Fic: Vengeance (3/9)

[jedisapphire]

Chapter II: Awakening

Chapter III: Desperation

Dean drove like there were Hellhounds after him. He didn't bother to stop at the bakery. If Sam was OK, if Sam wasn't hurt, if Sam was ignoring his calls just because he was pissed off and wanted to be a douche and scare the crap out of Dean, Dean would kick his ass and then buy him all the jelly donuts they had in the state. And anything else he had ever wanted in his entire life ever.

If Sam was OK…

Dean kept one hand on the wheel and picked up his phone to try Sam again.

Again, he heard, "This is Sam. Leave a message."

"Please," Dean breathed, not sure who he was talking to, since they officially knew God had ditched them. "Please just let him be OK. He's all I've got left."

By the time he pulled up outside the motel, he'd worked himself into a state of total panic.

When he got a look at the motel room door, the panic intensified a hundredfold.

The door had the look - and Dean knew all about that look, considering how many times he'd been responsible for it - of having been kicked open and then carefully shut to hide the damage from the casual gaze.

Sure enough, when Dean touched the knob, the door swung open, hanging precariously from one hinge.

It was a full minute before he could bring himself to look up and see what was in the room. Once he'd done it, he immediately wished he hadn't.

The room was a mess. And not a Sam-got-pissed-and-threw-crap-around mess, but the kind of mess that meant there'd been a fight.

The chairs were splintered. The table tottered precariously on shaky legs, looking like a breath would make it fall. Sam's beloved laptop was on the floor, screen cracked. Their duffels had been ripped open and the contents were strewn on the beds. There were loose sheets of paper flying around the room.

Dean's blood went cold.

He stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him. One of the sheets of paper fluttered to his feet. He bent and picked it up, heart almost stopping when he saw what it was.

It was the flyleaf of a new copy of the Green Eggs and Ham, with Merry Christmas, bitch inscribed in the corner. Dean had got it for Sam last Christmas as a gag gift. Sam had adored the book as a kid.

Dean had been a little bemused when Sam, eyes bright with sudden tears, had tucked it carefully into his duffel instead of flinging it at Dean's head.

Later he'd understood. It had been Sam's first Christmas back from the Cage.

Sam kept the book, hidden in his duffel where he thought Dean didn't know about it. Dean knew, and secretly plotted to get all the other books that he and their dad had read to Sam. He had a package waiting at Jodie's, ready to give Sam on his birthday.

Carefully, Dean gathered every single one of the pages of Green Eggs and Ham. It was something to do while his mind worked furiously - something to keep himself from going into a loop of fear and despair. Dean couldn't afford fear. Sam needed him.

Sam needed him, and Dean had let his little brother down enough for one lifetime.

And less than two hours ago Dean had wanted - hoped - for Sam not to be there when he got back. If there was a special hell reserved for people who hurt their little brothers, Dean was going to it.

He forced down the guilt - there would be time for that, later. When he had Sam back safe, when Sam was hunched over his laptop like a geek and Dean had spent a few hours just watching him,then he'd tell Sam he was sorry. He'd tell Sam how proud Dean was of how well he was handling all the crap he was going through.

It was when he was on his knees reaching for a sheet that had floated under Sam's bed that he saw Sam's cell phone. It was under the bed, miraculously still functional.

Dean picked it up.

He ignored the voicemail alert - a glance told him those were all his own messages, and he didn't need to hear his own increasingly frantic voice pleading for his baby brother to answer.

Oh, yeah. Irony.

There was one text message. Dean opened it.

He didn't recognize the number, but the message sent another chill through his veins.

We have baby brother. Call me. You have six hours until I start hurting him.

The text had come at midnight.

It was past nine.

Frantically, Dean pulled out his own cell phone and called the number. It rang just once, and then a low voice said, "Hello?"

"I'm Dean."

There was a pause. Dean could hear whispering and muttering on the other side. Then a new voice. "Dean Winchester?"

"Yes. Where's Sam?"

"Sam's in a lot of pain at the moment. You're very late, Dean Winchester."

"If you hurt him -"

"Shut up and pay attention. I'm going to let you listen to baby brother, just so you know I have him and he's still alive. Then I'm going to give you an address and you're going to be there in thirty minutes. If you're not, I'm going to start sending Sam back to you piece by piece. Do we understand each other?"

"You son of a bitch -"

"Temper, Dean. You really don't want to piss me off." The guy raised his voice. "Hey! The older brother needs to know the kid's alive."

There was another pause, more muttering, and then a high, agonized scream that was unmistakeably Sam.

Dean almost threw up.

"Let him go," he growled. "Let him go, you son of a bitch! What the hell are you doing to him?"

"Exactly what I promised to do if you didn't call me by six a.m. Not my fault you were late, Dean. Of course, it's not little brother's fault either. Unfortunate that he's the one suffering for it, though."

"If you hurt him, I will kill you."

"Oh, Dean. Dean, Dean, Dean. If only all this righteous anger had been poured out a little bit earlier. You see, now it's too late. Sam's been screaming for me for hours." The man laughed. "He screams like a little girl, Dean. Did you know that?"

"You son of a bitch," Dean hissed. "You let him go now. Now. Or I swear, there's going to be nowhere you can hide where I won't hunt you down and kill you and then bring you back just so I can kill you again."

"Big words from a man who couldn't even manage to call me in time to stop me torturing his brother."

"Who the hell are you?"

"You want my name? Sure, I'll tell you. Not like you can do anything with it. My name's Owen Ford. You don't know me, but you knew my girlfriend."

"Biblically?" Dean couldn't help asking.

The man sighed. "Steve? The older brother's being a smartass. Do that thing again."

Before Dean could ask what the hell Ford meant, he heard Sam scream again, louder and longer, before he broke off into gasping sobs.

"I'm going to kill you," Dean growled. Anger was easier than anything right then. It was easier than thinking about his own failures, about what he'd shouted at Sam and how he'd ignored his calls. "Whatever you've done to him, I'm going to make sure you feel it a hundred times over."

"You have to find me first, Dean. Come to the abandoned warehouse on Fourteenth Street. You have thirty minutes."

Dean was at the rendezvous point in fifteen minutes. Somewhere there was a very angry cop filing a complaint about 'some freaking lunatic who ran three red lights and almost ran me over when I stepped into the street to stop him'.

Dean didn't care.

He ran to the warehouse door and kicked it open, not even checking to see if it was unlocked. Doors that stood between him and his hurting baby brother deserved to be kicked open, and maybe shot a couple of times for good measure.

He was expecting an explosion of noise and sound, and possibly to have to fight his way through a gang of fuglies, so he was surprised when there was… nothing.

Not quite nothing.

When his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Dean saw something that made him hope and made his heart shoot up into his throat at the same time.

Sam.

Sam was in the middle of the room, tied to a chair. Slumped in it. It was too dark for Dean to be able to gauge the nature of his injuries, but he was pretty sure they were bad. Sam's head lolled forward, hair obscuring his face. He hadn't even reacted to Dean kicking open the door.

Dean couldn't tell if he was breathing.

"Sam!"

Dean was running into the room, heedless of any traps that might have been set or ambushes that might be waiting. They didn't matter; nothing mattered except getting to his brother.

Dean flung himself to his knees in front of the chair. Now that he was close, he could see how badly Sam was hurt, what those sons of bitches had done to him.

Sam's face was bruised, blood encrusting a deep gash that ran from his forehead to his jaw. Probably deep enough that it would scar a little. There was a rag stuffed into his mouth. His jacket and shirts were gone; he was wearing only his jeans and what had once been a t-shirt but was now just a collection of bloody rags held together by a few threads. The fingers of his left hand were oddly twisted. The bastards had pulled them out of joint.

That was probably how they'd made Sam scream for Dean to hear.

"Sammy?" Dean's fingers had been hovering over the bloody gash down Sam's face. He pulled out the gag and then finally dared to touch, cupping Sam's jaw and tilting his head towards Dean. "Hey, kiddo. You want to wake up for me?"

Sam stirred, eyes opening to slits. They rested briefly on Dean before sliding off.

Dean swallowed. The last time Sam had had trouble focusing his gaze had been Cold Oak.

"Hey," he said, a little more forcefully. "Look at me." Sam's eyes settled on him. "That's my boy. You're going to be OK. I'm here now. I've got you. You'll be fine."

Sam let out a sound that Dean recognized as an attempt to say his name.

"Yeah, kiddo," he said. "I'm here. Big brother's here. I'm going to take care of you."

"Actually," a new voice said, "that isn't entirely accurate, Dean. We're going to take care of you both."

Dean released Sam turned to face the muzzle of a gun. Or, to be precise, the muzzle of one of a collection of twelve guns. One was trained on him. The other eleven were trained on Sam.

Sons of bitches. They knew how to make sure Dean didn't try anything.

"Dean Winchester," the man holding a gun on Dean said. "We meet at last. I'm Owen Ford. You knew my girlfriend - not Biblically. No," he added as Dean tried to move for the gun he'd dropped in his headlong rush to get to Sam. "Try that and I'll have one of my boys shoot baby brother. Double-tap to the head."

"Who the hell are you and what do you want with us?"

"Who am I? I told you. You knew my girlfriend." Owen took a step closer. "You killed my girlfriend."

Awesome.

"And that would be…"

"Amy," Owen said tersely. "You knew her as Amy Pond."

Dean shot a quick glance back at Sam, whose head was still drooping.

"Oh." Dean decided to deal with one problem at a time. The most pressing need was to get Sam to safety; then he could worry about how to torture the people who'd hurt him. "Well, if you knew enough to come after me, you know Sam didn't do anything to her. Hell, he didn't speak to me for a week and a half after he found out what I did. You have me, now let him go."

Owen laughed. "Really? You think it's going to be that easy? You think I want to kill you?"

"Why else -"

"You're not getting off that lightly, Dean Winchester." Owen took a step back. "The man standing right behind your brother now is Steve. Steve was the one who dislocated Sam's fingers so you could hear him. If you don't do exactly as I say, Steve is going to dislocate something else. Or maybe just cut Sam's throat."

Dean waited.

"Stand up," Owen said. "Slowly. No sudden movements. Steve, if he makes any sudden moves, shoot the kid through the kneecaps."

Dean got up as slowly and carefully as he could.

"Good," Owen said, grinning. "Carl and Jeff are going to check you for weapons now. Let them."

Dean stood still as the man patted him down, confiscating his flask of holy water, his spare ammo, and all the knives he had concealed about his person.

"Take them inside," Owen said, "and leave them there. I'll get to them in an hour or so. I need to make some phone calls first."

Chapter IV: Talking