Lupo Mutaret (17)
seventeen
It was four hours of frantically searching through the woods before John and Jim finally convinced Dean that they needed to take a breather and try and figure out some kind of plan.
The trail from the clearing had disappeared just a few feet into the undergrowth, but with the three of them desperately seeking out the smallest indication of people passing through, they'd managed to pick it up again nearly an hour later, only to lose it the second that the trail widened and turned onto a dirt road.
"Wandering aimlessly around won't help us," The eldest Winchester pointed out carefully. "We can say pretty much definitely that they aren't in the woods anymore and the fact that they took Sam with them means that they're not likely to kill him anytime soon. Otherwise why go to the effort? They left the other shifter behind."
Dean scowled.
"That doesn't matter," Dean snapped. "We don't know who they are, or what they want. How do we know that they're not torturing him right now? How can we sit back and do nothing whilst they could be hurting him?"
Pastor Jim reached out a hand and rubbed across his shoulder in what the twenty-one year old assumed was supposed to be a soothing gesture. It didn't work. "We won't be doing nothing, Dean, but your father's right. We need a plan. We're not achieving anything at the moment, and we're wasting time."
The young hunter sighed, his shoulders slouching as he realised that the two elder men were right. He couldn't bare the thought of doing nothing, but he knew that the Pastor was right - they weren't achieving anything by wandering around, and the longer they wasted time, the longer Sam was with whatever lunatics had taken him.
"What do you want to do?" He asked quietly, praying that his father had some kind of answer. He'd spent years training to be a hunter, practising for every situation that his father could think of - getting lost, getting trapped, getting separated. They'd never trained for this.
"First off, we need to go back and find the cars. Then we need to talk to Bobby - if anyone can find out who these guys are, it's him." He stated firmly. "When we get back to the motel, you can talk to him and Jim and I will pull out a map of the area - if these guys are hunters, then they must have some kind of functioning home base. All we need to do is find it."
Dean nodded, longing to feel the faith that he'd once had in his father - the belief that his dad could make it all right. The truth was, they were clutching at straws and they all knew it. As likely as it was that the hunters had made some kind of home base, it was also just as likely that they'd have abandoned it as soon as Sam had fallen into their clutches.
For all they knew, the hunters could be headed out of state with Sam in tow, leaving the three of them behind, naively hoping that they hadn't gone far.
"Yeah." He agreed, nodding his head emphatically, as if he might trick himself into believing it. "Okay. That sounds like a plan."
"Don't tell me that Daddy of yours is being an ass already."
Dean snorted bitterly, slouching over in his seat at the rickety motel table. His father and Pastor Jim had, as promised, pulled out a map of the area and had started circling possible 'bases' in the local area. Dean had fiddled with his phone for a few minutes before finally working up the courage to call Bobby, and already he was wondering why. Bobby saw them as family - there was nothing that he wouldn't do to help them.
"No, he's fine." Dean replied, somewhat awkwardly. "But we've got a problem. The hunt went bad, and some hunters have taken off with Sammy."
There was a slight pause, and he heard something slam on the other end of the line, before Bobby cursed loudly.
"You know who?"
"Never saw them. Shifter took off and Sam followed him, by the time we got there the shifter was dead and Sammy was gone." Dean admitted. "They were using silver bullets, though, and there was at least three. Probably more. From the tracks, we think they had him in some kind of van."
He heard a familiar rustle of movement, and figured that Bobby was probably nodding.
"That helps," The older man reassured. "There's not many hunters would hunt in a group that big, and even fewer that would go unnoticed. How long have they had him?"
"A little over four hours."
"Not too long then, that's good. I'll do my best to hack the cameras of local gas stations and high streets, see if I can spot any familiar faces. In the meantime, I'll phone around and see if anyone knows of anyone teaming up and heading in this direction. Chances are, someone's gonna have heard something, and we both know how much hunters like to gossip."
Dean snorted, because wasn't that the damn truth. When he was sixteen, someone had started a rumour that a twelve-year-old Sammy had been taken out by a Wendigo - the three of them hadn't known anything about it until people started ringing up and offering their
condolences. They hadn't hunted a Wendigo for months before the rumour had been started, and their father had gone apeshit at the thought of some hunter sitting in a backroad bar talking shit about them.
"Ain't that the truth." He acknowledged and then, softer. "Thanks, Bobby."
"Don't mention it, kid. Family looks out for each other, right? That's what we do, and we're sure as hell gonna find your brother."
"-wake the damn thing up already!"
Awareness came back to Sam slowly, accompanied by a sickly throbbing in his head that was becoming all too familiar. He could feel cold concrete underneath him, easily recognisable from long nights of sparring on the sidewalk when there was nowhere better, and over the pain in his head it took him far too long to notice the burning around his neck and wrists.
It was akin to the sensation of sticking your hand under a too-hot tap, more uncomfortable than agonising, and it took him a few seconds to place it as the same sensation that he'd suffered from when reloading his gun with silver bullets. He figured that meant that he was chained in silver, but couldn't bring himself to open his eyes and check.
Logically, he knew that he should make some kind of effort to rouse himself, but as uncomfortable as he was, the thought of opening his eyes and once more facing reality was too much, and he felt himself begin to drift back towards the welcoming darkness.
Which was the exact moment that someone upended a bucket of cold water over his head and the majority of his torso.
Had he been physically capable of jerking upright at the sudden sensation, he was pretty sure that he would have. As it was, his eyes flew open at the sudden sensation, and the spike of pain that shot through his head at the sudden light nearly had him passing out all over again. Gasping for breath, he felt himself roll onto his side and wondered briefly if he might puke. By some small miracle, he didn't, but it was a few seconds before he could open his eyes again and finally take in the room around him.
Marie was standing over him with her arms crossed, one pink-heeled foot tapping impatiently on the floor. Byron was setting a large, metal bucket down at his feet and Sam glowered at the sight, wishing that he could punch the guy in the face for the somewhat rude wakeup call. On the other side of Marie, Karl was shifting awkwardly from foot-to-foot, obviously still not happy with what was happening.
The ginger hunter who had helped carry Sam inside was nowhere in sight, but the teenager figured that probably wasn't a bad thing.
"Nice sleep?" Marie sneered, raising one perfectly shaped eyebrow. Sam's only response was to spit at her shoe, which earned him a quick kick in the ribs from Byron. Still tender from the beating he'd undergone earlier, Sam could have sworn that he felt one of them snap under the pressure of the older man's steel-toed boots.
"Little shit." He scowled. "Remind me again why we haven't just killed him already?"
Marie rolled her eyes. "I've told you this, Byron. Shifters come in packs, same as werewolves - we know that the other one was by himself, but he was an exception. Whilst the kid's alive, he's the perfect bait for the others. If we kill him? We'll never see them coming before they kill us."
Sam snorted bitterly, because the one time that people were expecting someone to come and save him, and they had it all completely wrong. Whilst Sam wasn't foolish enough to think that he didn't have a pack, he also knew that they were nothing like his captors were expecting - because they were all human.
Unfortunately, that didn't change the fact that a silver bullet to the heart would kill them, and Sam felt the first stirrings of panic in the pit of his stomach. It was one thing to wake up and realise that he was being held captive, because he knew that his brother and father wouldn't stop until they found him, but it was another thing entirely to realise that their dedication to him was the very thing that was going to get them killed.
"And how exactly are they gonna find him?" Byron snapped, waving his hands dramatically. "This place is in the middle of nowhere! Hell, I barely found it, and I had directions!"
Marie scowled darkly, obviously not impressed at being questioned. "For god's sake, Byron, don't you listen to anything I say? They're psychic! If we make him hurt, they'll know about it, and the more that he hurts the quicker they'll find him."
"We don't even know for sure that he is a shifter." Karl interjected, meeting Sam's eyes for a brief moment before turning away. "None of us have seen him shift. What if he's just a human kid?"
Marie hesitated for the briefest of moments, before shrugging her shoulders. "Well, then. I guess we'll find out soon enough."
Sam really didn't like the sound of that, and the creaking of leather shoes next to his head was the only warning he got before a long, thin stick descended towards his ribs and his world exploded into agony.
Some distant part of him recognised the sensation of his spine arching, body bucking and writhing in an attempt to escape the pain, but he was helpless in the wake of the sudden surge of electricity. The sound of his own heartbeat filled his ears, and Sam was just conscious enough to wonder whether he’d hear the moment that it stopped, and then the pressure lifted.
The world snapped back into focus. He could taste blood, and the sick throb of his tongue told him that he’d bitten it; a sharp sting in his neck told him that his frantic movements had caused the collar to tear his skin, the blood soaking into the top of his shirt and causing it to stick sickeningly to his skin. He could feel his limbs jerking, still reeling from the intensity of the shock, and he forced his eyes open at the sound of laughter.
Marie was looking down at him, a manic grin on her face, and it took only seconds for Sam to realise that it had been her that he’d heard - laughing at his pain, at the torture that they were subjected him to. Next to her, Karl was pale-faced and silent. Sam’s eyes drifted slowly down to his trembling hands, and back up to his face, before he turned his head and spat out a mouthful of blood on Marie’s shoes. He hoped they were expensive.
“Bitch,” he spat, voice embarrassingly thready and weak, but the malice there unmistakeable. “You’ve no right to call yourself a hunter - you’re more of a monster than I could ever be.”
The woman tilted her head, before bending down and calmly wiping her shoe with a tissue that she pulled from her skirt pocket. Sam couldn’t help but grin a little when her efforts simply smeared the blood further, ensuring that there was no way that the stain would ever come clean.
“I’ll give you points for stubbornness,” She acknowledged, patting his sweat-soaked hair. “For a pup, you’re holding out better than I’d anticipated. It’s only a matter of time, though… how many times to we have to stick you with the goad before you give into your instincts, huh? How many until you grow fur and claws and show us all what you’re really like?”
Sam shook his head, wishing more than anything that the chains were just a little bit longer - another few inches and he could’ve had her by the neck, shown her just how capable a human was of murder. The malicious gleam in her eye told him that she probably knew, and the idea that she may have killed innocent humans before him settled uneasily in the put of his stomach.
“You’re crazy.” He told her firmly, hoping she couldn’t see the lie in his eyes. “You’re crazy and you’re wrong, and you’ll pay for this.”
Marie just smiled, and Sam had just enough time to brace himself before the cattle prod once more descended.
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A/N: So poor old Lupo took a bit of a back burner whilst I worked on my big bang for a while there, so apologies for that. Also, sorry about the language in this chapter - there's certainly more swearing than usual! Naughty boys!