Sammy In Captivity 3/4
Sammy in Captivity
Summary: Sam, it seems, is determined, and quick
A/N: You people blow me away with your wonderful reviews! Of course, big thanks to SecondStarToTheRight18 for her help with editing. :)
Chapter Three
Sam, it seems, is determined, and quick. Jason watched him in the Chair - nothing exciting this week - and watched as the Keepers led him back to the stairs but he never saw Sam lift the set of keys he's now holding up in the darkness of their room.
“Do you know if there's another way out?” Sam asks, withdrawing the hand he used to shake Jason awake. “Not the door that's electrified. Do you know if there's another one?”
Jason's still blinking sleep out of his eyes, his foggy head trying to keep up. There is another door. On the other side of the bottom floor but it's through the Keepers' sleeping quarters. He's only seen it once, the single time he was brave enough to venture down the stairs while the Keepers were out getting a new kid. He nods.
“Will you come with me? Show me where it is? What I saw, it was both of us on the outside. I think you're meant to come.”
Jason hesitates. If they're caught he'll get Solitary for sure, no matter how harmless the Keepers assume he is, and Sam might get something worse, seeing as Solitary doesn't seem to be enough to break him down. The Keepers might withhold food or water or maybe zap them both.
But, if they're not caught, if by some miracle they actually manage to get away, run through those trees Sam says he saw, he might get back to his house with his green room and blankets and a toilet that's not a bucket. He might get to see his mom again.
He nods because there is nothing he wants more in the world.
“Yeah?” Sam says, in a way that makes Jason think that Sam thought he wouldn't come. He wonders how much faith Sam is actually putting in his vision or whatever it was. “That's awesome. C'mon, Jason.”
Jason really likes it when Sam says his name. He follows Sam's dark shape to the door. His eyes are adjusting to the dark so it's a bit easier to see Sam and the key chain he's holding. Sam tries three different keys before the fourth one turns and clicks.
Sam lets out a breath he must have been holding and carefully pushes the door open. He's still for a moment, checking the balcony, Jason guesses, then, he motions Jason forward and creeps out the door.
Silently, Jason leads Sam to the staircase and they tiptoe down the 23 steps. There are no windows in this building so the dark is complete. He can make out vague shapes but he keeps a steadying hand on the rail, feeling each step as he goes. At the bottom, Jason motions to the room the Keepers live in and senses Sam freeze.
“Are you serious?” he whispers. “The door's through there?”
Jason nods. Where else would it be? They're close enough together that he can see Sam's face as he chews his lip and glances back at the stairs, like maybe he's considering going back, but he takes a breath and says, “Okay.”
Level One seems bigger in the dark, in a threatening kind of way. The Chair is a thick black shadowy shape. Jason sticks close to Sam, afraid that he might lose him, as they pad across the wooden floor, bare feet silent. Sam knows how to be soundless just like Jason does.
They reach the door to the Keepers' room. Sam presses his ear against it and listens for two minutes and twenty-four seconds while Jason tries not to breathe too loud.
After two minutes and twenty-four seconds, Sam takes his ear from the door and ever so slowly tests the handle. It's locked, as Jason expected.
Sam goes through only two keys this time. The second one works. The click of the door unlocking sounds unbearably loud and Sam presses his ear back against it, holding his breath, eyes closed as he listens for three minutes exactly. Jason wonders if Sam was counting too.
Sam looks back at Jason. He puts a finger to his lips as if to say, 'Shhh', but he doesn't actually say it. Jason knows to be quiet though. If they're going to walk past the sleeping Keepers and out the door on the other side of their room they have to be completely silent.
Sam edges the door open. Jason stands back a few steps because this door could be booby trapped too, for all he knows. But nothing happens other than the faint whisper of the door moving across the wooden floor.
He steps forward into the doorway with Sam and takes in the room. The Keepers sleep two on each side. He knows that the large rectangular shapes that take up most of the room as filing cabinets, stacked on top of each other. He counted eight the one time he'd seen this room, four on each side, in the corners. It's fairly sparse other than that; just a small table between each of the sets of beds, scattered with items too small and too dark to make out.
The door is directly in front of them. Sam sees it too and starts forward in slow careful steps. Jason follows and tries to step where Sam does because he's still wary of traps and if Sam doesn't set anything off then he won't either.
It seems that the Keepers don't bother trapping their own room though, probably never imagining that they would need to, all their test subjects under lock and key. Jason and Sam make it to the door without a hitch and Sam drops smoothly to one knee in front of the lock. For the first time since he agreed to show Sam the door, Jason stops thinking about what could go wrong and starts imagining what could go right. They're so close, only this door standing between them and outside. Any minute now, he could step out into fresh air, into moonlight and stars and the world that has carried on without him for so long.
A key clashes against another key, too loud, definitely too loud. Jason catches a glimpse of movement to his right but Sam's twisting a key in the lock, then shoving the door open. An alarm blares, making Jason want to cover his ears, and Sam reaches back a hand to grab his wrist and tugs him out.
They're running hard and frantic, Sam is fast, the ground is damp, grass, twigs and mud. There are trees, a forest looming closer. Sam heads towards it.
There are shouts behind them and the fresh air is hard to breathe while they're sprinting like this. The alarm is so loud. He doesn't know if the Keepers are chasing them and he doesn't want to look back. Sam doesn't look back, focused on the trees ahead of them.
Jason can't decide what's scarier, the flat, naked field that leaves them exposed in the moonlight, or the black trees. He thinks the field, the overwhelming alarm and his heartbeat in his ears, Sam's rough gasps and the Keepers that might be right behind them. Then they hit the trees and he changes his mind. The forest is suffocating, branches reaching out like hands to grab them, roots trying to trip them. It doesn't take long for his feet to start to hurt from the sharp stones and sticks they stumble over, and just when he's realized that he can't run any more, he can't breathe, he wants to simply close his eyes and lie down and try to catch his breath around the terror, Sam stops.
“I know this tree,” he gasps, though Jason can't imagine how. It's a long thin line of a tree between two larger ones, leaves stripped bare as far up as Jason can see.
Sam pulls him down behind a huge fallen trunk, a few feet to the right of the little tree, onto a spongy carpet of dead, decaying leaves, and they crouch there among moss and bugs, trying to catch their breath.
It's barely a minute before a twig snaps close by. Sam goes as still as a statue, eyes wide. Jason imagines that he looks the same. Their white clothes seem impossibly bright in the darkness, their eyes catching the thin streams of moonlight between the branches above. They're about to be found, dragged back, put in Solitary.
“Oh, this is impossible!” a voice exclaims, closer than Jason expected. It's the girl Keeper and her soft voice is filled with anger.
“You let it get your keys. It's your fault we're out here in the middle of the damn night,” a male Keeper replies. Jason can't figure out which one just by his voice. Not the bearded one, the young one or the blond.
“It doesn't matter whose fault it is,” the girl Keeper spits. “We need to find them. There has to be a better way, rather than trudging through this stupid forest.”
“If they're still going this way they're headed straight for town. We need to catch up with them before they get there.”
The voices head away, still arguing.
Sam slumps, letting out a breath. There's blood on his face, a thin slice across his cheek, from a branch maybe. He swipes a hand over it.
“I saw that,” he says. “In the chair, it was us running, then that tree and us hiding here while those two went past. I... I don't know what they're doing to us but...”
Sam trails off. “Do you think the other two are in the woods?” he asks finally, peeking over the fallen tree. Jason doesn't know and doesn't intend to answer, but it seems Sam doesn't expect him to anyway because he ducks back down and carries on. “If they're heading towards a town, we need to go that way too, but we can't follow their trail...”
Sam is quiet for a while, looking out into the forest, mapping a path apparently because after one minute and fourteen seconds he gets to his feet, hand round Jason's wrist again, and heads off as if he knows where he's going.
Jason wonders if Sam's afraid of being alone in this dark forest too. Maybe that's why he doesn't let him go, even though he's not useful any more. Jason's glad for it anyway, without Sam's hand, he feels as though the forest might swallow him.
They go slowly this time, stepping carefully on the mulched forest floor, though there are enough sharp sticks and stones that after a while Jason thinks his feet might be bleeding, maybe Sam's too but Sam just keeps going, stopping often to listen or maybe to get his bearings, but never for long. They need to keep moving.
Jason looks up and sees the stars flashing between the leaves, sprinkles of light. The moon is broken into pieces by the branches above them and Jason wishes it was full and whole. Outside is far scarier than he imagined and he can't shake the feeling that he doesn't belong here, outside the facility. He wishes for sunlight, for it to be his mother holding his hand, for safety.
But there's only darkness, and Sam.
XXX
The sun is just beginning to send streaks of pink and orange across the sky when they make it to the edge of the forest. Jason is too tired and sore and thirsty to appreciate his first sunrise since breaking out. Sam makes him stop just inside the trees and they watch for a while.
There's another bare expanse of field to cross before reaching the first building, and a road beside it. Sam watches the road for a long time but no cars or vans come by. Sam tells him to run anyway and they both dash across the clearing. No one appears to chase them but Jason feels as though he's being hunted all the same. He pictures the Keeper's van behind them, grumbling and nipping at their heels.
There's no relief upon reaching the town. Their pace slows but not too much. Sam leads him down twists and turns, around houses and through alleyways. He seems to be looking for something.
Finally they reach a corner dairy and Sam stops. The dairy is closed but Sam's more interested in the stack of newspapers at its door, bundled together with a thick plastic strip.
“Kingston Daily News,” Sam reads. “So that's something. Now we just need a payphone. I can call my Dad, he'll figure out where we are.”
Jason wonders if it would make more sense to call the police - he remembers his mother saying that the police are there to help you if you're in trouble and they are definitely in trouble - but Sam's on a mission so he just follows along.
The sun rises higher and people start to appear on the streets, cars rumbling by. A man in a grey suit with a black briefcase stares at them as he passes and Jason realizes how out of place they must look; two skinny teenagers in tattered white clothes, bare feet and buzzed heads. The cut on Sam's face is crusty with dark, dried blood, a long sweep across his cheekbone and Jason has become aware of stinging scratches on his arms. They're both grass-stained and muddy, bits of forest debris clinging to their clothes. Jason picks a torn bit of leaf from his pants.
“Here,” Sam says suddenly. Jason looks up to see that there's a phone booth just ahead of them, by a bus stop. Sam runs for it, like it might disappear if they don't get there fast enough. Jason sticks close to his heels and they both wedge themselves inside the box, which somehow seems safer than the sidewalk.
Jason listens as Sam dials the operator and reels off some numbers for a collect call, then a tinny ringing starts inside the phone.
A small convoy of cars travels fast and the rumbling covers the voice that picks up but Sam says, “Dad” like it's a magic word and kind of slumps, phone clutched to his ear, resting his forehead against the booth's glass wall.
“No, no, I'm okay, I'm just...” Jason sees Sam look down at himself and suck in a breath. “I got away, I ran away but they're looking for me.”
A deep voice muffles out of the phone.
“I don't know,” Sam stammers, “I don't know what they are, they look like people, they might just be people, I don't know.”
Jason's too busy wondering what that means - they might just be people - to hear what the voice says next. Sam is listening intently though.
“I don't know,” he says, “I found a newspaper though, it said Kingston Daily News.”
The phone goes silent for a while, long enough that Sam digs his fingernails into his palm. Jason can see his knuckles turning white.
“Got it,” the voice, Sam's Dad, says finally. “Got you, Sammy, we're coming now, we're-”
The rest of the sentence is drowned out by a passing car. Blue. Jason watches the driver chat on his cellphone as he goes past, never once looking in their direction, and he gets the urge to stay in this box that seems to make them invisible for forever, or at least until Sam's Dad arrives.
“That's too long!” Sam exclaims. “They're looking for me! Any minute- Dean?”
“Sammy, it's gonna be okay.”
Sam's breath hitches like he's going to cry but he doesn't. “Dean, they took me to some sort of facility, there's all these other kids there, I think, and they were doing some sort of experiments on us, I don't know, I don't... Me and Jason, he was in the room they kept me in, we got away but they're coming after us. What are we supposed to do for four hours?”
“Sammy, calm down, okay? We're on our way, we're already in the car, and we're gonna find you, don't worry. Just-”
Another stream of cars muffles the rest of Dean's words.
“Okay.” Sam nods even though Dean can't see him, his voice shaking. “We can do that, just... if they catch us, they'll take us back. It's a big grey building on the edge of town. We had to go through this little forest to get here... the front door's electrified but there's one at the back. Just, please hurry, Dean, I don't wanna go back there.”
Jason doesn't listen to their goodbyes. Instead, he watches his breath fogging the phone booth's glass until Sam's hand touches his shoulder.
“Come on. Dean said to find the library. They'll meet us there but they're four hours away so we need to be careful, hide out for a while.”
Jason mutely follows Sam from the phone booth. There are more people on the sidewalks now. They would have to weave around them if not for the way everyone backs off when they see them, like they don't want to get too close. It doesn't take long for Sam to frown down at himself, then look over Jason.
“We're too conspicuous. We need to get off the streets.”
He ducks into the first shop they come across. Jason, of course, follows. It's a Tobacco Store, rows of pipes and cartons of cigarettes are sheltered in the glass case that makes the front desk. There are posters and packs of incense and it's all very colourful and a little overwhelming. A small Asian woman stares at them from behind the desk.
“Can you tell us where the library is?” Sam asks her, apparently unfazed by the stunned look on her face and the claustrophobic feel of so many things in one place. Jason doesn't even know where he'd begin to start counting everything.
“Um...” the woman says, looking Sam up and down before looking over his shoulder to do the same to Jason. Jason edges closer to Sam, hiding himself.
“Please,” Sam says. The woman's gaze turns back to him and Jason can't see Sam's face, and probably wouldn't understand it anyway, but whatever he's doing with it makes some of the suspicion fade from the woman's eyes.
“Uh, yes.” She has straight shoulder-length black hair. She twists a strand in her fingers. “Of course, it's three blocks down. Just take a right at the end of this street and keep going until you see a big brick building. That's the library.”
Sam takes a breath, looking back out at the street through the large windows.
“Do you need help?” the woman blurts, still wide eyed. Her hand hovers over a bright red phone.
“No,” Sam says quickly. “We're getting picked up at the library.”
The woman nods, her hair bobbing once.
“Come on,” Sam says to Jason, so he steps back out onto the street and follows Sam down a much more convoluted route than the woman instructed, ducking down alleyways and generally staying out of sight of other people. It occurs to Jason that the Keepers wouldn't want to snatch them in front of lots of witnesses and might be patrolling the quieter areas but he doesn't tell Sam this and they reach the library without being stopped, walking in to a rush of artificial warmth and shelves filled with books, the smell of old paper and hum of hushed voices.
There's a drinking fountain in one corner. Jason forgets everything when he sees it, forgets to stick with Sam, forgets they're being chased, and just drinks and drinks, the cold liquid splattering his chin and feeling so, so good on his dry throat, until he can't fit any more in.
He straightens, swiping a hand over his face to catch the droplets, and realizes that Sam is next to him, already taking his turn at the water.
Now that his thirst is quenched, Jason becomes aware of all the other aches that have been pushed aside in his need for liquid. His feet feel bruised and tender, the scratches on his arms sting ferociously. He's hungry, the water sloshing around an empty stomach and he's suddenly so tired, like he was for a bit in the forest, when he wanted to lie down and maybe let the Keepers find him because it would have been so much easier than continuing to run.
Sam finishes drinking, straightening with a faint jingle. Jason locates the source as the set of keys Sam stole, tied onto the drawstring of his pants. He wonders how he didn't notice them before.
Sam looks around the library before his eyes settle on a couple of couches tucked away in one corner. Shelves of books block the view from the big wall-length windows and there's no one occupying the space.
“Over here,” Sam says, apparently deciding that it'll be a suitable place to hide. They walk over. Sam sits on the couch that is against the wall and Jason sits beside him suddenly wary of the other couch and all the empty space behind it, where people could sneak up on him.
“We just need to wait,” Sam says quietly. “Dad and Dean will be here as fast as they can. We should be fine if we just stay here and don't draw attention to ourselves.”
Jason usually tries very hard not to draw attention to himself. He's quite good at fading into the background. So they stay there and don't draw any attention other than a few looks from the librarian whenever she passes. She doesn't try to talk to them. Jason wanders for a little bit, feeling Sam's anxious gaze on him the whole time, and comes back to the couch once he's found what he was looking for.
Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr Seuss. This library copy is battered and some of the pages are loose. It looks a lot like his one, tattered from so much use. He doesn't read it, just looks at the pictures and tries to imagine his mother's voice.
“That used to be my favourite book,” Sam says unexpectedly. Jason had almost forgotten he was there. “I used to get Dean to read it to me all the time, over and over. I don't know what happened to my copy. I guess it got lost.”
Got lost like they did, stolen maybe. Jason wonders what happened to Sam's mother, why Dean read Green Eggs and Ham instead of her, why he doesn't say that she's looking for him, or coming for him with his Dad and brother.
“I want to be found,” Jason says, surprising himself.
Sam blinks, as if he's surprised too, then he says, “Me too. We just... need to wait.”
He leans to the side on the couch so he can see the clock above the check-out desk. He sighs. “In three more hours, we'll be found.”
Jason starts counting down in his head.
To Be Continued...
Chapter Four