed windows and there were plants everywhere, and man sat behind the desk. But he wasn’t looking at Sam, he was looking at Foster and Johnson.
“She already called me,” said the man behind the desk. “That woman, I swear-”
“Same as always,” said Johnson. “And here he is, the killer. But don’t let this baby face fool you, Sergeant Moss, he’s already kicked me several times.”
“That why the cuffs?” Sergeant Moss had a grey crew cut, and he filled out his shirt so that his buttons were straining. He talked like people did in Alabama, sort of slow and curly, but the way they talked was deceptive, Dad had said, because it made them sound casual and friendly even when they were doing business and weren’t friendly at all.
“Yeah,” said Foster. “Do you want us to-”
“No, I got it. Just get me the paperwork and I’ll fill it out.”
Foster and Johnson left and closed the door behind them, leaving Sam was shut in with yet another stranger.
The air conditioner whooshed in the dust-filled air, and brought the heavy smell of Sgt. Moss’s after shave, which made Sam want to cough.
“Don’t be scared son,” said Sgt. Moss. “I just need to ask you some questions.”
“’m not scared,” said Sam. He shut his mouth after that because he really didn’t want to be tricked into saying anything. He used both of his hands to move the hair out of his eyes, and as the cuffs clinked against his sore wrists, he settled them in his lap, prepared to wait it out.
Sgt. Moss looked him over, head to toe and nodded to himself. “Okay, then. Mrs. Cooperthwaite said you tried to kill her son, is that true?”
Here was his chance. He could tell his side of the story and clear it all up and then they’d let him go. Except the problem still remained; if he told them who he was, they would check for his sheet and when they found out he didn’t have one, they’d give him one. And Winchester was such a long last name, it would stand out, and they’d find Dad and Dean’s sheets, and Sam couldn’t let that happen.
He just shook his head no, and kept his mouth closed so tightly his lips started to go numb.
“So it was just a little fight, between you and Will? Over, what was it, a soccer ball?”
Sgt. Moss seemed nice, nicer than Officer Foster even, and he was in charge because he had a big office like a principal would.
But Sam knew that a sergeant was different than a principal, so Sam shook his head no again and flexed his fingers in his lap. The sweat drying on his skin felt chilly in the cool air and his jaw throbbed a little where Will had hit him, but he felt fine everywhere else and his feet were free too, so why didn’t he just run? He felt pretty sure the door wasn’t locked behind him.
“You going to say anything, son, like to tell me your name or where your folks are?”
Sam shook his head.
“You ever going to do anything but shake your head at me?”
Sam had to think about that a minute and then nodded, changed his mind, and then shook his head no.
Sgt. Moss picked up a pencil and did that thing that Dean sometimes did with pencils when he was working through a math problem: he put the point on the desk and then slid his fingers down it and the turned the pencil to stand on the eraser and did the motion all over again. Sgt. Moss did this several times and Sam watched him and then realized Sgt. Moss was watching him watching.
“You do realize now, don’t you son, that if you don’t give me any information, that I’m going to be forced to hand you over to Social Services, and they are very likely going to find a place for you in a children’s home or in foster care? And you’re covered with bruises and cuts, son, so I might have to turn you over to them anyway.”
Sam tracked Sgt. Moss’s words in his head and then realized what Sgt. Moss was actually saying: tell me your name or I’ll call Social Services on you, and I might anyway. But if Sam wasn’t going to tell Sgt. Moss his name, he sure as heck wasn’t going to try and explain Dad’s method of teaching his sons not to panic when they were tied up.
Behind him, the door opened. Sam could hear the click click of typewriters and the lighter tick tick of computers, a phone ringing, and someone talking about the water cooler and how it was out of water. Except they said it wuhtah coolah is outta wuhtah.
“Here’s the paperwork-”
Sam flew out of the chair and was going to go right out the door, and race past the water cooler and the phones and the people, but Sam barreled into Johnson and the paperwork flew out of his hands. Johnson picked Sam up, like he had before, but Sam was ready and tucked his head. He wasn’t supposed to bite people anymore, but this was an exception and he was sure Dad would think so, too. His hands were cuffed together, and kicking hadn’t worked, so this was his last option. He bit down hard on the hand that was closest to his mouth.
“For fuck’s sake!” said Johnson, loudly, dropping Sam.
“Holy Christmas,” said Sgt. Moss. “Would you grab him? Don’t be scared of him, he’s just a kid.”
“He just bit me!” Johnson grabbed Sam in a neck lock and yanked back till Sam was pulled against his chest.
“You’ve had your shots, haven’t you?” Sgt. Moss didn’t seem so nice as he looked at Sam with narrowed eyes. “He’s like a feral child or something. Put him in that holding cell and let’s figure out what to do with him. I don’t aim to have Old Lady Cooperthwaite calling me with no arrest record to show her. But I want his parents to come and pick him up, durn it. Get him out of here.”
Sgt. Moss waved Johnson away, and Johnson picked Sam up roughly and carried him through the halls and past everyone. Sam struggled to get away, but Johnson was using one of those holds that Dad had tried to teach Sam only Sam hadn’t listened so now he had no idea what kind of hold it was or how to get out of it.
Johnson carried him through a narrow grey door that buzzed when he opened it and shut quickly behind him. Then after a few steps down a very short corridor, Johnson opened another door, a heavy thick door with a narrow panel of glass in it, and threw Sam to the floor and slammed the door shut.
Sam landed on the shiny floor, smacking so hard on his hip that everything in front of his eyes went black for a second, and pain jagged up his leg. He could only lay there and listen to Johnson locking the door and his footsteps as they went down the corridor. Then the other door buzzed open and then slammed closed behind him.
Sam counted his heartbeats and stayed still until he could take a deep breath without it hurting.
He sat up slowly, breathing through the charley horse on one side. He’d gotten charley horses before and Dean or Dad had always brought him ice to put on it (sometimes a bag of peas if there was no ice), and sometimes Dad would massage his leg a little and urge Sam to walk it off. But Sam could barely get up to do the walking off part, and there was no ice to be had. So he scooted back till his back was against the wall, and tipped his head till it rested on the wall, too, and closed his eyes for a minute and just breathed in and out, one-two, three-four.
When he opened his eyes, his leg still hurt like crazy, and in the fall, he must have jerked his hands because both of his wrists felt cut through, almost all the way to the bone, but when he looked at them, cuffs jingling, they were just cut a little bit, and the skin was raw. Add to that the rope burns on his legs, and he felt like he’d been flayed all over with razor wire, but he had to figure out where he was and find a way to get out of here.
The walls were made of cinderblock that was painted a pale yellow and there weren’t any windows. There was a metal toilet and sink that stuck out of one wall and a desk that seemed like it was nailed to the same wall. At the far end, beneath a high, narrow ceiling light was a pair of bunk beds like the kind he’d seen of pictures of summer camp. It seemed strange to think of someone deciding to put summer camp bunk beds in a jail, but Sam hoped he wouldn’t be here long enough to have to sleep in one. Not without Dean to argue with over who got the top bunk.
(Actual holding cell in DeKalb County Courthouse, Ft. Payne, Alabama)
Trying not to strain his leg, he drew up his knees and put his arms around them, holding on to the links of the cuffs so they wouldn’t bite into his wrists anymore than they already had. Then he sunk his head against his bent knees and told himself that the heat in his eyes wasn’t because he was going to cry, it was because he was tired.
He was tired because it had been a long day and sometimes, after training really hard with Dad, Sam’s eyes got hot, and it meant that he was thirsty. Except if he wanted a drink of water, he’d have to get up and drink it out of the sink that was attached to the toilet, and he just couldn’t make himself do that. Eventually he’d be so thirsty he would have to even though he didn’t want to.
When he felt the hot tears on his thighs, he knew he was crying, but at least there was nobody to see him do it. Didn’t matter anyway, if someone was watching, because neither Dad nor Dean knew where he was and Sam had no idea how to tell them, how to get to them, without setting up one of those red flags Dad was always going on about.
He drew himself up as tightly as he could and cried until he couldn’t cry anymore.
*
Sam heard the key in the door and the rattle of something against the floor in the short hallway. He lifted his head and rubbed his eyes, blinking the salt from his tears from his eyelashes, and all the while his cuffs jingled and bounced against his raw wrists.
When the door was wide open, Officer Johnson came in carrying a tray. He walked all the way in the room and placed the tray on the desk. While he was doing this, Sam tried to get up, because the door was wide open and Johnson’s back was to him. Sam put his hands on the wall and tried to prop himself up till he could stand, but his legs were very stiff and his left hip was throbbing, so he could move only slowly.
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” said Officer Johnson.
Sam froze against the wall as Johnson turned around. He had a bandage on one hand and a sour look on his face.
“There’s about three yards between that open door and the next locked one. Sgt. Moss is off for his dinner break, so you’re stuck with just me here until he gets back and we figure out what to do with you. And you don’t want to piss me off, no, you don’t, or at least not any more than you already have.”
With wide eyes and a thumping heart, Sam stood all the way up, and pressed his back against the wall, fingers curled around the links of the cuffs. He wanted to ask if they’d found Dad yet, or if they could take off the cuffs, but he figured the answer to both of those would be no, and suddenly his chest was all out of air, and he wanted someone he knew to be there with him. Preferably Dean, even if he would only yell at Sam and call him a little bitch and an idiot and anything else he could think of for getting into such trouble. Anything would be better than having Johnson stare at him like he was.
What was it that always happened in those cop shows Dad and Dean liked to watch? The good guy, wrongly imprisoned, was always trapped alone with the bad cop and then the bad cop did mean things, except nobody believed the good guy because he was the prisoner. Did they do that to kids too?
Part 5
Master Fic Post