The Fall of House Winchester - Chapter Three
The slave who released him the next morning didn’t say anything to Dean. Clean clothes were laid out on the bed for him, a tray of food brought in for his breakfast, and then they were gone, ignoring his questions like he wasn’t worth answering.
Fucking slaves.
He cleaned up in the shower, careful of the tender skin around his wrists from sleeping in the shackles, and then got dressed. His clothes were familiar, the sort of thing he used to wear all the time, though these were new, pressed and clean and he was sure they’d never smelled of ash or ectoplasm or grave dirt.
Breakfast was fresh blueberry pancakes with bacon and a thermos of coffee. He was tempted to throw it against the wall but it would just make more work for the slaves and he needed to keep his strength if he was going to escape. Jo hadn’t been kidding about that. His time in the slave pens had stripped away most of his reserves and he wasn’t as strong as he used to be. He needed to regain the weight, regain the muscle that he’d lost in those six months.
He ate with a passion, thinking of the food and only the food, pushing aside any thought of the night before or what it might mean for the next night and any night after.
When he was done eating, he went back to the window and looked out over the yard. He could see his childhood home in the distance. People were moving around it and Dean wondered if they were putting it back together, taking out the large dining table from the party and putting back the one that John and Mary had bought when they first moved in.
He didn’t know if any of the things in the house were real or if they were just fakes, but it hurt to think that Ford had gone through all of that, that he’d really bought all the missing pieces of his childhood, like it was nothing more than a child’s dollhouse.
The door opened behind him and he looked over his shoulder to find Jo closing the door.
“Did you sleep well?” she asked.
He snorted at that. “You mean was I able to sleep after Ford felt me up? Yeah, great. Thanks for the concern.”
“He isn’t like that,” she demanded.
“Cut the bullshit Jo. If he’s not like that yesterday wouldn’t have happened. Last night wouldn’t have happened. So just stop whatever you’re trying to sell and tell me why you’re really here.”
She clenched her jaw and he could see the way her knuckles went white as she pressed her fingers into fists. She grabbed his leash off the wall and Dean took a step back.
“It’s your choice Dean. You can come along nicely or I can leash you. If you try to run though, I promise you whatever you think happened last night will be a breeze compared to what they’ll do to you.”
Dean took a deep breath. She really didn’t believe him about Ford. He wasn’t sure if it was because she thought so highly of Ford, or because she thought so poorly of him. Either way, he realized she wasn’t going to be a willing ally in this.
“I’ll come along, no need for the leash.” She hooked it in her belt, and he let out a soft sigh of relief. “Where are we going today?”
“The Master asked me to make sure you knew what you were here for, what your duties were.”
“So what am I here for?” he asked.
She just opened the door as she smiled back. “To look pretty.”
She took him through the house and Dean was beginning to get a better idea of the lay out. Everything had been too confusing when he’d first been brought up, but as he had travelled the halls before the party he’d adjusted enough to begin to focus on his surroundings. He had a map in his mind now, a layout of the house being built with every new step he took. He catalogued the slaves around him, tried to make sure he knew which were human and which weren’t. It would take time, but sometimes the way they moved or the task they were doing gave them away. They all seemed to back away from him and as much as he wanted to think it was because of his reputation, he had a feeling it had more to do with the warning Jo had mentioned before they left the auction house. Ford had gone out of his way to purchase Dean and no one was going to be allowed to mess with him. It might be comforting if he knew that warning didn’t include Ford himself.
Their first stop was a room at the back of the house, on the lower level. Jo led him into a glass walled room. Gym equipment lined the long wall of the room and a pool took up the rest of the space. It looked old, like whoever had lived here before the revolution had taken great pains to show how much wealth they had, flaunting their luxuries. The ceiling was two story and up above, there was a window that looked down into the space.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Jo shook her head. “Master Ford wants you back in shape Dean. It doesn’t do him any good to get a tame hunter on his leash when the hunter couldn’t even kick a ghoul back into his crypt. He wants you back in fighting condition.”
“And if I refuse?” He wouldn’t but he had to ask. He needed to get into shape, he needed to get free from his prison.
“Then Master Ford will come up with something to,” she stopped, looking up and to the left as she looked for the right word, “motivate you. He’s really creative Dean. You might want to avoid seeing what he can do when he sets his mind to it.”
“Fine,” he huffed. He didn’t know how to read Jo. She was enjoying this, tormenting him, leading him around. He knew there had to be something there though, underneath it all, that remembered freedom, that remembered how to be a hunter, but all he could see was another slave who’d fallen victim to her master, to the delusion that she was just another piece of property.
He didn’t know how to change that. How could he when he didn’t know the first thing that had happened to her?
“How did it happen?” he asked her softly, looking pointedly at her neck.
Her eyes widened and she bit her lower lip in a manner he remembered so well from before, when he and Sammy had teased her and laughed until she’d stared them down, making his little brother take pity on her. He looked away at the memories. He couldn’t think of Sam just yet. He had to get free. He had to escape so he could keep asking. As much as he wanted to know if Jo had seen him he already knew the answer. If she had, if Jo knew where Sam was, Ford would already have another Winchester on his leash.
Her eyes bored into his and he knew he wouldn’t get an answer. He didn’t really want one anymore. He looked up, trying to still the anger that grew at the thought. Jo had sold him out and he had no doubt she would do it to his brother, too. As much sympathy as he had for her plight, he couldn’t forgive that betrayal. Movement drew his eyes and he realized that there was a man in the shadows above him, staring out through the window above. He could see the height from that distance and even though he couldn’t see a face for the shadows he knew it was Ford, coming to look down on him.
“Just fucking perfect.”
After his workout and laps in the pool, Jo didn’t give him an option with the leash. She hooked it back on his collar and led him around the back of the house. She opened up a large barn door and he walked inside with her. He’d been afraid of what he’d find there. Ford had to keep his own version of the slave pens Dean had originally been placed in, but that wasn’t what he found in the barn. Instead he ran his fingers over the first of the six cars in the stalls. Dust filled the air as if the room hadn’t been disturbed in some time. Only one car was covered, the rest hidden under coats of grime that Dean streaked as he walked past.
He knew the shape, knew the feel, and he didn’t ask permission before he pulled the protective jacket from the car, finding his beloved black impala in the last stall.
“Oh baby is it good to see you.”
“It nearly broke him to find it,” Jo said softly. “He thought for sure when he found her alone, abandoned on the side of the road that you had to have been killed. He never stopped looking for you though.”
“What the hell did we do to him, huh, Jo? Tell me that? What did I do to deserve this?” He pulled at the leash in her hand and her grip tightened like he was trying to tug it away.
She scoffed. “You … you took away his family Dean. You took everything that meant anything to him and now he wants…”
“What does he want?”
She shook her head and for a moment, Dean thought she looked scared. “I don’t know Dean. I thought I did, but I don’t. I just hope you give it to him. If you can’t … well … like I said before, he can be creative.”
He dropped into the warmth of the water and sighed as his muscles relaxed a little. Ford wanted him to get back in shape, to be a pretty little doll on his shelf, but no one was allowed to get by on just their looks. There was too much work to be done and Ford expected the most from his people. After a morning of working out and being shown the grounds, Dean had been put to work with the construction crews, helping to build another stable.
The men and women he worked with joked among themselves but they never looked at Dean, never tried to include him in any of it. He didn’t know if it was because he was new or because he was off-limits, but it bothered him when he smiled and people looked away.
The building looked similar to the stable Jo had shown him earlier. He had no idea what was happening in the outer barns where another contingent of slaves went to work everyday. He thought about asking, but he didn’t want to appear too inquisitive and he doubted anyone would be willing to answer him anyway. In a little time, he hoped, he’d get them to open up enough to talk to him, but it would take more than a day or two of charming them. Master Ford might feed them well, but he doubted from Jo’s words, that anyone was willing to take a chance when his temper was so well known.
Still, it surprised him to see the overseers taking an interest in the slave’s condition. They weren’t treated harshly, though they were expected to work hard and be grateful for what they were given. Their clothes were sturdy and the food given to them at lunch was filling, in quantity and better than Dean had eaten in the last six months. It didn’t compare to the dinner at Master Ford’s table of course, but Dean had never been a food snob. He’d gone hungry enough in his younger days to learn to take it when he could get it.
They were given gloves and protective gear and when Dean asked about it, Jo scoffed, asking how much work a slave would get done if they couldn’t do anything but bleed all over the materials. “And it’s a good way of causing trouble with the newly-turned,” she added with a grin that included her second set of teeth.
“He lets you turn them?” Dean asked as they rested together against the half finished wall as they stopped for a water break.
Jo shook her head. “No, but sometimes he’ll take the new ones in. He helps them get control of it.”
“Sounds like a real humanitarian.”
“You don’t know anything about him,” Jo hissed as she pushed him back to work. Anger burned in her eyes and he needed to figure this out. He needed to know why his opinion of Ford seemed to hurt her so much. “You of all people… you just …”
Jo stalked off then, leaving Dean behind. He didn’t know how to take her departure. He didn’t know what was happening around him and Jo was his only guide. The overseer came over and gruffly told him to return to work, but he could see the fear in his eyes. If Dean said no, if he walked off after Jo, the man wouldn’t stop him. He was too afraid of Master Ford’s orders not to touch him. He didn’t know how to treat a slave he had no power over.
Dean filed it away for later use, but for now he did as he was told. He had to ingratiate his way into their company, to get his questions answered, and he wasn’t going to do it by walking away when there was work to do.
It was late by the time Jo had returned and she’d simply slipped the leash on his neck and pulled him along to the bathing chamber.
When he looked up from the water, Jo was gone. The leash was on the wall though and the girl from the day before slipped in the door. Jess, he remembered.
He moved to the other side of the bathing pool and found the soap but Jess reached a hand out first and stopped him. He backed away and watched as she slid into the water, coming over to stand beside him. Her long blond hair fell around her in beautiful eddies of movement and he took a deep breath, remembering all too well what Jo had said. He was off limits and even to those he wasn’t, he was a command. He wasn’t sure which side Jess fell on, but he wasn’t going to hurt someone like that again. He wasn’t going to let Ford make him feel any dirtier than the collar and leash already did.
She turned him around and began working into his shoulders, soap soothing the way as she dug into the tired muscles. He moaned into her hands but jerked up as two slaves came in the room. Candles around the edges were lit and the harsh lighting overhead was turned off in their wake. Jess pushed his head back down, forcing him to look down.
She pushed him against the wall, arranging his arms so that he could rest his head on them over the edge and then her hands slid under the water, massaging his lower back. Her hands were gentle but strong as she worked on him and he couldn’t help his body’s reaction, the way he hardened at her touch.
“She’s beautiful isn’t she?”
He closed his eyes but it didn’t make the vampire’s presence feel any less intrusive. When he opened his eyes Ford was sitting in the corner, shrouded in shadows. He could clearly see the sharp dress shoes he wore, the clean line of pressed denim, and the crisp white button up that disappeared into the darkness just below his chest. A dark velvet jacket held silver cuffs at his wrists and his voice was the same soft gravel he’d heard the night before.
“Not much of a conversationalist, but you do seem to like them pretty,” Dean answered.
“No Jessica doesn’t talk,” sadness seeped from his voice. “She can’t. They took her tongue when they fed from her. They didn’t like the way she screamed. They thought she was so beautiful in her tears that they cut her tongue out so they could keep watching her.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Yes. She doesn’t like to be touched but she will do the occasional favors, if you ask nicely,”
Jessica smiled over at the vampire and Dean felt sickened by the devotion that shone in her eyes. So much like Jo, bought and wrapped in a pretty package, just waiting for her master to tell her where to go next.
“As much as I’ve enjoyed the show, it’s time for dinner.”
He stood and left, leaving Dean that much more confused about Ford. Jessica pulled him out of the water and dried him off, pulling out a new set of clothes for him. He pulled on the jeans and let his hands run over the soft fabric of the shirt. He’d never been the type of man who really appreciated the finer things, he never had them to appreciate, but it felt damn good. He pulled the long sleeved shirt over his head and Jessica ran a hand down his chest, settling the gray fabric.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
She looked up at him and gave a light smile before patting his cheek. When she turned, she slipped into a pretty white dress and pulled his leash from the wall. He let her hook it into his collar, and then followed her out the door and back to his rooms.
